Evangelists target spiritually cold New England

the percentage of non-belivers is actually much higher, but people prefer not to be singled out and discriminated against because they are atheists like me. Ex-Catholic, thank goodness.
So much for non-religious tolerance.

The Southern baptists should mind their own business. i don't plan on floating up to the sky with the other 7 billion people, either. No beers, all those old people. Weird, huh?

Thanks, but no thanks. I respect your right to believe a collection of bronze age fables about the invisible guy in the sky, just to the same extent and the same way I respect your beliefs that your children are smart and your wife is beautiful.(hat tip to HL Menken) I expect the same respect in return. Don't want to respect my views? Be prepared for something that makes this guy (http://www.abc.net.au/tv/fora/player.html... ) seem warm and fuzzy.

So tell me all about heaven then.

Bemused wrote:

So tell me all about heaven then.

Since it is imaginary, it is whatever you want it to be, whether that's 72 virgins waiting for you, an endless beer keg, harps and clouds, whatever. I've always been amused by the early saints saying that the saved get to "enjoy" watching the damned being tormented in Hell as one of the attractions of heaven. That says so much about how warped these folks really are.

Amused wrote:

<quoted text>
Since it is imaginary, it is whatever you want it to be, whether that's 72 virgins waiting for you, an endless beer keg, harps and clouds, whatever. I've always been amused by the early saints saying that the saved get to "enjoy" watching the damned being tormented in Hell as one of the attractions of heaven. That says so much about how warped these folks really are.

What are you quoting? I don't know of that passage.

Chris Bass will find that all of God's children are welcome here in New England. New England may be cold on the outside, this time of year, but true warmth is found on the inside of our homes, churches, synagogues and mosques.

We could use all the help we can get,with lowell murders,gangs,prostitutes and juveniles deliquents
running the city at nite,we need to preach to all that would hear us.

Andy,
You don't have to be religious or have belief in god to be a warm person.

I too was raised catholic. At a young age I found myself questioning the teachings and such. I found CCD and church to be a very cold climate and void of any real compassion for others. Growing up my best friend was Jewish. When I asked my CCD teacher what would happen to her in the aferlife because she wasnt catholic, she told me my friend was going to hell. That made no sense to me at 8 years old. Still doesnt. When I said "but wasnt Jesus a Jew?" She called my parents and told them I had an attitude problem and was resistant to the teachings of god and the church. From that day forward I have been an agnostic. But I think I may be leaning towards atheism.

Stephen Jay Gould

The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our authority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days." Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7*7 (49) times as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or 50 times in all. The light we receive from the Moon is one 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that … The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses 50 times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation,(H/E) temperature of the earth (-300K), gives H as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed …[However] Revelations 21:8 says "But the fearful, and unbelieving … shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten brimstone means that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, 444.6C. We have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C.

[From "Applied Optics" vol. 11, A14, 1972]

Amused wrote:

Stephen Jay Gould
The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our authority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days." Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7*7 (49) times as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or 50 times in all. The light we receive from the Moon is one 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that … The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses 50 times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation,(H/E) temperature of the earth (-300K), gives H as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed …[However] Revelations 21:8 says "But the fearful, and unbelieving … shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten brimstone means that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, 444.6C. We have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C.
[From "Applied Optics" vol. 11, A14, 1972]

That is awesome. Earth is the only safe place ... too bad man has figured out how to destroy it with ICBM's...way to go mankind!

if there is any sort of afterlife i dont want to hang out with the god people in heaven. They freak me out and dont practice what they preach. Very few of them are actually people, they are mostly just stepford wives and sheep.. I myself would be going to the lake of fire to fry ...and i'm terrible in hot places like florida unless its the dead of winter..so i would hate hell too...my sister said "you might enjoy pergatory then? I think you can drink there too." oh, yeah catholic boot camp for people who didnt do enough hail mary's or something like that... it's kinda ridiculous that these are the only options anyway...who decided that? I think the tibetan buddhists might have it right.

Ramblin Rose wrote:

<quoted text>
That is awesome. Earth is the only safe place ... too bad man has figured out how to destroy it with ICBM's...way to go mankind!
if there is any sort of afterlife i dont want to hang out with the god people in heaven. They freak me out and dont practice what they preach. Very few of them are actually people, they are mostly just stepford wives and sheep.. I myself would be going to the lake of fire to fry ...and i'm terrible in hot places like florida unless its the dead of winter..so i would hate hell too...my sister said "you might enjoy pergatory then? I think you can drink there too." oh, yeah catholic boot camp for people who didnt do enough hail mary's or something like that... it's kinda ridiculous that these are the only options anyway...who decided that? I think the tibetan buddhists might have it right.

Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.

[Mark Twain]

commonsense wrote:

<quoted text>
What are you quoting? I don't know of that passage.

Amused wrote:
<quoted text>

What are you quoting--what are the passages?

Since it is imaginary, it is whatever you want it to be, whether that's 72 virgins waiting for you, an endless beer keg, harps and clouds, whatever. I've always been amused by the early saints saying that the saved get to "enjoy" watching the damned being tormented in Hell as one of the attractions of heaven. That says so much about how warped these folks really are.

New England is probably spiritually cold because New England is highly intelligent.

Intelligent people don't believe in fables and mythology like the uneducated do.

Keep your sky fairies and eternal damnation for down south.