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Would "the apocalypse of peter" have changed your mind about christianity?

One major reason I couldn't accept christianity was that I just cannot accept eternal torture and agony for most people, th christian hell just repulses me, plus the whole idea all that matter s is do your bow to god, not what you did, your actual deeds mean nothing, good people deserve hell as much as hitler, etc.

Well, the folks at the council of nicea apparently knew a lot of people like me would be unable to accept the absolutely horrible view on the afterlife that the buybull eventually offered and came that close to making the last book of the buybull "The apocalypse of peter".

Now there were a lot of unoffical buybull books, basically fanfic, floating around before the roman emperor decided to make one official buiybyll. Constantine wanted an offical buybull to codify roman law and the power of the emperor and the church. He called the council to create a buybull that he approved of to give it a look of something the religious leaders agreed on. Of course he dictated what he wanted and made it clear he'd get it if he had to execute and dissenters and replace them.

The council, knowing may people were uncomfortable with the idea of eternal hell, were going to go wiht the AoP as it was less terrible and more acceptable to many, especially the more thoughtful. So, they went with the AoP as the last book.

The AoP in a nutshell is basically a book that says jesus came back to earth to visit peter, and seeing peter was filled with doubts took him to heaven to show him it was all worth it.

Well, they describe heaven. Booooring, and racist. All people are white, curly haired and spend forever praising god who apparentoy has a massive ego problkem. (BTW I'm a lousy typoist and I'm tired of pounding my head on this board's correct feature which doesn';t really work.)

Then they come to this big hole that looks down into hell and of course oil' pete describes the various tortuires of the damned in sadistic detail to provide some real sadistic spank matrial for future christians.

But then petey grows a spine, commendably, and basically tells jesus he's just not really comfortable with so many suffering eternally, and that he's not sure it's really worth so much endless suffering.

So jesus tells pete a secret: Most people will not be in hell forever. The hole is for people in heaven to look down into hell and to decide when people in it had been punished enough. At that poit they could go tell god that so and so has suffered enough and god would let him/her out of hell.

Wow, this is a real paradigm shift from the mainstreak buybull, isn;t it? It takes away the really pathetic and intolerable idea of hell lasting all eternity in what cvan only be an act of total, absolute sadism, and gives people a voice in things instead of reducing them to mindless praise spewers for all eternity.

Well, the council of nicea wanted this as the last book of the buybull as it tooksome of the pointless suffering out of the christian faith and made people matter a little.

Constantine said "Nope!" He wanted a buybull to terrify people into total obedience to god, I.E. himself, and encourage acceptance of the unacceptable.

The council could leave out the not as horrible part of the buybull or be executed for defying the emperor and replaced until he got one that saw it his way.

So we have a buybull with an afterlife so horrible many people really can't accept it even if they are too scared to say so.

I think possibly making te AoP the last book of th buybull and making god look like less of a sadistic petty spiteful asshole might have kept me from rejecting it. I don't know if I'd have been a christian but i might have had less contempt for christianity and Christians than i now do.

would it have affected your view of christianity?

Techpriest 6 Mar 28
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29 comments

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9

Waaaaaaaay too long. Let me put it this way in the shortest most honest and direct way: if you choose to read bullshit and then decide that the content of this bullshit piece made you change your mind about other bullshit, then you would be a moron.
Now, if you read bullshit and at the end you say, wow this shit is really full of shit. Then you would be smart.

Nice summation!

This.

@jlynn37 ????

@Mofo1953 Just agreeing with what you wrote. It could not be worded better.

@jlynn37 thanks.

dunning-krueger in a nutshell, ty

6

Nothing in the bible makes sense. The AoP (is that Agony or Apocalypse of Peter?) I have never read, nor do I ever intend to for that matter. I have never had a religion or a belief in god, at a very early age I thought there was no more logic in believing the stories in the bible than the stories in the Arabian Nights or Brothers Grimm. I have never found any compelling reason to change my mind since.

Apocalypse

@Techpriest It was only of academic interest...but thank you.

5

None of it can be believed.
None. Of. It.

4

To answer your question: No.

Christianity is just as bogus as Judaism and Islam, as well as all the polytheistic religions, and all for exactly the same reason.

3

The concept of "slightly modified eternal hell" is no less unjustifiable in moral terms than an eternal hell would be. Back when I was stuck halfway between Gnostic Christian and agnostic, I questioned the existence of hell in the first place, and the morality of any god who would dish out that kind of disproportionate retribution for human errors.

In the bible mythology, humans are created as fallible, and then threatened with hell unless they basically apologize to god all their lives for the things they do out of their fallibility. The whole thing's a setup. Even if such a god turned out to exist, I would actually prefer hell.

I pretty much agree with you. I mean I would actually favor a sort of hell, as a place of appropriate and justifiable punishments to show people the error of their ways. After you've "done your time" and "learned" from it you could be possibly reincarnated until you get it right. I'm ok with that. In fact that's sort of the universe I'd like.

The christian hell is just a sadistic fantasy meant to scare people into obeying the preachers and government, and to appeal to human sadism. It's one main reason I reject christianity.

I'm no fan of the mormons but their afterlife is a lot better than chsitianities...

@Techpriest I believe that's in one of the Eastern religions, but I forget which one right now. They also have a varying degree of heavens based on one's spiritual attainment, until you're reincarnated to go round again. Probably Buddhism.

3

Fairy tales

bobwjr Level 10 Mar 28, 2020
3

Would "the apocalypse of peter" have changed your mind about christianity?

Nope, didn't even bother to read the rest.

1of5 Level 8 Mar 28, 2020
3

The buybull was put together somewhat like you say but it was the origin of that book and how it came about that has me not believing any of it. This is why I am not tortured with dreams of hell and various other nonsense. It is all imaginary just like the gods are imaginary. Additional books would make no difference to me.

3

Not likely, as I read all the apocrypha as a believer 45 years ago. Raised to believe in God I accepted that notion, but had issues with both the organized religion and the underlying texts.

I found that of Peter to be just as or more flawed.
For instance, why would believers need to monitor and tell God when enough was enough if God was all knowing? Why would not that idea of God be able to determine when enough was to begin with?

Is torture ever an acceptable punishment?

A big part of why this all looks SO BS to us in the modern world is, we are in the modern world . . .The world view of the ancients was a tad different.

Well, maybe it lets humans have a say in things, whch i like, actually and one reason i reject christianity is the way humans exist toi grovel and toady to god for eternity por suffer for not doing it for eternity. At least people have a say in some things in the AoP.

Also, it would be their god letting humans be judged by other humans as tney uinderstand humans and human nature better. So it was better than mainstream christianoity.

3

so iow you never bothered to read the Bible, and just trusted that the idiots you surely had no desire to be like were reading it correctly, that about right? Pretty much my path too.
"The best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible" SClemens

3

it wouldn't make a difference to me. i have never been christian. i was raised jewish, albeit quite secularly. jews don't have hell or apocalypse or any of that stuff. i didn't reject a particular god because i thought he was a meanie. i just realized there was no such thing as a god. my view of christianity is the same as it always has been: it is full of people who want to hurt me because i am jewish, and/or because i am an atheist. the rest of it just sounds ridiculous altogether.

g

3

No. It's still just a doomsday cult that got lucky.

2

Why waste your time with the oral history of illiterate goat herders? Apocalypse of whomever why do you think he or she would have any clue? There's no nonrelitivistic prequantum statements that have any serious claim about the current date much less apocalyptic knowledge.

2

Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Walt Disney, Norse Religion, the twelve major Olympian gods and goddesses...it's all the same to me: Rubbish. I would not take a minute to read new takes, interpretations, or theories. And heaven and hell are terrible jokes to bring unrest to mankind and submit them to the religious powers that have been...

No one has ever gone up to heaven,
If you dig a pit for others to fall into, you end up in it yourself

oops

You said it all, bro.

2

One interesting thing here is that it shows sone early haloheads were put off by eternal torture and agony for 'sinners' (others) and some early leaders tried to address this unease. Again, tho, for social control reasons cobstabtine wanted to terrorize the popukace into submission to authority so out went the AoP abd in went eternalntorture, makibg the Christian god look like one sick evil fuck

2

Nope. I just don't believe in things when there is no independently verifiable evidence of their actual existence. Period.

2

I was raised going to "hellfire and brimstone" Baptist and Evangelical churches. From childhood, the idea of an eternal hell always bothered me. I simply could not understand why a loving god would do such a thing--especially to good people just because they didn't believe in Jesus, or the right things about him.

I left organized religion due to so much racism, hypocrisy, etc. I witnessed in various churches I attended-- a lot of it from the preachers. I felt I didn't need to go to church to be a better Christian than most of them and moved to a more liberal view of Christianity.

I had other burning questions and pursued them. Upon learning more about the bible (how it came to be etc) and actually reading it, I realized that it is not the word of any god. However, this did not mean there was no god. I looked at other belief systems and none of them made sense to me, so I settled into deism.

Upon learning more science I came to realize that no god is necessary, so why insert one?

I have wondered if I would have made the same journey had I been raised in a branch of Christianity that does not take the bible literally and does not believe in hell. I will never know the answer to that question; but I like to think I would have.

2

The Christian hell is why I don't believe. It's like you're walking on eggshells all your life. Living in fear for the wrath of God. Ever since I've been an agnostic I've been mentally more stable and also physically healthier. Because I just don't want to believe in these horrible lies.

gzimm Level 2 Mar 28, 2020
2

I could never relate to the idea that eternal punishment could be meted out to people for what they did in their short lives. "Not even Hitler?", I've heard some people ask. I think not even Hitler. So I wouldn't have been impressed to believe in this Hell-lite of Peter.

2

It was the idea of heaven that finally made me give up on believing in god. I didn't want to live eternity as something I was not.

No one has ever gone up to heaven, so im passing curious how you feel now? ty

:crickets well im sure used to that

2

"The AoP in a nutshell is basically a book that says jesus came back to earth to visit peter, and seeing peter was filled with doubts took him to heaven to show him it was all worth it."
i could shred your whole post with the Bible, but as im not sure how youll take this ill just shoot you this one example for now--but like every concept up there is whacked imo ok, at least the Bible doesnt support them--No one has ever gone up to heaven but He Who came down from it, The kingdom of heaven is within you, Understand why the publicans and prostitutes are beating you into the kingdom, ... guess thats enough for now? Lemme know. Have a nice day ok, and fwiw i don't blame you, when we have sooo many "homospirituals" all beating the same drum how could they possibly be wrong, right? Wisdom is hidden from the wise i guess

Your post is largely irrelevant as I said that the buybull we have now was created by the council of nicea by selecting what pieces of fanfic to cannonize. So the bits in it were just what suited constantine.

@Techpriest while i might agree that the council did some heinous things, including to the Bible, yourclaims of "fanfic" and whatever only describe how little you have read of what is left, imo; No Son of Man may die for another's sins, All go to the same place, No one has ever gone up to heaven, There is only One Immortal, etc, on and on, not even considering that wisdom is hidden from the wise which is, no offense, ignorants like you? Which i do not mean as a slight, i am equally ignorant of many things ok

Paul referred to many extra-biblical works, and even said directly All writings are valuable for instruction, correction, etc, and we still have access to the apocrypha, if not all of the works Paul referenced; which is hardly the fault of the councils of Nicea, clown-show that they were, i agree. So pull your head out bro. Constantine did not omit anything vital ok, Mithraist that he surely was

2

I have never heard of the AoP, and I doubt it would of made much difference.

Word Level 8 Mar 28, 2020
2

It would probably be too little, too late. When I read the bible like a regular book instead of a magic book, it seemed like a product of its time. It didn't help to read modern translations, at least the kjv has some style.

Style? Did you ever read the Readers Digest version ? Boring and lacking any style or cool language.

I mean the unabridged king james, when they actually used skilled writers along with theologians. My stepdad's church used a version that only updated the most archaic words and that knocked the wind out of it. If you want a laugh check out "The Message". It could be fairly described as a loose paraphrase by someone who has only ever written tweets.

@starwatcher-al Yes, if you must read it, read the King James version. 🙂

@Kymmacg why not read it in the original Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew?

@Kymmacg Actually, years ago I did try to read it and got bored very soon. I'm more interested in the mythology of the characters in the night time sky.

1

The main reason I'm not a Christian is because there was no way I could be good enough for the "christians" in my area.

The second reason was all the contradictions in the Bible starting with the book of Genesis and the two creation stories. If they couldn't get it right from the beginning, then why should I even try to believe?

1

No view affected but it just shows that there are psychopathic minds that enjoy the suffering of minds that want to live in a peaceful world.

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