Dale

I think it might be cruel for your mother to reject her friend.

I believe that clinical depression is the source of the idea of hell for the human race.  It’s just a dark and horrifying corner of the human mind.

Hey Unseen,

If it were I…then I would do that (I have super strict limits with people in general and religion is definitely one of them). My mother is French Canadian, they are INSANELY polite (as you may know). They have a pretty hard time confronting people with personal beliefs and emotionally difficult confrontation. But I would imagine at…[Read more]

Your mother should just tell this lady “If we’re to be friends, consider this topic closed. What I believe is none of y9ur business as what you believe is none of mine. Bringing this up further threatens to destroy our friendship. I value it enough not to do that. Do you?”

Simon Paynton wrote:
It is sad to imagine someone so tormented like that. She’s probably a caring person, if she is so concerned for the welfare of your mother.

Around here churches and preachers push this fear of hell constantly and tell their flock to go save their friends, family, everyone from the punishment of their god. It’s an age-old r…[Read more]

It is sad to imagine someone so tormented like that.  She’s probably a caring person, if she is so concerned for the welfare of your mother.

It’s possible Simon. It could be something she had been worrying about and came to the surface or it could be a recent struggle with mental health or both. In any case it is quite sad.

If this person has suddenly “gone wrong”, it might not just be Covid related.  There might be some other underlying reason for it.  Clinical depression is full of visions of hell.

My parents are both virtually life long atheists. I believe they were baptised for social convenience but never attended weekly church or had any familiar religious activities. I was also baptised because their friends being my “god parents” meant so much to them. Apart from me visiting the church a couple times out of curiosity…that was also…[Read more]

Forgive me for assuming the possibilities, but two things come to mind when I hear that kind of story. One is that old age often brings with it various forms of mental deterioration where one loses a sense of recent memories and relies more on past memories in daily conversation. The other is a fear and obsession of one’s own impending death.

In…[Read more]

Davis,

Your Mother sounds pretty convinced and firm in her non-belief.  I doubt she could be “blackmailed” into belief,  but her friend is a mess.

Did she know your Mom was a non-believer, then just out of nowhere get concerned that your Mom was going to Hell?  That would make no sense if she was firmly convinced in her beliefs.

Davis wrote:
She isn’t mentally ill. Depressed, perhaps. I wouldn’t blame someone who honestly believes in hell for being terrified of a friend burning for eternity. Any caring person who honestly believed in this shit would be terribly upset about it. Hell is the most grotesque religious concept ever devised. It is what makes Christianity and…

[Read more]

She isn’t mentally ill. Depressed, perhaps. I wouldn’t blame someone who honestly believes in hell for being terrified of a friend burning for eternity. Any caring person who honestly believed in this shit would be terribly upset about it. Hell is the most grotesque religious concept ever devised. It is what makes Christianity and Islam two of the…[Read more]

It sounds like the lady might be mentally ill in some way, maybe clinically depressed.

Reg,

I shed no tears whatsoever for the decline of the Christian Right and only regret that it hasn’t happened faster in my own community.  I can’t count the numbers of times people come into the store giving out bible tracts and wearing T-Shirts with thoughtless scriptures like: “Iron sharpens Iron” from Proverbs 27:17.  (Uh, no.  It’s ha…[Read more]

I am actually very afraid for this country. The few crazy assholes are ruining it for the rest of us with their conspiracy theories and lies. They may be smaller in numbers but as long as these fringe extremists types exist in the intensity and propensity to violence, our country isn’t safe. Remember…how many men did it take to ram a plane int…[Read more]

The reality is not that the Evangelicals are being attacked but that they are imploding. Their ranks are not being repopulated by their children because the younger generation sees that conservative beliefs are either to some degree racist, homophobic or anti-LGBTQ. They are too educated and have a much less insular view of the world than their…[Read more]

I’ll try not to settle too much on Tucker Carlson as a barometer of who to watch until the mid-term and 2023 elections, but hey, imo, he represents to a significant degree the most dangerous Americans. In this case, fallout and tribalism wrt humanity’s covid saga, including whacko conspiracism will last a long…[Read more]