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Senator Elizabeth Warren Supports Bill To Silence LGBTQ+ Voices

Failures

from the wtf-senator-warren? dept

Tue, Oct 3rd 2023 09:27am -

At this point, any Senator signing on to support KOSA cannot deny that the bill has been written explicitly to suppress LGBTQ+ voices. The Heritage Foundation said so directly earlier this year. And Senator Marsha Blackburn flat out said that KOSA was important in order to “protect minor children from the transgender [sic] in our culture.”

While this was obvious from the earliest moments of KOSA’s existence, I can kinda forgive Senators who backed the bill earlier on and who aren’t deep in the weeds of these things, and who were suckered in by the “protect the children!” language used to promote the bill.

What is completely unforgiveable is any Senator who claims to be an ally of LGBTQ+ causes deciding to support KOSA now.

Meet Senator Elizabeth Warren.

She just added her name as a KOSA co-sponsor (along with Josh Hawley, though the addition of his name is entirely expected given his cynical power-driven populist authoritarian tendencies). As we’ve pointed out before, if you’re a Senator and you’re agreeing with Hawley, you may want to question what it is that you’re really supporting.

Warren holds herself out as an ally for LGBTQ+ rights. But it is impossible to take that seriously when she decides to support something like KOSA.

I honestly wondered if this was yet another sloppy mistake from Warren’s office, because last year a “clerical error” resulted in her sponsoring a bill with Senator Lindsey Graham for an outright repeal of Section 230. That was quickly fixed, but I’m increasingly questioning whether or not it was really an error. After all, earlier this year, Graham and Warren teamed up to introduce a bill to create a new federal online speech police agency.

And now she’s co-sponsoring KOSA, even after the GOP has been clear that the bill is designed to literally silence trans voices and trans support.

That is inexcusable.

Of course, in looking around to see if she has made any statement to try to defend this attack on LGBTQ+ rights, I found the likely reason she’s supporting this censorial bill: Common Sense Media asked her to do so.

Remember, Common Sense Media is a dangerous pro-censorship organization that will support any law that censors the internet, no matter how unconstitutional or dangerous. And last week, they sent a letter to Elizabeth Warren asking her to support KOSA.

From that incredibly misleading letter:

The Kids Online Safety Act seeks to hold social media companies accountable after their repeated failures to protect children and adolescents from the practices that make their platforms more harmful. The bill establishes a duty of care for social media companies to protect minors from specific mental health harms including; anxiety, depression, eating disorders, substance use disorders, and suicidal behaviors. Additionally, the bill requires companies to go through independent, external audits, allows federal researcher access to platform data assets, and creates substantial youth and parental controls to create a safer digital environment.

As a leader in protecting children, you have the power to contribute to tackling this growing issue through support for the Kids Online Safety Act. The wellbeing of future generations depend on it.

What Common Sense Media conveniently leaves out is that KOSA’s enforcement mechanism allows state Attorneys General to decide what is “harmful” content and to force companies to remove it. This mechanism means that state AGs become censors for any content they dislike, including (as admitted directly by Heritage Foundation and Senator Blackburn) any content that admits that trans people exist.

Senator Warren has no excuse for supporting this bill. Her staff knows how this bill will be used. It’s no excuse that Common Sense Media sent a mendaciously misleading letter. Blackburn’s statement about using KOSA to stop trans content got widespread attention. Either Warren’s staff is incompetent or she actually supports protecting “minor children from the transgender [sic] in our culture.”

Neither is a good look. Senator Warren should be ashamed.

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Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re:

Democrats are corrupt, but to say they’re as corrupt, or corrupt in all the same ways, as Republicans is to say that the Democratic Party is a party of fascists. I know it’s bullshit because it’s the GOP that overwhelmingly (and near-exclusively) supports shit like Project 2025.

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Ethin Probst (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

Do you even know what groomer means? Stop using words you don’t understand the meaning of. Go look up what the word groomer means, then prove that this person is grooming people. And I mean actual evidence. If you can’t prove it, don’t accuse them of it, idiot.

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Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:5

A difference exists between “explicit hardcore pornography” and “a novel that happens to have a sex scene in it”, jackass.

And just in case your intentionally ignorant ass actually needs my beliefs on the matter explicitly spelled out for future reference:

  1. I don’t support the idea of any kind of state-funded library stocking explicit hardcore pornography.
  2. I don’t support the idea of a school library stocking books with age-inappropriate sexual content.
  3. A novel that happens to have sexual content in it doesn’t deserve to be banned from a school library where such books are age-appropriate.
  4. Restricting any and all depictions of sex to explicit hardcore pornography presents a skewed vision of sex that will ultimately cause more harm than good.
  5. Restricting sex education to later grades prevents younger children from learning about their bodies in a way that can help them either identify or prevent acts of sexual abuse.

Now fuck off, you revenge porn–loving half-wit.

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Matthew Bennett says:

Re: Re: Re:6

A difference exists between “explicit hardcore pornography”

Well that’s what currently is being shown in schools and you oppose any effort to remove, so….

I don’t support the idea of any kind of state-funded library stocking explicit hardcore pornography.

Except that you very much do. And it shouldn’t have to be “explicit”. That’s a dodge.

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:7

Well that’s what currently is being shown in schools and you oppose any effort to remove, so….

Literally no one wants “hardcore pornography” in schools.

Stop making up a strawman.

The issue is that a bunch of authoritarian, censorship-loving prudes like yourself, are upset that there are books that admit the existence of sex, and especially gay sex.

You’re weird inhibitions do not make those things “hardcore pornography,” any more than does that content do anything to “make kids gay” or “make kids trans.”

It’s just not how any of this works.

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:5

You think its goal post shifting because that’s what you do the whole time when you aren’t the evasive asshole who makes shit up. Plus the fact that you call everyone a liar who says things you don’t like. You reasoning skills are worse than a blind drunk licking a power outlet.

Ethin Probst (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:3

Lol methinks you also don’t know what pornography means! Let’s see… “The explicit literary or visual depiction of sexual subject matter; any display of material of an erotic nature; by extension, the depiction of (non-sexual) subject matter so that it elicits feelings analogous to erotic pleasure; any such depiction.” I’m pretty positive that none of the books in school libraries elicit such reactions or are actually pornographic. In fact, I’m pretty sure many of the parents don’t understand what porn even is.

JMT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:3

I mean he wants porn in children’s schools, so yes very literally a groomer.

Not only is that not happening, that’s not even close to the definition of a groomer. So you’re both gullible and ignorant, which tracks with a lot of people who throw groomer around as the right’s current braindead insult of the week.

Nimrod (profile) says:

Re:

Too bad they’re the only choices we’re given, isn’t it? Could it be that the reason these people fear legitimizing the non-binary nature of our species is because we might then apply the same reasoning to our POLITICS?
At the least, our ballots should include the option “none of the above” along with the standard choice between Good Cop and Bad Cop? The lesser of two evils is the best we can expect under the current system, despite the fact that it is STILL EVIL.

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Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re:

Part of the reason we’re in this mess is our first-past-the-post system of elections, which incentivizes partisan polarization and the two-party system. (In re: presidential elections, the Electoral College doesn’t help.) If we had nationwide ranked-choice polling, we would probably have more third-party candidates winning elections.

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Ethin Probst (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:2

That’s, erm, because every time a third-party or independent tries to run, they get utterly destroyed by both parties. Both parties have obscenely wealthy people backing them, so they happily run ad campaigns that do everything to make the third-party/independent look as bad as possible. And the third-party/independent doesn’t have the resources to combat it. Eventually people just stop trying to run independently because every time they do, both parties win anyway so it’s just not worth it.

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Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:3

Hence why I suggest the idea of ranked-choice voting: Third-party candidates have a better chance of winning if people are given the option of such a candidate in a way that lets them choose that candidate as their first preference while being able to choose the candidate from the big two parties as their “backup”.

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PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

Yes, and leaving them blank is the same as saying “I will let others choose for me”. Which is arguably worse than picking a 3rd party that will never win but serves to spoil the vote.

I get why you might not feel like fully supporting either side in a 2 party system, but leaving it blank in a system where the far right is taking over everything from school boards to the supreme court does not seem like a long term plan to getting better candidates to me.

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bhull242 (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

You and Roy Pearson both have no idea what “reasonable” means, do you?

No, that is not a reasonable explanation by any stretch. And there are plenty of other explanations, including simply having different priorities and opinions from you, that are far more reasonable. You just lack the ability to comprehend others who don’t think like you do.

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Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re:

In 195 BCE, Cato the Elder spoke in favor of the Lex Oppia, an anti-luxury law. The women of Rome wanted the law repealed because it specifically targeted women’s jewelry. Cato warned against letting women have a voice in government:

The moment they begin to be your equals, they will be your superiors.

We still hear that point today from every overprivileged class, who says that about every underprivileged class. The message is the same: Equality isn’t a thing. The people with the power will become the slaves if they stop being the masters.

Despite Cato’s efforts, the Lex Oppia was repealed⁠—and Rome never became a matriarchy. More than two centuries of testing later, Cato’s warning has never come to pass.

So why are you repeating his bullshit now?

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:4

Proper punishment teaches you that there are consequences to your actions. Of course, spanking is not necessary for every occasion, that would not even be effective training, plus the punishment should fit the offense.
Please enlighten me on an effective alternative to proper punishment (including spanking when appropriate)…only reply if you have adult or teenage son(s)/daughter(s).

BernardoVerda (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:6

Don’t touch the pots on the stove? Don’t poke cutlery in the electrical outlets? Don’t slam your brother’s hand in the car door? Etc.

But physical discipline becomes decreasingly effective, the more often it is resorted to (accelerating curve), and the older the child gets. If not applied fairly and judiciously, with restraint and without anger, physical “discipline” mostly ends up teaching precisely three things: (1) “Don’t question authority,” (2) “Violence is always an acceptable option,” and (3) “Don’t get caught.”

Physical discipline is mostly a terribly ineffective way, and often even a counter-productive way, to teach actual discipline.

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Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:7

Don’t touch the pots on the stove? Don’t poke cutlery in the electrical outlets? Don’t slam your brother’s hand in the car door? Etc.

None of those lessons require a parent hitting their child to be properly taught.

Physical discipline is mostly a terribly ineffective way, and often even a counter-productive way, to teach actual discipline.

That’s because spanking isn’t discipline⁠—it’s punishment.

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Ethin Probst (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:5

My Mom raised me quite well. Do you know what she never did? She was never violent with me. She never spanked me or abused me or whipped me. She grounded me. She took my favorite things away. She made my life very, very boring and miserable when I was a bad person, by just grounding me. That is how you properly discipline a child. You don’t abuse them, or use a belt on them. That doesn’t teach them anything good. If anything, that’s more likely to make them look like they’re behaving when they’re actually committing crimes. That’s more likely to make them afraid of you, so they behave out of fear.

BernardoVerda (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:5

I personally don’t think spanking per se is necessarily problematic, but nonetheless there is a fundamental problem with physical discipline, as seen repeatedly in practice in many milieus.

The problem is that those people who can be trusted to employ spankings or other physical discipline with appropriate care and subject to sound judgement, are those that have least need to resort to such measures — while precisely those people who either (with the best of intentions) can’t be relied upon to apply such discipline appropriately, or worse who can’t even be trusted to restrain their abusive instincts and violent impulses, can be counted on to abuse their charges with excessive, unjustified and heavy-handed, severe punishments.

Ironically, these abuses doesn’t teach young people responsibility, but rather, teaches them to distrust authority.

In short, the problem isn’t teaching children to behave responsibly; the problem is that too many parents/guardians don’t, and won’t, behave responsibly.

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Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:3

When a parent hits a child, it teaches them two things: “violence is a solution to a problem” and “the person who was supposed to protect and love me can and will hurt me”. When those children grow up, they may take those lessons to heart by beating their domestic partners⁠—after all, if violence was permissible in the supposedly loving relationship between a parent and a child, why wouldn’t it be permissible in another kind of loving relationship.

I say this as someone who was spanked as a child: Parents can discipline children without hitting them⁠. Spanking children is a form of domestic violence just as surely as someone beating their spouse is a form of domestic violence. If you believe otherwise, that’s your problem.

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Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:5

Violence causes more problems than it solves. Also:

Getting spanked is not the same as getting “hit”

Hitting a child is an act of violence regardless of how that violence is justified. It isn’t any better than an adult beating their spouse and justifying that beating with “I had to teach them a lesson out of love”.

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2

I am fascinated with this liberal contention that “woke” isn’t a definite thing.

No, the liberal contention is that the word does in fact have a specific meaning, but that conservatives use “woke” as a catch-all buzzword for anything they don’t like and when pressed, can’t actually define what they mean when they use the word.

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Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:2

mostly it’s an obsession with identity politics and victimhood

So Riley Gaines is woke? 🙃

I am fascinated with this liberal contention that “woke” isn’t a definite thing.

It isn’t, though. In its original context, “woke” was used by Black people in the phrasing “stay woke”, as in “stay aware of deceptive bullshit”. When conservatives got their hands on the word, they turned into a snarl word⁠—a phrase devoid of objective meaning and thus able to mean anything they want. I mean, when one piece of media can be “woke” because a cishet Black woman plays a role that was once portrayed as a White woman, and another piece of media can be “woke” because its story centers on a queer White man, “woke” isn’t about gender or race. It’s about whatever makes a conservative feel like they’re being “attacked”.

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Ethin Probst (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:2

So I just did something you clearly don’t do: I used a search engine. I explicitly queried it as follows: “woke definition”. I got back the following items, which certainly sound nothing like what you claim, you troll:

  1. Awake: conscious and not asleep.
  2. Alert, aware of what is going on, or well-informed, especially in racial and other social justice issues.
  3. Aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice).

Mind you, there was also this one: “Holding progressive views or attitudes, principally with regard to social justice.” Of course, then there was the usage note: “Like politically correct and social justice warrior, woke started off as a positive word used by people to describe themselves and their behavior but, in some contexts, gained negative connotations over time. Some derogatory uses of woke refer to people who would self-identify as woke or to people whose actions are deemed to be overzealous, performative, or insincere.” This really doesn’t sound like “an obsession with identity politics and victimhood” to me…. In fact, the usage note makes me think of the GOP: people whose actions are deemed to be overzealous, performative, or insincere. Really sounds like the eGOP wants to get rid of the well-educated population to me….

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Matthew Bennett says:

Re: Re: Re:3

Hey, someone doesn’t understand slang, nor that dictionary writers are remarkably poor at capturing a zeitgeist.

If you prefer “woke” to just mean “everything we hate about you”, that’s fine, it works that way too.

But the source of it still is the ridiculous identity politics and feigning of victimhood.

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2

It’s quite easy actually, mostly it’s an obsession with identity politics and victimhood.

Then the MAGA GOP is the wokest bunch of wokes that has ever been woke. To them, they are always playing victim. Everyone is out to get them at all times. They have to strike down the “gay agenda” and the “trans agenda” and they have to fight back against the “liberal elites” who are oppressing them. Trump is constantly playing victim. The base is constantly whining about how victimize they are.

And they are obsessed with identity politics. Have you not seen the red hats? Have you not seen how focused they are on in-group/out-group definitions and othering of those who are not in the in-group.

The GOP: woke as fuck (according to your meaningless definition).

Anonymous Coward says:

Re:

“Group X is oppressed”
When the fuck was the GOP ever oppressed?

“Group X fights for the equality that it correctly deserves”
When the fuck was the GOP ever not in a position of authority and priviledge?

“Group X becomes the oppressor”
What the fuck do you mean “becomes”? When did they ever stop oppressing?

“regret and repeat”
In the GOP’s case you mean “profit and repeat”.

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Matthew Bennett says:

I love it where you cite yourself, where you then lie about the original thing.

The more steps you can separate between what the actual facts are and how you lied about it, the less people can call you out on it, amiright?

But no, trying to keep kids from being peer pressured into mutilating themselves is not “silencing LGBT voices”.

Don’t get me wrong I 0% think this will work and anything involving gov somehow moderating online speech is a super bad idea (as y’know, we’ve seen already and you lied about) but seriously kids being talked into chopping off bits of themselves is a huge problem and trying to defend that is super weird, dude.

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re:

(Shhh, Matthew. Tell the truth too often and you’ll get marked on this site.)
I love how people try to silence you when they themselves have a weaker argument.
Remember when we Americans were appalled at the thought of little girls being sexually mutilated and turned into child brides in 3rd world countries…Pepperidge Farms Remembers.

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Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re:

It’s not even really a problem. Trans people make up about 1% of the U.S. population; I can’t imagine that trans people under the age of 18 make up a significant portion of that demographic. And even if they did, the number of gender reassignment surgeries for under-18 trans people are so rare that they are statistically insignificant⁠—like, under-18 cis people get breast implants far more than under-18 trans people get bottom surgeries.

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PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

There’s been various surveys, etc., but my understanding is that people think that certain issues such as trans surgery is way, way more common that it is, and this leads to fear and hate disproportionate to the issue, even if you think it’s a big problem.

I’m no sure of the reliability of this source, but at this late hour, this is the first link with the overview I was thinking of when I searched:

https://pointofview.net/viewpoints/perception/

Basically, there are some tiny and long-running minorities who people think of as new and invasive populations larger than they really are, and the hate needs to be stopped. Direct it toward the person who just made more money than you did last year in an hour, and who just attempted to remove your rights…

If you’re more scared of a trans woman (weird how trans men aren’t usually mentioned, huh?) than you are of a self-proclaimed billionaire who boasted about sexual abuse, I’m not sure what to tell you.

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re:

but seriously kids being talked into chopping off bits of themselves is a huge problem

Do you have a large list of citations of that happening, or are you simply repeating the inventions of those who would prevent any trans people from acting in a fashion that matched their personality.

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Anonymous Coward says:

That’s a broad brush you’re painting with there , Stephen.
I was spanked as a child also, but I don’t abuse my family…I hope you don’t either. Appropriate spanking is not domestic violence. Appropriate spanking teaches an immediate, memorable lesson about the consequences of wrong choices. Of course, spanking is not necessary, not effective, nor appropriate sometimes.

You Do You, cause like me, you have free will, and you’re not perfect. Also, just like me, you can’t change the truth.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re:

Can you explain why, exactly, it is acceptable to you to use corporal punishment on a child, but not an adult, when they make a mistake?

Appropriate spanking is not domestic violence. Appropriate spanking teaches an immediate, memorable lesson about the consequences of wrong choices.

I swear, officer, I wasn’t abusing my spouse; I was teaching them “an immediate, memorable lesson about the consequences of wrong choices.”

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

Corporal punishment of adults should absolutely be a thing. We need to amend the Constitution to require cruel and unusual punishment, then apply it to criminal scum who repeatedly prey on society., including fare beaters, litterers, and people who don’t clean and recycle into the correct containers. (That last one coming from my wife.)

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Rocky says:

Re:

I was spanked as a child also, but I don’t abuse my family.

Appropriate spanking is not domestic violence.

The disconnect here is astounding. When you hit someone to cause pain it’s violence. Hit someone in your family, it’s domestic violence.

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Liquid says:

Re:

https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/usable-knowledge/21/04/effect-spanking-brain

https://www.apa.org/act/resources/webinars/corporal-punishment-gershoff.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3447048/

You’re plain wrong, and uneducated. For almost 30 years we’ve understood that spanking children doesn’t benefit them at all, and merely does massively longitudinal harms to them. It doesn’t matter what make-believe you feel is right, the actual science shows that, surprise surprise, hitting kids is always bad

That One Guy (profile) says:

Joining the trans-bashing bandwagon

What someone says tells you what sort of person they want you to see them as.

What someone does tells you what sort of person they really are.

Regardless of what she might have said up until this point backing a bill where it’s been made explicitly clear that one of it’s primary purposes is to silence and harass trans people demonstrates that Elizabeth Warren is at best perfectly happy to back bills she has no information on, is indifferent towards the suffering it will cause so long as she gets a good ‘Look At Me’ soundbite or, giving no benefit of the doubt is showing what her actual stance towards trans people is.

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That One Guy (profile) says:

Re:

That’s you think parents have a legal right to inflict violence on their kids is all sorts of messed up and carries with it the implication that the only thing that would be required for you to accept spousal violence ‘for corrective measures’ is tweaking the marriage contract to include a similar ‘right’, though by all means correct me if I’m reading you wrong.

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re:

  1. Legal ≠ “moral” or “should remain legal”
  2. Children are living beings that can experience pain and the consequences of violence just the same as adults. Children can be harmed by their parents as much as they can by their partners. Justifying this harm exclusively based on age is discriminatory.

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Anonymous Coward says:

It’s when people try to combine 2 different arguments into one, for me…
‘Discipline is not punishment’ (ok? it’s not congratulatory)
‘spanking is domestic violence’
Semantics/pedantic
Let’s call the whole thing off.

None of us is perfect, and none of us can change what is true. Jesus Christ loves us all the same, regardless. Heck, most of the Holy Bible was written by murders and liars (eg. Moses, Paul, Abraham) because God is full of GRACE (and has no one better to work with–myself included).

How many of us Christians has told a homosexual lately (or ever) that Jesus Chris loves them unconditionally?

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re:

‘Discipline is not punishment’ (ok? it’s not congratulatory)

Discipline can be congratulatory and positive unless you believe discipline must always involve punishment. Rewarding children for the smallest successes is a better approach than punishing them for the smallest failures.

‘spanking is domestic violence’

An adult is striking a member of their family out of anger. For what reason is that only domestic violence when the victim is another adult?

Jesus Christ loves us all the same, regardless.

Are you one of those “spare the rod and spoil the child” types?

How many of us Christians has told a homosexual lately (or ever) that Jesus Chris loves them unconditionally?

Enough for them to know that there is no greater hate than “Christian love”.

That One Guy (profile) says:

Re: Re: That's not love, that's an abusive relationship

Enough for them to know that there is no greater hate than “Christian love”.

‘I love you unconditionally, and by that I mean so long as you tell me and my dad/myself how awesome we are on a regular basis, accept that you are horribly flawed and submit yourself to us as your lords and masters and do everything we tell you to because if you don’t it’s going to go really badly for you and it will be entirely your fault.’

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2

@ That One Guy & Stephen T. Stone

Jesus is about Grace (getting the good that we don’t deserve), not about adherence to the law and good works. Read Luke 23:32-43 and tell me about how the guy on the cross beside Jesus did anything good. Did this man repent? Did this man apologize to his victim(s)? Did this man go to church like a good little saint? Did this man read the bible and pray? No, no, no, no, and no. The only thing this criminal ever did to escape hell is simply ask Jesus to remember him. Salvation thru Jesus doesn’t involve jumping thru any hoops or doing any good works. Read the New Testament and give me examples of how Jesus refused to heal anyone because they weren’t “good enough”.
Fellas, please…you’re just throwing up the same old weak excuses for unbelief. “i’m never gonna be good enough, so why bother” — that’s right, None of us will ever be good enough. That’s why God is GRACIOUS.

The most dangerous thing on this planet is man’s free will. I hope that you both use your free will to accept that Jesus is the ONLY way to escape eternal hell.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:3

If an abusive husband tells his wife “love me or you’ll burn forever”, we’d consider that unacceptable, and rightfully so. For what reason does it become acceptable when Jesus or God is the one saying it? How is it not an act of abuse⁠—or even terrorism⁠—to offer someone salvation and, in the same breath, threaten that person with violent punishment if they refuse the offer?

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:4

You have a choice to make, Stephen.
We are eternal. Reject Jesus and burn in eternity, or accept Jesus who paid the price that we could not pay for our own sins, and live in eternal paradise.
How is it acceptable for a man, who committed no sin, to take all of our sin and the wrath of God upon himself —and then pour the GRACE of God upon us? No one else is offering that kind of deal. My sin, for His grace…how is that terrorism?
Heaven and hell are both self appointed, Stephen. Pick heaven, pick Jesus.

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:5

If Heaven and hell are both self appointed, dose that mean all the ‘Christian’ bigots are intentionally choosing hell over heaven? Attacking/harassing lgbtq+ people isn’t exactly showing the light of god. In fact, it’s intentionally shoving people away from god.

Not to mention the bible is very clear on the judgment of others (and there sure are a lot of stones being cast).

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:6

If God is truly benevolent and merciful, God would merely annihilate anyone deemed unworthy of entering Heaven to deprive them of a pleasant eternal afterlife. But God must be vengeful and petty, for God sends those unfortunate souls to a lake of fire that inflicts endless suffering. Ergo, the existence of Hell is incompatible with the idea of a just and loving God.

That One Guy (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:7 If a child can do it why can't a god?

If God is truly benevolent and merciful, God would merely annihilate anyone deemed unworthy of entering Heaven to deprive them of a pleasant eternal afterlife.

Or, you know, do something a child is capable of and just forgive them, accepting that the bar was set unreasonably high, that people make mistakes and/or that desperate circumstances can cause even otherwise good people to do bad things to survive.

As for those that were doing terrible things deliberately there’s this little thing called ‘rehabilitation’ that you’d think a kind and loving being would be aware of, where you look to fix the problem and reintroduce the person into society, or if that’s beyond a god you could just set them up in a way where they can live without hurting anyone in a way that isn’t ‘torture them for eternity’.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:7

God sends those unfortunate souls to a lake of fire that inflicts endless suffering.
idea of a just and loving God

We’re here for about 100 years at the most, and our actions during that time can result in eternal punishment. Even if a person’s crimes are particularly vile, the idea of infinite torment for finite actions never made much sense to me.

Also, there’s the whole matter of belief being the primary requirement for paradise (as I understand it). You could be the most benevolent and generous person on the planet, but if you’re an atheist, no Heaven for you. However, if you’re a serial killer and on your deathbed you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior and ask for forgiveness and truly mean it, you’re in. Sorry Christianity, you lost me there.

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That One Guy (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:4 Lighting a house on fire and then offering those inside 'salvation from the flames'

How is it not an act of abuse⁠—or even terrorism⁠—to offer someone salvation and, in the same breath, threaten that person with violent punishment if they refuse the offer?

As abusive as that already is it’s even worse than that because the ‘salvation’ is from something that the abuser caused by setting a standard they know the other party can’t meet and, rather than just changing the standard or forgiving the other party(something a child is capable of) requiring submission and debasement to ‘save’ them from the fate the abuser is entirely responsible for creating.

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