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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3082 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 21, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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because I could not longer believe that the earth is 6000 years old, because I could no longer believe that God would damn someone to an eternity of hellfire for being born in the wrong place

Man, it's not that hard to find a church that doesn't screw these things up.

Is it? As someone who took religion seriously enough on its own terms to be turned off by its falsity, it seems like a central problem that no religion has solved, by virtue of them all explicitly saying false things.

Yes? I'm not sure what you're adding by simply stating your own personal incredulity and declaring falsity. Someone else could equally declare your statements false. They're turned off by your falsity.

Sorry I wasn't trying to be snarky. The original comment seemed to make it seem like truth about matters of fact was a minor issue that could be routed around, but in my experience that was the central problem with all religions.

Truth is the central problem with your comments, though. It's not a minor problem that can be routed around.

I know it isn't, but I have to be honest, I was raised in that kind of faith environment for 15 years. If a church shifts their stance on things because they feel they had to, that's going to feel like a softening to make way for what we've learned about the world in the 2000 years since the New Testament rather than the Divine Word being something for everyone eternally. In short, I am just as confused spiritually as I am sexually. I guess I really do have to make a Wellness Wednesday post, because I bet most therapists wouldn't even understand the question.

My sense is that both of those topics have been subject to debate within the realm of Christian thinking long before modern science. The debate over the latter issue seems pretty unaffected by modern science, as well.

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