"Christians Need Better Publicists for Their Love-or-Torture Theology"

[Skwim]

.

"I know you people think I’m joking when I post these tweets, but I swear this one’s real.

@DesiringGod, the Twitter handle for the ministry of Calvinist preacher John Piper, sent out this message reminding everyone that God loves you so much… that he will threaten you with eternal torture if you don’t accept it.

God cares more about your happiness than you do. He is so serious about your joy that he threatens hell if you refuse to find it in him.​

If your partner said that to you — “Love me or I’ll hurt you” — it’d be considered abusive. But when it’s God, we’re supposed to accept it as genuine love?

This is the sort of thing you would say if you were an atheist trying to mock religious delusions. But I guess when they say it right out in the open, it’s supposed to soften the blow.

The attached video wasn’t any better. [Obviously the narrator just found out how to use the highlight function of his image app.---and as a personal note, I couldn't stomach more than a few minutes of his little message here]

It’s about “Christian Hedonism,” which says that the maximum height and length of pleasure can only be found through God. (Sample unintentionally hilarious line: “At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”) It boils down to this: No amount of drunk debauchery can compare to what you’ll find if you just jump into the arms of Jesus, and the Bible demands you do it… or else.

If that’s your idea of a good time, so be it. But Christ, that’s messed up."
source

.​

 

[Rational Agnostic]

.

"I know you people think I’m joking when I post these tweets, but I swear this one’s real.

@DesiringGod, the Twitter handle for the ministry of Calvinist preacher John Piper, sent out this message reminding everyone that God loves you so much… that he will threaten you with eternal torture if you don’t accept it.

God cares more about your happiness than you do. He is so serious about your joy that he threatens hell if you refuse to find it in him.​

If your partner said that to you — “Love me or I’ll hurt you” — it’d be considered abusive. But when it’s God, we’re supposed to accept it as genuine love?

This is the sort of thing you would say if you were an atheist trying to mock religious delusions. But I guess when they say it right out in the open, it’s supposed to soften the blow.

The attached video wasn’t any better. [Obviously the narrator just found out how to use the highlight function of his image app.---and as a personal note, I couldn't stomach more than a few minutes of his little message here]

It’s about “Christian Hedonism,” which says that the maximum height and length of pleasure can only be found through God. (Sample unintentionally hilarious line: “At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”) It boils down to this: No amount of drunk debauchery can compare to what you’ll find if you just jump into the arms of Jesus, and the Bible demands you do it… or else.

If that’s your idea of a good time, so be it. But Christ, that’s messed up."
source

.​

What makes this even more strange is that a Calvinist is saying this. As a Calvinist, Piper believes that God created people who *cannot* find joy in God and have no ability to alter their eternal fate. So, the Calvinist god being angry at people rejecting him is like a toy manufacturer who intentionally makes defective toys just so that he can take out his anger on his toys that he purposely made to be defective. What an utterly laughable, convoluted and foolish religion.