"Reddit, reddit", Burton was shouting at me this morning.
Naturally I thought he was trying to impersonate the frogs that have lately hove into view in the Beaker wildlife pond. And, since it's the frog mating season, and he does have a certain batrachian look about him, naturally I hit him with the old Slazenger 400 cricket bat. Its best days may be behind it, but it's still capable of knocking one straight into midwicket, if you get my drift.
But, once he could speak in a baritone voice again, it turned out I'd done the old bean-counter and byte-mangler a disservice. Because somebody has referred to us on Reddit.
Needless to say, after a nice introduction, some other person who'd obviously taken an accidental left turn looking for "Comment is free" came up with the remark:
"]joeflux 1 point ago
Well, joeflux, if that is your real name (which I doubt), at the Beaker Folk we won't burn your children (if you have any) in Hell if you don't worship God.
Actually, I don't know any religions that would promise to do that. If I recollect rightly, those people, of whatever religion, that believe people will burn in Hell don't promise to do it themselves. They generally assume that's between the (non) believer and God. They don't have the fuel, or the lighting equipment, or indeed the access to Hell. And they're even less likely to want children to burn in hell because their parents don't believe in God. Nope, those people that think burning in Hell is an option, allow people to burn therein because of their own beliefs or lack of them, not because of somebody else's.
Otherwise, good point. Well researched, and well made. I would respond over at Reddit, but I don't actually own an anorak.
I think this unfortunate misconception comes from passages in the old testament and taken out of context mumbling stuff like "and the sins of the father will cause retribution onto the sons and yea, even unto the third generation". No I can't be bothered to look up the exact wording - which will be a mistranslation of the original Aramaic in any case.
ReplyDeleteOf course there is a modern working example of this in North Korea - allegedly