If Jesus died to forgive us, then why is there a Hell?

So...instead of babbling...ASK YOUR QUESTIONS.

You're welcome to tell me now. But usually it's the same dumb story. "I always knew this was the case" as if ideas can just kinda arrive without any experience attached to them.

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You're welcome to tell me now. But usually it's the same dumb story. "I always knew this was the case" as if ideas can just kinda arrive without any experience attached to them.

I just did, you deflected and called me a babbler. Yes, I am one, as you shall see. Mwahahahahahaaaa!!!

Here's how people answer the "tell me about yourself?" question. Gonna see if I can actually make the 65000 character limit here...

I was born in Sharon, CT. My parents moved when I was 4 to Virginia. My dad's a priest and mom's a teacher (both are retired now), and my childhood we moved every few years or so, so I've never really had any steady friends. Not that I am terribly good at making or keeping friends anyway. A few times I've said or done something, and for reasons I don't understand because I'm okay for book-smarts but totally stupid when it comes to social skills, I basically ruined things forever it seems like.
I have a brother who is about six years older than me, and a sister that is four. When I was about six, my brother had a history project where he did a skit about David Karesh, and he had me crossdress, and I've been having genderfluidity feelings since then (mainly just that girl's clothes kinda feel nice).
When I was a kid, we lived in a small town called Kinsale. I apparently spent my early childhood at some pre-school program called the "Fun Factory" where the lady there was some sort of crazy feminist type. I don't remember it much, but my dad apparently witnessed a scene where I and this friend my age Charlie were basically blamed for everything by some woman who had the idea that men are to blame for all the world's ills. My dad pulled me from that, but I honestly think this affected alot of things in my life. My confidence, as I honestly hate the fact that I'm male. My faith, as it made me see God as a woman, even to this day. And honestly, I like being around women more than men. Too bad I'm awkward as hell and usually can't get a date, and too bad alot of girls seem to like more masculine types. Because I was too young to remember this, I can't confront this memory, so it just hangs like a big scar. But as the song goes, I Enjoy Being A Girl.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JigBfoDtzY
Anyway, I spent most of my childhood pushing this aside, because I honestly expected my mom and dad wouldn't tolerate this crap, hearing leftists and Hollywood show this image of ppl in the transgender group being rejected by the church and conservatives. Turns out later that it was a big lie. My family has been very loving and supportive, and they helped me straighten out the difference between people pretending to be my friends who actually preferred that I mutilate my body and actually learning to love my own skin.
But before that some things happened. At about 18 or so, I went on a school field trip. Missed the bus though, so I used my car, and drove all the way to Baltimore. I kinda went off on an adventure, got lost in a big city. I got there late, but getting back was worse. I made a wrong turn somewhere, trying to get out of paying a toll (got stuck with a parking fine, so I didn't want to spend another dime paying to get out of town). I went around town but I got into a depressive funk that ended with me being this close to driving into a building. But the slope toward the building was weird, and I couldn't build any speed. I lost nerve, and stopped. That day I vowed two things, that I'd come up with some sort of meaning of life (I spent the better part of the year working on the Mune Shinri, which combined some notions of Christianity with Taoism and such, with also many of my personal musings) and that if I couldn't figure out how to help my life work out better, I'd spend my effort trying to help just one person. This probably has a large portion to do with why I push so hard to proselytize and save souls, the idea that someone else could be screwing up their life just eats me alive. But I've never converted anyone to anything, and I'm honestly not sure there's any point to that. I think it's better to help people out, but I'm not sure I've ever been successful at that either.
I studied and got into a small town college in Ferrum. I could have gone to a bigger college, but there was some sort of competitive interview that day, so I basically had a panic attack and started itching my legs until I went to the hospital. I guess I figured it was a less stressful thing to be sick than compete. So I went to this college, met some computer club friends, quit the club but eventually became friends with them and watched anime in the dorm occasionally. I also met this girl Kelly through some strange coincidence (donating blood, and the girl involved in that told her that I lived around the same area, which was good because my car never worked and I lived 7 hours away from the college). I was kinda obsessed with her, and she put up with me enough to drive me back home. But honestly, after that she just disappeared from my life. After college, all that studying was done, but I had no idea what to do with my life. So I took alot of gigs. I was hung up about how I screwed things with her, when another girl came into my life. We had moved from Kinsale, and gotten a black cat named Miss Kitty (her name was originally Trouble, but then we kinda fiddled with names until my mom was like "she's Miss Kitty"). And I was sorta doing odd jobs gardening or janitor work. I just kinda was out of sync with the whole interview system. I usually was tense as hell, and people figured if I didn't want to be there (at the interview), I didn't wanna be working at the job. Actually, I figured it out years later. I actually had buried those feelings from long ago, wondering whether I was gay (I wasn't), wondering what the deal with with my genderfluid nature. I didn't want to be wearing a tie, I wanted to be wearing a blouse and a skirt. I wanted to work as a woman. And I wanted a girl who understood this side of me, and wasn't ashamed or weirded out by it. But in the mean time, because I was buried a ton of stress and worry about how people wouldn't accept the real me, I was basically taking whatever jobs came my way. And they really sucked, to the point where I learned to hate work. But I liked doing gardening and outdoor stuff, except for the part about things being lonely. Meanwhile, during these family walks, I met this girl my age named Caitlin. She worked at a coffee shop, and I took my mind off of her. But none of these sorta relationships ever really got anywhere. I've only had about four or five dates in my life.
Anyway, I sorta cheered up, we moved away. And things kinda gradually ground to a halt. I had some moody episodes, where people asked me about my future, and I just kinda... froze. When I saw my future, I saw a vision of what I call The Cold House. As in, my parents are all dead, and I haven't the means to really run things, so I'm just sitting alone in the house freezing to death or something. Yeah, morbid. Eventually, this idea messed me up enough that I determined I wouldn't outlive them, and I wanted to go out somewhere to die. But my parents gave me all I needed, and I couldn't go through with it. Instead, I went on a trip out west, and did alot of organic farming for stipends, and alot of touring the country. One of these trips was to a legit cult in Valley Center, CA. After about three days of them saying stuff like "remove the leaven from your life," people burning their artwork, and folks dunking themselves while screaming, I decided this was a bit too fringe for me. I just wanted to work. I drove out of there kept driving, and stopped at a Presbyterian church. They talked about the ancient Jews (which was an interesting coincidence, since this cult was a sort of Dutch-Jewish mashup) and how they made all of these sacrifices and such. Then she pauses for dramatic effect... "We don't have to do that anymore." That Jesus died so all that ritual crap is fulfilled, and no longer that important.
Came back, went to work, still pretty depressed, but I was okay. Volunteered at the library, and worked for this guy part time doing all sorts of yardwork. We never seemed to run out. Then I got this weird job. I'd met this lady at the church, who got me to drive to the ends of the earth, where her house was on the side of a cliff. I did about six hours of yardwork (my normal was about 2), working her riding mower, and doing some real heavy-duty lawn stuff. But ummm, she was going away, and wasn't too confident that I wouldn't drive the mower off the hill into the water or something. So I got fired. I apologized to her, and said that I would like to have met her daughter Kira (to this day, I have no idea why I said that, but I'm glad I did). So I got invited to her birthday. Then I kept up with her by text message. Then something happened during a vacation to NJ. Something about her story didn't add up. So I kinda sorta had a paranoid episode when I got back. I went to the guy's house to weed, and it just seemed weird and controlling. Like I was being played by spies or something. When I got home, I grabbed my computer, my car, and a few other things and drove off. This was right around the Obama administration's shutdown. I fully planned to drive to the Grand Canyon and jump or something, I ditched my phone after I kept getting calls from people. But things got weird. Roadblocks after roadblocks, almost like someone was trying to slow me down. I got to Wyoming, and slept at a rest stop. That night, I woke up in the middle of a blizzard. My car was cold, and I was cold, but as I looked at the dashboard, I noticed the front was fogged but it looked like someone had drawn fog letters spelling something out. Then I read it, "(@// m3" or thereabouts was written in stylized alphanumerics. As suicidal as I was at that moment, I realized that someone cared for me enough to **** up my car windshield, and I wanted to live to see them again. So I drove through a snowstorm. Almost drove off the road. Almost hit a pole that some retard town planner had placed in an intersection and did run off the road cuz my car wouldn't stop skidding. Made it off the road perfectly without so much as fender dented. Had the police threaten to arrest me, thinking I stole the car. Made it off with a fine and a bad headache. Drove another state, and there was a windstorm. My car battery juiced out in the morning. Was depressed again cuz I was stuck. But this guy Noah jumped my car. Drove back, and lived awhile in Richmond. I gradually came out as trans, after trying things out at two jobs (Amazon and Walmart). In the mean time, that girl Kira? Well, I kept seeing her facial features in other people. I kept hearing people use her catchphrase. I kept finding strange coincidences that didn't add up. Was this girl some kind of spy? Well, if that's all that it was, simply reporting stuff that happened in close proximity would be enough to create a fake coincidence. Only some of was out of sequence. Like someone would tell me to be careful because one time someone cut their leg on a fence by text, and after that I did cut myself... exactly on the leg. Either they did some weird jinx (which is still in supernatural territory), or they somehow were outside of time. Then there was stuff too big for one person to do, like I visited Kira on a coffee date, but there was some kind of festival blocking about four blocks around the coffee shop (this included parking spots filled and a whole lot of people on foot nearby), and we instead went to an Asian fusion restaurant. And then I realized with all the people who had similar eyes or mannerisms, some of which were rather male, and some were shorter or taller than her, she had to either be a world class disguise expert... but no, some of it appeared to be impossible without legit shapeshifting as there was simply too much disparity. But it wasn't just a few similarities, it was alot.

I mentioned that my dad was a priest, and I was a pretty regular attendant at church. But this was ******* weird. So, I had taken to attending church. The guy was pretty good (actually, they had seven priests in rotation... remember I mentioned Mune Shinri? One of the ideas I had was that there should be seven priests, with different duties and such... because it was cool), and he talked about how the Law was set up with 613 rules. But the actual point of the Law? You're supposed to fail at it. Because the Law is to point to Jesus (yes, this is very insane troll logic). Another sermon was about how things that seem big and frightening are sometimes hollow, about three days or so after I'd watched Attack on Titan with friends. They had showed an episode where the titans were mainly empty space.
But anyway, here I was deciding this girl was a spy or something. I had been typing copies of text messages. And phone conversations to the best of my memory. I had taken to trying to link together patterns. I was worn out and tired. And then, this guy delivers a sermon about how ultimately when sifting through knowledge there is a path to insanity and a path to the truth. I looked at all the writing I'd done. I realized that much of it was paranoid but approaching things in a very "rational" and "scientific" way, but it completely failed Occam's Razor. That it was actually simpler and more reasonable to just accept that I had repeatedly met a supernatural being. I reread the Gospel, where it talked about how the disciples met Jesus but didn't recognize him. And I thought about this shapeshifting girl named Emily? Kara? Kira? Kelly? Jane? Renee? And some boys names too, later. Then I looked at these text messages that I was dutifully recording, and I said, "We don't have to do that anymore." Thanks be to God. I had met Jesus, and I didn't have to worry about spies or whatever else. The interesting thing was that years before, I'd seen some show about this man meeting a girlfriend that was a ninetailed fox (My Girlfriend is a Gumiho). That's the most accurate description of the Jesus I knew, a foxy shapeshifting being fond of odd pranks.
You ask me about my past, I can tell you the weird, incredibly long story about how I came to Jesus. I'm not sure how born again I am, though. I'm a miserable wretch that has tried several things, but I know I've never really made a good go of it. I know who I am, that my family loves me, and that I love Jesus. My only real regret is that right now I feel totally isolated, because the world wants to cut itself off from relationships. Especially the church with God, seems like.

But when I ask you, it's a big question dodge.

How did someone who was poor and working for the Vatican suddenly become staunchly "agnostic" and suddenly rich?

My guess is someone offered you alot of money to sell out. You need to be careful of those Aelfinn, those lizard people. The answers they offer are no good.

Actually I'm quoting myself. You forget that you can simply respond, without entangling yourself in quotes.

Again, you have answered no questions. Oh I'm doing fine now... I've had cancer and stuff, and we used to go out to restaurants. Yeaaaaah, neither of us asked this crap. By the end of "tell me about yourself", we don't care about your party dates.
I want to know what your childhood pets are. What your college girlfriend is. That is the level of history I want. Both of us, at the very least want a real history of how you went from Vatican to this. My comprehension was not poor. I only heard this story secondhand. Yeah that's called a story that is missing details. It's also called... a lie.
Stories that work have an internal consistency. They typically show either a steady progression toward a mindset or a "Damascus event", a sudden worldshaking "Kira happens" type thing. Religion isn't just one of these things like Santa that you outgrow. Especially when you are committed enough to work at this place. The story of a best friend leaving the church? She used to go, and then the members of the congregation behaved like **** to her, someone lost the keys and they blamed her, and the priest took their side. And then I was a shitty best friend and a poor example of Christianity . This is a real story with real reasoning. "There is something (alot actually) you're not telling me," is the first impulse I get hearing that. No, it doesn't answer the question. If one's faith was that easy to outgrow, I would have done so, but here I am approaching 40, and I'm not seeing it. I have outgrown the church as a building though, seeing people in it basically get more hung up on masks that clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, and especially welcoming the stranger. They instead treated me like a stranger.
Paul Tillich defines faith as ultimate concern, that is one's core, one's true focus. You don't just ditch it. You either sold out, drifted away, or were converted out. or you never were Christian to begin with, and that story was a lie to give tyou street cred as a former Christian. But the less details you give the more suspect this story is.

So yes, unless you provide a better explanation than trying to quote a Bible passage that is actually about outgrowing our selfish childish impulses, not diving towards them face - first. The childish thing is rebellion toward God. Any real Christian would understand this. You didn't work at the Vatican (serving Mass there is part of work, btw), you aren't happy now, and you don't have friends that you go out for pizza. None of this story is true unless you give us a story of how it hangs together. You have to remember, I spent time investigating what I thought was a spy. I know when a story has only enough details to foerm a legend vs a story where you remember your uncle's name.

Oh look, dodging more questions.

Not bothering to tell me anything about yourself, just accusing me of being sick. If I'm wrong then I'm wrong. But until I hear a story that even Columbo can say adds up, I'm not buying this one bit.

From my experience, people do not just outgrow their faith. Rather it's the opposite. We grow into spiritual maturity.

11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I set aside childish ways. 12Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ

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11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I set aside childish ways. 12Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

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until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ

A person actively in faith actively seeking God does not "grow up" and leave God behind. Only a person who has never found God does that. Or one who has walked away from their faith. There is a gap in your story. Actually alot of them.
1. I don't know where you grew up
2. I don't know what your parents were like
3. I don't know what any siblings were like
4. I don't know what your friends were like
5. Or your jobs
6. Or your faith as a child vs now
7. In short, I do not even have enough to know that this story isn't a fabrication
(possible story: I was a clone of Einstein grow in a vat, I was raised by the Chinese government to be an internet troll, and had a short past supplied to deflect questions. Ummm yeah, even something that absurd is more plausible than youe current story. Right now, you're Kyle XY)

Gaps usually hide embarrassing details. "The vase broke." Or did you trip?

So your response, instead of just answering some simple background questions to prove that your story is on the level, is to call me insane?

Good to know.

Again, "just ask me and I'll tell you all about myself" but when I do, you seem to have everything to hide.

I'm a golf nut. Retired and playing 5 times a week. About 200 rounds last year--not bad for someone playing 100% of his rounds in New Jersey. But despite all the action, I still manage to play to a handicap in the high teens.

I write lots of letters to the editor and op ed pieces. I've had a letter published in The New York Times--and I was lucky enough a few years back to get a full page My Turn article in Newsweek. I've had hundreds of letters published in local newspapers--and have had tens of dozens of op ed essays and guest columns published also.

I also do crossword puzzles, much to my wife's dismay at night. I do at least one NY Times Sunday sized puzzle every day. (In pencil, with lots of erasures.)

I have become an agnostic activist because I truly think the world would be a better place if we all acknowledged our agnosticism. I believe, if you will excuse that seemingly incongruous expression, that everyone is an agnostic. It's just that we agnostics come in two categories--those who acknowledge that we don't know the answers to unanswerable questions; and those who pretend to know. That latter category includes the theists and the atheists (two sides of one coin)--both of whom suppose they know the answers to those unanswerable questions.

It all boils down to what Jesus said about himself- and NOTHING he says is about a 'Trinity", or him being "God">

You say that. And I've stated the questions I want answered.

Either answer them, or we must assume everything you said so far is a lie.

It seems like I'm not the one that needs therapy. These are simple questions, that everyone in a real conversation can answer. In fact, I took therapy (work-related depression, years ago). They had me answer these exact sorts of questions. And I could.

This from your profile tells me more about you than the last two pages.

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I'm a golf nut. Retired and playing 5 times a week. About 200 rounds last year--not bad for someone playing 100% of his rounds in New Jersey. But despite all the action, I still manage to play to a handicap in the high teens.

I write lots of letters to the editor and op ed pieces. I've had a letter published in The New York Times--and I was lucky enough a few years back to get a full page My Turn article in Newsweek. I've had hundreds of letters published in local newspapers--and have had tens of dozens of op ed essays and guest columns published also.

I also do crossword puzzles, much to my wife's dismay at night. I do at least one NY Times Sunday sized puzzle every day. (In pencil, with lots of erasures.)

I have become an agnostic activist because I truly think the world would be a better place if we all acknowledged our agnosticism. I believe, if you will excuse that seemingly incongruous expression, that everyone is an agnostic. It's just that we agnostics come in two categories--those who acknowledge that we don't know the answers to unanswerable questions; and those who pretend to know. That latter category includes the theists and the atheists (two sides of one coin)--both of whom suppose they know the answers to those unanswerable questions.

Yet this long post only tells three things about you. That you write for the NYT, that you're a golfer, that you do crosswords and suck at it. And that you have a heavy-handed ideal that everyone should share your beliefs (oh yeah, and you live in NJ).
Again, not a biography of any sort. It's hardly even small talk.