Llwellyn Posted December 31, 2007 Share Posted December 31, 2007 What do you think about this observation I just wrote? Christianity fails on its own terms. It is unable to provide a coherent system of thought. In evaluating Christianity we will look at his ability to make sense of ethics and knowledge. We will see that it does not account for either. The Christian Position. The Bible tells us that there is a way that we call “right†but God calls “wrong.†See, e.g., Proverbs 14:12 (“There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.â€); Isaiah 55:8-8 (“My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.â€). The Bible says God's idea of goodness can be sheerly different from ours; it can differ from ours as white from black. Our conscience and God’s conscience do not map onto each other. For example, our conscience tells us that returning evil with evil is vicious, but his tells him that it is virtuous. See, e.g., Joshua 23:15 (“The LORD will bring on you all the evil he has threatened, until he has destroyed you.â€). Morality. If God’s moral judgment differs from ours so that our “black†may be His “white,†we can mean nothing by calling Him good; for to say “God is good,†while asserting that His goodness is wholly other than ours, is really only to say “God is we know not what.†The word good, as applied to him, becomes meaningless: like abracadabra. An utterly unknown quality in God cannot give us moral grounds for loving or obeying Him. If He is not (in our sense) “good,†we have no moral reason to recognize him as God and to do what he tells us. Not even fear can motivate us to obey him. It is true that the Bible presents his threats of cursing and his promises of blessing. But, if His ideas of good are different from ours, what He calls “Heaven†might well be what we should call Hell, and vice versa. The Christian believes he can have morality with the Bible, but all he has is arbitrariness and confusion. Pre-Conditions of Intelligibility. If, as the Bible says, his idea of goodness can be different from ours, then telling lies may be “good†from his perspective. If it is true that the Bible is God's revelation, then why should we believe the Bible? Why should we believe anything at all? Under the Christian hypothesis, we will believe the truth only if a powerful being whose motives are incomprehensible chooses that we should believe the truth, and not otherwise. If it is true that God's conscience and our conscience are different, then no one could know this . . . or anything else. Upon the Christian position, “facts†and “laws†are not intelligible. Christianity is thus self-refuting. Conclusion. If his idea of goodness can be different from our idea of goodness, this, for all practical (and speculative) purposes sponges God off the slate. The knot of Biblical revelation comes undone when you pull it tight. I am not a Christian because Christianity presents a God whose conscience disagrees with the consciences of others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dhampir Posted December 31, 2007 Share Posted December 31, 2007 I agree whole-heartedly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fortunehooks Posted January 3, 2008 Share Posted January 3, 2008 Happy 2008, and oh yeah xtianity is still a bunch of mental hogwash that holds heaven over people's head. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FedUp Posted January 3, 2008 Share Posted January 3, 2008 Great thread. Feel like I could have written that myself. For someone who calls satan, the father of confusion, this god dude('ette?) is the proverbial pot calling the kettle black. The damn Bible is replete with contradictory concepts and trying to follow one would make a rational, sane person notice that one bumps heads with another. Feel like I myself was under a cloud of insanity all those years. And we're told by Christians not to do drugs. Crikey, I could have at least enjoyed being under a drug induced cloud all that time in my belief as opposed to the kind of cloud I was living in, and not having much fun in the process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MathGeek Posted January 4, 2008 Share Posted January 4, 2008 If you pigeonhole your thinking, anything can be self-refuting. Just look at Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot essay. If you read it and then look at the Pale Blue Dot picture, you sort of feel small and inconsequential. If you're a pessimist, then you can likely see why the delusion persists. Christianity is clearly self-refuting, but it is pointless to say it to a believer when they are totally invested and care less about what anyone says against it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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