Question For The Christians

[Mister Pappy]

I think that the arguments for God's existence are solid and the fact that we are using one of the faculties that points to the existence of God, reason, is evidence of that reality. Consciousness and reason are things that we take for granted, but cannot be grounded in naturalism as my studies are indicating. However, there are many other good evidences as well to point to God's existence, another being the existence of objective morality.

How does mankind's ability to reason, or the existence of what you call objective morality, "PROVE" anything other than the fact that humans have the ability to reason and that morality is objective? I don't necessarily agree with your position on the objectivity of morals, but that's beside the point. I am simply curious as to how these two examples stand as proof of your deity.

[bdp]

more garbage from LNC

 

LNC

 

Your religion is fucked up. Period, close quote. Now that you've revealed at last that you're nothing but another mindless evangelist please drop the 'learned' charade, as it's all a facade that reason will never penetrate.

[bdp]

can you explain to me when it would be right to torture innocent babies for fun?

 

About 9AM usually works for me. Your results may vary.

 

btw when did Hawking ever emphatically and categorically state that 'god' DOES NOT exist? I didn't get that from him at all.

[bdp]

Listen, I can play that same game back at you.

 

LNC

 

 

Yep - just like us. No better, no worse - NO DIFFERENT. By their fruits you shall know them and the Spirit transforms and all that shit, ya know.

[DesertBob]

Where do you get the concept that Christianity is focused on proving itself correct and rival systems incorrect? Is that something you see Jesus doing? I don't.

Jesus made statements such as "No man comes to the father but by me", but I was speaking more about how modern evangelical Christians generally behave towards "the other". It's most often very much an "us vs them" mentality that is very concerned about being "right". The reason is understandable in a way: if you're wrong, it has eternal consequences for your soul. Often though there is an air of smugness and superciliousness about it. In the IFCA milieu that I grew up in, at least, that sensibility was pretty pervasive and I recognized it in myself as well. We looked down our noses even at other Christian denominations, and were patronizing towards them as less enlightened brothers. We were damned proud of ourselves for being "right" or at least closer to right than anyone else.

You say that truth isn't a matter of "correctness" but enlightenment. I would ask, enlightenment of what?

I am speaking of enlightenment as freedom from desire and suffering and ego investment. Actually rising above the default human condition and exhibiting authentic love, humility, and equanimity. This is of course somewhat subjective, but I think we resonate with and recognize genuine enlightenment when we're in its presence. I don't know anyone who is fully enlightened but I have certainly known people (believers and unbelievers alike, there doesn't appear to be any relationship to religion) who exhibit enlightened behaviors and attitudes. The fact that I've seen the marks of enlightenment evolve naturally out of all kinds of settings (different religions, socioeconomic conditions, etc) tells me that it is not a matter of getting a doctrine right so much as aligning ones inner being in harmony with a much more universal principle at work in the universe than the dualistic sort of god who divides people into heaven and hell based on outward behaviors.

 

I will risk stepping on some of my fellow ex-Christian's toes and give Richard Dawkins as an example of unenlightened attitudes and behavior in the world of unbelief. Dawkins is very obsessed with proving the "rightness" of his position and the "wrongness" of belief in ways that pat himself on the back for his great insight and insult and demean people who haven't seen it his way -- in other words as bad or worse than many Christians are with respect to advocating for their position. And I recognize in him the same smugness I am ashamed to admit I once had as a Christian.

 

Compare that to Einstein, who was also an unbeliever whose only god was nature. I would consider Einstein relatively enlightened. I would consider Albert Schweitzer relatively enlightened even though I can't agree with his take on interpreting Bach or the best design for pipe organs ;-)

Your argument as to why a Christian cannot go there with these arguments is invalid as it would cut off Hawking at the pass just as much as he is committed to physicalism (as are many scientist and philosophers) and that knife cuts both ways. However, one does not have to assume his or her position to make an argument - that is not a philosophical necessity and when it is done, as is the case with Hawking and his physicalist stance, it is easily detected and called out as such.

My point was not about the validity of Hawking's premise, but that Hawking has a lot more flexibility in considering all evidence involving origins without preconception. That is true whether or not you accept his premise. Put another way, Hawking would be much more open and dispassionate in considering evidence that (for example) appears to contradict a young, created universe. Of course Hawking has his own biases, but I am just saying he has a belief system / ethic that does not preconstrain him to a limited set of options. That's all. It's probably not an accident that there are (to my knowledge) no prominent evangelical Christian astrophysicists pushing that field forward.

So, you're saying that unless we can have exhaustive truth, we can't have any objective understanding of truth?

No. Quite the opposite.

I think you are confusing having objective truth with having exhaustive truth. For example, can you explain to me when it would be right to torture innocent babies for fun?

And I think you are confusing the fact that we can have very wide and deep agreement about the morality of some things (torturing babies for fun) means that we can have equal moral clarity about all things. Right and wrong, good and evil are dualistic concepts that do not allow for paradox or edge cases or for the complex interaction of factors. If I put a bullet through someone's head that is generally murder and worthy of our severest penalties. Put me in a uniform and order me to put a bullet through someone's head and it's an act of valor potentially worthy of our highest honors. Put me in certain scenarios such as a home invasion and putting a bullet through someone's head is justifiable self defense. So we cannot make an unqualified black and white statement about even murder being good, bad or indifferent.

 

Even by the Bible's standards we cannot make simplistic statements about things like genocide. God ordered genocide at times.

 

Jesus cursed a fig tree for no other reason than that it inconvenienced him. Apparently we can't make absolute moral judgments about irritability either.

 

All of which is to say that it's a fool's errand to imagine that morality is all about absoultes.

This is one of the problems today in that people read the Bible without understanding the context and then apply relativistic interpretations to it ... relativism is a difficult, if not, impossible viewpoint to justify.

I made the point very well here and elsewhere that grace does not invalidate, but fulfills and satisfies and completes the law. The point is that grace is a more evolved level of understanding which renders the law irrelevant even as it does not technically invalidate it. Grace simply removes the need for law. If you really believe this then you should have no problem saying that acting based on a higher principle like grace can guide us in whether or not to fire a bullet through someone's head in particular situations.

 

Absolute rules and laws are blunt instruments at best. A rule frozen in a document cannot anticipate all circumstances and considerations that may arise. A heart of love and peace that is alive and aware and responsive and selfless, however, can.

 

From the standpoint of a legalist, grace is moral relativism. From the standpoint of someone who has subscribed to a prefabricated, given set of beliefs about origins and eternal destiny, openness to anything else is moral relativism. For someone who desires certitude about things it is not given to us to be certain about, uncertainty is moral relativism.

 

Moral absolutes are the lazy way out IMO. It's easier to say that pre/extramarital sex is always bad than to say that it is generally not the best thing, because if you "just say no" than you never have to even consider paying for sex education and condoms and you never have to allow other people to be responsible for their own actions, thus making you uncomfortable and threatened about never having thought through or been honest about your own sexuality.

 

The moral absolutist assumes in his heart and implies to my face that if am not willing to believe certain things that are considered divine revelation in the absence of sufficient evidence or even in the face of evidence to the contrary, I am ultimately in danger of being okay with torturing babies for fun. Whatever. Like I said, it's a slippery slope concern. The slope is feared to lead to debauchery; in fact, it just leads to the real world where you have to make tough calls sometimes.

[Ouroboros]

btw when did Hawking ever emphatically and categorically state that 'god' DOES NOT exist? I didn't get that from him at all.

Hawking said, "It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going." My understanding, but I could be wrong, is that Hawking only have claimed that God is not necessary any longer to explain Big Bang. In other words, First Cause is out the window. (Or perhaps Christians would just have to push their first cause a little further "before" Big Bang?)

 

And, of course, the straw-man talented Christian, half-brain apologists take it as a statement that God does not exist at all. They intentionally misunderstand so they have reasons to push vehemently for "acceptance" and "tolerance" in society for their hateful religion.

[Ouroboros]

Yep - just like us. No better, no worse - NO DIFFERENT. By their fruits you shall know them and the Spirit transforms and all that shit, ya know.

Amen.

[bdp]

 

 

I made the point very well here and elsewhere that grace does not invalidate, but fulfills and satisfies and completes the law. The point is that grace is a more evolved level of understanding which renders the law irrelevant even as it does not technically invalidate it. Grace simply removes the need for law. If you really believe this then you should have no problem saying that acting based on a higher principle like grace can guide us in whether or not to fire a bullet through someone's head in particular situations.

 

Absolute rules and laws are blunt instruments at best. A rule frozen in a document cannot anticipate all circumstances and considerations that may arise. A heart of love and peace that is alive and aware and responsive and selfless, however, can.

 

From the standpoint of a legalist, grace is moral relativism. From the standpoint of someone who has subscribed to a prefabricated, given set of beliefs about origins and eternal destiny, openness to anything else is moral relativism. For someone who desires certitude about things it is not given to us to be certain about, uncertainty is moral relativism.

 

Moral absolutes are the lazy way out IMO. It's easier to say that pre/extramarital sex is always bad than to say that it is generally not the best thing, because if you "just say no" than you never have to even consider paying for sex education and condoms and you never have to allow other people to be responsible for their own actions, thus making you uncomfortable and threatened about never having thought through or been honest about your own sexuality.

 

The moral absolutist assumes in his heart and implies to my face that if am not willing to believe certain things that are considered divine revelation in the absence of sufficient evidence or even in the face of evidence to the contrary, I am ultimately in danger of being okay with torturing babies for fun. Whatever. Like I said, it's a slippery slope concern. The slope is feared to lead to debauchery; in fact, it just leads to the real world where you have to make tough calls sometimes.

 

 

[Ouroboros]

 

 

I made the point very well here and elsewhere that grace does not invalidate, but fulfills and satisfies and completes the law. The point is that grace is a more evolved level of understanding which renders the law irrelevant even as it does not technically invalidate it. Grace simply removes the need for law. If you really believe this then you should have no problem saying that acting based on a higher principle like grace can guide us in whether or not to fire a bullet through someone's head in particular situations.

 

Absolute rules and laws are blunt instruments at best. A rule frozen in a document cannot anticipate all circumstances and considerations that may arise. A heart of love and peace that is alive and aware and responsive and selfless, however, can.

 

From the standpoint of a legalist, grace is moral relativism. From the standpoint of someone who has subscribed to a prefabricated, given set of beliefs about origins and eternal destiny, openness to anything else is moral relativism. For someone who desires certitude about things it is not given to us to be certain about, uncertainty is moral relativism.

 

Moral absolutes are the lazy way out IMO. It's easier to say that pre/extramarital sex is always bad than to say that it is generally not the best thing, because if you "just say no" than you never have to even consider paying for sex education and condoms and you never have to allow other people to be responsible for their own actions, thus making you uncomfortable and threatened about never having thought through or been honest about your own sexuality.

 

The moral absolutist assumes in his heart and implies to my face that if am not willing to believe certain things that are considered divine revelation in the absence of sufficient evidence or even in the face of evidence to the contrary, I am ultimately in danger of being okay with torturing babies for fun. Whatever. Like I said, it's a slippery slope concern. The slope is feared to lead to debauchery; in fact, it just leads to the real world where you have to make tough calls sometimes.

 

 

I second that.

 

But the weird thing, it gave me some weird insights... I thought about the Gospel/Jesus/New Testament/Grace versus the Old Testament/Judgment/Absolute laws. Perhaps the idea was to point to a not-so-absolute-moral God and more grace and love instead of justice? Nah! Forget that. Christians wouldn't agree to that. Christianity is about absolute morality with as much hate and intolerance as possible, that's the Christian "love."

[DesertBob]

It is a heart problem, not an evidential problem - the heart is rebellious.

I beg to disagree. You forget you are talking primarily with ex-Christians here. Most of us are here, not because we were unwilling to submit to some ruleset, quite the opposite. We were simply tormented by the evidence. That was very much the case for me. I was the sort of teen who never gave my parents the slightest grief or disrespect and I was very much predisposed the same way towards god. In bible college others chafed at the 10 pm curfew; I was in the habit of turning in by then and had no idea why I would want to stay up later but if I had wanted to I would still have submitted to the rules. I never had a problem with pleasing authority -- I did it to a fault.

 

If you could look out back here you would see the grooves where I was dragged kicking and screaming out of Christianity. My departure was anything but willing. No one wants to come out of the womb and into the real world where it is sometimes cold and harsh and ambiguous. I just came to the place where I saw no alternative. The pain of cognitive dissonance exceeded the pain of uncertainty and the aversion to finding my own way.

 

If I have a "heart problem" it's that I have a good heart -- to a fault. I was so unwilling to cause concern or disappointment or misunderstanding or to question authority that I abrogated responsibility for my own beliefs to the thought system into which I was arbitrarily thrust as a child.

 

If you assume that everyone is rebellious and wicked and self centered then you assume that everyone needs moral absolutes to reign them in. I have come to the place where I see everyone as not rebellious so much as fearful. People are afraid of the central task of being human, which is to face the fact of your own mortality and the need to live your life while you have it. This fear is displaced into all sorts of things like being more right or strong or rich than other people, into avoiding disease and injury and loneliness. But guess what, despite that, people mostly earn a living, take care of their families as best they know how, pay their taxes and help their fellow man.

 

I have had the misfortune recently to work with a certified asshole web designer with an ego six miles wide, incredibly insecure, incapable of collaboration, the sort of guy who needs to urinate on everything he comes in contact with, and show you how he has the best ideas and you are lame. He's also incompetent in many ways and doesn't know it. A more impertinent and unprofessional person you could not imagine.

 

You would probably think this guy needs Jesus if anyone does. I just think he needs to go get some sense fucked into him or something. Jesus (or evangelical Jesus at any rate) would likely just make him more of a pompous ass than he already is, ultimately. Because he's already obsessed with being right and having all the answers. His problem isn't some innate sin nature, it's one or two thought constructs lodged in his brain that colors everything else. Whatever he needs I'm not equipped to judge but it's probably going to take him waking up one morning and realizing his relationships are a shambles and everyone hates him and everything he touches ultimately goes to shit and then guess what: the pain of change will be less than the pain of staying the same, and he'll have an epiphany. Quite apart from divine revelation, at least as you would conceive of it. People have "Damascus Road" experiences all the time quite apart from any involvement of god.

 

As I've said before, I've known Christian assholes and Christian saints, agnostic assholes and agnostic saints -- it's not hard to see that the common denominator is something other than one's specific (dis)beliefs about god and so the problem and the answer are not something so simplistic as "all people are bad and god will give you a goodness transplant if are sorry for being bad". If it were that simple we wouldn't be having this conversation; after two thousand years the whole world would be Christian and there would be no significant war or crime, etc.

[DesertBob]

But the weird thing, it gave me some weird insights... I thought about the Gospel/Jesus/New Testament/Grace versus the Old Testament/Judgment/Absolute laws. Perhaps the idea was to point to a not-so-absolute-moral God and more grace and love instead of justice? Nah! Forget that. Christians wouldn't agree to that. Christianity is about absolute morality with as much hate and intolerance as possible, that's the Christian "love."

I do believe that grace is an evolutionary step in the right direction but it was nevertheless a constant struggle because my tribe at least gave lip service to it but still had strong gut level reactions to certain things as "wrong" and as a threat. There was such a strong tendency to see things in black and white terms that in practice grace was a non-starter.

 

At the end of the day I think we were comfortable with grace as a get out of jail free pass from the more onerous requirements of the law like the need to eat kosher food and perform ritualistic cleansings and wear odd little phylacteries on your forehead and to regularly sacrifice goats in the temple, but it was not really even making a dent in our legalistic system of dos and donts. To fully embrace grace as a mindset and a lifestyle would have gotten us away from being "sheeple" and just doing what we were told. That would have been hard for the laity and threatening to the authority and ego of the leadership.

[centauri]

Jesus' death was sufficient to cover everybody's sins but only efficient (effective) for those who trust in him.

Which is why Christianity is not based on absolute morality, but on theological relativism.

The death of Jesus doesn’t do anything to cover sin.

There is no provision in God’s law for a human to serve as a sin sacrifice.

Such a sacrifice is illegal and believing it do be otherwise is rebellion against God.

 

Jesus lived a perfect life, as we might expect a God/man to do.

That’s Christian mythology.

Jesus undermined parts of the law, made false prophecy, and claimed to be something he wasn’t.

 

He fulfilled the perfect Law of God, which is what Adam was supposed to do, but failed to do.

More Christian mythology.

Jesus undermined parts of the law and such behavior doesn’t fulfill anything.

 

In fulfilling the Law, Jesus was qualified to make the sacrifice (something that bulls and goats could only do temporarily) for all people for all time.

This is Christian mythology rooted in relativism and wishful thinking.

Jesus did not fulfill the law and has no qualifications to make an invalid and illegal sacrifice.

Such improper actions are in themselves sinful.

 

He fulfilled all righteousness and his death served as the means of taking away sin (as it was put on him as our legal representative) and gave us his righteousness.

Jesus didn’t even fulfill the duties of an expected king messiah.

Teaching against parts of the law, as Jesus did, does not make anyone righteous.

Humans are not valid sin sacrifices according to God’s law, which Christianity ignores when it gets in the way of their subjective wishful thing.

 

When Jesus died, he said, "It is finished." (John 19:30). The literal Greek word used (it was one Greek word translated into three English words) was Tetelestai, which literally means, paid in full. It was a transactional term used when a person paid off a debt, on the loan document would be written tetelestai to indicate that it was paid, along with a stamp, signature, or seal of some sort. Jesus put his stamp of righteousness on by dying and rising from the dead. Our trust is in him and the fact that his act was sufficient and efficient to cover our sins. We trust in him as the God/man qualified to be our savior.

Jesus had no authority or legitimacy to circumvent God’s law.

The words of a messianic failure don’t mean anything in terms of salvation.

God repeatedly warned his people not to be seduced by false teachers and wonder workers.

An expected king messiah was to lead people into great compliance with the law.

Jesus did no such thing and his modern followers mock the very God they claim to adore.

[bornagainathiest]

Ok, it's not my turn yet - but I can't let this pass!

 

The idea of someone being guilty for the sins of another is not a foreign or unjust concept.

 

It may not be foreign to us, but it is unjust.

Demonstrably so. For instance, anything human (except for the life of Jesus Christ) falls short of God's perfection. Care to disagree with this? This is a foundational, basic tenet of Christianity.

Can God act imperfectly or unjustly? No! Can God be anything less than perfectly wise, perfectly holy, perfectly pure, perfectly good or perfectly anything? Again, No!

Yet, according to your personal theology, He can judge using a demonstrably imperfect standard and still be perfectly just.

R-e-a-l-l-y?

 

All human models of justice are inherently unjust.

Especially so, when measured against the perfect standard of justice that your God is supposed to embody. Shouldn't we aspire to be just and fair and impartial, like God? Not the other way round.

Yet, you are arguing the opposite. You cite flawed models of human justice and then claim them as being fit for God to use. I don't think so! That which is perfect should not emulate or take it's cue from imperfection. It should be demonstrably superior. Where is the Biblical precedent for God dropping His standards? Ok, He became a man, but at no point in His time on Earth did He ever, ever, EVER fall into sinful imperfection. Care to disagree with that, either?

 

If God truly is the embodiment of perfection, then He wouldn't sully His hands by applying something so debased, unfair and biased as human justice - as you claim He can 'legitimately' do.

Sorry! But you can't have it both ways. Either God is perfect and stays that way, or He isn't and therefore He never was. The God/man you champion as the one and only way to deflect the Father's JUST and RIGHTEOUS wrath was perfect, no? So why then does his Dad choose (by your line of argument) to act imperfectly? Hmmmm....?

 

Congratulations!

Your argument has succeeded in bringing God down to the human level of us sinners. Is that what you really wanted to say? It's ok for Him to operate by our standards and still call Himself a holy, pure and just God, is it?

If the standard of human justice is good enough for God to operate by, how does this demonstrate that He his morally and ethically superior to us and therefore fit to be our judge? I note that Abraham asked him to His face, "Will not the judge of all the Earth do right?" Right as in perfectly right, fair, impartial and just. Did Abraham ask, "Will not the judge of all the Earth pass judgement as mere men do?"

 

Nations are judged to be guilty for the actions of their leaders all the time and the people all suffer the consequences.

An example of human, not divine justice. Just because we do it, that does not make it right. Nor just, nor fair, nor impartial. Often these sanctions are applied in the full knowledge that innocent parties (those not responsible for the actions of their leaders) will suffer. Sanctions are a means of political and diplomatic leverage, enacted in the clear knowledge that innocents may well suffer. This kind of 'collateral damage' is regretted by often unavoidable. Such 'clear' knowledge confirms that sanctions are not a valid example of perfect justice. As such, God cannot bind himself to such a ruling. Sanctions are examples of human models of justice, not divine ones.

 

We put sanctions on nations for the actions of their rogue leaders which affects all the people (although, generally the leaders suffer least because they have all the power and money).

Yes, but these sanctions are demonstrably unjust. They must be so, because they affect the innocent many for the crimes of the few. This injustice clearly demonstrates their imperfection. Yet, because it's the imperfect, done thing, here on Earth, it's ok for a perfect God to follow this example? Which standard will He apply, when it's time to for Him to judge Satan and the rebellious angels? His own, unchanging and perfect standard? A human standard? A third and different standard that is fit for the purpose of judging immortal, angelic beings? How many standards does He operate by? I thought that the triune God was the embodiment of perfect unity. So why all these different standards when only one should operate? I'm confused! Can you tell?

 

Families also suffer when a member is punished. If a father or mother commits a crime, the family suffers the loss of that family member and the support that he or she provides.

Ditto. Agreed, that parents are responsible for their actions and their children may well suffer because of them. However, the point you are making here is one of responsibility, not justice. If the parents break a law, who is to say that this law is a just one? In fact, I'd go so far to say that any human law which any set of parents might be under, will be unjust, because all human laws fall short of the perfect justice found only in God. So, once again, your example does not stand up when you compare human standards to divine ones.

 

Even in sports, when a hockey player commits a penalty, the team suffers. Ditto the above. Individual misdemeanor resulting in group punishment. Not a just measure. A human measure, yes. Fit for God to use? Think again!

 

So, I'm not sure where you get your sensibilities on this topic, but they don't seem to be in keeping with what we generally know and experience.

 

What we generally know and experience helps us understand God's justice? I thought that's what the Bible and the Holy Spirit were for? Since when did everyday knowledge and experience become a reliable way of knowing God?

No sir! As I said before, all examples of human justice fall short of God's perfect standard. Therefore, to use them to formulate a working argument that describes God's nature and behavior is at best, unworkable and at worst, misleading.

There are two views on Adam's sin: one is that he was the legal representative of the rest of humanity who would follow and his guilt is passed onto us; the second is that we shared in his sin in that we receive our souls from a descendant of Adam. In either case, I see nothing unjust about that.

 

You see nothing at all unjust in either view of Adam's sin?

 

So, let me see if I've got this right.

 

You cite current examples of human INjustice and then retroactively apply them to a Bronze-Age narrative about a mythical First Man, who's existence is a logical necessity only if a historical Jesus is the only way to deflect the Father's wrath? Yes?

You claim that because some humans think it is lawful and just to apportion punishment to the many for actions of the one, that this sets an acceptable precedent for a perfectly just God to employ? Yes?

You promote the demonstrably unjust notion that those who did not commit a crime, who knew nothing about it and who could not have carried out, should be punished because of the flawed concept of group responsibility for individual action? Yes?

How am I doing so far?

In this case, God provides a simple way to have the guilt expunged. It is our fault if we pass on that offer, isn't it? If you don't believe this to be true, explain why.

 

No. According to you, God hold innocent billions guilty for the sole misdemeanor of one.

 

Can you cite any human examples of how it is perfectly just and lawful to do this?

 

You can't, can you?

There are no examples in, 'what we generally know and experience' that can demonstrate perfect justice. Perfect justice does not exist in human life. That is another basic tenet of Christianity. Care to argue against that?

My friend, the only possible place you would claim to find a description of perfect justice would be in the pages of the Bible. So, if you invoke this book (and not any human examples) you are engaging in a circular argument, using the so-called perfect justice seen in the Bible to argue for God's so-called perfect justice - as described in the Bible.

 

Also, if you're puzzled as to why I'm focusing so tightly on perfection - that's what you claim your God to be.

If you respond by saying that you don't have to demonstrate God's perfect justice, fine. We both know that you can't do that. You might say that all you have to do is demonstrate that God's justice is fit for purpose. That is, fair and impartial enough for the job, but not necessarily or recognizably perfectly fair and impartial by us. Then how have you proven anything? If God claims to be perfectly just, but this cannot be demonstrated, are we supposed to just accept this by faith? Or just because you say so?

 

In case you hadn't noticed, you've touched a raw nerve!

 

Since you have adopted children, let me put a hypothetical to you.

Let's suppose that these kids were your natural children. Would it be just and fair (even in human terms) for you to set a regulation for one child while the other is in your wife's womb, then when the older one breaks it, wait until the younger one is born and then punish the babe for the other's misdemeanor? Would it also have been fair not to tell the older what you had planned?

Well?

 

If I believed in such things, I'd say that the innocence of my unborn sister accuses you from beyond the grave. Shame on you!

 

BAA.

[Antlerman]

Let me ask you, do you believe in hell? If so, do you believe that anyone is in hell? If so, on what basis does a person go to hell and on what basis does a person avoid going to hell? On what do you base your beliefs? I think that I made the gospel pretty clear in my previous post and that is based on the NT. I was raised Catholic, but realized in college that Catholic teachings deviated from how the gospel was clearly proclaimed in the NT. I will look forward to hearing what your views are in regard to these questions.

In case Abiyoyo doesn't come back, I just wanted to give you an FYI about him. He used to be a doubting Christian, posting on this board, participating in many discussions, but about a year ago or so, he became more involved in his faith, and to my understanding, Abiyoyo is a Christian and a fundamentalist. However, I think he never really could fully accept the concept of Hell and eternal punishment. If he comes back, he can correct me if I got him wrong.

Abiyoyo a fundamentalist? You have an interesting definition of what that word means. I would never consider Abiyoyo a fundamentalist. He's much too sincere.

 

To answer LNC's question. Yes I believe there is a hell (not really but it's for effect). Those who are in it are Fundamentalist Christian Republicans. On what basis do I hold these beliefs? Someone else told me who has it on good authority God said it and wrote it in a book that is more attested to for its historical accuracies than the Roman Empire itself! Which humans do you have God put in there, and what are your reasons for putting them there?

[Ouroboros]

Abiyoyo a fundamentalist? You have an interesting definition of what that word means. I would never consider Abiyoyo a fundamentalist. He's much too sincere.

I know, but I have a vague memory of him saying something of that sorts when he left last year. But I could be wrong.

[LNC]

That would explain the several hundred different denominations, sects and offshoots of Christianity, no doubt! As well as the competing schools of thought even within a given denomination. Pre, post or a-millenialist, Calvinist or Armenian, literal or figurative, dispensationalist, hyperdispensationalist, charismatic, pentecostal, or not ... why, it's not even clear to the Seventh Day Adventists which day the Lord's Day is. Do we baptize infants or not? Do we allow modern technology or not? Even regarding fundamentals: is there a literal hell? Should we put any serious effort into evangelism or are we more of a social club? What about the "social gospel" -- are we trying to gradually usher in the Kingdom of God in society or just in individual hearts? It goes on, and on, and on, and on, yet it seems that society as a whole is in much more fundamental agreement about the Constitution.

 

The only thing Christians have in common is some level of respect for the Bible and the Jesus mythology.

 

I guess when you think about it, the Constitution of the U.S. has a correct interpretation, yet we have two political parties that interpret it differently on major issues (amendments). However, for the most part (not in all cases) Christians are agreed on the essentials of Christian Scriptures and differ on non-essential issues. The different denominations may vary on the non-essentials; however, for the most part, where these denominations have stayed true to the Scriptures, they differ on the less important issues. Now recently, we have seen some of the mainline denominations move away from essentials, and in those cases they are simply moving away from Scriptures being authoritative and making their own rules, so that is a different situation completely. It's much like a judge that interprets the Constitution according the foreign precedent or according to what they want (in other words, reading meaning into the Constitution rather than out of it) and that is simply the result of sinful people doing what they want to do.

 

However, whether a person is a Calvinist, an Arminian or a Calminian has no bearing upon his or her salvation. The same is true regarding the baptizing of infants,, a person's view on the Lord's Supper, use of modern technology, whether to worship on Saturday or Sunday, etc. The issue of literal hell is not a matter of true dispute as Jesus spoke more of hell than heaven, so if one disputes the existence of hell, that is mere personal hubris.

 

Yet "all have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God"; "there is none righteous, no, not one". If god sent us to hell for having two legs, yet we all have two legs, it seems disingenuous to say "god made us perfect". I suppose in my analogy, Adam and Eve would have been legless until Satan tempted them with the ability to get around, with the result that they grew legs and all their offspring had them. But this seems quite beside the point; god knew in advance this would happen, with all the resulting consequences for billions of souls.

 

God holds man to an impossible standard and then condemns him for being unable to live up to it.

 

Yes, that is true and clearly a biblical concept. It goes on to say "Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood, in their paths are ruin and misery...There is no fear of God before their eyes." So, I think you have undersold the situation facing every human person. Just because God knew that man would fall (because he is omniscient) does not mean that God was culpable in man's sin or that Adam is less guilty of his sin. You say that it was an impossible; can you give evidence of that? BTW, just saying that Adam sinned, does not prove that the task was impossible, it merely shows that it was not kept.

 

My answer was "yes", at the age of not-quite-six, and I held to it very faithfully for the next twenty years, and with decreasing enthusiasm for yet another twenty. But my answer now is, if I had it to do over again, I could not respond one way or the other to a being who isn't real, or at the very least, not engaged or interested.

 

Since my camp within Christianity believed in eternal security, if it turns out that if Christianity is substantially correct after all, I have the unfair advantage of being a heaven-bound atheist, though presumably destined to clean celestial toilets or sweep celestial streets.

 

Heaven, though, is too convenient. It panders to man's desire to have his existence ordered according to his whims and absolves him from fully contemplating the reality of his own mortality and holding life sufficiently precious.

 

I wouldn't respond to a being who wasn't real either. However, can you prove that God is not real? It seems like there might be an awful lot riding on such a decision, so I assume you have good backing for yours. Personally, I think there is too much evidence for God's existence and the fact that he is both engaged and interested.

 

I believe in eternal security, but I don't think you have any reason for confidence given your current situation. Yours sounds much like the man described in Hebrews 6 who tasted of the heavenly gifts and yet turned away. The author was saying that that type of person should have no such security, that is reserved for those following faithfully after the Lord.

 

Your situation is no less convenient and leaves you with the freedom to live your life however you want. The end result of sinner and saint is the same in your worldview, they both end up as worm food, so what is the point in living a moral life as morality is just a man made construct meant to keep the masses in line with some arbitrary standard. Yet, the one who decides to break with that standard and "grab some of life's gusto" is really no worse than the person who lives a self-sacrificial life. People may not hold as high an opinion of the cad than the saint, but those are just opinions and they don't really matter unless the person cares, and the cad has shown by his lifestyle that these concerns mean little or nothing. But if all we have is our three score and ten, why waste it being good? The worms won't care when you are dead and you won't be around for others to care or not. Besides, all that morality stuff just panders to some meaningless conditioning that we have that tells us that it is important for some reason when it really isn't.

 

What say you?

 

LNC

[LNC]

Your evangelistic appeal here is quite condescending. It betrays what seems to be a willful misunderstanding of the people on this site. If you read MagicMonkey's testimony on this site, you will see that he had been a Christian for a number of years. He knew the gospel clearly. Yet , knowing his "ex-christian" position, you say "now you cannot claim you did not know the gospel" and you arrogantly and pridefully declare "I made it plain and clear. . ."

 

You don't need to present the gospel "plain and clear." Most of us already know the gospel "plain and clear." After years of being in Christianity many of us realized the gospel and christianity as a whole is false. We came to that conclusion from many directions, but it was not from a lack of understanding.

 

Yet, you still approach ex-christians with your own agenda and look at us through a very biased and distorted lens. You don't know atheists. You don't understand agnostics and freethinkers. You only think you know them through the caricatures and stereotypes your ideology wishes we were like.

 

That is why Vigile was wondering about your emotional aptitude. Perhaps you should take him more seriously.

 

I don't judge people on this site, I only respond to what has been posted. I haven't read MM's testimony; so, I can't judge where he/she stands. However, apparently, I did need to present the gospel plain and clear as many people have been misrepresenting it, either inadvertently from ignorance, or, if you are correct in your assertion, on purpose. I will let you be the judge as to the reason. I don't judge where individuals on this site stand or have stood in relationship to the Lord, that is between them and him. I can only go by what people post and whether those posts accurately represent the gospel, which, as I have seen, they have often not. So,w hen I find that the gospel is being misrepresented, I will continue to offer clarity to those statements.

 

As for looking at people with biased eyes; we all do it, you included, that is simply the way things are. However, I try not to make judgments about people I don't know and simply focus on what you all are posting on the site. Am I perfect at this? No, but I try not to get personal and attack the person. I try to focus on the arguments.

 

When someone questions my emotional aptitude, they are simply making a judgment without enough information. That is what judgmentalism means. I try not to take judgmentalism seriously - life is too short to do that.

 

AND, speaking of biases and distortions. You STILL haven't answered the many responses calling for you to reconcile John 3:18 with your statement that the bible does not indicate that one is sent to hell for not believing in Jesus.

 

Here's a reminder of what you said.

 

I take post in the order that they come and have since reached that post and answered that issue.

 

LNC

[LNC]

Here's my view on it, and I might be wrong, and I'm sure LNC would disagree (because he always does). Faith is a word that really means "to trust." To have faith in someone or something is to trust that it always will be the way you expect it to be, it's the old reliable thing or person you never have to doubt.

 

So in the context of religion (I think this is mostly Christianity) there's this idea that the believer must trust in God and Jesus to be who they are, and to have faith in their abilities to save you and be there for you.

 

And that's the trust/faith a person must have to gain salvation.

 

I find it a bit difficult to accept too. I can totally see the relationship between trusting and gaining some positive experience from it. Or that, to make some limping allegory, if you trust (have faith) in your friends, you will call your friends when you're in need and you will help your friends when they need you. In other words, faith/trust has immediate effects on your life and well-being. It strengthens the relationship and benefits both parties.

 

But I can't see how it applies to salvation. Why is it necessary to trust that God gave us a salvation before we can have the benefit of that salvation? It sounds like magical trickery. Either Jesus gave the salvation to the whole world, or the salvation is to believe in a salvation, regardless if the Jesus died or not.

 

Let me explain the last part. If Jesus's act (dying and risen) was the part that saves us, then belief in it is not necessary because his work was complete. But, if belief is what is necessary to get salvation, then the work by Jesus was unnecessary. Can you see what I'm saying? If belief is what turns the real key to the path of salvation, then it doesn't matter if the act of dying and rising from the dead is real or not! It's the act of believing it that really saves a person, not the acts of Jesus. So it means, if salvation is the act of having faith or believing, then it's more of the internal change of a person's "spirit" than Jesus's death and resurrection. It's more about the magical part of a person's change of heart than God's fancy drama 2,000 years ago. Does this make any sense?

 

If you want to, perhaps we should examine the old analogy Christians use to exemplify salvation. They claim that it's like a court case. You're in court as a defendant for a crime you committed. The judge lets his son take your punishment, so you can go free.

 

Hey, I don't always disagree with you. Yes, you are right, faith and trust and nearly synonymous in the NT. To trust means to invest one's confidence in that thing or person, in this case, Jesus and his death on the cross and resurrection. However, trust is something that is based upon evidence and if and when that evidence suggest that trust is not merited, then trust should not be invested. For example, I trust my airline to fly me safely; however, if evidence showed that that airline was not trustworthy (a crash, or poor maintenance record), then I would cease putting my trust in them. I trust Jesus because he has proven to be trustworthy and the evidence supports that.

 

The problem is that we are rebellious against God when we have chosen not to trust his Son. If God were to simply "look the other way" and allow those people into heaven, he would be, in essence, forcing them to spend eternity with someone against whom they have a rebellious heart. That is not a loving response on God's part.

 

You have confused the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice with the efficiency of his sacrifice. Christ's sacrifice was sufficient to save all but efficient (or effective) for those who have trusted in him. Again, it is a matter of God not forcing people to spend eternity with Jesus when they are rebellious against him.

 

LNC

[Dagan]

Yours sounds much like the man described in Hebrews 6 who tasted of the heavenly gifts and yet turned away. The author was saying that that type of person should have no such security, that is reserved for those following faithfully after the Lord.

 

Yet another version of "you didn't have enough faith." Yawn. Another loophole for your invisible friend.

 

what is the point in living a moral life as morality is just a man made construct meant to keep the masses in line with some arbitrary standard... Besides, all that morality stuff just panders to some meaningless conditioning that we have that tells us that it is important for some reason when it really isn't.

 

You're doing it wrong. Please stop presenting morality as a false dichotomy (i.e. God-sourced morality versus complete baby-eating pandemonium).

 

People don't need an invisible man threatening them with hellfire to act good. There is plenty of evidence in evolution to show that groups seeking a common good survive. And to assume your version of religious morality is universal is pure conceit.

[Mister Pappy]

to assume your version of religious morality is universal is pure conceit.

Great link Jabbrwokk, thanks!

[Ouroboros]

Hey, I don't always disagree with you. Yes, you are right, faith and trust and nearly synonymous in the NT. To trust means to invest one's confidence in that thing or person, in this case, Jesus and his death on the cross and resurrection. However, trust is something that is based upon evidence and if and when that evidence suggest that trust is not merited, then trust should not be invested. For example, I trust my airline to fly me safely; however, if evidence showed that that airline was not trustworthy (a crash, or poor maintenance record), then I would cease putting my trust in them. I trust Jesus because he has proven to be trustworthy and the evidence supports that.

Ah. You do trust him because of experience, do you?

 

He has proven himself trustworthy to you, and you have evidence that supports that. Like what? You saw him? He talked to you and help you out of a tough spot? You know for sure it was Jesus and not some other being that just pretended? Can you prove the voice or vision wasn't created by some super-intelligent alien from another planet?

 

It's too sad that Jesus manages to prove himself trustworthy to only some people. I needed him. He didn't show. He didn't say a word. I didn't get any help. No one in my close family got the help. So again, it's sad that he picks and chooses who he will prove himself to.

 

The problem is that we are rebellious against God when we have chosen not to trust his Son. If God were to simply "look the other way" and allow those people into heaven, he would be, in essence, forcing them to spend eternity with someone against whom they have a rebellious heart. That is not a loving response on God's part.

I was Christian for 30 years. For 10 years we were in a situation where we needed the comfort and help. It eventually led to a huge disappointment in God's promise to "be there." How can I chose to trust his Son when his Son doesn't do what he promised? I learned to trust reality.

 

You have confused the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice with the efficiency of his sacrifice. Christ's sacrifice was sufficient to save all but efficient (or effective) for those who have trusted in him. Again, it is a matter of God not forcing people to spend eternity with Jesus when they are rebellious against him.

That's the thing, I wasn't rebellious. I didn't actively, intentionally, or openly rebel against God or Jesus. My faith, trust, in them disappeared. It's gone because they didn't do shit. I never saw Jesus. I never heard Jesus's voice. I never saw God in action in any shape or form. I did however see, hear, and experience reality and natural events. I trust the Universe to be what it is, and nothing more or less. Why are Christians so rebellious against reality?

[bdp]

pious crap

 

Yet another version of "you didn't have enough faith." Yawn. Another loophole for your invisible friend.

 

 

He's getting more and more predictable, isn't he?

[LNC]

Nothing new here. Heard it a thousand times.

 

I reject the lies of the bible. And seriously, LNC, these are arrogant and condescending words as others have pointed out. Try real hard and maybe you can understand why so many of us have said this.

 

I was simply responding to a person who claimed to not know what the gospel was. The gospel calls for a decision, which is what I did within my post. There was no intention of arrogance or condescension on my part. Still, don't you find that accusing a person of arrogance and condescension without taking the time to understand that person's actual motives isn't a bit presumptuous? How does that not escape the same charge being pointed right back at you? That is a question for consideration, not an accusation on my part.

 

LNC

[LNC]

LNC has been on this site for so long, trying to affect an intellectual basis, attempting to build from philosophical and scientific platforms, but in the end he's just another evangelist, no better than Justyna, with nothing better than 'the bible says so.'

 

bdp, I question how closely you have actually read my posts to make this assertion. Sounds like nothing better than a "bdp says so." claim.

 

 

LNC

[Overcame Faith]

Nothing new here. Heard it a thousand times.

 

I reject the lies of the bible. And seriously, LNC, these are arrogant and condescending words as others have pointed out. Try real hard and maybe you can understand why so many of us have said this.

 

I was simply responding to a person who claimed to not know what the gospel was. The gospel calls for a decision, which is what I did within my post. There was no intention of arrogance or condescension on my part. Still, don't you find that accusing a person of arrogance and condescension without taking the time to understand that person's actual motives isn't a bit presumptuous? How does that not escape the same charge being pointed right back at you? That is a question for consideration, not an accusation on my part.

 

LNC

 

I tried to make a distinction between calling you, the person, arrogant and condescending and calling your "words" arrogant and condescending. This was subtle, though. So I wasn't actually calling you as a person that, but tried to point out that your words sounded that way.

 

If I had intended to call you the person arrogant and condescending, then I agree that that would be a bit presumptious since, other than on this board, I don't even know you.

 

My thinking was that so many on this forum know the religion very well and I took your words to be intended to all of us. You have explained that they were intended for one individual who claimed not to understand the gospel.