"If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul." -Isaac Asimov
My first doubts as to the legitimacy of Christianity were tied to where salvation supposedly comes from. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast." Ephesians 2:8-9 I always accepted that, thought it made sense. It was all I had ever known. But one day it occurred to me (and to the best of my recollection I really did think of it on my own, though I now know it's been said many times) that it didn't seem quite fair. From what I'd been taught, someone could be a horrible mass murderer, be guilty of the most heinous of crimes, and yet if, just moments before they died, they genuinely repented and asked Christ into their heart, they would go to Heaven. Yet if someone devoted their whole life to helping others, forgoing any chance at a normal life with a spouse and children, was totally self-sacrificing, and yet did not ask Christ into their heart, they would spend an eternity in Hell. I believe the specific examples I had in mind were Hitler and my little sister, since they were ones I could emotionally relate to. To quote David Mills, author of Atheist Universe, one of my all time favorite books on the subject, it is "a system that admittedly promises heavenly rewards for faith and proper religious beliefs, rather than for real-world ethical treatment of others." I just couldn't see how this was a moral basis for determining who would go to eternal bliss and who to eternal torture. It certainly didn't seem to be the sort of rationale one would expect from a just deity.
I've been told this has to do with the fact that God is perfect, and our sin creates a chasm between us and him that we can never cross on our own. That Jesus's death on the cross was the only way for us to be purified, if we choose to accept it. I'll go into the subject in more detail at a later time, but it seems to me that IF God is omnipotent, as we've been given to believe, there's no such thing as the "only way" anything can be done. If he is all powerful, then the way things supposedly are is the way he chose for them to be. And again, I don't see how this is just.
I've still yet to hear an explanation that seems even remotely morally acceptable to me.This certainly wasn't the only argument that led me to embrace atheism, nor even the most compelling, but it still seems a serious endictment of Christianity, and any other religion that embraces words over deeds.
Um... as far as the quote goes I'd like to thank Mr. Asimov for pointing out the stunningly obvious. As a matter of fact one of the chief things Jesus does to piss the Pharisees off is call them on this very trait.
ReplyDeleteAs for your example of the mass murderer and the self sacrificing person, I'd like to say that the argument is technically factual. However you are leaving out an important part of the argument.
You're self sacrificing person, has he ever done anything wrong? If he hasn't then clearly he never sinned and so would be admitted into heaven. If he has however, why did he never at the absolute rock bottom least never admit to that it was wrong and he shouldn't have done it? That may sound extreme and so I'll wait for your answer on that before I continue with that part my argument.
Second: Let's say that both the self sacrificing person and the mass murdering person did in fact want to do all those things they did. What is the quantifiable difference between the two? Were they not simply following their own desires?
Third, your example also leads one to believe that the self sacrificing person is doing these good things despite the fact that they would rather be doing other things for themselves. What rational reason is there for an Atheist to do so?
If there is no afterlife to be earned by doing "good" things then shouldn't any and every person logically be doing whatever they want? I am by no means saying that every (or even any) Atheist is a horribly evil person and goes around eating babies all the time. Or that they aren't generally about the same as every body else.
What I am asking is, if a person is made happy by causing suffering to others what *rational* reasons are there to not cause suffering?
If you say that they shouldn't do it because some outside force (be it the law or the people around them or what people will think of them) will punish them for it, then you are only saying that it is wrong to cause suffering to gain happiness because you will have to pay for your happiness. You are not saying that it is wrong for them to cause suffering, you are saying it isn't cost effective with this argument.
If you say that they shouldn't do it because it is "wrong" or "evil" to cause suffering then what is your rational basis for those terms? Are they just words that humans have given a certain definition to, or are they actual, real, and more importantly, objective concepts?
You use this quote, "a system that admittedly promises heavenly rewards for faith and proper religious beliefs, rather than for real-world ethical treatment of others."
I'm not sure what this has to do with Christianity. As near as I can tell it is a straw man argument that has very little to do with the actual tenants of Christianity. Let me use a quote of my own to prove this.
James 2: 14-17 14What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? 15Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? 17In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
-Ricky
(My comment was too long so I had to split it in half)
It seems to me that in your second to last paragraph you are asking for more ways to salvation. Now yes, it does have to do with God's perfection. He will not allow any evil in his presence.
ReplyDeleteIf I'm understanding you correctly your thinking of it something like this, if a person has done a lot of good but very little bad he might have +10000 good points towards his count and -1 against. So that person should have a balance of +9999 and therefore be let into heaven. If that's wrong you can ignore the rest of this part.
I'm going to have to use two separate examples to get my understanding across, and I may fail so if there's any confusion please point it out and I'll (hopefully) clarify.
1. It's not a balancing system. It's not, a system where Good counts towards your entrance to heaven and bad counts against it. It's not that someone with a +100 and a -99 has a total of +1 and a person with +99 and -100 has a total of -1. Surely this only makes sense right? I mean saying that's how it should be would be like going into court and saying "Well your honor, yes I did murder that hobo, but the day before that I saved the lives twenty seven orphans, so you should really let me go."
2. Even were that that case, my understanding of sin is that a single sin is worse than any number of good deeds can be, for two reasons. One when you do something wrong you are not only offending the person you harm but also God (If that doesn't make sense, think of it this way, if you you hurt someones kid are you only responsible to the kid or do the kids parents have some right to be pissed?). If you are also offending God then you are offending an infinite being, so the offense is then infinite. This part is hard to understand (for me at least) so it carries less weight than number two. Doing evil gets easier the more you do it. Everyone knows that it's gets easier to lie the more you do it. Killing is the same way. With every evil you do, you make it easier for you to do evil. Turning around on that road is (if it is really even possible) incredibly difficult.
The last thing I'll say (for this post and for tonight anyway) is this.
Christianity does not embrace words over deeds. To say so is blatantly ridiculous. To say so is frankly slander (or... maybe libel. I get them mixed up). When Jim Baker's horrible behavior was exposed did you hear any Christians saying, "Oh, it's okay. He said a lot of nice things before he did all that. I'll still believe the things he says." When a priest is found to be a pedophile, does anyone try to defend him by saying, "It's alright that he raped those kids, he said he's a Christian so he must be."
If what you meant was that all it takes to get into heaven is saying you're sorry and really meaning it, then well, you are right. That is all it takes to get those negative points off your record. Yes, in other words, it is free. A mass murderer can get it for the exact same price as a soup kitchen worker. What would be the point of a salvation if it was only for nice people?
- Ricky
P.S. If any of this is unclear please blame sleepiness. =)
P.P.S. It may be easier to e-mail or facebook your response (if you want to respond) so feel free to do so.
For the record, I had some trouble figuring out what order it made the most sense to go in for this. So be sure to read all of it before questioning, because your answer may be in there, just in a different spot.
ReplyDeleteSo let us start with the issue of works versus belief for salvation. Unfortunately, there's no clear answer on this. The Skeptic's Annotated Bible has an entire page devoted to listing the verses that prove either point. http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/faithalone.html In the church I was raised in, faith was considered the only requisite for salvation. If you genuinely repented and asked Jesus in your heart, you'd go to Heaven. Complete with a "once saved, always saved" guarantee. They explained the seemingly contradictory verses by claiming works were not necessary to be saved, but they were the only possible result of genuine salvation. Basically, they're the proof you are saved, but not necessary to be saved in the first place. I don't know whether your church would agree with this. I know the Church of Christ denomination believes that baptism is absolutely required for salvation (apparently the thief on the cross next to Jesus was an exception). By what I was taught, my example of a mass murderer getting saved moments before dying is valid, since he never had a chance to do works. By the Church of Christ, he'd be in hell since he didn't have time to be baptized. It's an issue that's very complicated since there are so many possible interpretations of how one can be saved.
So our self-sacrificing person- did they never sin, or if they did, did they never admit it was wrong? Firstly, there’s the issue of how one defines sin. This hypothetical good person may never once in their life do anything to harm another living being. But if they think dirty thoughts (that do NO HARM to anyone), or masturbate (some denominations allow this, but most don’t), or heaven forbid, actually have consensual sex outside of marriage, they’ll spend an eternity suffering the worst possible torment with no possibility of relief. Because in God’s eyes, all sins are equal. And you wouldn’t consider that punishment just a teensy bit disproportionate to the crime? But say they did do something even I would concur is a sin. Sure, they may well have felt bad for it and wished they hadn’t done it. If they’re an atheist, or a believer in the wrong god, by what I was raised to believe they’d still go to hell. Perhaps you believe differently. And maybe they did do something bad, but didnt’ feel bad for it. To me, there’s a big difference between minor sins and major ones. In the eyes of the average person, an entire life spent helping others iis enough to outweigh the occasional lie or losing their temper and hitting someone just that one time. How can one minor sin, or five or ten or a thousand, justify the type of punishment they’ll be sentenced to? Why should one mistake, one bad thought, one misstep be enough to obliterate a lifetime of goodness?
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Mine was too long too! ^_^
ReplyDeleteFor that matter, most rational people would consider eternal punishment disproportionate for ANY crime. Even my hypothetical mass murderer wouldn’t deserve to be tortured forever. Say that in their lifetime a person committed a millions sins. That’s an arbitrary number, but humans live finite lives and thus must commit a finite number of sins, so really the point is that there’s a number. The worst punishment we give someone for a particular crime, in terms of length, is a life sentence. For the sake of easy math let’s say that’s 100 years. I’d argue that the lesser sins shouldn’t be punished as severely, but that doesn’t work for God, so every crime will result in the same punishment. So if every sin was punished with the worst possible sentence humans can enforce, we’d still only sentence them to 100 million years. If we found a way to lengthen it to 1000 years per sin, it’d be a mere billion years (did I do that math right?). But even that insane amount pales in comparison to the ETERNITY that God believes is just punishment for even one sin. Not to mention that we sentence people to time in jail, or at worst a humane death. God sentences people to torture. Constant, unremitted, hideously painful torture. Could he not have simply declared that he would take the believers to heaven and everyone else would simply cease to exist? Something along the lines of the death penalty?
This is, I believe, where you reiterate the whole “offenses against an infinite being are infinite” bit. Maybe someone better at talking theology than me can field this issue. I hate to not really take every argument seriously, but I’m afraid to me this just sounds like a bunch of bizarre wordplay that has no real world meaning. How can an omnipotent being be harmed anyway? This may just be because I’m an extremely concrete thinker, and struggle with overly abstract concepts. But I’m going to have to leave this issue alone, other than to say that to me personally, it sounds more like “yeah, we know hell is way unfair, so we made up this weird argument that is hard to object to, in order to deflect attention away,” than a genuine argument. There’s some discussion of it here under the justice section- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_Hell
As far as the balancing issue goes, I don’t have a great answer. I doubt it’s the best solution, but I do think a balancing system makes FAR more sense than deciding who goes to heaven and who to hell based on who has the right belief system. It gets into the very complicated issue of why we punish people for crimes, versus why God does. It’s sticky, confusing, and this is already running WAY too long to go into it here. The issue of the fairness of hell is a very complicated one, and this isn’t the place to discuss all of it. Perhaps I’ll do a post about it.
As for the morality issue, I’m not ignoring it, but I’ve gone much too long here already, and if I get into it now, I’ll have to write as least as much again. Since it’s the least germane to the topic, let’s discuss what I’ve said so far, then get into it. I may even do an actual post about it, if I feel up to it. It’s a complicated issue, and one that many books have been written about. I’ll have to do a lot of research to do it justice. Hope you don’t mind my delaying this one. I promise it’s not just because I don’t have an answer. ^_^ The last bit, about priests and all, I actually don't have an answer to right now, so let me think a bit, k?
Oh, and lastly, bear in mind this was one of the first issues I ever struggled with, but it was not one of the ones that actually played a major role in my decision to become an atheist. Sticky theological issues ultimately matter a bit less to me than the issues raised by science and textual criticism of the bible. Since the bible's the source of the sticky theological issues, I quickly realized they're a non-issue if one discredits the bible first.
ReplyDeleteI believe you're right that I shouldn't have said "words over deeds." The point I was trying to make was about genuine belief, not just words. So I apologize for that one.
ReplyDeleteThat's fair. One of the problems with discussions over the internet is that because you can respond to your... opponent (?) point by point and that can lead to things becoming disjointed and unwieldy. So it may be best to set aside some parts of the discussion like you did with the morality bit. I think just making a note of it, to be sure that nothings being ignored is enough =). As far as that goes I'm fine with leaving it aside for now. It may be best to simply wait until there's a place to discuss just that. It is a huge topic and not entirely necessary to discuss here. But I'm certainly not done there. It is a considerable portion of why I find Atheism intellectually and philosophically untenable.
ReplyDeleteAlso for clarities sake I'll mention that I don't actually have a church or claim a particular denomination. I'm by no means against those things, I just don't have a church that I'm a member of and I don't care enough about the differences between denominations to figure out which one I fall into. So anything I say here is coming just from me and my own understanding and study of Christianity. Anyway, on with the show.
From what I read at that page I didn't see anything contradictory between the two. It seemed to me to say that "Your actions for good or evil have consequences". If there is something more specific you'd like to point out I'll be happy to discuss it.
I also hold the position that faith is the only necessary condition for Salvation. I'm not so certain on the "once saved, always saved" part, but that's a discussion for elsewhere. I'll explain my belief on the matter. It is technically possible to get into Heaven based on what you did during life. After all I doubt that the bouncer at the pearly gates is gonna give Jesus any crap. What's required is a zero in the negative column of your deeds in life. The number of good things you did doesn't matter, you just have to have been perfect. I don't find that at all unreasonable. After all, if you ever want to know why Earth isn't a utopia it's cause there are all these imperfect (by my definition evil) people here. Sure maybe some of them aren't as bad as others, but as the old axiom goes, no body is perfect. I personally don't want any (myself thoroughly included) imperfect people in heaven.
As for someone dying before he was baptized and going to hell, I don't know of what, if any, biblical support there is for that position and it isn't the one that I hold so I don't intend to deal with it. As far as I can tell the requirements for getting in the door are agreement that you are not perfect and trust in Jesus to cover the balance.
I would consider certain thoughts to be evil (and therefore a sin). I take sex outside of marriage much more seriously than most people. That being said (and since I don't think this is the place for that discussion) I don't know of any reason to say that all sins are equal. Yes even one sin is enough to get a person refused admittance to heaven, that doesn't mean the average person will get the same level of punishment as a person who spent their life tormenting others. Similarly a dying breathe conversion would technically be enough for even the worst human being who ever lived to escape their punishment, but that doesn't mean that they will be as well off as someone who converted at nine and spent their life helping and loving the people around them.
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ReplyDeleteSo yes, one mistake is enough to keep one out of heaven. But there are two things to keep in mind. First is that having that one mistake (or those billions) is completely, utterly, free of charge. If you are choosing not to take advantage of that, well then that's on you. Second, have you ever even heard of someone who fit that description? Someone who even came close? I certainly haven't. I have yet to meet a single person, who didn't screw up in one way or another daily. Or if I'm really honest hourly. As far as I can tell, there is no person who has only screwed up in one tiny way. Just some people who aren't assholes all the time.
Alright next paragraph... Ow. Math. Anyway, first the "death penalty". Well, I honestly don't know that he could. I'm not entirely certain about whether it is possible to cause a person to cease to exist. Maybe it is, but by my opinion that would be worse than torment. At least with torment you still exist. I can certainly see the other side of that argument though. Now, as for torment, the Bible does describe what happens after death as being unutterably horrible. But torment leads to the impression that someone is actively causing that pain and I don't know that that is the case, or if it is I think that the inhabitant of Hell does it to themselves. The impression I've gotten about what hell really is, is that it is separation from God. Go back to what I said about how much it costs to get into heaven. It's free. Why would a person reject the offer of something that is free? Because what comes with that free offer is relationship with God. Sin causes separation from God and so that's what hell is. If a person goes to hell it's because they refuse to be with God. Hell is an utterly horrible place and the door is locked, but it's locked from the inside. C. S. Lewis give a very good description of what I'm talking about in Mere Christianity. It's one of the best books I've ever read on Christianity and I think that it's a great place to start for anyone who wants to discuss Christianity.
Honestly the “infinite being” thing isn't my favorite argument. I think it makes sense (meaning that it is a genuine argument) and I believe it works, but my grip on it is tenuous at best and I can answer the points you raised but I'm just as happy to let this one drop.
As far as the balancing system I think it's completely unjust. I believe that if a person does something wrong there should be punishment for it regardless of how nice they were the rest of the time. Again, no amount of orphans rescued should get you off the hook for hobo murder. Or any kind of murder I suppose. I also want to say that I don't think that deciding who goes to heaven and who goes to hell is based on belief system. I don't think you have to believe the right thing and that gets you into heaven.
Anywho, I'd be willing to agree that stick theological issues aren't much of an issue compared to if the Bible is true or not. If it is, then clearly there's an explanation for any apparent disparities and if it isn't then they don't matter that much. By the way, I appreciate that you're willing to apologize for things like that. It's very hard to have a sane discussion when one or both sides refuse to admit when they were wrong/out of line.
-Rick
I do see contradictions on the list, just as the two verses we quoted at each other (James 2:14 and Ephesians 2:8-9) seem to contradict. However, I don’t feel a need to go into it particularly, since it’s essentially the whole point we’re debating anyway.
ReplyDeleteI’m not ignoring the next bit, but since, if I recall correctly (and I may not), the bible specifically says there has never been a perfect person other than Jesus, saying that someone could theoretically get into heaven merely by being perfect isn’t really a useful point. I can’t even tell if other Christians would agree with you or not, since it’s a pure hypothetical that doesn’t have any real-world application. Tho I will say, if only perfect people ever get to heaven, as you say you hope/believe, God must be pretty lonely up there. Jesus supposedly died to erase sins, but having your slate wiped clean doesn’t mean you’ll never sin again. The whole “not perfect, just forgiven” thing?
As to baptism as a requisite, I don’t know of any scriptural justification for it, other than one verse that mentions if you believe and are baptised. According to one fellow I talked to, it was more important than all the other verses that said faith was all you needed, because Jesus actually said his verse, and the rest were from his followers. I have no idea how that makes sense (I thought all verses were divinely inspired?), and it’s not really important. I was just making the point that the arguments I use occasionally reflect my own denominational background, so if you disagree with them that may be why. This particular post was definitely directed specifically at the way I was raised, rather than Christianity or religion in general, hence the fact that I made the point that this wasn’t a topic I considered terribly important to my overall belief or unbelief.
The question of whether someone who did worse things will receive worse punishment is one I’ve heard before, but I’ve never heard any scriptural justification for it. Do you know of any? If there is, then I can concede that’s somewhat more fair. Though I stand by my opinion that eternal punishment, even if it’s a fairly light punishment, is unfair in the worst sort of way. If there’s not any, then it’s not a valid argument. In fact, IF it’s not a biblical stance, then it would seem that those who propose it agree that hell is a bit of overkill. I also believe there is no thought that can be evil in and of itself, it’s acting on it that’s “evil.” This belongs more in the morality section though. I’m planning on writing that soon.
I assume you mean having your sins erased is free of charge (typos, tsk tsk). If that is indeed what you’re saying, I disagree. Read the last paragraph of my post on Pascal’s Wager. It’s not free of charge, the price is the single biggest thing I have to give, my life, my freedom. I must choose to accept Christ and live my life according to his will. To you, obviously, it’s an price worth paying. But don’t say there’s no price.
As far as the person who only committed one sin, it’s a hypothetical. My point was that hell seems like overkill for even one sin. Since you don’t think all sins are punished equally, it makes it less of a point.
I need you to clarify something for me. Do you, or do you not believe God is omnipotent (and omniscient and omnipresent and whatever other omni’s are attributed to him)? Since the bible says “with God all things are possible,” and I was raised to believe he is literally omnipotent, my arguments are based on this assumption. If you believe otherwise, you won’t agree with some points I make. That being said, if God is omnipotent, there is never a question of whether something is possible. If God wants to cause a person to cease to exist, he can do so. The question of whether we have any part of us that exists independently of our bodies is a topic I will probably address in a post. In case you can’t guess, I believe there is no evidence to suggest such a part of us exists.
(continuation)
ReplyDeleteI honestly can’t imagine how anyone would think an eternity in a lake of fire with “wailing and gnashing of teeth,” unquenchable fire, etc is better than simply ceasing to be. Am I thrilled to think that when I die, that’s it? Not at all. But neither am I afraid to die. I would certainly be afraid to die if I thought I had hell waiting for me. People who are being tortured desperately long to die. This is torture that goes on longer than the human brain can even conceive of, with absolutely no hope of it ever stopping. I’m afraid trying to in any way suggest God is choosing the better option for people by having them tortured for eternity just won’t fly with most folks.
But you think perhaps hell is just separation from God. I have heard this suggested before. I have not, however, heard biblical justification for this. If you claim the descriptions of hell referring to fire and burning and what have you aren’t to be taken literally, what’s your reasoning for this? Also, I’m not going into details, but I do not think that separation from the God of the bible would in any way cause me torment. I think I’d be glad to get away from him if he were real. I’ll go into that somewhat when I discuss morality (seen the bit where Lot, a “just” man, offers his daughters up to be gang-raped?).
Thanks for dropping the infinite being thing. Pretty sure it wasn’t a point that would convince either of us (or anyone else) to change their minds about anything, and I seriously do NOT understand it. Like I said, very concrete thinker. Got me in trouble in English a lot. Abstract poetry just doesn’t mean diddly squat to me. This probably won’t be the only argument that I struggle with just because it goes over my head.
I’m not really hung up enough on the idea of a balancing system to try to defend it rigorously. I suppose I could propose the possibility of unforgivable sins. I’d be more inclined, I think, to say that some have a weight that is almost impossible to overcome with sufficient goodness, but it could theoretically be done. Purgatory sounds like a nice solution, but it has zero biblical justification. Though really it’s all beside the point, since my real issue with all of this is that hell is such a disproportionate punishment for ANY crime. You apparently disagree, and propose essentially different levels of hell (how very Greek of you), so the argument, to a large degree, doesn’t apply to your beliefs.
When I said “deciding who goes to heaven and who to hell based on who has the right belief system,” I did not literally mean belief is the thing that saves you. I just meant that I didn’t think faith should be the deciding factor. Just a reiteration of the whole point that I made in the original post, particularly the bit about the hypothetical super bad guy who is saved at the last second. Also, this is hardly the place to go into it, but can you explain briefly what you think happens to people who never hear about God or Jesus or any of that? (If you can’t do so here, because it’s too much to go into, don’t bother. Certainly no rush to get into another big one.)
And you’re very welcome for the apology. The last thing I want is for all this to degenerate to random name calling and “nuh-uh YOU’RE wrong” type of talk. As long as we all acknowledge we’re wrong sometimes, hopefully that can be avoided. Also, if I left anything out, let me know. I'm not trying to ignore anything. ^_^
Only needed one post for the whole thing! YES! Go me.
ReplyDeleteOkay, no idea what's up with blogger, but again it didn't post his first comment. So here's the comment, copy-and-pasted from the email I got telling me he'd commented.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that you use the phrase “seem to contradict”. But if you don't want to go in to it we don't have to.
1. As to there being no perfect people and God being lonely I don't see how it isn't a useful point. It's the point of Christianity. People need to be perfect but they aren't. Anyway it wasn't a point I was trying to argue, I was just stating my position on the faith matter and trying to illustrate it. As for God being lonely, becoming perfect is a part of resurrection, and even if it weren't God still wouldn't be lonely. He's not a singular being like the Muslim version. But that gets into sticky doctrine so we don't need to go there if you don't want to.
2. On Baptism as a requisite, I was mostly just giving my position on the matter. Easier to talk if people know where you're coming from and all. As to the cause Jesus said it it's more important... that is a weird thought. O.o
3. On worse people getting worse punishments. Sure. You listed a bunch of them for me actually. There's a lot of them in the salvation is not by faith alone column in that skeptics bible article you linked. I don't remember if it was on there or not but one of the ones that comes to mind just off hand is Matthew 12:33-37.
4. On Hell being overkill. I would have to agree, but since my position is that the people who go there choose to, that's on them.
5. On thoughts being evil. Thought leads to action. Kicking the pebble that starts an avalanche is wrong. But then how can you really say something is wrong or evil? I agree that this is quickly going to get into the morality section so it'll probably be best to just wait till I reply to that post.
6. On there being a price, I'd say that there are consequences to a persons actions. Living that sort of life is the consequence of accepting the free offer. But it isn't a terribly important distinction to me so I'll leave it at that.
7. I do believe God is omnipotent. I don't believe that means he can do something like make a married bachelor or a triangle with four sides. So on the idea of him not just making a person just not exist, I'm not sure that that's possible. It could be the same as making a triangle with four sides. But I don't think it's a terribly important point.
8. On ceasing to be vs non-existence. I can certainly see why you would say that. I'm not really trying to argue over which is actually worse.
9. On Separation from God. I don't mean to suggest that Hell is just Separation from God. What I mean by that is that I'm not saying that as some way to mitigate the horror of the situation. It may not sound so bad but I think that the weeping and gnashing of teeth and the fire and all that are descriptions of what being separated from God is like.
10. As for Lot, I don't know of any place where he's referred to as “just” or anything of the sort.
11. On People who don't hear about God. That is a big one. If I was just going to try and say a thirty second sound bite version I guess I'd say that I think if you want to find God (which I don't think is a strange thing for people who've never heard of the Christian God, but I'm going for short here so not gonna get into it) you will. I also am not sure there's any biblical word on what exactly happens to someone who's never heard of Christ. I guess my position is that I trust God to do what's right in regard to people who've never heard of him. I don't think anybody is going to get screwed just cause they happened to be born in the wrong part of the world or something.
-Rick
I chose the phrase “seem to contradict” because they do seem to contradict to me, but obviously you disagree. Since in so far as I know, neither of us are theologians, language experts, or textual critics (I keep typing textural. Shall we debate what the Bible’s texture feels like? >_<), I doubt we can truly establish which of us is correct. Though on that subject, which I will go into later in a post, if the Bible is truly the inerrant, divinely inspired Word of God, why can’t anyone agree on what it says? You’d think if he was going to take the time to have a message to people written down, he could make it clearer.
ReplyDelete1. I was definitely just being facetious when I said God would be lonely. I was merely making the point that no one’s perfect so from what you said no one would go to Heaven. That was both arguing more the choice of phrases than the actual point being made, and arguing a point that I don’t really care about since it’s a non-issue in the body of this discussion.
2. Yeah, I got real confused on that Jesus thing.
3. This comes back to what I said about not being an expert on this, and people not agreeing anyway. Since none of those verses say “there are different levels of hell,” but one could certainly interpret them to say that, there’s no way to say for sure based on what I know. I rather like the idea of levels of hell, since it makes things at least somewhat more fair, but I’m not going to say that I think I know what’s being said, one way or the other.
4. So, from your point of view, if I told you that if you refused to agree with what I believe, I’d kill you, it would be fair for me to actually kill you for disagreeing, since I gave you the option to agree? Or is only God allowed to make the rules up and there’s no grounds for arguing, since he’s God? The completely arbitrary nature of the whole heaven/hell thing is exactly my point.
5. This will probably be an agree to disagree. Thoughts lead to action, sometimes. Other times they don’t. I can fantasize all day about killing you (I really seem to be on a killing you theme today) but as long as I don’t, even if I’m seriously thinking about it, I am not a murderer. Even if you could prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I was planning to murder you, I’d be institutionalized to protect you and get me help, not to *punish* me. But intent versus deed is a confusing topic, and not one to go into here, like you said.
6. By your phrasing, the consequence of my wanting a candy bar is that I must give up my dollar. Yes, it’s true, but rephrasing it doesn’t mean it’s not a price. But I can agree to drop it, in this discussion. I did bring it up again when discussing Pascal’s Wager.
7. I don’t care for the idea of omnipotence. It’s either logically impossible (making a stone he can’t lift?), or defined arbitrarily. It’d be nice if something that’s so important to most people’s belief actually made sense to anyone who bothers to think about it. Not looking for a debate on it, it just bothers me that it seems like everyone has a different opinion of it. Wish folks would get on the same page.
8. and 9. Too opinion-based to really have a discussion. We can agree to disagree on what we think sucks.
10. 2 Peter 2:7-8 “he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men 8(for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)” The first “righteous” is sometimes translated to “just.”
11. Not going to comment, since it’d require us going into another discussion as long as this one’s gotten. I was just looking for an opinion, for future reference.
And look, one comment for me too! Win all around. ^_^