Christianity; the World's Most Violently Persecuted Religion

[The Grand Nudger]

Trying to stick within a limited logical possibility we can ask the same questions again.  Is it logically possible that god possesses foreknowledge?  If it's not..then we've limited omniscience and omnipotence and are even further from the god of magic book.  If it is, we have the potency issue all over again within the new boundary conditions.  Is a god a prisoner of it's predictions and past statements or predilections?  A theologian would tell you no (and magic book provides receipts).  This is yet another way that god is limitless...but if isn't, then did it ever possess foreknowledge in the first place, supposing foreknowledge was possible?

This has been an issue for christian apologists for some time, the simple fact of their spilling the ink concedes the apparent contraditions...but once upon a time it was not noticed at all, as people deeply believed in another supernatural whatsit called a fate.

Yes, the old, "if they're innocent then why do they need a lawyer" ploy.  Seriously?

Not exactly, no..more that they know there's a problem with this stuff as is so we can see they've put in the work to modify it.  There's no "if" they're guilty there...they manifestly are.

[TheWhiteMarten]

Now, @TheWhiteMarten, I have asked several times, can you demonstrate anything approaching any objective evidence for any deity or anything supernatural, or that these ideas are even possible?

My apologies, mostly just skim - no, no more than I can provide objective evidence that plate tectonics is an accurate model to describe the process of how our Earth has come to geologically be figured the way it is.

We can use logical deduction, but like many things we can never objectively prove it to be the truth. Just not something worth getting hung up over to me.

[TheWhiteMarten]

People doom themselves to hell when they choose to reject a place in God's presence, 

Like people who doom themselves to being murdered, or beaten up, when they don't pay protection. It's their fault, not the scumbag deity...sorry criminal, who actually commits the crime.

Not at all; rather it would be more akin to those who choose to violate the legal codes of their country, insult and disrespect their family until they are disowned and disinherited, and continues to blame everyone else for their consequences of their behavior.

More evidence you don't grasp what an atheist is.

An atheist is someone who doesn't believe in God; just like a man is someone with a penis and XY chromosomes.

Now we can begin to extrapolate certain things from there - most men, for example, are into sports or video games and most atheists are extremely prone to thinking reading the Bible (or worse, 5 sentences picked and chosen) makes them theological masterminds despite an almost constant display of failure to comprehend the subject - case in point, the statement that God dooms people to hell rather than it being a result of their choices. That is entirely of our making.

9 …because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Romans 10:9-13

[The Grand Nudger]

You tell us you can't objectively prove a thing and then describe whatever it is™ akin to relativist transgression. Yeah. No shit.

[The Grand Nudger]

I think most Christians reject the Prime Mover concept -- at least here in America. Most Christians seem to me to adopt the personal god. Of course, you're in Japan and not really in mainstream Christianity.

Thank you for making a very reasonable objection and not typing an insult to go with it. 

I'm sure you're right that rank-and-file Christians, probably especially in America, think of God as a person. And I acknowledge that the kind of Christianity I have studied, and which I've been talking about here, is not what most people in churches probably think about. Although it is very much mainstream in terms of the history of theology. 

The term "personal," like so many others, may apply differently to God than to a flesh-and-blood human. 

For example, Wikipedia quotes Tillich:

'Personal God' does not mean that God is a person. It means that God is the ground of everything personal and that he carries within himself the ontological power of personality...

This is very compatible with philosophical views of God. For example, the Aristotelian/Thomist views which define the term "omnipotent" not as "can do anything," but as "the end and instigator of all potency." 

As always, Christianity has within itself so many variations that we can't make a simple blanket argument against all versions.

Christ almighty, no.  A personal god just means that a god has attributes in common with other personal creatures, like us.  That it is explicitly person-alike. There is no special carveout for gods here.   We can make the blanket statement that all christian gods are personal gods. Leave it to apologists to argue with sociological descriptors while strongly affirming the accuracy of said descriptors......."gods not a person, but he has all the personality!"

[TheWhiteMarten]

People doom themselves to hell when they choose to reject a place in God's presence, and yet again atheists struggle with even the most basic of concepts and think themselves master theologians.

Two problems fairly leap to mind:

1. Why does God knowingly create people who will reject him?

2. Why would God give people free will and then eternally damn them for using it?

People don’t doom themselves, me old china. God does it for them.

Boru

1. While the Bible never explicitly tells us, the ability to reject God is at the very least just a natural product of our intellect.

Free will requires the capability to reason and process information in complex ways, as does all the beauty we produce; the arts and sciences.




2. As mentioned a few posts ago, this is a misunderstanding of Christian doctrine - God is not "damning" us anymore than a judge "damns" a criminal to prison; while it's not an entirely wrong word to use it seems to almost entirely fundamentally miss the mechanic at action and place some blame of the judge and not the criminal.

[TheWhiteMarten]

You tell us you can't objectively prove a thing and then describe whatever it is™ akin to relativist transgression.  Yeah.  No shit.

I don't have any desire to objectively prove a thing and have no desire to bother with the concept of an "objectively proven God," so sure - I adress it and move on with my life.

[TheWhiteMarten]

But please address my point: if your choice is made under threat, are you really exercising free will?

What you choose to perceive as a threat does not make it so.

If your choice is made with a prior warning, are you really exercising free will? I think everyone would answer, "Yes - obviously."

[The Grand Nudger]

Not a bad place to be in, since you couldn't objectively prove anything and would reject objectivity in favor of divine relativism even if you could.

[TheWhiteMarten]

Presumably to continue and allow his creation to have free will, perhaps the third best gift ever given to man.

In this context, what is the value of being able to choose? What good is it to have been capable of sin? Wouldn't we be better off with just the one choice?

That's a question I cant really answer for you, to be honest.

That choice is what makes us different from any other creature on the planet; that feature the one that has lead to our dominion over the world and at times over primal forces of nature itself. 

What value God gets out of that, I can't answer with any authority - but I find plenty of value out of that, esp. when when use that power in a just way or in a way that brings new beauty into the world.