You CAN game Christian morality

[orangebox21]

God is responsible for creating a man capable of choice, not of the choices man makes.

Oh, ooh, free will.

When my son was learning to walk, he wanted sometimes to cross roads. I didn't let him do so by himself, because it was obviously dangerous.

What you're telling me is that your god, knowing how powerful Satan was, turned Adam and Eve loose in the Garden with no knowledge of the difference between good and evil, that he knew Satan was in the garden, and he didn't know that Eve would take the applebite?

I'm just a mere mortal, and I can foresee when a bad situation raises risk to unacceptable levels. Your god is alleged to be omnipotent, yet he couldn't know that man would not always choose wisely?

If I know of an incipient murder, and I do nothing to stop it though I can safely do so, have I behaved in a moral fashion?

I submit that your understanding of moral responsibility is uselessly shallow.

If that is your standard of moral responsibility, then every wrong that your child does you are morally responsible for. After all you could have prevented it.

Every engineer, assembly line worker, and CEO of an automotive company is guilty of murder, after all they could prevent every automobile accident resulting in a fatality.

No one lives as if this is true.

Christianity teaches penance and personal responsibility, not self-loathing.

If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se...ke%2014:26

Christianity inculcates self-loathing in humans.

The scripture is true, your understanding of it is not.

I'm asking you to support your assertion.

Then please read what was in that stuff you quoted.

How is someone who sees himself as a sinner worthy of eternal punishment not a self-loathing one? Do you have a unique definition of "self-loathing" or something?

You can't ignore what I said and then ask me to support my assertion as if I never did.

You wrote:

But if you consider yourself a helpless sinner who deserves eternal hell, then that's definitely self-loathing.

I suggest you think better of yourself. Nothing you do should offend a grand God so deeply to the point that you deserve to suffer for the rest of your existence after you die.

The answer is right there in the quote.

Where is the support for your first statement?

You're missing the point. A person who accepts responsibility for his/her actions is not necessarily a self-loathing one. Christianity teaches penance and personal responsibility, not self-loathing.

It also teaches that you are unclean and all your so-called righteous deeds are like filthy rags. That's encouraging self-loathing.

Why does the acknowledgment of unmeritorious salvation equate to self-loathing?

Exactly. The New Testament is rather clear in many passages that if you don't loathe yourself, you will not be saved.

Consider the parable of the humble tax collector and the proud Pharisee. The Pharisee saw himself as a good person but was not justified before God. The tax collector, on the other hand, saw himself as a sinner and was justified. So self-loathing is better than loving who you are in God's eyes.

Why would you love the wrong you do? Think about it. You're supporting that a murderer not hate the part of themselves that willingly committed murder, but rather he/she should love that part of himself/herself.

You have to loathe your nature as a sinner in order to be saved ... is what the New Testament is saying.

Now that I [somewhat] agree with. But there is a difference between loathing one part of yourself and loathing your entire self.

We've all sinned Robby. In the past and in the future. The blood of Christ is sufficient payment for them all.

Well, under this paradigm, I take back what I said about the system being gamed. It wouldn't be necessary, as sin plays no role in punishment or reward once one is saved.

So I guess the winning play is "get saved quickly", and whatever happens after that is kosher.

You continue to fail to see that just because something is possible that does not necessitate it is moral.

What a bloody stupid system, it's worse than I thought. Get saved then go on a 90 year murder rampage and still get a cheap seat in heaven. Now that's morality.

Why would you go on a 90 year murder rampage? Because you can? I could also go on a 90 year habitat for humanity home building spree. Why not do that?

What a bloody stupid system, it's worse than I thought. Get saved then go on a 90 year murder rampage and still get a cheap seat in heaven. Now that's morality.

I anticipate a response along the lines of "but you wouldn't do that if you were saved", but that has no bearing on whether or not you can. And so far as I can tell, it's just an assertion that isn't backed by anything other than a desire to not let all the Hitlers into heaven. Most Christians see the problem with that, even if their system doesn't.

Despite a law, a person can still do the opposite of a law. Therefore laws are worthless as a moral system. No one lives as if this is true.