(March 15, 2015 at 12:45 am)Spooky Wrote:(March 15, 2015 at 12:36 am)The Reality Salesman Wrote: ...and this is all just a little TOO convenient. These details give me the sneaking suspicion that somebody's been making shit up.
Why else would mere Doubt be a sin?
In the interest of anticipating oncoming objections, some of the more experienced apologists will say that doubt is essential to faith. This is normally when the word "faith" becomes void of any traditional religious meaning though. There seems to be two kinds of religious people:
1) Godschild type
2)Chadwhooters type
1) The Godschild type may or may not admit that they have regularly doubted their beliefs but the majority of them will speak of their knowledge of God with absolute certainty. This is what leads to their terrible arguments. They more often appeal to literal readings of the text and then they use them to make specific claims. This kind of Christian uses the word "faith" exclusively to justify their certainty which is what makes their arguments such easy targets for refutation. These people do not understand altruism, they are selfish and fearful people who do what they do out of either fear of hell or hopes of reward. They enjoy the idea of a literal hell for nonbelievers and are oblivious to glaring inconsistencies within their worldview. The GC type depend on arguments that mainly beg questions rather than answering them.
2) The Chad Whooters lot are a much rarer breed. Don't expect them to attach themselves to any one definition of faith. They often use it interchangeably with belief and do not mind admitting doubt. Their arguments are more aimed at shifting the burden of proof. They have used God as the ultimate gap filler. They assert without batting an eye that their God gives them justification to use conclusions derived from logic and morality because unlike Atheists, they KNOW that God is the source of those things and so those sorts of questions should not be thought about by those who believe in God. They ignore their burden to prove that and spend their time insisting that they've won the arguments over Gods existence unless Atheists can give them an answer they like better. These types of Christians do not really argue for any type of Christianity that can be understood by reading the doctrine. They interpret the bible very liberally as they go and when objections to the text are raised, don't expect them to answer those objections honestly. They will make things up with Ad Hoc nonsense that are no where to be found in the bible. While you can have much more productive and intelligent conversations with this type of Christian with most other subjects, when it comes to God, they will abandon their otherwise lucid attitudes toward reality begin painting a very abstract picture of God that is so subjective that it cannot be distinguished from a preference in ice cream. Their belief in God is as real as the belief that chocolate is better than vanilla. I'm not saying that the object of their belief is as real as chocolate or vanilla, only that their God is real insofar as they hold the belief that it is. Their God exists within the subjective parameters of their own mind which is why their answers will never prove convincing for anyone else.
