The Christian God incentivizes the wrong things

[RobbyPants]

Repentance is followed by regeneration not continued sin.

Yeah, but it's still possible to sin, repent, and then sin again, even if you had no intention to do so at the time of repentance. My premise doesn't require the person to plan on sinning. Part of Christian doctrine is that you will keep on sinning. You just need to be contrite.

That being said, you can do some terrible things multiple times in there and still get to heaven, so long as you say the right magic words. If, however, you do mostly good things, don't do anything too atrocious, and neglect to say those magic words... it's off to hell!

The actual punishment and reward system has nothing to do with moral or immoral acts; it has to do with swearing the proper oath of fealty and that is it.

Secondly, intellectual understanding fails without a change of heart which happens at a higher level than mere belief.

I'm not sure what this means.

[ThePinsir]

If they get too out of line you can always open the dam and flood the whole place, too.

You can have them conquer neighboring nations and enslave their people.

You get to demand 10% of their income.

Sounds legit lol.

[Rampant.A.I.]

Repentance is followed by regeneration not continued sin.

Yeah, but it's still possible to sin, repent, and then sin again, even if you had no intention to do so at the time of repentance. My premise doesn't require the person to plan on sinning. Part of Christian doctrine is that you will keep on sinning. You just need to be contrite.

That being said, you can do some terrible things multiple times in there and still get to heaven, so long as you say the right magic words. If, however, you do mostly good things, don't do anything too atrocious, and neglect to say those magic words... it's off to hell!

The actual punishment and reward system has nothing to do with moral or immoral acts; it has to do with swearing the proper oath of fealty and that is it.

Secondly, intellectual understanding fails without a change of heart which happens at a higher level than mere belief.

I'm not sure what this means.

I'll tell you exactly what it means:

[Neo-Scholastic]

...it's still possible to sin, repent, and then sin again... Part of Christian doctrine is that you will keep on sinning.

According to many Christians that is the case, but not all. In New Church doctrine repentance means to turn away from sin and not return to it. There are no 'magic words' and its more than just feeling regret full. Your whole being must change such that sin becomes aborant to you. What I meant earlier is that there are three degrees of repentance: a permanent change of heart, renewal of the mind, and manifest action.

[Lek]

Imagine I start a country and have the ability enforce my will. In my country, I create various laws. I say it is illegal to do certain things like murder, steal, rape, and lie. I also say that you have to swear allegiance to me. Now, if you swear allegiance, you get all the benefits of a citizen of my country (and we'll assume my country is pretty rad), but if you don't, I lock you in a dungeon for the rest of your days and have you tortured. No takesies backsies, either. You stay in there until you die. As for the punishments for the other crimes (murder, theft, etc)... there are none. If I walk down the street and see you killing a guy, I'd say "Hey, that's illegal!", and when you ask me what I'm going to do about it, I'd say "Nothing!", and presumably make sure you swore allegiance to me.

And that's the punishment and reward system that Christianity gives us (well, except the rape part. They don't explicitly forbid that).

How many orphanages do you have to build or lives do you have to save to get into heaven? How many to stay out of hell? There is no answer, because that's not part of the criteria. How many living babies do you have to eat before you won't get let into heaven? Again, there is no answer. Baby-eaters that swear the proper oath of fealty before they die get eternal reward, and orphanage builders who didn't swear the oath because it didn't make sense (or, even worse, they were raised in the wrong religion!) get tortured for eternity. There's no accountability, other than that you'd better swear your oath before you unexpectedly get hit by a truck, or something. Even then, you can can swear the oath, sin, repent, sin, repent, ad infinitum.

The best counter I've seen to this is the No True Scotsman of "Well, a true Christian wouldn't be bad like that", but that's just a nebulous claim to try to remove the obvious abuses. There's no basis for it other than that it makes people uncomfortable to think about, so they assume there must be something God does to try to sync his punishment/reward system with something more sane that we might actually expect.

Christians are punished the same way as non-christians. They go to jail. get the death penaly, are fined, etc. Look at the punishments for the Jews under the old testament law - pretty tough. An atheist who commits crimes all his life and dies without being caught also "gets away with murder". As far as those who sinned all their lives and truly repented before death - that's the benefit of Jesus paying the penalty for us. Repentance is available to everybody equally, including athiests. Of course, for someone who plans to be a criminal all his life and repent at the last minute, that doesn't pass because that's not true repentance.

[truthBtold]

Imagine I start a country and have the ability enforce my will. In my country, I create various laws. I say it is illegal to do certain things like murder, steal, rape, and lie. I also say that you have to swear allegiance to me. Now, if you swear allegiance, you get all the benefits of a citizen of my country (and we'll assume my country is pretty rad), but if you don't, I lock you in a dungeon for the rest of your days and have you tortured. No takesies backsies, either. You stay in there until you die. As for the punishments for the other crimes (murder, theft, etc)... there are none. If I walk down the street and see you killing a guy, I'd say "Hey, that's illegal!", and when you ask me what I'm going to do about it, I'd say "Nothing!", and presumably make sure you swore allegiance to me.

And that's the punishment and reward system that Christianity gives us (well, except the rape part. They don't explicitly forbid that).

How many orphanages do you have to build or lives do you have to save to get into heaven? How many to stay out of hell? There is no answer, because that's not part of the criteria. How many living babies do you have to eat before you won't get let into heaven? Again, there is no answer. Baby-eaters that swear the proper oath of fealty before they die get eternal reward, and orphanage builders who didn't swear the oath because it didn't make sense (or, even worse, they were raised in the wrong religion!) get tortured for eternity. There's no accountability, other than that you'd better swear your oath before you unexpectedly get hit by a truck, or something. Even then, you can can swear the oath, sin, repent, sin, repent, ad infinitum.

The best counter I've seen to this is the No True Scotsman of "Well, a true Christian wouldn't be bad like that", but that's just a nebulous claim to try to remove the obvious abuses. There's no basis for it other than that it makes people uncomfortable to think about, so they assume there must be something God does to try to sync his punishment/reward system with something more sane that we might actually expect.

Christians are punished the same way as non-christians. They go to jail. get the death penaly, are fined, etc. Look at the punishments for the Jews under the old testament law - pretty tough. An atheist who commits crimes all his life and dies without being caught also "gets away with murder". As far as those who sinned all their lives and truly repented before death - that's the benefit of Jesus paying the penalty for us. Repentance is available to everybody equally, including athiests. Of course, for someone who plans to be a criminal all his life and repent at the last minute, that doesn't pass because that's not true repentance.

How do u know its not true repentance at the last minute? R u saying god knows this? Then he knows from the beginning that I think hes a jerk off.. and I was dammed from the beginning of time..

[Esquilax]

...it's still possible to sin, repent, and then sin again... Part of Christian doctrine is that you will keep on sinning.

According to many Christians that is the case, but not all. In New Church doctrine repentance means to turn away from sin and not return to it. There are no 'magic words' and its more than just feeling regret full. Your whole being must change such that sin becomes aborant to you. What I meant earlier is that there are three degrees of repentance: a permanent change of heart, renewal of the mind, and manifest action.

Wouldn't this mean that it's possible not to sin at all, and therefore to be required to offer no repentance? One could just stroll straight from birth to the pearly gates without ever believing in god, under that logic.

Ah, but you're probably going to say that not believing in god is a sin, which rather renders your objection to the idea that we aren't required to only swear fealty to god (and feel really sorry for our thoughtcrimes! ) in order to be saved moot.

[Jackalope]

...it's still possible to sin, repent, and then sin again... Part of Christian doctrine is that you will keep on sinning.

According to many Christians that is the case, but not all. In New Church doctrine repentance means to turn away from sin and not return to it.

That may be the case, Chad, but you very well know that the "New Church" represents a tiny minority of Christian theology.

[Lek]

Wouldn't this mean that it's possible not to sin at all, and therefore to be required to offer no repentance? One could just stroll straight from birth to the pearly gates without ever believing in god, under that logic.

According to the bible, we all sin.

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The actual punishment and reward system has nothing to do with moral or immoral acts; it has to do with swearing the proper oath of fealty and that is it.

That's not true. There is punishment for sins, but if you are in Christ then your sins are covered by his sacrifice. It's also true that we often sincerely repent and sin again, but the truly repentant person will be bent on living a lilfe for God even though at times he may slip up. It's not about swearing an oath of fealty. Call it that if you want. It's about realizing our sinfulness, giving ourselves to God and trusting in him for our salvation. If we give ourselves to God, it will show in the way we live our lives. If we say we've given ourselves to him and we purposely continue to sin, then we've never repented in the first place. If you're a believer it will show in your life; if it doesn't show, I'd seriously doubt that you are.

[Ryantology]

According to many Christians that is the case, but not all. In New Church doctrine repentance means to turn away from sin and not return to it.

That may be the case, Chad, but you very well know that the "New Church" represents a tiny minority of Christian theology.

If there are any Christians who agree with what any particular Christian says at any given moment, it just proves that particular Christian's objectively factual understanding of everything.