One thing that close to all Christians have in common is that they believe that we have a free will. They say that God created all humans and gave them free will, allowing them to choose how they want to live their lives. After your life has ended, God will take a look at how you decided to live your life and will determine whether you deserve to live in heaven or hell for an eternity. And due to your free will, you would have no one but yourself to blame for entering hell (or heaven, depending on your preferences).

Now, let's create a hypothetical scenario: One kid is raised in a "godless" family, and is experiencing a perfectly decent upbringing. He is somewhat aware of how God supposedly works and knows some basic lines of the Bible. His parents though are strictly nonreligious and ridicules everything regarding religion on a daily basis whenever they have the chance. This obviously has a strong influence on the kid's views on religion and believers, resulting in him more or less copying their views on the matter. The neighborhood however is strictly religious, resulting in several neighbors reporting the kid's parents for child abuse, fearing that further 'mistreatment' may cause him to be more easily tempted by the devil in the future (or, alternatively, fearing that he will have a more difficult time to connect with God), thus increasing the odds of the kid (and his future relatives) entering hell after death. The social services happens to be controlled by strict believers as well, and in the end they decide that the kid will be taken away from his parents and be put in a more religious environment. Now, let's take a look at the possible outcomes:

Result 1 - Whether the kid eventually enters heaven or hell is affected by this decision

This means that thanks to the social services' actions, the kid became influenced by its new and more religious environment, and eventually ended up in heaven as a result. He decided to put his lack of faith behind, and started a new life. Had the social services not taken action, then the kid would not have ended up in heaven since he would have made different decisions in life without this new influence. (Note: In an alternative scenario he might as well be mistreated and chances of entering hell increases instead.)

Result 2 - Whether the kid eventually enters heaven or hell is unaffected by this decision

This means that taking the kid away from his parents does not have any effect at all on whether he enters heaven or hell when he dies. In the end, it all comes down to the actual free parts of his will, while opinions and unconscious actions based on the many outer influences (in this case, influences by an upbringing in a religious environment) are completely disregarded since he had no control over them.

In case you haven't already noticed it yourself, here is the flaw that I find in all this: The first result suggests that teaching a child about Christianity increases its chances of entering heaven. The free will does not have full control of whether you enter heaven or hell, and outer influences will affect where you end up in your afterlife, thus giving an unfair disadvantage to those not exposed to proper Christian teachings. An important conclusion that one may draw here is that the more countries/people that would be properly educated about Christianity, the more people would go to heaven. In other words: Their (the non-/false believers') free will does not have full control over their final destination, but are directly affected by the "proper" believers' free wills. Again, this is unfair.

The second result suggests that outer influences has no effect on whether you end up in heaven or hell at all. No teachings gained from outer influences can be accounted for since they have no effect on your actual free will. If they did, then that would suggest that people with "better" outer influences (which they obviously have no control over) would also have a better chance of entering heaven, which would be an unfair advantage. An important conclusion that one may draw at this point is that all religious practicing might as well be disregarded since they will not affect your chances of entering heaven anyway. In other words: Religious practicing would be pointless.

And there you have it. Thoughts?

naimisharanya has removed this post for the sake of keeping the peace.

;)

This depends vastly on your interpretation of who is allowed into heaven or not. If belief in Jesus alone is the only means of entry, then yeah, your fate depends on luck (whether you're ever exposed to Christianity) in spite of your free will, yet under the system where those who lead a Christian life whatever they actually profess gain entry into heaven would validate free will.

Either way, it's not a fundamental flaw of "Christianity" as a whole. If i could be so bold as to make a claim, the coming of the Holy Spirit through Pentecost was the instance that gave the whole of humanity the capacity to be Christian (whether or not they'd received the word, they had received the spirit), so it fixes that problem.

(note that i'm an agnostic with a moral system that isn't spiritually-grounded).

It's not like your even using actual theological principles to base your arguments on. It's as much "Christian" as 'What the Bleep Do We Know' is "Quantum Physics".

It just isn't.

Not to mention that this CAN'T end well.

Why don't you rather make a Richard Dawkins appreciation thread? Wasn't the South Park episode enough? Oh, no wait - they totally ripped on him and fucked Mr.Garrison in the... whatever he has.

Anyways, surely a analytically minded, intelligent person like yourself knows there's no point to this thread?

I can't understand why it's always this type of threads against Christianity. Do you get points in your atheist fanclub for every thread you make?

Thanks! :D

Also, I'm just expressing my views in the OP. If people have different views and disagree with it that simply makes discussion more interesting. If people (such as yourself) find the topic boring or pointless they don't need to participate in the first place.

Indeed I do. One letter in the OP equals precisely 0.1 points.

Fair enough. I'll remove my first post since it may spoil the spirit of the thread.

Then you should have won the Scrabble game.

ShhhHHHH! Let them have their fun.