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Forums - General Discussion - Why Christianity is Fundamentally Flawed

IIIIITHE1IIIII on 31 December 2012
DaRev said:
IIIIITHE1IIIII said:

One thing that close to all Christians have in common is that they all 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.

Right off the bat, in the statement above, youu have errored. Not all Christians believe we have fee will. For example, Calvinists (Calvinism) don't believe in free will, and they are a lot of Christians that don't believe in free will. Sorry I didn't read the rest of the OP since right from the begining you errored like most non-Christians do when trying to undertsnad Christianity from their own mind or life experience without actaully relying on any proper Christian source.


I never said that all Christians believe in free will. I said "close to all", and that is quite understandable since we supposedly are free to choose whether we want to believe in God's existence or not.

Heck, I used to be a Christian who didn't believe in free will.



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dsgrue3 on 31 December 2012
DaRev said:
dsgrue3 said:
DaRev said:
IIIIITHE1IIIII said:

One thing that close to all Christians have in common is that they all 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.

Right off the bat, in the statement above, youu have errored. Not all Christians believe we have fee will. For example, Calvinists (Calvinism) don't believe in free will, and they are a lot of Christians that don't believe in free will. Sorry I didn't read the rest of the OP since right from the begining you errored like most non-Christians do when trying to undertsnad Christianity from their own mind or life experience without actaully relying on any proper Christian source.

lol you don't believe in free will? 

I believe in free will, but many Christians don't. So, right from the beginning the OP is wrong.

Free will is practically an axiom, Calvinism sounds hilarious.



Torillian on 31 December 2012
DaRev said:
dsgrue3 said:
DaRev said:
IIIIITHE1IIIII said:

One thing that close to all Christians have in common is that they all 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.

Right off the bat, in the statement above, youu have errored. Not all Christians believe we have fee will. For example, Calvinists (Calvinism) don't believe in free will, and they are a lot of Christians that don't believe in free will. Sorry I didn't read the rest of the OP since right from the begining you errored like most non-Christians do when trying to undertsnad Christianity from their own mind or life experience without actaully relying on any proper Christian source.

lol you don't believe in free will? 

I believe in free will, but many Christians don't. So, right from the beginning the OP is wrong.

He said "close to all" and you showed one variety out of many that doesn't.  Doesn't that equate to "close to all"?  I think to prove the OP wrong you'd have to do more than just give an example of one group that doesn't, you'd have to show statistics on the percentage of christians that don't and then we'd have to agree on what "close to all" equates to.  



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appolose on 31 December 2012
appolose said:

IIIIITHE1IIIII said:

 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 ultimately be pointless.

 

This, my fellow VGCharterz, makes no sense to me.

I think the first result may actually not be as unfair as it seems.

While I agree that, if we assume that external factors can influence free will, a person mightmake the choice to be saved or not based on the information he is again, I do not think that means it was unfair.  A Christian viewpoint of free will one might have is that, while desires or motivations can make a choice more easy or difficult, free will is ultimately responsible.  That is, no matter the pressure or temptation to make a decision, a free-willed person can still go the other direction.  Therefore, if someone has at least the choice to be saved available to them at all, then they have enough.  That some other person might have more motivation to make the better choice does not lift responsibility from him. 


I'll just quote myself here, for noticing sake.



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IIIIITHE1IIIII on 31 December 2012
appolose said:
appolose said:

IIIIITHE1IIIII said:

 

I think the first result may actually not be as unfair as it seems.

While I agree that, if we assume that external factors can influence free will, a person mightmake the choice to be saved or not based on the information he is again, I do not think that means it was unfair.  A Christian viewpoint of free will one might have is that, while desires or motivations can make a choice more easy or difficult, free will is ultimately responsible.  That is, no matter the pressure or temptation to make a decision, a free-willed person can still go the other direction.  Therefore, if someone has at least the choice to be saved available to them at all, then they have enough.  That some other person might have more motivation to make the better choice does not lift responsibility from him. 


I'll just quote myself here, for noticing sake.


"That some other person might have more motivation to make the better choice does not lift responsibility from him."


This is the problem I see in your argument. Why would you not judge a person who had more motivation to make the better choice differently from another person who had less motivation?

Let's say that there is a maniac holding innocent people hostage. If all one person need to do to save five complete strangers from certain death is to throw a cat off a cliff, while another person need to cut the throat of another innocent man, I would understand if only the first person would do the right thing and save as many humans as possible.

The decision was clearly tougher for the second person, and not taking the circumstances into account would be cruel.



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appolose on 31 December 2012
IIIIITHE1IIIII said:
appolose said:
appolose said:


I'll just quote myself here, for noticing sake.


"That some other person might have more motivation to make the better choice does not lift responsibility from him."


This is the problem I see in your argument. Why would you not judge a person who had more motivation to make the better choice differently from another person who had less motivation?

Let's say that there is a maniac holding a family hostage. If all one person need to do to save five complete strangers from certain death is to throw a cat off a cliff, while another person need to cut the throat of another innocent man, I would understand if only the first person would do the right thing and save as many humans as possible.

The decision was clearly tougher for the second person, and not taking the circumstances into account would be cruel.

The idea is that, all circumstances considered, there is still an undeniable knowledge of what should be done.  Certainly, some choices are drastically more difficult than others, but if the person still could have done the right thing despite what he was up against, than he still has responsibility (I posit).



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To lavish praise upon this title, the assumption of a common plateau between player and game must be made.  I won't open my unworthy mouth.

Christian (+50).  Arminian(+20). AG adherent(+20). YEC(+20). Pre-tribulation Pre-milleniumist (+10).  Republican (+15) Capitalist (+15).  Pro-Nintendo (+5).  Misc. stances (+30).  TOTAL SCORE: 195
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happydolphin on 31 December 2012

Given a context, the choices you make are merely a reflexion of the disposition of the heart. Even an atheist can display attitudes that please God.

Problem solved.

Basically, if a soul is meant to make it to the other side, God will make it happen for that soul to find its way. There is no hand of man that can control the work of God.

Nevertheless, it is a believer's calling to spread the gospel where he can, but ultimately salvation is God's work. The gospel in and of itself holds the power of salvation, without even being preached. The deed (death and sacrifice of Jesus) is done, the price is paid.



DaRev on 31 December 2012
Torillian said:
DaRev said:
dsgrue3 said:
DaRev said:
IIIIITHE1IIIII said:

One thing that close to all Christians have in common is that they all 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.

Right off the bat, in the statement above, youu have errored. Not all Christians believe we have fee will. For example, Calvinists (Calvinism) don't believe in free will, and they are a lot of Christians that don't believe in free will. Sorry I didn't read the rest of the OP since right from the begining you errored like most non-Christians do when trying to undertsnad Christianity from their own mind or life experience without actaully relying on any proper Christian source.

lol you don't believe in free will? 

I believe in free will, but many Christians don't. So, right from the beginning the OP is wrong.

He said "close to all" and you showed one variety out of many that doesn't.  Doesn't that equate to "close to all"?  I think to prove the OP wrong you'd have to do more than just give an example of one group that doesn't, you'd have to show statistics on the percentage of christians that don't and then we'd have to agree on what "close to all" equates to.  

He said the bold, " they all believe that we have a free will", error. Plus he is the one making the claim about "close to all" so let him show the numbers, cause as far as I know there are lots of Calvinists around, in fact I know a lot of them. In any event Calvinsts could make up 1/3 or even  HALF of Christians, cause you either believe in free will or you don't. Typical atheist post, i.e. not know anything except whats in your own head?



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Torillian on 31 December 2012
DaRev said:
Torillian said:

He said "close to all" and you showed one variety out of many that doesn't.  Doesn't that equate to "close to all"?  I think to prove the OP wrong you'd have to do more than just give an example of one group that doesn't, you'd have to show statistics on the percentage of christians that don't and then we'd have to agree on what "close to all" equates to.  

He said the bold, " they all believe that we have a free will", error. Plus he is the one making the claim about "close to all" so let him show the numbers, cause as far as I know there are lots of Calvinists around, in fact I know a lot of them. In any event Calvinsts could make up 1/3 or even  HALF of Christians, cause you either believe in free will or you don't. Typical atheist post, i.e. not know anything except whats in your own head?

THat's kind of a douchey response at the end there, but I'll attempt to continue without saying anything durogatory about the "typical christian post".

The fact that he said "they all believe that we have a free will" doesn't change that he said "close to all" before that, that's just how grammar works.  Now you can challenge his assessment but you should atleast come in with some numbers of some kind or it's just you trying to nitpick a post to get your rocks off.  

Mk, I'll do the work for you then.  If you trust Wikipedia, which is about as good a source as any I can find for this, there are 2.2 billion people that denote themselves as being christian, and there are 80 million who are members of the Calvonist church specifically.  Math says therefore that 96.36% of Christians aren't Calvonists and I think that's debatably "close to all"

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html in the religions section

http://web.archive.org/web/20110707005807/http://www.wcrc.ch/node/260

let me know if you know of any other sects that specifically do not believe in free will and I'll add them in and we'll see if you can get low enough that it isn't plausibly "close to all".

 



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KungKras on 01 January 2013

Also, DaRev, some people being calvinist doesn't help your case at all.

People being born that were destined to hell is a horribly unfair world view, so you really want it included in the discussion?



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