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Forums - General Discussion - Why Christianity is Fundamentally Flawed

IIIIITHE1IIIII on 30 December 2012
sperrico87 said:
IIIIITHE1IIIII said:

A good Christian wouldn't call social services on a child raised by non-religious parents.  That is both sinful and wrong, and I don't know any Christians who would do that to someone.  To me, this assumption suggests you haven't been around very many Christians.  Even with non-religious parents, it is perfectly possible for the child to find God in his own way, and parents being non-religious is totally and completely irrelevant to the upbringing of the child.

Secondly, it is highly unlikely that the social services case worker(s) would be religious.  It's a government job employing mostly college-educated single women in largely urban areas, thus it is far morely likely the case workers are either Atheist, non-religious, or non-denominational.

Lastly, at least in Catholocism, you don't need to be baptised or practicing to be assured you'll get into purgatory or heaven.  The way most religions work, people who are unable to join a Christian faith either because they live in a Communist society, or a tribal society with no knowledge of Christianity, they would be judged solely on the way in which they lived, not punished due to their ignorance.  They would essentially be given a pass, unless they commited murder or something terrible like that, and had no remorse for their sins.


You are well aware that the social services scenario was simply made up from the top of my head. It doesn't need to be a likely scenario, all it needed to be was an example where external influences affected a persons future actions, in which case God either would or would not allow those external influences to affect his odds of entering heaven or hell.

Your last paragraph is dealt with in "Result 2" in the OP, where it says that external influences (such as not having the opportunity to choose to follow God) won't be considered.



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IIIIITHE1IIIII on 30 December 2012
mrstickball said:
You may want to study the Bible before stating flaws that do not exist.

You argue that free will really has no play in scenario 1, because external situations influenced a person's decision. Yet, the reality is that God knows the heart of the child, regardless of his upbringing and how his will was or was not involved in a decision.

Romans 9:

14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.

Therefore, God knows the true intentions of the child, and makes the value judgment, not you nor I. So what is the power of telling a person about Jesus? The goal is to allow everyone to make a decision, one way or another, if they would accept a relationship with Jesus. So that their free will is expressed at some point. What if its never expressed? Then the argument defaults back on Romans 9 and countless other verses that shows us that God is the ultimate judge of a persons' life and lifestyle, and no one else.


I take it you believe that "Result 2" is how God deals with the situation. The person's free will/"true intentions" is what really matters. In this, you admit that religious practicing is a pointless act. You can pray all you want and go to church as much as you'd like, but it would not matter as long as you are "evil at heart", so to say.

" So what is the power of telling a person about Jesus? The goal is to allow everyone to make a decision, one way or another, if they would accept a relationship with Jesus. So that their free will is expressed at some point."

I guess this is your argument for why religious practicing and spreading your one true belief is a good thing? It doesn't really disprove the flaws that I mentioned in the last two paragraphs in the OP: If converting others (including your offspring) increases their chances of entering heaven, that means those that you choose not to teach about your beliefs will have an unfair disadvantage. If converting others will not affect their chances of entering heaven, then why bother converting them in the first place?



mrstickball on 30 December 2012
IIIIITHE1IIIII said:
mrstickball said:
You may want to study the Bible before stating flaws that do not exist.

You argue that free will really has no play in scenario 1, because external situations influenced a person's decision. Yet, the reality is that God knows the heart of the child, regardless of his upbringing and how his will was or was not involved in a decision.

Romans 9:

14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.

Therefore, God knows the true intentions of the child, and makes the value judgment, not you nor I. So what is the power of telling a person about Jesus? The goal is to allow everyone to make a decision, one way or another, if they would accept a relationship with Jesus. So that their free will is expressed at some point. What if its never expressed? Then the argument defaults back on Romans 9 and countless other verses that shows us that God is the ultimate judge of a persons' life and lifestyle, and no one else.


I take it you believe that "Result 2" is how God deals with the situation. The person's free will/"true intentions" is what really matters. In this, you admit that religious practicing is a pointless act. You can pray all you want and go to church as much as you'd like, but it would not matter as long as you are "evil at heart", so to say.

" So what is the power of telling a person about Jesus? The goal is to allow everyone to make a decision, one way or another, if they would accept a relationship with Jesus. So that their free will is expressed at some point."

I guess this is your argument for why religious practicing and spreading your one true belief is a good thing? It doesn't really disprove the flaws that I mentioned in the last two paragraphs in the OP: If converting others (including your offspring) increases their chances of entering heaven, that means those that you choose not to teach about your beliefs will have an unfair disadvantage. If converting others will not affect their chances of entering heaven, then why bother converting them in the first place?

You're forgetting the part where in option 2 he could have rejected God. Salvation isn't up to good works, its up to a relationship with Jesus. If a person has no knowledge of Jesus, its entirely up to God's mercy. Therefore, a relationship with Jesus Christ is assurance of what will happen. Without Jesus, there is no guarentee - that is why its so critical to tell people about Jesus.

Outside of that, why be religious? The goal of a proper relationship with Jesus is a far more beneficial life than without Him. A relationship with Jesus doesn't mean you'll have a perfect life, but one far more beneficial than without God. The Bible contains many promises about what one may benefit from God in this world - love, joy, peace, patience, and other virtues. Yes, those can be attained without God, but with God they come into something far greater than what one may know of outside of a relationship with Jesus.



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

Majora on 30 December 2012

When I was 8, I was at the beach with my dad. I was playing in the sea on a body board. I didn't notice that the tide was rather quickly pulling out, dragging a lot of sand with it from under my feet. I only realised how far out I was when my dad called to me to come back but I couldn't. I panicked, and as the tide started going out even further, I too could not stop myself from going with it. I was terrified. I remember that day quite clearly. I remember I started to say the Hail Mary, both in my head and trying to say the words even though I could hardly speak as the water filled my mouth and I was further thrown into panic. I remember praying with all my light and reaching out to God and Mary. I also remember being washed up on shore. I was saved.

I am now an atheist. So I genuinely would like an answer - if life is mapped out for you by god and he knows what will happen, why did he save me only for me to become an atheist, and by extension send me to hell? That seems neither right not fair and certainly not a god I would want to believe in.



IIIIITHE1IIIII on 30 December 2012
mrstickball said:

IIIIITHE1IIIII said:

You're forgetting the part where in option 2 he could have rejected God. Salvation isn't up to good works, its up to a relationship with Jesus. If a person has no knowledge of Jesus, its entirely up to God's mercy. Therefore, a relationship with Jesus Christ is assurance of what will happen. Without Jesus, there is no guarentee - that is why its so critical to tell people about Jesus.

Outside of that, why be religious? The goal of a proper relationship with Jesus is a far more beneficial life than without Him. A relationship with Jesus doesn't mean you'll have a perfect life, but one far more beneficial than without God. The Bible contains many promises about what one may benefit from God in this world - love, joy, peace, patience, and other virtues. Yes, those can be attained without God, but with God they come into something far greater than what one may know of outside of a relationship with Jesus.


Except that "option 2" (assuming you're talking about "Result 2") did not account for any outer influences, which includes religious practicing, your upbringing, etc. It cannot do that since outer influences evidently affects your free will and your decisions in life. What really matters is "Your heart", as many believers call it. This is why "Result 2" suggests that religious practicing essentially is pointless; it does not change your heart, and it will not increase your chances of entering heaven.

Only "Result 1" suggests that outer influences should be accounted for, thus giving those with "Worse" outer influences an unfair disadvantage, making them less likely to enter heaven. Note that those two are the only possible results. God either does or does not account for outer influences (i.e. how other persons' actions and random events have affected you).

 

"Outside of that, why be religious? The goal of a proper relationship with Jesus is a far more beneficial life than without Him. A relationship with Jesus doesn't mean you'll have a perfect life, but one far more beneficial than without God. The Bible contains many promises about what one may benefit from God in this world - love, joy, peace, patience, and other virtues. Yes, those can be attained without God, but with God they come into something far greater than what one may know of outside of a relationship with Jesus."

So all you are basically saying here is that those who are exposed to and start believing in God/Jesus/Christianity during their lifetimes will have more "beneficial" lives? Well, the same can be said about people who are born with rich parents; they will also have more beneficial lives. If practicing the Christian faith evidently makes people happier then yes, that's fairly good reason for people to practise this faith. But the flaws in the only two possible results remain.



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Player1x3 on 31 December 2012
IIIIITHE1IIIII said:
Player1x3 said:

Wow, you're really insanely obsessed with Christianity, aren't you? You talk about it waay more than any christian person here does.

You need to get out of your head the idea that we aren't some monkeys in a circus or puppets that are being controlled by the environment. You need to realize that people ARE ABLE to to make their own mind and create their own personalities DESPITE their environment and circumstances. Humans aren't the shallow, naive and weak pussies as you make them to be. They don't necessarily bow to the situation they find themselves in, spread their ass cheeks and say ''well, it's not my fault i turned out like this'. Some people are actually able to take credit and responsibility for their actions and say ' i did/caused this myself, and i made this out of myself BECAUSE of myself'. Now, of course, you ACTUALLY being the type of people you describe in your threads, you can't possibly understand that concept, because you've probably been taught to think like that by your society. (aka Sweden, where everybody pretends everybody is super nice and good, and the minute something goes wrong, you start blaming the environment, childhood, family and other bullshit aspects, because you know, the individual can't possibly have any responsibility)

You use the same arguments to defend convicts as well (rapists, murderers, thieves etc), the good old ''they were influenced by the events in their lives, so they had no control of what those events could lead them into doing'' Bullshit. You can find the examples where the kids from richest families, nicest parents and who had every tool possible for succses in the world still turned out to be complete failures and fuck ups life. And you can also find examples where people from the dirtiest slums of India managed to become successful and respected lawyers, engineers, programmers etc...

Your society, environment, and circumstances of your life do not even remotely defiy your free will. If you really want something, you're gonna get it despite the challenges you face. We can control on how we turn out to be because of the free will. We can choose not to bow to the difficulties and situations.

To specifically answer to the OP, the result 2 is the correct one. The kid entering the heaven will be unaffected by that decision. A pathway to heaven is mostly a personal struggle, traditional religious practicing isn't necessary for it. That depends of course on how you define that. If you say following the specific morals of a religion, i'd probably agree with, but lots of morals aren't exclusive to one religion, so it wouldn't really matter if you pray to Krishna, Allah or Christ, as long as you practice the right morals. I believe that's how you 'get into heaven'. I believe heaven is a metaphor for peace in afterlife with God, and that can be only achieved with what i've described above IMO. So whether that God is called Krishna, Allah or Christ is irrelevant as long as you're in 'heaven'. And that's what religious practice is, IMO


I'm going to focus on this part since the rest has already been discussed in one of my previous threads. (Though for those who are interested, here it is: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=144832&page=1 )

I used to have the very same (or at the very least extremely similar) views during my last days as a Christian. Namely that it doesn't really matter what you believe: As long as you are a good person you will enter heaven. And well, to this very day I don't care about what people believe in as long as they are good persons. This thread was simply made to discuss what I consider a major flaw in Christianity regarding free will. Some agree, others disagree. That is what makes discussion possible.

If you agree that the "second result" in the OP indeed indicates that whatever religious practicing or lack of religious practicing you choose to follow doesn't matter as long as you try your best to be a good person, there there is nothing more to discuss. We'd simply agree.

Like I said before, it really depends on how you define religious practicing. For me personally, going to church for example every Sunday isnt really a religious practicing. Its more like religious worship or religious study IMO.

But I dont see how the second result points out the flaw in Christianity in any way, really.



Player1x3 on 31 December 2012
IIIIITHE1IIIII said:
phonyuser said:
to answer the OP questions. its rather simple, how u are brought up in life doesn't matter. whether its christian or atheist or whatever else. when you become an adult that knows right from wrong you and you alone must choose to believe in Jesus christ, that he died for your sins and accept him as your lord and savior. you don't earn a place in heaven its a free gift from God. this is where free will comes in, God gave us a choice to believe in him or not. up to you. any more questions feel free to ask.


You can't seriously believe that 99% of the adult population in the Middle East use their free will to believe in Islam, or that ~70% of all Americans use their free will to choose to believe in the Christian God and Jesus as their savior though. Environmental factors simply cannot be overlooked.

Your upbringing can shape major parts of your opinions and beliefs even after you are an adult.

So how come you're an atheist if your family is Christian?



Player1x3 on 31 December 2012
KungKras said:
Player1x3 said:

Wow, you're really insanely obsessed with Christianity, aren't you? You talk about it waay more than any christian person here does.

You need to get out of your head the idea that we aren't some monkeys in a circus or puppets that are being controlled by the environment. You need to realize that people ARE ABLE to to make their own mind and create their own personalities DESPITE their environment and circumstances. Humans aren't the shallow, naive and weak pussies as you make them to be. They don't necessarily bow to the situation they find themselves in, spread their ass cheeks and say ''well, it's not my fault i turned out like this'. Some people are actually able to take credit and responsibility for their actions and say ' i did/caused this myself, and i made this out of myself BECAUSE of myself'. Now, of course, you ACTUALLY being the type of people you describe in your threads, you can't possibly understand that concept, because you've probably been taught to think like that by your society. (aka Sweden, where everybody pretends everybody is super nice and good, and the minute something goes wrong, you start blaming the environment, childhood, family and other bullshit aspects, because you know, the individual can't possibly have any responsibility)

You use the same arguments to defend convicts as well (rapists, murderers, thieves etc), the good old ''they were influenced by the events in their lives, so they had no control of what those events could lead them into doing'' Bullshit. You can find the examples where the kids from richest families, nicest parents and who had every tool possible for succses in the world still turned out to be complete failures and fuck ups life. And you can also find examples where people from the dirtiest slums of India managed to become successful and respected lawyers, engineers, programmers etc...

Your society, environment, and circumstances of your life do not even remotely defiy your free will. If you really want something, you're gonna get it despite the challenges you face. We can control on how we turn out to be because of the free will. We can choose not to bow to the difficulties and situations.

To specifically answer to the OP, the result 2 is the correct one. The kid entering the heaven will be unaffected by that decision. A pathway to heaven is mostly a personal struggle, traditional religious practicing isn't necessary for it. That depends of course on how you define that. If you say following the specific morals of a religion, i'd probably agree with, but lots of morals aren't exclusive to one religion, so it wouldn't really matter if you pray to Krishna, Allah or Christ, as long as you practice the right morals. I believe that's how you 'get into heaven'. I believe heaven is a metaphor for peace in afterlife with God, and that can be only achieved with what i've described above IMO. So whether that God is called Krishna, Allah or Christ is irrelevant as long as you're in 'heaven'. And that's what religious practice is, IMO

Just one question. Have you actually looked at statistics, or are just one counter-example enough for you?

Statistics wouldnt disprove my point. 1 person is enough to prove me right. What matters is that there is always a way for people to succeed, not the actual rate of sucess. 



dsgrue3 on 31 December 2012

Interesting.

An omniscient being judges you based upon how you lived your life?

LMFAO so illogical! He would already have knowledge of your every decision from birth to death.



RenderMonk on 31 December 2012

It's a shame people take this so lightly. Some of the reply's to the OP are just plain mockery. Here you have someone legitimately laying out their delima, and you have nothing more constructive to add than "ShhhHHHH! Let them have their fun." or "Then you should have won the Scrabble game." If you have nothing constructive to contribute, than be an onlooker. Don't tack on your useless drivel of a comment, just because the topic makes you uncomfortable.

To the OP, I'm really sorry to hear that situation is one you (or a friend) is afflicted with. The truth of the matter is that professing with your mouth, and believing in your heart that Jesus is Lord, is the only way to heaven. Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, and the life, none shall reach the father (being God) accept through me. We were never told that this life would be easy, that's a common misconception. In fact, he tells us that as our relationship with him grows deeper, the more persecution will befall us. That's in part to do with the spiritual warfare going on around us everyday, and in part because of the sinful world we live in (and the sinful people that live in it).

Take this as an opportunity to witness to your parents, and use the support of your neighbors that are around you to keep you strong. I know it's easy to say something like that, when I'm not in your shoes, but believe me, we all face trials and tribulations, it's how we handle them that produce character and faith.

A good verse for you to learn and carry with you may be from the book of James Chapter 1 verses 2-3 "Consider it pure joy my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds. Because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance."

We are given free will to choose. God is a fair and just and almighty God. Trust that he loves you. You cannot get to heaven by works (being a good person). Read your Bible daily and spend as much time as you can with your neighbors that support you. Pray for wisdom and strength, and God will reveal to you the way to reach your parents. Don't despair, you'd be surprised at how the Lord can work in peoples lives, and just when you least expect it, something miraculous will happen in your life/situations. Bless you, and I'll remember to pray for you.