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I am religious and believe in free will

70 (27.6%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

113 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (24%)

Total Members Voted: 249

[Frumple]

I'm certainly a heretic for multiple reasons, at least according to the Roman Catholic Church

And something like 90% of protestant churches, heh. Probably like your version better than many, Arx, but I'm afraid you're definitely a radical that holds beliefs that are both significantly different from and strongly in contention with most christian believers (at least stateside ones, at the very least, though from what I understand it would be even worse in the growing areas). You probably would have been lynched or burnt to death _{if you were lucky} a century or two ago

-God's commandments cannot change because that would imply that God had changed his mind, if God changes his mind it exposes God as not omniscient, which we know must be impossible since God's word is perfect.

Not even remotely -- the new covenant should make that blatantly clear. The commandments are perfectly capable of changing, just as God's laws towards mankind can and have (and why the whole new covenant thing doesn't terrify the hell out of a lot of believers is something I have trouble wrapping my head around, some days) -- that doesn't mean its mind has changed, just that the time has come for a different part of its plan to be expressed.

Because we haven't had any big-time prophets in a thousand and a bit years.

Plenty of disagreements there, heh, and going by biblical history (OT and its gaggle of prophets) it's significantly likely we actually have had at least a few big-time prophets, they've just been ignored or suppressed. You could probably tack on some half-mad rambling about the devil or heathens to that observation.

[Arx]

I'm certainly a heretic for multiple reasons, at least according to the Roman Catholic Church

And something like 90% of protestant churches, heh. Probably like your version better than many, Arx, but I'm afraid you're definitely a radical that holds beliefs that are both significantly different from and strongly in contention with most christian believers (at least stateside ones, at the very least, though from what I understand it would be even worse in the growing areas). You probably would have been lynched or burnt to death _{if you were lucky} a century or two ago

Oh, I know. I've never claimed not to be a very weird Christian.

-God's commandments cannot change because that would imply that God had changed his mind, if God changes his mind it exposes God as not omniscient, which we know must be impossible since God's word is perfect.

Not even remotely -- the new covenant should make that blatantly clear. The commandments are perfectly capable of changing, just as God's laws towards mankind can and have (and why the whole new covenant thing doesn't terrify the hell out of a lot of believers is something I have trouble wrapping my head around, some days) -- that doesn't mean its mind has changed, just that the time has come for a different part of its plan to be expressed.

Hmm, why particularly do you think it's terrifying?

Because we haven't had any big-time prophets in a thousand and a bit years.

Plenty of disagreements there, heh, and going by biblical history (OT and its gaggle of prophets) it's significantly likely we actually have had at least a few big-time prophets, they've just been ignored or suppressed. You could probably tack on some half-mad rambling about the devil or heathens to that observation.

It's kind of odd, because every Christian is technically a prophet since the coming of Christ - so there's a reduced need for a once-every-few-generations major prophet. I wouldn't be surprised if we'd missed a fair few, though.

[Frumple]

Hmm, why particularly do you think it's terrifying?

It means the rules -- that you're relying on to obtain salvation -- changed. Which means that they can change again. Sure, you've got assurances that it won't... but so did the believers in the old covenant. When it's about something as fundamentally important (to the folks in question, anyway) as the path to heaven, the fact that that path can change is something I think it would be reasonable to call just a titch worrying

What I understand, most that even consider that say they trust God not to deceive them or change the rules suddenly, but the bible ascribing what it does to the entity in question, that's... not something I'd call particularly assured, heh.

[Fenrir]

-God's commandments cannot change because that would imply that God had changed his mind, if God changes his mind it exposes God as not omniscient, which we know must be impossible since God's word is perfect.

Not even remotely -- the new covenant should make that blatantly clear. The commandments are perfectly capable of changing, just as God's laws towards mankind can and have (and why the whole new covenant thing doesn't terrify the hell out of a lot of believers is something I have trouble wrapping my head around, some days) -- that doesn't mean its mind has changed, just that the time has come for a different part of its plan to be expressed.

Well, that has implications. If God’s orders aren’t supreme and unchanging, that implies that part of the plan could be to make murder acceptable for example. Hell, that makes it possible for God to lie. Fits divine command theory, I think, but I don’t know how many people actually accept that theory, and I agree that it should be troubling in any case.

fakeedit: Ninja’d. Looks like we’re in agreement on this point.

[Arx]

Hmm, why particularly do you think it's terrifying?

It means the rules -- that you're relying on to obtain salvation -- changed. Which means that they can change again. Sure, you've got assurances that it won't... but so did the believers in the old covenant. When it's about something as fundamentally important (to the folks in question, anyway) as the path to heaven, the fact that that path can change is something I think it would be reasonable to call just a titch worrying

What I understand, most that even consider that say they trust God not to deceive them or change the rules suddenly, but the bible ascribing what it does to the entity in question, that's... not something I'd call particularly assured, heh.

Ah. You seem to have a fundamentally different understanding to me, then - I don't think the New Covenant being a thing immediately cause all the (dead (physically?)) followers of the Old Covenant to immediately get screwed over.

[Frumple]

Oh, the general impression I get from followers in my region/theology in general is that the dead ones might have been alright. Maybe (iirc, there's the line that they still would have had to renounce their old beliefs and embrace the new ones, just in the afterlife). But the rest? Not so much. Previous piety and adherence (to what, so far as you knew, was divine and unchanging commandment) becomes as ash. Get with the new program or get stuffed. Didn't know the new program was a thing? Think it might be a trick from the adversary (which is understandable, considering the entity in question explicitly sends things out to do that to people)? Get stuffed anyway.

[origamiscienceguy]

I say that knowing there's at least one Bible literalist here, which maybe is another reason why atheists keep making arguments against the literal Bible.

hi

[TD1]

If there were more people arguing for a peer based religion, I would just compare it to folklore. "Oh, you believe in God? That's nice. Tim over there believes in fairies. I believe Mat Cauthon will be reborn among us."

[Graknorke]

It's kind of odd, because every Christian is technically a prophet since the coming of Christ - so there's a reduced need for a once-every-few-generations major prophet. I wouldn't be surprised if we'd missed a fair few, though.

You'll have to explain this one to me. How can every Christian be a prophet when what it is to be Christian is decided by the prophets? Doesn't that mean that hypothetically everyone could be a Christian regardless of actual belief?

@dwarfy1: I think we all know it's the Chuckle Brothers who are truly eternal.

[Arx]

It's kind of odd, because every Christian is technically a prophet since the coming of Christ - so there's a reduced need for a once-every-few-generations major prophet. I wouldn't be surprised if we'd missed a fair few, though.

You'll have to explain this one to me. How can every Christian be a prophet when what it is to be Christian is decided by the prophets? Doesn't that mean that hypothetically everyone could be a Christian regardless of actual belief?

What it is to be Christian is defined by Jesus, viz. "I am the way, the truth and the life. No-one can come to the Father except through me" and John 3:16.

And pretty much yes, as far as I can tell. "I will pour out my spirit on all people..." I forget the citation, but the point is that instead of a few select people having power in the Spirit, everyone does, which means everyone has a direct line to God and thus what's right.

Which is also incidentally part of the reason the early church was able to say the Law was less important. Following the Spirit (i.e. being a moral human being) is following the essence of the Law. But you guys have heard me harp on this point at length, so I'll stop there.

[Fenrir]

If there were more people arguing for a peer based religion…

P2P religion? I can see the social media posts now: “There was a devastating earthquake in «Impoverished Nation». Please seed!”

[Telgin]

if you buy something on Sunday (a sin)

...they actually teach that? Wow. (I can think of no reasonable justification for that being a sin).

MaximumZero nailed it, pretty much.  I'd have to find the specific passage, but it's pretty explicit that buying or selling on the Sabbath is defiling it, which is a sin.  Probably no point in dredging it back up at this point since the subject has changed.

About

The church I still get dragged to believes that any sin you commit can and will send you to eternal burning torment.

I wonder what kind of church that is

It's a Pentecostal Holiness church, which is pretty close to the extreme end of Bible literalism and conservatism.  Little surprise that they believe things that way as a result.

The fact that they do believe in eternal torment Hell for conventional (as opposed to beast worshipping) sinners pretty much directly leads to the insane things they believe, and by following their logic I almost can't fault them.  They believe that any sin, including not being saved and just having "original sin" is enough to condemn you to eternal Hell.  As a result, you should get saved as soon as you can and basically do as little as you can that isn't written as being okay in the Bible, else you risk going to Hell forever.

Drinking at all, for example, is forbidden.  The Bible just says to abstain from drunkenness, but why would you ever dare to risk getting drunk when it could land you in Hell forever?  Literally no risk in a finite lifetime is worth an eternity of unimaginable punishment, so you shouldn't take risks.

That's also why the Pentecostal Holiness church is such a Bible literalist denomination.  If it's written as being bad in the Bible, don't dare do otherwise or you'll burn in Hell forever.  Buying or selling on the Sabbath is defiling it, which is a sin, which sends you to Hell.  Women can't teach in the church, or they'll go to Hell.  Gays are going to Hell.  Saying "Oh my God!" is taking the Lord's name in vain, which is sending you to Hell.  See how it works?

as that is directly ignoring Matthew 12:31 and the extent of God's mercy regarding sinners, especially considering everyone has faults of their own.

Pentecostal Holiness is a religion of fear, pure and simple, and they interpret that passage accordingly.  They don't dress it up that way and do go around saying "God is good," all of the time, but as a kid fear is all I ever took away from it.  If I messed up, I'd go to Hell forever.  You could be forgiven of your sins by God, but you had to ask, and He had to accept your apology.  If you messed up, got in a car wreck or had a heart attack five minutes later without asking for forgiveness, off to Hell with you.  Didn't matter if you had been an abiding Christian for 30 years prior.  You just shouldn't have let yourself get into the mindset so that you'd do something bad.  God was good, but God was absolute and unrelenting.

Clearly, not all of them believed that way.  The more sane ones would just say "Well, he just lost some of his reward in heaven," instead of saying he went to Hell.  Or, "I'm sure God gave him a chance to repent before he died."  Most people when presented with insanity like that take away a personalized more sane version.  But... there were the serious ones, and as a kid I was too scared to do anything but take it completely seriously.  I spent a year or more of my life seriously stopping every few minutes to ask God to forgive me of something I didn't even know I'd done, because I didn't want to go to Hell.

I do want to clarify that the people usually aren't bad and this isn't like the Westboro Baptist Church where they go around doing dreadful things to forward their agenda, but the beliefs are pretty awful at times.  They usually are nice people and help the community.  They give out food to the needy.  They try to be the best people they can.  The beliefs just skew what is "good" in this case too much for me to accept.

So... sorry for dragging that back into the discussion and painting Christianity in almost the worst light it could be painted in, but I want to frame things for those who wonder why I seem so bitter at times.  This kind of teaching still happens to kids around here, in the 21st century.

[Helgoland]

So it's frustrating because "How am I supposed to win an argument against this person, when their faith is self-sourced and it's hard to tell what specific things they believe in?".  Compared to making a case against a Bible literalist, which is easy and kinda played out.

Actually this is what sort of pisses me off about (some of) the areligious/antireligious folks here. This is the 'Religion and Spirituality Discussion' thread, not the 'Disprove Christianity' one.

And pretty much yes, as far as I can tell. "I will pour out my spirit on all people..." I forget the citation, but the point is that instead of a few select people having power in the Spirit, everyone does, which means everyone has a direct line to God and thus what's right.

Which is also incidentally part of the reason the early church was able to say the Law was less important. Following the Spirit (i.e. being a moral human being) is following the essence of the Law. But you guys have heard me harp on this point at length, so I'll stop there.

I think this is a vital point that many here are missing: There is supposed to be a direct connection between God and each believer, so everyone has a sort of innate understanding of God's will. The law as it is written is just a sort of guideline, to help people understand more clearly.

@Prophet stuff: I'd argue that the old Jewish prophets are roughly equivalent to the Christian saints. St. Francis would be a prime example.

[origamiscienceguy]

It's kind of odd, because every Christian is technically a prophet since the coming of Christ - so there's a reduced need for a once-every-few-generations major prophet. I wouldn't be surprised if we'd missed a fair few, though.

You'll have to explain this one to me. How can every Christian be a prophet when what it is to be Christian is decided by the prophets? Doesn't that mean that hypothetically everyone could be a Christian regardless of actual belief?

@dwarfy1: I think we all know it's the Chuckle Brothers who are truly eternal.

Prophet is not the word I would use for Christians. Witnesses and Disciples I think fit better.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

So it's frustrating because "How am I supposed to win an argument against this person, when their faith is self-sourced and it's hard to tell what specific things they believe in?".  Compared to making a case against a Bible literalist, which is easy and kinda played out.

Actually this is what sort of pisses me off about (some of) the areligious/antireligious folks here. This is the 'Religion and Spirituality Discussion' thread, not the 'Disprove Christianity' one.

Not like there's a lot else to discuss, religion threads across the internet are pretty much only propelled by conflict between believers and nonbelievers. But I'll tell you one thing, if my focus on bringing down Christian theology pisses you off, imagine how pissed off I must be at Christianity for how I was treated by it, and that was years ago.

But also, personal internalized faith doesn't make for good discussion, what with it being personal and internalized. Maybe one 'just feels' a certain way about god or faeries (that's not an insult, look back to Rolan's post) or any of the other supernatural concepts adhered to by humans, but we can't really have discourse about that sort of thing to any extent.