Christian tropers, join together!

To address L Dragon:

What you are referring to is the "problem of evil", one of the more common arguments against a loving God.

I will address your points individually, then add an argument of my own.

"Christians say its satan..taking responsibvility"

Satan would be the catalyst of all sin,first by rebelling against God, then by tricking Eve.

"He creates homosexuals...sick isn't it"

God's creations are good in of themselves, but are morally neutral. God is not the creator of cancer or homosexuality or other such things. They are perversions coming from man's sinful nature after the Fall. While the Fall is usually referenced to man's behavior, the bible clearly states it cast all of creation to a fate of slavery to sin and death. As for the Egyptians and flooded ones, firstly God has the right to undue his creations. Secondly they disobeyed him, the one who gave them everything. As for the "torture in Hell" keep in mind that depictions of people being tortured in Hell by demons came later as artistic expressions, such as Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy, Inferno. The closest thing to biblical evidence of hell being a "demon lead torture chamber" is the verse about maggots eating the garbage in Gehenna (Hell), interpreting the maggots to be demons and the garbage to be human.Hell is a place/state of being eternally separated from God's light, which is why there is suffering there.

God does intervene in human affairs, just not in the "solve all the world's problems in an obviously divine" way. A bit more subtle than that. More on that later.

"And satan?.... this was any politician we would have raised arms against him by now."

Evil is attributed to Satan for aforementioned reasons. "When is it ok for two humans to decide the fate of the world?" I'm afraid that this is how the world tends to operate. The 400,000 richest Americans have more political clout than the other 309.6 million. The fate of entire continents has come down to a handful of people at various times in history (WWI, WWII, various world empires, etc.). Besides, even if Adam and Eve were pardoned their and then, their children would make the same mistakes (as Cain proved). "You want Adam and Eve to know not to eat an apple but they have no knowledge otherwise? Stfu". Adam and Eve were not braindead, they had higher cognitive abilities like language after all. God gave them a sweet deal, paradise for ever as long as you don't eat an apple from this ONE tree among all the trees in the garden. But they did. God told them explicitly what not to do, but it tool little convincing from Satan and Eve to get Adam and Eve to turn against God. Btw, if I am not mistaken, in the Jewish cannon Satan is not a literal being, but a anthropomorphic metaphor/representation for the desire to rebel (against God)in all of us. That changes the nature of the story a bit.

As for the siding with Satan thing, that would be exactly what Satan would want. A disturbing and idiotic trend I have noticed cropping up his taking (Le Vayne) Satanism and acting like it is all progressive and cool. Of course this ignores that Le Vayne was a sex criminal and some of his commandments are objectively bad (Le Vayne is a bit more explicit than God in some regards, which some people see as Satanism addressing an issue Christianity does not, but in reality this is a eiseigenesis).

Now my counter-argument, which I use arguments from theologians Norman Geisler and Willaim Lane Craig. Note I will mention theologies/religions that believe separate points but am not attacking them directly.

There are essetially 4 scenarios that could have happened:

1. God does not create humans (or anything)

2. God creates humans, but does not grant them free will

3. God creates humans and grants them free will, but accepts them no matter how they use it

4. God creates humans with free will, but punishes those that disobey him.

God created humans (and everything else) for his pleasure, so it would not be in God's interests not to create. Besides, comparing creation and non-creation is a categorical error. Its like saying non-cars are faster than cars.

In the second scenario God does not give free will. This is similar to Muslim and some Christian (read Calvinist) theological stances. A God that says he loves his creations but won't let them do anything of their own accord is akin to a child playing with toys, as in not a truly meaningful loving relationship. A similar objection can be stated for 3. Additionally, a world where humans are force to do the right thing is morally inferior to a world where humans do the right thing out of free will, even when many do the wrong thing given free will.

3 is the stance of universalists like the UU and Neo-Pelgians. The problem is that God has us dwell on this Fallen Earth for no reason if he plans on rapturing us anyway. Plus, how will Heaven work with Mother Teresa shares the same space as Saddam Hussein? Either Heaven will be chaotic or God will "enlighten" (override the freewill of) humans so they "get with the program". A God that loves people in either situation either embraces those who attempt to destroy him and his creations or embraces people he has brainwashed into loving him. In either scenario, this is forced love, a.k.a rape. Not in God's character to say the least.

This is why most Christians and Jews adhere to the 4th scenario. Humans have to earn God's love, but God is not forcing it on anyone. A world where people have to learn right from wrong is superior to ones where either total dictatorship or total anarchy is enforced instead.

Maridee, I agree with your observation that humans tend to bring their wickedness to religious institutions, not the other way around. Christianity is pitched as being anti-science or anti-progressive or whatever all the time, even when such claims are either objectively or at least arguably true. There is a lot of propaganda around, whether from one Christian denomination to another or from outside. For example, claims that the church taught a "flat earth" and killed scientists are both objectively false and originate from anti-Christian smears. The reason you hear about the Inquisition(s) is mainly due to protestant (particularly Dutch) propaganda. The Netherlands was founded by Spanish Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition and French Protestants (Huguenots)fleeing the walled cities of France. Hence the anti-Catholic angst. In reality, the Inquisition was mostly handled by secular courts (the old, you're a dissident or other political enemy to my regime, I'm branding you a heretic to silence you). People tend to forget how closely intertwined politics and religion were back then (and still are). There are counts of criminals actually committing heresies in court just so the Church's Inquisitors would take over the trial, since they were fairer judges that actually let more people go then they turned over. Also, about 4,000 people died in the Inquisitions, yet you hear about them instead of say the Albergine/Waldanese military campaigns/genocides, that killed 5 million men, women, and children. I'm not trying to justify either action, simply stating some misconceptions.

As I mentioned, in my opinion it is the mix of politics, power, and religion to cause such things to happen. Even though Muslims are the go-to targets for the evils or religion, Islam has a better track record than one would think. In between the main two periods where Islam was politically/militarily active (the Golden age 700-1300 and modern era 1900-a.d) Muslims tended to be peaceful. People also tend to forget that they were/are the biggest slavers of any group in existence. Hell, the Arabic word for black means both the color itself and slave. Likewise, while Buddhists tend to be low key and hence have a good reputation, they are plenty of blights on their records too. Japanese Buddhists were among the most vocal supporters of Imperial Japan. There is currently a lot of Buddhist violence and terrorism toward Muslims in nations like Myanmar. Just look up the "Burmese Bin Laden".

There are a few typos in my previous posts, the most important one being where I said the anti-progressive and anti-science beliefs were true, when I meant they were false.

You can edit your previous posts by clicking the little pencil icon next to your location/timestamp.

edited 24th Jul '14 5:18:47 AM by Achaemenid

Here it is. Rambling and unfinished, but still something

He Calls the Stars by Name.

My immediate impression is that this is very good indeed, but it needs more than 2 paragraphs. I've made a suggestion. But really nice work, and a good read.

Number 3 point made me remember something I saw a few days ago that I think addresses the concerns of it rather well. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unequallyyoked/2014/07/does-univeralism-create-a-world-without-consequences.html Please don't shoot the messenger if you disagree. I'm actually not sure what Libresco's stance actually is. She's a person who likes making arguments for arugment's-sake and working them out in a brainy manner. (A former Atheist turned Catholic who keeps entries arguing for both sides up). I'm not a faithful follower of her blog, I just click on interesting entry titles on occasion.

As for the rest - A nice counter all around, but it should be noted that not *all* Christians put homosexuality in the sin-pile. There are many arguments for it being a sin and many arguments against. A lot of people don't think the "clobber verses" of the Bible mean quite the same thing as modern contexts. Some even think "Paul ain't Jesus and Paul was wrong about this." All I know is that I'm an asexual who decided somewhere along the way that a lot of what society does to homosexuals is unfair and that using "Jesus" to side with injustice wasn't something I could do anymore in my politics. In any case, I've got planks in my own eyes to deal with, so that's pretty much my stance on it.

I do know that not all Christians regard homosexuality as a sin. I have friends, family, and myself proving that. But my hometown of De Leon, TX is full of highly conservative hypocrites and the church I spent my childhood going to falls right into that category.

EDIT: ...wow, Google Drive. I set the sharing to anyone can view and comment, and you let someone else edit the document.

EDIT 2: Oh, it's comments for edit suggestions, which Drive shows made already in the default view.

edited 24th Jul '14 10:22:10 AM by Sixthhokage1

I have parents who don't accept homosexuality, which is unfortunate, since I'm not even straight.

That was me. On my end, it said it was just a suggestion. Sorry.

It's fine, it *is* just a suggestion as my second edit said. It's just that the default view implements the suggested changes automatically as I found out. It doesn't seem right to me but that's "user-friendliness" for you.

I was replying to Inferus' argument, in regards to using "homosexuality" as part of a fallen world. It's my opinion that it should be noted in any apologetic argument these days that there is this difference / argument within the greater faith. All dogs may be the same species, but are not the same breed.

Oh, whoops. The arrows pointed towards my post ^_^;;

Whoops. I realized later that I'd used too few arrows. Sorry about that. I thought people would get my rather generalized reply.

Looking for Zaccheus.

The Work of Our Hands.

I have a lot that I want to reply to but it takes me time I don't really have right now to lower my filters. So I'm sorry if some of this sounds pithy.

Deathpigeon - this must be why people I know keep encouraging me to read Kierkegaard. <3

Shadsie - ...I have many many thoughts on these subjects. Many. A lot of them may be inarticulable, but here are a couple.

• It's important to keep in mind that on the human scale Good and Evil are pretty meaningless. No one is righteous. Whether you think of someone as one or the other depends entirely on which of their vices and virtues you know of and/or are willing to rationalise.
• Being smart is better than being dumb, and therefore Good is smart. The axes are non-orthogonal. :P I like C. S. Lewis' portrayal, in Perelandra, of the demon-possessed Unman - intelligence, for it, is simply a tool to be picked up and used when it is appropriate and discarded when it is no longer needed. When it isn't arguing sophisticated philosophy with Ransom and the Lady, it wanders mindlessly through Paradise, flaying small creatures with its fingernails.
• I don't think imagination and realism are at odds any more than love and truth are. :/ Pet Heaven is pretty trivial to me, but I wouldn't want to believe in God just because the idea of his existence makes me feel better.

Antiteilchen - Don't even start with "further in life" != "materialistic gain" &c. -_- I'm having to un-learn a bunch of that in order to come to terms with the fact that "materialistic gain" = "being able to support myself financially".

(Also... I very strongly agree with you regarding doubt, but I rather suspect Shadsie was referring to craziness in a way for which popular truisms and oversimplifications are not particularly helpful.)

Miracles - make me feel uncomfortable and relativistic. <_< I have no problem with them in theory, but in practice I've never seen or experienced one personally and those I hear about, even from close friends or family, seem to fall into either "That was highly improbable yet beneficial, therefore God" or "I can't explain why that happened, therefore God", and both of those are highly dissatisfying. The former is anthropocentric and the latter is the God-of-the-Gaps. :P Conversely, though, I'm in no position to tell people they may not have experienced an actual miracle given their own closer position to whatever happened... and if God used it to strengthen their faith, they clearly experienced it as a miracle, so why would I argue with that?

Shadsie - I kind of like the idea of expanding the metaphor. I used to be fond of saying that the Shepherd is also followed by domesticated wolves, but I think of that now as "Awwwwwwww, look at Past Me trying so hard to pretend to be badass". <_<

Sixthhokage - I can't read your essay. :(

I took it down because it was crap

Oh. :(

On today's sermon, my church's pastor held a sermon on Luke 19, on Jesus driving away a devil.

The main point was that even a devil acknowledged Jesus' authority as the son of God, while the most Jews, especially the ones from his hometown. He interpretes that it's because Jews expected the Messiah to be a some kind of powerful military leader. He went on and said that those people who think that believing in Jesus will make them rich, famous, powerful, or grant other forms of worldly good is no different from those Jews back in Jesus' time (the ones with misguided belief, that is).

The best quote went like this (here's hoping that it doesn't get lost in translation):

"Don't ask Jesus to heal your body. He already came and healed your soul."

Divine Perspective.

Courageous and Consistent.

Confindent Access.

Family Trademarks.