A religious counterpart to Godwin's Law?

I thought the point of Calvanism was that you couldn't tell who would end up in heaven, so you might as well act good in general?

Believing they can talk to God, and that they alone possess the intellect and wisdom to do so, which none of the plebs in their congregation could ever have.

But only antinomians would actually commit sins, since anybody committing sins would be taken as evidence that they weren't actually saved, because of what melloncollie said.

Preaching to the Choir here, I'm hardly an advocate for Calvinism! That Other Wiki article, which may make you either laugh or cry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvanism

@Caisaas I read the article and another one on Calvinism; I didn't notice anything about the priests assuming they're automatically privy to salvation.

That may have been me mis-recalling what I learned of it in high school. I can imagine it happening though in 17th century Scotland from what I know of the times! Robert Burns was subjected to such people I believe. EDIT: It's Unconditional Election that decides that sort of thing. Considering that the Church was quite literally judge, jury and executioner in 17th century Britain, priests would definitely assume themselves qualified for it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconditional_election

edited 14th Mar '11 11:26:28 AM by CaissasDeathAngel

@Caisaas I can imagine such a teaching being typical of various denominations in the 17th century, not just Calvinism.

We can assume that perhaps, but that wouldn't make it true.

edited 14th Mar '11 11:28:41 AM by KCK

Please stop acting as if I'm a supporter of Calvanism or actually belive that the priests were telling the truth when they said those things! It's the kind of sect that really gives religion a bad name, and I abhor it. Dont Shoot The Messenger please!

Also, while it's true that it may apply to other religions, Unconditional Election is specifically one of the 5 Points of Calvanism.

edited 14th Mar '11 11:34:10 AM by CaissasDeathAngel

@Caiaass I never said that you were a supporter of Calvinism; I disagree that the denomination is a bad one since I agree with some of its tenets.

Considering that they bitched at antinomians a lot, I really find it unlikely that Calvinists would consider themselves so certainly predestined.

That they consider the vast majority of the human race damned to Hell by default makes it rather hard for me to think they might have redeeming features.

If Failure Is the Only Option and eternal suffering and torment are unavoidable, why do anything that isn't for your own enjoyment in your momentary chance to do so?

@Caissass That's the thing; we won't know if it's unavoidable.

Regardless, I don't believe or see much Biblical evidence for an an eternal Hell of torture, but I do believe the choice of salvation lies ultimately with God.

A whole bunch of cans of worms opened up there. The modern take on that, is if one does believe in an interventionist entity, why wouldn't he intervene in favor of those that he favors (and vice versa) It's a meme that seems to be prevalent in large swatches of right-wing Christianity, as a way of justifying bad things.

"Because he can't be bothered and because he's God he's still morally right for choosing not to do so" appears to be the Calvanist explanation for why he doesn't.

Oh, and I figured out where I got the "priests consider themselves the chosen saved ones" thing from - Hyper-Calvanism, which is to regular Calvanism the WBC to regular modern-fundamentalist Christianity (fucked up beyond belief, even by people conventionally considered extremists) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper-Calvinism

Yes, but who are we to say who He favors?

"We are wildly speculating in a potentially dangerous way" would be my own answer to that question, but ultimately it's each to their own.

Ahem, who gets to heaven is not exactly what I've meant. What I've meant is the arguments like "If there is no God, what is stopping you from raping and killing each other at will".

That one's brilliant. They provide the answer in the question itself Their desire of not losing the not-killing-and-raping property of their minds shows that they wouldn't want to do it even without a god. They aren't afraid of being able/allowed to, eg. eat pork, which shows that they don't have a strong preference for not eating pork irrespective of their religion, unlike with killing and rape.

The existence of God stopping from people being savages has little to do with professing belief in Him.

Whoa. I'm no fan of Calvinism but even I haven't heard of its Hyper equivalent.

The point of Calvinism has less to do with repenting original sin (Impossible, according to its own doctrine), but moral nihilism. There is nothing most humans can do to get in God's good graces. Nature decides who is master, and who is subservient and deserves any misfortunes that happen to them.

Then there's common grace, which assumes that everyone is preternaturally evil and Christians must do everything in their power (in and out of church) to 'restrain' them.

OP: If Godwin's Law is an automatic loss of the debate, I'm interested to see how you expect to discuss things that are actually relevant or comparable to Nazi Germany or the social influences throughout WWII.

Well, Godwin is about comparisons...

Pharyngula had some equivalent of this, but I'm of the opinion it still flies both ways.

I think there's a list of exceptions.

: Considering that Godwins law is bringing in a completely invalid comparision, it actually got nothing to do with Nazi Germany except that they sat jews in labourcamps and apparently gassed a few.