Must be Unitarians or Methodists or something then: most of the ones I know are Baptists and Apostolic, and they're the ones who exposed me to the head breaking beliefs that caused the whole thing to make no sense to me.

Yes, I am a confirmed Methodist. Been attending a Methodist church since before I could walk.

edited 4th Nov '09 7:10:18 AM by BobbyG

Bah, baptists are heretics anyway.

The position of the mainstream church is, IIRC, "Follow our rules and you're pretty certain to go to Heaven, we don't really know what happens if you don't though."

edited 4th Nov '09 7:11:22 AM by Arilou

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I said we Christians were a Broken Base.

What, you mean the Protestant Church or the Catholic Church, cause they both have their hypocritical rules that cancel the above out as well. Someone mentioned that if you commit suicide, you must be psychologically unbalanced, and in order to sin, you have to understand what you're doing. Well then I guess nobody is sinning, because arguably, when someone acts against what we think their self interest should be, they could be said to be psychologically unbalanced. Someone who goes and robs a bank instead of trying to find a job may be psychologically unbalanced. Throw in the previous comment about only going to hell if you find Jesus and reject him (and I could go to town on the fallacy of being saved in the name of Jesus, but I won't), and one would think that the best thing preachers of the Gospel could do would be to burn the books, close the churches, and make sure no one ever hears the name Jesus again, as if you haven't heard about him, you can't reject him and go to hell. Of course, like the fundie (as opposed to the rational and non fundie) anti-abortionists who reason that abortion is bad because it takes a human life, and in the same stroke declare that all children go to heaven when they die, these people don't seem to think about the implications and ramifications of their statements, causing them to say a lot of contradictory things that make no sense whatsoever.

The Crusades were in large part defensive in purpose, because the Muslims were commanded to spread their religion by the sword. The religious motives go both ways.

The Crusades were actually fairly interesting. A large portion of the crusaders weren't really interested in conquering in the first place: They were on a pilgrimage, it so happened that there were people in the way so they went armed. Once they'd done their pilgrimage most of them left (which was a big problem for the Crusader States)

Ow.

castaghast, what exactly are you saying?

Erm, about the abortion thing: Yeah it's totally fine if I kill a person, because they're going to heaven anyway.

QFT, so everyone shut up about it already.

edited 4th Nov '09 11:02:14 AM by melloncollie

^^^ Posed a big problem for the second sons who wanted land in South-West Asia.

Latepost due to me going to sleep and then going to school:

I'm sorry, I should have been more clear. In Catholicism, there's a distinction between "a church", which can be either a building or another sect, and "the Church", which is only ever used to refer to the Roman Catholic Church. I apologize if I offended anyone, but it's pretty much reflexive after all these years.

When I said it was the Church's position, I meant that it was the Vatican's official teaching.

Pshaw. We're the Broken Base.

edited 4th Nov '09 1:05:38 PM by LizardBite

There's no such thing as one big Protestant Church as comparable to the Catholic Church. There are many Protestant sects, however.

And I'm sure territorial conquest had nothing to do with it? Yes, religion was the great motivator. But there was something else underneath it..there allways is. Just look at huge gains the muslim empire gained.

I'm a latecomer, but I managed to at least peruse the entire thread. I will address the title of the thread.

(For a little bit of edification, check my user profile. Cliffs Notes version: I am a conservative Christian).

I do not believe that atheism automatically means complete immorality. I believe (and know of) atheists who are kind, moral, loving, etc. etc. people. What I do believe is that there is no fundamental requirement for an atheist to behave morally apart from a strictly utilitarian or (worse), might-makes-right ethos. Or, inertia.

Believe me, this is something that I didn't pull out of my ass. I arrived at this conclusion after months of contemplation and flirting with the idea of becoming an atheist (since you guys have lots more sexual fun, lets be honest). I returned to my faith not out of fear of hell, but because I realized the Christian worldview is the best one (even if its adherents are bad at expressing it). Your mileage, of course, will vary.

I was saying that Christianity is illogical, period. The fact that baptists and apostolics explicitly say you will go to hell if you don't follow their rules and other sects dance around it doesn't make the whole faith less contradictory. The above statement about the abortion issue was not me trying to justify it, but me trying to show how two separately held beliefs in the same system wind up justifying what they would call a sin within said system: on the one hand abortion is murder, but on the other, dead children automatically go to heaven. One of the goals of a Christian is to get as many people to heaven as possible. Therefore, logic dictates that Christians should become abortionists or at least endorse abortion, because that's a major "Go to Heaven" card. No Christian would seriously entertain the above argument, but you can see where, given the facts, it makes sense.

edited 4th Nov '09 1:38:45 PM by castaghast

Nor is there a fundamental reason for a Christian to behave morally apart from fear of eternal damnation. It's not really any different.

There's no fundamental requirement for anyone to behave morally.

There's both the issues of confessions/absolution referenced earlier in this thread for religious people, and the fact that one could argue that believing you'll burn in the fires of hell for all eternity if you do something wrong is a rather utilitarian reason to not behave badly.

Haha, no, not necessarily. As an atheist, I follow my own set of morals, which are strict enough to make me appear more religious than I am (and my habit of attending church services doesn't help). It's there, just not a religious construct.

@castaghast: My home church is a Baptist church, and explicitly teaches that following rules has no bearing on your state of salvation.

And I've never heard "dead children automatically go to heaven" preached outside of pop-theology cheap comfort lines or Left Behind.

@Lizard Bite: Yeah, among Protestants "the Church" refers to justfied-by-faith Christians as a whole. Which does intersect the Roman Catholic Church.

I am functionally an atheist (I'm actually agnostic), and I have a set of principles which I live by, for non-utilitarian reasons. I follow them because I am a humanist and I believe that all human beings deserve to be treated with an equal amount of respect, and that kindness is a virtue because it makes other people happier.

Besides, I'd have said God's Commandments and laws were the ultimate example of might-makes-right. According to Christianity, some actions are sinful because the Bible tells us this is so. And since you need to avoid sin if you don't want to burn in Hell for all eternity, you avoid such actions. Christian morality is simple fear of the law, as laid down by a being so powerful none of us have a hope of fighting back.

Fair enough, but your personal experiences will not be true of all atheists, and I think it's unfair to judge all atheists based solely on this.

I've heard the view expressed by church-going Christians before. The argument is that a merciful and loving God wouldn't condemn a child to Hell without giving them a chance at redemption. Also, if Original Sin does not exist, then a baby is pure and innocent, and will go to Heaven by default.

Do some religious people believe that both agnostics and babies will go to heaven? If not (i.e., just one or the other), then I think there's a bit of a contradiction as babies are pretty much agnostics by default.

Of the Christians I know, I think most of them believe either that anyone who behaves morally will go to Heaven, or that anyone who behaves morally will go to Heaven providing they either never learn about Jesus or accept him as their saviour and follow him.

(edited for clarity)

edited 4th Nov '09 3:04:10 PM by BobbyG

babies are pretty much agnostics by default.

Doubt that. Babies are unlikely to have any concept of afterlife and or god(s).

edited 4th Nov '09 3:06:04 PM by GreatLich

Making them atheists, not agnostics, I suppose.

I considered saying atheist, but decided to go with "pretty much agnostic".

atheism: "the theory or belief that God does not exist."

agnostic: "a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God."

To my interpretation, the word "atheist" seems to imply much more need for knowledge than agnosticism. Not knowing of the theoretical existence of something at all seems much closer to "claiming neither faith nor disbelief" than claiming that something does not exist. Maybe there's a better word I'm not thinking of, though.

edited 4th Nov '09 3:11:58 PM by BrokenChaos