Many Christians Lack Responsibility

Mike, there's no ad hominem is Stile's post.However, this "You've got a really really bad problem now. Do you know what it is? The problem is that phat knows me very well. He knows my history, and knows that your post is not true. So now he should know that no truth can come from such people."That's an ad hominem.

Heh... no, He told me He doesn't work through me I mean, um... that's what He said after showing me He doesn't exist! Wait... Eeep! (I think "Eeep" shall be my new favourite word for a while...)

Sounds like some very wise advice. Not only should it be used for your pastor, but for anything anyone says. ...oh. Perhaps not-so-wise. Why not doubt the Bible? After all, if it is true, then those doubts can only lead to deeper understanding of the truth and therefore a higher confidence in the Bible, right?Of course, if there are some things that people do not want to have questioned in the Bible.. let's say maybe 'cause there's no way to honestly defend some of the Bible's positions in reality... that would be an almost inescapable motivation for promoting the Bible as unassailable.Regardless of why, though, there is no rational reason to suppress doubts about anything if those things are capable of standing on their own honest truth in reality.In fact, because religion can become so important and involved in every aspect of life... it is quite reasonable to say that everyone has a responsibility to question all aspects of their religion (including their pastor/leader, Bible/Holy Book and God/deity) until they are personally satisfied with the answers. (And many Christians do exactly this). As long as you preface it with "I believe..." I wouldn't think of asking you to "prove it." You are certainly free to believe anything you'd like. You are also free to use those beliefs to shape how you live your life. The only think you are not allowed to do, is use those beliefs to shape how other people live their lives. However, you don't seem to be doing that at all, so I have no quarrel with you

This is interesting. Why do you think he said that?If you are supposed to doubt everything he says, then why listen to him in the first place?I get the jist of what he is trying to say, "don't trust me and look it up for yourself," fair enough. But if your subjective interpretation of the bible is supposed to trump his, because you are supposed to question him, why do you need his opinion to begin with? This is also interesting. I'm not going to ask you to prove it, but will you admit that you were told that once by someone else before you believed that it was the "innerrant Word of God?"In other words... ...based on what? Someone else telling you it was and then confirming it? - If so, how? I believe that is how most of us arrive at "atheism." Because we have questioned everything.- Oni

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Hi, Phat. I've met many grumpy, pessimistic Christians. Even the ones who are happy all the time because "the Truth has set them free": these are also pessimistic. Those Christians who believe there is any hope for making the world better are, in my experience, a minority: most believe that corruption and decay are inevitable.I have always disliked the idea of original sin. The whole point of the idea is to convince us that we're hopelessly lost, and that God is the only one who can save us.So, yes, it definitely puts the onus on God to fix everything, and gives us an excuse to still feel good about ourselves, even when we're not really trying to fix it ourselves.What always baffles me is that these same people who are perfectly content shunting their own responsibilities onto God, very readily scowl at atheists and accuse them of using evolution or subjective morality as an excuse for bad behavior.But, even assuming they're right, what's the difference?The biggest difference that I see is that we Christians, in general, believe we will be allowed to partake of eternal happiness, despite our bad behavior, while atheists feel that rewards should only be given when they are fully deserved.I find this to be very condemning to us as a religion in general.Whatever God intended for us, I certainly can't imagine why He would want to reward us for being lazy, pessimistic and needy.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

As a christian you rely on the Bible, and this is what my pastor teaches. He does not go in front of the church and tell people to doubt the Bible, because he himself does not doubt it.But if, for example, I come up to him and display any doubts I have, he won't discourage them by saying ''you cannot doubt the Bible!'', he'll rather offer explanations, both from reality and from other texts in the Bible.And so although he does not encourage his church to doubt the Bible, he won't discourage any doubting of it, but will rather answer using apologetics etc.

Yeah, that'S basically what I meant to say (don't trust me and look it up for yourself).In regards to why I would need his opinion in the first place, I would consider that it is because his opinion is equally as valid as mine. And so two opinions is better then one. (aside from the fact that he has more knowledge on the Bible then I can have, a pastor usually has a broader picture of a verse,etc. then I can have.) Well this is how knowledge is obtained, and so I do not see this as undermining christianity or any religions.Before I learned about the mechanisms of evolution in natural selection and mutation, I was being told that I had a monkey for cousin. There is nothing wrong in being told the conclusion before the steps that lead to this conclusion. This is how knowledge of anything and everything is obtained during childhood. (The mechanism of learning changes as you become an adult)Although you have to, at some point in the future, learn the steps if you want to be able to defend the conclusions you were taught while younger. Some people do not pursue to understand why they believe what they believe, and they have the right to do so if they wish. But I'm not really like that. I believe atheist usually end up so because they doubt religions and their claims, and so finding no sufficient truth's in these, they turn to atheism as the other option.But I think that if atheists doubted materialism, then they would probably would not turn back to any religion, but would rather become theists. (This is in fact what Anthony Flew did a couple of years ago)

Fair enough. I think I jumped to a conclusion from "always rely on the Bible" to meaning more of "always rely on the Bible without ever questioning it." It seems my jump was not justified, in this case. My apologies. A very good answer. Not the best (only in my personal opinion). I think that even those who rely on the Bible should be able to accept that perhaps the Bible doesn't have all the answers. To me, one source (any single source) for "all the answers" is a naive position, I think the world/universe is so complex and wondrous as to make it impossible for any solitary authority (whether mundane or even divine) to have all the answers. That would take all the fun out of things But, regardless of my own feelings, this is still a very good and acceptable answer as it does include the responsibility of doubt. I almost completely agree. I would simply change the ending of your sentence:"I believe atheists usually end up so because they doubt religions and their claims, and so finding no sufficient truth's in these, they are left with atheism."To me, atheism isn't so much a choice, as it is a default position I am forced to accept after an honest exploration of the facts and my inner-self. It's not that I want to be an atheist, it's more that I have yet to find any convincing evidence to be anything else.My internal sense of responsibility does not allow me to make important decisions such as those concerning my entire life (eternal or not) and the lives of those around me whom I love with information that cannot be validated to the highest possible degree.This may be honourable, or it may be my downfall (given an evil deity). But it is me, right or wrong, it's who I am and I cannot live while denying that which I feel is the highest of priorities.I suspect that this is exactly the same reason why Christians or any other theists believe what they believe. It's also why I respect those positions (like Phat's) that honestly look at the information they have, and then make an honest decision from there. As long as we proceed through doubts and honest reflection of one's own experiences, I'm not sure how anyone (even a deity) could justifiably fault us.

Just thought I'd point out some food for thought:I'm an atheist, I doubt materialism, and I am not going to turn to theism as a result.I doubt materialism as much as I don't think anything can be 100% absolute as long as we don't "know everything," which likely will be forever.I never did understand how "not knowing things" can be taken as a "reason" for believing in deities. It just doesn't make sense to me. Even if it is one day shown that a "supernatural realm" does indeed exist, this says nothing about the existence of actual deities, or any being that explicitly cares about our "non-supernatural realm", and definitely not anything as specific as the Christian God of the Bible.The validity of materialism has no significant rational bearing on the existence of an Earth-caring or universe-creating being.

Same here. I believe that athiesm, though, can be divided into two parts: "hard" and "soft-core." "Hard core" athiests are strongly in denial of God and may even evangelize against religion. Dawkins is a prime example of this. On the other hand, "soft-core" athiests are, as you say, a more default position. Whereas the hard athiests deny the existance of any god(s), soft ones just don't accept any established religion, meaning that there may or may not be a god(s) that we don't know of (they don't care), as well as refusing to follow any religion simply because they claim to be perfect. As agnosticism is the default method, athiesm is the default position which is only filled through indoctrination or conversion. Or do babies come out of the womb thanking Jesus for life?

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I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
- Stephen Roberts

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I'm a polyatheist - there are many gods I don't believe in
- Dan Foutes

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"In the beginning, the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has widely been considered as a bad move."
- Douglas Adams

Wrong. I can not deny something that does not exist. It is not a denial. It is an acknowledgment that the belief in a god means that reality would have to be different than it is. A belief in a god means the acceptance that magic must be an integral part of of existence.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Exactly. If you read my post a little further, I said that there are athiests that believe that the concept of God is both a) not possible in their worldview and b) not worth addressing, and so do not believe in any religion- entirely different from what you quoted.I apologize if it seemed I was trying to group all athiests together. Rememer that I was attempting to name the groups that I saw in reality, rather than ascribe those attributes to any existing group.

My problem is with the word denial.Denial is a loaded word. It implies not accepting something that is true.. That may not have been your implication. For some of us it is not just
Denial refusal to believe a doctrine, theory, or the like.
disbelief in the existence or reality of a thing.Instead it is an acknowledgment that such beliefs conflict with all reality. To accept such beliefs would also mean acceptance of everything and anything supernatural or paranormal. There is a reason that books that deal with magic and the supernatural are classifeid as Fantasy. That is where the bible belongs also.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

I see your point. However, I was using "deny" in a different sense than the one you are interpreting it in. See: Thesaurus.comYou are thinking of denial as this:
I see you steal RADZ's lunch, but you deny it, saying that someone else might have taken it.What I am saying is this:
RADZ's lunch is missing. I blame Bluejay and you deny it, i.e. refusing to believe or answer to my accusation, whether true or not.In the first example, you are denying evidence in plain sight, as the lunch is obviously on your desk. In the second, I am making an unfounded accusation which you have no reason to believe, and thus simply disbelieve.

This is a strange area.I would put atheists into two main groups as well. Those who do not adamantly deny a God, and those who absolutely, 100% do.However, Dawkins is not a "Hard core" atheist. Dawkins (as far as I know) does not adamantly deny the possibility of the supernatural as much as he does not adamantly deny the possiblity of anything else we have no validated evidence for.Dawkins does, however, stress that the things we have no validated evidence for likely do not exist.We have no validated evidence for pink unicorns, ghosts, goblins, fairies, speghetti monsters, anything else I can imagine at will, and deities.Dawkins' "evangelization" isn't so much a promotion of atheism as it is an exasperated, it's-about-damned-time-someone-said-something-to-these-people, defense to all the religious promotions that exist in our modern day.Dawkins is only stressing that "God does not exist!" in response to the multitude of social outlets that adamantly state, or even implicitly assume (with no good reason to) the contrary.It is akin to someone finally coming out and stressing that "Goblins do not exist!" in response to a multitude of social outlets that continually espouse the existence of goblins (if such a thing actually happened).The liklihood that any specific religion is absolutely wrong is staggering. It's exactly the same liklihood that any other specific thing I can imagine that has no validated evidence is not actually a part of this reality. Even with minimal rounding of numbers, it's 100% (just not absolutely 100%). Such things should be forcefully denounced, in public, after they are publically promoted as being "the truth of reality" (which has gone on for thousands of years...). As far as I know, this is what Dawkins is doing. He has a massive beef with anyone who says "this, specifically, is the way the world is" without validated evidence to back it up. Without that validated evidence, there's actually an extremely low chance (0%, with any rounding...) that the world actually is, specifically, like that. Does such a thing make him an evangelical, hard-core atheist? Or does it make him a defender of honesty, clarity, and the gullible who could easily be manipulated by those who profess things-they-don't-know as absolute truths?