Rifleman

Hi folks, I'm a newbie here. Here's a quick intro: I'm a physics/engineering geek in his late 20s who was raised Catholic but was always buffeted by nagging questions and doubts about religion in general. I've never taken the Bible literally -- only a mental eunuch would be capable of doing so -- but there have always been certain articles of faith that I was somewhat afraid to probe until very recently (within the last few months or so). While I will probably never rule out the existence of God completely, you could definitely call me a skeptic/agnostic at this point.

Okay, if you're still reading this, here's what I see as possibly the biggest problem with mainstream Christianity: the necessity of belief in Christ's sacrifice in order to attain salvation. This is mainly a question for believers, I suppose: Why should belief be important? What conceivable reason is there for God, if He indeed loves all people, to make the effectiveness of Christ's sacrifice contingent on conscious acceptance of it -- especially with little to no supporting evidence? Why should God give human beings brains, then torture them for eternity if their brains weren't able to come up with the "right answer"?

Some Christians might reply in the vein of Paul: "Who are you to question God?" My response is that I am not questioning God, but rather mortal men who claim to speak for Him. Why should that offend God? Does it hurt God in some way? Is God insecure? Truth, after all, has nothing to fear from even the most rigorous investigation.

The only plausible explanation I can come up with is that human beings invented faith-based religions, bolstered by the threat of infinite punishment for finite crimes, in order to control people. (And yes, any crime committed by a human being is necessarily finite. Even if God exists and is infinite, human awareness, knowledge, and intellect is necessarily limited; thus, human moral responsibility must also be limited.)

rainbow walking

rw: Exactly...or to put it more succinctly, since the OT depicts a god who obviously thought it necessary to make his existence known to man, along with various and sundry other tidbits of data that could be loosely interpreted to mean almost anything, why choose such an incompetent and prejudicial manner of revelation? Why speak directly with a few chosen people and leave the remainder of humanity to puzzle over the meaning of this and the meaning of that? Why speak contradictory messages to Abraham and Muhammed? Why allow so many varieties of god-belief that have led to so many additional justifications for violence and bloodshed down thru history? If you can get a strait answer out of any believer on this question you will have accomplished something I've been unable to accomplish in two years. Good luck.

Quote:

The only plausible explanation I can come up with is that human beings invented faith-based religions, bolstered by the threat of infinite punishment for finite crimes, in order to control people. (And yes, any crime committed by a human being is necessarily finite. Even if God exists and is infinite, human awareness, knowledge, and intellect is necessarily limited; thus, human moral responsibility must also be limited.)

rw: That...and the human need for comfort against the fear of death, ignorance (as in a reduction of the hard questions to a goddittit that even a moron can embrace), and the usual social status of belonging to an apparently acceptable group along with all the residual benefits gained. Then couple that with all the millions of additional personal reasons people will invent to justify their particular god belief and you end up with years of entertainment value when you engage such folks in as rational a discourse as possible...considering the subject material at hand.

Yahzi

You may have noticed that the history of science is a history of constantly expanding knowledge: the newer the knowledge, the better.

The history of religion is the exact opposite. Knowledge becomes less valuable the further away from the original revelation it gets.

Science expands and corrects: theology decays and becomes corrupt. This reveals two distinctly different conceptions of what "truth" is.

Plognark

The only plausible explanation I can come up with is that human beings invented faith-based religions, bolstered by the threat of infinite punishment for finite crimes, in order to control people. (And yes, any crime committed by a human being is necessarily finite. Even if God exists and is infinite, human awareness, knowledge, and intellect is necessarily limited; thus, human moral responsibility must also be limited.)

I'd say you're in like-minded company on these forums. Welcome, BTW

ex-xian

Rifleman--welcome to II! I'm sure that you'll enjoy it here. You'll find many like minded people (as well as some not so like minded who make the place more fun).

That said, this topic isn't really right for the Existence of God(s) forum; I'm moving it to General Religious Discussion where it will fit in better.

Cross Examiner

Hi Rifleman, welcome to IIDB. You've phrased your questions unusually succinctly. I like that. I'll try to get straight to it as I see it.
Simply, a gift is not yours until you reach out and take it. God is not going to force the gift upon you. The message before people today is the same one that the apostles took to the world 2000 years ago. Regarding evidence, what sort of evidence are you looking for?
You don't have to come up with the 'right answer.' You just have to believe the words of the apostles. If you can't do that without doing your homework, then do the homework. Follow the trail. I am reading an 800 page tome by N.T. Wright precisely because I'm the type that needs the history laid out before me with the attention to detail that only critical scholarship provides. The case for the Jesus of the Gospel matching that of history is very strong, as far as I can tell so far. Regarding the other point, hell is certainly not pleasant but neither is it 'torture.'
Which is certainly reasonable.
It doesn't. Not at all. Nope. The Bereans were commended for their 'ask questions first believe after if trustworthy' reputation. Anyway, sorry for the short responses. We can go into greater depth later as interest warrants. I've got to go. Take care.

Regards,
BGic

NeoApostate

But it's not a gift that you can reach out and take, it was the act of giving a sacrifice in one's stead. If the debt has been paid, then the debt has been paid.

If you want to see it as a 'gift', then the gift isn't given to you, it's given to God in place of your life being given. In the Old Testament, when an animal sacrifice was burned, I doubt it mattered whether or not the person who had sinned 'accepted that gift', what mattered was whether or not Yahweh accepted it or rejected it (as he rejected Cain's).

I've heard so many analogies that Christians try to come up with, but they don't really match the situation. Look at it. You have God whom we owe a debt. He then apparently shows that another sacrifice can be given in place, and he will accept that in place of our own sacrifice. He then in some expression of goodwill pays the sacrifice with the before mentioned replacement. Now certainly he expects us to be gracious and believe, but if we don't and he gets pissed and says the debt still remains, then was either lying in the first place or has changed his mind and reneged on his offer. Either way it makes God dishonest.

Godless Wonder

That's just it. Doing the homework leads to the situation in which it is impossible to believe the words of the apostles. Doing more homework only reinforces this conclusion. What God would arrange things this way? A non-existent God would not prevent such a situation.

Rifleman

Thanks to each of you for the welcomes and comments.

BGiC, I'd like to address what you wrote:

Right -- but if mainstream Christianity is true, then God will force hellfire on those who honestly don't see any reason to believe that the "gift" is even available. And what is the nature of that gift? You're being saved, but it's not your fault that you're in need of salvation in the first place. No one asks to be born at all, let alone born subject to the consequences of "original sin." My conscience tells me in no uncertain terms that if human beings aren't capable of NOT sinning, then it's not their fault that they sin.

Furthermore, if the existence of God were clear, then people would be far less likely to disobey him. Would you disobey a band of robbers who are pointing their guns in your face? Probably not, because you know that the threat of retribution is real. If people sin today, it's often because they aren't thinking about God at the time of the sin. "Out of sight, out of mind," and all that.

This ties in somewhat with the issue of free will. Could human beings have free will if they had proof that God exists? Well, Christianity provides its own answer to that with the story about Lucifer's fall. Lucifer certainly knew that God existed, yet he disobeyed him out of pride and envy. (Why God would create Lucifer with the potential to develop pride and envy in the first place is another matter. Why did God even make provision for the existence of the vices we know as "pride" and "envy"?)

In short, I can conceive of no reason whatsoever why God couldn't have simply created heaven in the first place, with everyone already there.

I have my doubts about that -- I have yet to even see any direct historical evidence that the Apostles existed -- but even if we suppose that's the case, it doesn't prove the correctness of that message.

Historical, scientific, harmony with logic -- anything, really. If God wants people to believe, then why have them rely on a book and oral legend ("tradition")? Most other religions have the very same basis, so why not believe them instead?

I would consider the Bible evidence if, for example, it contained scientifically accurate statements about nature that would be practically impossible for primitive man to know on his own. If the Bible even indirectly referred to such concepts as wave/particle duality, the expanding universe, etc., then that would be impressive.

Another form of acceptable evidence would be the answering of prayers in such a way that natural explanations would be insufficient. Christ said in the Bible that anything two or more Christians pray for would be granted to them by God. Has experience borne this out? Every time? Christ didn't qualify the statement. Sure, many people believe their prayers have been answered -- I used to be fairly convinced that my own wishes had been granted in certain cases, and I was very grateful. But of course I've had other earnest requests go ungranted. How do I know, then, that the results of the "granted prayers" wouldn't have happened regardless of whether or not I'd prayed?

Of course, it's neither possible to prove nor disprove whether or not a Higher Power of some sort exists. Even if a giant cross in the sky appeared to everyone on earth, it could always have been put there by extraterrestrials. Still, I would be much more inclined to take the risk of living a religious life in vain if that sort of evidence were available.

Enlighten Me

Why would a god allow himself to be so hidden that reading an 800 page "tome" is necessary in order to apprehend him? And which tome is the correct one to read in order to properly understand him? Why doesn't the Bible stand on its own? Why is the Christian book industry so huge? Why do so many Christians think that exegesis, apologetics, and teleology give "witness" to a living God. It seems that these kinds of Christians REALLY worship their very own intellects...