gee

Johnny Skeptic;
Lots of good questions you brought up in your first post. Trying to answer all of them from a Christian point of view in one forum would be insane.

I'll comment on your above quote though; sorta' throw you a bone....

Christianity; by definition, hinges on the fact that Jesus had to be born of a virgin/rise from the dead (etc). If he didn't; well, Christianity wouldn't make much sense would it?

I would dispute the "comfortable eternal life" thing myself. I have always thought the ole' Pascal's wager was really really weak. It serves up no good reason to be a Christian.

God simply made more sense to me than "non-God".

I'll admit; theism has problems. However, atheism to me has more unsolved problems.

gee

seebs

Okay, but the reason I was commenting on this was that you said:

I was a fundamentalist Christian for over 35 years, so I believe that I am qualified to state what Christians, both liberal and fundamentalist, believe.

I do not think this likely. In fact, I know fundamentalists whose beliefs are different from those you comment on as well.

It's not a question of denominations, but of individuals. I have seen it argued in debates over what exactly salvation is. I personally have little to no opinion on the afterlife question; salvation is something that happens here and now. It may continue in some way, but I haven't been there and don't know.

Even so, your argument doesn't make much sense applied to them either; there are many other belief systems offering a comfortable eternal life, and it is obvious that the offer of a comfortable eternal life is not the factor that leads one to choose between them.

Furthermore, some fundamentalists share the traditional view of Revelation as referring in large part to events of the first century. Not all fundamentalists are millenialists.

No, I don't. Have you ever heard of Valhalla? It seems to me that many people would prefer excitement to comfort.

The reasons for which a given institution arises are not always the reasons for which all the members join or stay involved.

I don't think so at all. You've offered the repeated claim that the comfortable eternal life is the sole motivator, and that people would adopt anything else offering the same outcome. At best, this is merely unsupported. You haven't even looked at the various moral components of the faith, which seem to be central to many people. You haven't addressed the existence of many other religions which claim comfortable eternal lives, some of which are easier.

Furthermore, to a certain extent, the entire argument begs the question; it presumes that in fact the faith is incorrect, and that there are other sources of comfortable eternal life.

Many Christians would argue that if such exist, they are gifts from God...

In any event, I know a number of fundamentalists who don't come close to meeting this description. Furthermore, whether or not you are in fact targeting only fundamentalists, your original post referred to "Christians" without qualification. Fundamentalists are a definite minority among Christians.

Johnny Skeptic

I most certainly never said that. Emotional benefits in this life are an important factor as well. In addition, many Christians claim that there are tangible benefits as well, such as physical healings and getting a good job.

I most certainly never said that either. People in fact do not adopt anything else with the same outcome. All presidential candidates promise greater prospertity, but the only ones who are elected are the ones who people think will deliver greater prosperity. People who have become Christians believe that only the God of the Bible is able to deliver eternal comfort.

I am not interested in other religions because the followers of other religions have very little political power in the United States. The chief opponents of homosexuality, same sex marriage and physician assisted suicide are fundamentalist Christians. It is those issues that I am most interested in. In addition, fundamentalist Christians often stir up lots of hatred with their bigotry and judgmentalism.

I don't care if people have faith, but I do care if people who have faith attempt to legislate their religious views at the expense of other groups of people who disagree with their religious views.

I was a Christian for over 35 years, and I attended Methodist, Baptist, Assembly of God, Church of God and Wesleyan churches. I never met a Christian in any of those churches who did not look forward to obtain a tangible, comfortable eternal life. At the very least, the vast majority of believers in the denominaions that I mentioned look forward to obtaining a tangible, comfortable eternal life. You are speaking for Christians, but let's let them speak for themselves. How about you and I divide up all of the major Christian denominations, contact their national headquarters and ask them the following questions:

Do you enjoy emotional comfort in this life because of your religious beliefs?

Do you look forward to one day obtaining a tangible, comfortable eternal life?

Do you consider eternal comfort to be much more desirable than the brief, temporal, fleeting comfort that is available in this life?

Would you rather live for a billion years in complete comfort and then become dust in the ground forever, or be a quadriplegic for your entire life and eventually obtain a tangible, comfortable eternal life?

Well now you know better.

Are you not aware that only a few votes decided the last two presidential elections? We are not even completely certain who actually won between George Bush and Al Gore. If there had been only 25,000 fewer fundamentalist Christian voters living in the state of Florida when George Bush ran against Al Gore, Gore would have become president of the United States. Election tallies in some other states have also been quite close in the last two presidential elections.

If I recall correctly, decades ago Jerry Fallwell was responsible for registering eight million voters, and I can assure you that almsot all of them voted for Ronald Reagan.

May I ask what your agenda are in this forum?

seebs

You have said that, if people could get eternal comfort elsewhere, they wouldn't be interested in religion. That makes it pretty close to a sole motivation.

Hmm. You may be approaching dangerous levels of tautology. This argument is starting to sound a bit like "scientists don't really believe these theories, they just use whatever theories seem to reliably predict and explain the world".

However, if you don't take other religions into account, your argument doesn't really tell us anything.

I tend to agree, but I see no connection between this and the original argument.

That's a broader array of churches than some, but they're all in the same ballpark.

I'm not speaking for Christians. I'm speaking for me, and reporting on what a few other people have told me.

From that, I can say that the generalized claim is false; it is not true of all Christians, and may not even be true of most. Many Christians would rather live a finite life morally than an infinite one immorally, even if the infinite one were to be comfortable.

Okay. Well, I still disagree, because I don't think the characterization of fundamentalists here is both true and useful. Depending on terms, it could be true, or it could be useful, but it doesn't seem to be able to be both at once.

That's fine. I just think that, if your argument addresses only a minority of Christians, it should not use the word "Christians" without qualifiers.

Yup! My agenda is that I would like to see an interesting and productive discussion of general religious issues (primarily, of course, related to the Abrahamic religions, because we have NARP for all the cool folks) in which atheists, theists, and whoever else happens to drop by, can come to better understand each other. I would like to see misconceptions cleared up, beliefs challenged and clarified, people growing as individuals, and so on. In particular, I love debate and enjoy examining arguments closely to see whether they hold together, and what if anything they establish.

So far, I haven't seen any way in which this argument gives me any useful results. I am not particularly convinced of its truth, except insofar as it's a nearly pure tautology that's essentially true of pretty much every living creature... But at that point, it doesn't help me very much in making informed decisions about how to interact best with fundamentalist Christians, or any others.

Johnny Skeptic

I already told you in my previous post that I oppose fundamentalist Christians, not other Christians, and I told you why. I also told you that only a few votes decided the last two presidential elections, so your argument that fundamentalist Christians are a minority is not valid. Independent voters are a minority, but they decide most elections. In countries where there are coalition governments, minority parties decide who becomes head of state. The Communist party is the largest political party in Russia, but a coalition of smaller parties banned together to defeat it. I told you that I don't care if people have faith, but I do care when people who have faith attempt to legistlate their religious views at the expense of other groups of people who disagree with their religious views. Would you mind if 95% of Americans accepted the theology of Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell?

Do you know how dangerous fundamentalist Christians really are? When the Supreme Court ordered busing decades ago, the state of Virginia temporarily closed down the public school system so black children would not be able to attend school with white children. A lot of white children were able to attend private schools, but most black children were not able to attend private schools.

The teaching of creationism once enjoyed exclusivity in this country. Christians were strongly opposed to a balanced approach that included the teaching of evolution along with creationsim. However, in their hypocrisy now fundamentalist Christians are more than happy to agree with a balanced approach.

Believe it or not, about 10 years ago in the state of Texas a gay couple were arrested for having sex in the privacy of their own home. The gay couple filed suit against the state of Texas, and eventually the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the gay couple, and in the process struck down anti-sodomy laws in Texas and 12 other states. Most of the states were predictably Southern Bible Belt states. Two exceptions were Utah and Idaho, both of which have large Mormon populations. The other 37 states had previously overturned their anti-sodomy laws by legislative and judicial actions.

Some states, mostly Southern states, want to reinstitute school prayer.

You mentioned that fundamentalist Christians are a minority, but since the Supreme Court often allows states to decide social issues for themselves, and since in some Southern states such as Virginia and Alabama, fundamentalist Christians are numerous and have a lot of political power, your argument doesn't work.

seebs

Right.

And my claim is simply that, if this is the case, you should say so in the argument; it should say "Fundamentalist Christians want ...", not just be unqualified.

It's very valid when the context is an assertion that you should not say "Christians" to refer only to fundamentalist Christians.

I know how dangerous anyone who can paint with a brush that broad can be. I know some fundamentalist Christians I would happily trust with my life, and some I, well, wouldn't. Most of the ones I know are actually good people whose belief systems are a little more rational than the ones you discuss in this thread and below.

And you've never met an atheist racist?

True, but not especially relevant to the question of whether the unqualified statements in the opening post are accurate.

You may rest assured that I am somewhat familiar with the history of laws involving sodomy, interracial marriage, and so on.

Certainly a problem, what with it being formal institutionalized blasphemy in most cases.

Er, I don't know what argument you think I'm making.

I advance two arguments in this thread:

#1: This argument does not apply to all Christians, and in fact, only to a minority of them.

This is the one you seem to be addressing, but I don't see how it's irrelevant. If you claim "Christians are over 7 feet tall", and I demonstrate that only a minority of Christians are that tall, and you assert that they are very likely to be rich and successful basketball players... Well, that's nice, but it doesn't make the general statement true.

#2: Insofar as this applies even only to fundamentalists, it's essentially a pure tautology in most cases, and offers no useful information. You might as well start a thread titled "Christians think their beliefs are true", or "Christians believe different things than atheists".

Johnny Skeptic

Message to Seebs: This is really quite simple. My main issues of interest are homosexuality, same sex marriage, physician assisted suicide, and attempts by Christians, mostly fundamentalist Christians, to reinstitute school prayer in some states. Fundamentalist Christians are the chief opponents of homosexuality, same sex marriage and physician assisted suicide, and the chief proponents of reinstituting school prayer in some states. A gallup poll showed that in the age group category 18-29, 61% favor same sex marriage. The higher the age group, the greater the opposition was to same sex marriage. More and more, young people are becoming more liberal if their views. In some cases, that is a good thing, but obviously not in all cases.

I believe in live and let live, but a sizeable percentage of fundamentalist Christians do not, even though they claim that they do.

If the only Christians were liberal Christians, there would be far fewer Christians at this forum, and far fewer skeptics as well. I never debate liberal Christians. I get along fine with them. My attorney is a liberal Christian, and he detests fundamentalist Christians.

seebs

[QUOTE=Johnny Skeptic]Message to Seebs: This is really quite simple. My main issues of interest are homosexuality, same sex marriage, physician assisted suicide, and attempts by Christians, mostly fundamentalist Christians, to reinstitute school prayer in some states. Fundamentalist Christians are the chief opponents of homosexuality, same sex marriage and physician assisted suicide, and the chief proponents of reinstituting school prayer in some states. A gallup poll showed that in the age group category 18-29, 61% favor same sex marriage. The higher the age group, the greater the opposition was to same sex marriage. More and more, young people are becoming more liberal if their views. In some cases, that is a good thing, but obviously not in all cases.[/quoe]

Okay. Then the best thing to do would be to talk about "fundamentalist Christians" instead of about "Christians" without qualification.

I've met Christians, atheists, and others who don't. It is a problem.

Well, here's the thing. I think you have potentially interesting arguments, but I think some of them have flaws. I would like to help refine them in the only way I know of to refine arguments, which is open debate. Surely that's useful?

My attorney is a liberal Christian, who loves fundamentalist Christians dearly, even though he often needs to act to oppose their harmful words and actions.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to Seebs: You still don't get it, so let me tell you again. My main issues of interest are homosexuality, same sex marriage, physician assisted suicide, and attempts by Christians, mostly fundamentalist Christians, to reinstitute school prayer in some states. Fundamentalist Christians are the chief opponents of homosexuality, same sex marriage and physician assisted suicide, and the chief proponents of reinstituting school prayer in some states.

Currently, same sex marriage and physician assisted suicide are states' right issues. Same sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts, at least temporarily. There is strong support for same sex marriage in California, and California represents a large percentage of the U.S. population. Physician assisted suicide is legal is Oregon, but John Ashcroft, the devout son of a Pentecostal minister, is trying to overturn Oregon's law. He has lost in every court so far. Next fall, the Supreme Court will hear the case.

Only a few votes decided the last two presidential elections, so a few votes either way make a lot of difference. That is why I have a web site, and that is why I debate Christians on the Internet.

The majority, if not most atheists and agnostics do not oppose homosexuality, same sex marriage and physician assisted suicide, and a far fewer pecentage of liberal Christians oppose homosexuality, same sex marriage and physician assisted suicide than do fundamentalist Christians. The Episcopal Church ordained a gay bishop, and Bishop Spong of the Episcopal Church endorses physician assisted suicide. One segment of the Church of Christ endorses same sex marriage. I think that the United Methodist Church is pro choice.

seebs

Okay.

But this thread's apparent topic is an assertion about the beliefs of Christians, which you inform me is specific to fundamentalists.

I just wanna talk about the topic of this thread; we could have other threads for those topics.

The assertion made in this thread is either tautological or false, so far as I can tell, and I wanted to debate that, rather than getting sidetracked.