ElCid

This is my first post so don't expect much.

A christian friend of mine told me that one of the cornerstones of christianity is the belief that Jesus will forgive all your sins. This seems kind of stupid to me. If all your sins were to be forgiven, what then is the point of christianity? What I mean is, why bother reading the bible or going to church or praying or any of it? If Jesus forgives all, why then would we need to pray to god or anything? Also, this suggests a lack of responsibility. This means that you can do whatever you want and you need not worry about consequences (at least not divine consequences). Technically, you could go on a killing spree at a maternity hospital and still get into heaven, because Jesus will forgive you. This concept seems a trifle ridiculous to me. I would appreciate any comments.

YHWHtruth

People generally accept atheism so they can indulge their own selfish desires and ideals, the "Just Me and Jesus" Christian that adopts this faddish non-organizational stance is much the same, only dressed in a backwards collar. It is selfishness cloaked with the delusion of eternal security/salvation in the guise of a self-described "born-again" hysteria that enables them to block any intellectual intrusions into their emotional outcries of "I'm Saved!"


Your friend was WRONG!

Max

Peter Kirby

This seems more appropriate to GRD.

best,
Peter Kirby

wade-w

YHWHTruth:

Please do not presume to tell us why we think what we do. It is arrogant at best.

seebs

I know that my friends are human, so I forgive them when they do things which hurt or offend me, because I know they are trying not to.

Note: *because I know they are trying not to*.

Does that resolve the apparent confusion?

pariah

YHWHTruth...wtf man? Thanks for the broad, untruthful generalization...

CX

This is a fascinating chestnut that I've seen repeatedly offered up by believers of various stripes, but I'm curious what the basis for it is other than a personal feeling. Various survey's by the evangelical Barna group tend to indicate that atheist's as a a group or no more or less inclined to various behaviors or moral positions than anyone else.

Personally, I'd like to know what "selfish desires and ideals" I'm indulging simply because I lack belief in god.

Family Man

Christians often say that people generally accept atheism so they can indulge their own selfish desires and ideals so that they deal with the fact that not everyone accepts their beliefs. YWYHTruth's statement has no basis in fact and need not be taken seriously by anyone, atheist or theist.

emotional

The point of Christianity is to let God be both just, by punishing sinners in hell, and merciful, by letting them off the hook if they accept the blood of His son. In which case I should say Christianity is the most dismal failure I have ever seen: the feeder of the hungry, if he or she has not accepted Jesus, goes to hell, and the mass murderer, if he or she has accepted Jesus on the deathbed, goes to heaven; effectively meaning that God is NEITHER just nor merciful.

What a rotten religion. Is it conceivable that a person, having sinned all his or her life, will be admitted into God's realms just because he or she accepted faith on the deathbed? By no means! Such a person is still filthy with sin, and has hell to endure for some time until he or she repents and is purified. Then and only then is he or she admitted into the higher astral planes (heaven).

Since God is in need of nothing, the only real way to serve God is to serve mankind. Humanism is the only way to heaven.

Family Man

To answer ElCid's question, a good part of the reason why I rejected Christianity is that, at its heart, it is an evasion of responsibility. No matter what you do, Jesus will forgive you if you are sincere. Christians will try to balance that with the notion that, if you are a sincere Christian, you will lead a better life. There is no evidence that that's true, however, though we get a ton of personal anecdotes written by Christians telling us how Christianity has made them better. In some cases it may even be true, though in others it appears more dubious. At any rate, personal anecdotes say nothing about Christianity as I could write one (truthfully) about how atheism has made me a better person.

The bottom line is that this something for nothing scheme of Christianity makes it very doubtful that it is true.