David Bowden

I'll be visiting with some extended family next week, and I anticipate that they'll ask me, once again, to explain my rejection of Christian salvation and the Christian God. There are a couple of amateur but persistent theologian/apologists among them, but I need to keep this from dominating my visit with them, since life is short and family is important, even the ones who sometimes exasperate me.

I'm hoping to give them something meaty to chew on, since my reasons for leaving Christianity are far more complicated than can be explained in a couple of syllogisms or anecdotes.

To that end, I'm working on the following series of questions about God's alleged perfect "justice", and I'm trying to tighten up the logic and give it some rhetorical punch as well. I was wondering if you all might toss in your $0.02.

Thanks in advance; here's what I have so far:

[ --- ]

-Is God both immutable and omniscient, as well as the creator? [ I expect their answer to be an unhesitant "Yes." ]

-If God truly knows a person's ultimate end (in the case of the "unsaved": persistent lack of faith in God and in his gospel, with the God-instituted consequences thereof),

-Then, didn't God knowingly create that person for that end?

-Is this perfect justice?

[ --- ]

-Wanderer

DRFseven

In my experience, they're not often impressed by tight logic and they're likely to drag out the old "God works in mysterious ways incomprehensible to mere humans" bit of tripe.

Matt

Be prepared with your favorite "free will" refutation, because that's undoubtedly where you will be heading.

-=Vagrant=-

"God works in mysterious ways incomprehensible to mere humans"

How I hate it when they use that to escape anything they can't explain. Maybe I should start using this: "Logic works in mysterious and incomprehensible ways".

WJ

Wander!

I think your last argument relates to FW & D. They may not know this, but based on our 'micro sense of the world' of how we think we possess free-will, FW & D can co-exist. You may not want to call their bluff on that one though. The game '20 questions' might prove my point (they may know that). The result is a mix of chance/choice and determination. The analogy is a dipolar God. One that will's humans [creation] toward a some thing that is 'good'.

Otherwise, it is simply a mystery...how can they get inside the mind of God (assuming he exists of course)? Let me know how they respond...I'm a curious Christian

...didn't mean to de-rail your query.

Walrus

irishajo

Here's a thread that asks a similar question. You can read the replies from some xian viewpoints there, it might help.

<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=47&t=000487" target="_blank">http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=47&t=000487</a>

Getting an xian to understand that knowing a person's end before creation is the same as creating a person for that end is, IMO, the hardest thing to do in this particular argument.

MrDarwin

Why on earth do you owe them any explanation at all? Unless you are trying to convert them to your point of view, why not just refuse to discuss the subject entirely? It will make the visit more pleasant for all involved.

sandlewood

MrDarwin said what I was going to say. If you would rather not talk about it, just tell them so. We are supposed to have freedom of religion in the US. Do they agree with that principle?

But if it were me, and if I were going to talk about it, I don’t think I would take the path of trying to show that the Christian God doesn’t make sense in some fashion. I would simply say that there is no evidence that a God exists. End of argument. People may have developed a notion of God into a really nice system of ideas that are consistent and seem to make sense, but it is still just an idea. No reason to think it really exists in reality. Until you show me some evidence, why should I believe a god exists?

The first objection to this may be “but look around you. Look at all the wonderful things like trees and mountains. They must have been made by a god.” But there is no evidence of any connection to a god. If these things were not created by a god but instead developed naturally, they would look exactly the same. So how could you tell the difference?

I also have relatives that are Christians. But we usually don’t get into discussions of religion. It works out better because no one antagonizes anyone else. I’m not even sure if they know (or care) I’m an atheist.

post-it

It sounds as if you want to give them a good 1-2 punch and have the shut-up about the whole issue. Did I get that right?

Being a liberal Christian, I have had my share of arguments with closed-minded Christians (the right) and my advice to you is not to use logic. I have not found too many Christians that can understand even the basics of logic and valid arguments, etc. They almost all work on “emotion”. They only understand “feelings.” So that should be the method of communication you use with the standard Christian.

Now to translate this into something that will work. Find an issue which you know that your relatives are for or against for religious reasons. It must be an emotional thing you can connect to a person or group who are “victimized by this attitude”. You then claim that you can’t possibly look into becoming a believer since this issue has tainted the waters.

Thus, your argument is not one of belief or not, but one of unfairness. In effect your argument is one of hypocrisy. It is one that they can understand and have no real answer for. It also helps them see that it is an issue (partly) that must be reexamined because it is stopping you, and most likely others, from becoming Christian.

I find myself in these types of arguments rather than one requiring intellect more often than not. By what you said, I don’t think you want to convert them but rather shut them up. This is a great way of doing it and helping them rethink issues within the church that need to be changed for the improvement of society, which is a far better cause.

David Bowden

Thanks all for your input-

Oh, I don't owe them anything. This is more of a bone to throw at them if they just won't lay off. I'd rather it not come up at all, but my relatives being the way they are, there's scant chance of that. I certainly don't intend to bring it up and plan to deflect any debates with the old standby: "Hey, you asked why I don't believe; I'm not going to argue about it."

I certainly don't think I could argue them into changing their minds. At most I hope to deflect further prying by showing that there's more to one's leaving the faith than a desire to become a godless hedonist.

The consensus here seems to agree that engaging them in this way is a bad idea; I'll keep that in mind and try even harder to deflect them. As for the issue of freedom of religion - well, "this is a Christian country, after all"...

Once again, thanks for your posts. I think I'll file this line of reasoning away and save it for the campus crusader apologists this fall.

-Wanderer