sbaii

[QUOTE]Originally posted by LadyShea:
[QB]luvluv, why do xians think we all became atheists so we can "sin"? Is there perhaps some jealousy or are you just building a strawman?]

Christians equate "being christian " with being moral. They have taken the word "christian" and given it a new definition. SO in their logic if you are not christian you are not moral.

Theli

Yes, there is some truth to this.
Just check out atheism at <a href="http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=atheism" target="_blank">www.dictionary.com</a>.

Are we all immoral?

Religions are very keen at establishing themselfs as the ultimate source of goodness and morality.

[ July 05, 2002: Message edited by: Theli ]</p>

luvluv

Typhon:

I didn't mean for any of my statements to be intepreted as absolutes. That is perhaps my fault for not being clear. But I can tell you that all of those options are more severely limited for me as Christian that it would be for an atheist. I certainly could never sleep with every woman who was willing to sleep with me (who has that kind of time? ) but I could sleep with several who were willing if I were an atheist. As it is, I can sleep with NONE of them unless I marry them. That is a definite, and immediate, trade-off.

The same goes for my money, my behavoir, and my ambitions. Certainly they could never be absolutely unrestricted, but they are restricted now in much more severe a fashion than they need to be. There is a significant difference between what I could (and probably would) be doing with my sex life, money, behavior, and ambitions if I were not a Christian.

You might want to say that these trade=offs are lesser than you trading your desire for a God, but they are enough to convince millions of believers not to fully commit. The trade-offs of freedoms is why a lot of people I know who believe in God, and more to the point believe in the Christian God, do not become fully-committed Christians. I would be willing to bet that the majority of non-committed Christians in this country are theists, and a great many of them even believe in Jesus Christ. They haven't committed to him mostly because of the reasons I describe above. Most humans make decisions with neither their head nor their heart but with their desires. It's sad but true. I'd wager that most of the people you know are not committed atheists or committed theists but people who are committed to avoiding the question altogether... because it's a drag.


And I guarantee you that in general company, particular with people 30 years of age or less, being an atheist does not ostracize you anymore than being a born-again Christian. For the majority of people who are uncommitted believer, they can relate a lot more to an atheist who goes out drinking with them and does the same things they do than with someone who doesn't. This is just my personal experience and I realize the ramifications of atheism might increase as one gets older and into more conservative settings. But I just want to suggest to you that in a secular society committed Christians are a very ostracized group. There are lots of us but, generally speaking, we are in a minority in any given secular setting.

I am not saying I BELIEVE in God because belief has more benefits to me. I can't relate to you folks in a lot of ways because I have never NOT believed. I can't ever remember having a serious doubt about God's existence. I said I FOLLOWED God, at least partially, because what I was giving up was not as much as what I gained. I admit that I didn't COMMIT to Christianity because I thought it was true. I always believed it was true, I just thought that the Christian life was too difficult or too boring. I committed because I found out it was not too difficult and it wasn't boring at all.

This particular "Christian" has a name and can speak for himself. I'd say that in general you are wrong. The religion of Chrisianity believes that you can be moral and not be Christian; it simply believes that morality alone will not do you much good. The point of Christianity is not morals the point is a relationship with God. Just as the point of Fatherhood (is that a word?) is not simply that children follow the rules of the house, but that children have a relationship with their father which goes beyond morals.

Typhon

Luvluv,

Here is a point I wanted to bring up for our consideration in this debate: I do not need to be a "fully-committed" Christian to be a theist. Any "Christian" by definition, is of course a theist. I would not consider this to be in the realm of betting, it is fact. A theist is someone who believes in a god or gods, it doesn't have to be any particular dogma or god to qualify. Christians, fully committed by your standards or otherwise, so long they as believe that someone in the religion is "divine" and a god of some sort, are theists.

Now, my point was, that by Christian core beliefs, all the potential rewards of the system are available to me, the eternal life, the salvation from sin, the ability to feel like one of the chosen few, the psychological and social comfort of my place in a body of followers/institution, and the comforting answers to many of life's perplexing and troubling questions, without having to live the degree of "committed" Christian lifestyle that you're talking about. There is nothing I'd have to give up to gain these, other than my lack of god-belief in this case.

Face it, born-again or otherwise, all I need is to truthfully believe that god exists, that Jesus Christ was his divine son, accept him and his sacrifice as the only way to lift my supposed burden of sin and pass into the kingdom of heaven. This, not good works or living a perfect "Christian" life is what dictates my entrance into heaven, based on the core Protestant beliefs, of which born-agains are but a sub-sect of and do not differ in this from the above.

Conversely, I could live a blameless life, fully embracing flawlessly the Christian virtues and commandments, all save the above, and I will be cast into everlasting hellfire, should I remain an atheist, Buddhist, or what have you.

Thus my whole point that the "sacrifices" are theologically unnecessary provided the primary clause of Christianity is fulfilled. To argue that atheists or anyone are thus unwilling to give these up, producing a bias in their clear weighing of the likelihood of god and theism, is spurious IMO.

I know from previous discussions, you are in effect apostate on many core Christian beliefs and scriptural dogma, for example, the Biblical description and characteristics of hell, but do you differ from mainstream Christians so much that you disagree with my definition of the necessary requirements for salvation?

In other words, do you truly seek to make a case that only "fully committed Christians" are eligible for salvation, despite that fact that these less than fully committed believers have accepted and taken in good faith, the fundamental tenet of belief which according to the Scriptures and their Protestant interpretation (the basis for your sub-sect of Christianity) is the key and sole key for salvation?

.T.

[ July 07, 2002: Message edited by: Typhon ]</p>

luvluv

Well Typhon I know from experience that it is not so easy to believe enough to truly be saved while maintaing the intent to never change. You cannot be saved by saying magic words, you must believe them in your heart when you say them. It's nearly impossible to do this if you know you are only hedging your bets. You really don't have the ability to, whenever you want to, make a full commitment to God in such a fashion. You can choose to be open to God, but you can't choose it in just such a fashion as to secure salvation but ignore all of the rest. Of course, there are Christians who fail to live up with their intentions when they became Christians, but their intentions were real. You can't turn your true intentions on and off.

Christians who do fall away from there sincere intentions generally expereince a severe guilt and remorse. It's akin to getting a divorce. It's not generally a pretty picture. But I can tell you from experience it is not an easy thing to simply "leave the faith" from an emotional standpoint. I've done it (I was saved in early childhood but drifted away during my high school and college days). I could never just live the wild and crazy life without feeling guilty and without knowing in my heart that God was real and I was pushing Him out of my life. If you ever really truly believe (and you can't become a Christian without believing) it is not a simple matter to just walk away.

In short, you would indeed get to go to heaven and still lead a very decadent life, but you would not enjoy it. I have tried.

emphryio

Thanks Typhon, you've taken the words out of my mouth.

Further I would just like to say that you could divide people (generally speaking) into three types.

1. Those who are atheists because they haven't really bothered to examine the "bigger" philosophical questions of life.

2. Those who have delved a bit and are religious.

3. Those who are atheists because they have examined the "bigger" questions of life in high detail.

Luvluv is maybe somewhat placing the 1's and 3's together. These two types are really quite different. I would say that there are indeed many "1's" out there. And Luvluv's thoughts are perfectly relevant to them but here at the secular web I think you get mostly 3's , a couple of 2's, and close to no 1's.

(Of course many people don't perfectly fit into any category.)

Anyway the point is that just the term "atheist" doesn't maybe give you particularly much info about a person. And the fact that I'm an atheist has absolutely nothing to do with having lots of sex, drinking beer, lying, etc.

DRFseven

And yet many do. When, in our perception, "the scales fall from our eyes", some of us walk away without regret, no matter what the belief system is relinquished. It is also true that many do not, and mourn for lost comfort, while at the same time building new belief structures that come to take the place of those lost.

Caverdude

Typhon,
The statement you made here seems to indicate that you feel one must be a Christian to have morals and ethics. This is not so. Concepts such as morals, ethics, honor, and integrity are a development of culture. For example, there are many cases of animal sacrifice noted in the bible, but today we would consider such an act to be repugnant. So what has changed since the time of the writing of the books in the bible? Quite simply, our culture has matured and changed and it will continue to do so.
In one sense, I agree with you that bias influences many of our decisions as individuals. I would probably use the word EMOTION instead of bias though. Much of our behavior is influenced by intangibles such as love, hate, compassion, etc. Many of our emotions are obviously influenced by our upbringing, environment and education (and also church, of course), but it is difficult to discern exactly how much these feelings are "hard wired" in each individual and how much they are developed through external forces.

Typhon

Just for the record... I am Typhon. What you quoted:

Was said by Luvluv. I am not, nor ever have been, a Christian and I do not hold to the above sentiment.

.T.

Caverdude

Ack!!!!! Extreme apologies to all. I usually get on the computer late at night and my mind isn't always working at 100 percent.