Jayjay

A christian acquintance of mine reasoned that because Christianity is the only religion in the world that preaches salvation through grace and not by works, it must be the true religion, and even if it's not this uniqueness makes it the best guess. Of course, as an atheist my immediate reaction was that there must be pre-christian cults or religions that say the very same thing, that only divine intervention can save us wretched wretchs.

However, I was unable to find any such influences by myself, so I'm turning to you: where did Paul get the idea of through grace alone?

[ April 09, 2002: Message edited by: Jayjay ]</p>

Pomp

More importantly, why is this supposed uniqueness relevant in determining which religion is true?

GunnerJ

Exactly, PB.

Jayjay, unless you were arguing that Xianity is just like any other religion, don't fall for this trap. Uniqueness of an idea does not infer truth.

Wizardry

Actually, there is a strain of Buddhism which preaches <a href="http://www.unification.net/ws/wsintr4.htm" target="_blank">that exact idea.</a>

Doesn't matter if he thought it up all on his own. Not everything in Christianity is derivative.

This, however, is not a particularly good argument, though.

Peace out.

Jayjay

Thanks, that was exactly what I was looking for.

Just because atheists think that uniqueness of a particular religion is not a sufficient proof does not mean that a religionist wouldn't. I'm not engaged in a battle to prove the truthfulness of atheism, nor am I interested in such a futile effort: Occam's razor or naturalism are in the end accepted on faith as much as any religious tenet, it's a value judgment and a personal choice.

Philosoft

I don't know about that. Occam's razor is merely a rational heuristic. No one asserts that it will provide the correct answer every time. It's simply a means of probabilistic decision making in the absence of conclusive evidence.

Metaphysical naturalism is kind of a red herring. I submit that there's no real reason to profess a positive belief that for every natural effect there's a natural cause. The entire 6 billion-plus population of the earth are naturalists 98% of the time. That's as close to a consensus as you will ever see.

Jayjay

It's still a choice whether to apply any principle in any particular situation. Yeah sure, if you want to have probabilistic chances of success, you use Occam every time, but theists aren't really interested in being right (as opposed to maintaining a particular set of beliefs).

ex-preacher

Most Christians would question the premise that Xty teaches salvation by grace alone.
The teachings of Jesus certainly do not include this concept - he repeatedly taught the importance of works (read the Sermon on the Mount). Christians also disagree, sometimes violently, about what exactly Paul taught on this subject. The overwhelming majority of Christians are not Calvinists. At best, I think you can say that Christians teach salvation based on the sacrifice of Jesus. This is not a unique concept, as Judaism and many religions contemporary with Xty taught sacrifice-based redemption.

Further, even if someone could show Xty alone taught salvation by grace, totally apart from works, this may just prove its absurdity. Pure Calvinism is utterly devoid of justice and reason.

I've heard Christians boast that even Hitler could have been saved by grace, in spite of his evil works, if he believed at the last moment before death. They never mention the corollary - that Anne Frank and 6 million Jews still go to hell, regardless of their good works, if they fail to believe in Jesus. Should we really admire a religion that escorts Jeffrey Daumer into paradise while his victims smolder in hell?

Philosoft

I suppose, but it's not the blind choice you seem to think it is.

<strong> Okay, but I wasn't really concerned with what theists are interested in. I wanted you to understand your misconceptions about the use of Occam's Razor and naturalism by non-theists.

Jayjay

I'm not sure what you mean by that.

What misconceptions? I don't think I said anything about how non-theists use these principles, or that they would be the corner stones of atheism (I mentioned these two mostly as examples).