The Christianity Thread
 

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when i was a child and i watched those christian church scenes in movies... you know where they sing about jesus and the lord... they always scared me and came across as evil

You should live in the West. Then they'd just seem insignificant.

I believe that declaration is specific to catholicism. I guess there may be an equivalent in non-catholic christian services.

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As a marketer, I'm always intrigued about the methods used for this cult to get so popular.

Okay, this is from another thread but I'll repost it. Cheers:

That's silly. If there is no hardship in heaven, then that necessarily means that people there are unable to choose the alternative, and thus have no choice at all.

But okay, I see a workaround. God could easily just change people's psyches or whatever so that they are incapable of sin. But then, if he is able to prevent people from sinning simply by making them better people, or any other device that would retain their free will, then your appeal to free will again is moot because this inherently implies that God is capable of preventing evil without infringing upon people's free will. See what I'm saying. To simplify:

1) God is capable of preventing evil in heaven without infringing on free will.
2) By virtue of his omnipotence, he ought to also be capable of preventing evil on earth without infringing upon free will.

Thus;

3) God does not need to infringe upon free will to prevent evil
4) The problem of evil persists, and God still necessarily consents to it

So, if your argument here is correct, then your argument earlier (appeal to free will) is invalid and God is still literally Hitler.

Decisions don't happen in a vacuum. Perhaps the serpent didn't coerce eve into eating the apple, but there were certainly a set of conditions that caused her to make that choice. God would have been aware of those conditions, and still allowed them to take place. Therefore, God consented in Eve eating the apple.

But you're missing my overall point: the eve apple bit was just a rhetorical. The point is:

Why didn't God create eve in such a way that she wouldn't have eaten the apple the first place, or further:

Why did God create man in such a way that the tiniest shred of free will would result in atrocities? Why didn't he just do whatever he did to the people in heaven? And inb4 you cite The Fall of Man, I'm getting to it.

I'll make a point of it, but for now would you mind giving me the clift notes version, and how it relates to my argument?

Firstly, the Fall of Man is a silly concept even outside of the context of this debate. To wit, doesn't it really only serve to prove The Problem of Evil right? After all, why would God continue to punish us thousands (millions, depending on how literally you take the bible, and I don't get the sense that you're a six-thousand year type) of years after eve? The Fall of Man certainly isn't my fault.

But okay, the bottom line is, whatever God's rationalisation for not preventing natural disasters is, be it The Fall of Man or anything else, God would still have to not prevent natural disasters. Which, if you think about it, is pretty messed up:

Now, The Fall of Man is God's punishment for Eve eating from the tree of knowledge. As a result of the Fall of Man, "all creation groans", which, in this context, means at least partially that natural disasters happen. By virtue of his omnipotence, that's actually a whole lot like saying this:

"Because Eve ate from the tree of knowledge, God punished man with natural disasters".

Now you've got a God on your hands that not only turns a blind eye to suffering and strife, he actively participates in it. I don't think this is the logical corridor that you want to go down.

I've read a little bit from a few of the major apologists, and I've never been terribly impressed. Also, most of the objections to this issue, the problem of evil specifically, tend to be particularly bad. We're talking about Free Will right now, but you don't even want to get into stuff like "God's just testing our faith". Let's not call these issues elementary -- philosophers on both sides far smarter than us have been debating this for hundreds of years.

Oh, by the way, I totally don't want to give the impression that I'm persecuting you or anything. I just genuinely enjoy arguing with people. So yeah.

*drops mic* (love you chula)

:clap:

Please let this thread die.

If it does, a spammers just gonna necrobump it and people will start worshipping it.