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I am religious and believe in free will

71 (27.7%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

114 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (23.8%)

Total Members Voted: 251

[Loud Whispers]

One could ask the question of why God thought it was necessary to sacrifice His son anyway, since He could just make the new rules take effect.  So it all comes down to the question of why He had a son at all, or why He does anything he does really, I guess.

Cos he sent prophets before him and they all got gibbed by humans, no one would listen without a sacrifice

[Helgoland]

We're just as likely to be talking shit about Wiccans here as we are about Christians.

Empirically, no. Also, I wasn't necessarily talking about you... I'm as much against the evangelicals and zealots the US is so plagued with as the next guy, but the second the argument shifts from those guys to Christians in general - which, as you might have guessed, includes yours truly - I tend to get miffed.

[Adragis]

Ani-science people

aniseed ball development teams

[TempAcc]

We're just as likely to be talking shit about Wiccans here as we are about Christians.

Empirically, no. Also, I wasn't necessarily talking about you... I'm as much against the evangelicals and zealots the US is so plagued with as the next guy, but the second the argument shifts from those guys to Christians in general - which, as you might have guessed, includes yours truly - I tend to get miffed.

Eh, pretty much this. While vocal atheists tend to complain they often get pictured as fedora wearing neckbeards, its kinda hard to complain about generalization when they always depict christians as the local born again christian evangelical pastor that believes the earth is flat and wants to stone homosexuals :v

Mostly an issue of North Americans thinking everything else in the world is like North America, though. Mostly. Not like there aren't crazy tier christians elsewhere, its just NA seems to house most of them.

[Adragis]

W-wait, believes the earth is flat?

Genuine curiosity here, when did anyone say that within the last ten years?

[TempAcc]

Flat Earth Society- Note: not actualy christian, per se.

Also a few Islamic religions leaders (of the more insane kind) tend to be flat earth adherents, like the leader of Boko Haram.

[Adragis]

i have seen hell

[origamiscienceguy]

Sheol was basically the Fields of Asphodel except possibly with a side of torture, depending on who you believe, and the Old Testament is thick with references to it. Jesus provided a way out that wasn't there before (even by living a righteous life).

That is not completely accurate. I have talked to some bible scholars, and they told me sheol literally means "the grave" the whole "Hades" and "hell" were metaphors created later.

One could ask the question of why God thought it was necessary to sacrifice His son anyway, since He could just make the new rules take effect.  So it all comes down to the question of why He had a son at all, or why He does anything he does really, I guess.

Anyway, the argument was that if Jesus and the new testament never came around, then the concept of going to heaven or Hell for humans never would have either.  Before that, you just died, or if you were one of a very few exceptional people you got called up to heaven.  There was no eternal suffering for doing the wrong thing: you just died.  With the new testament, you suffer forever if you do something wrong.

As for why the disciples didn't see it that way... well, they were on His good side I guess, so they didn't see it as a problem.

God gave humans and Angels free will. The ability to make our own choices. He created us for his own Glory and Pleasure. He knew that we would sin, so he made the way out of sin AS EASY AS IT COULD POSSIBLY BE. He sent Jesus to die so that we wouldn't have to. But then, he raised him back from the dead. All we have to do is believe that.

I think the common thread is the general distrust of science. When you're saying evolution is a global conspiracy orchestrated by satan himself, it's not a huge stretch to lump other "science" stuff as part of the same conspiracy.

You are finding the absolute extreme examples of Christians. The bible says nothing about evolution being wrong. Just as you could say, "some Christians say the moon doesn't exist" There are probably just as many atheists who believe the moon doesn't exist. So please stop trying to generalize Christians with examples of the few.

[Arx]

Sheol was basically the Fields of Asphodel except possibly with a side of torture, depending on who you believe, and the Old Testament is thick with references to it. Jesus provided a way out that wasn't there before (even by living a righteous life).

That is not completely accurate. I have talked to some bible scholars, and they told me sheol literally means "the grave" the whole "Hades" and "hell" were metaphors created later.

Unless you can provide sources more concrete than 'some bible scholars', I'm going to have to disagree. Additional sources: 1 2 3

Interpreting it as literally 'the grave' contextually makes little sense. It'd be more accurate to say that it's just another term for death, but that begs the question of why the Bible refers to 'going down to Sheol'.

You are finding the absolute extreme examples of Christians. The bible says nothing about evolution being wrong. Just as you could say, "some Christians say the moon doesn't exist" There are probably just as many atheists who believe the moon doesn't exist. So please stop trying to generalize Christians with examples of the few.

Reelya's not doing any generalising. He's just saying there are people who believe that.

[Telgin]

God gave humans and Angels free will. The ability to make our own choices. He created us for his own Glory and Pleasure. He knew that we would sin, so he made the way out of sin AS EASY AS IT COULD POSSIBLY BE. He sent Jesus to die so that we wouldn't have to. But then, he raised him back from the dead. All we have to do is believe that.

Well... I could point you back a hundred pages to how I describe that I don't believe in any kind of meaningful free will at all, but I'll just leave it at that: I don't believe in free will.  It doesn't follow from natural laws so far as I can see.  It's entirely illusory.

And regardless, it still begs the question of why God wanted to create us if he knew we would continuously make Him mad and screw things up.  I know it's been discussed a lot throughout the thread, but it really paints Him in a very dim light.  At best He's not omnipotent (can't prevent the world from being awful), not omniscient (He didn't know we'd screw things up) or He's a pretty evil being.  Or I guess you could say that logic to Him is entirely alien to our notions of it, but that feels kind of like a copout to me.

I think the general consensus among some of the posters here at least is that God really isn't completely omnipotent or omniscient.  If He was omnipotent then He wouldn't be bound by any laws, even His own.  He might be omniscient, but if so that means He's pretty awful since He creates people He knows will go to Hell.

Interestingly, the pastor I mentioned earlier believes that God really is just mean sometimes, but is omnipotent and omniscient.

[Bohandas]

We're just as likely to be talking shit about Wiccans here as we are about Christians.

Empirically, no. Also, I wasn't necessarily talking about you... I'm as much against the evangelicals and zealots the US is so plagued with as the next guy, but the second the argument shifts from those guys to Christians in general - which, as you might have guessed, includes yours truly - I tend to get miffed.

Eh, pretty much this. While vocal atheists tend to complain they often get pictured as fedora wearing neckbeards, its kinda hard to complain about generalization when they always depict christians as the local born again christian evangelical pastor that believes the earth is flat and wants to stone homosexuals :v

Mostly an issue of North Americans thinking everything else in the world is like North America, though. Mostly. Not like there aren't crazy tier christians elsewhere, its just NA seems to house most of them.

It was my undwrstanding that Africa is infested with them as well.

[Graknorke]

Let me put it as clearly and succinctly as I can:

No.

Dude what? Religion is all about taking normal stuff and blaming it on the divine.

W-wait, believes the earth is flat?

Genuine curiosity here, when did anyone say that within the last ten years?

Well the Bible does describe the Earth as a flat circle at the centre of the universe a bunch of times. So... probably?

[Sheb]

Dude what? Religion is all about taking normal stuff and blaming it on the divine.

What? Religions is about plenty of stuff. About organizing societies, maintaining communities, providing moral codes...

Sure, providing explanation for stuff happening is also a role religion can play, but it is far from the only one, or even the main one for most modern denominations.

[Graknorke]

Okay, it's defined by taking normal stuff and attributing it to the divine.

[Bohandas]

You are finding the absolute extreme examples of Christians. The bible says nothing about evolution being wrong.

The bible explicitly states that the world and all life on it were created in seven days