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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

[wierd]

Semantics argument:

Baptism is metaphorical washing. the physical act of being baptised does not have magical powers. What empowers baptism is the faith of the person being baptised. It is a symbol of that faith; that of the belief that christ has absolved your sins.

(This is why I find the Catholic practice of baptism at birth to be downright silly, The baby has not reached an age where the practice is deeply and personally spiritual, so the action is just a physical motion.)

[TheBiggerFish]

*shrug*

It's mostly about the parents, really.  Baptism.  I think, at least.

Confirmation, however, is affirming your faith personally.

[penguinofhonor]

I know removing original sin is the Catholic stance, though they think unbaptized babies go to purgatory instead of Hell.

The particulars of Baptism really depend on the denomination. I mean, Baptists believe that you have to consent to baptism. You can't have unbaptized babies go to Hell in a system like that. I think in the Bible you mainly see them performed, and it's not really explained what they do.

[wierd]

Some context will help.

In ancient hebrew customs, there was very strong emphasis on cleanliness.  So much so that there were ritual baths outside temples, and the like. (See for instance, the "if you do X, you will be 'unclean' for Y days" things in the levitical laws) Baptism grows out of that. Christ points out that all people are filthy with sin, and are unclean to god, which is why you cant go to him like that. Christ gives you a means of becoming clean, so that you can. Baptism is a ceremonial/ritualistic expression of accepting that cleanliness, and becoming cleansed spiritually.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumah_and_taharah

[TD1]

*shrug*

It's mostly about the parents, really.  Baptism.  I think, at least.

Confirmation, however, is affirming your faith personally.

The Church of Ireland, of which I was a dubious member (technically still am, I guess) holds confirmation as such a personal affirmation. Baptism is also important, but what's more important at that time is the parents' promise to raise the child in the faith until they can choose to do so by themselves. In order not to break that promise I attended Sunday School and church until my confirmation (ironically, I lied through my teeth, but it meant a lot to my tradition-minded parents) and after that never went back.

[Kot]

I guess. On the other hand that would basically mean he's satisfied with the world where you can die before you're even born and thus be damned forever because you can't exactly be baptised then. What a dick.

How did you get to the conclusion that baptism staves of damnation?

If I recall my theology right, baptism washes off the stains of original sin.

Yeah, that's pretty much how it goes.
I don't know the theology about when you're afflicted with original sin, though.

Eh, that's what I said before Toady trimmed down everything, including the actually relevant part to the topic.

[origamiscienceguy]

I guess. On the other hand that would basically mean he's satisfied with the world where you can die before you're even born and thus be damned forever because you can't exactly be baptised then. What a dick.

How did you get to the conclusion that baptism staves of damnation?

If I recall my theology right, baptism washes off the stains of original sin.

Do you have a scripture reference?

[Graknorke]

Honestly surrender against a being that powerful (without technology thousands of times more advanced), surrender is the only viable option. Hell, it might be the only option at all given that it could forceably change everyone's minds to make them surrender.

A viable option would be killing every human on Earth. Can't have any worship if there's nobody alive to do it. And if the Abrahamic religions are an accurate depiction, that would really bother aforementioned supernatural entity.

[wierd]

Not a valid course of action. said entity can raise the dead, no matter how discorporeated they are.

That means killing all the humans will only make said entity miffed at you. Not stop it.

[Orange Wizard]

Oi

let's drop the nuking God thing because apparently it causes arguments

...

Biblically, baptism is a symbolic washing (to make the baptised spiritually "set apart", and as a reminder of them being under the covenant of faith) in the same vein as the OT cleanliness thing. It works as a NT replacement for circumcision, which served in the OT as a physical reminder of being under the covenant and part of the Hebrew... group? family? thing? Not church, but vov. There's tonnes of other symbolism and such in the practice, and I can go into more detail if people like.
You can make arguments for and against infant baptism, it's not really a big deal. The main importance of baptism is that it's a sacrament, making it a key ritual within the church.

[lemon10]

-snip-

I never claimed that God was omnipresent or omniscient, only that he ultimately held, in all practical regards, all power. He certainly would know everything that we have discovered, because he made it. And there's no way of knowing how many mortals he has outlived, thus, his knowledge and experience far outweigh our own. I'm also not claiming that God is infallible. I'm stating that perfection* itself may be impossible. I'd like to define this to be clear. *Perfect (adj.)- excellent or complete beyond all practical or theoretical improvement. OK, well how can you declare that anything fits that criteria? When does God say, okay "I added enough it's done." Or "I've fixed every issue. Done."?

Ah, apologies for misunderstanding you then. I thought that we were arguing with the assumptions that god was omniscent and omnipotent. I agree though, if he isn't (merely massively powerful and knowledgeable) a huge amount of blame for the state of the universe is taken off him.

As for declaring something perfect, you would have to have a set criteria in mind, and obtain the best possible value (eg. getting a score of 100/100 on a test is perfect). The ranking between values would have to be rather arbitrary (eg. 1 life well lived=1/10th of a soul in hell), but it could be done. Now, it obviously couldn't be done for anything sufficiently complex like a universe without omniscience (as proving it would be functionally impossible to prove it), but with it it would be possible.

[Rolepgeek]

Can we taboo the words 'omniscient' and 'omnipotent'? As in, use other words that are more descriptive of what we mean by it, because there's a difference between 'knows everything there is to know' and 'knows anything and everything, regardless of whether it's true or possible'. Being omniscient doesn't necessarily mean you know how to do everything and everything. Similarly, omnipotent may mean 'anything that's possible'.

Also, Lemon, you bring up a very good point. If God was to make something perfect, then he would have to be a utility maximizer or something of that sort. Which would be maximizing a numerical score. So maybe the universe is perfect...ly mathematical?

Speaking of which, while we aren't in the best possible world, we're certainly not in the worst. If there's more good then bad, and god is trying to maximize total god, maybe he's created a perfect multiverse, with a nigh-infinite series of worlds, all of which are slightly more good than bad.

And of course, there's the idea that a supernatural entity that powerful seriously just would not see us as having very much moral worth. After all, how much moral worth do you ascribe to an ant? Or a bacteria? I'm not just talking about YHWH, here, people. I think it'd be interesting if we talked about other gods/spiritual systems as well.

Like Zeus.

Honestly surrender against a being that powerful (without technology thousands of times more advanced), surrender is the only viable option. Hell, it might be the only option at all given that it could forceably change everyone's minds to make them surrender.

A viable option would be killing every human on Earth. Can't have any worship if there's nobody alive to do it. And if the Abrahamic religions are an accurate depiction, that would really bother aforementioned supernatural entity.

Ah, the old 'commit suicide to depreciate neighborhood property values' method.

[smjjames]

And of course, there's the idea that a supernatural entity that powerful seriously just would not see us as having very much moral worth. After all, how much moral worth do you ascribe to an ant? Or a bacteria? I'm not just talking about YHWH, here, people. I think it'd be interesting if we talked about other gods/spiritual systems as well.

Like Zeus.

The Greek/Roman gods weren't ominipotent in the way that we think of YHWH or whatever equivalent supreme being. Sure they had some degree of omni-whatever, but they weren't infinitely powerful or infinite-everything.

[Amperzand]

They were more like absurdly powerful people, with most of the same flaws and an occasional tendency to fuck geese.

[Quartz_Mace]

They were more like absurdly powerful people, with most of the same flaws and an occasional tendency to fuck geese.

Both in the figurative and literal senses.

In fact, I think Zeus might've invented bestiality.

Edit: I read that as "fuck Greece." What I thought was clever wordplay was really just embarrassing.
Ignore the first part, please.