Endless Punishment, Fundie style

[CplFerro]

It has nothing to do with morals. I merely requested that you to make your arguments without leaning on logical fallacies. Is that too much?

Of course, you're absolutely right that you're free to appeal to authority, assume the conclusion, and specially plead all you want. Just don't expect to make any logically sound arguments that way.

Dear Frozenwolf,

There are no logically sound arguments for Christianity's truth that would ever convince you. God is beyond logic anyway. You are an amateur atheist at least, perhaps angling to become a professional one. You have your idol already, and so it is not in my power to smash it for you. You must be convicted by the Holy Spirit of sin and smash it yourself.

Go right ahead. The only problem is that your assertion that babies are born sinners is based on a heaping helping of unsubstantiated assumptions, much like your claim in another thread that the morality of souls can never change once in hell. Given the complexities of human psychology, just how do you know this, and who are you to dictate what goes on in the minds of others?

If the basic premise of a transcendent One escapes you, what difference does it make all the rest?

Cpl Ferro

 

[bruto]

Dear bruto,

If we presume free will has no part to play in defining one's culpability to original sin, you're right.

Cpl Ferro

I do not deny that, presuming sin occurs, free will is an essential ingredient. But the concept of damnation at birth presumes that free will IS sin, since possession of even its seeds condemns one to damnation whether or not one ever has the occasion to use it.

If you wish to consider sin a status crime, then so be it, but you cannot then say it is something you do. It cannot be both if ever even one human being is born who fulfils the crime of status without committing a sin. If a baby born in a coma who dies hours later is, as it appears, deserving of eternal damnation for being a sinner, then sin is a status crime, pure and simple.

 

[crhkrebs]

And perhaps prayer would, as well, crhkrebs...

Cpl Ferro

This isn't a prayer meeting, it is a discussion group where arguments are presented, and countered, in a logical manner. The use of logical fallacies impedes any progress for all those involved. Prayer doesn't help either. What does move the conversation forward is answering questions put to you.

I'll make it very simple. Without invoking a certain "Muggeridge quoting" homophobe , please explain how sinful babies are born again. Why would they be subjected to eternal torment? Thanks.

 

[Chaos]

Dear Chaos,

My beliefs represent me conforming to a reality my intuition tells me is true. I see the dots and connect them into the image of the One, etc..

Cpl Ferro

You are misusing the terms "reality", "see" and "dots" here.

 

[tsig]

Dear Chaos,

My beliefs represent me conforming to a reality my intuition tells me is true. I see the dots and connect them into the image of the One, etc..

Cpl Ferro

Most of us prefer to use our senses to conform to reality.

 

[Minoosh]

Mormons don't believe in original sin - and aren't considered Christian by many evangelicals.

I do a long round-trip drive every weekend and change channels listening to different preachers - for the entertainment value - I'd be scared to death to pick a religion since the odds of being wrong are very high, and the consequences unpalatable. One preacher a couple of weeks ago seemed to be saying there is nothing you can do to be saved, it is totally up to God's discretion. That seems to defeat the whole purpose of religion.

 

[Frozenwolf150]

Dear Frozenwolf,

There are no logically sound arguments for Christianity's truth that would ever convince you. God is beyond logic anyway.

And yet here you are, trying to argue for and about God using the tools of language and reason. So apparently God is only beyond logic when you need to bail out of a failed argument.

You are an amateur atheist at least, perhaps angling to become a professional one. You have your idol already, and so it is not in my power to smash it for you. You must be convicted by the Holy Spirit of sin and smash it yourself.

What part of "does not believe in gods" escapes you? Or do you honestly believe that anyone who is not a Christian must be an idolater? Is this the same as how you believe that bad Christians are all atheists?

If the basic premise of a transcendent One escapes you, what difference does it make all the rest?

Cpl Ferro

Thank you for baring the intellectual bankruptcy of your arguments for all to see. You don't have an answer when confronted with difficult questions, so you blame the person for asking the questions. How typical.

 

[Resume]

Decoct it down and I believe that, Resume.

Okay, I distilled this idea of original sin and still find it unethical and immoral. I am also relieved that the concept is entirely imaginary.

 

[Donn]

Another wee problem for original sin is the fact that there never was an Adam, or an Eve.

Pick any:
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/?s=adam+eve&searchsubmit=Search+»

For example:
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress...ves-theologians-into-a-frenzy-of-fabrication/

This means, of course, that Adam and Eve couldn’t have been the literal ancestors of all humanity. Normally, such a scientific trashing of scripture could be absorbed, at least by liberal theologians. They’d just reinterpret Adam and Eve as metaphors. But that causes big trouble on two counts. First, if there really were 2,500 or more ancestors, then all of them must have transgressed to bring original sin into the world. That is hard to fathom: did everyone do something bad at the same time?
Second, if Adam and Eve were metaphors, and the source of original sin is mysterious, then we have no idea why Jesus died. After all, his death and Resurrection occurred precisely to save us sinful humans from the transgressions of Adam and Eve. If you have to turn that story into a metaphor, then Jesus died for a metaphor. That’s not very palatable to Christians.
— WEIT

​

 

[pakeha]

Late to the party, a ususal, but I'm glad to see Donn in the post above has shown why the ideas of original sin and the Fall of Mankind are dependant on belief in a particluar myth cycle, one which seems to have been heavily influenced by neighbouring peoples' religions.

Since we know the Judeo-Christian texts to be myths, why take them seriously as explanations for human behaviour?

 

[catsmate]

Ok, empirically verify that fact.

I'd settle for the god bothers not fabricating quotes.....

Atheist-sceptic types are fond of roasting the Catholic Church for its many historical and recent crimes, tsig. But the Church has no lock on corruption. So, take that corruption and spread it liberally across the entire world, for all of known human history and beyond, and that is your empirical evidence.

Perhaps reading up on logical fallacies would be useful.

Try this:

Mormons don't believe in original sin - and aren't considered Christian by many evangelicals.

Then again the RCC does believe in original sin and they aren't Real True Christians to many evangelicals.

Late to the party, a ususal, but I'm glad to see Donn in the post above has shown why the ideas of original sin and the Fall of Mankind are dependant on belief in a particluar myth cycle, one which seems to have been heavily influenced by neighbouring peoples' religions.

Since we know the Judeo-Christian texts to be myths, why take them seriously as explanations for human behaviour?

They need them, because losing their support framework is deeply scary to many xians; hence their hatred and fear of atheists.

 

[pakeha]

[ . . . ]

Late to the party, a ususal, but I'm glad to see Donn in the post above has shown why the ideas of original sin and the Fall of Mankind are dependant on belief in a particluar myth cycle, one which seems to have been heavily influenced by neighbouring peoples' religions.

Since we know the Judeo-Christian texts to be myths, why take them seriously as explanations for human behaviour?

They need them, because losing their support framework is deeply scary to many xians; hence their hatred and fear of atheists.

I can relate to that fear, as I have number of colleagues approaching retirement age (optional at 65, mandatory at 66). Since some of these colleagues are beyond bewildered and openly frightened at the thought of a future where mid-month will come around without a schedule to tell them where they'll need to be at 11.00 AM on the first of the following month, this gives me an idea of just how threatening and frankly scary it must be to contemplate a Universe without a caring deity to moniter look over us.

The idea that the creator of the known universe could possibly have an interest in what the humans on a given planet do or think surprises me beyond words. I can understand that primitive peoples could imagine such a thing, that they could believe our planet is the beginning and the end of creation.
However, our knowledge has expanded since then, hasn't it?
Why pretend it hasn't?

 

[Donn]

However, our knowledge has expanded since then, hasn't it? Why pretend it hasn't?

You know that feeling when you're in a dark place and you just know there's something behind you? How you want to look, but you're afraid it will attract attention from the thing in the dark?

Faith is the solemn pretence of joy under stasis.

 

[Cainkane1]

I come across this little book called The Doctrine of Endless Punishment, by a 19th century author named William Shedd, republished by a modern Baptist press, for the edification of religious students and for ammunition against the sin of universalism (according to the preface) and I came across this passage:



I am particularly struck by the highlighted sentence, since it makes clear that it is not what you do, but what you are, that is sinful. By expert reverse logic it is proved that to be born is to have sinned freely. NOthing new here, I suppose, but it's rare to see the **** packed so compactly into the crock.

Catholics feel the same way. The only religion I now of that gives infants and children any slack are the Mormons who say deceased babies receive instant paradise when they die baptised or not.

 

[CplFerro]

Catholics feel the same way. The only religion I now of that gives infants and children any slack are the Mormons who say deceased babies receive instant paradise when they die baptised or not.

According to my Catholic friend, Cain, the fate of unbaptised babies was only speculation by the Church, never dogma.

Cpl Ferro

 

[Donn]

It all comes down to speculation, because when they ask god for clarity they get no reply.

 

[CplFerro]

I do not deny that, presuming sin occurs, free will is an essential ingredient. But the concept of damnation at birth presumes that free will IS sin, since possession of even its seeds condemns one to damnation whether or not one ever has the occasion to use it.

If you wish to consider sin a status crime, then so be it, but you cannot then say it is something you do. It cannot be both if ever even one human being is born who fulfils the crime of status without committing a sin. If a baby born in a coma who dies hours later is, as it appears, deserving of eternal damnation for being a sinner, then sin is a status crime, pure and simple.

Dear bruto,

Adam and Eve had free will and were peccable but not sinful until they acted to eat the fruit. I would say original sin requires a free will, but is not based on that free will, but rather a freely chosen disposition towards sin. If this is not so, then I do not understand it.

Also as I wrote to Cain, according to my Catholic friend, Cain, the fate of unbaptised babies was only speculation by the Church, never dogma. So to speak, it's pop religion that has produced this idea of boiling babies in Hell.

Cpl Ferro

 

[CplFerro]

I can relate to that fear, as I have number of colleagues approaching retirement age (optional at 65, mandatory at 66). Since some of these colleagues are beyond bewildered and openly frightened at the thought of a future where mid-month will come around without a schedule to tell them where they'll need to be at 11.00 AM on the first of the following month, this gives me an idea of just how threatening and frankly scary it must be to contemplate a Universe without a caring deity to moniter look over us.

The idea that the creator of the known universe could possibly have an interest in what the humans on a given planet do or think surprises me beyond words. I can understand that primitive peoples could imagine such a thing, that they could believe our planet is the beginning and the end of creation.
However, our knowledge has expanded since then, hasn't it?
Why pretend it hasn't?

Dear pakeha,

It's because the vastness of interstellar space and time doesn't mean anything. It's just crap floating in space. The human world means something, it is the repository of meaning in the universe, aside from any elsewhere pockets of other intelligent lifeforms. If God is a god of meaning--willing to live a human life for the sake of finding out what it is that these humans go through in their lives--why wouldn't He take an interest in the most interesting beings in the universe? What else is He going to do, study dwarf stars or something? The universe doesn't care about Him, He created man who could care about God and so God could meaningfully care about man.

I don't think I'll ever recover from my mild amazement at how people think because something is bigger than they are, it should be more important.

Cpl Ferro

 

[Giordano]

Dear CplFerro,

Just to be clear, I thought according to doctrine, that Christ's suffering was to offload us from original sin. I even thought that the church had an age of consent below which you were not libel for any "sins" you might commit (I know that the Jewish religion does). Are you now saying that new born babies, not because they have free will, but because they use that free will to want to "sin" (whether they can physically "sin" or not) are committing sin until they are old enough to "accept" Christ and be forgiven?

I also learned that unbaptized babies go to Limbo, but I know the church no longer professes this. Are you saying that they go to Hell instead, due to their "sinning?" Is this your belief or held to by a particular church? If you think they go to Heavan insead, why?

Thanks- I ask out of intellectual curiousity.

 

[CplFerro]

Most of us prefer to use our senses to conform to reality.

This life's dim windows of the soul
Distorts the heavens from pole to pole
And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, not through, the eye
--William Blake

Cpl Ferro