Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: lindborg@cs.washington.edu (Jeff Lindborg) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Cutting Away at Tolerance Message-ID: Date: 9 Mar 91 05:51:42 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: University of Washington Computer Science Lines: 123 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article djdaneh@pacbell.com (Dan'l DanehyOakes) writes: >In article lindborg@cs.washington.edu (Jeff Lindborg) writes: >>In article johnb@searchtech.com (John Baldwin) writes: > >Tell me, Jeff, do you honestly believe that "the vast majority of the human >family" has ever had the opportunity to have the evidence (whatever that may be >-- a separate discussion, below) for Christianity placed before them? I would >observe that, for example, in the most populous country in the world, China, >this is almost certainly *not* the case. Ditto in many other non-European >countries. This is a very curious argument indeed! You have opened up a can of worms for me here. This is, in fact, one of the first problems I started having with Christianity. If people have never had to oportunity to hear the word of God, they cannot be saved. If they are not saved, they, of course, get sent to hell for all eternity. Is this fair and just? Is this kind? I was told that God wrote on the hearts of men the "truth" so that even if they did not have access to information about Christianity they were still held accountable for their rejection of Christ. This, of course, is a little flimsy sicne anything remotely resembling Christianity has not been found anywhere missionaries had not previously taken it. Strict monotheism, in fact, is a relative rarity before the advent of Judaism. So one must assume that if this is true, God didn't make the truth very clear when he wrote it on our hearts... Besides, missionaries HAVE been to China (some actualy came and spoke at our church when I was little). Unforunatly Buddhism is acceptant of all beliefs and religions as long as they don't involve the maltreatment of other people. Its difficult to convince a Buddhist to abandon this open, tollerant belief system and take up the banner of Christianity as the one true religion with the one true god... >There is no *proof*, in the coldly logical sense, for any of them. Including, I >confess, Christianity. > >If you actually spent 22 years as a practicing Christian, Jeff, I suspect that >you must have seen a fair passel of this evidence: and clearly you *have* >reached a verdict. Yes, that Christianity, along with all other organized religions, are fictions produced by men. >>...many (perhaps most) people become Christian for two reasons. One: >>they are raised Christian and believe it as firmly as they would >>believe the earth is flat if they were taught all their life that it >>was so. > >Unfortunately true; and this is, imho, the *worst* possible reason for being a >Christian. Such people are _practicing_ Christians but not, imho, truly >_believing_ Christians: there is no true faith if you have not subjected your >beliefs to critical thought. Or so I believe, after a great deal of critical >thought:*) Just as a side note: If they are not truely believing Christians, what is their fate in the afterlife? Just curious. >>Two: fear of the unknown. Particularly, the fear of death. >>Christianity (among many other religions) offers a method by which a >>person can obtain personal imortality. This is a very appealing idea >>and one which a person who fears death would cling to quite readily. >You know, this is also probably true: there are some who come to Christianity >for precisely this reason. But your list of reasons is hardly complete: and, >I might add, this reasons equally drives people away from Christianity, for, in >this sense, Christianity is hardly a very comforting religion. Christianity >tells us that we are all in dire risk of something far worse than death, i.e., >Hell, and (in an important sense) gives us no absolute guarantees that we are >saved from it. St Paul, for example, points out that you must "work out your >own salvation with fear and trembling." We are told over and over that we must >not be too certain that we are saved, for "many are called but few are chosen," >and "many who say [to Jesus] 'Lord, Lord,'" on the Day of Judgement will be told >to go to Hell... literally. And people criticize me for saying that Christianity is based on fear... Many of my Christian friends spend many hours abosrbed in their obsession with their salvation. "Am I REALY saved? How can I know?" etc... For some its a real hang up. For me its a sad commentary on the human condition. >The most important reason to be a Christian, and one which you ignore (why?), is >that, having examined the evidence for it and many other views of the world, >Christianity seems to us to be most likely to be _true_, or likely to be the >most true. I don't mention this because its baloney. There is no more evidence to suggest the truth of Christianity than there is to suggest the truth of Buddhism or Islam etc... You were raised in a society or setting that probably saturated you with Christian norms, and you internalized them. If you were raised in China, you'd probably be a Buddhis, if you were raised in Iran, you almost certanily be an Islamic. >>Yes. We've seen how dangerous this sense of "urgency" can be, haven't >>we? The Spaniards smashed the heads of Indian babies against the rocks >>so their souls would be saved before their parents could lead them away >>from truth of Christianity. > >Yes, they did. Does this mean we should condemn all Spaniards? All whites? >All men? No, but we must certainly examine the ease at which they were able to justify their actions using the Bible... did they not accomplish their objective? The infants DID go to heaven, right? If the Spaniards asked for forgiveness and were sincere in their conviction, they were forgiven and went to heaven too, right? Mission accomplished... >Atheists designed a bomb to be dropped on Hiroshima. Obviously atheism is evil, >right? You are attempting to argue for guilt-by-association. The major difference here, of course, is that they were not working under the banner of athiesm... they were working for the govornment. Further they were not all athiests and finaly, they realized the potenetial that nuclear power had to destroy, and all the scientists signed a letter asking the president NOT to use this new power for the destruction of human life. We all know, however, that the administration paid it little heed. >>Why not? Apparently your god does just that... > >That's silly. Our God died to prevent it. Would you do as much? Would your >blind Universe? If your god were so eager to prevent people from going to hell, he wouldn't have created hell in the first place. My "blind Universe" feels no need to punish those of you who don't believe in it... Jeff Lindborg