genuine question from atheist - view on Christanity and personal responsibility

[kentishgirl]

Hi - promise this isn't just Christian-baiting.

I've come to the conclusion that Christianity is a substitute for having a personal conscience or taking personal responsibility. Being a Christian is like having a 'get out of jail free card' in that you are taught God will forgive you anything. So you can do anything, as bad as you like, go and pray for forgiveness and move on, slate wiped clean, feeling great about yourself. So it doesn't matter if you do wrong. As an atheist, if I do something wrong, it's always with me, it's always on my conscience, so that makes me always try to do the right thing.
I didn't always think this way. It's the only way I can make any sense of something that happened to me at the hands of a couple of serious, committed Christians. One of them even works full time for a church. They did something terrible to me but have shown no remorse, no guilt, and made no attempt to make things right with me. I'm positive they prayed for guidance at the time and then forgiveness afterwards, and now all's good in their world, while I'm still dealing with the fall-out.
Am I really wrong in interpreting Christianity in this way? Isn't it true that it enables horrible behaviour by teaching you that if you do wrong, all you've got to do is pray for forgiveness afterwards, and you are ok, never mind the effect of what you did? Basically if God is your only judge, and forgiveness is guaranteed, it gives you permission to act like a right bastard as long as you say sorry to God afterwards? there's no personal responsibility for what you have done.

IMO reasoning has always been around. It is wired into our brain physiology. Although I would not say hard-wired. The brain is plastic. Who knows what it could become....

"The Law is fulfilled in Jesus, not destroyed by Him. Because God, by Grace, through our Faith in Jesus Christ, changes Christian's nature,we are no longer under the Law but under Grace. But we actually want to do the right thing anyway because our nature is changed."

I don't understand that post. "under the Law"- whose law?

"But we actually want to do the right thing anyway because our nature is changed."
Meaningless fruit salad to me.

BigDorrit: "bizarre that Yahweh should choose to reveal himself only to ignorant goat herders and not to the sophisticated Chinese"

And decided to reveal great revelations about loving each other and following God, but not mention anything about sanitation or microbiology or anything that could have actually been of some use.

Atthestroke

whose law?
OT Law.

Meaningless fruit salad to me. That make sense. From the experiences you have described, with your family, it does not sound like you have encountered much of God's Grace, to me. Your sister sounds very 'legalistic', in her condemnation of you, as I understand it.

^I may have got it all wrong, atthestroke

capsium: "Cobra you missed the 1st bit out. Rather importantly, I thought, I was saying this would be true from a humanist perspective the Bible is representative of humans, since they don't believe in deity. Deity is seen, by them, as a human construct. So the Bible, for humanists, should be seen as important in terms of what it tells you about the human psyche."

It tells me a lot about the capacity of modern man to be able to find some justification for the appalling behaviour of a deity.

We hadn't developed microscopes yet Cobra. There were some cleansing rituals that made sense in terms of hygiene.

alter the tone of god accordingly

Like the way god's stance on divorce/homosexuality and so on has evolved in line with human reasoning? Thankfully I've never encountered a Christian on Mumsnet that was anything but fully supportive of gay rights/marriage. A wonderful and reassuring example of the creator of the universe moving with the times.

Cobra I thought you didn't believe in deity? But you believe in the behaviour, of what you would term as a mythical, entity?

Correct me if I am wrong but I thought you were an atheist?

Those cleaning and food preservation practices are found in other religions and predate the bible. We spoke about this months ago Caps.

AS God acts through people, it seems perfectly possible to me, the tone may seem different. I picked my bedroom radio out because I particularly liked the tone. The broadcast is still the same as on the (less nice) kitchen radio though...

IMO these changes reflect the individuality of humans.

head I remember it. The Bible, in the OT starts with the dawn of time, I said or words to that effect.

Oh and going with the radio analogy some radios break up and you can't make a thing out of the broadcast and then there is too much interference....

Capsium: "The Law is fulfilled in Jesus, not destroyed by Him. Because God, by Grace, through our Faith in Jesus Christ, changes Christian's nature,we are no longer under the Law but under Grace."

The Old Testament was either destroyed and replaced by Jesus or not. It sounds like this is some sort of manipulation to have some cake and eat it.

Casual Re cake and eating it...Thats why they call it the Good News.

What is "grace"?

capsium: "Cobra I thought you didn't believe in deity? But you believe in the behaviour, of what you would term as a mythical, entity?"

Correct me if I'm wrong, but we were talking about the bible's claims?

atthestroke God's power working through you when you exercise your Faith in Christ. This power makes behaving Christlike more effortless.

Cobra You referred to a quote I made referencing a humanist perspective. I find it curious you could criticize God when you don't believe He exists. Without this belief you are criticizing humans.

Cap- is it a sign up? "Behaving like christ"? Do you "behave like christ"?

capsium: "We hadn't developed microscopes yet"

And that would have prevented them from understanding the concept? They could understand the concept of a deity they couldn't see, but not microbes?

capsium: "There were some cleansing rituals that made sense in terms of hygiene"

Like treating the mentally ill by casting out demons?

capsium: "AS God acts through people, it seems perfectly possible to me, the tone may seem different. I picked my bedroom radio out because I particularly liked the tone. The broadcast is still the same as on the (less nice) kitchen radio though..."

The words coming out are the same. You don't get the bedroom radio telling you to love everyone, whilst the kitchen radio commands you to commit genocide.

atthestroke You don't have to sign anything. Just have Faith in Christ. As for behaving like Christ, I want to but you would have to ask those around me as to how successfully I do this.

Cobra, A while back Ninja said,
"I think people spend too much time thinking they disagree because they each have different words for the same thing."

I think the Bible tell us lots about lots of things. The language and terminology is different though. I have read some accounts in New Scientist concerning how viruses act and can affect perception and brain physiology. These viruses described act very similarly to the way some spirits are described as acting in the Bible. If you view a spirit as an agent, which can affect us physically and mentally, it can act in the same way as a virus.

Regarding the radio: my later point pointed out how there can be interference in reception, something preventing the broadcast coming through, instead you hear someone's CB radio for example.

Like treating the mentally ill by casting out demons?

For some mental illnesses talking therapies are used. In the Bible words spoken are of vital importance. Casting out demons is done by words. Similar to the way talking therapies are used now. If you look at how Jesus cast out demons, he spoke. It wasn't some grand thing either ,like in films....