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.

What I think is most interesting is the effects of belief and Faith. I find this question more interesting than the one of evidence.

"those examples were not Christian though."

The amount of evidence for them being true is the same though.

"What I think is most interesting is the effects of belief and Faith. I find this question more interesting than the one of evidence."

There is nothing I can add to that.

Casual I wasn't expecting you to Cobra, interest is a very personal thing.

Capsium I could understand that angle if you didn't believe it. But to have that opinion on something you decided is fact sounds laughable in the extreme.

I do find it interesting that Alchemy is thought to have evolved into chemistry. All that we know now about chemicals and how they react and interact was born out of a belief that matter had spirit and could undergo transformation.

head Pleased I amused you. That's another person I have made smile today.

I distinguish between fact and Truth, though.

I suppose it is true that Alchemy become chemistry as we learned how things really worked and understood that it wasn't spirits after all.

But that leaves religious people as those who got stuck on the Alchemy level and never made any progress. That's why the further we move forward the harder it is to understand why someone is still religious. It's like insisting that there are only four elements when you move around in a world that knows about 119 of them (we can make elements)

Back So many assumptions...There are religious chemists in this world too. Also the more human kind finds out, I think the more there is to find out, there is still plenty to have Faith about. Gaining knowledge does not mean losing some Faith, it leads to more Faith as a person appreciates how vastly complex life systems are.

You cannot 'prove' a spirit at work anyway, as I have already pointed out. For someone not willing to believe in the possibility of spirits, any changes, due to something spiritual, would be regarded as spontaneous.

Although I don't know how you would explain Placebo and Nocebo effects.

capsium, you brought up alchemy being the basis of chemistry so I was just using it as an analogy rather than suggesting that religious people can't learn it.

You can think of religion in the early days as a struggle to understand how things work, just as alchemy was. At its most simplistic early man looks up at the sky when the thunder roars and imagines some powerful animal or human causing it.

Alchemists had it hard at first. Discovery is easier when you have some knowledge to build on. In much the same way a jigsaw puzzle becomes easier when you have most of the edge bits in and part of a tree or a building.

People studied and experimented and eventually we reached our current level of knowledge.

Religion should have gone the same way and it did for some. Thunder gods were doomed even before we found we could make our own lightning.

As we learned how to do things we realised that nothing that happened required a supernatural being. Perhaps just as importantly we realised that the power to create lightning or turn a city to ash doesn't give you a monopoly on morals.

In my analogy religion is like still having alchemists around. Using cars, TVs and vaccines, but still claiming that there are only four elements (plus spirit?)

I, and lots of Christian believers just like me are not claiming only 4 elements though.

I live in the modern world but still find my Faith incredibly enriching, comforting, challenging, amazing and life affirming. It gives an added dimension to life, it adds to my life not takes away from it.

It has seen me through some incredibly tough times and allowed me not only to come through them but come through them winning.

It gives me hope for the future and connects me with the past in ways that it is bliss just being able to think of the magnitude of it all.

That's just it capsium - when we move away from the rationalisation of it all, when we look at the work it actually does in people's lives, the hope it brings, what it adds, the sheer hugeness of it all, the beauty and sense it makes out of everything, even if not necessarily full understanding. That's why - why I and millions of others keep going in this faith. It transforms lives, mends brokenness, restores hope.

Well it certainly transforms lives. As we speak religious organisations in several US states are trying to legalise discrimination, An Iman in the Maldives is preaching that it is indeed compulsory in Islam to mutilate young girls, a Hindu temple is burning because a mob of Muslims believe someone there might have committed blasphemy, A Pakistani man has been gunned down after being acquitted of blasphemy, Christians are being killed and abused for not being Muslim and Muslims are being killed and abused for not being Christian.

Saudi Arabia has recently made atheism a criminal offence (I think that makes 13 countries) and I've not forgotten the girls who died in that fire because they couldn't be allowed out of the building without their veils on.

But on the plus side a good dollop of faith can mean god will reserve you a parking space when going into town.

The devil rules the world.

Christians are looked after by God.

The rest of the world is ruled by the d.
Christians can help the world by praying.

God intervenes if christians pray.

Most non christians have heard the message and choose to disobey it.
That is not necessarily the fault of christians.

houseprice- is this for real?

Yes unfortunately. I dont think I will do the link.

Christians are looked after by god

Not the ones who have to cope with the same difficulties as us heathens, which would be all of them.

choose to disobey it

Just as you have for the other 3'999 gods humans ever did or currently worship. Why do you disobey Allah?

Please post the link houseprice.

Houseprice. Have a think about why you don't want to post that link. Have a think about the internal dialogue that puts you off pasting it. Think about how you would feel if you posted it. You know you'd feel a bit bad don't you. You don't want to threaten people do you. Some part of your brain, let's call it your very own moral compass, is stopping you from using the threat of bad stuff. Because you're a good person aren't you. And you know what House, that makes you morally superior to god.

If god was real and had taken over your morals then you'd be posting threats of hell all over the place without a second thought. But you don't House because your morals are so sophisticated that you know threatening violence is wrong because trying to control people that way is immoral. How come you, a mere human, is able to act with more empathy and love than the god you suppose is real?

um. Me again.
The link is Ephesians 6.

www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+6%3A12&version=ESV

It is not about threats. It is about warning.

I know that you personally have been warned houseinhands.
But you now feel superior to God.

But millions of other people have not heard.
And it wouldnt be fair to not tell them, would it?

Where is the force by me?

And do you not warn people about anything? That isnt very nice behaviour.

We are told to be humble.