General religious discussion thread

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

32 minutes ago, Keke said:

So Amy events all happen outside. 

Is... is that the name for the mysterious dark figure?

[Keke They/he]

2 hours ago, ParaTulip said:

Is... is that the name for the mysterious dark figure?

Any. Any. Misspelling 

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

Since no one has spoke in over 4 days, 

 Does anyone have feelings about this event in religious history or its related events?

[Qianweilian He/him]

3 minutes ago, ParaTulip said:

Does anyone have feelings about this event in religious history or its related events?

I mean, I know about the Reformation, it’s a historical event, it happened. I’m lds, so I personally don’t have strong feelings about it, but it did play a large role in how the world is as it is today.

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

34 minutes ago, Qianweilian said:

I personally don’t have strong feelings about it,

Well, I would imagine you either agree with Luther, that the primacy of the Bishop of Rome in the Christian world was mere tradition and not eternal divine law?

Actually, does the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have bishops? Or any kind of professionalized clergy? 

[Frustration]

9 minutes ago, ParaTulip said:

Actually, does the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have bishops? Or any kind of professionalized clergy? 

Well yes, but actually no. It's complicated.

While we have Bishops, priests, and many other ecclesiastical callings all positions are voluntary. For example I served as a Missionary for two years. That was a full time position, 6:30 AM until 10:30 PM every day for two years. I did not receive a penny for this and my work was entirely voluntary.

This same principle applies to all similar positions(though most others are only part time).  Additionally our priesthood positions are not sought after, but individuals of local congregations are called for periods of service(for example Bishops serve for five years before returning to the congregation).

Not sure if that answers your question or not.

Edited February 5 by Frustration

[Qianweilian He/him]

25 minutes ago, ParaTulip said:

Well, I would imagine you either agree with Luther, that the primacy of the Bishop of Rome in the Christian world was mere tradition and not eternal divine law?

I would agree with Luther that the Bishop of Rome was not the leader of the Christian world, as he didn’t have authority. We have apostles (14+president of the church, not 12 interestingly enough), and the prophet/president of the church (currently Oaks) is fairly similar to a pope in authority, though not exactly the same. If the Bishop of Rome had authority from God, which he claimed to have (which I would not agree with him on), he would be the head of Jesus’s church on Earth.

25 minutes ago, ParaTulip said:

Actually, does the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have bishops? Or any kind of professionalized clergy? 

As Frustration explained, yes we have Bishops, but they’re not professionalized. Any sort of schooling is not technically required (although the people who are called will almost certainly have a competent knowledge of the gospel), it’s a part time position, and it’s temporary (although it’s not always exactly 5 years as Frustration said, it usually is, but afaik it’s not a rule).

Edit: the apostles, prophet, etc. serve lifetime callings

Edited February 5 by Qianweilian

[Oranjejuicemonki He/Him]

7 hours ago, ParaTulip said:

Does anyone have feelings about this event in religious history or its related events?

I feel like I don't really understand Protestants or why the Reformation happened. (Haven't watched the video you sent so maybe that'll clear things up a little). But from what I understand right now it's like they believe in Sola Scriptura right which is like only the Bible and the Bible is infallible? I love the Bible but it's written by humans so it's not gonna be perfect in every way. Also the people who organized all the books that make up the Bible (Catholics) never said they did it perfectly and they probably know the most cause they're the ones who did it right?

If any of you are Protestants or know more than I do feel free to correct me and/or tell me your thoughts. Also I'm going to actually watch that video now.

Ah wait, that's an hour long

Crazy that he didn't even want his theses to be super public. You learn something new every day

Edited February 5 by Oranjejuicemonki

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

4 hours ago, Oranjejuicemonki said:

I feel like I don't really understand Protestants or why the Reformation happened. (Haven't watched the video you sent so maybe that'll clear things up a little). But from what I understand right now it's like they believe in Sola Scriptura right which is like only the Bible and the Bible is infallible? I love the Bible but it's written by humans so it's not gonna be perfect in every way.

My understanding is that Biblical literalism and/or inerrancy  is a spectrum of beliefs. For example, the Catholic Church does think that the "original" writing of the bible was in any way in error, because it happened exactly as God willed insofar as God wills for salvation as a spiritual process. However, that does not mean the Pope thinks the texts recount literal history or scientific truth. Those things are seemingly unimportant to the "error" of the text.

Edited February 6 by ParaTulip
Whoops, double negative by accident made this confusing.

[NameIess]

4 hours ago, Oranjejuicemonki said:

I feel like I don't really understand Protestants or why the Reformation happened. (Haven't watched the video you sent so maybe that'll clear things up a little). But from what I understand right now it's like they believe in Sola Scriptura right which is like only the Bible and the Bible is infallible? I love the Bible but it's written by humans so it's not gonna be perfect in every way. Also the people who organized all the books that make up the Bible (Catholics) never said they did it perfectly and they probably know the most cause they're the ones who did it right?

If any of you are Protestants or know more than I do feel free to correct me and/or tell me your thoughts. Also I'm going to actually watch that video now.

I am not an expert on the reformation by any means, so I could certainly be wrong about the details. But as a protestant, the reformation happened because of what we see as an incorrect view of where authority comes from. Broadly speaking, Protestants believe that infallible authority only comes from the Bible, while Catholics believe that infallible authority comes from the Bible and the church, or the Pope, specifically. Although I will note that they don't believe the Pope is infallible. More that, when the Pope is speaking with the authority of his office, he is infallible (not 100% on the exact terminology, but that's the gist of it).

The Reformation was specifically spurred on by several abuses of the Church's power, such as the selling of indulgences. What are indulgences? pieces of paper that you buy from the church that will supposedly shorten the amount of time you spend in purgatory. What is purgatory? Basically, Catholics believe that since living Christians are not perfect and Christians in heaven are, that after a Christian dies, they must go through purgatory to be made perfect, a painful, long process depending on how sinful you were. Purgatory is not a Protestant belief, I believe the generally accepted belief is that we are perfected instantly upon death. There were other issues as well, there were other significant issues and disagreements on issues such as the church's (as an institution) role in salvation, baptism, the Lord's Supper, the Priesthood, and the lack of translation of scripture into the common language.

As for the infallibility of the Bible, I believe that the Bible is in fact infallible. It was written by humans, but they were inspired by God while doing so. I believe it is wholly accurate historically (when it speaks of historical events) and spiritually. I do not believe every word of the Bible is literal. I do believe that there can be scribal errors in the Bible, since we have records of them happening, but also that they are minor and do not change the Bible's message.

[Oranjejuicemonki He/Him]

47 minutes ago, NameIess said:

I do not believe every word of the Bible is literal. I do believe that there can be scribal errors in the Bible, since we have records of them happening, but also that they are minor and do not change the Bible's message.

Ya that makes sense and I agree.

One more question I have about the Protestants is since you don't have a Pope like Catholics do or prophets and apostles living today, how do you know what's right if you have no person with authority to say which interpretations of scripture are the most true when there are disagreements? 

I guess probably nobody would be able to misinterpret the most important things like the Atonement of Jesus Christ, so maybe I just answered my own question there, idk.

 

Edited February 6 by Oranjejuicemonki

[NameIess]

6 minutes ago, Oranjejuicemonki said:

Ya that makes sense and I agree.

One more question I have about the Protestants is since you don't have a Pope like Catholics do or prophets and apostles living today, how do you know what's right if you have no person with authority to say which interpretations of scripture are the most true when there are disagreements? 

I guess probably nobody would be able to misinterpret the most important things like the Atonement of Jesus Christ, so maybe I just answered my own question there, idk.

From my understanding, historically what we do is we split off into a new denomination when that happens. Not the greatest solution honestly. And there are many groups that misinterpret some of the most important parts of Scripture like the Atonement of Christ or salvation by faith alone, but I think, personally, that churches disagreeing on non-essential details is better than one flawed authority that has some very wrong views (in my opinion, obviously Catholics think differently, and they do have many good arguments for their beliefs. Division among churches is a significant problem in Christianity I would say and Protestantism has made that worse, but I think it is the better alternative.

Edited February 6 by NameIess

[Oranjejuicemonki He/Him]

15 minutes ago, NameIess said:

From my understanding, historically what we do is we split off into a new denomination when that happens. Not the greatest solution honestly. And there are many groups that misinterpret some of the most important parts of Scripture like the Atonement of Christ or salvation by faith alone, but I think, personally, that churches disagreeing on non-essential details is better than one flawed authority that has some very wrong views (in my opinion, obviously Catholics think differently, and they do have many good arguments for their beliefs. Division among churches is a significant problem in Christianity I would say and Protestantism has made that worse, but I think it is the better alternative.

Alright ya.

What if God decided to call prophets again like he always used to, wouldn't that be a better solution?

15 minutes ago, NameIess said:

I think, personally, that churches disagreeing on non-essential details is better than one flawed authority that has some very wrong views

And this makes sense too, and prophets weren't ever perfect and they could be flawed authorities still, but if there were a prophet called of God then He would choose someone who would always be trying their best to follow Him.

Edited February 6 by Oranjejuicemonki

[NameIess]

1 minute ago, Oranjejuicemonki said:

Alright ya.

What if God decided to call prophets again like he always used to, wouldn't that be a better solution?

I doubt he will, since prophets seemed to be a thing that happened only up until the coming of Jesus, with John the Baptist being the last OT style prophet in my opinion. Nowadays I think that we have the word of God, we know all we need to know in order to follow Him and lead others to salvation. and while God will, does, and has undoubtedly raised up great Christians to defend the faith, I don't think he needs to give them new inspired messages to do so. For example, Martin Luther and the Reformers, fighting back against a Catholic church that had become corrupt in its actions, even if its theological viewpoints were correct. (many of the issues that sparked the reformation have henceforth been resolved. For example, indulgences are no longer sold. And because I'm doubtless biased on the issue, here's a Catholic source on the issue of indulgences if you're curious)

7 minutes ago, Oranjejuicemonki said:

And this makes sense too, and prophets weren't ever perfect and they could be flawed authorities still, but if there were a prophet called of God then he would choose someone who would always be trying their best to follow Him.

God didn't always choose people who always tried to do their best to follow Him. Jonah, for example, absolutely refused to do what God told him to do and actively ran away after God commanded him to give warning to a people group he did not like. And people rarely listened to the prophets, even when the prophets did follow God faithfully. Ultimately though, I think that prophets are just unnecessary. the Bible already tells Christians what the rest of time will look like until Jesus returns. It's in Revelations: trials and tribulations that will get worse and worse and worse until He returns.

[Oranjejuicemonki He/Him]

42 minutes ago, NameIess said:

I doubt he will, since prophets seemed to be a thing that happened only up until the coming of Jesus, with John the Baptist being the last OT style prophet in my opinion.

I mean I think the apostles counted as prophets but I guess that's kinda a tangent.

42 minutes ago, NameIess said:

Ultimately though, I think that prophets are just unnecessary.

But you believe that the Catholic Church eventually got things all mixed up no? Again I'm not super well versed in Reformation stuff and obviously you know more about what you believe than I would, but I felt like the reason for the need for a Reformation would be cause without prophets and apostles to receive revelation from God people can go astray a lot easier.

[NameIess]

1 minute ago, Oranjejuicemonki said:

I mean I think the apostles counted as prophets but I guess that's kinda a tangent.

It is a tangent, but even if they're not, you can still ask the question of 'why doesn't God raise up new apostles?' Paul, for example, was an apostle even though he didn't follow Jesus during His earthly ministry.

2 minutes ago, Oranjejuicemonki said:

But you believe that the Catholic Church eventually got things all mixed up no? Again I'm not super well versed in Reformation stuff and obviously you know more about what you believe than I would, but I felt like the reason for the need for a Reformation would be cause without prophets and apostles to receive revelation from God people can go astray a lot easier.

People went astray regardless of prophets. The people of Israel were constantly turning from God to follow false religions that included rituals such as sacrificing children, even while the prophets were preaching to them. I think that today Christians have the scriptures giving us the truth. We have the Holy Spirit to help us interpret the scriptures. I think that if a Christian honestly studies the scriptures they will agree on the most important, saving doctrines, even if they don't agree on every detail. God has given us what we need now. We don't need further scriptural revelation, so no more prophets, no more apostles. Does God still work in other ways to preserve His church from false teachers and doctrines? Of course. But I don't believe he does it by giving new revelation to new prophets/apostles. He guides events more subtly than that.

[Mattel]

I have a question for those who aren’t Christians (asking as a Christian FYI): what is the main reason that you don’t want to believe in God?

 

I believe everyone believes what they do for a reason and I’m just curious what those are

[pureintonation she/her]

2 minutes ago, Mattel said:

I have a question for those who aren’t Christians (asking as a Christian FYI): what is the main reason that you don’t want to believe in God?

 

I believe everyone believes what they do for a reason and I’m just curious what those are

Hmm i don’t think many atheists WANT to not believe in god. I want to believe a lot of things but that doesn’t make them true. i get that’s kind of the point if faith but…

If just ONE time god (any god) came down to me and point blank said Hi I’m real, I’d be down. Instead we must find god in a book or in our daily lives

how is that any different from, like, snapewives (people who genuinely believed professor severus snape was real and could communicate to them telepathically and through signs like s-shaped things)?

 

One can attribute meaning to anything… i guess id rather attribute good things to like… human connection, serendipity, friendship, love, good timing… things i know because ive experienced them 

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

10 hours ago, NameIess said:

And there are many groups that misinterpret some of the most important parts of Scripture like the Atonement of Christ or salvation by faith alone, but I think, personally, that churches disagreeing on non-essential details is better than one flawed authority that has some very wrong views (in my opinion, obviously Catholics think differently, and they do have many good arguments for their beliefs.

Some of the history that occurs due to those disagreements is a bit more consequential than the current peace between denominations might imply. For a time, I was a member of various Baptist congregations in New Jersey. As a part of one of them, I think it was Calvary Baptist in Hopewell, I went through the ritual process of "baptism at the age of knowledge." While the book of Mark does start with a recounting of Jesus' baptism by water, the notion that baptism is to be done to infants as an initial granting of salvation is not really there. It was the defining trait of the baptists to not abide by infant baptism but instead to do this baptism at the age of knowledge, where a child who is expected to remember the event is taught some concept of what Jesus Christ's salvation means. The child then is baptized. The teaching portion was multiple distinct lectures given by the congregation's pastor, not just a quick briefing before the ritual immersion in the baptismal fountain.

And I explain all of this to point out that, in the early days of the Protestant Reformation, people killed each other over that. Denying that infant baptism was divine law freaked people out.  The notion that being baptized afforded an infant protection from damnation or some other eternal doom was REALLY important to people who did not have modern medicine and thus suffered immense infant mortality.

I find it interesting how this is no longer so serious that people are doing heresy trials over it, at least among Christians as I know them.

[Pathfinder]

8 hours ago, Mattel said:

I have a question for those who aren’t Christians (asking as a Christian FYI): what is the main reason that you don’t want to believe in God?

 

I believe everyone believes what they do for a reason and I’m just curious what those are

Building on what @pureintonation stated regarding “want”. Stating it that way can in a form imply that belief in god is a default state everyone has, and to not believe in god is to actively chose not to. I understand that is true from your perspective, but it is not from mine. From my perspective we are all born atheist. We have to be taught religion. That is why the religion individuals belong to tends to depend on where you are born and what your parents are. 

Now as to why I am atheist. I mentioned it in a prior post but I will elaborate here. You do not choose what you believe. You are convinced. Just like if an individual was sat in a room with a gun to their head, and told to believe the sky is green. They can lie and say the sky is green, but they do not believe it. Even to save their own life. But if they are convinced through various means, then they do genuinely believe it. So I believe there is no convincing evidence for any god existing. It is not a want. It is a statement based on the preponderance of evidence.

[SheepAreFluffy]

6 hours ago, Mattel said:

I have a question for those who aren’t Christians (asking as a Christian FYI): what is the main reason that you don’t want to believe in God?

[Context: I was raised as a loose and minimally-practicing Catholic, but these days would describe myself as an atheist and a secular humanist, though with some wrinkles and nuances to those descriptions.]

So, the first thing to say here is that whether I want to believe in God and whether I do believe in God are entirely different things. There are plenty of things that I desperately want to be true and want to believe in, but for many of them, I don't. I want to believe that widespread acceptance of transgender people is going to happen any time now, but I don't. I want to believe that my aging father's health is fine and I have decades left with him, but I don't. I want to believe that humans will make contact with intelligent alien species in my lifetime, but I don't. And so on and so forth. If I thought that God existed, I would believe in him regardless of whether I wanted to; since I do not think he exists, I disbelieve regardless of what I want.

As for why I don't believe, I think that the most concise summary would be to say that I don't believe because I have never experienced anything that would cause me to believe. I think that disbelief (in anything; not just God) is my default state and that I will only change that when I have sufficient evidence or personal experience and I just don't have that for God.

For instance: I have never seen anything attributed to God that cannot adequately be explained by other causes. I can happily and easily explain everything I have experienced without having to resort to divinity. God is unparsimonious. He goes against Occam's razor. He is an entity multiplied beyond necessity.

There are, of course, written accounts in the Bible that -- if taken at face value -- are hard to account for through naturalistic explanations. However, given the age of the Bible there's a whole lot of room for interpretations there. There's been more than enough time for misinterpretation, transcription errors, biased reporting, and so on and so forth. If the Bible is literally true then there are plenty of events that my philosophy cannot adequately explain and that would require the addition of some sort of supernatural actor. But I would treat all historical texts of that antiquity with a healthy amount of scepticism.

From experience, this is the sort of thing where both sides are going to think that the other is engaging in circular reasoning, and it mostly comes down to what we take as the null hypothesis. I take the null hypothesis to be that God does not exist. Does the Bible contain evidence to disprove this? No, of course not. Based on my null hypothesis, I don't have any reason to believe that the depicted miracles are historical fact, so I'm not faced with anything that can't be explained without God. And if you tell me otherwise, then you are engaging in circular reasoning: you believe in God which means you believe in the accuracy of the bible which means you need to explain the miracles which you can only do so by believing in God. But I equally recognise that the same accusation of circular reasoning could be leveled at me: I don't believe in God, therefore I see the Bible as not being divinely inspired, therefore I don't see the miracles as requiring any explanation, therefore I don't believe in God. Both positions are internally consistent but neither is going to convince many people who don't already hold them. It all depends on your starting point.

As another for instance: I have never had what I would describe as a spiritual experience. Even back during my Catholic upbringing, nothing there ever felt sacred or numinous to me. The church was always just an old building, the Bible was just a book of interesting stories, the communion host was just a wafer. Never once did I feel moved. Never once did I feel the Holy Spirit, either during religious practice or outside of it.

There has, admittedly, been a single moment of my life where I experienced something somewhat close. I was out walking in the rain and my mind was wandering and I thought about the raindrops and the fundamental forces holding together the molecules and fundamental particles; and I thought of the water cycle and what those particular water molecules had been through to get to the point where they were raining down on me, through rivers, seas, erosion, plants and animals, over millions of years; and I thought of the universe and nucleosynthesis within stars that formed the oxygen in the water molecules; for a moment, I held all of this in my mind at once, and being rained on was the most glorious thing. Now, personally, I would be inclined to describe this as a moment of wonder at the scale and intricacy of nature, but even if I were to consider it a spiritual experience, it definitely wasn't one that pointed me towards the personal God of the Abrahamic religions. If it was anything, it was a pantheistic experience, and could only lead me away from a Church that derides pantheism.

But! With all of that said, it would also be intellectually dishonest of me if I didn't also admit that I don't want to believe in God. I don't believe that this desire is strong enough to prevent me from believing if the evidence were there, but I can't truthfully say that I'm entirely unbiased. There are certainly aspects of Christian doctrine and theology that I find personally distasteful.

I don't want to dwell too much on this because there's a danger that it can come across as bashing on other people's religions and that is absolutely not my intention. But to give some quick examples: I cannot imagine eternal existence to be anything other than ennui and stagnation and do not want to exist forever; I find the concept of a hell in which people receive eternal infinite punishment for finite transgressions is fundamentally at odds with my own sense of justice; I don't like the abrogation of personal responsibility that is inherent in having an ultimate moral authority. And so on and so forth.

But once again, the fact that I don't believe is very distinct from the fact that I don't want to believe. If I thought the evidence was there, then I absolutely would believe, no matter how much I didn't want to.

[NameIess]

2 hours ago, ParaTulip said:

Some of the history that occurs due to those disagreements is a bit more consequential than the current peace between denominations might imply. For a time, I was a member of various Baptist congregations in New Jersey. As a part of one of them, I think it was Calvary Baptist in Hopewell, I went through the ritual process of "baptism at the age of knowledge." While the book of Mark does start with a recounting of Jesus' baptism by water, the notion that baptism is to be done to infants as an initial granting of salvation is not really there. It was the defining trait of the baptists to not abide by infant baptism but instead to do this baptism at the age of knowledge, where a child who is expected to remember the event is taught some concept of what Jesus Christ's salvation means. The child then is baptized. The teaching portion was multiple distinct lectures given by the congregation's pastor, not just a quick briefing before the ritual immersion in the baptismal fountain.

And I explain all of this to point out that, in the early days of the Protestant Reformation, people killed each other over that. Denying that infant baptism was divine law freaked people out.  The notion that being baptized afforded an infant protection from damnation or some other eternal doom was REALLY important to people who did not have modern medicine and thus suffered immense infant mortality.

I find it interesting how this is no longer so serious that people are doing heresy trials over it, at least among Christians as I know them.

Well, the thing is that heresy trials are equally or even more so not in the Bible. There are commands for what to do if someone sins repeatedly and unrepentantly in the church: basically bring attention to their sin, give them every chance to repent, then if they don’t, kick them out in the hope that doing so will make them realize just how dire their sins are and repent of them. Killing people is, notably, not ever commanded of Christians. I don’t know that it’s outright forbidden in all cases (self defense etc.) but certainly the Church should never be executing people for heresy. I would hope that such a realization is what has caused the modern-day less killing based on theological differences.

As a Baptist myself, I am curious: did you make a profession of faith prior to your baptism? Because really the whole reason infant baptism is wrong is because The person being baptized should believe in Jesus and have accepted Him into their heart first. Baptism alone has no ‘saving power’ even if you have knowledge of Christ, and in the Bible Christians are always seen being baptized after they believe.

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

9 hours ago, Mattel said:

I have a question for those who aren’t Christians (asking as a Christian FYI): what is the main reason that you don’t want to believe in God?

 

I believe everyone believes what they do for a reason and I’m just curious what those are

I did not see this before, it is a much better topic than the niche issue of the reformation, so I will address it.

First, on the matter of other commenters like @pureintonation@Pathfinder and their dismissal of the idea of willful belief. I understand how the Christian world view interacts with this a bit better than most since it was made a focal point during a sermon I attended: It is, in that mysterious and divine way, somehow better for a believer to hold to faith against evidence than to hold it because of evidence. This is the essence of the valuing of faith in itself. Faith is not meant to be free from doubt, but instead it is meant to be a struggle that somehow ennobles the believer to go through. Why does God want believers who suffer from doubt? I have never heard a great answer. If this seems incomprehensible, compare it to the concept of having faith in the virtue of a person. If a father is caught in a lie by his son, the son cannot rely on the evidence to believe his father is an honest man anymore. The son must use faith in order to believe despite that evidence in his father's virtue. With God, the issue is not to have faith in God's virtue alone, but also to have faith in God's existence AND virtue.

Now, for my own response: I have my own concept of God. It is not much anything like the Christian God. But also, this concept of God is not unlike pantheism, such that "the sum of all things as they ever are" could be another way to refer to God in my concept. However, I see it as important to living a good life to deny the concept of life after death, and this is impossible to reconcile with Christians.

[Pathfinder]

42 minutes ago, ParaTulip said:

I did not see this before, it is a much better topic than the niche issue of the reformation, so I will address it.

First, on the matter of other commenters like @pureintonation@Pathfinder and their dismissal of the idea of willful belief. I understand how the Christian world view interacts with this a bit better than most since it was made a focal point during a sermon I attended: It is, in that mysterious and divine way, somehow better for a believer to hold to faith against evidence than to hold it because of evidence. This is the essence of the valuing of faith in itself. Faith is not meant to be free from doubt, but instead it is meant to be a struggle that somehow ennobles the believer to go through. Why does God want believers who suffer from doubt? I have never heard a great answer. If this seems incomprehensible, compare it to the concept of having faith in the virtue of a person. If a father is caught in a lie by his son, the son cannot rely on the evidence to believe his father is an honest man anymore. The son must use faith in order to believe despite that evidence in his father's virtue. With God, the issue is not to have faith in God's virtue alone, but also to have faith in God's existence AND virtue.

Now, for my own response: I have my own concept of God. It is not much anything like the Christian God. But also, this concept of God is not unlike pantheism, such that "the sum of all things as they ever are" could be another way to refer to God in my concept. However, I see it as important to living a good life to deny the concept of life after death, and this is impossible to reconcile with Christians.

Not sure why you are saying I am dismissing anything. @Mattel inquired to those who do not believe in the Christian god, as to why. I said why. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Your father lying to you this time, versus all the other times he either told you the truth or also lied is a claim that can be looked into. Evidence for this time being an exception to the rule, or that lying is common to him can also be demonstrated. The extent of evidence to determine whether or not your father is a lier is leagues different than the supernatural. Belief can be in both true things and false things. I try to base my beliefs on evidence. I have not found convincing evidence for god. If it is convincing to you, I am happy for you. But it is not for me.

Same for pantheism. I am happy that it gives you peace and joy in your life. I am not convinced. I replied to explain why I am an atheist. If you want me to explain why I am not a pantheist, I will be happy to, but I thought the point was not to necessarily debate. I wish you well in your beliefs! 

[Oranjejuicemonki He/Him]

5 hours ago, SheepAreFluffy said:

I find the concept of a hell in which people receive eternal infinite punishment for finite transgressions is fundamentally at odds with my own sense of justice

For real, it's crazy