And was some objective means of determining who qualifies as a Real Christian, and someone who only calls him/herself a Christian invented when I wasn’t looking ?
Like Calvinism ? Who gets to define what qualfies as a “cult”, and not Real Christianity[sup]TM[/sup] ? You ?
And what about such obscure :rolleyes: concepts as Original Sin ? How does that qualify as personal responsibility ?
I didn’t argue that. And your “You are not WORTHY to argue with the mighty mswas !” isn’t much of an argument, no matter how often you pull it out.
What has often irritated me are people (of whatever religion) who shrug off bad things as “It must have been God’s will” as if there is no use trying to make things better. In times past there were people who opposed the use of anesthesia, vaccines and the like on the grounds that to relieve suffering because it must have been God’s will for people to suffer. Of course, assuming there is a God who is personally involved with humanity, he also gave us brains to solve problems with!
I recall hearing about a family who had a veritable litter of fetuses in utero, and the medical experts advised “reducing” the pregnancy in order to increase the chances of there being any viable births at all. The couple declined, stating something about God gave us all these babies for a reason… :dubious: Excuse me, it was *the fertility drugs that you took * that gave you all those babies-to-be!
See this is exactly why arguing with you is not worthwhile. I tell you I’m not going to argue with you, and you say, “It’s not much of an argument.”, as though it’s some sort of insight. Yeah, someone refusing to argue with you is by definition not putting up much of an argument. It’s that sort of brilliance that has me stunned in your presence.
I’ll humor you for a moment. Redemption is in a person’s hands. Original Sin was out of their hands. One cannot escape the sins of their parents but they do have the power to be redeemed from them, or so the doctrine goes.
I apologise for assuming you had information to back up your assumptions. I generally tend to hold the Christians on this board to that standard, and I imagine merely talking to you alone won’t change that.
The irony of you sidestepping a potential hint at overgeneralising by overgeneralising isn’t lost on me, though. Impressive.
And by “basic premise” you mean “your own, bald, unsupported assertion”. Yes, aren’t we atheists pesky, with our way of not automatically assuming that everything you say is axiomatically true and correct.
And, do you get some sort of perverse pleasure out of arguing that you’re too cool to argue with? Because it seems like a bloody great waste of time and energy to me.
And then there are those who say something along these lines: “Oh, we don’t have to worry about pollution, the economy, starving people, or war, because we’re going to be Raptured at any second.”
Apparently, some of these folks have let themselves off the hook completely since they figure they won’t be here much longer.
Whatever happened to what Jesus said about visiting the lonely, tending the sick, helping the poor, and so on?
Just gotta ask.
And if they’re “materialists who believe that everything is random”, there certainly isn’t any predestination going on. Not that predestination is a significant issue to materialists anyway. (Not that this sidetrack is relevent to this thread, either; it was nothing more than a worthless ad hominem to start with.)
Then stick with the only generalisation that tends to work - don’t do it.
Indeed it does.
To you.
The amount of people, Christians and otherwise, who have read the Bible and see it in entirely different lights, even just single books, passages, or lines, and come out with entirely different views of what it says, means i’m not really tended to take one person’s impression of a Biblical quote as sufficient evidence to base an opinion of the entirety of Christian thought on.
Add onto that that you can’t just show that personal responsibility is believed in as part of Christianity, but personal responsibility to that extent. Take AA; as I understand that, accepting that you can’t give up alcohol on your own but only with the aid of a higher power is it possible is a significant point. That higher power isn’t always God, but I would imagine that all Christians who go to AA at the very least hold a view of personal responsibility that is in opposition to what you get out of that quote, though I imagine they do not deny personal responsibility entirely.
You’re correct, but it’s not just a matter of asking for help, but asking for required help - that is, the point is not just asking for aid, but admitting that you cannot do it alone, and that the help is required.
The first three steps. Certainly there is a lot expected of the people themselves, but the point of it is that you’re giving up personal responsibility, essentially, and handing yourself over to a wiser governor of you.
