[QUOTE=smiling bandit]
The irony, Der Trihs, is that those who actually believe in all of these things believe very strongly in personal responsibility. A priest can absolve me of sin: in order to do this I must own up my sins and accept that I am the sort of man who did them. And the right ritual does cleanse me, if I follow it faithfully and honestly.
[/quote]
No, it doesn’t. Getting a priest to absolve you or going through a ritual is evasion of responsibility for whatever you did. It solves nothing, helps no one, and lets you convince yourself that you are off the hook.
If such things aren’t evading responsibility, then I can’t imagine what would qualify.
[QUOTE=mswas]
You have to show that you understand that you sinned, and that what you did was wrong in order to be saved.
[/QUOTE]
Oh, really, mswas? Please cite the chapter and verse of the bible that discusses this.
And then tell me how understanding what you did was wrong, but still dumping the consequences for your actions on someone else, is taking personal responsibility.
So what? Even though christianity tells you not to sin, the core of the religion is still that when you do sin, you get to dump the consequences onto someone else. That is not taking personal responsibility. I find it telling that you skipped over the point of my post, that allowing Jesus to pay the consequences for your actions is not taking personal responsibility, and instead chose to nitpick minor issues. Why don’t you address the point? Tell me how letting Jesus pay the penalty for your sin is taking personal responsibility.
And if you don’t know any christians who think that members of their particular denomination are the only ones that are truly saved, you need to get out more. I could literally throw a rock right now and hit three or four people that believe just that here in my office.
[QUOTE=Don’t Call Me Shirley]
Oh, really, mswas? Please cite the chapter and verse of the bible that discusses this.
[/quote]
I’m not mswas, but this is a concept known as “repentence”. It’s mentioned a few times in the Bible.
You are confusing the temporal consequence with the eternal consequence. It’s not a question of "OK, now that I am saved, I don’t need to do anything different’.
If you steal, and repent of it, you don’t get to keep the money - you return it.
[QUOTE=mswas]
Christianity despite the constant misinterpretation is big on personal responsibility.
[/QUOTE]
It is in most forms – certainly Catholicism, where you have to keep account of and confess every sin – but some branches of American Protestantism seem to believe in “easy grace”: Once you’re saved, you can’t be unsaved, no worries.
More mindless psychobabble. Regardless of whether it is a temporal consequence or an eternal consequence, you are still shoving consequences off yourself onto Jesus. That is not accepting personal responsibility.
Am I getting the core message of christianity wrong here? If so, someone please correct me, instead of these repeated nonsensical regurgitations of what some preacher spewed out last Sunday. Yeah, I’ve heard all the sermons. They make no sense. This is really simple. 1) You sin; 2) Jesus pays the price. That’s what christianity teaches. It is the opposite of accepting personal responsibility.
I never said that was how it worked. Was there a point to this? It really has nothing to do with what I was talking about, namely how getting Jesus to pay the price for your sins is the opposite of personal responsibility. Did you have anything intelligent to say about that particular point?
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
It is in most forms – certainly Catholicism, where you have to keep account of and confess every sin –
[/QUOTE]
I disagree that keeping account and confessing your sins is taking responsibility. Taking responsibility means accepting the consequences. The bible doesn’t say “The wages of sin is confession,” it says “The wages of sin is death.” You are still taking the consequences- death- and dumping them on Jesus, which is not taking personal responsibility.
[QUOTE=Shodan]
If you steal, and repent of it, you don’t get to keep the money - you return it.
[/QUOTE]
See, that’s not how I remember it growing up Catholic. All of us were taken to confession regularly. We were told to confess our sins, so we did. Then the priest told us to say 5 Hail Marys or whatever and we were absolved. Never once was I or any other kid I knew asked to do any penance that had anything to do with the sin.
At first I thought it was great, you just talk to this guy and say a few prayers and you’re done. Eventually I began to wonder why all of us got pretty much the same penance, even though I knew some of us were downright bastards. Now I feel bad for the priests who have to sit there and listen to 100s of kids go on about lieing or being mean to their brother for hours on end and just give the same recorded penance every time.
[QUOTE=hotflungwok]
See, that’s not how I remember it growing up Catholic. All of us were taken to confession regularly. We were told to confess our sins, so we did. Then the priest told us to say 5 Hail Marys or whatever and we were absolved. Never once was I or any other kid I knew asked to do any penance that had anything to do with the sin.
[/quote]
NO offense, and IANARomanCatholic, but official teaching in the Roman Catholic church is different (pdf).
[QUOTE=Don’t Call Me Shirley]
I disagree that keeping account and confessing your sins is taking responsibility. Taking responsibility means accepting the consequences. The bible doesn’t say “The wages of sin is confession,” it says “The wages of sin is death.” You are still taking the consequences- death- and dumping them on Jesus, which is not taking personal responsibility.
[/QUOTE]
Well, in Catholicism as I understand it, you also have to repent and do penance; Jesus doesn’t do that for you.
[QUOTE=hotflungwok]
See, that’s not how I remember it growing up Catholic. All of us were taken to confession regularly. We were told to confess our sins, so we did. Then the priest told us to say 5 Hail Marys or whatever and we were absolved. Never once was I or any other kid I knew asked to do any penance that had anything to do with the sin.
At first I thought it was great, you just talk to this guy and say a few prayers and you’re done. Eventually I began to wonder why all of us got pretty much the same penance, even though I knew some of us were downright bastards. Now I feel bad for the priests who have to sit there and listen to 100s of kids go on about lieing or being mean to their brother for hours on end and just give the same recorded penance every time.
[/QUOTE]
This just reminded me of a friend who went to Catholic high school and told me that she and her best friend used to go out and get into trouble, drink, smoke pot, etc., go to confession on Wednesdays to fess up to all of this…and then they spent the next six days doing it all over again until Wednesday came along, lather, rinse, repeat.
[QUOTE=Lobsang]
I don’t often post in GD so go easy pleez!
I was watching a programme on tv yesterday about the world’s heaviest man. One thing that was obvious was how religious he was/is. Another thing was how much he was thanking god for good things, and saying God allowed him to get this way.
As an atheist I muttered under my breath that God didn’t let him get that way. HE let him get that way (Him and his mother)
Anyway, the point is that I personally think that he never took full responsibility for his problem.
How common is it for religious people to absolve themselves of responsibility for the good and bad things in their lives?
For me this is a pet-hate of religiousness, or people that do it. The people that let things slide because “God will save me/sort it out”
I would hope that most religious people have a healthy understanding that they are responsible for their own fortunes. But do they? Do you?
[/QUOTE]
It’s not common for religious people to absolve themselves of responsibility at all… if this guy was not religious he would still have the same personality type that blames others for his own actions. I don’t think it’s a religion thing/ it’s a personality disorder thing.
But people like that give religion a bad name… I could see your point.
[QUOTE=vivalostwages]
This just reminded me of a friend who went to Catholic high school and told me that she and her best friend used to go out and get into trouble, drink, smoke pot, etc., go to confession on Wednesdays to fess up to all of this…and then they spent the next six days doing it all over again until Wednesday came along, lather, rinse, repeat.
[/QUOTE]
Well they’re rationalizing… and taking advantage of their religion.
… I mean, I’ve done the same kind of thing at a different level with the church, you know, going to confession for missing sunday mass than missing mass the next sunday… it’s just a bad habit, I’m ashamed of my actions for that… especially after doing the same thing for 6 months straight.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
It is in most forms – certainly Catholicism, where you have to keep account of and confess every sin – but some branches of American Protestantism seem to believe in “easy grace”: Once you’re saved, you can’t be unsaved, no worries.
[/QUOTE]
Well if it’s something you don’t want to admit to, keep it general by saying something like “and please forgive me for any sins I cannot recall at the moment”.
[QUOTE=Don’t Call Me Shirley]
More mindless psychobabble. Regardless of whether it is a temporal consequence or an eternal consequence, you are still shoving consequences off yourself onto Jesus. That is not accepting personal responsibility.
Am I getting the core message of christianity wrong here?
[/quote]
Oh, really? So in christianity, Jesus does not pay the price for your sins? Well, that’s certainly news to me.
Unfortunately, what’s not news to me is that christians are masters of twisting words to mean whatever they want to avoid the unpleasant truths about their religion. In this installment, christians twist the meaning of “personal responsibility” to mean “someone else taking the punishment for my wrongdoing.” It has absolutely no basis in sense or reality, but I guess that’s not really that important to people who think that snakes can talk.
[QUOTE=Shodan]
I’m not mswas, but this is a concept known as “repentence”. It’s mentioned a few times in the Bible.
You are confusing the temporal consequence with the eternal consequence.
[/QUOTE]
The “eternal consequences”, which can’t be proven to exist, regardless of whether they do or not. Which is very convenient for evading responsibility, since people can convince themselves that those “eternal consequences” are whatever they like - or that they don’t apply in their case. Which the religious do all the time; it’s the other guy who’s going to Hell, not you.
[QUOTE=Shodan]
NO offense, and IANARomanCatholic, but official teaching in the Roman Catholic church is different (pdf).
[/QUOTE]
Official teachings don’t matter; it’s what people actually believe and do that matter. Especially when it comes to practical questions, like “Do people use religion to evade responsibility ?” For the purposes of a question like that, it doesn’t matter if the evasions involve official teachings or not, just that they involve religion.
[QUOTE=JohnnieEnigma]
Well they’re rationalizing… and taking advantage of their religion.
[/QUOTE]
Which is an example of people using religion to evade responsibility.
[QUOTE=JohnnieEnigma]
It’s not common for religious people to absolve themselves of responsibility at all… if this guy was not religious he would still have the same personality type that blames others for his own actions. I don’t think it’s a religion thing/ it’s a personality disorder thing.
[/QUOTE]
Typical. We are told, over and over that religion makes people nicer, more moral, more charitable, etc - but the moment someone does something bad or stupid in religion’s name, religion has no effect on them. It’s all their fault.
Is there anything at all that would convince you that religion is responsible for something bad ?
Well, it wouldn’t be if you would care to read what’s been explained to you.
And, as has been mentioned a couple of times, it is the temporal consequences that Christianity teaches are not escaped with repentence.
Then it should be easy for you to prove.
All you need is some kind of hard evidence that shows that a majority of religious people believe that they should escape the temporal consequence of their sins if they repent. Not anecdotes, actual evidence.
So what? What a bunch of obfuscatory semantics. There are consequences for sin, laid out in the bible. These include “death,” which is taken to mean an eternity in hell. Your attempt to separate consequences into temporal and eternal is a smokescreen with which you attempt to obscure the point I am making, namely that christians believe that Jesus pays the consequences for their sin. You still refuse to address this point, choosing instead to argue semantic differences.
While I have argued with enough christians to know that this is a completely fruitless exercise, I will rephrase my question in the hopes that you will answer it without resorting to more semantic nitpicking- Do christians believe that Jesus pays all OR SOME of the consequences for their sin?
