why christianity makes no sense
The following quote from Nate is the best argument against the illogical nature of Christian beliefs I’ve ever seen (besides the Bible itself, obviously). Has Nate discovered the elusive cure for Christianity?
It’s said that our “sin” is the result of our free will. God gave us free will so we could choose him of our own accord. He doesn’t want to be loved / worshiped by robots, of course! And since we have free will, it’s possible for us to sin.
But let’s take this further and consider Heaven. We’re told that if we remain faithful to God / Jesus, then when we die, we’ll spend eternity in Heaven. But wait, how does that work? Heaven is a place of no sin. How can we live up to that standard? Do we lose our free will? If we keep it, how could we remain in Heaven forever without eventually sinning in some way? And if God can somehow make us so that we retain free will but don’t choose to sin, why didn’t he do that to begin with?
Comment reposted with kind permission of Ark, who’s generally too busy arguing about irrelevant issues (like if Nazareth exists or if there are benefits to religion) to notice when the end of Christianity is uttered under his nose; and pending permission from Nate, the nicest atheist in blogland.
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Thanks!
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If you want to sprinkle more of you magic dust on this topic, anaivethinker has attempted to justify the theist position further down. I’ll give you first dibs!
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Oh you’re such a brown noser!
That said, Nate has nailed it nicely.
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I’m disappointed not to have woken up to droves of deconversion stories, but I guess it’ll take time for this to sink in for the Christian community.
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That comment was right on the money. Nate nailed it.
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If I wasn’t already deconverted, this would have done it for me!
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Resident theist here. This is well thought criticism! I agree with the scheme that sin requires freewill. If freewill did not exist in some form, then guilt could not be incurred. However, freewill is not sufficient to generate sin. There’s an additional factor. This is the evil forces (i.e., the satan). What are the evil forces? I do not know, but it is not necessarily supernatural or personal. So, sinning requires both freedom and an evil force that offers itself. I think that when we resurrect and God creates the New Heavens and New Earth, the evil forces will be destroyed and then we will be free to worship God with all of our actions. Until then we anticipate this day by spiritually living in Jesus, the resurrected, by overcoming our temptations as he did.
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Just in case Nate doesn’t have the time to reply, here’s another quote he has on the topic, which I think challenges your theory:
”If angels were able to sin, how can humans avoid it? Therefore, the Bible’s claims that people can live with Jesus forever in Heaven are simply not true. With an eternity in which to sin, how could anyone avoid it?”
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Another good point from Nate. I don’t believe in supernatural angels since I do not have sufficient evidence or reason. I’ll assume that angels exist for the sake of the question. My first thought is, what evidence is there that angels are able to sin? I can’t think of any reason angels would necessarily have to have freewill.
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Er… I just stubbed my toe tripping over my KJV ( which is used as a doorstop) isn’t your god responsible for Satan ?
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Isaiah 45:7 (KJV)
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
Yep! God created evil
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Yes…thought as much.
The devil is in the details. Always the details.
But we can guess the imminent retort,yes?
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Don’t suppose you caught the debate lat night? Carroll annihilated Craig.It was beautiful. On Craig’s understanding of science Carroll said: “Asking, ‘what was the cause?’ [in modern cosmology] is the equivalent of watching someone take a photo with an iPhone and asking ‘where is the film?’”
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Saw your link but I was in bed.
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Interesting verse, thanks for pointing it out. The Hebrew word that transliterates to evil does not necessarily translate to evil. It has several meanings that depend upon the context. The context of the verse is more about the good times versus bad times for the nation of Israel (i.e., at peace or war, economically prosperous or dying). For this reason translators have used several different words:
http://biblehub.com/isaiah/45-7.htm
I’m not a Hebrew scholar, but I certainly trust modern translations like the NIV, ESV and ESRV more than a translation from the 17th century.
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I think you’re taking a pretty narrow view of the passage as a whole, regardless of pinning down an accurate translation for evil/calamity/disaster. It’s clearly meant to indicate that the god God is responsible for everything. That would definitely include, em, everything e.g. evil, Satan, angels who can sin in Heaven, people who can sin on Earth, the concept of sin, people not sinning in Heaven even though angels can …
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You raise a good question. What difference does it make if God created satan? We still have the free agency to submit to satan or God. The human condition is that we do worship something. There is a famous speech by atheist writer, David Foster Wallace, called “This is Water”. It’s absolutely worth listening to on YouTube if you get a chance. Wallace says, “. . . here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.” With that, what does it mean to worship satan? I don’t mean a supernatural evildoer, actually I don’t believe this exists. I mean the natural desires that lead to evil.
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What difference does it make? Are you serious?
What it clearly shows it that your god is a capricious, slimy, son of a bitch. Possibly, schizophrenic too.
And there is no such entity as ”God”, with a capital, G. It really is about time you bloody Christians come to terms with the fact that your dingbat religion does not have dibs on the so-called Creator of the Universe story.
The term is; “My god” , ”Yaweh” or ”Jesus. ” ( Yeshua is also perfectly acceptable)
And the word ”evil” has way too many religious connotations.
profound immorality, wickedness, and depravity, esp. when regarded as a supernatural force.
Try heinous, or nefarious, rather. Sort of takes the god element out of the picture, don’t you think?
Much more acceptable. That way normal people can relate.
And FYI, Satan is a proper name and requires the capital. Okay?
What difference does it make..omg. LMAO
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Please ignore Ark unless you feel he made a valid point (I failed to spot one). I find this line of Christian thought utterly bizarre. It’s difficult to get my head round how you must experience the world and the choices you make. Honestly, it makes me wonder what awful thoughts Christians are having (or harmful actions they’re committing) that they can they believe this.
That aside, I completely disagree that we all worship. Most of us look for something to give life meaning, and if we don’t find anything, we distract ourselves from the empty space this leaves, which is more than easy in this day and age. I would suggest that the reason we need something we call ‘meaning’ in our lives, is because otherwise we wouldn’t struggle to survive and our species wouldn’t have got very far.
Natural desires that lead to evil? Deary me. I suppose you mean our instinctive animal urges that keep us alive – breeding, prioritisation of concern for our genes, arrogance etc. It seriously doesn’t help people analyse their behaviour logically pretending that actions that cause harm come from a source of evil.
Going back to Nate’s points, your whole line of thought is flawed. You must either believe human souls are robots with no free will in heaven (the ‘gift’ Christians imagine here on earth) or that the god God had the option to make life on Earth come without bad choices and suffering. Your depiction of a benevolent creator deity is illogical. I could ramble for hours here, I’m just so irritated that people accept such an explanation for the behaviour of humans given the clear facts we have in front of us … animals, look at the animals!
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Perhaps I should stop commenting if I am gong to be tacitly censored just because I call a spade a spade?
Not everyone is sugar sweet like you, dear heart and if a Christian is going to utter such rubbish then they deserved to be called out and dragged over the coals.
If his god made Satan then his god is as I described it, and probably worse.
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Oh come on, you know I’d give up blogging if you stopped commenting, and you’d hate to have that on your conscience! Your comments are kind of funny, but I can see from the Christian point of view how they could be viewed as offensive and pointless enough to make someone give up continuing with the dialogue. If Christian readers can find something in your hateful rants they want to respond to, that’s fair enough. I just don’t want anyone who takes the time to join the discussion here to feel like ranty atheist pile-ons need any response. There, that’s better, isn’t it? 🙂
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Sorry, I’m doing a poor job of communicating. Your concept of seeking meaning is pretty much what I’m talking about with worshiping. Worshiping was a poor word choice because it connotes belief in higher power, so I should not have used it. Also, I never meant to criticize natural desires as evil. What I meant was our natural desires lead to evil in certain contexts. I don’t think this should be controversial. If you want I have several examples from my own life.
Regarding Nate’s point, Nate would have to prove that freedom necessarily leads to harm (evil and suffering) in all possible universes. I don’t see any reason to think this is true and I think proving it may well be impossible. Indeed, I think it is logically possible to have a universe in which we are both free and cannot harm others so long as freedom is not a sufficient condition for harming others. All this postulates is a set of properties of this universe that are necessary for harm. This set of properties can be discarding in the creation of the New Earth. In Revelation this is talked about symbolically with Satan being thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur followed by the creation of the New Heaven and New Earth.
About the question of whether God is benevolent, I have not addressed this, but I know it’s important and related to whether God created Satan. I’ll just leave it here, but again I think the issues you raise are important and that’s the reason I follow your blog.
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I know your comment was really directed toward Ark and violetwisp, but I wanted to respond to one portion of it.
I disagree that I would need to prove this. In fact, I’m simply using a claim that most Christians already hold to. Remember, the point I made (in the original post) is in reference to the problem of evil: if God exists, and he’s all-good and all-powerful, why does evil exist? The typical Christian response is that it’s a natural side-effect of our having free will. And Romans 3:23 seems to back this up when it says “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
So I’m merely taking a tenet of Christianity and asking how that would apply if Heaven were real. If you take issue with the claim that free will leads to evil, that’s fine. But you might need to define your version of Christianity for us before we go much further, since we’re bound to keep making assumptions about you that aren’t true. Also, you’ll still need to contend with the traditional problem of evil. If you think that human free will doesn’t explain the existence of evil, then why does evil exist at all if God is all-good and all-powerful? Is he not all-good, or all-powerful?
Thanks
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Hi guys! Sorry I was away for a day or so.
@anaivethinker
You make some excellent points. From your first comment, you mention Satan as the source of temptation and suggest that since he won’t be in Heaven, the people there won’t be enticed to sin, which could possibly allow people to maintain free will yet not sin.
However, later, you said that you don’t believe Satan is a literal entity, but just personification of our natural desires. But if that’s what you believe, doesn’t it justify my original point? If temptation to sin is due to our natural desires, then that’s part of our free will. If we maintain it in Heaven, we will eventually sin. If God removes it, but somehow lets us keep free will, then why didn’t he do that to begin with, unless he wants evil to exist? Of course, that would run counter to an all-good, all-loving god.
To your earlier question about angels sinning, consider 2 Peter 2:4:
The account of this is not recorded in the Bible anywhere, but it is recorded in the pseudipigraphal Book of Enoch. When I first found that out as a Christian, I became much more concerned about the quality and accuracy of the canon. I was a biblical inerrantist though, so it naturally was a bigger issue for me than it is for some.
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Hi Nate, I appreciate your thoughts, I think you’ve produced an interesting line of inquiry regarding the coherence of Christian afterlife belief. I’ll take both your responses into consideration here. It’s true that the beliefs I hold are not necessarily mainstream Christian dogma, so I should be more explicit.
I don’t think scripture teaches that freedom necessarily leads to sin. Scripture does teach that we all do sin in Romans 3:23 as you pointed out. But, the factors involved in generating sin are complex. Sin is not always freely chosen in the moment because human behavior is complex and involves both freedom and automaticity (i.e., Paul’s thoughts in Romans 7:15), and it may be impossible to pinpoint which one dominates for any given action. Regarding your argument. Running the argument that freedom leads to sin in all possible universes carries a very high burden of proof. To me it seems logically possible for God to create a universe with both freedom and no sinning. This goes along with the idea that there are properties of this universe (Satan, etc.) that are necessary conditions for sin that will be extinguished (thrown in lake of fire) before the New Earth is made.
Interestingly, I think you are right in thinking this idea does not mesh with Alvin Plantinga’s freewill defense, so I need to have some sort of response to the problem of evil. To some people this conversation is offensive, so I want to approach with care. I have judged this to be an appropriate forum. So, why does God permit evil and suffering? I don’t know. I mean epistemologically I don’t know. I offer no theodicy. I think suffering is a unique personal experience that sometimes produces character but other times it seems utterly pointless and extravagant. I have faith that God will fix everything, justice will be delivered in full on the Day of Judgment and those who love God will be saved for the New Earth. God is not indifferent to our suffering. If God is omniscient, then he feels all the suffering we experience, he is right there with us. And, if God manifested as Jesus, then God has suffered and was tempted just as we experience. God is not indifferent.
The question really boils down to, can God be indicted for permitting evil and suffering in the world? Some people claim to know the answer. Some say, yes just look at all the evil and suffering! This is anti-theodicy. Others say that God is justified in all he does, he is sovereign. This is theodicy. But, I think both positions fail to express intellectual humility. You must believe God is love or not, you cannot hold either view as falsifiable knowledge.
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Hi anaivethinker,
Thanks for the response. Regarding your reference to Romans 7, how do you read that? Do you really view it as Paul saying “sin made me do it” — that he has no control over it? Or do you think he’s using a little hyperbole to illustrate how weak-willed we sometimes are?
I appreciate you seeing the problem that comes if you suggest that God can create a world in which people have free will, but evil does not exist. If such a thing is possible, and I’m not sure it is, why didn’t God do that? You recognized that you would need a response to that, but you don’t provide one. Do you find it uncomfortable to hold a position that seems to contain such a prominent contradiction? In other words, is this a problem that you think you need to have an answer for to maintain belief, or are you okay keeping a belief about reality that is inconsistent?
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Nate, thanks for the questions, they probe deep to foundations.
“Regarding your reference to Romans 7, how do you read that?”
I think Paul’s idea is not quite “sin made me do it” or “I’m weak-willed”. I think he’s saying that his will is strong enough (v. 18), but that the temptation is so strong that his body overrides his mind. He essentially feels trapped in his own body unable to make significant changes in his moral behavior. Sometimes he can exert significant control and other times he can’t, a sort of mix of freedom and slavery. I identify closely with this experience sometimes.
“If such a thing is possible, and I’m not sure it is, why didn’t God do that?”
I think the design of this world has very specific purposes. When Paul was in Athens he gave a speech at a public forum to Stoic and Epicurean philosophers saying: God places individuals in a chosen time and location “so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him –though indeed he is not far from each one of us.” But, the reason our world is broken I believe has to do with maximizing our freedom to seek God. That’s pretty vague I know. What does it mean to “seek God”? I don’t know what it means for you versus me, a Chinese mother versus an Italian child, an Arab born into Islam versus a Hindi born into Hindu. That’s part of what maximizes freedom, not being enslaved to knowledge, but able to seek on the deepest level of our convictions, the belief, the very foundations of our reality.
The other thing is that perhaps the design required death because once sufficient time had been reached to hear the Spirit’s call (not in a supernatural way), God would respect our will as free creatures.
“Do you find it uncomfortable to hold a position that seems to contain such a prominent contradiction? In other words, is this a problem that you think you need to have an answer for to maintain belief, or are you okay keeping a belief about reality that is inconsistent?”
I’m sorry I don’t know what inconsistency you are referring to. Please tell me if I missed something because, yes, I prefer my beliefs about reality to be consistent. Consistency is important.
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I was talking about your position that God could make a reality in which people have free will but don’t sin. If he can do that, he obviously chose not to, which led to evil’s existence. If God is the definition of goodness, why would he want evil to exist?
I see that as a contradiction in your position. If you maintain that God is all-good (and this is an assumption on my part — maybe you don’t believe God is all-good) and can create a reality where we have free will but don’t sin, then why did he create this reality? So far, if I’ve understood correctly, you’ve indicated that you don’t have an answer for that. So my question is this: should you have an answer? Are you comfortable hanging onto a belief that generates such an unresolved inconsistency?
I’m glad to see you write this. I think about it a lot too, but many people I’ve run into don’t seem to consider it. There are very many different beliefs and religions that try to explain reality. And it’s incredibly difficult to take one’s own belief system and examine it critically and objectively. Even if one tries to, it’s no guarantee that they’ll find the “right” belief. And I find this to be one of the weaknesses in the kinds of religions that claim there’s going to be a judgment at the end of time. Most versions of Christianity teach that you must be a Christian to be saved. But when you consider how unlikely it is for a sincere seeker of truth who was born into Hinduism or Islam to make their way to the correct version of Christianity, it’s hard to imagine a God actually condemning people who don’t get it all figured out. So it’s very hard for me to believe in religions that claim such a thing.
Is that something you’ve thought about as well?
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Apologies for the length, I hope it maintains interest to make up!
“If you maintain that God is all-good. . . and can create a reality where we have free will but don’t sin, then why did he create this reality?”
Ohhhh! Thanks for clarifying for me. Your contention makes perfect sense. I thought about this for a quite a while which is the mark of a good question. These thoughts pick up from things I have thought about in the past, but they are also nascent, so we’ll see how well it goes.
I think of reality as being designed with certain end-goals in mind. An analogy is designing a vehicle. The engineers have specific end-goals such as fuel efficiency, durability, aesthetic, safety, luggage space, comfort, etc. Think of a designed universe as also having certain end-goals. A thought experiment might help elaborate. If we designed a universe, we may have the end-goal of uniformity of creature physical appearance. So, we could have its inhabitants reproduce with perfect fidelity of genetic material and not allow environment to influence the ultimate physical appearance, maybe they grow in a vat to adulthood before they are released.
OK, that’s a strange universe, but the point is that a universe can be designed with very specific end-goals in mind. The question becomes, what end-goal would require the possibility of evil? I have selected the phrase, possibility of evil, because I don’t think our present universe is inherently evil, but rather that it’s evil is expressed through moral agency. One possibility is that the end-goal of maximizing moral agency would require significantly immoral actions to be permitted. Perhaps another end-goal would be an ability to freely love God which could require significant knowledge deficits since if we knew God’s nature, we might be in some sense coerced into loving him.
The way this thinking applies to your question is that our present universe must be designed for an end-goal that requires the possibility of evil whereas the future New Heaven and New Earth does not have this particular end-goal, thereby the possibility of evil can be eliminated from existence. Indeed, scripture is fully cognizant of the problem of suffering, its inevitable deep darkness. God seems to be concerned with our response to suffering, given that it is inevitable in the human condition. Peter likens suffering to fire and tells Christians to have faith in the Creator. Paul said that it can build endurance and character. It seems that if we believe in God and trust in God that despite these trials he loves us and will faithfully bring us into eternal life, then we can have faith and hope even in the darkest pit of despair.
“Is that something you have thought about as well?”
Absolutely! And, I find your thoughts agreeable. I think the dogmatists have promulgated a myth that there is a version of Christianity that is “right” or “more right”. There’s a humbler approach to Christian belief than automatically claiming to have the correct interpretation or even the best interpretation. This approach respects where the individual is on life’s journey without tyrannically forcing doctrine. It approaches rational questions with rationality, is unafraid of mystery, and remains humble and fully committed to love.
Also, I ultimately believe that God’s judgment is just because of omniscience. I believe we will be judged relative to each other because we each have different knowledge, circumstances, genetics, cultures, environments, psychology, etc. That doesn’t mean the judgment is not perfectly just, it’s just that it requires immense knowledge and wisdom to enact.
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Thanks for your reply! I’m starting to think “anaivethinker” is not the best name for you. 🙂 We may not agree on some things, but I can tell that you try to think deeply about them, and that’s always admirable.
In your explanation of why evil might be allowable in our universe, there are a few points I disagree with. First of all, I don’t think the evil in our world can just be attributed to moral agency. What about suffering in the animal kingdom, for instance? If evil were merely a result of humanity’s choices, how could we explain the food chain and the needless pain that it inflicts? Surely there could have been ways to sustain all animals without resorting to such painful deaths for so many of them? And what about natural disasters? Why do they happen if evil is just the result of human choice?
I also disagree with the assertion that God would need to hide himself for us to freely choose him. In fact, it only obscures our choice when you think about it. For instance, I’m a kind, good person. I was a faithful Christian for many years and enjoyed worshiping God. I only became an atheist when I felt that I had no good reasons for believing Christianity is true. If God exists, and he’s as wonderful as scriptures claim, I would want to have a relationship with him. However, he’s so well hidden that I don’t believe he exists. So my disbelief has nothing to do with choice. Is it fair or just to punish someone who simply isn’t convinced because God is so well hidden?
Furthermore, think of all your earthly relationships. When you were a child, did knowing who your parents are make it impossible for you to disobey them? And on the occasions when you did disobey them, did you get in more trouble when you knowingly disobeyed them, or when you did it through ignorance? I would imagine the penalties were higher when you knowingly broke the rules. So why would God operate any differently? Letting people know who he is and what he expects is the only way to ensure that people are actually choosing for or against him.
Finally, your points about how you believe God’s judgment will unfold make the most sense to me as well. But I had a hard time reconciling those thoughts with the Bible. In most places, even the NT seems to be very clear that only Christians will be saved.
For me, it just makes much more sense to see Christianity as merely another religion, just like all the others that mankind has created throughout time. I think that best explains the failed prophecies, contradictions, bad science, and bad history found within the Bible. I also think it’s the best explanation for the difficult theological teachings like the one we’ve been discussing. To me, there’s just not enough evidence for it to continue trying to find ways to rationalize all these difficulties. But I guess that’s why I’m an atheist. 🙂
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Another long one! Hopefully I can entertain your attention one last time because I poured out pretty much everything else I have.
Nate, I sympathize with your POV, and I mean it since these kinds of questions compelled me to become an atheist. In some ways that’s why I’m here, to interact and think alongside my atheist friends, especially since I am so critical of popular Christian apologetics. I feel like you are correct that a lot of this discussion is rationalizing the difficulties, it’s building models to try to make sense of our beliefs and observations. We’ve been cast into a reality that is curiously and profoundly mysterious, yet we fight back with the tool of rationality. As powerful as rationality is, it may not be only way to truth. Rationality cannot tell us if it monopolizes truth. I have come to understand that my belief in God is neither rational nor irrational, and it does not rely on my own power as if I am superior to my atheist friends in rationality or morality but it depends upon the power of God to create this belief within me. He is not the conclusion of a syllogism, not the best explanation of a gap in knowledge, not born of this world. God is spirit.
Even if our modeling merely rationalizes the difficulties, it will remain important to discuss. I think the problem of natural suffering including animal suffering is important. The natural condition that makes this possible is having a body susceptible to injury and death, so the underlying problem is death. Why has death been designed into our reality? The ancient explanation is that sin brought death, but this does not make sense with modern science. Death existed long before the first hominids sinned. There are three major approaches worth mentioning. Theologian, Greg Boyd, roughly believes in evil forces that counteract God’s creative acts in evolution leading to sort of “suboptimal” designs, giving way to things like disease and death. Second, theologian NT Wright basically acknowledges that evil and suffering are veiled in mystery, they are not only unsolvable but distracting, so we should focus on the forward trajectory of loving and making earth better. The third approach, which I favor, credits the ancient myth with answering a deeper problem of creating a universe. It could be that if you create a universe with the possibility of evil that is a choice for free creatures, then death may be necessary to add to the design. That does not make it any less painful, Paul calls death “the last enemy”. It’s a horrible tragedy that is the root of all suffering, but thanks to God for raising Jesus with an incorruptible body. Because if this really did happen, then we can hope for a New Creation devoid of suffering.
I essentially agree with your criticism of the hiddenness of God being necessary to freely love. From the Christian side I think what’s missing in the hiddenness of God discussion is that God is spirit. That does not mean that God is part of something called “supernature” but rather as humans we perceive of God as spirit, that this is how God transforms us, by the Holy Spirit. We should expect God to be hidden from sight but alive in the Spirit.
As for you, Nate, I trust that you are seeking truth and remaining intellectually honest by affirming atheism. And, I would not be surprised if your morality exceeded that of many Christians. Regarding salvation, when Jesus was asked “what must I do to be saved?” what’s curiously missing in the response is a call to affirm propositional belief. What Jesus wanted was this rich man to give up what he held so dearly, his possessions, for the sake of God which would require deep transformation. I don’t think the idea of salvation in Christianity is formulaic especially with the great diversity on earth. It’s only simple in so far as it is a gift from the love of God through Christ because it belongs to him.
-Brandon
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Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Brandon. I’ve truly enjoyed discussing this with you. And while I agree that this particular discussion is probably winding down, I hope we get to discuss some things again somewhere here in blogland. 🙂
I appreciate your sharing the source of your belief. I’ve read the “letter to atheists” that you have on your blog, so your comment here helps clarify that for me even more. I can’t speak to it very much, since it’s obviously a personal thing for you. I guess the only thing I’d mention is that it seems to me this feeling you have could just be something in your own subconscious. I know you’ve considered this already, so I’m not pointing out anything new. If God puts belief into us, why hasn’t he done it with all of us? Maybe we have to take the first step — maybe we have to just open ourselves up to it — almost like kids playing “Bloody Mary” in the mirror. They don’t really expect it to do anything, but they play anyway, just in case… Maybe God is waiting on something like that from each of us before he answers by placing belief within us. But if that’s the case, shouldn’t we try it with every god just to be sure? Ask Thor into our hearts? Allah? Krishnah?
To me, it seems more likely that if God really did exist, then it wouldn’t be so hard to recognize the evidence if we’re looking for it. If he really left a written revelation, it should far surpass anything that man could create. If he spoke to us in some way, it seems that it should be very distinguishable from our own voice.
Again, those are just the thoughts that go through my mind. I admire your open-mined and courteous approach to these issues. It’s always nice to meet fellow seekers, even when (especially when!) they share different points of view. Take care. 🙂
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Thanks for the kind words, Nate. I look forward to thinking alongside you here in blogland. 😀
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I’m game 🙂
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Whoops! Meant for that to show up under Ark’s comment!
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Ah…Nate, you old smoothie.
Group hug anybody? 😉
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Free will is in heaven also. No one is forced.
satan used his free will and fell from heaven..After all, he had chosen to reject god and become his own god, so he did not belong there anymore. up until this point, angels had used their free will to obey and worship god….now satan decided to be different, and chose his own separation from god. he has never repented of this, so his fate is sealed.
I also think until satan fell, no one knew what evil looked like, or what it was like to be separated from god.
people who make a free will choice to belong to god are actively choosing between what satan has to offer and what god has to offer…..the information is also there what heaven is like and what hell is like….so this choice is not a guess….it is an informed decision.
when people go to heaven, they do not forget what the consequences of evil are….this will remain with them….also they will see the glory and love of god in his heaven, and will really have no desire to sin…..it would make no sense….in contrast to ancient times, where the consequences of sin may not have been obvious, it is NOW obvious…
I would hope that people would WANT to love and obey God, and especially in his presence, how could they want anything else?
I encourage people to want what is good, and reject what is harmful.
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Hi Marianne, thanks for taking the time to comment.
“they will see the glory and love of god in his heaven, and will really have no desire to sin…..it would make no sense”
What makes no sense is the notion that angels managed to sin but humans won’t. As Nate says:
”If angels were able to sin, how can humans avoid it? Therefore, the Bible’s claims that people can live with Jesus forever in Heaven are simply not true. With an eternity in which to sin, how could anyone avoid it?”
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And Marianne, if it’s true that no one will want to sin when they’re in God’s presence, why does he hide himself from us? Does he want people to sin?
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