This post is not going to be in the standard format. Instead of laying out what I think about a particular issue and then possibly getting into a discussion afterward, I really just want to ask a series of questions that I hope readers will answer in the comment section.
My background with Christianity is with a very fundamentalist variety that believes faith, grace, and works are all tightly woven together — each plays a necessary part in salvation. I’m much less familiar with more liberal versions of Christianity, and that’s what I’m hoping to learn more about in this discussion. So here are my questions:
- The New Testament speaks a lot about salvation. What exactly are Christians being saved from?
- In a similar vein, are non-Christians bound for a different fate than Christians? What will the afterlife be like for each?
- What does God/Jesus expect from us? Anything?
- Of what value are works? Is baptism a work? If so, then is faith also a work?
- What’s the relationship between faith, grace, and works?
I’ve numbered these for ease of reference, but please answer any or all of them in whatever way you like. Or if some of them are bad questions, let me know that too. It’s time to witness, folks! 🙂
Finding Truth 
William, if God has revealed himself in scripture (whether Christianity, Islam, or another), then faith placed in that revelation is placing faith in God. I hear what you’re saying, but there is a distinction here. If the NT is God’s revelation, then I am placing my faith in God. If it is indeed not God’s revelation, then I am placing my faith in the human author’s claims. Only if the claims are not genuine do they come from the author. If they are genuinely God’s revelation through the author, then my faith is in God. You don’t believe God exists or has revealed himself, so, from your perspective, it’s faith in the human. My perspective is that this is God’s revelation, so I place my faith in God’s revelation, not in the humans who communicated it. If I placed my faith in the vessel (human authors) and not in the message (God’s revelation), then I would likely have as much issue with the apparent difficulties of scripture as you or Nate have. However, my faith is placed in the message (God’s revelation) while allowing that the vessel (human authors) may be unable to communicate that message in the perfect way that some say must exist for belief. Scripture teaches that God has revealed himself in ways we do not expect. It is also clear that not everyone will accept the revelation. So, the fact that some people vehemently disagree with my faith is not surprising to me, either. I trust this is His revelation. You don’t. So, here we are :). You and I both await confirmation (or, lack thereof) of placing our trust where we have.
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Josh, I think this is absolutely the wrong conclusion. The fact that people come down on different sides with these issues is exactly what we should expect if Christianity is false. It’s the same thing that happens with all religions, because (as you would agree) all those other religions are man-made. They will convince some people, but not others.
On the other hand, if Christianity is true, and God wants sincere people to figure out that Christianity is true, then we would not see all these different reactions to an objective study of the evidence.
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But Josh, the difference is that William (and I, and others on this blog) have given evidence as to why the message is not really from God. What evidence would you point to to say the message is legit?
Remember, most of us on this blog started out believing in the Christian God. Most of us believed the Bible was his word. It was only in deeper study of it that we lost that conviction. It didn’t take outside arguments to show me Christianity was false — the Bible took care of that.
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Nate-
Your conclusion assumes that all people would assent to Christianity if only they were given “enough” information. I don’t see how you come to that conclusion. God does will (or, want) everyone to come to Him, but scripture is also quite clear that not everyone will. I don’t think there’s foundation for your assumption.
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Josh, I’ll only add “allegedly” to your comments, because well, that’s what you’ve been told about god. Since god isnt speaking for himself, we are forced to choose whether or not to believe the messengers.
You only buy into what the messengers of one particular religion claim, while disbelieving the rest. Shear consistency being a coincidence, i disbelieve them all on the basis of insufficient evidence.
strangely, when looking at it that way, we agree 95% of the time on religion and on how to handle evidences.
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If the people are sincere, yes. And I believe most are, when it comes to religion. Religion, after all, is just man’s way to try to reach out to God. Even the false ones. And really, even we atheists have come to our position through the same efforts.
I come to that conclusion by taking the Christian premise that God loves everyone and wants them to all believe in him. If that’s so, and if Jesus’ promise in Matthew 7 (“seek and you shall find”) is true, then it only follows that all sincere people will become Christians.
Of course, that doesn’t happen. For me, the reason for that is very simple. For Christians, it’s a much more complicated problem. The implications are pretty big.
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#@ Josh.
Your interpretation, whether you realise it or not, glosses over what people like Nate went through.
and not only cheapens the pain and isolation he endured, but surreptitiously accuses him of being the one at fault. You have little idea how many damn fundamentalists out there consider that Nate was NEVER a proper Christian to begin with.
I know Nate from a bar of soap but from reading his blogs I can say without reservation that I know damn well him being an atheist would make a better Christian than every one on Word Press that claims they are christian.
Without realizing it you also, glibly brush off 2000 thousand years or so of barbarism your religion inflicted ( and still does)on much of the world.
You have a myopic rose-tinted view of Christianity that is patently and absurdly false.
You and every other christian aflame with the glow of Jesus needs to get a grip and go and do a bit of serious reading.
You might like to investigate Theodosius for a kick off, as he, after Constantine, was one of Christianity’s real ‘Heroes” of the day. A real poster boy for doing away with heretics.
Try to imagine a world that did not have the Holocaust, The Inquisition, The Witch trials, the innumerable persecutions, the global misogyny. The genocides, old and new, that religion has sponsored.
And still does.
And finally, Marcus, over at Bittersweet posted this on his latest post.
http://bittersweetend.wordpress.com/
” I asked God to take my life before I lost my faith.” As this was also a prayer of mine at one point in my deconversion.
So rather than celebrate your (in)glorious Christianity you and every other religious person should hang your head in shame.
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Nate-
I pretty much agree with your entire last comment. The only difference is, I think a better translation of that verse is “keep on seeking”. That’s what we’re all doing. If you felt I trivialized your deconversion, as Ark suggested, that was not my intent. We are all searching for the truth and giving the best reasons for why we believe what we do. I don’t at all think your journey is meaningless, and wish only to stay on the path set out here. I actually most feel sorry for Ark – you, as much as any judgmental person of any faith, are guilty of lumping an entire category of people into the worst conceptions you’ve crossed from that group. I don’t recognize the “Christian” you talk about as such no matter what they say. You are, at least it seems based on your comments, as full of hate as the very people you vehemently criticize. I’m not sure that does anyone any good.
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Josh: you wrote:
I know this has been covered many times before, but I don’t mind repeating it because it’s important. I truly am agnostic about the existence of God, but if one (or more) do exist then I really have a very hard time seeing how he really wants everyone to come to him. If he truly wanted all to come to him then to me it seems much more likely that the truth of his existence and the proper process of how to truly come to him would be much clearer than it is.
There are 2 common Christian responses to this that I’ve seen on this blog and many other places:
1) The truth of his existence and the proper way to reach him actually is extremely clear and those who say it isn’t are being dishonest. I’m sorry but I have a very difficult time seeing how this is true. All the proofs that I have seen have flaws in them when they are dug deeply into, and there are many intelligent people who agree with that – that doesn’t mean they are right, but are they all really dishonest? I highly doubt this. And as Nate mentioned before, the culture that we are raised in has a tremendous impact on the worldview that people are inclined to stick with – I have a very difficult time seeing that all of these people are dishonestly rejecting the truths that are so obvious to some Christians. There are even intelligent Christians who would concede that although they believe in Jesus they realize that it’s truth is not at all a no-brainer.
2) God purposely does not make his existence that obvious because he doesn’t want to force himself on people. This response has honestly never made sense to me. The existence of my parents is completely obvious to me and I would never question that. This does not in any way force me to have a relationship with them. While it would be very sad, I am totally free to cut them out of my life if I wanted to (thankfully I don’t have any desire to) – but I would still very clearly know that they exist, and would not question that.
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Howie-
I believe God reveals himself to all people. I also believe that not all people will accept that revelation. What I don’t know is 1) how God reveals himself to everyone, 2) who it is that has accepted his revelation and who hasn’t, 3) who will accept it in the future. Dovetailing on that, I’m pretty confident I can say that just because someone says “I’m a Christian” doesn’t necessarily mean they are (see the sheep and the goats parable). It also seems likely that not everyone who is a Christian necessarily knows it (see the same parable). People may outwardly reject Christianity because of the piss poor job people have done representing it to the world. But, God knows the hearts of those people, and I do not, and I (thankfully) am not given the right to judge where a person’s heart truly lies.
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William-
“strangely, when looking at it that way, we agree 95% of the time on religion and on how to handle evidences.”
That’s true of everyone, I’d think :-). We all have the set of beliefs we hold to, and those we reject. That inevitably means we all overlap more than not. But, the differences are still important. After all, take a look at how similar the human genes are to other mammals. Doesn’t mean we’re all really just mice!
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But Josh, you’ve spent a fair amount of time at this point with people who emphatically say this is not true. I know it’s not true for me — God has certainly not revealed himself to me.
So, in light of that, does it not at all make you question your position?
When I was a Christian, I believed that non-Christians were simply not sincere people. Because I firmly believed that all sincere people would find their way to God, as promised in Matthew 7. But after getting to know some non-Christians better, and finding out more about how they looked at the world, I saw that I had been wrong. I feel like that would be a very similar experience to what you’re now going through, but maybe you don’t see it that way? Do most of us strike you as insincere?
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”I actually most feel sorry for Ark – you, as much as any judgmental person of any faith, are guilty of lumping an entire category of people into the worst conceptions you’ve crossed from that group. I don’t recognize the “Christian” you talk about as such no matter what they say. You are, at least it seems based on your comments, as full of hate as the very people you vehemently criticize. I’m not sure that does anyone any good.”
I hate nothing or no one..well maybe cooked liver. I can’t stand the stuff and used to hide it under my mashed potato as a kid.
You claim you are not of ”those” Christians and you don’t recognise this sort. LOL!
What a crock! You are able to practice your ‘sort’ of Christianity because of the democratic country you live in! The country that was founded largely by people fleeing the sort of theocratic barbarism that is the foundation of what you believe.
If it wasn’t for people who did NOT believe in Christianity you might not be in the position to even choose!
Your freedom to practice your stupid religion is because of NON-CHRISTIANS who fought for your right to believe whatever superstitious crap you want. And maybe its about time you and the likes of unklee (who also has a democratic constitution) remember why you can believe in whatever you like.
Because of farsighted people who were not christian or religious who recognized that there would always be such people who would be.
You don’t actually realise how fortunate you truly are.
And no-one has the right to tell you you cannot believe in whatever you want to..
PROVIDING you are not preaching it to others who are unable to make an informed decision concerning the contents of what you are passing off as truth.
So therefore. if anyone wants it, let them seek it out.
You do NOT teach it to to kids, either at home or school.
You do NOT teach creationism and pass it off as science.
(In fact, I truly believe (although it would be well nigh impossible to implement) that a law should be passed that prosecutes anyone for teaching this stuff to children as truth).
Keep it away from kids and then I am perfectly at ease.
I hope that we are now crystal clear on this issue?
May your god go with you.
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Nate-
God may not have revealed himself to you yet. That doesn’t mean he never will.
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Ark-
No, it’s actually not crystal clear. I see you have typed the words “I hate no one”. Your comments, however, suggest that statement isn’t true.
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@Josh.
Not crystal clear?
Okay I shall type in crayon.
Oh, you believe just because I get upset about your archaic and patently donkey-stubborn attitude about religion that I hate the individuals who practice it? (and let’s be honest you couldn’t really give a toss about Islam,or Hinduism or Judaism now could you? Not if we are being REALLY truthful, right? )
But hate ? Wrong…sorry. Do not pass GO and do not collect 200 dollars.
Hate is a wasted emotion.
I don’t really care what you believe. I care about it no more than I care about the woman who lives down the block and claims to be a spiritualist. If she decides to preach it and maybe come on the blogs or hold classes for kids and begins condemning the neighbors for being sinners, yeah, THEN I might get a bit miffed.
So,truly. I don’t. hate. I think it is bloody stupid, but that’s a point of view. And this is a public blog. . Not a chance. I would even let you buy me a beer..or two.
However,that you and your ilk proselytize, I care.
Many of those who first went (fled) to the US of Eh? was because of religious persecution. They were not free to practice their religion in their own country. It was quite a thing . Catholics against Protestants etc. Who would believe it, right ? Christians trying to exterminate each other. Unbelievable, but true I am afraid. (Funny, thing, after all these years of practice they STILL can’t get it right, have you noticed. You are an example.)
Anyhow, because of the ”ess aitch one ‘T’ ” the US government eventually drew up a document called..and pay attention to this word ‘cos you might not be familiar with it…a CONSTITUTION…that among other things allowed all these religious nutters to practice their faith anyhow they saw fit, as long as it was kept out of government/state.
Religion one side Affairs of state on the other.
You will have to ask for a copy and read it. I am not American but I believe there are a few people over in the US of Eh? who do know about this document.
Some have even read it.
But it seems that naughty Christians have a filthy dirty habit of insinuating their religious mores into society in general, which is why certain buildings have displays of the Ten Commandments so I’m told and many people (erroneously) say the US of Eh? is a Christian country, which REALLY pisses off a lot of people. They say atheists are not patriotic and quite a number of other odd attitudes.
Now I know you are a bright lad…so further explanation really isn’t necessary.
This is all I would ask…
Do not teach it or preach it children. ANYWHERE.
Keep religion..ALL religion out of schools and public places and do not teach any part of it in any shape of form in any schools or institutions of education.
How’s that? Clear enough? Don’t hesitate to ask if there are words you still don’t understand.
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EVERYONE needs to read this.
@ Josh
This highlights perfectly what I have been trying to get across and why those who are religious are stone cold dumb as doughnuts and quite frankly, a danger to society at large.
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/07/26/reasonable-science-standards-for-kentucky-science-standards-called-fascistic-and-atheistic/
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Ark-
I read it. I don’t see how that applies to me or this discussion at all. If you’re lumping me and every other Christian in there, then you are incredibly mistaken.
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Of course it applies to you
.YOU ARE CHRISTIAN
Christianity is like a weed that has lots of different strains; some more invasive than others, but none are benign. NONE
If you stick the weed in a pot so it can’t spread then that’s fine. And eventually it will wilt. Great.
I believe what you you believe is false. That we disagree is fine.
That you want to spread your version in one form or another is intolerable.
And who are you to say that YOUR version is better than those bone heads in Kentucky?
It is still Christianity. I feel the same about ALL religion.
Keep it to yourself and keep it away from children.
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“And who are you to say that YOUR version is better than those bone heads in Kentucky?”
I’m not arguing that my version is better. I’m simply saying that if you’re going to discuss with me why I shouldn’t share my faith with my children or anyone else, then you have to address MY faith and MY understanding of Christianity. People can misunderstand and misrepresent Christianity, just like people are prone to doing with pretty much everything else, and criticizing someone else’s version is a straw man when telling me that I shouldn’t share my faith.
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It’s also known as stereotyping. I’m guilty of it as well, so don’t feel bad. I think we all are. I’d be surprised if a seemingly intelligent person such as yourself doesn’t recognize it in themselves.
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I have been at pains to outline the reason why you shouldn’t preach your faith to kids, but I will try once again.
Firstly. Your Christianity is based on the same principles as those Christians from Kentucky. They, like a great many other Christians are merely pushing their form of Christianity to the limit based on INTERPRETATION.
Just as Ken Ham pushes that Dinosaurs existed with humans and builds museums to show them and states it is FACT.
Those folk from Kentucky are fighting AGAINST the type of 21st century science that will bring their state schools and their children into line with the rest of the secular world. So they don’t enter university and the marketplace as warped, damaged individuals.
You might not believe in such extremes, and as I have pointed out to Unklee you may well laugh or at least smile at their ludicrous INTERPRETATION of Christianity and the biblical texts.
But you still believe a man walked on water, and came back from the dead and you teach this to kids…your kids that this is FACT. Prove it dammit! Not to me to your kids.You show them how much integrity you have as a father and prove it to them.
That there are so many interpretations of Christianity is proof positive that you cannot even demonstrate or offer a reasonably acceptable hypothesis.
You do not tell your kids Santa is real, do you? No, of course not. If they tried to teach in schools that he was real you would object. Too true!
So why teach your kids your faith? Faith that has absolutely NO EVIDENCE to back it. NONE.
Let them be. Let them grow with an inquiring critical mind and if they choose later on in life AS ADULTS. So be it.
Meantime, keep it to yourself. Keep it out of schools.
As Pink Floyd sang….Hey teacher, leave them kids alone.
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I have no problem with people talking about their faith or even trying to spread their word. They think it’s a lifeline after all.
What bothers me, and what really derails any real or profitable discussion is when people begin to make up rules as they go in an argument or discussion, as if doing do masks the holes in their position. And even if it did mask the problem, the problem is still there under whatever defense they’re able to spin on the spot. It may keep them from seeing it directly, but that doesn’t mean that it’s still not there.
With many believers, the universe somehow shifts and all the rules change for the bible. Again, and let me belabor this point, issues like the ones we find in the bible are used all the time to discredit Islam, every religion or philosophy that isn’t whatever brand of Christian, and any other absurd thing. But when it comes the bible, we somehow no longer need evidence e to prove, we need evidence to disprove.
When evidence is provided is really where discussion takes a nose dive.
Non-believer: “the bible contradicts itself here and here.”
Believer: “But look at the places it doesn’t contradict itself. No man could have gotten that correct.”
Non-believer: “but, it’s not all that correct with the contradictions here and here and the mistakes here and here.”
Believer: “well there could be a way that they’re really not errors or contradictions that we just don’t about yet. And since you can’t prove there isn’t a reconciliation, then we should accept that there is.”
Non-believer: “I don’t think that makes sense.”
Believer: “When you want to see the truth, you’ll see it. Jesus wants you to see it, if you would just look.”
Non-believer: “But jesus didn’t write the bible.”
Believer: “that’s correct. In all his wisdom he had man do it. He even ensured it was done in dead languages so that we could be guaranteed to have it unmolested.”
Non-believer: “Why didn’t he ensure we had original copies? I mean, I guess he could’ve just spoken to each individual.”
Believer: “first of all, we shouldn’t question god. And secondly, god doesn’t work like that. If he made himself too obvious we’d all be robots, and god doesn’t want robots.”
Non-believer: “so, because god wants us to all know him he had some random guys write us a book on his behalf, in dead languages, to make it easy for us. But he wont write anything himself, wont preserve an original on stone, and wont speak to us directly, because god doesnt want it easy… and will then punish us for not believing?”
Believer: “right. Praise god.”
Non-believer: “so only the bible is god’s word, because it says it is, and other religious books are not god’s word?”
Believer: “that’s correct. plus history speaks of jesus and Jerusalem, so that proves jesus was the son of god. And since no other religious books say that Christ is the son of god, the we can know they’re false… that and they’re full of contradictions. It’s a wonder anyone can believe them. Just goes to show willing people are to fool themselves.”
Non-believer: “couldn’t you be fooling yourself?”
Believer: “If I weren’t following the bible the way my church has lined out, then absolutely.”
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William-
LOL. That was funny. And, it does sound absurd. For me, it is not the contradictions or mistakes in other texts that cause me to disbelieve them. You’re right – if that’s all there was, then I might be able to pitch some advantages the NT has, but not nearly enough. The problem I have with all other religious texts is their teaching, which doesn’t seem to jive with how the world actually is. Every other religion, and even much of atheist and agnostic thought, teaches that people can and will become better if they just try really hard and work toward that end. For the other religious folk out there, this means that we get rules from god, and then must abide by them in order to earn god’s favor or get our reward. For the atheist and agnostic thinkers it’s something more like we all “know” what it is to be good to others and treat them well, and we should just do this because it’s what we “know” to be right. I know those are simplifications, but that’s basically the foundation of every belief system other than Christianity. The trouble I have with this teaching, and you can disagree if you want, is that we are not really any better than we ever have been as people. We are still just as greedy, vengeful, hateful, prejudicial as we have ever been. Sure, in “civilized” countries there’s a little more order, but we find more secretive and sinister ways to lash out at people even though we can’t lawfully just kill them anymore. We ARE NOT getting better. There just isn’t an argument there that we are. The foundation of Christianity is that the Son of God became a human being, lived a perfect life fulfilling the perfect Law of God, and died on a cross to show us His love and that we do not need to earn it. The central truth is a man dying on a cross for people – sacrificing his life to show love even to those who misunderstand and misrepresent him. Now, you and others on this blog may indeed be right – maybe I’m wrong and this didn’t happen this way and isn’t the truth. That’s possible, I know. But, the teaching that we do not need to earn our position with God is and that God would condescend to become a creature of his making is, at its foundational, different teaching than any other belief system that exists. There are other belief systems that have unique teachings, as Nate and others have pointed out. But, there is none that teaches the character and love of God the way Christianity does. There is none that teaches that God came to earth to raise us up instead of demanding, from his throne on high, that we raise ourselves up. Not to mention, in other teachings that command we raise ourselves up there is no bar at which we can ever “know” we have done enough. Everything else leaves you hanging. You can believe Christianity or not. That it teaches something different than any other belief system known is one piece of the puzzle, along with my observations of myself and other people, that convinces me it’s true.
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” … from his throne on high …” REALLY???? This is where God is? Hmmmm … I always thought he was omnipresent.
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