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I can agree that it must have had something to do with the times they lived in. The concept that they could somehow earn a reprieve, as it was put, by doing good things.
I don't worry about "doing good things", as I don't believe that they will have any positive effect. So, they're not really all that practical.
I can agree that it must have had something to do with the times they lived in. The concept that they could somehow earn a reprieve, as it was put, by doing good things.
I don't worry about "doing good things", as I don't believe that they will have any positive effect. So, they're not really all that practical.
So, you don't do good things just for the sake of making life easier for others on this earth? What about making life easier for yourself - exclusive of whether those actions will help you get through the Gate? You said earlier that you "try to be fairly decent"...why?
The Calvinists had this theory of predestination. That your salvation, or lack of it, was decided before you were even born. My question is--these people were some of the most severe, most religious people on the planet in their time--why?!
If your final judgement has already been decided, then what does it matter WHAT you do? You could be the best person, yet still be sent for perfidy. You could be the worst person imaginable, yet still saved. What was the impetus for being "moral" in this type of viewpoint?
My Fathers family was from this Faith, The exposure to them is what gave me the push to take a deeper look into religion and god. It resulted in me being the Atheist I am today, so in a way I should be thankful to have been exposed to a denomination which used predestination as one of their excused to dodge the responsibility for being a good person. My family has always called them the “Frozen Chosen”.
I can choose whether or not to be a Christian, and I have chosen not to, partly because of such doctrinaire beliefs held by at least some Christians.
You may think that you have chosen not to be a Christian but that is not the truth. If God does not choose you to be Christian then you won't be a Christian regardless of your choices.
That is ridiculous. I converted to Catholicism when I was 19 because I was convinced that it was the One True Faith. After three years, I was free of that notion. You are telling me that your God orchestrated the whole progression? Has He made me an atheist so I can be consigned to Hell?
If all this is so, why do any of us bother to think at all about choices? Or do we only think we are thinking, since God is pulling all the strings?
That is ridiculous. I converted to Catholicism when I was 19 because I was convinced that it was the One True Faith. After three years, I was free of that notion. You are telling me that your God orchestrated the whole progression? Has He made me an atheist so I can be consigned to Hell?
If all this is so, why do any of us bother to think at all about choices? Or do we only think we are thinking, since God is pulling all the strings?
Extreme predestination, I'd say.
In Christianity there are many unanswerable questions. We don't have the answer and we probably never will. One of the most difficult of these is the concept of the total soverignity of God VS the free will of man. The bible is very clear that as a result of the fall of Man, we are born with a nature that is totally divorced from God. WE have a degree of free will within this nature. However a Christian is one that is born of God and has an entirely different nature from the "Natural Man". To assert that a man can by his will change his basic nature into something else entirely is as possible as the earth wprm deciding to become a seagull. It just ain't gonna happen. When God saves a sinner and adopts him into His family He changes his nature and that is a miracle. It's not a matter of the sinner's will in any way.
It will certainly be a bona fide miracle if it ever happens to me. I don't go along with the "fall of Man", etc. legends. I think it's interesting that you don't capitalize "Bible" and I do, even though to me it is a collection of mythological stories which has caused more harm than virtually any other. I'd much rather be a "Natural Man".
That is ridiculous. I converted to Catholicism when I was 19 because I was convinced that it was the One True Faith. After three years, I was free of that notion. You are telling me that your God orchestrated the whole progression? Has He made me an atheist so I can be consigned to Hell?
If all this is so, why do any of us bother to think at all about choices? Or do we only think we are thinking, since God is pulling all the strings?
Extreme predestination, I'd say.
That isn't how I understand predestination to be, catman. Not that I believe in it myself.
From my understanding, your journey isn't predestined, only your ending place. I think that perhaps the LENGTH of your journey is predestined, that you will die whenever you were meant to, and no sooner or later, but not where you end up.
I figure predestination does run counter to the concept of free will, to the degree that we should have some sort of control over our final destination. We can make that choice for ourselves.
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