View Single Post
  #7  
Old 04-16-2007, 10:52 PM
PairTheBoard PairTheBoard is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 3,460
Default Re: Poll for NotReady

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't know how you could possibly vote no.

[/ QUOTE ]

as a few people have pointed out a strong belief in 'fate' (or some form of preconceptive determinism) can lead to someone honestly believing the answer to this question is no.

A better question might be, how can you say no to this question and not be a bigot as it implies one's environment as decided by fate is what determines if they are worthy of salvation.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the reason NotReady doesn't have a problem with this is because he adheres to the Calvinist Doctrine of the "Elect". I suspect that it's for just these types of problems that the Elect Doctrine was created. To my mind it is just another Solution that actually Compounds the problems produced by the belief that eternal punishment waits for those who do not believe the right thing. The real solution is to scrap that tenet and adopt a view of Christianity and its place among World Religions along the lines presented by Sullivan Here.

From Andrew Sullivan's Final Reply in the debate with Harris
====================
(5) There is a God, but all of our religions have distorted Her reality. Jesus was a man more suffused with divinity than any other human being who has ever lived. God loves everyone and has never been concerned about what a person believes, except that a person know God and accept God's love freely and expresses that love toward everyone he or she encounters. Jesus uniquely showed us how to accept God's love and how to be worthy of it. After death, all people, Christians and non-Christians, simply merge with the Deity in a loving embrace. But Jesus was the proof that such love exists, and that it is divine and eternal, and that it cares for us.

(6) None of us knows anything about these things.

I guess I've tipped my hand by endorsing (5) but acknowledging the wisdom of (6).
====================

I realize NotReady is the most fun to argue with because his positions are so malodorous to your Spiritual sensibilities. It's fun to see how he tries to justify them. Just be aware that they do not define Christianity.

PairTheBoard
Reply With Quote