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A little introduction.. I'm currently in a relationship with a girl of distinctly Christian beliefs. Now, naturally, she wants me to feel the same way(if you go back through my blogs, you'll see that this is hardly the first time this has happened, I'm a sucker for punishment).
My problems with Christianity don't stem from the fact that I don't want to believe, just that there are things within Christianity that make it illogical to me. I'm going to post one of them, and I'm honestly hoping that my logic WILL be refuted. Yeah, I know, I'm not being objective at all in wanting my logic to be defeated, my thinking is clearly compromised by wanting to be with this girl. It's sad that I acknowledge this and yet can't quite force myself out of the relationship on these grounds.
I'm currently a mixture between a Deist and a Pantheist, and honestly I see no reason to believe Christianity is *the* true religion when there are countless out there with as much claim to truth. If you disagree, post and tell me why.
To save us all a lot of time, don't post and tell me that I should just dump the girl, it's plain that I *should* do that, but we both know that I'm not going to. In a rather infantile and immature fashion, I'm in love with her. And yes, it was foolish for me to allow feelings to develop when I knew there was this colossal hurdle to face, but. They have. I can only face what it is and move forward.
With no further rambling, here is my problem:
I'll give you a good example, and it deals with the central tenet to Christianity: free will. You can immediately see how free will is essential to Christianity in that if man is not responsible for his actions, then man cannot "sin". If man cannot sin, there is no need for Jesus to die for man's sins, thereby reducing Christianity to nothingness.
The contradiction is this. Think for a moment about your mind. What causes you to make decisions? Imagine if you will a few variables. X represents your desires, be they need for power, lust, you name it. Y represents your ability to overcome those desires, your willpower. You can add in any variables you like, as these can't be quantified, all I'm trying to do is establish what in your mind mixes in order for you to make a decision. For example, if X>Y in any given situation(oversimplification as it may be), then your desires will win out over your willpower, and you'll indulge. Add in any variables you like, the point is that we're considering it an equation for the sake of ease.
As a case study, let's consider a man and his son. The man warns his son not to eat the cookies, because they will make him sick. The son, being disobedient, decides to eat the cookies. This is an act of free will against the father, because the son had the free choice to either eat the cookies or not to do so.
It's very important to note at this point that "free will" is defined as: The power of making free choices that are unconstrained by external circumstances or by an agency such as fate or divine will. Ie, there are no external agents operating on you, "forcing" you to do anything.
Now, if the father had forced the son into either eating the cookie or not, it wouldn't have been free will, would it? Of course not.
One more point is essential to make before we continue: by the nature of God, nothing can exist independently of him. Ie, nothing can simply come into being without being caused by God. Which is pretty intuitive, given that we consider everything made by God, but it's an important premise to list before we go to our conclusion. I hope you're with me so far.
Finally, let's consider Eve and the fruit. Did Eve have free will in deciding to eat the fruit? Well, if we refer to our father-son example, she did. But, there's one crucial difference: the father did not design the son. The father did not set into place the X and Y variables in the son's mind, so, naturally, the father wasn't at all forcing his son to make a decision.
God, however, DID set the variables. He had to, because nothing can exist independent of him. If they simply sprung into existence without God, our entire concept of God is wrecked. God, therefore, put into place within Eve's mind her X and Y variables. She exhibited a weakness for temptation, a willingness to be deceived, corrupted. Is she responsible for this weakness, or is God? By our definition, nothing can exist independent of God, so, by causation, he is responsible for this. This is the crucial point of the case study: her variables couldn't have sprung into existence, they had to come from somewhere, and the only logical place they could have possibly come is from God. So. If the father had FORCED his son into either eating the cookie or not, we would not say that the son was operating of his own free will. How then, given that God is, by having set our variables, forcing us into action, can you say that we operate under free will when we sin? If your car breaks down, who do you blame, the car, or the car maker?
If you consider:
1. God is omniscient and omnipotent.
2. Nothing can existent independent of God.
3. Given premise 1, God does not make mistakes, and he fully understands the consequences of everything he does, since he knows the future.
4. There is a thought process that guides our decision making.
5. Given premise 2, our thought process comes inevitably from God.
6. Given premises 3 and 5, God knows exactly what will happen when he sets the variables.
7. Given premise 1 and 6, God knows what combination will cause us to sin, and, given 2, there are no other factors independent of God.
Quod Erat Demonstrandum: Given your premises, free will is thereby logically defeated.
I appreciate any and all input on the subject.
  
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With this revelation, my mind has officially been blown.
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While I'm sure most anyone who's read any of my posts already knows my beliefs, I will just say, you are a brave brave soul for dating someone who is extremely Christian while you are not yourself.
Now, I dont have anything against them (except the ones that try to convert me), but I cant imagine falling in love with someone who has such extreme different views. Thats just me though, and its good to hear you two are able to make it happen.
That aside, as someone posted recently (forget if it was here or another forum), being an atheist is just denying one more god than all the gods Christians deny. Thus your logic rox!
Edit: I'm not really atheist btw... I just know Christians think they're all going to hell etc etc.
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I find it easier to be ignorant
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Dude are you trying to find some logic in religion?
C´mon just think for second now....
I don´t watch TV but wasn´t it House who said: " If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people."
E. And I´m going to be totally honest here: I would never date a non atheist girl, because I could never appreciate one. She would always be inferior to me. And you extreme fundamentalists better not ban me for this.
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Just because free will doesn't exist (it doesn't, your environment and genetics decide everything you are going to do) doesn't mean that God exists. So really God = genes + environment.
Oh, and I once had a crush on a conservative Christian girl. Nothing happened, but I also was willing to compromise my beliefs to get a girl. It's totally normally dude.
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Since you are a deist, I will offer my argument since I consider myself to be one as well. To note, however, seeing your sophiscated argument I think mine may not be good enough, but I will try.
First we will establish the faith for an all-loving being, call it God. Since you are a deist as you claimed, I trust that you have no problem with God, but may get sore noses on the "all-loving" part. In my personal opinion, if you cannot have the faith that any possible supreme beings are all-loving and all-good, there is little point left in deism (and you might as well go athiesm). If you can do that, the rest is quite trivial (we don't need omnipotency or any other bullcraps).
The Christianity God is all-loving and all-good, which is compatible what I have described earlier. Therefore, there is no reason why you should not believe it, as you should be compatible with its moralities, etc..
If, however, it turned out that the Christian God is not the real God, that should be OK since the all-loving, all-good real God will forgive you for making such mistakes - you were simply fooled for a clever con-artist.
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here's how you get your logic refuted
talk to your girlfriend about the same exact subject matter you've posted
see who wins the argument. faith > logic
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This picture I've found also angers a lot of Christians I've talked to. Though honestly I dont really get into religious debates anymore. People will believe what they've always believed and almost never change (at least from a single conversation).
+ Show Spoiler +
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On September 01 2009 03:25 Athos wrote:
Just because free will doesn't exist (it doesn't, your environment and genetics decide everything you are going to do) doesn't mean that God exists. So really God = genes + environment.
Oh, and I once had a crush on a conservative Christian girl. Nothing happened, but I also was willing to compromise my beliefs to get a girl. It's totally normally dude.
Good thing your ID's not pAthos! Eh heh heh... heh...
...fuck.
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Is god willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able, and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God. ~ Epicurus
Just thought that i should begin with Epicurus.
Ok so let me try and explain in more laymen terms what i believe could be the one flaw in your argument.
As a preface- i am not christian, nor am i catholic. The only reason i would like to try and show that i am not extremely biased is simply to try and form some sense of credibility within this thread. In fact it doesn't matter if i am religious or religious at all, this is simply my opinion. From a novice theologian like myself it is simply at your discretion to take my advice or ignore it.
To begin:
The one flaw in your argument that i cannot come to terms with is your idea of free will. From what i gather- and from what my experiences in religious classes, debates and from partitions of the faith themselves- free will is seen in a completely different light than the one that you describe. From what i understand, free will while having been created by god, is not controlled by him. IE- your soul is yours, and will always be yours to keep. Even though god creates your soul, and understands everything within it, he simply decides to not control it. Basically you can do what you like. God will not stop you either way, but at the same time god knows exactly what you will do. So why eve and the fall from grace? According to a priest- it's "all part of his plan."
However this statement in itself some how defies the logic that God is an omnipotent and omnipotent diety- so really once again this is weak. (i fully admit this) Because why would god create man if god knew that man would fall, would suffer, and sin? The simple answer- That is extremely illogical, is this:
God wants to see- that even in the face of pain, tragedy, and the endless suffering that is life- will you still praise him?
Applying logic to god is impossible. Because if you could reason with religious people- there would be no religious people left. Faith is called faith for a reason, and it is up to you to decide if you really believe in God. No amount of logic can make that decision for you. Because logically- i disproved the entire idea of god with my first paragraph lol.
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the Christian religion is illogical to begin with. Since your core issue is with the girl rather than your logic, i would advice to just avoid this flamefest with her to begin with. Get to know her, have fun enjoying her company, and settle to agree to disagree regarding religion. If you prove that your logic is flawless, then by implication she is wrong. If we DO manage to dismantle your logical conclusion, then you will just find something else about Christianity to disagree with, since it is so full of logic holes. Either way it will form an unnecessary wedge in your relationship with her in the long run.
Unless you are looking to marry her, there is no need to dismantle another person's laboriously constructed cornerstone of belief, that would be unnecessarily cruel. Pretend ignorance or claim to be vaguely agnostic, ask her to respect your religious beliefs as you do hers, and drop the topic. She is much more than her belief in god, so there is not much point dwelling on it.
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United States24779 Posts
Your first problem in your proof is with step 1 since nothing can be omnipotent.
According to biblical times didn't God have to flood the entire Earth to kill pretty much everyone? I stopped taking Abrahamic religions seriously after that.
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No girl is worth compromising your metaphysical principles
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On September 01 2009 03:27 HuskyTheHusky wrote:This picture I've found also angers a lot of Christians I've talked to. Though honestly I dont really get into religious debates anymore. People will believe what they've always believed and almost never change (at least from a single conversation). + Show Spoiler +
That picture is one of the most awesome things i've seen in a while. Fukkin saved.
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Yeah people will believe what they will believe.
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United States44109 Posts
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This is interesting. I agree with you that free will doesn't exist. However, I'm an atheist. I can say, though, that in your reasoning, we can almost replace god by "physics" (with some tweaks of course) and it works the same! Some chemical interaction created us, so we're dependent to them, etc.
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"God is dead" - Nietsche
Saying free will doesn´t exist is madness.
I think I saw a research which said that our brains make decisions before we "make" them, so in a way I think free will exist but it might not be our conciousness that makes the decisions.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.hennessy.id.au/quentingeorge/archives/god-v-satan.png)
