Morality exists without your God.

[Save_Ferris]

You probably ought to have used an actual dictator there, then.

Maybe Hipster Hitler, because Hipster Hitler seems pretty anti-herd conformity.

I try to avoid Godwin's Law.

 

[Traitorfish]

I dunno, given how much the Nazis liked to take little chunks of Nietzche's work and regurgitate them acontextually, Hitler seems like a pretty fair candidate. Certainly closer to the mark than Franco or Mao or whoever.

 

[Flying Pig]

Although Nietzsche's sister re-worked a lot of his ideas to fit in with her own Nazi beliefs; while the man wasn't exactly a great person to begin with, he got a lot of undeserved bad press from her.

 

[Lord Gay]

So Adam, were your questions answered?

 

[Algeroth]

I dunno, given how much the Nazis liked to take little chunks of Nietzche's work and regurgitate them acontextually, Hitler seems like a pretty fair candidate. Certainly closer to the mark than Franco or Mao or whoever.

Given Mao adoration of legalism, I wouldn't count him out.

 

[GhostWriter16]

6,973,738,433- Current world population.
http://www.pewforum.org/Christian/Global-Christianity-exec.aspx
2,184,060,000- Number of Christians in the world.

That number of Christians includes people who identify as Christian but don't go to church or practice the faith outside of believing in God and having a certain (variable) set of beliefs about what is or isn't moral. Within that group alone, there's wide disagreement about what exactly is moral. This means that many of these folks are the folks who will believe in God just as much as you and still vote to make, for example, same-sex marriage legal. Because this group of folks is not in lockstep agreement. I think it fair to say on some issues you see as black and white, as many as half of those folks will disagree with you on. Even in the comparatively conservative USA, the number of Christians supporting expanded rights for gays is about half of them. Somehow, your idea of God's morality didn't reach those people.

The other 4,789,678,433 people on the planet, which is more than twice that amount, are not all believers in God, not all believers in your God, and do not all agree with your set of values either.

Somehow, they manage to go through their entire day without engaging in blood orgies. Even the folks who believe that your God is imaginary, like me.

Not only that, but Christianity has existed for roughly 2,000 years. During most of that time, it made up a relatively insignificant portion of the world population. There weren't many African, American, or Asian Christians for the grand majority of that time.

Even if you believe in the nonsense that is a 6000 year old Earth, that's still a fraction of human history that's on the small side. The actual age of humanity is much, much greater. Which means for well more than the majority of human history, in actuality more than 99% of human history, the belief in God, specifically your God, but even in One God in general, did not exist.

To put it into perspective, your claim is exactly analogous to any claim that Scientology might make, to the effect of you cannot be happy or moral or sane without Scientology. When the shoe is on the other foot, it's utterly ridiculous. Scientology hasn't even existed for 100 years. The vast majority of the planet is not a member of Scientology. You know for a FACT that you can be happy and moral without it. So whenever somebody says something that ridiculous, you'd feel pretty confident calling them out on it.

But the fact is, the vast majority of the people on the planet do not believe in your religion, your God, or subscribe to your code of values. Even within your own religion, the divisions are great. The extent to which a person believes the literalness of the Bible is also quite divergent among this greater group. There are Republican and Democrat Christians. Socialist Christians, Libertarian Christians. There are Pro-Choice and Pro-Life Christians. Pro-Death penalty, Anti-Death penalty. Pro-gun laws, anti-gun laws.

Your standard of morality doesn't even extend to all the people sitting next to you in your church pew.

To claim a monopoly on morality, is not just worthy of a hearty chuckle. Somehow, the human race got by for hundreds of thousands of years without your beliefs. The number of humans who have lived, without your God and your beliefs about morality, is somewhere in the vicinity of 99% or more. Many more have believed in different One gods. Many many many more have believed in several Gods. And many more than that had no concept of a distinct god. And yet somehow, the human race survived then, just as it does today in the parts of the world that have religions that are native to their region.

The vast, vast majority of the human race never even heard of your God, because during their lifetimes, not a single human being had ever spoken of him. This is a fact. Monotheism is a fairly recent development in human history.

That means that your "revealed" faith was revealed after 99% of all humans who will ever live or die had already lived and died. Otherwise there would have been some evidence of belief in your God hundreds of thousands of years ago, and there's exactly zero evidence of that.

Which means your religion is just as likely to be true as a church that is conceived of today and opened up tomorrow. Your claim to a monopoly on morality, your claim that no one can be moral without your God, is null and void. Furthermore, the ignorance behind such a statement, and the arrogance involved, is breathtaking.

There's no denying that Christianity is a major world religion that flourishes today. There's no denying that many Christians are decent people. But to state that people can't be moral without your God, is essentially a supremacist belief on par with believing you're a member of the master race. The only difference is that it's not race you're talking about, but religion. Believing you're part of the master religion is the same thing, believing that you're better than everyone else. That means your faith hasn't elevated you in the slightest.

Even the most fundamentalist Christians don't believe that they can just kill people who go against some of the Old Testament teachings, even though that's what it says you're supposed to do in the Bible, in no uncertain, metaphorical terms. It's in black and white LITERAL terms: KILL PEOPLE who disobey these rules.

And that goes for Jewish folks who don't have New Testament excuses for why they pick and choose which parts of the Old Testament to believe in. Those laws supposedly apply to them, today. Yet you don't see Orthodox Jews stoning prostitutes or burning heretics.

Do you know why that is?

It's because you CAN have morality outside of God. Even the most devout people on this planet can read the Old Testament, and say.... no, I'm not going to MURDER PEOPLE even if God says it's Okay to do so. Proof positive that you can be the most religious person on the planet and still have morality outside of God. It's called having a conscience, and most people on the planet have one.

That's how you can have morality outside of belief in your God, even if you also believe in God. You can believe in God and still have your own opinions on what is moral or immoral. Which means that morality comes from you, not a book.

At this point, you may cling to your belief that we're all here because God created us, and that makes what you said okay, because ultimately we wouldn't be here without your God. Which is interesting, because at one time, many more folks believed that this is how it all began:



Morality can exist without a belief in Nyx, the bird with black wings who gave birth to Love, the Sky, and the Earth, even if at one time, more people believed that this was how the world came to be, than from Jehovah saying "let there be light". A time before that, lots of people believed in Nyx, and nobody believed in Jehovah. A time before that, nobody believed in Nyx.

Kinda puts the whole nobody can have morality without your God thing in perspective. Your God is the same as Nyx in the following ways: it is a creation myth that was conjured up in an age before literacy became widespread, and people believed the world was flat. And even during that time, people still contemplated what was moral or immoral. Without your God.

I'm not going to break this down piece by piece, and I haven't read the replies to this, but I think there are a few strawmen in here, as well as things that need to be addressed.

First of all, while the age of the earth could be debated (And I will freely admit that I'm not really interested in doing so or intelligent enough to do so, and I will freely admit my personal belief is in a young earth, although probably a little older than 6,000 years, probably closer to 10) the age of humans, or at least, humans as we know them today, I don't think anyone believes they've been around more than ten or fifteen thousand years or so. If I recall correctly, Catholics who accept Evolution (I've seen very, VERY few who accept Evolution without going liberal on how they take the rest of the Bible as well) also believe that the first humans as we know them today, Adam and Eve, were also the first ones with souls. They don't believe (Again, if I recall correctly) that any of the creatures that were on the evolutionary ladder up to man had souls. And obviously, a creature without a soul isn't really under any obligation to believe in God, and moral concerns don't really apply to them either, theologically speaking. So we're really only dealing with a few thousand years (At the most, we're dealing with five digits, not six) in which there were humans (Again, full humans who had souls) to make any of this relevant, at least if you accept enough of the Scripture that this discussion would even be relevant (And for those that would not, well, they would probably be too liberal to say that "There's no morality without our God" anyway, so we can disregard them for now.) So you're "99% of human history" is certainly inaccurate. At most, it perhaps applies to ten thousand years of human history, where arguably people did not believe in Jehovah.

Secondly, this isn't necessarily true either. I think "A majority of people didn't believe in Jehovah for all that time" is a possibility, but not that nobody did. At the very least we'd insist that the likes of Adam, Abel, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, and the like believed in Jehovah even if they didn't have a written book in which to learn about him. This is based on an acceptance of the Biblical record, but again, the people in question who are saying these sorts of things are GOING to accept the Biblical record, no matter how ridiculous you personally feel that it is.

Interestingly, the future Messiah, Jesus Christ, is listed as early in the Old Testament as Genesis 3:15, which was right after mankind needed one, because they committed sin. Hebrews 11 makes clear that the Old Testament Jews were saved by faith in this, so while Judaism was the true religion for the first (At least) 4,000 years of humanity, and "Christianity" didn't really exist because Jesus Christ had not yet come to Earth, Christians would believe that faith in the true God existed since the very beginning.

Even with that being said, I don't really think your perception of Christian teaching is 100% accurate, in spite of the fact that we do believe people HAVE believed in our God since the beginning.

First of all, your claim that the Old Testament commands us to murder anyone, I don't think I've seen any of that. At best, you can argue that it commands the Israelites to murder people in a specific place in a specific time. You'd have to cite a specific example for me to critique. I will say two specific things, first, mentioning either the actions of Jepthah in Judges 11 or the tribes of Israel at the close of Judges because, while Jepthah did seem to be a devout follower of God, neither Jepthah nor the tribes of Israel at the end (Which don't necessarily seem to have been following God at the time) received divine sanction for their actions, in fact Leviticus itself says that a rash oath does not necessarily have to be followed but that a sacrifice (Of an animal, mind you) could be made instead so that the rash course of action could be avoided. Yes, Jepthah took his oaths seriously, but he clearly committed a sin in his case, at least if you accept the normal, logical interpretation that he did actually sacrifice his daughter on the altar. I think his culture put much more emphasis on not lying than we do (Which is appropriate) and made much less qualms about human sacrifices (Which is clearly wrong, both Biblically and based on our consciences) which might explain WHY a believer would do such a horrible thing (Which a saved believer would ordinarily not do), but it does not excuse the horrible thing. The second thing I'm going to say is that ancient culture was different. Now, if a murderer gets executed, and his children are left without parents, there are things we can do to help the kids, back then there was nothing. Back then, there was no such possibility, so when God said "Kill all the people" at first that seems awful. Now, I will freely admit, it still DOES feel awful to me. I have to trust that God knows what he's talking about, but don't assume its all simple for me and that I don't care, I do think through these things. But when God killed the grown men and women (Who were committing human sacrifices themselves I might add) there was really nothing in ancient society that could be done for the kids. Either they'd be left alive and end up starving on their own, or they'd be killed quickly, and the latter I think is more humane. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there's anywhere in the Old Testament where TORTURE is commanded, and I have seen some cases (It may have been very specific cases that have nothing to do with Muslims today, but still) in Islamic teachings.

I will also note that life is God's, so he can take it, or command it to be taken, when he pleases. This is also partially the reason Hell is not an evil doctrine. An analogy I once heard that helps with this is to consider wrongdoing. Slapping someone in the face would be wrong no matter what. But how great the consequence would depend on who is slapped. Slapping President Obama in the face would be considered a greater offense than slapping your neighbor, of equal societal status as you, in an argument. And yet Obama is still a created being. God, an eternal being, has the right to demand perfection, and if we commit wrongdoing against an eternal being, the punishment is likewise eternal. Since we have all sinned against God, God has a right to take our lives whenever he wants to, whether on his own or through a human vessel.

However, God does not command such killings anymore. The Old Covenant was a time when violence was used to spread God's Will. The New Covenant, which Jesus Christ began with his death on the cross and resurrection, is one of peace. So while the Old Testament is not wrong in anything it commands, those commands were at a specific time for a specific reason. We aren't even supposed to follow them today.

As for a conscience, you are right, and that's a fair point. I would never attempt to argue that only Christians have one, although truth be told there are a few people out there that seem to not have one (The likes of Hitler, Stalin, and pretty much any serial killer comes to mind), I think they ignore their conscience rather than really not having one. But that aside, I would argue that the conscience itself is GIVEN by God. Obviously that's not scientifically or emprically provable or disprovable, but that is what I believe, and I'd expect most Evangelical believers agree with this. While our consciences are marred by original sin and thus essentially dead, we do still have a conscience.

Thus, unbelievers do have a conscience, and can make "Moral" choices, but only because God gives them a conscience to do so. The same exact thing applies to believers'.

The difference is that only true Christians can actually do anything for Christ. Otherwise the Bible says our Good Works are like filthy rags. We can do the most moral things on the planet for selfish reasons. In fact, even appeasement of the conscience is a selfish motivation, since it is aimed at satisfying oneself and not Christ. Doing good things for a God other than Christ, or a false perception of Christ, is also selfishness since it serves a God built in one's own image.

So even though unbelievers are not running around killing people, they cannot deny that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Unless, of course, they don't believe in God.) But that's what I would argue. For the record, assuming a normal context, I would agree that there is no morality outside of God, but I would not try to argue that those who don't believe have no morals. I would, however, argue that their morals ultimately don't matter, faith does.

 

[JollyRoger]

So an immoral Christian makes it to heaven, but a moral non-Christian does not?

 

[kramerfan86]

This debate is at an utter and complete end if the counterpoint is going to be people who dont believe in your God only behave because your God gave them your religion's morals so despite their lack of faith they are deep down inside following christian morals.

 

[GhostWriter16]

So an immoral Christian makes it to heaven, but a moral non-Christian does not?

The bolded part is both true and untrue. Who defines "Moral". For God its the perfect standard. Theoretically if someone could actually live to that standard, they could be saved. But nobody can, so it doesn't matter. The reason we can be saved is because of the mercy of Jesus Christ, which is not (In terms of Salvation) given to anyone accept he who believes. John 3:18 states this pretty clearly. So even if a non-Christian was supposedly "Good" they wouldn't be perfect so it didn't matter.

The first part is more complex. Reading the book of James does give some perspective, although it has to be viewed through the lens of other things in the Bible that also talk about faith WITHOUT works:

A twelve verse text (James 2:14-26) that addresses the topic below:

14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! 20 Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

Martin Luther rejected James' authority because he thought it contradicted Paul's gopsel, which pretty clearly seems to include faith but not works as a prerequesite for being saved (See Romans 10:9 and Ephesians 2:8-9, being sure to look at context, for two examples.)

And of course, you can look at what Jesus says about being a disciple, and then look at Acts 11, where the word "Christian" is invented, and only applied to disciples (Followers of Christ.)

Note that when taken together, this (And the other Biblical texts I didn't cite) say that while WORKS are not necessary for Salvation, FOLLOWING JESUS is, and works are a necessary result of that. James says faith is COMPLETED by works. That does imply that faith will come first, but that works will definitely follow, or at least if we live long enough (The thief on the cross is an example of someone who became a follower of Christ but had no opportunity to carry it out, yet he was still saved through his repentance and God's mercy.)

So, in other words, repentance and faith in Jesus Christ and a committment to following him will lead to Salvation immediately. This is when a Christian begins to walk the narrow way. Continuing to walk the narrow way is essential for Salvation (Whether those who do not lost their Salvation, or "Left the narrow way" or simply were never walking the narrow way to begin with is more of an "In House" discussion, and while I tend to think the latter, I don't really KNOW this for sure) and works will by definition follow that. Its impossible for a genuine Christian, used in the Evangelical sense to describe someone who is actually following Christ, to be completely characterized by immorality, they will certainly grow, although some slower than others. And yes, if they are truly saved, if they did truly commit themselves to Christ, then they will be saved even if they die in a state of sin, because God's grace is not limited by man's inability to live according to his standard, NOBODY deserves eternal life.

And as for the non-Evangelical usage of "Christian" simply claiming to be one is not enough for Eternal life, being a true follower is.

 

[GhostWriter16]

This debate is at an utter and complete end if the counterpoint is going to be people who dont believe in your God only behave because your God gave them your religion's morals so despite their lack of faith they are deep down inside following christian morals.

My reason for posting was basically to say that his interpretation is a strawman, not really to create a good or interesting debate. I get that my point can't really be refuted one way or another. But my point is, what I said is an actually accurate interpretation of how Christians think, since I actually am one, whereas Pizzaguy is not.

 

[JollyRoger]

I said moral, not perfect.

 

[GhostWriter16]

I said moral, not perfect.

That would be like saying "I said someone who isn't a murderer, not someone who has never murdered even once." At least, by God's perfect standards this is so.

There's no real such thing as a moral non-Christian, or even a moral Christian for that matter.

But by the world's standards of morality, such a "moral" person who is still a sinner and does not believe that Jesus Christ died for those sins would, Biblically speaking, go to Hell unless they repent, believe, and commit their lives to Jesus Christ.

 

[kramerfan86]

Clearly a kind Indian who has never even properly has heard of jesus has it coming to him anyways.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Not to mention babies. This reminds me of the Jesus Camp documentary where they were scaring even 4-year-olds into repenting for their "sins".


Link to video.

No more hypocrisy! Now you go somewhere to pray, and you start doing some repenting here.

I'm sorry. I'll never take another cookie without permission again.

 

[GhostWriter16]

Clearly a kind Indian who has never even properly has heard of jesus has it coming to him anyways.

There is debate amongst Evangelicals what exactly happens to those who hadn't heard the gospel. Some think that, since they never had a chance to repent of their sins, they aren't fully responsible. Some think that they are, but if they do the best they can with the revelation of God that they have received, they will be saved. I've heard some Calvinists (I'm not a full Calvinist but I do hold certain Calvinist positions, I guess you could say I'm a "Moderate" Calvinist of sorts, although some people consider me more of one than others) say that whether the unevangelized get saved or not is based on whether or not they were elected for Salvation or not, although I've never heard that argument from a non-Calvinist (It would make sense why.) Some do hold that those who have never heard of Jesus are just as damned as those that do and reject it. Personally, I simply strive to follow the Great Commission and let God worry about those I cannot reach. I do not think those who haven't heard but would reject Christianity anyway will get any special mercy on account of ignorance, but I do think that those who would have accepted Christ at least MIGHT have a chance of Salvation, although, again, the Bible doesn't really say. I would argue that you can't really "Not believe" as John 3:18 says, something you've never heard, but at the same time, Hell is still deserved for one's sins, so if they were saved (Or, even if a Christian is saved, although the Bible clearly states this will happen) so there's still a possibility they would go to Hell. I don't know, and I don't worry about it. I'm confident that whatever God does is just and fair. I have a hard time accepting that someone who would have believed if he had been told would go to Hell because a Christian failed his duty to Evangelize them, but I don't REALLY believe anyone can accept Christ without the aid of the Spirit anyway, so there's not any true excuse.

TLDR: I don't know what happens to them, and I don't think anyone else does either, but if they did go to Hell, it would still be just for the reasons I described in my other post.

@Form- I didn't see any child abuse in that video, but this woman has a poor understanding of Christian doctrine.

First off, she doesn't REALLY mention Jesus at all. She does talk about hypocricy amongst Christians, a valid topic, but simply tells them to "Clean up their act" rather than rely on Jesus' strength to deal with their sin, which is theologically impossible (If you or anyone else wants more information on this please PM me and I'll show you some Scriptures, I'd rather not get so specific in this thread).

Secondly, she has a clearly screwed up view of baptism. I will say that as a credobaptist, I find the idea of trying to baptize a four year old almost as absurd as the baptism of infants (Note, unless anyone misunderstand, I'm not trying to paint paedobaptists as unchristian, I simply believe its unbiblical, and this is another point I'm willing to discuss Scripture on in a PM if anyone has interest). More importantly, she doesn't do it in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, she just pours water on them. As baptism is a symbol of the washing away of sins, we're supposed to do it according to the Biblical model.

Third of all, while I do condone teaching kids about the gospel from birth, I don't really think the vast majority of four year olds are old enough to be personally responsible to accept the gospel. I just think its really hard to understand it at that young age. And generally young kids are the LEAST hypocrtical among people. Pretty simple when Jesus tells us to become like little children to enter heaven, and spends so much time condemning hypocricy.

 

[kramerfan86]

Id try not to worry about the idea of my version of God sending piles of good people to hell too, would make believing a lot easier I suppose.

 

[GhostWriter16]

Id try not to worry about the idea of my version of God sending piles of good people to hell too, would make believing a lot easier I suppose.

Even if I'm wrong (Although from what I've seen of human nature, I don't see any good reason to assume such) my premise was not that God sends good people to Hell, but that there are no good people for God to send there, and that God sends most evil people to Hell where they deserve to go. That some call upon Christ's name and can have life... that's what we should be questioning "God, why?" Not why he justly sends people to Hell, but why he actually gave up so much to save us. That's what we should be asking.

I worry about what the Bible actually teaches. I'm not placing long lists of Bible quotes here since I know the vast majority of people here don't care, but if you are actually interested in what Christianity teaches, feel free to PM or VM me and I'd be happy to explain to you. Keep in mind that what you THINK Christianity teaches may not be completely accurate.

The Bible says "He who does not believe is condemned already." It says "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." It says "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life." God doesn't give us a precise definition of what "Not believing" is, and while I would argue those who have not heard the gospel are not condemned by this particular verse (Since "Not believing" requires at least implicit knowledge of what is being rejected) there are other verses that clearly say that all have sinned and thus deserve Hell, whether they've heard or not. However, even if God were to show mercy in this particular case, I don't think he'd want us to know because he wants us to do our job and spread the word through the world.

 

[kramerfan86]

It is a bit laughable though to suggest someone who devotes their life to aiding others is an "evil person" because of supposed original sin. Imperfect? Sure, no one is perfect, even non-christians agree with that principle, but to suggest all are by default evil is IMO silly and even if you run off that principle some one who has labored their entire life to improve the world clearly is taking steps to redeem themselves.

To me in many cases being non-christian is less a lack of faith in God but a lack of faith in humans. Why is it reasonable to expect an African for example, to suddenly give up the religion of his family and ancestors because one white missionary tells him to? Especially when the wide majority of European-African relations has been horribly one sided on the wrong end for the Africans. Add in the fact with even basic research it becomes clear even Christians dont particularly agree, hell christians dont even agree how old the rock we live on is or what parts of our own religious book are true, whether its 100% or there is some parable going on. So even someone living in the Western world has plenty of human related reasons for lack of belief.

 

[GhostWriter16]

It is a bit laughable though to suggest someone who devotes their life to aiding others is an "evil person" because of supposed original sin. Imperfect? Sure, no one is perfect, even non-christians agree with that principle, but to suggest all are by default evil is IMO silly and even if you run off that principle some one who has labored their entire life to improve the world clearly is taking steps to redeem themselves.

To me in many cases being non-christian is less a lack of faith in God but a lack of faith in humans. Why is it reasonable to expect an African for example, to suddenly give up the religion of his family and ancestors because one white missionary tells him to? Especially when the wide majority of European-African relations has been horribly one sided on the wrong end for the Africans. Add in the fact with even basic research it becomes clear even Christians dont particularly agree, hell christians dont even agree how old the rock we live on is or what parts of our own religious book are true, whether its 100% or there is some parable going on. So even someone living in the Western world has plenty of human related reasons for lack of belief.

I'm not an expert apologist but I'll give it a shot.

How old the rock we live on is is not essential to Salvation. You can be wrong about that sort of thing and still be saved. Intellectual knowledge of the details is not what saves, Jesus is. However, I personally believe in a Young Earth.

What parts of the book is true: You can either accept all of God's word which was given to us (2 Timothy 3:16) or you can pick and choose. While what falls under "Scripture" has been disputed at times, only a small subset of the books in the Bible were actually disputed, and the New Testament was almost unanimously chosen amongst the various ancient churches (The Old Testament is somewhat more debatable, since Protestants generally take the view that the Hebrew text of the OT, and not the Greek translation, is the infallible, inerrant Word of God, they accept the Jewish canon of the OT, which rejects the Apocrypha. This isn't an issue I know much about, so sorry, I can't really expound more upon it.) Peter gives Paul's letters authority, and regards them as Scripture (2 Peter 3:16). Paul seems to think his own letters are authoritative (Colossians 4:16-17) although his letter to Laodecia no longer exists and thus was obviously (Or at least, obvious to a Christian who trusts God on these matters) not intended as Scripture.

To accept parts and reject others seems to me to put man on a pedastal above God, to allow man to pick and choose what he likes. Such a religion has no foundation, no truth, no power.

Now, as to how to INTERPRET the Bible, you are correct, there are disputes. Obviously the way Protestants interpret the Bible is very different than the Catholic and Orthodox way of interpreting it, since Protestants don't believe their churches have any intristic authority on their own, but only if they follow the Bible, while Catholics and Orthodox believe their respective churches are equal to Scripture in authority. While they cite 1 Timothy 3:15 as a proof-text, keep in mind that back then Paul was still alive and the church was still young. It had Apostles, men who knew Jesus Christ himself, to correct it when it fell into error. While the verse is still correct, I wouldn't trust the church now quite as much as back then since it has had 2,000 years to pick up unbiblical tradition. As to how Protestants themselves interpret the Bible, there are a few very tricky differences, such as whether baptism is essential for Salvation, whether infants can be baptized or not, whether one can lose your Salvation, exc., but a lot of the disputes can be boiled down to "Do we actually accept the word of God for what it is? (Exegesis) or do we read what we want into the text (Eisegesis.)

Of the disputes among Evangelicals, the only one that has anything to do with the process of how to get saved is whether baptism is essential, and most Evangelicals believe it isn't. However, it doesn't really matter anyways because baptism is a pretty clear command, and you're supposed to accept it as soon as you become a disciple (Matthew 28:19-20).

As for the various other disputes, they aren't things that you have to understand in order to be saved, and the fear of being wrong as to these more minor points is no excuse to reject the Great Salvation Jesus has provided (Hebrews 2:3.)

As for imperfection = evil, I explained this. It is bad to slap someone, correct? You'd get a harassment charge and probably get fined or maybe a very short jail sentence. But if you slap the President, you'll go to prison probably. And Obama is still a created being. How much more if we sin against the Eternal God who is perfect and created the Universe? An offense against an eternal being requires eternal punishment, unless an eternal being takes the punishment... and that's what Jesus Christ did so we could be saved.

 

[kramerfan86]

The thread is becoming highjacked so I will stop this, needless to say I believe in a much more liberal line of Christianity that believes in a God who is a bit more just than to sentence everyone to hell because they dont believe the random christian who talks to them because two hypothetical humans irked him thousands of years ago.