Marc L

This is a question I've been trying to wrap my head around for awhile. The most common comment I hear when someone does something heinous (most commonly, murder) is that no true Christian would do such a thing. Generally, this is followed with quoting the ten commandments. The problem that I've been having with this is the following:

According to most Christians I've talked to, being saved is through faith alone. According to Paul, one must confess with one's mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in their heart that god rose him from the dead in order to be saved, and that's it.

Further, all sin is apparently equal in the eyes of God. Jesus, for example equates losing one's temper with murder and lust with adultery, while Paul simply says that sin carries the same penalty.

Given that Christians are still human and likely lose their tempers from time to time (or think lustful thoughts, or tell a fib, etc), does that make them any less a Christian then one who has committed a murder? Or is it simply that upon commission of any sort of sin suddenly makes you not a Christian until you repent?

Additionally, doesn't the requirement of good behavior (by not committing sin) make Christianity based on works, as opposed to faith alone?

I've decided to make a list of things I've been seeing that are part of the R&S drinking game. So far, they seem to be a bit one sided, with atheists being more likely to take a shot then theists. Feel free to add any.

Note, this is not a slam on either theists or atheists. It's more a humorous comment on how often certain things are asked on this forum.

1) Every time someone says, "If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? (or some variant thereof)

2) Every time someone says, "Why are there atheists in R/S?"

3) Every time someone says, "Why do atheists believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster?"

4) Every time someone starts a question with, "Spiritually speaking...?" and the question has nothing to do with Religion or Spirituality.

5) Every time someone says, "atheism is a religion."

6) Every time someone refers to atheists or "evolutionists" without adding that final "s".

7) Every time an atheist makes a satirical question claiming to have converted to Christianity.

So, in a different question, someone noted that Luke reports 41 generations between David and Jesus, while Matthew only reports 27. The most common answer given to this was, "One is for Joseph, the other for Mary."

I have to ask, though, is this really what people think? There's a fourteen generation difference between Luke's count and Matthew. Given the Biblical definition of a generation of 40 years, this would mean that Joseph was 560 *years* older than Mary. Is this truly the accepted viewpoint of Christianity? Or is there a different explanation?

This is not a "gotcha" question. I'm honestly curious what the theological answer to this is.

According to Christian belief, sin entered the world when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Up until this point, there was no sin, and as a result, all humans are now born with the ability to sin.

If there was no sin in the world, and humans didn't have the capability to sin before eating of the Tree, how were Adam and Eve able to do so? Doesn't this mean that sin existed in the world from the beginning? Or at least the capability of it? Wouldn't that mean then, that God created humans already capable of sin?

So here's the situation. My wife and I agreed when we decided to have kids that we wouldn't indoctrinate our children into any religion. She is Christian, I am atheist, and we decided it would be best if the kids made up their own minds when they were old enough to make an informed decision.

A few weeks ago, my mother (who is fairly religious) came to visit, and left a book for small children about how important it was to love God and how important it was to support missionaries spreading the gospel. I mentioned it to my wife, who had not seen it, and she agreed that it met the indoctrination standard we'd talked about. Her advice, "Toss it."

Here's the thing, for me. If I believed in sin, I'd have to say that the destruction of books is pretty much up there on the list of things that should be included. You just don't destroy books, even if you disagree with the content.

At first, I thought about having her donate it to her church, since there were likely to be people there who would use it. The problem, however, is then I'm endorsing the indoctrination of other children that I'm avoiding with my own. Kind of a double standard. In the end, I decided to throw the book out, reasoning that it was mass produced, and it was unlikely that this was the sole copy in existence.

My question for you all is this: How would you have handled it?

A couple of times, I've tried giving someone a thumbs down, and accidentally hit the "Report Abuse" button. I hit backspace immediately, but i want to be sure I'm not getting these people in trouble unintentionally.

As I am an informal Pole, I've decided to conduct an informal poll of the residents of R&S. Please tell me your religion/lack of religion (including denomination), location, gender and age. If you are neither Christian or atheist (the two groups I know most about), if you have a good link to explain some of your beliefs, I'd appreciate seeing them.

If God made Adam and Eve, but not Adam and Steve, then who created Steve?

So they could convert to Islam, would you provide one, or try and talk them out of it?

This is in response to disciple4christ43's question here:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AgHr2...

Person A is an atheist. He goes through life being a good man. He doesn't lie, murder, steal, cheat on his wife (in fact, he's married to only one person his entire adult life). He's never done anything remotely "sexually immoral". He gives to the poor and needy. He tends to forgive slights against him, and doesn't seek revenge against those who wrong him. All in all, aside from not believing in the Christian god, he lives a blameless life.

Person B, on the other hand, is a right ***hole. He lies, has cheated on each of his five different wives, each time with a man. He hasn't killed anyone, but he holds grudges and cheers when his enemies are ruined. At the end of his life, he makes a sincere repentance. I mean sincere. He realizes 100% that what he did was wrong and that he need Christ to forgive him.

My questions are these: 1) What happens to person A at the end of his life (no repentance) and why? 2) What happens to person B and why? and 3) Do you really consider each of your answers to be Just and why?

Romans 13:3 and 1 Peter 2:13 both exhort Christians to submit to their rulers, whoever they are. The rulers at the time, of course, were Pagan.

The U.S. was founded on the idea that it was ok to oppose your rulers (thus, not only the Declaration of Independence, but the right to peaceably assemble to redress the government).

If both of these are true, how is it that we were founded on Christian principles? If I'm taking the two Bible verses out of context, please explain to me what context they are meant to be in.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster, or the Invisible Pink Unicorn?

I'm not sure if this should go here or into anthropology. I was reading an article about the Amish the other day, and an interesting thought occurred to me. Given that the Amish are insular, what would happen if they remain insular? Now, I admit, most of my knowledge of genetics and biology is based on what I remember from high school (about 20 years ago), and what I've picked up on the internet since then. The following scenarios occurred to me, and I was wondering which one was likely:

1) The genetic defects associated with inbreeding will eventually cause the Amish to die out as a people. If this one, how long will that take? (Note, I'm not saying I WANT them to die out, mind you. In fact, if this is the most likely option, I very much hope somebody steps in to help)

2) Given the ever increasing population of Amish, they will eventually overcome the genetic defects (again, how long might that take).

2a) If this occurs, and they continue to remain insular, will they eventually become a subspecies of homo sapiens? (If so, again, how long?)

I'm not too certain about 2a), because, technically, the Native Americans were cut off from the rest of humanity for (I think it was) at least 30,000 years, yet, obviously, they are still homo sapiens.

If 2a) is likely, though, how long would that take? And what would be the indicator of it?

None of this officially matters in the long run, it's merely a thought that ran through my head.

Do you believe that god(s) declare an action to be good/bad because it is inherently good/bad, or is an action good/bad because god(s) declare it to be so?

If the former, then why do we need god(s) to tell us this, instead of figuring it out for ourselves? If the latter, how would this be considered "absolute" morality, if it's just the whim of god(s)?

Someone on a forum awhile ago commented on chimpanzees having been observed to be using spears in Africa. I've been searching the web, and I haven't been able to find anything to confirm this. Was this person mistaken? Or am I just not looking in the right place. If the latter, does anyone have a good link they could point me towards?

I keep hearing this one bandied about: "Freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion." I truly don't understand what it means.

The other thing I'm curious, for those that believe the above phrase, what does "freedom of religion" mean to you?

This is not an attempt to troll or start an argument. I'm truly curious to know what you folks think. In fact, I will personally give thumbs down to those atheists that mock any sincere responders to this thread.

In the past, I've jokingly called my wife a "heretic" because she's Episcopalian and I was raised Catholic. It got me to thinking though:

I was baptized and raised Catholic, but was never confirmed. I am currently an Atheist. I've never been officially ex-communicated

Would I be considered a lapsed Catholic (because I was raised Catholic), or a heretic (because I've denied the teachings of the Catholic church)?

Please note, this is not an attempt at trolling. I'm honestly curious what Catholicism says about this.