The fundamental message I get is that god created humans that sinned after a matter of days damning all people forever because god held a grudge against them and could only forgive people by sending his son, who is also himself, to be killed, thus forgiving people who believe that's what happened. Granted, many, many details are missing, there's no explaination as to why god needs to kill his son who's also himself in order to forgive people for something they had no way of changing and no responsibility for, and much less why god would be so concerned with belief.

The explanation that I used to teach was from Romans 3:26; that is, the desire of the atonement was to justify god in the pardon of sin. In other words, he couldn't pardon the sins of anyone until a penalty had been paid.
Now that I see and think freely, why did he have to pay a penalty to himself?
Who does he need to show proof of anything to?
You're right, it doesn't make sense in the order that this is god we're talking about, not some earthly ruler.

MS:

OMGF is correct, you know as well as I, in sunday school and certainly from the pulpit, god and jesus are nothing but good. I had never heard or read anything from the bible about the horrible things god did in the O.T. while I was in church. Or, if sometimes we touched on a questionable scripture, we just glossed over the details, saying god is good, and those things were done for his purposes, and we can't understand them.
If a child picks up a bible and starts to read, they won't understand it, and would probably be bored to death. Everything that a person knows about salvation, they have been taught by someone. That's why we have so many denominations, people are taught what to believe. I don't believe the doctrine of salvation is easy to understand, because you have to sew so many scriptures together to make sense. After all, what jesus says about being saved, is different than what Paul says about salvation.

So yeah, sorry, the message of scripture sure wasn't comprehensible to THIS child.

Well, from what you wrote, it sounds like you understood the message, it just made you want to throw up. Fair enough.

I admit you've sparked my curiousity with that. What issues are they on the wrong side of and why are they on the wrong side of them?

Christians are definitely on the wrong side of some issues, mainly when they get entangled in politics. They're always wrong when they do that.

I was speaking more of attitudes and comportment, though. There are atheist jerks and Christian jerks, but it is my experience that atheists generally take the higher road in internet squabbles and handle themselves in a more respectful manner.

And don't get me started on the argumentation...definitely an advantage for one side over the other, generally speaking. And no, I'm not sucking up to the boss...

OK, Mrnaglfar, I know I can get an amen from you on this one :)

I bet that most children and people read the Bible and believe that god is good because of earlier conditioning they receive. Our culture is saturated with it. Belief is good, god is good, etc.

OMGF, I don't doubt this a bit, I was just reporting my experience. I alluded to this eroding base of cultural presupposition in my companion statement with the claim that noted this is growing less common in a post-Christian environment.

I also owe you an answer from a previous post. Here it is: I think should probably agree to disagree at this point.

The concerns you noted are more prevalent with skeptics (obviously). In my experience, while these are real issues, they are not too much of a concern to the average person who just picks up the Bible and reads it. They generally feel that God is good, trust in that, and leave the question alone, realizing they can’t know everything about God.

I would have to question this. I bet that most children and people read the Bible and believe that god is good because of earlier conditioning they receive. Our culture is saturated with it. Belief is good, god is good, etc. Then, you read god's holy book and you come in with the preconception that god is good, so it's no surprise that you kind of ignore the misses and count the hits; it's human nature. That doesn't argue for the goodness of god or the Bible, however. A real study would take the stories from the Bible and present them in a way that hid the source, and probably to people who didn't have these preconceptions and then judge what those people say about the stories. I think I've heard of this kind of study before where they changed the names in the Bible and retold the stories to a group, and the opinions about god's character and the morality of the stories were pretty negative. I'll see if I can dig up this study.

Christianity teaches the doctrine of the perspicuity of scripture, which you are probably familiar with being a former Christian. This doctrine claims that the base message of Scripture is comprehensible to even a child.

Yet there are thousands of different sects which interpret the bible differently and:

The concerns you noted are more prevalent with skeptics (obviously). In my experience, while these are real issues, they are not too much of a concern to the average person who just picks up the Bible and reads it. They generally feel that God is good, trust in that, and leave the question alone, realizing they can’t know everything about God.

It's comprehensible by even a child, yet average people need to accept they can't understand everything about it? Shouldn't the story be air-tight from all angles? Shouldn't reality reflect what was written? Why should it require intrepration and contain contradictions (paradoxes are contradictions; it's part of their definition). Why shouldn't the story make sense to even the skeptics, or why once they start questioning things does it seem to not add up if this is all actually comprehensible by a child (children, I might also add are far more able to comprehend the idea of santa and the tooth fairy because they tend not to question many things adult tell them)?

For what it’s worth to you, Christians generally seem to be on the wrong side of this equation more than atheists in my observation.

I admit you've sparked my curiousity with that. What issues are they on the wrong side of and why are they on the wrong side of them?

The fundamental salvation message is very easy to understand.

The fundamental message I get is that god created humans that sinned after a matter of days damning all people forever because god held a grudge against them and could only forgive people by sending his son, who is also himself, to be killed, thus forgiving people who believe that's what happened. Granted, many, many details are missing, there's no explaination as to why god needs to kill his son who's also himself in order to forgive people for something they had no way of changing and no responsibility for, and much less why god would be so concerned with belief. What exactly is so important about belief in the absence of evidence that's so important?

Again, if this is comprehensible by a child these questions should all be able to be answered. Simply saying "we can not understand" is not an answer, but rather a lack of one. That simple truth I feel even a child can understand.

I can’t help but guess that your link “Are Evolved Minds Reliable Truth-Finders?” is a rebuttal in part to Alvin Plantinga. But that’s only a guess, and not terribly important.

For the purposes of this discussion, I am accepting of your rather eloquent epistemological system, and no subsequent comment criticizes it. Your post seems to claim that warranted or rational belief is required for a genuine act of the will, and the defeater you present argues along those lines.

I really don't think this is what you intended to argue, so don't beat me up just yet. If I have read you correctly, it appears that you have bypassed my original contention (that the will acts in accordance with its strongest desire) to introduce a much more devastating argument against the Christian faith (not only Reformed Theology in particular), namely that God ordained all events to establish a false belief within our minds that he then holds us accountable to: "It ought to be quite easy for you to see how this applies in our case, Quixote. After all, unless you believe something very different from standard reformed theology, then you probably believe that if I die holding these beliefs, I'll be sent to Hell for an eternity of damnation."

and

"Even if I think my beliefs were formed rationally, the knowledge that another agent had influenced me in this way would be a defeater for that idea, one that would completely undermine my basis for belief in my own rationality."

and

"For purposes of this discussion, I consider a free belief to be one that's formed due to reason - a belief that's based on accurate perception of the relevant facts, plus a statement of my goals, with a process of logical reasoning applied to those two bases to formulate a course of action. My beliefs are more or less free based on how well their formation accords with this process."

If you are arguing along these lines, I readily acknowledge the logical strength of the argument, not to mention its visceral intensity. I have no objection to you raising it, it's fair game. It is probably the second most thorny objection to the Christian faith.

Here's the problem. To provide an answer to this question requires invoking thoughts and propositions that are particularly offensive to atheists. I am not comfortable doing that in this setting. If readers think this is a cop-out, that is out of my control. I would rather them think I cannot answer, than to answer and thereby create unecessary turmoil and hurt feelings.

If, however, you are indeed making the claim that authentic volition requires rational belief, I will be happy to proceed along those lines.

I have to say, that sure wasn't my experience when I was a child. I was raised agnostic, but had fundamentalist relatives who tried to convert me. I can remember being quite young (probably 5-8 years old) and asking my grandfather, "if God made everything, then who made God?" and he answered, "Oh, he always was." It was my first experience of realizing that adults don't know everything, because I KNEW that made no sense.

And when they told me that Jesus died for my sins, so that I could go to heaven, I did NOT feel moved, or feel my heart open up with love or any of that stuff you're supposed to feel. I felt creeped out. Resentful. I was a kid -- I never asked to have such a gruesome burden laid on me.

So yeah, sorry, the message of scripture sure wasn't comprehensible to THIS child.

This is a great place for reasonable exchange. Thanks, your sentiment is mutual. Along the same lines, my purpose here is not to argue for Christian doctrine, but to learn atheism from the minds and electronic pens of atheists themselves, in their own words, as forcefully as they can present them. You folks are doing an excellent job furthering my education, and it doesn’t cost me a dime.

I mentioned JS Mill in a past post, as did one of your regulars on a recent post. In “On Liberty,” Mill speaks of opinions and their validity. If one seeks to have an opinion on a subject he should learn it from those who actually hold those views and who argue them with all the enthusiasm and means at their disposal. That’s why I am here, to learn atheism in that manner. Thus, I prefer as much as possible to avoid advocating Christian positions, but as far as it lends itself to providing an authentic Christian response, I am pleased to oblige. It’s only fair…

I also believe that the Bible requires me to be fair and loving toward atheists. I realize that many atheists believe the same, based on their moral systems. Thus, I think we should be able to meet rationally, though we “strenuously object” to each other at times. The world would be a better place if this were the case. For what it’s worth to you, Christians generally seem to be on the wrong side of this equation more than atheists in my observation.

Anyway, with all the studied, philosophical talk going on, what do we do with the person who just picks up a christian bible and begins reading. What if they don't have access to different studies of philosophy, or what Hume thinks about this or that? What are they going to understand from reading the bible?

Christianity teaches the doctrine of the perspicuity of scripture, which you are probably familiar with being a former Christian. This doctrine claims that the base message of Scripture is comprehensible to even a child.

They are going to see that god himself says that he heardens peoples hearts and minds, and that he himself admits to creating evil. He says that basically, he does what he wants to and there is no reason to doubt his ways, or even try to understand them. And it's none of your business why he does.

The concerns you noted are more prevalent with skeptics (obviously). In my experience, while these are real issues, they are not too much of a concern to the average person who just picks up the Bible and reads it. They generally feel that God is good, trust in that, and leave the question alone, realizing they can’t know everything about God. This seems to be changing slowly in the post-Christian society we live in.

So if we have a person, say Calvin, who writes his interpretations of what god really is saying, then don't we have a religion based on Calvin, not god?

Too often this is the case, unfortunately.

Who says he is correct, and all the rest, wrong?

Not I. I don’t know of any mainstream Protestant groups that claim to have the whole truth, especially with respect to peripheral doctrines, though there is considerable agreement in essential beliefs of the Christian faith.

Why was your god so vague in certain respects,(salvation), and so clear on others that even you don't agree with? (the death penalty for homosexuality, disobedient children, etc...)

The fundamental salvation message is very easy to understand. We see through a glass darkly on much of the rest. I get your point, though, I think. I will say this, I wager whatever the truth turns out to be, in some ways it will be much more complex than we think and many people will be surprised.

I have no reason to assume you were using mind control or tricks, given that my tinfoil hat was in place, and I consider that particular act of my will valid.

This is a good point which, I think, highlights an important reason why a compatibilist theology would deny human beings their free will. Let's talk a little about the philosophical idea of defeaters.

If I perceive a pink elephant in front of me, that observation should constitute rational reason to believe that there is a pink elephant in front of me. But now let's say I discover that I've been given a hallucinogenic drug which interferes with my senses and causes me to perceive things that don't exist. My knowledge that I'm being affected by that drug is a defeater - it undermines the reason I have to believe in that elephant.

For purposes of this discussion, I consider a free belief to be one that's formed due to reason - a belief that's based on accurate perception of the relevant facts, plus a statement of my goals, with a process of logical reasoning applied to those two bases to formulate a course of action. My beliefs are more or less free based on how well their formation accords with this process.

The knowledge that my beliefs and desires have come about as the result of a long series of natural causes acting on me is not a defeater for the belief that those desires are rational and reflect my best interests. I wrote about why this is so in "Are Evolved Minds Reliable Truth-Finders?" - because evolution by its nature does produce rational creatures who tend to be concerned with what genuinely is in their best interest.

Similarly, if you can only persuade me through evidence and reasoned argument, then it is not a defeater for me to learn that you have influenced some of my beliefs. That doesn't bother me because I know that reason applies the same to both of us, so if you rationally persuaded me to hold certain beliefs, then it really is rational for me to hold those beliefs. We say that those beliefs are in equilibrium, in that the belief withstands knowledge of its own causes.

But if you can directly implant beliefs and desires into my head (or if you can create me in such a way that I will necessarily end up holding the beliefs of your choosing, which is the same thing) - then it is a defeater for me to learn that you have done so. If you can directly influence me in this way, then you can give me bad beliefs just as easily as you can give me good ones, and from my perspective there would be no way to tell which is which. Those beliefs are not in equilibrium, once I've learned that I might hold them for non-rational reasons which you caused me to think were persuasive.

It ought to be quite easy for you to see how this applies in our case, Quixote. After all, unless you believe something very different from standard reformed theology, then you probably believe that if I die holding these beliefs, I'll be sent to Hell for an eternity of damnation. From your perspective, that would be the worst decision I could possibly make, the diametric opposite of a rational choice. Yet the only reason I hold this (to you) fatally irrational and self-destructive belief is because God desired, willed and intended that it should be so, and caused this state of affairs to obtain prior to any act or decision on my part. The choice was not mine, but his.

This is really no different from the ordinary common-sense logic we use to determine whether someone is acting freely or is under the control of another. If I know of a fabulous buried fortune just waiting for me to dig it up and claim it, and then later I learn that I hold this belief as the result of a causal train which my worst enemy set in motion with the intention of causing me to believe this, of course this should make me suspicious of my earlier knowledge. Even if I think my beliefs were formed rationally, the knowledge that another agent had influenced me in this way would be a defeater for that idea, one that would completely undermine my basis for belief in my own rationality.

Personally, I like Mrnaglfar's gun analogy. Yes, there are secondary causations in that the trigger causes an ignition that starts the bullet on its path, etc. But, ultimately, the person who pulls the trigger is responsible. It would be folly to heap any responsibility on the gun, because the gun had no choice in the matter.

In this example, we are the guns and god is the trigger-puller. We don't actually have a choice in the matter, so god is responsible for our state of rebellion (as he caused it). Your appeal to secondary causation is moot, especially since you hold the sovereignty of god to be absolute!