[russnewcomer]

I'm not sure that I expressed myself the best above based on your response, but partly that's because of the difficulty in discussing topics like this across religious traditions.

I would disagree that violence is caused by the judgement, 'you are right, I am wrong'. I think that violence is ultimately caused by sin, vis a vis Augustinian total depravity. But the justification for violence, often among Christians, is self-righteousness (or put another way, pride).

But again, this is a difficult issue to discuss between religions because the basic assumptions are different and terminology has slightly different meanings.

[pekk]

Where "sin" means essentially not being Christian enough, I am skeptical that the correct diagnosis for violence is "sin" when people who identify as Christian do not seem especially less likely to commit violence than people who identify as adhering to some other worldview with moral entailments. Frankly, if you want everyone else to believe that Christians are less violent than people of other religions, you have to bring data rather than just saying that "sin" (non-Christianness) is the cause.

[humanrebar]

> Where "sin" means essentially not being Christian enough...

"sin" in Christian theology is disobedience (and therefore rebellion) against God. Defining it as "not being Christian enough" is problematic for at least two reasons:

1. If people self-identify as Christian, how do we identify the liars and the self-deluded?

2. If we can't trust people to identify themselves properly, how do we identify each other as Christians? What is the standard?

The Bible actually says that we can know Christians by how well they follow the commandments of Christ (a). Among the commandments of Christ is the commandment to be at peace with each other; we are supposed to reconcile with each other even before we perform (therefore insincere) religious rituals (b).

...the Bible doesn't say that "sin" is the cause of violence since violence (and hate generally) is itself sin. Instead, Paul teaches that sin, including murder, is a result of rejecting God for other things (c).

So given all that, it's tautological from Biblical principles that violent people are not followers of Christ. In fact, the Bible is full of warnings about people who claim to be Christian and are actually false teachers. It's actually where the "wolf in sheep's clothing" metaphor comes from.

(a) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+2%3A4-5&...

(b) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5%3A21-...

(c) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+1%3A28-3...

[notdonspaulding]

    > So given all that, it's tautological from Biblical
    > principles that violent people are not followers of
    > Christ.

Then, given that all wars are inherently violent, is it your opinion that all wars are unjust?

Would you also consider that every human life that is ended prematurely by another "murder" (capital punishment, war, abortion)?

[humanrebar]

I have opinions, of course, but I aspire to have them grounded in scripture. However, you asked, so I'll try to share my take on violence and sin. Keep in mind that I'm not an expert theologian. I'm willing to be wrong on these points if someone can show me how I'm missing some detail or theme in the teaching of the Bible.

Also, since the importance of sin is in the intention behind the thoughts and actions and not in the actions themselves, it's possible for both violent and nonviolent acts to be sinful (a).

To start, most forms of violence are currently illegal, and Christians are supposed to submit to their government, even oppressive ones. There are quite a few references for this (b) (c). Finding more examples isn't difficult if you want more. So for violence to be OK, it has to be legal, at a minimum, which is a reasonably high bar in Western countries.

In the Bible, it is made clear that governments are supposed to enforce justice, including with violence (d). It's not clear if "the sword" must extend all the way to capital punishment, but given the fact that capital punishment was prescribed in the Mosaic Law, it seems to be in the picture in some contexts. That being said, I think people can argue in good faith that modern Western countries are civilized and rich enough to afford every possible chance at rehabilitation. But to insist that capital punishment is necessarily murder is ethnocentric at best and possibly false teaching if someone claims to speak for God.

As far as war, it's clearly not sinful in itself (e). Neither is being a soldier or general. Many (most?) of the judges in Judges were involved in battle in one way or another. As were Abraham and Moses. As was King David (he killed Goliath, remember?). But can countries sin by prosecuting unjust wars? Certainly. Can soldiers sin in their behavior on the battle field? I'm sure it's difficult not to.

Ultimately in any behavior, violent or not, God promises rewards and punishments will be fair at the end of the day (f). Christians are supposed to live without sin, with truth, and in love. Of course they have failed and continue to fail in this. But God promises to make everything right, with his blood if necessary. And according to the Bible, it was necessary, because Jesus came to save the world, not condemn it (g).

Is abortion murder? It's a sin in the cases that it's motivated by self-interest, callousness, or even fear. For a Christian that should be reason enough not to do it. What would the point be in calling it murder? To damn people? We don't have to reach far to find that we are all flawed (h). Lust, lying, hate, despising people, neglecting charity, being unforgiving, envy, greed, addiction, gossiping, cheating, consumerism, coveting... everyone does these things already. There's not much point in trying to rub peoples' noses in how they don't follow God's commandments. They either already know they're not following God or don't care (which is basically the same thing).

(a) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+14

(b) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+13

(c) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Peter+2%3A13-...

(d) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+13%3A4&v...

(e) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+3%...

(f) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=collosians+3%3A...

(g) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john+3%3A17&ver...

(h) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%205:21-...

[ordinary]

First of all, thank you for your contributions to this thread. They've been very interesting.

I noticed a couple of points in this post that I would like some clarification on, if you have the time and inclination.

Christians are supposed to submit to their government, even oppressive ones. There are quite a few references for this (b) (c). Finding more examples isn't difficult if you want more.

Where does this sentiment come from, considering that Christianity was illegal in the Roman empire at the time? To an extent, I can understand requiring submission to persecution for reasons unrelated to the faith, but it seems strange to me that early Christians would be required to submit to a government that is persecuting those that attempt to obey God, for attempting to obey God.

They either already know they're not following God or don't care (which is basically the same thing).

Is it really impossible to be 'good' if you don't follow God, according to scripture? Is an atheist sinful by definition?

[gjm11]

> Is an atheist sinful by definition?

In typical Christian theology, everyone is sinful -- "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God", "If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves", etc.

As to whether not being Christian is itself a variety of sin, or makes you especially bad, or guarantees damnation rather than salvation, the tradition (even the particularly important subset of it called the Bible) is not perfectly consistent. A few examples:

For": the "Letter to the Hebrews" says something like "Without believing in God it is impossible to please him".

Against: one of St Paul's letters speculates that pagans' consciences will "accuse or perhaps excuse" them when they are judged.

For: There's a rather nasty idea embedded in the Christian tradition, that deep down everyone knows* that God is real and is the way Christians say he is, and therefore people who aren't Christians are being dishonest with themselves. The main source for this in the Bible is early in the "Letter to the Romans" where St Paul says something along these lines: "God's anger is being revealed against people who wickedly suppress the truth. For since the creation of the world God's existence and nature have been apparent just from looking at what he made, but some people deny it." He goes on to link this with gay sex, weirdly enough. Anyway, I think most Christians have the decency not to assume that everyone who doesn't share their religion is a liar, and most of the rest have at least enough decency not to say it out loud, but the point is that if you think that everyone really knows that Christianity (or at least something like it) is right then it becomes more reasonable to think that those who reject it are doing so out of wickedness.

(But unless my memory is deceiving me, which it might be, the Pauline letter speculating about pagans' consciences excusing them is in fact the same one as the one that says pagans are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. Make of that what you will.)

Disclaimer 1: I'm not a Christian, but I'm pretty familiar with this stuff. Disclaimer 2: Christians do not all agree about any of this, and in particular some will disagree with any given bit of the above. (Probably quite a lot will disagree either with my characterization of the thinking in Romans 1 as a "rather nasty idea" or with the idea that it's "embedded in the Christian tradition".)

[humanrebar]

I'll answer your questions in reverse order, if you don't mind, because the second one is more important.

> Is it really impossible to be 'good' if you don't follow God, according to scripture? Is an atheist sinful by definition?

It is completely possible to be good and not a Christian. It is completely possible to be a Christian that is a worse person than an atheist. There is actually a lot of confusion around this point, even among Christians. A lot of the problem centers around what "Christian" means. It could mean:

1) Someone who feels like they're a Christian. Even Richard Dawkins considers himself a "secular Christian" (a). He doesn't believe he's going to heaven or doing God's will on Earth.

2) Someone who Christ will admit into heaven when they die.

3) Someone who strives to follow Christ's teachings on this Earth.

For the purposes of this conversation, it sounds like you're asking about #2 (feel free to clarify if I'm making the wrong assumption here).

As far as that goes, gjm11 gets some elements right but seems to miss the mark for some reason. The Bible is very clear on this point. Salvation is given to people by God, through Christ. Period (b). We are supposed to have faith that He will be fair about granting eternal life. If you don't believe God is fair or that the Bible is true, then I suppose what the Bible teaches on this point is not interesting.

So what does God want from us? To trust Him, believe in Him, and have faith that He will take care of everything (c). It's hard to see how an atheist can have this perspective. It seems impossible to me.

How does this relate to being a "good person"? Well, eternal life is supposed to be the default state of things, but when we reject God and His teachings, we accept responsibility for our own eternity (d), and I certainly can't make myself live forever. When we are "bad people", it should be extremely obvious that we are rejecting God (e).

So while some of us may be good, or even great, people, all of us have rejected God on some level and blown our chances to enjoy entrance into heaven on our own merits (f). Christians who think they're "better people" than atheists need to re-examine the Bible and work on that part of themselves (g1) (g2).

On to the next question:

> ...but it seems strange to me that early Christians would be required to submit to a government that is persecuting those that attempt to obey God, for attempting to obey God.

It is strange from many perspectives. The Bible actually says that (h).

Anyway, Daniel (i) is a great book to read for an example of how to both obey God and submit to oppressive rulers. At times, Daniel and his friends would ask politely for exceptions from rules that would cause them to disobey God's commands (j). When that was not possible, Daniel and his friends would respectfully refuse and accept the consequences, even if that meant death (k) (l). That seems pretty harsh, but if you have faith that the all-powerful God is good and that He's watching you, all sorts of things are possible, even a peaceful death under persecution (m).

In certain ways, the physical world is the Matrix to someone with strong faith in God. When you have guaranteed salvation and are following the commands of an all-powerful God, you don't have to dodge bullets. You don't have to.

I realize that sounds silly to many, but it's what the Bible teaches.

(a) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/hay-festival/10853648/Ric...

(b) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john+14:6

(c) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+3%3A16&ver...

(d) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+6%3A23&v...

(e) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2010:27

(f) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+10%3A17-27...

(g1) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Timothy+1%3A1...

(g2) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+2%3A8...

(h) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs+14%3A1...

(i) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Daniel%201

(j) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Daniel+1%3A8-21...

(k) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Daniel%203&vers...

(l) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Daniel%206&vers...

(m) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+7%3A54-60&...

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

> I have opinions, of course, but I aspire to have them grounded in scripture.

I have two simple questions:

1. Why do you aspire to have your opinions grounded in scripture?

2. Do you care about the consequences of your opinions (given that your opinions inform your actions, which in turn affect both your future and other people)?

[humanrebar]

Regarding 1, there are a few things to say. First, I believe the scripture is the Word of God. If I were OK with spouting off whatever comes to mind without grounding it to scripture, I'm putting my thoughts on equal (or even greater) footing than the Bible. I am tempted to be this proud at times, but I aspire to be more humble than that.

Why the Bible is true has a few answers:

1. It has proven to hold a lot of counter-intuitive truth in my life. When I follow the teaching in the Bible, things go better for my and the people I love. Of course, you don't know me, so it's probably not a very convincing thing to hear from a stranger on the internet.

2. The teachings of the Bible are a very complete and internally consistent, which is a quality you would expect from a Holy Book, but is surprisingly absent from many (most?) life philosophies, in my opinion.

3. There is a lot of discussion of the history and archaeology of the Bible by John Piper. He does a very thorough breakdown in a five-part sermon series complete with notes (in case you want to read instead of watch video). http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/why-we-believe-the-bible...

----------------

> Do you care about the consequences of your opinions...?

Of course. Though I'm having a hard time understanding exactly what your question means. Perhaps you are asking if I think the material world is important? The answer to that specific question is also yes.

A scriptural basis for this is the story of the resurrection of Lazarus. In the story, Jesus knew He would raise Lazarus from the dead. But he took time to mourn with the family of Lazarus. If the physical world was unimportant, mourning a physical death wouldn't make sense. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2011

I suppose you could also be asking if I think I'll get blowback for my opinions? I consider that likely, actually. But if I let personal concerns take precedence over my loyalty to God, then how much do I really believe that God is real, powerful, and loving? I've been lonely and poor before. I'd rather go back to that than reject the person who means the most to me.

[Grue3]

This entire post is an amazing textbook example of "No true Scotsman" fallacy.

[humanrebar]

I actually realize things appear that way. I started discussing it but thought it would be a tangent and deleted it.

First, just because there is a fallacy doesn't mean the conclusion is false. It just means that the middle part is not a strong logical argument.

Second, the final judge for who receives eternal life is Christ. There is no circular reasoning as far as that goes, assuming you believe the Bible is true. To have a "No True Scotsman" fallacy, you need to have moving goalposts. The goalposts on this are very clear but not very useful for several purposes.

Third, some of those purposes are legitimate from a Christian, or even non-Christian, perspective. People do lie, including to themselves (cognitive dissonance, even). How do you know if your pastor or fiance believes in Christ? The Bible gives us some heuristics for determining how spiritually mature a person is. One of those is the presence and absence of certain character traits and behaviors. Humility, peace, truth, love, selflessness, and absence of sin are all part of that heuristic. And that heuristic, again, has been fixed for two thousand years. No moving goalposts, so no "No True Scotsman" fallacy.

Anyway, maybe all that is not convincing to you and you still think it all adds up to a No True Scotsman fallacy. If so, maybe we should leave it at that. The labeling of the strength of argument is not very interesting to me.

I do find, however, that for the intents and purposes I've experienced, looking for evidence of a Christ-like character, or at least growth towards one, has proved to be useful as long as I understand that I'm working with partial information since I'm not omniscient. But I don't really need a full set of information to know Pol Pot didn't really follow the teachings of Christ.

[notdonspaulding]

This is my least favorite logical fallacy, because it's misapplied as an argumentative shortcut in almost every case, including this one.

In particular, with No True Scotsman being flung about as carelessly as it is these days, there's no way for any group to exclude certain positions or ideas as outside their own.

As an example, the US Army has certain eligibility requirements regarding age, citizenship, and physical fitness. Imagine an ISIL member dresses in fatigues, goes into a shopping mall, and blows himself up. The news headlines might read "Suicide bomber was Army Soldier".

Under most applications of No True Scotsman I see today, any attempt by the Army to differentiate themselves from the terrorist would be met with howls of "No True Scotsman!".

Indeed, even if the terrorist was active duty Army, I believe the Army should have able to claim, "This action and these beliefs are demonstrably inconsistent with ours as a group." but that too would be met with "No True Scotsman!".

It seems to me that the logical conclusion of this line of reasoning leaves mankind with no ability to organize itself in groups around certain ideas without also allowing anyone to define the group as they see fit.

[Grue3]

On the contrary, this fallacy is very important and applicable. Without it you cannot criticise any group G on the basis of X when a member of this group happens to declare that "I'm not X and anyone who is X is not a member of G". This is seemingly a perfect defense as long as there's a single member who is not X.

It's important to call out this fallacy, because the membership in a group can't be defined on the basis of a person's conduct, since there's no way to monitor that every member of the group adheres to this conduct. Therefore you can't know if anyone is a member or not unless you watch this person 24/7. There must be a different way to assign membership. A membership of most religions is decided on the basis of self-declaration. A membership in US Army is decided on the basis of application and being approved by the powers in charge. For example if US Army has a tendency to employ rapists, it's valid to criticise US Army for this fact even if they have a rule that forbids such behavior. If self-declared Christians tend to persecute and kill people in the name of religion, it's valid to criticise Christianity for this behavior.

[notdonspaulding]

    > On the contrary, this fallacy is very important and applicable.

I don't claim that it's an unimportant fallacy to understand and recognize and apply. Instead I said it was my "least favorite", because of it's so rarely applied correctly. By the rest of your comment, I get the impression you didn't catch my meaning.

    > For example if US Army has a tendency to employ 
    > rapists, it's valid to criticise US Army for this fact 
    > even if they have a rule that forbids such behavior.

Here, the critical point is not that the US Army employed a rapist or even several rapists. Instead you're saying they have a tendency to employ racists. No True Scotsman would only apply if someone from the Army made a statement in complete denial of that fact, hand waving it away by pointing out the rule and saying something to the effect of "The Army has a rule against rape, so anyone who does that isn't a real soldier". It's a valid No True Scotsman because the behavior is clearly evident in a non-fringe component of the group.

If someone did make that statement in sincerity, sure, send in the No True Scotsman patrol and take 'em out. But that's not how it usually happens. Typically, there's a singular incident. That's often followed by a careless article which paints with an overly broad brush: "Does the Army have a rape problem?".

And that is the point where I start looking for the misapplied No True Scotsmans to crop up. There's no way for anyone to defend the Army by pointing out that it's against the rules, or that the number of rape incidents in the army is lower than the general population, or really any other facts.

    > It's important to call out this fallacy, because the 
    > membership in a group can't be defined on the basis of a 
    > person's conduct, since there's no way to monitor that 
    > every member of the group adheres to this conduct.

I believe this idea right here is the source of all these misapplications. And it's just false. Of course membership in a group can be defined by a person's conduct. Try comparing Hacker News to Reddit in 3 or 4 comments and see how quickly you get shadowbanned. In fact, I'd say defining group membership based on conduct is the rule, not the exception.

No True Scotsman is intended to point out the fallacy of someone inside a group avoiding criticism by constantly shrinking or changing the group rules in order to draw a distinction from some negative person or incident. If the goalposts aren't moving, then its likely the person really isn't a True Scotsman, and you should maybe try to understand why not.

[russnewcomer]

It seems, based on your comment, that you have experienced Christian practice not meeting Christian teaching, which saddens me.

Sin, in Christian theology based around total depravity, is not 'essentially not being Christian enough', but is rather a failure to obey God. As I said before, this is an area where different religious backgrounds or experiences make discussing this issue difficult.

I certainly don't mean to say that Christians are less violent, but that they should be.

This feels like a discussion quickly falling away from the article and off-topic for the thread, so if you'd like to continue it, feel free to email me, my username at gmail.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

> Sin, in Christian theology based around total depravity, is not 'essentially not being Christian enough', but is rather a failure to obey God.

Except that when you say "failure to obey God" you mean "failure to behave as christians have defined a supposed god wants you to behave", or in short "not being christian enough". Simply attributing your rules to an entity whose existence you haven't even demonstrated is simply a rhetorical device to obfuscate the easy to understand statement "sin is when you don't follow my/our rules".

Just consider whether you would be willing to substitute any definition of god out there in your statement instead of the christian one. How about Allah? Then your claim would be that in christian theology, it's sin to not obey Allah (that is, behave as Muslims define that god wants you to behave). If you aren't willing to accept that, your argument doesn't hold, and if you are, you have to deal with a huge pile of self-contradictory doctrine from all the world's religions.

[russnewcomer]

You make a compelling argument based on your presuppositions.

If one doesn't hold a Christian theology based around total depravity, then yes, sin does seem like an arbitrary construct. In fact, even among Christians who hold to essentially similar theological views, there is disagreement about what actions are disobedient to God's instructions, and that's not an easy task to sort through.

As for if I would be willing to substitute any definition of God, no, I wouldn't. But my argument still holds up due to my personal presupposition that the Christian Scriptures are the inspired Word of God, and other religions that deny part or all of them are not correct.

Again, this is heading way off topic for the article, so if you are interested in continuing, feel free to email.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

> You make a compelling argument based on your presuppositions.

You are confusing presupposition with lack thereof.

> But my argument still holds up due to my personal presupposition [...]

Yes, of course your argument holds up if you presuppose that it holds up, big deal. Except that just claiming something is true and then deducing from that that it is true isn't really an argument, it's still just an unsubstantiated claim.

I, for example, presuppose that at the center of the sun, there is a big oven with lots of bread in it. Therefore, there is a big oven with lots of bread in it at the center of the sun. You might have different presuppositions, but this argument still holds up due to my personal presupposition that there is a big oven with lots of bread in it at the center of the sun.

Also, that you are not convinced of the claim that there is a big oven with lots of bread in it at the center of the sun (I suppose you are not?) is just because of your presuppositions. If you didn't presuppose that you weren't convinced, you would now have been convinced by my argument.

[dragonwriter]

> Except that when you say "failure to obey God" you mean "failure to behave as christians have defined a supposed god wants you to behave",

Its a not-uncommon bit of Christian theology that sin is not acting how God has specifically and personally directed you, individually, to behave.

Now, Christians holding to that model have (varying, even among Christians) beliefs, to which they ascribe varying degrees of certainty, about things which they thing God commands of all people generally, which are therefore incorporated into that. But those beliefs are conceptually separate from the definition of sin.

[epaga]

"sin means essentially not being Christian enough"

The Apostle Paul would strongly disagree with that definition, I think.

"The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost." http://ref.ly/1Tim1.15

Note his use of the present tense in that last phrase.

[Rusky]

In this case, "sin" doesn't quite mean "not being Christian enough." Other religions (and ethics in general) often advocate very similar behaviors, so it wouldn't be surprising to see a Christian who is more of a sinner than a non-Christian.

The argument is that violence comes when someone has convinced themselves that they are already righteous enough to override the sin inherent in the violence.

[AnimalMuppet]

I think it's more than that. It's when the logic of their position means that the violence is right. (In doing so, they usually go off the deep end even within the framework of their chosen ethic...)

[mcbutterbunz]

Or even that their lack of violence is wrong. Its the old "if youre not for me, then youre against me" view.

[rosser]

This is neither constructive, nor based on anything that your comment's parent's author has said anywhere in this discussion.