I find this to be an odd way to structure this (and by implication your original screening question). I don't know of any Christian that would think that unrepented sins aren't a barrier to salvation (except those OSAS people, but take that up with them, not me). If asked in a screening question, I'm sure most Christians would answer something like "of course they won't go to heaven if they haven't repented afterwards.)
Right. But my argument isn't, and hasn't been, directed at fellow Christians, but rather at those democrats who think that "men should step up."
I'm rather under the impression that, instead, men should learn to "step off."
Thank you for confirming that I wasn't completely out to lunch. I started to worry about my basic understanding of Christian theology.
Sometimes, I aver for focusing in upon certain nuances of thought without getting entrapped by whatever it is everyone automatically jumps to in inference or other contexts, so as not to always lose the value of single trees for the forest.
I'm not concerned about the difficulty or anyone's perception of the success rate of devine forgiveness.
Well..................I am.
OK, OK, then. (backs off slowly) I just don't think it would be a good screening to get the information you wanted. You are only going to get those with a "sophisticated understanding of theology" or such.
I'm not asking about your "social decline" narrative.
Right. You didn't ask about, but I gave it anyway, especially since I'm not of the mindset of "waiting" for others to finally have a light bulb go off in their minds and realize, "By George, there were some other factors that involve my own well-being that I never thought about before."
So yeah, I sometimes give extra, unasked for contexts, especially where social decline is in the mix. I know that my atheistic and democratic neighbors go out of their way to do the same for me.
I thought it might be something about a division of the church I wasn't familiar with. (Calvinism came to mind. I can't say I really know much about it.) It turned out to be just overthinking the problem in ways the surveyed public would not.
I never feel that a problem has been "overthought." If anything, in an essentially anti-intellectual culture such as ours, I don't think we're in danger of overthinking on much of anything quite yet.
It doesn't, but I appreciate the offer.
I think you misunderstand. I wasn't accusing you of playing the game, but stating that I was not play Socratic games on you. I was not asking pointed, detailed questions so that you would reveal the details I already knew and use them against you. I asked those questions because I didn't know and genuinely wanted to understand your previous statement. You clarified and I appreciate that.
Thanks for the clarification. I also wanted to make sure you know that I know that I live and think and breath in the 21st century, not the 1st century.
First, the "trickle" is sometimes the problem, but in other times, multiple rounds of inquiry are required to reach an understanding on terms and positions. That is fine.
Second, I'm not trying to stonewall you, I just don't understand many of your statements. In the particular case of the "muderers don't get eternal life" screening (for a hypothetical survey), when your statement threw me off I asked for clarification and stated my basic understanding of the issue. Your reply was:
"The church has gotten a number of things wrong, obviously, but it would be a fallacy to assume that Christians have been wrong about everything they preach or that their errors in thought permeate the abortion issue."
I wasn't assuming any thing about errors by anyone. If anything, where I assumed I was wrong was that you applied a different theological interpretation that I was unfamiliar with. (My guess was Calvinism. I was wrong.) So I wrote the second, more structured and thorough inquiry to which you graciously replied with the needed clarification. That second round could have been avoided if you had just included something like "unrepentant sinners don't get the eternal reward and murder is a hard sin to repent" there would have been no second inquiry and we could have continued to discuss, for example, if that question would distort the results. (It would have been even better as the actual screen #2, but we all include assumed meaning in our statements from time to time.)
Fair enough.
Third, sometimes at the bottom of that rabbit hole it is the case that what fine detail was setting your position is not of interest to me or at least not of interest to debate. This one wasn't so much a fine detail, but about when the assumption about unrepentant sinners was being applied, as I had already "baked it in" to my understanding of salvation being *possible* for all sins.
Y'know, it's a good thing my name isn't Anakin Skywalker..........................because I do find that when ex-Christian and atheist folks out there have a lack of interest, it's disturbing to me, most particularly when their particular views push particular angles in politics such as those at the center of this particular thread.
I know who I am dealing with. Unlike many of the other posters who often blend together into vague groups in my memory, I know which one you are. Even if you keep shifting your face, I can still track your character. (Keeping track of all the characters in a story is not my best skill. It's why I rarely read novels.) Don't worry, I am not mistaking you for other Christians or other CF posters. However, when I am talking about other Christians as a collective I am neither assuming they are all like you nor all like I was.
And this is one thing I appreciate about you, Hans: your ability to be discerning even if when you're not interested.