Grace acting in real life

[Wootah]

...
All of it came from grace, the invisible hand of God on the market.

I challenge you to show you speak truth in this claim.

Grace is the concept in Christianity of a free gift from God. Now even if you can't see God you might be able to see the free gifts in your life.

Examples:

* In Christianity God dying for our sins means we don't have to do anything to go to heaven apart from accepting the gift.

But this process of grace is everywhere:

* We are born into our families and countries. Who can honestly say they deserve where they are born?

* Evolution - we don't do anything to evolve, it's a random mutation acting on natural selection.

* The sun's light.

This leads us to free markets, which I was challenged on.

Basically, there is nothing governments or you need or can do to do to ensure we all get richer other than enforce basic property rights and thereafter get out of the way and allow the market to transform our lives.

Does anyone want to debate the concept of grace versus works in relation to Christianity, reality, markets, and evolution?

[Wootah]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #19]

Yes that is another area. All I can do is say thank you to all those inventions. I don't deserve it, I didn't earn it but here I am typing away on a mobile phone.

Grace.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #19]

Yes that is another area. All I can do is say thank you to all those inventions. I don't deserve it, I didn't earn it but here I am typing away on a mobile phone.

Grace.

You don't give thanks for that mobile phone? That technology? The society, the farming, the provision of food? All the things you take for granted without thanks? i give thanks every day, as well as giving thanks that I'm not a Christian, awarding undeserved credit for our easy lifestyle to a religious mythical being.There ought to be an atheist mustwatch playlist

This is on it. It is strictly about the 'appeal to ignorance' (what is unknown is where the evidence for God is') fallacy of the gap for God, and specifically deprecating science because it does not know what is in the unknown.

But it does direct into this very common ingratitude and even dislike of and contempt for science, or worse, 'scientific naturalism' which is Theist for 'any science that looks like it supports evolution or secularism'.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to Athetotheist in post #16]

What do you think was the cause of the greatest level of prosperity in history for the greatest number of people?

Cooperation is more beneficial than competition. And I'm not the first to think so:

And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.
(Acts 4:32-35)

Here we see the Christian apostles establishing a robust social safety net through the downward redistribution of wealth.

How ironic. Today's conservative Christians----at least in the United States of Capitalism----preach fire and brimstone against "the evils of socialism".......and the first Christians were socialists.

[JoeyKnothead]

Notice our claimant has avoiding responsibility for their claims presented in the OP.

Instead, our claimant prefers to challenge others by way of questioning their position on various matters.

Let's look at this bit of the OP...

Grace is the concept in Christianity of a free gift from God. Now even if you can't see God you might be able to see the free gifts in your life.

Examples:

* In Christianity God dying for our sins means we don't have to do anything to go to heaven apart from accepting the gift.

We have several assumptions / claims here...

1. God exists
2. God offers "grace"
3. God offers that grace "freely"
4. God considers something a sin
5. God considers humans have sinned
6. God died for "our sins"
7. There's a "Heaven"
6. By accepting a free gift, we can get to Heaven

I ask you, dear observer, where in this thread (or elsewhere) has our claimant even attempted to put the first bit of truth to any single, or multiple of the points the OP makes / claims?

It's my contention that until our claimant can put truth to their claims, anything they have to allow on this matter is nothing more than the typical "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday if you'll believe me today" grift that religion or its proponents have employed throughout our debates on this site.

What is our claimant afraid of here? Why can't our claimant address their own claims?

Why can't our claimant just fess up as to why no truth can be found in their claims / assumptions?

The liar lies and the preacher preaches.


(I note that assumption 1 is allowed, because without showing it's true, well, what has the theist got to discuss)

[TRANSPONDER]

Notice our claimant has avoiding responsibility for their claims presented in the OP.

Instead, our claimant prefers to challenge others by way of questioning their position on various matters.

Let's look at this bit of the OP...

Grace is the concept in Christianity of a free gift from God. Now even if you can't see God you might be able to see the free gifts in your life.

Examples:

* In Christianity God dying for our sins means we don't have to do anything to go to heaven apart from accepting the gift.

We have several assumptions / claims here...

1. God exists
2. God offers "grace"
3. God offers that grace "freely"
4. God considers something a sin
5. God considers humans have sinned
6. God died for "our sins"
7. There's a "Heaven"
6. By accepting a free gift, we can get to Heaven

I ask you, dear observer, where in this thread (or elsewhere) has our claimant even attempted to put the first bit of truth to any single, or multiple of the points the OP makes / claims?

It's my contention that until our claimant can put truth to their claims, anything they have to allow on this matter is nothing more than the typical "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday if you'll believe me today" grift that religion or its proponents have employed throughout our debates on this site.

What is our claimant afraid of here? Why can't our claimant address their own claims?

Why can't our claimant just fess up as to why no truth can be found in their claims / assumptions?

The liar lies and the preacher preaches.


(I note that assumption 1 is allowed, because without showing it's true, well, what has the theist got to discuss)

Yes. This is the persistent faithbased back to front argument theism does.

There is always the big Silent 'If'. or 'Let's suppose God (the Christian one as taught in my particular sect) is real, then these Dogmas would obtain. How would you deal with that, atheists if it was true?'

Atheist: 'Show it's true, and then I'll worry about it'. I'm sure they are so sunk in Faith that they really cannot Think in terms of someone who doesn't have it.

I've heard of it with those who say that atheists hate a God they know is real. It seems odd, but they perhaps cannot comprehend Not believing this god is real. It sounds like profound ignorance - like that other religions have other gods - but they know this but dismiss and ignore it Because all that matters is a Faith that they are right and so obvious evidence and disproofs don't matter.

That obviously invalidates all Christian claims and validates skeptical thinking, but the Believers cannot, will not and do not want to get their heads around it.

[Purple Knight]

My challenge is to show that these good things don't need our involvement, especially in the terms of markets.

It's not hard to show that because it's true. If there weren't some good that comes from leaving things alone, there would be no good, because whether you believe in creation or evolution, in the beginning, there were neither these good things nor any life to appreciate them.

It doesn't follow that the answer is always to leave things alone. There might be some obvious benefits to doing that but whether they outweigh the benefits of intervention is up for debate.

Nobody believes in free markets, not even Libertarians. They believe that the possibility of aggression should be removed. And thus, the market is not free. I am not free to sell my assassination services. It is not obvious, given that, that we should be able to sell crack cocaine. If we make the determination that selling one thing (assassination) can have more detriments than benefits, then the discussion about whether or not we should be able to sell crack is at least, not closed because, "then the market isn't free that would be bad,"

There's another side to this, which is that if we allow debate on every item, the result is government overreach, and too many things being banned for people to live free lives. And that's a fair point. But the answer to that is to allow aggression, along with everything else. We have already established that we must ban some things, and if Libertarians had any sway, people who want to ban more things would simply phrase their arguments as, "See, this bad thing I want to ban is actually aggression."

[TRANSPONDER]

In Christianity God dying for our sins means we don't have to do anything to go to heaven apart from accepting the gift.

Except when you read the fine print there are strings attached beyond just saying "thanks for the gift". If you don't comply, you burn forever. So, not really a gift.

I've had Free Gifts like that come through my door. They go straight in the bin with all bait and switch gambits.

That is not a snark. Just off the Internet page i

What does grace mean in Christianity?
Grace is the term Christians use to describe God's unconditional love for everyone, whether or not they have behaved as he wants them to. Because God's love is thought to bring redemption , some Christians believe that salvation does not need to be earned through good works.

And some believe other things. If I was God, I'd make sure everyone knew what the deal was, not guess through various Faith -claims. hint - the Bible does NOT clarify matters.

Bottom line though, if you get rid of Hell (never mind heaven) why need religion at all?

But the point - the problem with Grace - is it freely given god love for everyone? Then we all get to heaven. Great. nothing to worry about then. our pal Woot. can do something else than preach to us. We should give appreciation for this Grace? Sorry, Moral Blackmail doesn't work. Expecting that is not a free gift.

We haven't even gotten to whether it can be accessed by Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists. or only by Christians? It's not free, then, is it? One has to sign up to the book club to accept the free book.

Never mind the free magazine that comes through the door monthly and then someone comes to the door asking for a Donation for them...and then you found out the Magazine was free from the science club, not Mr Religion anyway.

And the problem with Grace even in Correct - denomination Christianity anyway is works don't count? Paul started the Grace idea, but by I Corinthians, he had realised that bad deeds can lose you Grace (Jesus forgot to tell him that in the third heaven) Or the system is either unfair or free for everyone, whether they believe it or not.

Either way, We either cannot believe it or we don't need to.