Why do Christians like Calvinism?

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
1

Calvinists may act like they worship the God of the Bible, but after an examination of their beliefs, they actually seem to worship MaloMyotismon.

If their god is completely sovereign, omniscient, and omnipotent, then He also holds all the blame for allowing such a fucked-up world. Their god created our natures, and we can only do what our nature allows. And he presented options that we could not resist.

Adam could do nothing else but eat the Tree of Omniscience, and Satan could do nothing else but fall from grace.

This allows leads to the dilemma of Divine Command Theory: is it good because god commands it, or is does god only commands things that are good?

The first horn makes god’s commands to be arbitrary. The second horn leads to a higher moral authority than god, which means god is not sovereign

Saying god’s nature is goodness does not solve the problem at all. Good has never been actually defined in any meaningful way. All the talk about Original Sin becomes utterly incoherent nonsense unless things line up exactly, and this is simply redefining terms to fit a notion.

“Good” and “right” are non-cognitive concepts, it is not a property of any action, thing, or idea. It is just a code word for the expression of approval.

Now, if the only reason you are doing anything is to get approval, this is quite sad.

Also, Calvinists like to say that we are incapable of choosing good unless god gives us that ability. And they also say god also withholds that ability per his whims. They say that this isn’t double predestination, but it is. If you could help someone but choose not to, that is evil.

The only reason they worship this completely evil being who treats humanity like his marionettes is because a) they don’t want to have any true responsibility to others or to themselves because their god is in ultimate control, and b) they are terrified of what could happen if they offend their god or if he decides not to favor them. This leads to endless unproductive introspection and working to try to prove to themselves that their god favors them.

The god of the Calvinists is no better than MaloMyotismon, a being who lives for nothing other than his own twisted pleasure, and manipulates anyone or anything to get his way.

PS: this is MaloMyotismon: villains.wikia.com/wiki/MaloMyotismon

2

For me the problem of evil is solved by the existence of a non-ultimate creator.
He did his best, then shit went down.
Proof of this is when ever a deity gives a command, it is like asking for help from humanity.
Commands are not issued for fun. They are issued out of need. Either we needed the command, or the deity needed the command to be fulfilled.

I would be atheist if not for the countless out of body and near death experiences which encounter a higher creative figure or a god-like force.

It would not be fair to dismiss and ignore all of the people’s experiences of a god-like force.
But I do not just favor a single culture’s experience. Instead I’m faced with multiple god experiences and some conflicting.
That is why I am polytheistic although I consider every one of the ‘gods’ to also be finite and not all-powerful or all-knowing.

3

The “problem of Evil” is resolved by the fact that “Evil” is objective in only one sense but most typically relative and subjective.

4

I find Calvins answer to the problem of evil to be contrued and reliant upon his requirement that “God” be the supreme judge of human behaviour.

Evil is, as you say, mostly typically relative and subjective, and is in the end anything that we regard to be malevolent to humanity, but in particular to my kin or neighbours. I see the human mind bending the experience of the numinous to become this supreme judge, especially when we are helpless when malovolence falls on our loved ones, so that we will be consoled with the thought that those responsible will be held responsible and punished.

I would rather see a society deem what is malevolent and hold the responsibility for holding culprits responsible and punishment, but we all know that it doesn’t happen in many, many cases. In this way, however, “God” becomes a curse on those unknown or unreachable guilty persons, and we “profane” the name of God.

5

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PS: this is MaloMyotismon: villains.wikia.com/wiki/MaloMyotismon
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When making an analogy, it’s good practice to make analogies to things people actually know about. That’s usually the entire point of an analogy: to take something someone doesn’t understand and explain it in terms of something they do understand.

Most people here probably haven’t watched/read/played digimon. This is a poor choice for an analogy.