The "Lukewarm Christian" Logical Fallacy Debunked

[Only Reason]

Ex-christian here. When I was a christian I was presented with two distinct forms of christianity; one where you say a few abracadabra words and you are good to go and the other was "you just have to keep at it or you are lost." The latter makes LESS sense than the first concept if you are a christian. There is a very easy argument for this logically flawed doctrine of christian fundamentalism.

When you question a christian who turns out to be a christian fanatic AKA fundamentalist he usually goes off on a diatribe and says nonsense like "you have to keep being as pure as possible in order to have a chance at salvation." Note the word 'chance' here. He may state "saying a few words won't cut it."

Well, I'm sorry to tell you that this is a very good example of a logical fallacy, my friends. You cannot and will not be able to achieve "purity" as a christian. Human beings are not perfect no matter how much you try to achieve perfection. You simply cannot be.

So christians, How do you know if you did enough praying, spreading of the word, reading of the bible, thinking of your deity, saying the right things about your deity all in the eyes of your god? He is not there to tell you at any time that you did or didn't do enough of those things anyway and so I say once more how do you know?

Since God is supposed to be pure and perfectly divine, what makes you think you could reach his status of "purity?" Especially if humanity is flawed and imperfect? Are you telling me God is flawed and imperfect then? Or is it really just the imperfect one erroneously claiming to be pure? The latter obviously.

So in actuality, there is no way for a human to be flawless, pure and 100% sinless at all times for your entire life so that 'chance' I emphasized about earlier is actually 'chanceless' in the end. The fact is you don't stand a 'chance' at gaining salvation with that fundamentalist way of thinking. So the point is, why do you even bother trying to reach that same level of purity and perfection as your god if you know you absolutely cannot measure up against him? You cannot and will not be able to measure the immeasurable.

I can describe it very easily like this; Imagine a very long pole from the ground that extends all of the way up through the sky and beyond space and time. A man had the bright idea of trying to measure the length of the pole. As he was measuring the pole he noticed it seemed dauntingly long as if it was way too hard to get a measurement for. And after a while the man gave up and said "It's impossible to measure this thing as it just keeps going up and up and up."

So he mentioned this pole to several people and nobody after him was successful in getting a measurement for it either. No aircraft was able to reach the top of the pole nor the ISS station and no satellite readings for it either. It was determined impossible to get a physical measurement for it. And so because it was determined impossible to measure, why even bother trying to measure it now? Don't even bother!

What is the moral of the story you say? That it's impossible to measure the immeasurable. And so I ask the fundamentalist again, why do you even bother trying when you will always lose?

 

[Rival]

As far as I'm aware, one of the main purposes of Jesus' coming in Christianity is because we are fallen and cannot reach this goal by ourselves; we need Divine Grace. Expecting people to be able to do it on their own is against the heart of the Gospel message. And if people didn't mess up, why would Jesus be telling you to forgive them? This whole concept is senseless.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Your argument may be a bit of a strawman argument. To me the fanatics are the self refuting "every word of the Bible is true". Since that is easily shown not to be the case that is clearly not a form of Christianity that one should follow. Don't get me wrong. There are problems with just about any version of Christianity that is at all literal. Too many versions are guilty of a "blame the victim" mentality. Usually God set up humans to fail and Jesus had to suffer to pay for God's incompetence or evil nature. Substitutionary atonement is just nonsense.

Many of the teachings of Jesus are valid, but how one achieves salvation is definitely flawed.

 

[Watchmen]

I think your premise is flawed. I don’t know a single Christian who believes they themselves can ever be “purified.” Rather, it’s something they strive for and when they can’t reach it the grace of Christ steps in and brings them the rest of the way.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Ex-christian here. When I was a christian I was presented with two distinct forms of christianity; one where you say a few abracadabra words and you are good to go and the other was "you just have to keep at it or you are lost." The latter makes LESS sense than the first concept if you are a christian. There is a very easy argument for this logically flawed doctrine of christian fundamentalism.

When you question a christian who turns out to be a christian fanatic AKA fundamentalist he usually goes off on a diatribe and says nonsense like "you have to keep being as pure as possible in order to have a chance at salvation." Note the word 'chance' here. He may state "saying a few words won't cut it."

Well, I'm sorry to tell you that this is a very good example of a logical fallacy, my friends. You cannot and will not be able to achieve "purity" as a christian. Human beings are not perfect no matter how much you try to achieve perfection. You simply cannot be.

So christians, How do you know if you did enough praying, spreading of the word, reading of the bible, thinking of your deity, saying the right things about your deity all in the eyes of your god? He is not there to tell you at any time that you did or didn't do enough of those things anyway and so I say once more how do you know?

Since God is supposed to be pure and perfectly divine, what makes you think you could reach his status of "purity?" Especially if humanity is flawed and imperfect? Are you telling me God is flawed and imperfect then? Or is it really just the imperfect one erroneously claiming to be pure? The latter obviously.

So in actuality, there is no way for a human to be flawless, pure and 100% sinless at all times for your entire life so that 'chance' I emphasized about earlier is actually 'chanceless' in the end. The fact is you don't stand a 'chance' at gaining salvation with that fundamentalist way of thinking. So the point is, why do you even bother trying to reach that same level of purity and perfection as your god if you know you absolutely cannot measure up against him? You cannot and will not be able to measure the immeasurable.

I can describe it very easily like this; Imagine a very long pole from the ground that extends all of the way up through the sky and beyond space and time. A man had the bright idea of trying to measure the length of the pole. As he was measuring the pole he noticed it seemed dauntingly long as if it was way too hard to get a measurement for. And after a while the man gave up and said "It's impossible to measure this thing as it just keeps going up and up and up."

So he mentioned this pole to several people and nobody after him was successful in getting a measurement for it either. No aircraft was able to reach the top of the pole nor the ISS station and no satellite readings for it either. It was determined impossible to get a physical measurement for it. And so because it was determined impossible to measure, why even bother trying to measure it now? Don't even bother!

What is the moral of the story you say? That it's impossible to measure the immeasurable. And so I ask the fundamentalist again, why do you even bother trying when you will always lose?

I don't see fundamentalists as ones who believe they have to earn their salvation.
There are wide variety of views on this, even within what you might call the fundamentalist community.
Certainly it's sometimes hard to understand the balance between grace and attempting to live right.. but this desire to do the right thing should not come from the idea that one is earning their way into heaven, rather one should attempt to live right because of love for God and others.
Personally I tend to lean heavily on Grace, but even this is a process. Not everyone understands how much grace they have been given yet.

 

[Ella S.]

The explanation of this that I have heard is that Christians who have genuine faith will love God and do their absolute best to keep all of his commandments. It's not that they will be saved by being purified through their works. It's that works follow a genuine faith.

I have no idea how that's supposed to work, though. I can very easily imagine Christians who love God a lot but see the Biblical commandments as more like guidelines for living a happier life rather than strict rules that must be followed to the letter. There's a lot more than faith that you need to affirm a fundamentalist morality.

You could argue that these Christians don't really know God if they think the commandments are just loose guidelines, and so they cannot love God because they do not truly know him, though. I've seen that argument a few times. This is also a great direction to take for evangelists, because it shifts the discussion towards how they know that their denomination is the correct one and they get to use all of their cherry-picked verses and twist them wildly to suit whatever agenda they're preaching for.

The better question to ask in that context is how they can be so sure that there even is a God to know. It saves a lot of time meandering through scripture.

 

[Brickjectivity]

I have heard of this, but its usually rare or something an individual decides for themselves. There are churches I think which believe this. Usually those who believe in so much purity will also believe that you can only convert once and then all hope is lost if you leave the church or leave your faith but not always. There are all kinds of ways people interpret things.

 

[InChrist]

Ex-christian here. When I was a christian I was presented with two distinct forms of christianity; one where you say a few abracadabra words and you are good to go and the other was "you just have to keep at it or you are lost." The latter makes LESS sense than the first concept if you are a christian. There is a very easy argument for this logically flawed doctrine of christian fundamentalism.

When you question a christian who turns out to be a christian fanatic AKA fundamentalist he usually goes off on a diatribe and says nonsense like "you have to keep being as pure as possible in order to have a chance at salvation." Note the word 'chance' here. He may state "saying a few words won't cut it."

Well, I'm sorry to tell you that this is a very good example of a logical fallacy, my friends. You cannot and will not be able to achieve "purity" as a christian. Human beings are not perfect no matter how much you try to achieve perfection. You simply cannot be.

So christians, How do you know if you did enough praying, spreading of the word, reading of the bible, thinking of your deity, saying the right things about your deity all in the eyes of your god? He is not there to tell you at any time that you did or didn't do enough of those things anyway and so I say once more how do you know?

Since God is supposed to be pure and perfectly divine, what makes you think you could reach his status of "purity?" Especially if humanity is flawed and imperfect? Are you telling me God is flawed and imperfect then? Or is it really just the imperfect one erroneously claiming to be pure? The latter obviously.

So in actuality, there is no way for a human to be flawless, pure and 100% sinless at all times for your entire life so that 'chance' I emphasized about earlier is actually 'chanceless' in the end. The fact is you don't stand a 'chance' at gaining salvation with that fundamentalist way of thinking. So the point is, why do you even bother trying to reach that same level of purity and perfection as your god if you know you absolutely cannot measure up against him? You cannot and will not be able to measure the immeasurable.

I can describe it very easily like this; Imagine a very long pole from the ground that extends all of the way up through the sky and beyond space and time. A man had the bright idea of trying to measure the length of the pole. As he was measuring the pole he noticed it seemed dauntingly long as if it was way too hard to get a measurement for. And after a while the man gave up and said "It's impossible to measure this thing as it just keeps going up and up and up."

So he mentioned this pole to several people and nobody after him was successful in getting a measurement for it either. No aircraft was able to reach the top of the pole nor the ISS station and no satellite readings for it either. It was determined impossible to get a physical measurement for it. And so because it was determined impossible to measure, why even bother trying to measure it now? Don't even bother!

What is the moral of the story you say? That it's impossible to measure the immeasurable. And so I ask the fundamentalist again, why do you even bother trying when you will always lose?

No finite human can reach God’s infinite state of perfection, you are correct. A born again believer, saved by Jesus Christ is dependent and saved by the righteous perfection of Christ alone, not their own efforts. The good works that Christians do should be done out of love, thankfulness, and service to Jesus, as well as love and service to others, not as an attempt to impress God or earn salvation.

 

[Brian2]

Ex-christian here. When I was a christian I was presented with two distinct forms of christianity; one where you say a few abracadabra words and you are good to go and the other was "you just have to keep at it or you are lost." The latter makes LESS sense than the first concept if you are a christian. There is a very easy argument for this logically flawed doctrine of christian fundamentalism.

When you question a christian who turns out to be a christian fanatic AKA fundamentalist he usually goes off on a diatribe and says nonsense like "you have to keep being as pure as possible in order to have a chance at salvation." Note the word 'chance' here. He may state "saying a few words won't cut it."

Well, I'm sorry to tell you that this is a very good example of a logical fallacy, my friends. You cannot and will not be able to achieve "purity" as a christian. Human beings are not perfect no matter how much you try to achieve perfection. You simply cannot be.

So christians, How do you know if you did enough praying, spreading of the word, reading of the bible, thinking of your deity, saying the right things about your deity all in the eyes of your god? He is not there to tell you at any time that you did or didn't do enough of those things anyway and so I say once more how do you know?

Since God is supposed to be pure and perfectly divine, what makes you think you could reach his status of "purity?" Especially if humanity is flawed and imperfect? Are you telling me God is flawed and imperfect then? Or is it really just the imperfect one erroneously claiming to be pure? The latter obviously.

So in actuality, there is no way for a human to be flawless, pure and 100% sinless at all times for your entire life so that 'chance' I emphasized about earlier is actually 'chanceless' in the end. The fact is you don't stand a 'chance' at gaining salvation with that fundamentalist way of thinking. So the point is, why do you even bother trying to reach that same level of purity and perfection as your god if you know you absolutely cannot measure up against him? You cannot and will not be able to measure the immeasurable.

I can describe it very easily like this; Imagine a very long pole from the ground that extends all of the way up through the sky and beyond space and time. A man had the bright idea of trying to measure the length of the pole. As he was measuring the pole he noticed it seemed dauntingly long as if it was way too hard to get a measurement for. And after a while the man gave up and said "It's impossible to measure this thing as it just keeps going up and up and up."

So he mentioned this pole to several people and nobody after him was successful in getting a measurement for it either. No aircraft was able to reach the top of the pole nor the ISS station and no satellite readings for it either. It was determined impossible to get a physical measurement for it. And so because it was determined impossible to measure, why even bother trying to measure it now? Don't even bother!

What is the moral of the story you say? That it's impossible to measure the immeasurable. And so I ask the fundamentalist again, why do you even bother trying when you will always lose?

I think you present a false dichotomy.
No form of Christianity says to say a few abracadabra words and you are good to go.
No form of Christianity says you need to be sinless.
We want to be sincere in our struggle to overcome evil and so we try to cooperate with Jesus as He changes us to be like Him.
We know we will never be perfect here on earth and that we need the forgiveness Jesus offers and to be able to rest in that forgiveness and comfort.

 

[Alien826]

It gets interesting if you see it in terms of control.

If you wanted to control a lot of people to your personal benefit, what better way could you devise than to make them feel guilty about themselves, convince them that they can't fix themselves because the standard is too high but if they don't fix themselves the punishment will be severe? Then offer a way out, only accessible through you. At a price.

 

[Brian2]

It gets interesting if you see it in terms of control.

If you wanted to control a lot of people to your personal benefit, what better way could you devise than to make them feel guilty about themselves, convince them that they can't fix themselves because the standard is too high but if they don't fix themselves the punishment will be severe? Then offer a way out, only accessible through you. At a price.

I see parts of Christianity as wanting control, but I don't see Jesus as doing that.

 

[sayak83]

Ex-christian here. When I was a christian I was presented with two distinct forms of christianity; one where you say a few abracadabra words and you are good to go and the other was "you just have to keep at it or you are lost." The latter makes LESS sense than the first concept if you are a christian. There is a very easy argument for this logically flawed doctrine of christian fundamentalism.

When you question a christian who turns out to be a christian fanatic AKA fundamentalist he usually goes off on a diatribe and says nonsense like "you have to keep being as pure as possible in order to have a chance at salvation." Note the word 'chance' here. He may state "saying a few words won't cut it."

Well, I'm sorry to tell you that this is a very good example of a logical fallacy, my friends. You cannot and will not be able to achieve "purity" as a christian. Human beings are not perfect no matter how much you try to achieve perfection. You simply cannot be.

So christians, How do you know if you did enough praying, spreading of the word, reading of the bible, thinking of your deity, saying the right things about your deity all in the eyes of your god? He is not there to tell you at any time that you did or didn't do enough of those things anyway and so I say once more how do you know?

Since God is supposed to be pure and perfectly divine, what makes you think you could reach his status of "purity?" Especially if humanity is flawed and imperfect? Are you telling me God is flawed and imperfect then? Or is it really just the imperfect one erroneously claiming to be pure? The latter obviously.

So in actuality, there is no way for a human to be flawless, pure and 100% sinless at all times for your entire life so that 'chance' I emphasized about earlier is actually 'chanceless' in the end. The fact is you don't stand a 'chance' at gaining salvation with that fundamentalist way of thinking. So the point is, why do you even bother trying to reach that same level of purity and perfection as your god if you know you absolutely cannot measure up against him? You cannot and will not be able to measure the immeasurable.

I can describe it very easily like this; Imagine a very long pole from the ground that extends all of the way up through the sky and beyond space and time. A man had the bright idea of trying to measure the length of the pole. As he was measuring the pole he noticed it seemed dauntingly long as if it was way too hard to get a measurement for. And after a while the man gave up and said "It's impossible to measure this thing as it just keeps going up and up and up."

So he mentioned this pole to several people and nobody after him was successful in getting a measurement for it either. No aircraft was able to reach the top of the pole nor the ISS station and no satellite readings for it either. It was determined impossible to get a physical measurement for it. And so because it was determined impossible to measure, why even bother trying to measure it now? Don't even bother!

What is the moral of the story you say? That it's impossible to measure the immeasurable. And so I ask the fundamentalist again, why do you even bother trying when you will always lose?

As others have told you, you are setting up a strawman here. The usual evangelical, Pentecostal movements do not believe humans can become perfect through their own efforts, rather they believe that if they seek to keep faith with God and Jesus in terms of love, meekness etc. the Holy Spirit will enter into their lives and souls and internally sanctify their lives and help them overcome their own imperfections. Thus they will become the vessels through which the will of God can work and become manifest in this world. Christian fundamentalism is different from other types of Christianity in that the relationship is mediated directly between the person and God through the catalysis of reading and thinking on the words of the Bible and associate prayerful faith. Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox and Anglican systems are less individualistic and depend more on the community as a whole. So the words of Church fathers and the traditions are a key way through which God is supposed to connect with humanity and hence they are accorded a significantly greater importance.

@Vouthon may help clarify if he wants.

 

[rational experiences]

Luke. A bible thesis men study.

Bible was a shut book don't read. It's flawed.

Oath to tell truth on shut book.

Ice existed cold before biology.

Ice exists with light always.

Humans say cold is first.

Reason science said cold nothing space zero existed before mass cooled to be mass the term...mass.

So zero 0 existed before 1.

I put 1 before zero was proven wrong.

Basic science.

 

[1213]

...So the point is, why do you even bother trying to reach that same level of purity and perfection as your god if you know you absolutely cannot measure up against him? You cannot and will not be able to measure the immeasurable.

I believe with God's help anything is possible. But, even if I would not be perfect, I think it is a good goal. I want to try to be even close to that level anyway, because I think it is better than the alternative.

 

[Alien826]

I see parts of Christianity as wanting control, but I don't see Jesus as doing that.

That made me think. Obviously I was referring to people that framed the religion and often added to the original message. But did Jesus try to control people? Well, obviously he was trying to change people's behavior, but that's not the type of control I mean. And he spoke out against the religious authorities of his time who were very much doing so. So yes, I agree with you.