Should We Reconsider

I don’t expect to change anyone’s thinking. I do expect if the church continues as is, it will become irrelevant.

 

Scientists say chemical reactions create electric circuits which cause various areas of the brain to send messages to the body etc. Do our actions originate in our brain or does the soul in some fashion influence the brain?

 

Consider people infected with the rabies virus. Invisibly small changes inside the brain cause massive changes to behavior. Should the individual be punished for failing to exercise his free-will not to bite?

 

In 1966 Charles Whitman killed thirteen and wounded thirty-three. Following his death his brain was examined and a tumor abut the diameter of a nickel was discovered and was believed by some to have been the cause of his actions. Was he responsible for failing to use his free will to make better choices?

 

In 2002, a 40-year old male school teacher began to view child pornography websites, and solicit prostitutes at massage parlors, activities which there are no accounts of him having done in the past. The man's wife turned him into the police.

 

The evening before his prison sentencing, he took himself to a hospital, complaining that he had a massive headache and would "rape his landlady." An MRI revealed an egg-sized brain tumor located in the area of the brain. Once the tumor was removed, his sex-obsession disappeared. Should he be punished for failing to use his free will to make better choices?

 

Frontotemporal dementia causes parts of the brain to degenerate causing patients to lose the ability to control the hidden impulses. Patients find a variety ways to violate social norms: shoplifting in front of store managers, removing their clothes in public, running stop signs, breaking out in song at inappropriate times, eating food scraps found in public trash cans, or being physically aggressive or sexually transgressive. Should these people be punished for failing to use their free will to make better decisions?

 

When Parkinson’s patients were given a certain drug some of them turned into pathological gamblers, became involved with compulsive eating, alcohol consumption and hypersexuality. Should these people be punished for failing to use their free will to make better decisions?

 

Christians believe salvation is only for those who freely choose Jesus as their savior and choose to follow his instructions.

 

If you are right these things happened to the people in these examples because God did not “bless” them. He allowed things to happen to them which he knew would negatively affect their free will. All while keeping others safe, healthy, well-fed, financially secure with good jobs.  Based on what I hear it is their own fault for not asking enough or not having enough people asking for them.