Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
So you think it's a bad thing for people to go to church? And your post is a bit misleading. She just made a comment and admitted that it was never meant to be serious. Anyone with a bit of sense knows that such a law would be a complete waste of time and money. It would never fly in this day and age.
So you think it is a good thing that people be forced into church attendance?
The post is NOT misleading. She didn't back down until her own party began berating her.
You don't back down in spite of every kind of logic put forth on any topic. That could be read as further down the track of extremism than she is.
ARE YOU SUGGESTING FORCED CHURCH ATTENDANCE? Because if people are going to churches that preach hate and division then it absolutely is a bad thing--for them and the rest of us.
Same goes for Mazda, Quetzalcoatl, Ra or Posiden. Millions of people for hundreds or thousands of years have believed in them. In fact, Mazda is still around and has been around longer than Yahweh. Why don't you believe in Mazda?
One of the most drastic differences between Christianity and all other faiths:
Christianity - relationship based
Other religions - action based
The focus of Christianity is to form a spiritual personal relationship with God where He directs your life and tells you what to do. And sometimes it is very specific! Other religions are action based. Do this action and appease this god. Even prayer in the Muslim world is action based. You must be in a certain position at certain times of the day. It is steeped in pride by accomplishing physical actions. That alone tells me that it was created by man. Man would not create a religion like Christianity that goes completely against human nature like self pride. The self pride aspect is one of the main reasons why Christ detested the Pharisees.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cupper3
BTW, Jeff, do you even understand argumentum ex silentio? Or is this a phrase you just heard and you think it sounds like it makes you sound, to be kind, academically inclined?
Maybe I don't understand it clearly. Unfortunately, instead of simply just telling me how I am wrong, your comment only serves the purpose of trying to look intellectually superior.
False equating of prostitution and homosexuality. Apples and oranges, as you'd say.
I can't imagine many gays would want to profess evangelical / fundamentalist Christianity, as at the very least it would require them to be totally celibate. But quite a lot of them are willing to embrace liberal Christianity and other (relatively) tolerant forms of religion. Your quibble with that has less to do with sexual orientation than it does with theology. As a former fundamentalist, I understand that liberal Christianity doesn't "compute" for you. That it didn't "compute" for me is one of the reasons I went straight to unbelief; for people like us, it's "all or nothing".
That said I have recently began attending a Unitarian / Universalist "society" (they are shying away from calling themselves a "church" these days, properly in my view). It is full of LGBT people, agnostics and atheists as well as liberal theists. It has no dogma or theological litmus test for membership. I imagine your head would explode in such a place -- at one time, mine would have -- as it is really a secular humanist social club, not a place of worship. I have just come to see that one can socialize and benefit from group support and activities without religion or theism being inherently necessary as the impulse.
Actually there are more gay evangelical churches than you might think. And more that are at least accepting of the GLBT community.
You might try reading some of Mel White's writings. He was the ghost writer for Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, and a host of other fundamentalist religious leaders. Raised in an evangelical home, knowing he was gay and fighting it for half his life time, he was in the closet when those leaders called him "friend," and had him write mostly biographies. He came out in the late 80's or early 90's. He led The Cathedral of Hope, in Dallas, Texas, at that time the largest gay friendly church in America.
A real good book of his is entitled, "Lies the Religious Right Tell Us."
Then stop claiming as if it is fact that Christianity is a myth. That is a POSITIVE claim. That's your claim. Then prove it or admit that it is just wishful opinionated rhetoric.
You're playing word games. You are the one claiming that your god created the universe, wrote the bible, came to earth as a human (Jesus), died and rose from the dead, ascended into heaven. Those are extraordinary claims for which you have given zero evidence.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
I tested the waters and offered up proof of a miracle healing. It was rejected immediately. Until you can demonstrate a willingness to examine evidence with an open mind, it is simply a waste of my time.
The only thing you offered was an appeal to ignorance: "we don't know how a brain tumor disappeared, therefore the Christian god did it." Even if it was a miracle, how do we know which god did it? The fact that you JUST KNOW it was the Christian god indicates severe bias on your part. How many muslims are healed in the same manner every year? Would you consider those events to be miraculous hearings by the Muslim god? Probably not.
Then stop claiming as if it is fact that Christianity is a myth. That is a POSITIVE claim. That's your claim. Then prove it or admit that it is just wishful opinionated rhetoric.
If there is no proof (to a decent standard of "proof") for the basic tenets of Christianity then it is properly classified as a mythology. Calling it a mythology does not imply that your personal subjective experiences that lend credence to your beliefs in that mythos are not real or meaningful to you; after all here you are arguing in their favor. No one questions your ardor or sincerity or your right to believe whatever you want so long as you don't impose it on others. Do not confuse calling you on logical arguments that you voluntarily make in a debate format, with denying your your freedom to restrict your beliefs in any way you deem fit.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
I tested the waters and offered up proof of a miracle healing. It was rejected immediately. Until you can demonstrate a willingness to examine evidence with an open mind, it is simply a waste of my time.
If you care to link to that post I will look at it, I may have missed it. But the key question of course is did you really prove anything, and to what standard of evidence? Personal testimony that X happened and an assertion that Y was the cause of X isn't going to sway a skeptic, nor should it. Nor does it take alternative explanations and weighing of the likelihood of these explanations relative to each other, off the table.
It ends up being a question of whether you want to prove something or you want to find out what is actually true, not true, or uncertain in any given situation. Whether you start with a premise and look for ways to fit evidence to the premise at any cost, or whether you start with a testable hypothesis and attempt to disprove it with a valid test.
The irony is that we ARE willing to examine actual evidence with an open mind. Your definition of evidence is simply different and "open mind" is defined by you as "open to my particular dogma", which of course is in fact closed to anything BUT the dogma. Your demand is for us to assume the conclusion (yours of course) and be entirely credulous for anything that supports it. That is NOT how it works. We assume nothing in terms of evidence. In terms of weighing evidence we assume likelihoods based on what (if anything) is demonstrably likely based on known information and past experience.
One of the most drastic differences between Christianity and all other faiths:
Christianity - relationship based
Other religions - action based
The focus of Christianity is to form a spiritual personal relationship with God where He directs your life and tells you what to do. And sometimes it is very specific! Other religions are action based. Do this action and appease this god. Even prayer in the Muslim world is action based. You must be in a certain position at certain times of the day. It is steeped in pride by accomplishing physical actions. That alone tells me that it was created by man. Man would not create a religion like Christianity that goes completely against human nature like self pride. The self pride aspect is one of the main reasons why Christ detested the Pharisees.
Maybe I don't understand it clearly. Unfortunately, instead of simply just telling me how I am wrong, your comment only serves the purpose of trying to look intellectually superior.
You are correct and wrong at the same time. Christianity is RELATIONSHIP based. At the same time, Jesus' own witness was ACTION based.
But you won't catch a fundamentalist Christian trying to ACT in a christian manner because they are afraid of being accused of working their way into heaven.
Hard to believe some Christians are spiritual Neanderthals but we see evidence like you proffer every day.
You can see one answer to the OP's question. Because it's like beating your head against the wall. It accomplishes nothing, and you are wasting time better spent doing something else.
Here we go again... The atheist had to show the Christian what the bible says. Why? And the OT is part of your belief system, right?
Somehow it is skipped on the pulpit.
Exodus:
It's okay to beat your slaves; even if they die you won't be punished, just as long as they survive a day or two after the beating (see verses 21:20-21). But avoid excessive damage to their eyes or teeth. Otherwise you may have to set them free. 21:26-27
No we just understand that such commandments were given ONLY to a specific group of people as part of an old covenant to serve a specific purpose. God permitted slavery in that context. That doesn't mean He liked it. He permitted Solomon to have multiple wives. That does mean He approved of it. The death and resurrection of Christ created a new covenant for all men, slave or free.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cupper3
Now we skip to the NT:
All of Matthew 18:21 onwards deals with issues around slavery and debt, and Jesus not once said anything against slavery but just pretends that everything's okay, its moral, is doesn't matter, and discusses how the debt should be relieved. A moral person would have objectived to the slavery, but nooooo... Jesus gives tacit approval in this parable.
In Luke 12, Jesus decides to pull a Phil Robertson, and describe it in a most vile and violent manner in telling on how a slave will be beaten. Essentially, if the slave didn't do what the master wanted it depended whether he knew or not, so if he knew what the master wanted that slave was to be beaten severely. It's a slave didn't know what the master wanted, he still to be beat. Just not quite that hard.
Some teacher that Jesus of yours isn't he?
Jesus didn't speak out against prostitution so using your logic, that must mean he approved of it, right? Jesus was only on this earth for a brief time. He had a specific mission which was the spiritual salvation of man, not the physical. That mission did not involve stirring up a rebellion against long ingrained social structures or even being a physical king of the Jews. Even if He had spent his days condemning slavery, what good would it have done? The reaction would have been either ignoring it or mass chaos. Yet freedom in Christ is available to all, regardless if you are physically in chains or not.
Furthermore, you ignore other passages which are clearly not pro-slavery:
1 Corinthians 7:21 - Were you a slave when you were called? Don't let it trouble you--although if you can gain your freedom, do so.
If God approved of slavery, why would He encourage slaves to seek freedom?
Why should I denounce Pat Robertson's views on gays if they are the same as mine and the same as my religion's views?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
