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i am a catholic. i don't agree with what the OP said at all. people believe what they believe. coz they CHOSE it. that is the most important gift God gave us..FREE WILL. WE LIVE THE LIFE we live coz we made it to be. free will, i tell you.. that is the word, FREE WILL is EVERYTHING. our past present and future.. lies in our OWN hands.. you choose your own path.. fate is what you make of it. opportunity comes.. it is up to you to grab it or let it go. my life is NOTHING, miserable.. coz i do NOTHING about it. well actually, i do NOTHING. period. i try and try and try to change.. God can only give me hope.. IT is I who ultimately MAKE IT HAPPEN with God to guide me, keep me safe. the end.
I agree with you LBSer, and I hope you can find the self determination and will to do something about the the unhappy life you seem to be caught in.. Taking it one step at a time I'm sure you can. Make a plan then put it into action...I wish you success.
Hmmmmm......since when did your geographical birth location have anything to do with believing in God? How do you know where I was born? The knowledge of God is within us from birth....rejecting God is a conscious, deliberate choice.
Catholic emissaries who traveled to the east at the time of Ieyasu came to accept this fact, Christianity and the belief in the jeudo-xian was strange and very out of place in asia, same thing happened with Spanish conquistadores and my country.
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Originally Posted by DayoftheLord
Embracing God is natural and instinctive, rejecting it is not natural and is foreign. As in not of God.
The irony is that I'm lead to believe by Christians that god herself is not natural.
Who really makes a "big deal" out of it, except in these forums? To be perfectly honest, I had NEVER fully discussed this issue or made a point about my beliefs, until I started posting here... and considering there are less than 100 (?) regular Atheist/Agnostic posters here, that's a rather small percentage compared to millions in the US. So who's actually spending their time & energy on this?? Besides Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, of course - LOL. Most "Atheists" are simply people who don't practice religion, and the majority don't give a second thought to these subjects. There are no Atheist churches that I know of, as opposed to hundreds of thousands of churches/temples/mosques/etc.
Matter of fact, I sent the author of one of the posts in question a DM sincerely apologizing for the fact I misread and replied as I did! If I am rude or sarcastic in my replies without first being provoked and/or have good cause -- or if I misread or misunderstood -- I do not mind admitting it and saying I am sorry.
With that said, I still stand by my basic point that, per capita (if such a term can be used! LOL), it has been my experience that atheists put more time into ridiculing those who believe, than the opposition does trying to convert! LOL
With that said, yep, there are "in your face" Christians just like there are "militant" atheists (the prototype being Madelyn Murray O'Hare), and I get as annoyed as anyone when the former show up on my front porch on a Sunday afternoon expecting to be invited in, and look at me like a heathen when I decline the wonderful opportunity to spend my day with them rather than my own family and friends, a good football game, and some cold beer! LOL
So to close out for now, and to show folks that some of us Southern conservative Christians can have a sense of humor about ourselves, here is one of my favorite monologue jokes:
Buddists don't recognize the authority of the Pope
Jewish people don't recognize the authority of the New Testament
Southern Baptists don't recognize each other in liquor stores....
I am an atheist. If I ever decide to believe in supernatural beings I think I would be partial to Zeus and the gang. At the very least I would believe in many gods, not one.
Yes and very colorful ones too! I named my company after a Greek siren.
I am an atheist. If I ever decide to believe in supernatural beings I think I would be partial to Zeus and the gang. At the very least I would believe in many gods, not one.
I feel the same way, I would find it alot more likely to believe like Pagans do, a male god and a female god.
Christians are polytheistic but live in denial about it because they believe in god, jesus and the holy spirit. They just pretend that is ONE god so there is no connection between them and heathen religions. Pretending doesn't make is so however.
Don't worry, I have no plans to "cheat" on my deathbed. We had a close friend (a Reform Jew) who passed away 2 years ago from cancer, and while she didn't find religion at the end, she did suddenly believe in life after death... because for the last week or two, she was constantly talking to her dead mother & father, whom she claimed were in the room with her. Nobody knows what we'll see or feel at the end of life, but I don't PLAN to "find religion" - it might find me first, however, which I have no control over.
Religion would be SO much more palitable if they would pass the crack pipe around before they started in. I think the American Indians have the answer there with their paoti.
I hope my death is alot more peaceful then something with religion in it.
Matter of fact, I sent the author of one of the posts in question a DM sincerely apologizing for the fact I misread and replied as I did! If I am rude or sarcastic in my replies without first being provoked and/or have good cause -- or if I misread or misunderstood -- I do not mind admitting it and saying I am sorry.
No worries... I've had foot-in-mouth syndrome here more times than I could count! I just thought you were trying to bait us, which didn't seem very cool.
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That said, I still stand by my basic point that, per capita (if such a term can be used! LOL), it has been my experience that atheists put more time into ridiculing those who believe, than the opposition does trying to convert! LOL
See, I totally disagree with that, though I guess neither of us can prove our point. But I live in a heavily non-religious area (San Francisco), and have NEVER heard any Atheists preaching! I have been preached at by numerous religious folks, and not just Christians - Mormons, Jehovah's Witness, Black Muslim (they sell baked goods & pass out literature daily in my neighborhood), Catholic, Messianic "Jews," etc. The only ones who don't preach are my people, the Jews, since it goes against our principles and beliefs... and I guess Buddhists.
So if there are many religious "peddlers" even in a place like San Fran, I'd say they are a zealous bunch everywhere. Seriously, when have you ever come across an Atheist preaching on a street corner?? They're usually more than happy to debate if you initiate a conversation, but it's rare for them (us) to approach people about their beliefs. But yeah, there are militant folks on every side!
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Buddists don't recognize the authority of the Pope
Jewish people don't recognize the authority of the New Testament
Southern Baptists don't recognize each other in liquor stores....
One point I didn't make very clear was that a person has to acknowledge the existence of a deity before he can reject him (or her).
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Besides Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, of course - LOL. Most "Atheists" are simply people who don't practice religion, and the majority don't give a second thought to these subjects. There are no Atheist churches that I know of, as opposed to hundreds of thousands of churches/temples/mosques/etc.
I named my company after a Greek siren.
We had a close friend (a Reform Jew) who passed away 2 years ago from cancer, and while she didn't find religion at the end, she did suddenly believe in life after death... because for the last week or two, she was constantly talking to her dead mother & father, whom she claimed were in the room with her. Nobody knows what we'll see or feel at the end of life, but I don't PLAN to "find religion" - it might find me first, however, which I have no control over.
