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There are millions of people who follow Jesus Christ, all over the world.
Christianity is a relationship, not a religion.
Strange that you guys can have a relationship with an invisible cosmic sky zombie, but won't allow gays to have a relationship with a real flesh and blood person that they love.
BTW, if your "relationship" is not a religion then your churches better start coughing up tax money. The back-taxes owed should pay off the national debt alone..
Can you see the wind? No. But you can see the affects of the wind.
This fallacy crops up so often I really must address it.
When people say "I'll believe it when I see it" and similar, what they actually mean is "I'll believe it when I get credible empirical evidence of its existence".
Not "I only believe in things I can directly see with my eyes alone". That represents a tiny, tiny fraction of what people (rationally) believe in.
My first immediate reactionary and irrate comment: what sins, exactly, did I perpetrate?
Frankly, my earlier professional career was pretty much dedicated to stopping the hyper-rich oil companies operating in the Canuck Arctic from slaughtering those invasive, pesky polar bears. That work extended to doing likewise for grizzly and black bears around a massive coal mine project in NE British Columbia. I was alone in that conservationist perspective; the imported Newfy hardrock miners all wanted to "git their huntin' guns" and pick all them grizz off.
And why, perchance? Because they, mostly a bunch of God-fearing, blble-thumping Sunday-Go-to-Meeting types, didn't want the coal production schedule interrupted by a bunch of thieving, dangerous beasts. It fits with that near-criminal minsdset about we men "having domain over the lesser beasts". Yada Yada Yada.
Meanwhile, about that same time I was actively questioning and then leaving behind the brain-dead, "repeat-after-me" mentality of the Christian Church I'd obediently belonged to for quite a few years. So, according to this essentially evil video preacher-man, I was afraid to show my face, to exposes my deeds in saving some of his more magnificent creatures?
What undercooked baloney this is!
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Originally Posted by SouperStar34
There is only one unforgivable offense that God does not tolerate and is disbelief. That is the only unforgivable sin.
1) Fortunately, i'm only accountable to myself, SS34.
2) Tell me and us up front and honestly, SS34; are you related to Campbell34? Daddy perhaps? Cut from the same cloth as my friend Tom?
The true, inerrant Christian ethic requires that you tell the truth. Let's see, shall we?
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Originally Posted by supernerdgirl
ugh why did I decide to start arguing with a brick wall this morning?
When/if my question is honestly answered, right above here, you'll know what you're up against.
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Originally Posted by iriekate
why doesn't he speak for himself?
Because He doesn't/didn't ever exist. He's just a convenient focal-point icon, an philosophical evolutionary "transitional" between the inconveniently unaccessible god and a mortal man in street clothing. He became a necessary evil within the greater Christian fable.
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Originally Posted by Peggy Anne
And don't Christians say that "Jesus loves all of us ?" Who are you going to believe ? The schlump on youtube ? Or your friend, Jesus ?
I'm countingon that incorruptable love, PA! As I said yesterday here somewhere, "in case I'm wrong", I'm going to rely specifically on God's kind review of my personal inquisitive nature, since, after all, He designed and manages me, down to the subatomic particle level. I'm simply a mouthpiece for Him, expressing what must, by now, be his huge irritation and restlessness in a really boring job.
Imagine someone with the intellectual cajones to instantly not only conceptualize the entire Universe, but then, with some sort of actual psycho-kinetic abilities, physically create it OUT OF NOTHING, instantly. Then, He's gotta listen, for endless eons, to all our whining and mind-numbing silly "Repeat-a-Praise" bleating, endlessly, by the millions? All those ill-educated people selfishly begging for money, a better job, a "chance" at their best friend's girlfriend, etc. etc.
No wonder He's having to force Himself to not hit the"Armageddon Start"
button, each and every hour! At least not for a while, And after all, we had a good enough chance at that, all on it's own, with one of his more dedicated acolytes, Dubbyah, for the past 8 years.....
Along comes a good debator, and what do we get from the mob? Insults. Or, in the case of this moron pastor, out for money from the looks of his church/studio theater, an ill-conceived idea that we atheists are all hiding from God's holy light.
Sadly, all those innocent folk in there, incapable of critical analysis of ideas, walk out (several tens of dollars poorer, BTW) "knowing" that the atheists they know are all endlessly sinning. In evil silence and conspiracy.
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Originally Posted by sanspeur
This particular one came from the loins of Campbell34....Like father like son....
Exactly. Let's see what the truthful answer is. A Christian cannot, in good consciousness, outright lie. Since we may have other ways to check him out, he pretty much has to fess up.
Not, of course, that he is anything other than himself even if he is related, but it surely would explain the genetically transferred traits, huh?
"They can be called the worst that you can think of because they deserve it, even if it isn't true, and it probably is. "
I don't understand where being personally responsible went out the window. since when is it okay to not be respectful because the other person "deserved it". If we teach our children that is not okay, why is it okay to behave this way in adult-hood?
It isn't. qudos. You have spotted that one. It is the fallacy of 'natural = good'. You saw that it wasn't and it behooves us (if that is even a real word) to decide that we can do better than those evolved - in fact common to all species - sentiments.
If religion really did embrace everyone as brothers (and I can cautiously applaud Luke's Samaritan' parable) it seems to 'go out the window' far too often once they come up against 'others'. It is natural, it is not, therefore, neccessarily good. Atheism does little better, but I think it could. However I don't want to go too far off -topic.
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And what exactly does "give yourself to God" actually mean? Because the first thought I have when someone says they gave themselves to someone is about sex. But I know that's not possible here, so what does that mean then? Follow blindly? Read from the book of stories and interpret the way you wish and go from there?
I can't say more than they buy into whatever God package they have bought into, usually one that they browsed around or someone came selling at the door. And maybe with a few chosen optional extras ...like Paul, God can be all things to all men.
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Why do people need someone to tell them to be a good person...to love one another and to uplift one another if given the chance. Why can't they find it in themselves to just be that way? Is it because people are weak and need a crutch? Is it because of being lonely?
Anger = Fear in every case I've over-analyzed.
I think selfishness is in the gene. If we want to break out of that, we can. We have the brains to do it. Religion has the potentiality to do that but it hasn't done it over 2,000 years. Instead we see the selfish gene using religion as a weapon in its fear and distrust of 'others' and bloody effective it is, too.
Fear as you say. I know that I fear religion, or rather religious people, because I know that, the more powerful they are the more dangerous they are. The more they have, the more they want.
There are other religious people who just quietly believe a number of dotty things. I might try to show the illogic but, if they don't buy that, who's it hurting? I don't have a problem with them. Their festivals are even fun.
it's an entertainment attraction in which many people lose interest in when they apply their educated principles to the theories of christianity.
for some the entertainment & comfort factors remain constant. and they seem to feel "the more the merrier" & try to bring in more members.
personally, i enjoy groups that attract through more subtle means than proselytizing. i enjoy meeting someone delightful & wondering what his/her spiritual philosophy is.
your topic is addressed in all of the agnostic & atheist threads. to repeat the theories would be the redundance i dread. this topic is a hand-wringer for the evangelicals & proselytizers.
If I was God, and I had created mankind and then followed it around all these years watching them kill each other in my name, I'd be one embarrassed deity. I'd be keeping the suicide hotlines in business.
We have all fallen short of the glory of God. If we have all fallen short... then we are all sinners until we repent and turn from our old ways. When people TRULY become a Christian their whole life changes. They no longer live for themselves and humanist things, but they try to put more emphasis on bringing glory to God. The TRUE Christians motto is: "It's not about me."
Tell that to the two thirds of the world's population that don't look to your Christ figure today, or the entirty of the human race before your god hit the scene.
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From the mouths of offspring.....
kate
