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I don't have time to bat it back and forth with you, and I (and you) kind of went off from the thread purpose, and after posting on forums for 15+ years I now know 95/100 you are not "winning" anyone over to your side, so I will just leave it at that.
What's to bat back and forth. You have the cüm hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
And it's not about winning sides, it's to combat the 'Stalin, therefore atheists are evil' argument.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kavalier
You atheists, though, you have your gods. Certainly, many of you do. Your political heroes (many times), or your money, or your favorite band, or your this or your that. You just don't realize it.
Forums are just the tip of the iceberg. There are many problems with - say modern Christianity (or what parades as it) - beyond any forum or online content. Forums can just show/reveal the lost and distorted mentality that's infecting the church and belief system. There's more "depression" with modern Christianity, than any particular forum.
At least here though, we can talk back and forth in a more controlled manner, free of face-to-face conversing, and can compose our thoughts better; even improve and edit our wording if it doesn't quite come out right the first time. It's a slightly improved manner of conversation.
Forums are just the tip of the iceberg. There are many problems with - say modern Christianity (or what parades as it) - beyond any forum or online content. Forums can just show/reveal the lost and distorted mentality that's infecting the church and belief system. There's more "depression" with modern Christianity, than any particular forum.
At least here though, we can talk back and forth in a more controlled manner, free of face-to-face conversing, and can compose our thoughts better; even improve and edit our wording if it doesn't quite come out right the first time. It's a slightly improved manner of conversation.
I was just looking over the CF under another name. I have been "banned for life" multiple times, from everything to insulting Paul to insulting mods, as well as "creating multiple accounts to circumvent banning."....which is easy to do and the site is easily hacked by anyone with a 7th grade computer/coding class education.
That being said, they recently in the past couple of years or so made it illegal to say "you are not a real christian because ......" and with such, have silenced many of the trolls who were responsible for most of the mess on there.
Perhaps then , it does give voice to those who may, because of mental illness or poor communication skills, a voice that may be more likely ignored in person. I am likely to ignore someone I am not being paid to listen to If my mood so fits.
I would be lying to say i have not encountered mentally ill people who are Christians. Thankfully they help keep food on my table. But since I may deal with them professionally, I do not find their beliefs or behaviors entertaining or useful and limit my time on CF to a few times a year when I need a ggod facepalm.
I have just "retired" from participation on the massive "Christian Forums" site after three disappointing years. I am wondering if anyone else shares my view that this site is just about the WORST advertisement for Christianity since the Inquisition? It is divided into a multitude of sub-forums, each with its strict rules that are ruthlessly (albeit arbitrarily) enforced by a team of moderators; the purpose of all these sub-forums seems to be mostly to prevent the numerous warring factions of "Christianity" from clawing each other's eyes out (stay within the Baptist sub-forum, sweetie, and you won't have to butt heads with those damn Catholics). But it doesn't work -- even within a single sub-forum, virtually every thread, whether it be about the nature of the Trinity or someone's favorite recipe for carrot cake, turns into a bloodbath of flaming, accusations and hurt feelings. The huge preponderance of threads are hate-filled rants against homosexuality (an absolute obsession with these folks), Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholics and other favorite targets. If you actually have an IQ above 100 and have studied a fair amount of theology and related disciplines, you will find yourself completely out of place because the average discussion takes place at the level of Vacation Bible School and that's the way the participants want to keep it. I am, of course, painting with too broad of a brush -- but overall I did find Christian Forums to be a depressing place and an embarrassing example of what most non-Christians who want nothing to do with Christianity picture the religion being. As I said in one of my final posts there, Christian Forums seems to me a better recruitment tool for atheism than for Christianity.
All of which raises a larger issue that always troubles me: If (as evangelicals at least believe) becoming a Christian opens the door to a transformation of one's life through the working of the Holy Spirit, why don't we see more (any?) evidence of this? Why are there 30,000+ Christian denominations, virtually every one of which detests some of the others? Why are there so many churches whose internal squabbles would embarrass a completely secular organization? Why do we see so little evidence of transformation in individual lives? If by their fruits ye shall know them, I would say that most of what passes for Christianity is populated by folks you wouldn't want to know at all (as exemplified by Christian Forums). If the Holy Spirit really were at work, shouldn't there be some discernible difference between the Christian segment of society and the Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic or atheist segments? Yet I see no meaningful difference that would suggest the Holy Spirit is transforming the Christian segment and not the others. If I were an atheist -- which I'm not, I'm actually a Christian -- I would steer clear of the silliness spouted by the New Atheists and focus on: "Why, if Christianity is real, isn't there more evidence of this? Doesn't the evidence point more in the opposite direction?" All the standard explanations about Satan being the ruler of the world, Christians still being prone to sin, etc., really aren't sufficient -- even within this context, if Christians have the Holy Spirit and other belief systems don't, there should be a definite, discernible difference. My answer to this dilemma is along the lines suggested by Leo Tolstoy: "If Jesus' message were put into practice, there would be such a difference. The problem is that the overwhelming majority of what passes for Christianity is a near-complete perversion of Jesus' message."
Depressing? Christianity comes complete with a built in death wish, and the view that existence is something to be suffered through.That's pretty depressing.
I have just "retired" from participation on the massive "Christian Forums" site after three disappointing years. I am wondering if anyone else shares my view that this site is just about the WORST advertisement for Christianity since the Inquisition? It is divided into a multitude of sub-forums, each with its strict rules that are ruthlessly (albeit arbitrarily) enforced by a team of moderators; the purpose of all these sub-forums seems to be mostly to prevent the numerous warring factions of "Christianity" from clawing each other's eyes out (stay within the Baptist sub-forum, sweetie, and you won't have to butt heads with those damn Catholics). But it doesn't work -- even within a single sub-forum, virtually every thread, whether it be about the nature of the Trinity or someone's favorite recipe for carrot cake, turns into a bloodbath of flaming, accusations and hurt feelings. The huge preponderance of threads are hate-filled rants against homosexuality (an absolute obsession with these folks), Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholics and other favorite targets. If you actually have an IQ above 100 and have studied a fair amount of theology and related disciplines, you will find yourself completely out of place because the average discussion takes place at the level of Vacation Bible School and that's the way the participants want to keep it. I am, of course, painting with too broad of a brush -- but overall I did find Christian Forums to be a depressing place and an embarrassing example of what most non-Christians who want nothing to do with Christianity picture the religion being. As I said in one of my final posts there, Christian Forums seems to me a better recruitment tool for atheism than for Christianity.
All of which raises a larger issue that always troubles me: If (as evangelicals at least believe) becoming a Christian opens the door to a transformation of one's life through the working of the Holy Spirit, why don't we see more (any?) evidence of this? Why are there 30,000+ Christian denominations, virtually every one of which detests some of the others? Why are there so many churches whose internal squabbles would embarrass a completely secular organization? Why do we see so little evidence of transformation in individual lives? If by their fruits ye shall know them, I would say that most of what passes for Christianity is populated by folks you wouldn't want to know at all (as exemplified by Christian Forums). If the Holy Spirit really were at work, shouldn't there be some discernible difference between the Christian segment of society and the Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic or atheist segments? Yet I see no meaningful difference that would suggest the Holy Spirit is transforming the Christian segment and not the others. If I were an atheist -- which I'm not, I'm actually a Christian -- I would steer clear of the silliness spouted by the New Atheists and focus on: "Why, if Christianity is real, isn't there more evidence of this? Doesn't the evidence point more in the opposite direction?" All the standard explanations about Satan being the ruler of the world, Christians still being prone to sin, etc., really aren't sufficient -- even within this context, if Christians have the Holy Spirit and other belief systems don't, there should be a definite, discernible difference. My answer to this dilemma is along the lines suggested by Leo Tolstoy: "If Jesus' message were put into practice, there would be such a difference. The problem is that the overwhelming majority of what passes for Christianity is a near-complete perversion of Jesus' message."
Here's how I solved the dilemma you speak of: if Jesus really wanted us to believe in him wouldn't he just appear to every one of us and say, "I exist. Believe in me for the forgiveness of your sins." I'd believe if that happened. But Jesus doesn't appear to us so that means only one of two things: 1. either he really doesn't care whether we believe in him or not or 2. he doesn't exist. If anyone has a third sensible alternative I'd love to hear it, but nothing cop-outtish like "He leaves it to his servants on earth to spread the word". Apparently Jesus never heard the old adage, "If you want it done right---DO IT YOURSELF!"
I have just "retired" from participation on the massive "Christian Forums" site after three disappointing years. I am wondering if anyone else shares my view that this site is just about the WORST advertisement for Christianity since the Inquisition? It is divided into a multitude of sub-forums, each with its strict rules that are ruthlessly (albeit arbitrarily) enforced by a team of moderators; the purpose of all these sub-forums seems to be mostly to prevent the numerous warring factions of "Christianity" from clawing each other's eyes out (stay within the Baptist sub-forum, sweetie, and you won't have to butt heads with those damn Catholics). But it doesn't work -- even within a single sub-forum, virtually every thread, whether it be about the nature of the Trinity or someone's favorite recipe for carrot cake, turns into a bloodbath of flaming, accusations and hurt feelings. The huge preponderance of threads are hate-filled rants against homosexuality (an absolute obsession with these folks), Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholics and other favorite targets. If you actually have an IQ above 100 and have studied a fair amount of theology and related disciplines, you will find yourself completely out of place because the average discussion takes place at the level of Vacation Bible School and that's the way the participants want to keep it. I am, of course, painting with too broad of a brush -- but overall I did find Christian Forums to be a depressing place and an embarrassing example of what most non-Christians who want nothing to do with Christianity picture the religion being. As I said in one of my final posts there, Christian Forums seems to me a better recruitment tool for atheism than for Christianity.
All of which raises a larger issue that always troubles me: If (as evangelicals at least believe) becoming a Christian opens the door to a transformation of one's life through the working of the Holy Spirit, why don't we see more (any?) evidence of this? Why are there 30,000+ Christian denominations, virtually every one of which detests some of the others? Why are there so many churches whose internal squabbles would embarrass a completely secular organization? Why do we see so little evidence of transformation in individual lives? If by their fruits ye shall know them, I would say that most of what passes for Christianity is populated by folks you wouldn't want to know at all (as exemplified by Christian Forums). If the Holy Spirit really were at work, shouldn't there be some discernible difference between the Christian segment of society and the Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic or atheist segments? Yet I see no meaningful difference that would suggest the Holy Spirit is transforming the Christian segment and not the others. If I were an atheist -- which I'm not, I'm actually a Christian -- I would steer clear of the silliness spouted by the New Atheists and focus on: "Why, if Christianity is real, isn't there more evidence of this? Doesn't the evidence point more in the opposite direction?" All the standard explanations about Satan being the ruler of the world, Christians still being prone to sin, etc., really aren't sufficient -- even within this context, if Christians have the Holy Spirit and other belief systems don't, there should be a definite, discernible difference. My answer to this dilemma is along the lines suggested by Leo Tolstoy: "If Jesus' message were put into practice, there would be such a difference. The problem is that the overwhelming majority of what passes for Christianity is a near-complete perversion of Jesus' message."
Good post.
I came to the same conclusion as you about the holy spirit after believing I had it for 40 years, but at that time, I didn't know anything about Christianity allthough I had read the bible at least 200 times, probably more like 600 times.
The problem being is that I didn't know the religion of Jesus because it had always been shun, I didn't know what the pentecost actually was or what Shemini Atzeret was, because the knowledge of Jesus was shunned. There is no 30,000. Christian denominations, there is 30,000 religions claiming to be Christian.
Christianity was a sect of Judaism for over 100 years.
You learn Judaism and then you learn why you don't have the rain, and you know why the rain went away when Pentecost was outlawed along with the whole worship system of Jesus to make a religion claiming to have a gift from Jewish feasts they reject to even learn about. Now we wait on the second rain, it is a promised flood on the Atzeret of Sukkot. The coming of the Lord is as the rain, 2 comings with 2 purposes.
I came to the same conclusion as you about the holy spirit after believing I had it for 40 years, but at that time, I didn't know anything about Christianity allthough I had read the bible at least 200 times, probably more like 600 times.
The problem being is that I didn't know the religion of Jesus because it had always been shun, I didn't know what the pentecost actually was or what Shemini Atzeret was, because the knowledge of Jesus was shunned. There is no 30,000. Christian denominations, there is 30,000 religions claiming to be Christian.
Christianity was a sect of Judaism for over 100 years.
You learn Judaism and then you learn why you don't have the rain, and you know why the rain went away when Pentecost was outlawed along with the whole worship system of Jesus to make a religion claiming to have a gift from Jewish feasts they reject to even learn about. Now we wait on the second rain, it is a promised flood on the Atzeret of Sukkot. The coming of the Lord is as the rain, 2 comings with 2 purposes.
Which is why the Thief on the Cross could not possibly have been baptized.
I came to the same conclusion as you about the holy spirit after believing I had it for 40 years, but at that time, I didn't know anything about Christianity allthough I had read the bible at least 200 times, probably more like 600 times.
The problem being is that I didn't know the religion of Jesus because it had always been shun, I didn't know what the pentecost actually was or what Shemini Atzeret was, because the knowledge of Jesus was shunned. There is no 30,000. Christian denominations, there is 30,000 religions claiming to be Christian.
Christianity was a sect of Judaism for over 100 years.
You learn Judaism and then you learn why you don't have the rain, and you know why the rain went away when Pentecost was outlawed along with the whole worship system of Jesus to make a religion claiming to have a gift from Jewish feasts they reject to even learn about. Now we wait on the second rain, it is a promised flood on the Atzeret of Sukkot. The coming of the Lord is as the rain, 2 comings with 2 purposes.
We read a 2000 year old history in a just a few hours. We have to actually climb into it and imagine 1.0512e+9 minutes passing over a course of 2000 years to even begin to understand how christianity didn't just pop up when Jesus rose from the dead. It evolved over an incredibly long period of time as hundreds of thousands of people were tinkering with this aspect of it, twisting another aspect, tweaking yet another aspect, and turning around yet another aspect over all these billions of minutes until it evolved as we see it today. Only when we grasp this reality can we begin to comprehend how christianity is no different from an amoeba that turned into a human eons later. You wouldn't recognize a human if you looked at an amoeba. Likewise you wouldn't recognize christianity two thousands years ago.
We read a 2000 year old history in a just a few hours. We have to actually climb into it and imagine 1.0512e+9 minutes passing over a course of 2000 years to even begin to understand how christianity didn't just pop up when Jesus rose from the dead. It evolved over an incredibly long period of time as hundreds of thousands of people were tinkering with this aspect of it, twisting another aspect, tweaking yet another aspect, and turning around yet another aspect over all these billions of minutes until it evolved as we see it today. Only when we grasp this reality can we begin to comprehend how christianity is no different from an amoeba that turned into a human eons later. You wouldn't recognize a human if you looked at an amoeba. Likewise you wouldn't recognize christianity two thousands years ago.
You are so right Thrill, whatever Christianity was in the beginning, it doesn't look anything like that today.
It isn't the same religion, Christians aren't under the covenant of Messiah, the covenant is for Ephraim and Judah, these Gentiles today aren't Ephraim or Judah. Paul was of Ephraim and Paul explains this fact, the fact that he was not a Jew, but he lived as a Jew amongst Jews. Paul begins in Romans showing how his people died for unbelief, and Christians think Paul is speaking of Jews when he is speaking of the ten lost tribes of Ephraim. Paul explains the only way a Gentile can come under the covenant with Judah, Paul quotes Hosea and the betrothal offered by a Jew. A Gentile has to come as a submissive virgin to marry a Jew in order to be redeemed into the covenant with Judah, Gentiles come under the promise spoken to the ten lost tribes saying,'' Not my people, become the sons of the living God,'' Ephraim.''
Those first Gentiles converted to Judaism and they became co-heirs with Jews in the same religion, today's Christianity is just not in the same religion, they are not under the covenant Messiah brings for Ephraim and Judah because they wouldn't do as Ephraim must do.
Christians read a New Testament written about, and to Gentiles who converted to Judaism when this has nothing to do with them. Christians today, they insert themselves into the religion of the New Testament when in fact, their Christianity had not even evolved yet, their Christianity did not exist in the days of the New Testament, but since they don't see this, they think they must have the Holy spirit of Shavuot when they neither keep it of believe in it.
You can't claim a power from a feast day that you don't believe in, and yet we have 10's of millions of people claiming to have a power they don't have. If just one Christian had the power we see displayed in the New Testament, there wouldn't be any Atheists. If just one had the power of the Holy spirit, then by God, let them walk into a Children's cancer unit and do instead of talking.
It's hard for a person to follow truth he found over what he believed, there aren't a lot of people like you Thrill, I mean, I know you don't believe in God, but it says a lot about you when you have stuck your head up to realize what you were in was false.
What I was taught all my life were lies, same as you, I just switched religion, and you went your way, and that is from both of us calling bs.
Christianforums.com is a joke site run by athiests and sock puppets. No wonder many true Christians have been banned. The same crew owns many other 'Christian' forums on the net, with the express purpose of mocking true believers.
I'd search for a real forum, like realchristianforums.com
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