Ken Ham's Opening Day at the Ark. #FAIL only 4000 show up. (sinned, Israelites)
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I am just curious why you don't balance that out with "God will have all mankind to be saved for Christ gave Himself a ransom for all (1 Timothy 2:4-6)?
Or why not also balance that out with due to what Christ did, all mankind will be made righteous according to Romans 5:18,19?
I am just curious why folks just concentrate on what they perceive to be bad stuff but never mention the good stuff?
Kind of like Ken Ham's ark. Atheists want to concentrate on all the bad concerning it rather than the good. Maybe it is a human trait?
Well, I guess because all of that would have had absolutely ZIP to do with my point, which was that the church used to "obtain" converts one way and now it's trying to "obtain" them another way (with this park)?
We have people that you admit are not practicing Christianity. You KNOW that....but you are going to blame the religion for it.
Convenient, huh?
How do you know what they actually thought?
Yet you have decided they weren't "real Christians."
IOW, you believe you not only have a window into their thoughts, but their souls and their souls' decisions.
No, it's not "convenient" for blaming a religion for being the basis of centuries of torture, by its own written, recorded, very detailed, at-the-time-proud admission. It's just fact. LOL. Come on now.
Well it's obviously because deep down, there is hatred and resentment against God so they focus completely on a story like Noah to justify that resentment.
Yeah, because it takes hatred and an ugly, ugly soul to be sad about a story of literally an entire earth worth of creatures being murdered, right down to infants, and animals that did not and could not, per definition, have "sinned" were the basis of the story true.
I sure do! To the first part. At least given the only information I have on the subject (which may not be the whole story or may not be true at all, but which is all I have, really): stories of what a person named Jesus is reported to have said and done. Assuming, though I can't know for sure, that those stories had validity, then no, I personally don't believe torturers practice what Jesus would have espoused. Certainly not.
Whether they were "real Christians," I beg to differ with you, as usual, on this subject; one who professes Christianity and feels in his heart that he is Christian and that Christ is his savior is, in my definition, a Christian. I'm not psychic and I'm not a god. I can't see into the past and into those men's hearts to know whether they were "godless," or "power hungry," or "not Christian." For all I know, they DEEPLY felt divinely inspired, and believed they were doing the correct thing.
I can't know. Can you? If so, how? Is it that you are psychic, or that you are God? If neither, you're just guessing. And hoping. I know you hurry to claim "s/he's not a Christian!" any time anything negative is said about Christianity, and I can't help that, and we will not agree, but you are free to feel this way about it. I will continue to feel the way I do about it. I know crying "they aren't real Christians" helps you distance yourself from unsavory practices in the name of Christianity and who am I to get in the way of that? Sometimes, life is unbearable, so we tell ourselves things to make it more bearable. We all do it.
OTOH, NONE of that changes one iota the fact that that was how they used to get "converts," and that now that option is gone, ergo different "measures" apparently must be taken, ergo, this "park" was created. Which was my point. It continues to be my point. HTH.
The cognitive disconnect in you is amazing. You recognize that these people were not practicing what the religion teaches, but you blame the religion anyway.
The cognitive disconnect in you is amazing. You recognize that these people were not practicing what the religion teaches, but you blame the religion anyway.
The cognitive disconnect in you is amazing. You recognize that these people were not practicing what the religion teaches, but you blame the religion anyway.
You seem to have a disconnect on this subject too, Viz. It doesn't matter if they are practicing your interpretation of the version you follow or not. What matters is that they THINK (Or Thought) they are (were) practicing the religion.
If your religion leaves it open to interpret it in all these different ways, it IS the religions fault. Whether you see that or not.
Last edited by southernbored; 07-21-2016 at 02:15 PM..
The cognitive disconnect in you is amazing. You recognize that these people were not practicing what the religion teaches, but you blame the religion anyway.
Actually, they WERE practicing much of what the OT expressly teaches. Do you know anything about history, Viz? Or about the Bible? You'll need to know a bit of each in order to stay with this line of conversation.
The OT didn't explicitly give information on how, say, to not suffer a witch to live, and it didn't quite give explicit torture instructions (though it expressly condoned it in certain circumstances, including victors rejoicing in the suffering of the fallen or cutting off penis sections of the defeated in order to prove a point or slashing the uteri of living, breathing, fully feeling pregnant women so they could watch the fetus spill out even as they stood dying in pain), BUT OTOH the Bible also doesn't give explicit instructions on how your Sunday sermon should be structured...did you take it upon yourself to "interpret" that and bring it into your own century and to your own people? So too did the religious ruling authority of various centuries throughout the ages. Does this mean you're not practicing what the religion teaches? The Bible doesn't give instructions on how to go door-to-door and hand out pamphlets (indeed, it doesn't mention pamphlets OR doors in this regard, does it?). Does that mean people are spreading the Good News wrong? The Bible doesn't give instructions to go on the internet and try to preach. Does that mean you're not practicing what the religion teaches? Or does it mean you interpret the teachings...just like, say, Torquemada did?
Re: "disconnect": I think you're the one with the disconnect, if you assume you can rewrite the Bible to include the parts of the OT you want to believe still stand, and eliminate the ones you personally don't find savory, unless you live as Jew (just like Jesus did, BTW), hand your daughter to strangers to be raped, and cause miscarriages but go ahead and pay a fine to make up for it. Otherwise, YOU have a disconnect: practice what the Bible teaches...except...don't...except...do. Now THAT'S some fancy mental tap-dancing. Or, wait, no: that's all part of the "new covenant"...as you interpret that.
Actually, they WERE practicing much of what the OT expressly teaches.
There is no OT story of forcing belief by the sword. In any event, no Christian is commanded to kill in the name of God. So again...not even a nice try, but you're wrong.
There is no OT story of forcing belief by the sword. In any event, no Christian is commanded to kill in the name of God. So again...not even a nice try, but you're wrong.
Try again.
And generally, torturers did not use swords. What's all that about interpretation again? Seems like although you're against it for other people (in this case, torturers), you're a champion of it for your own purposes. The Bible does instruct that the word be spread. It in other places highly condones physical cruelty in very inventive ways. Remember that thing about interpretation - you know, the same thing you do when you're at your pulpit? (Or even the fact that you have one?)
Yet again, I'm not wrong.
I keep not being wrong.
You keep being wrong.
At least there's some consistency here.
As for trying again, first of all, I'm not "trying" to do anything but answer your questions (and not trying to giggle about your semantics...but that part's hard), but then again, really nobody has to "try" to see what Christianity has done in the past, and how it's gone from torture to just manipulation (as you're doing now), but it's the same M.O.: Get people to be Christian...no matter what that takes. Again, consistency. We have that around here at least.
And generally, torturers did not use swords. What's all that about interpretation again? Seems like although you're against it for other people (in this case, torturers), you're a champion of it for your own purposes. The Bible does instruct that the word be spread. It in other places highly condones physical cruelty in very inventive ways. Remember that thing about interpretation - you know, the same thing you do when you're at your pulpit? (Or even the fact that you have one?)
Yet again, I'm not wrong.
I keep not being wrong.
You keep being wrong.
At least there's some consistency here.
As for trying again, first of all, I'm not "trying" to do anything but answer your questions (and not trying to giggle about your semantics...but that part's hard), but then again, really nobody has to "try" to see what Christianity has done in the past, and how it's gone from torture to just manipulation (as you're doing now), but it's the same M.O.: Get people to be Christian...no matter what that takes. Again, consistency. We have that around here at least.
Can you show me one quote from the OT where God commanded to go convert anyone by threats of death or or torture?
And why do you believe that any commands of violence in the OT that were given to a very specific group of people are binding on a Christian when Romans 10:4 states that Jesus is the end of the Law?
You need to ansewer that question if you're going to be intellectually honest while blaming Christians. You've already said you know that Chrsitianity doesn't teach violence, but you continue to blame the religion.
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I will continue to feel the way I do about it. I know crying "they aren't real Christians" helps you distance yourself from unsavory practices in the name of Christianity and who am I to get in the way of that? Sometimes, life is unbearable, so we tell ourselves things to make it more bearable. We all do it.
Seems like although you're against it for other people (in this case, torturers), you're a champion of it for your own purposes. The Bible does instruct that the word be spread. It in other places highly condones physical cruelty in very inventive ways. Remember that thing about interpretation - you know, the same thing you do when you're at your pulpit? (Or even the fact that you have one?)