Guest Babylonian Dream Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 I'd say you have hope. Being independent minded is a strength in being a Christian. Happily ever ironic? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bdp Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 'jay' - try LISTENING instead of trying to paste your preconceived propaganda on us and why we don't buy the bullshit anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JayL Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 'jay' - try LISTENING instead of trying to paste your preconceived propaganda on us and why we don't buy the bullshit anymore. Actually that is a good suggestion. I should be more careful in reading posts. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Babylonian Dream Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 Actually that is a good suggestion. I should be more careful in reading posts. The best post you've made yet! +1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ConureDelSol Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 Sorry, I missed your point. So once you had a strong faith and then you gave it up. What was the motivation? I've already stated one of them. Here's a condensed list: 1) Realizing that the Bible wasn't what I thought it was (condensed from a book I could write about whats wrong with the Bible) 2) Having to face the fact that there is no evidence for God 3) I didn't really have a motivation to give it up. I struggled like hell not to give it up, my motivation was not wanting to go to hell and wanting to believe in an afterlife. If that was all - disappointed by the imperfections in the Bible and currently not seeing much evidence for God - I would have kept the faith mainly to avoid the hell ( just in case that hell is real even if it is only a minute possibility ). Most of us did keep our faith out of fear of Hell. It wasn't until we accepted that Hell is a fear tactic used by Christianity to keep its followers that we realized what bullshit it is and we could live without the fear of burning for eternity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JayL Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 Most of us did keep our faith out of fear of Hell. It wasn't until we accepted that Hell is a fear tactic used by Christianity to keep its followers that we realized what bullshit it is and we could live without the fear of burning for eternity. It is not a good fear tactic in Christian faith. The Bible teaches that the only thing that can keep you out of hell is not your good actions - but what Jesus has done on the cross, the Grace of God. And that has been accomplished already. All you have to do is to receive your forgiveness and your righteousness by faith. There is nothing more you have to do. Just in case the hell is real, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a great way to get out of the danger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcdaddy Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 The good ol get out of jail free card!!! Good thing Jesus landed on community chest!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JayL Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 The good ol get out of jail free card!!! Good thing Jesus landed on community chest!!! No, Jesus earned it - on the cross. The church is like the community chest, if you will. WE find the get out of jail card there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcdaddy Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 The good ol get out of jail free card!!! Good thing Jesus landed on community chest!!! No, Jesus earned it - on the cross. The church is like the community chest, if you will. WE find the get out of jail card there. You're a funny guy, you funny guy, you! *pinches your cheeks* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centauri Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 The Bible teaches that the only thing that can keep you out of hell is not your good actions - but what Jesus has done on the cross, the Grace of God. The Old Testament Bible teaches no such thing. And that has been accomplished already. All you have to do is to receive your forgiveness and your righteousness by faith. There is nothing more you have to do. The New Testament scripture indicates it's not that simplistic. You need to not only believe, you also need to repent, confess, maintain belief, be baptized, and do some works of charity. You must take certain affirmative actions to ensure your salvation. Those are works. Just in case the hell is real, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a great way to get out of the danger. Just in case Yahweh is real, the Gospel of Jesus Christ won't do a bit of good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paine Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 Oh Margee, turn your avatar back to the lady with the blond hair and lots of make-up. Im all confused as to who is writing! I'm a visual person.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 Well, my goal is to convince those millions of suffering people that they too can 'close their eyes' and live in 'alternate reality'. Then it will be all right for them as well ! How about you, Marge? Wouldn't you rather join us in seeing the reality of God who is love?? There it is in bold text! You believe escapism is salvation. Might as well shoot heroin and call it bliss. You're religion is false. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Margee Posted April 12, 2012 Moderator Share Posted April 12, 2012 Oh Margee, turn your avatar back to the lady with the blond hair and lots of make-up. Im all confused as to who is writing! I'm a visual person.... Paine, I need to go secret every now and again.....just remember the red lipstick and blue eye shadow!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 Even if God talked directly to you, you probably would not believe it. Why? Because it does not fit into your worldview. It was my worldview for over 30 years, yet God never spoke to me then either. So God doesn't speak if you believe, and you can't hear him if you don't believe. Why is it that a person must believe in God to be able to hear him? God created the Universe from nothing and can't speak? Yeah. Right. Your "extremely powerful" God is immensely weak. Doubting Thomas didn't believe. Jesus could convince him with physical evidence. Saul wasn't a believer, and Jesus showed himself. I'm doubting and in unbelief, let Jesus prove his existence to me... I've been waiting my whole life to it to happen, both as a Christian and as an Ex-Christian. So why doesn't it happen? I want God to prove himself to me. That was my last honest prayer as a Christian. And I'm still waiting years after. I don't want to believe because a book says so, or you say so, or blah-blah-blah minister says so. I want to believe after it being proven to me as a fact of reality, i.e. God himself prove his own existence to me. Why can't he? Why won't he? Don't pull that stupid shit of belief first before God can make you believe. That's stupid crap is on the same level as con artists and hoaxes. Give me solid and irrefutable proof, by GOD himself, no more, no less. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Valk0010 Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 V.I. Lenin created USSR and destroyed Russia as a country and culture - and is responsible for untold suffering and horror. Lenin didn't destroy actually all that much compared to a average run of the mill dictator. Alot of the slaughter in Russia during lenin being the head of the Soviet Union was caused by the czarist civil war, ww1, and 14 imperial powers invading russia at the same time to help support the white army. On another point, christianity has done alot of harm too, missionary work in tribal societies as well anticontraception legislation, bigotry against homosexuality, sexism. Its just harm on a more personal individual level. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Valk0010 Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 V.I. Lenin created USSR and destroyed Russia as a country and culture - and is responsible for untold suffering and horror. Just as our wonderful christian god created the whole world and did the same damn thing!! But unlike Lenin, God had a solution. The solution is Jesus Christ dying on the cross and creating a whole new reality. that always makes sense to me Jay..........god having to stoop to the measures of killing his own son.......I know, I know....you don't have to tell me......that shows how loving he was........ It all became OK when Jesus triumphantly resurrected! His followers' crushing sorrow turned into utter joy - the joy that no one could take away from them. Your despicable. And your delusional. Your god has caused me misery, fuck him and you. He also allowed things like this to happen Baniszewski, described by The Indianapolis Star as a "haggard, underweight asthmatic"[5] suffering from depression and the stress of several failed marriages, began taking her anger out on the Likens girls, beating them with paddles, after payments from their parents failed to arrive on time. Soon, Baniszewski focused her abuse on Sylvia, accusing her of stealing candy that she had bought from a grocery store, and humiliating her when she admitted that she had once had a boyfriend. Paula Baniszewski, who actually was pregnant at the time, kicked Likens in the genitals and accused her of being pregnant, although medical examination proved that Sylvia was not and could not have been.[6] Likens was later accused of spreading rumors through Arsenal Technical High School that Stephanie and Paula were prostitutes. That supposedly provoked Stephanie's boyfriend, Coy Hubbard, to physically attack Likens. Mrs. Baniszewski encouraged Hubbard and other neighborhood children to torment Likens, including, among other things, putting cigarettes out on her skin and forcing her to remove her clothes and insert a glass Coca-Cola bottle into her vagina on at least two occasions.[5] After beating Sylvia to force her to confess to stealing a gym suit from school which Baniszewski would not buy for her (and without which she was unable to attend gym class) Baniszewski kept her out of school and did not allow her to leave the house. When Likens urinated in her bed, she was locked in the cellar and forbidden to use the toilet. Later, she was forced to consume feces and urine. Shortly before Sylvia died, Baniszewski began to carve the words "I'm a prostitute and proud of it!" into Sylvia's stomach with a heated needle, although Richard Hobbs finished the carving when Baniszewski was unable to do so. Hobbs, with the help of 10-year old Shirley Baniszewski, also used a heated eye bolt to burn the number "3" into Sylvia's chest.[5] Likens attempted to escape a few days before her death after overhearing Baniszewski's plan to have her dumped in a wooded area nearby, but was caught by Baniszewski as she reached the front door. As punishment, she was tied in the basement and given only crackers to eat. On October 26, 1965, after multiple beatings, burnings, and scalding baths, she died of a brain hemorrhage, shock and malnutrition.[5] When Stephanie Baniszewski and Richard Hobbs realized that Sylvia was not breathing, Stephanie attempted to give Sylvia mouth-to-mouth resuscitation before realizing that it was hopeless and that Sylvia was dead.[7] That is the girl, who that quote talks about. NOTHING CAN MAKE UP FOR EVIL LIKE THAT, HAPPENING TO CHILDREN. Your a evil piece of shit if you believe that, ohh her suffering is now okay, because your god created a world, knowing what could happen and the suffering could cause and let it happen anyway. I know you don't believe god is all knowing, but no idiot would take this kind of risk. There is no redemption or parity for the suffering of a child. Experience alone makes this evil, nothing change can what has already been done. I have had a born again experience, I pursued god. Christianity left me with years of OCD over his doctrine. FUCK YOU JAYL. I wish there was a hell for people like you to go. For what its worth I borrow both the image and the quote from the wiki, so no fucking warning points for me. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Valk0010 Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 According to Jayl, once you start beliving it it, it starts to work therefore you have your reason to believe in it. That is nonreasoning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Babylonian Dream Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 I've got a question. 4 pages in and still it hasn't been answered. Other than pretending that the Bible is true, how do you start believing? How do you make a volutionary choice to believe? The concept is something I'm still having trouble understanding. Or are the Believers going to admit that they're just faking it? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest end3 Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 I've got a question. 4 pages in and still it hasn't been answered. Other than pretending that the Bible is true, how do you start believing? How do you make a volutionary choice to believe? The concept is something I'm still having trouble understanding. Or are the Believers going to admit that they're just faking it? Did you read my earlier post? Obedience is a good start when there is no understanding. Then success comes with obedience. Then your mind puts 1 and 1 together and makes the call.....unless you choose to ignore success. For example: Mom tells a 4 year old to wash their hands. The four year old doesn't understand why they should wash their hands until they are 14 years old. Then the 14 yo says, "wow, mom(God) was right....and I don't get the death shits either...bonus!" So start there with an open mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Valk0010 Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 I've got a question. 4 pages in and still it hasn't been answered. Other than pretending that the Bible is true, how do you start believing? How do you make a volutionary choice to believe? The concept is something I'm still having trouble understanding. Or are the Believers going to admit that they're just faking it? Did you read my earlier post? Obedience is a good start when there is no understanding. Then success comes with obedience. Then your mind puts 1 and 1 together and makes the call.....unless you choose to ignore success. For example: Mom tells a 4 year old to wash their hands. The four year old doesn't understand why they should wash their hands until they are 14 years old. Then the 14 yo says, "wow, mom(God) was right....and I don't get the death shits either...bonus!" So start there with an open mind. That is circular. Here is why, your starting with your conclusion. Authority is right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Babylonian Dream Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 Babylonian Dream,"I've got a question. 4 pages in and still it hasn't been answered. Other than pretending that the Bible is true, how do you start believing? How do you make a volutionary choice to believe? The concept is something I'm still having trouble understanding. Or are the Believers going to admit that they're just faking it?" Did you read my earlier post? Yeah, I read every single last one of them. I missed not even a word. None of it even addressed, much less answered my above question. Nor does this else you post: Obedience is a good start when there is no understanding. Then success comes with obedience. Then your mind puts 1 and 1 together and makes the call.....unless you choose to ignore success. Other than telling me to be a successful slave or successful serf in a dictatorship, by being obedient to my master, I don't quite get where you're going. (Actually, I do, but it still doesn't answer my post. Its a nonsense arguement that doesn't address my question, I've heard it before, and its come out of my mouth before as a christian. Its moronic.) For example: Mom tells a 4 year old to wash their hands. The four year old doesn't understand why they should wash their hands until they are 14 years old. Then the 14 yo says, "wow, mom(God) was right....and I don't get the death shits either...bonus!" So start there with an open mind. Really? I can see how that would be relevant to "why should I wash my hands?", but it answers not even part of what i asked. Before the obedience part, how do you go from wanting to obey, to actually doing what you are told (in this case, believing)? How do you "open your mind" to believing in something that seems so rediculous, to the point that you actually believe, without just completely utterly pretending to believe? I'm the one who is openminded, I'm asking you how I can have faith. Maybe I want to believe? Arguements by authority aren't reasons to believe, nor do they help you believe, btw. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Akheia Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 Maybe he's implying that if you just go through the motions long enough, be a good little child and behave, you'll start to believe? When I was at my lowest point in my marriage to an abusive preacher, I was told via books and utterly untrained "counselors" to do exactly that with regard to my husband. Just act loving, and I was assured that I'd come to feel love eventually. My skin crawls just thinking about that ghastly mindset. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeCoastie Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 I've got a question. 4 pages in and still it hasn't been answered. Other than pretending that the Bible is true, how do you start believing? How do you make a volutionary choice to believe? The concept is something I'm still having trouble understanding. Or are the Believers going to admit that they're just faking it? Did you read my earlier post? Obedience is a good start when there is no understanding. Then success comes with obedience. Then your mind puts 1 and 1 together and makes the call.....unless you choose to ignore success. For example: Mom tells a 4 year old to wash their hands. The four year old doesn't understand why they should wash their hands until they are 14 years old. Then the 14 yo says, "wow, mom(God) was right....and I don't get the death shits either...bonus!" So start there with an open mind. While there's a pragmatic purpose to hand washing, show me the pragmatism in following the Bible. Sure there is some good advice in there, but there is also horrible advice in it too. Also the good advice in the Bible isn't exclusive to the Bible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 The four year old doesn't understand why they should wash their hands until they are 14 years old. Then the 14 yo says, "wow, mom(God) was right....and I don't get the death shits either...bonus!" So start there with an open mind. Oh, I get it. God is female! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest end3 Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 Ok, let's do another......cause three out of four of you seem to have conceptual difficulties. If you walk into a place of employment, do you just walk over to your job I've got a question. 4 pages in and still it hasn't been answered. Other than pretending that the Bible is true, how do you start believing? How do you make a volutionary choice to believe? The concept is something I'm still having trouble understanding. Or are the Believers going to admit that they're just faking it? Did you read my earlier post? Obedience is a good start when there is no understanding. Then success comes with obedience. Then your mind puts 1 and 1 together and makes the call.....unless you choose to ignore success. For example: Mom tells a 4 year old to wash their hands. The four year old doesn't understand why they should wash their hands until they are 14 years old. Then the 14 yo says, "wow, mom(God) was right....and I don't get the death shits either...bonus!" So start there with an open mind. That is circular. Here is why, your starting with your conclusion. Authority is right. I approached Christianity from a "it's all wrong"..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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