Seasoned

I am the type of person that does not care what you believe in or not believe in. Everyone is an individual and is entitled to their own thoughts. I know people that believe in various things, even the religions considered to be "out there" and cult like.

Does someone's beliefs make me respect or disrespect them on that alone? No. It is when someone tries to preach and shove their religion onto me is when I get offended.

For example, I suspected I was pregnant. I was short on money so chose to visit a local clinic for a free test to be 97% - 99% sure before I went the route of dropping the little money I had on doctors apts, etc. Little did I know that this clinic was funded by a church. Nothing in the name or outside signage suggested this, and I did not think about doing an internet search first. I was forced to sit through being preached at about original sin and how man must make up for this sin, and was given a bible before they would give me the test results. They even have a program that you earn points by attending church and memorizing bible passages. You can then use these points to get free baby items from clothes, diapers and formula. All I wanted was the test results so I sat there nodding my head keeping my opinions to myself. It felt like they were taking advantage of me because I was in a rough spot at the time and was luring me to their side by offering free stuff (hey! If you act now, not only will you get into heaven but look at the free stuff you can also get!). I chose to leave out the religion this clinic is affiliated with so no one would think I was singling out, but I imagine the same would have applied if it were any religious funded clinic.

Before I decided I was atheist, I explored numerous religions. None of them made sense and seemed like I was reading a best selling fiction book.

My aunt has become deeply religious the past few years. When my uncle lost his job and things were getting rough she believed that all she needed was a fork and a plate. This was all she needed as other Christians would welcome her and her family into their homes and feed them, providing the basics for survival. Did I discuss how I felt how crazy this was, especially in modern day America? No, because I respect her faith.

I do not like the idea that I have to pay and repent for a sin made by "ancestors" eons ago when I never knew these people or had any influence over their decision. With this idea, every time someone somewhere in the world sins, I have to pay for it? That is a lot of repenting.

Just my two cents

Tracer Graves

Do not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Or is that another commandment that doesn't matter anymore?

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Bard Jameson

This makes me picture Jesus in a wife-beater t-shirt, holding me against the wall by my throat, punching my face bloody and screaming "LOVE ME, BITCH!"

You need to hang around with better people.

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Tracer Graves

You are an arrogant PoS.

Nibb Tardis

Let me try.

Because he was a political agitator.

Because they belonged to the same group of political agitators.

They formed a movement that was as a threat to the local political and religious authorities of the time.

Casey Pelous

LOL!

Wait. WUT?????????

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"I am not more than a lossy Human being, and think that we all are equals..." - Wasted Engineer

"Casey, I've already established that you have no idea what you are talking about." - Perphides

Kara Spengler

Oh, I know. I am sure he would come up with some rationalization for that though. Now if they looked like the Overlords ...

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Tracer Graves

All you're proving with this line is that God is a sadistic jerk. He created this world and the hell that he condemns people to. No "loving" God would do such a thing unless you re-write the meaning of Love.

Seyla Warden

You've never run full-speed at a column at the train station and passed right through it?

I should go check and see how many head injuries among children there were immediately after that first movie came out...

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Nibb Tardis

But he does that all the time in the Bible, with all that testing faith and stuff.

Seyla Warden

"Jesus? Yeah, we've heard of him. He was the lead engineer in the terraforming expedition to your little 'Sol' system. Guy was a drunk and kind of a hack, wasn't he GrZunkPlor'rk?"

Tracer Graves

Wow, really? This is theology 101 stuff here. All mankind shares in the Sin of Adam and Eve (doctrine of original Sin anyone), and if that weren't the case, you wouldn't need Jesus to save you.

You really are just a Jesusbot. Kind of scary how a set of memes can take over your entire life without you even understanding them.

Nibb Tardis

Seyla Warden

frodo's problem is that he's not interested in actually being part of this community, as evidenced by him not having a single post anywhere but in this thread (at least, the last time I checked). He simply registered and began preaching.

frodo, do you simply barge into other people's homes and tell them they're going to hell unless they convert? Because that's, metaphorically, what you are doing here.

I've pissed off a number of other posters in my time here. I've made friends, then lost them. You've done none of that. You (apparently) have no interest in that. You are simply here to preach at us. Is it any wonder you aren't being welcomed with open arms?

Tracer Graves

I've already answered, oh ye of little reading comprehension.

First off, we don't actually know that Jesus was crucified. The bible says so, but you have yet to prove that the bible is true.

The Romans had no need to execute him based on his violations of Jewish Law and unless declaring himself King was the reason, they didn't have enough on him to execute.

That said, if he was executed, it was because Roman leaders who killed off somebody disrupting their society. Same goes for John the Baptist and his disciples. Political upstarts getting executed does little to prove of anything, so I'm not so sure why you're so stuck on this line of questioning.

Seyla Warden

You know he's just going to reply to this (if he doesn't just skip it) with some variation of "Well the government says we went to the moon but I don't see no moon cheese."

Ann Launay

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Kara Spengler

But, but, Frodo claims it is true because his deity says it is. Of course then he claims that his deity exists because that book says so. He somehow fails to grasp the inherent problem.

Seyla Warden

Page 2:

NO

(Apologies to non-weird Christians, the joke had to be made)

Baltha

No doubt the hobbit will once again tell us that this was only intended for the disciples themselves and that he does not have to follow the words of Jesus.

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Maggie

Don't feel bad Nibb's. There are a lot of us that he is ignoring. He seems to be focusing his comments on a select few posters. Seems that nether of us are special enough to be in that club.

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Cindy Claveau

Out of curiousity, I went digging and found this. I cannot vouch for its accuracy but at least an attempt was made at actual math:

How Many People Have Ever Lived on Earth? - Population Reference Bureau

And of that 6.9 billion (or 6.5%) total today, only a bit over 2.1 billion are Christians or roughly 30% of today's population. Even if you're generous and think that 30% of people since 1AD have been Christian (more likely far less given the huge population spikes around 1AD to 1200 AD, before Christianity had finished exterminating the competition), what Frodo and his cruel, asshole god are saying is that he's willing to create 107 billion lives and trash about 80 billion of them for not sucking up.

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"As long as there’s one person on earth who remembers you, it isn’t over." - Oscar Hammerstein

Nibb Tardis

And as I said earlier, many of those could not even have sucked up if they wanted to, because Christianity didn't exist in their time or on their continent.

One of the (many) problems with Frodo's distorted view of reality is that it is totally egocentrical and completely ignores the World beyond the borders of the United States or that stuff existed before the their time.

Arkady Arkright

Stolen from Reddit :- The parallel that turned me away from Christianity - Imgur

Eris

Let's flip that around, who is God willing to throw into Hell and the lake of fire?

Everyone. Simply for being human.

Question to the audience:

How many of you are willing to throw anyone into Hell? Even if they didn't ask you not to. Think about it, would you subject another human being to infinite punishment for their finite crimes.

Now, tell me how loving God is again.