Amelia E

I'd also add, that imo, churches are some of the biggest welfare mooches out there. They have the advantages of all of the services of our society, without paying a dime of their share of the cost.

Samantha Fuller

I probably should give my testimony and a hint of where my spiritual journey is going.

I am a long time believer in Christ. For 15 years i worked as an custodian at a "Spirit Filled" Assembly Of God church. Over time i became somewhat disillusioned and a about 1 1/2 years ago i quit. I left on good terms giving about a months notice and still attend a different closer church today.

I quit because i realized that i would not grow much spiritually or intellectually working full time at a church. I also realized that therefore it was unlikely that i would learn to "Turn the world upside down" as we were superpose to do.

I have 3 main gripes with The Church and by Church i mean the organizations of all Protestant and Catholic Cristian denominations.

1st - Most people are lazy and the Church aids and enables intellectual laziness. This thread is an extreme example of the inane theological arguments that result.

2ond - The Church aids and enables spiritual laziness. To various degrees they preach love your neighbor and "you shall known by the love you show one another". However they set an very poor example, even most of the better ones settle for and even brag about very unimpressive performance.


3rd - Even the "Spirit filled Holly Ghost believing A.O.G. Church is afraid to own miracles. This needs some explaining. The AOG is not afraid if an occasional miracle done to endorse their preaching or even some done as an act of a sovereign Lord.

What they are afraid of, or will not work for is being given the gift to work miracles. Even though Jesus commands to go forth and do these things in my name. So instead they pray if it be thy will, or Jesus please heal this person for us.

There are very good reasons for being afraid of such a gift. With such great power comes great responsibility.

Also if you do so much as a single Healing as a god given gift then you are accused every time you pray for someone and they are not healed, regardless of the circumstances, or the limits of your gift. Not only that you are seen as accusing any believer who is sick for any reason of being impious. And if someone decides to forgo chemotherapy or any other medical therapy they do not believe effective and then ask you to pray for them, you are accused of bloody murder. The church dose nothing to prepare its disciples for such things.

In short i do not believe accepting Jesus as lord and savior is anywhere near the complete gospel, nor the "love your neighbor as your self " though both are vital, miracles are also a vital, they are the secret sauce that makes the love part work and the reason to call Jesus Lord.

This post contains more of my spiritual journey.

Wrong Weatherwax

__________________
An education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on. -Terry Pratchett

Loraan Fierrens

People like Frodo really puzzle me. It's like they're from a different planet or a parallel dimension where the words they are using mean something completely different from the meaning everyone else uses. It's as if when he says "evolution," he means what we would mean in saying "toothbrush." The amount of evidence one has to ignore or explain away to get at a young Earth model of natural history is just staggeringly ridiculous and involves pretty much every science: astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology, physics. Heck, for all I know, you have to ignore central laws in cosmetology too.

To have implied that the theory of evolution hasn't gone through rigorous analysis and peer review is just stunning. The most charitable interpretation I can make is that he hasn't bothered to read anything on the actual history of the development of the theory in the first place. Apart from that, the only interpretations I can make about Frodo are that he is either: a troll, profoundly deluded, or a space alien struggling with English.

Well, maybe the alien interpretation is the most charitable. If so, we should do a reset and maybe send him a lexicon. If so, let's start with the basics... common concepts we can build on.

Hey Frodo:

. 1
.. 2
... 3
.... 4
..... 5
...... 6
....... 7
........ 8
........ 9
.......... 10

1 2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19

1 + 0 = 1
1 + 1 = 2
1 + 2 = 3
1 + 3 = 4

Let's see what we get back from Planet X, shall we?

Wrong Weatherwax

My father-in-law is one of these. Doesn't believe in gods, doesn't believe in evolution. He's a "if I can't see it happening then I don't care nor will I believe it."

Of course, he doesn't believe in god because he was raised in a fundamentalist environment where his parent flatly refused birth control, most medical care, or any intervention that wasn't divine. After almost starving to death as a child (trying to ensure his younger sibling ate) he decided that the rhetoric his parents espoused about a loving god was only wishful thinking and way to keep from taking responsibility for their own lives.

Tracer Graves

Well, frodo is on page 112, only 7 pages away from this one:

I really hope he tries to respond. If he doesn't, then he'll as much as conceded defeat.

__________________

Loraan Fierrens

Wait... Wait... Joseph had two daddies? There was gay marriage in the holy land back then? Mind... blown!

detrius

Does that mean you're still giving God credit for all the good stuff that happens?

Isn't that a double-standard?

If you can look at a sunrise and praise God, you should also be able to look at a child dieing from hunger and say "God is cruel", everything else just takes credit away from the natural world and bestows it upon the supernatural for no good reason.

That's basically my main beef with rapture-ready Christians like our Frodo here: they've driven this approach to an extreme where they suck all the good out of this world and place all their bets on an afterlife. In their eyes, this world is a bleak, desolate place headed towards annihilation, all they see is decay and corruption. It's an utterly nihilistic mindset and it breaks my heart every time I see them brainwash children into accepting that dogma.

So, if God is above criticism, then you shouldn't thank him for anything either - but that brings up the question: what's the point of such a god?

__________________

Tracer Graves

Twisted Pharaoh

I repost my answer to eku since frodo's wave of posts has flooded the thread at the same time:

OK let's go. Who did this? God? God has 75645646456456456 universes and 97879978979879878979879878979798798 galaxies to handle, do you think God really did this just to piss you?

So, who did this? What if God has an envoy to watch upon us? What if that envoy was Earth herself? Would that make more sense after all the pollution, the nuclear tests, the resources ruining, the species destroyed? If you were Earth and you were a living being would you feel threatened?
ETA:
http://www2.unipr.it/~deyoung/I_Chin...lation.html#10

eku Zhong

how about this one.. its just as logical as yours..

what if god was a common toad... and it was winter in heaven and he was hibernating when this happened?

__________________
Culprit Blog * Culprit Store

Twisted Pharaoh

Tell me that again next tsunami. If humankind doesn't want to listen Earth can as well get rid of it.

Aliselia Aeon

__________________
"Push 100cc of Social Skills, stat!" ~Casey Pelous

eku Zhong

youre slightly fucked in the head you know..

Twisted Pharaoh

You didn't answer my question, if you were Earth and you had a brain, would you feel threatened?

Nibb Tardis

Why worship God if he doesn't have time to bother and it's one of his envoys who is pulling all the strings? In that case, you might as well just worship the envoy, or Gaia, or Mother Nature if that's what your theory boils down to...

In fact, you're just making this stuff up as you go so that it suits your personal religious choice. This is perfectly ok if it makes you feel good. After all, inventing comforting mythologies to explain a discomforting reality is what religion is all about. Just don't expect others to embrace it.

Twisted Pharaoh

Same question for you, if you were Earth would you feel threatened?

eku Zhong

does earth have a brain?
if so .. provide proof and i will answer your question.

otherwise youre just arguing like a 3 year old..

mommy mommy a purple winged monster came in through the window ate all the cookies and broke your vase then forced me to pee in my pants by shooting green ice lazers at me.

Nibb Tardis

Do you have any evidence, or even a vague clue, that Earth has a brain?

You don't need to invent a hypothetical Gaia to explain natural disasters or climate change. Cause and consequence, chemistry and physics are perfectly sufficient.

Aliselia Aeon

Needed to post this. Yeah, I think it was posted before, but I'm not going hunting for it.

Twisted Pharaoh

That's admitting that your answer is yes.

yure4u Sosa

dont tell me did you watched avatar movie again?

Twisted Pharaoh

Why should I answer your questions when you don't answer mine?

Nibb Tardis

Because the burden of proof is on the person who makes the claim.

First, rationalize <crazy hypothesis> and it might be worth considering your question.

eku Zhong

no...
you might be able to make up pretty stories about a spherical mass of rock and assorted wotsits.. and believe them because you want to..

but you cant go making up shit about what other people think or believe.. or go putting words into their mouths..

you can believe whatever you want about the earth being some mystical being.. or that toads control space traffic.. or that some old dude is watching you from the clouds when you take a dump...

just dont pretend that your beliefs are facts.. and dont expect anyone with half a brain to accept your contradicting, nonsensical arguments....