(March 15, 2014 at 2:48 pm)Deidre32 Wrote: I agree with Napoleon, discipulus. Not because I don't believe as you do anymore, but rather you don't seem to really be ''listening'' to what people are addressing here, unless it supports your ideas. Granted most of us here are on opposite sides of the fence to you, but you seem to just drone on and on about Jesus this and that, and think that's an actual answer. You give a lot of non-answers, and don't seem interested in a genuine exchange of ideas. Unfortunately, you can agree or not, religion breeds a rigidness of views. The religious person views everything through the lens of his/her 'holy' book, and that's it. Meanwhie, your holy book is basically a composite bunch of stories of the biggest hypocrites in history.

But, such is life in religion. You are like on auto pilot, chanting your book's 'rules' and such to us all here, as if you are the authority, simply because you buy that bunk.

People have been living productive, healthy unselfish lives, without Christianity...long before it even came onto the scene. And the person who was responsible for a lot of what you are reading in your beloved book, was Constantine. That is verifiable history.

You are to judge a tree by the fruit it bears Deidre. You judge a Christian by the fruit they bear.

If someone says they love God and hates their brother then they are a liar, for how can they say they love God whom they have not seen and yet hate their brother who they do see.

Deidre, you have been judging Christianity by looking at the lives of people who live contrary to its teachings. You should not do this. It seems to me you are desperately trying to stockpile reasons why you should not believe.

Rather, what you should do is judge Christianity by looking at the lives of those who do seek to imitate Christ and love their neighbor as they love themselves.

You seem to be under the impression that Christianity is a tremendous evil in the world but I challenge you to a debate to defend that view.

Why judge a worldview by its abuse?

Why not judge it by looking at the fruit produced by them that seek to follow its precepts?

(March 15, 2014 at 2:39 pm)discipulus Wrote: It all comes down to this simple question: Who is Jesus?

How you answer that will determine your eternal destiny.

Why?

Quote:But see, a proud person cannot come to Christ. One must be humble in approaching God, not arrogant, not proud.

Says the person who thinks he has a personal relationship with God.

Let's really take that in.

God created hundreds of billions of galaxies some 13.5 billion years ago, of which humans have only been around for about 100 K years, and you think God is aware of you, watching you and wants a personal relationship with you?

You are an insignificant mortal who lived on a tiny pale blue dot in the vast cosmos who may be fortunate enough to live for 100 years, a tiny fraction of the time humans have been around. You who are just one of 6 billion that are currently alive today, to say nothing of life everywhere else. Really? You're that important to command the attention of the Creator?

The Creator desires a relationship with you? The Creator wants to save you? The Creator can be made to feel jealous by you (Exodus 20:5)? The Creator loves you? Your praise can please the Creator? Your sins can make the Creator angry? The Creator is going to give you a mansion in Heaven? You're just so important to the Creator?

Which one of us has a problem with pride and arrogance?

I have his posts to refer people to. This thread hasn't been a complete failure. I thought saying christ-insanity would keep christians out.. guess not.

I don't think a deist god would considers us insignificant. If he exists, so does heaven, right? What if we are just some experiment? Oh well, at least there's no hell.

(March 15, 2014 at 2:53 pm)discipulus Wrote:

(March 15, 2014 at 2:48 pm)Deidre32 Wrote: I agree with Napoleon, discipulus. Not because I don't believe as you do anymore, but rather you don't seem to really be ''listening'' to what people are addressing here, unless it supports your ideas. Granted most of us here are on opposite sides of the fence to you, but you seem to just drone on and on about Jesus this and that, and think that's an actual answer. You give a lot of non-answers, and don't seem interested in a genuine exchange of ideas. Unfortunately, you can agree or not, religion breeds a rigidness of views. The religious person views everything through the lens of his/her 'holy' book, and that's it. Meanwhie, your holy book is basically a composite bunch of stories of the biggest hypocrites in history.

But, such is life in religion. You are like on auto pilot, chanting your book's 'rules' and such to us all here, as if you are the authority, simply because you buy that bunk.

People have been living productive, healthy unselfish lives, without Christianity...long before it even came onto the scene. And the person who was responsible for a lot of what you are reading in your beloved book, was Constantine. That is verifiable history.

You judge a tree by the fruit it bears Deidre. You judge a Christian by the fruit they bear.

If someone says they love God and hates their brother then they are a liar, for how can they say they love God whom they have not seen and yet hate their brother who they do see.

Deidre, you have been judging Christianity by looking at the lives of people who live contrary to its teachings. You should not do this. It seems to me you are desperately trying to stockpile reasons why you should not believe.

Rather, what you should do is judge Christianity by looking at the lives of those who do seek to imitate Christ and love their neighbor as they love themselves.

You seem to be under the impression that Christianity is a tremendous evil in the world but I challenge you to a debate to defend that view.

Why judge a worldview by its abuse?

Why not judge it by looking at the fruit produced by them that seek to follow its precepts?

Oh, I do discern people's character by both things...all of their actions. I'm no better than the next person, but I try to live my life in doing well by and for others. That said, I do believe and know good people who think that their good deeds are only accomplished through their faith beliefs. I've asked one of my Christian friends recently...so if you stopped believing in Jesus as your Savior, you would cease to do good things?

*deer in headlights look* Then...'No, dee, I don't think THAT.'

So, why assume that people aren't inherently good? Why assume they are inherently bad, and in need of a Leader? A Messiah? And that without that Messiah, they'd live lives of chaos and destruction?

That's more of what I'm saying. That's why what you're driving at discipulus, is really little more than a house of cards.

(March 15, 2014 at 2:39 pm)discipulus Wrote: People are entitled to respect because you would want respect. Christians who picket funerals do not have respect for the dead. You should respect such people because you would want respect.

Respect is given when you can demonstrate you deserve respect. It's not (for me at least) an automatic thing. That doesn't mean I go up to people and be a dick for the sake of it, but if they give me reason to then I will absolutely question them and their actions/views. Picketing a funeral is just one example of many that does not deserve respect.

Quote:I did not say you had to agree with their actions. I disagree with them personally. But I do not stoop so low as to be like them and mock and ridicule people and scorn and disrespect them.

Picketing a funeral is not the same as ridicule. What planet are you living on where picketing a funeral is the same as calling people who do so dicks. Get a clue. Seriously.

Quote:I am encouraged to be the salt and light of the earth. How can I stand apart from the hate and bitterness and evil in the world if I run right along with the crowd and act as they do?

Again, calling someone out for committing abhorrent acts is not 'stooping to their level'. It's called criticism.


Can you also answer these points that you conveniently ignored:

(March 15, 2014 at 11:16 am)Napoléon Wrote: ...

Mockery and criticism of certain actions are important and constructive in many instances. It can highlight things that are wrong with society, encourage people to speak up and speak freely.

...

FYI there is a difference between mockery and hate. Criticism != hate.

(March 15, 2014 at 2:53 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote: Why?

Because there is no other name under heaven given unto men by which a man can be saved other than the name of Jesus Christ.

(March 15, 2014 at 2:53 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote: Says the person who thinks he has a personal relationship with God.

You err. I do not think, I know.

(March 15, 2014 at 2:53 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote: Let's really take that in.

God created hundreds of billions of galaxies some 13.5 billion years ago, of which humans have only been around for about 100 K years, and you think God is aware of you, watching you and wants a personal relationship with you?

Of course.

(March 15, 2014 at 2:53 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote: You are an insignificant mortal who lived on a tiny pale blue dot in the vast cosmos who may be fortunate enough to live for 100 years, a tiny fraction of the time humans have been around. You who are just one of 6 billion that are currently alive today, to say nothing of life everywhere else.

This is metaphysical naturalism in a nutshell.

(March 15, 2014 at 2:53 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote: Really? You're that important to command the attention of the Creator?

Yes sir!

(March 15, 2014 at 2:53 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote: The Creator desires a relationship with you? The Creator wants to save you? The Creator can be made to feel jealous by you (Exodus 20:5)? The Creator loves you? Your praise can please the Creator? Your sins can make the Creator angry? The Creator is going to give you a mansion in Heaven? You're just so important to the Creator?

Yes. Why do you think any of this unreasonable?

(March 15, 2014 at 2:53 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote: Which one of us has a problem with pride and arrogance?

I think you do. I think you are arrogant and full of pride because you think you do not need Christ to save you from your hopeless state.

---

(March 15, 2014 at 2:59 pm)Napoléon Wrote:

(March 15, 2014 at 2:39 pm)discipulus Wrote: People are entitled to respect because you would want respect. Christians who picket funerals do not have respect for the dead. You should respect such people because you would want respect.

Respect is given when you can demonstrate you deserve respect. It's not (for me at least) an automatic thing. That doesn't mean I go up to people and be a dick for the sake of it, but if they give me reason to then I will absolutely question them and their actions/views. Picketing a funeral is just one example of many that does not deserve respect.

Quote:I did not say you had to agree with their actions. I disagree with them personally. But I do not stoop so low as to be like them and mock and ridicule people and scorn and disrespect them.

Picketing a funeral is not the same as ridicule. What planet are you living on where picketing a funeral is the same as calling people who do so dicks. Get a clue. Seriously.

Quote:I am encouraged to be the salt and light of the earth. How can I stand apart from the hate and bitterness and evil in the world if I run right along with the crowd and act as they do?

Again, calling someone out for committing abhorrent acts is not 'stooping to their level'. It's called criticism.


Can you also answer these points that you conveniently ignored:

(March 15, 2014 at 11:16 am)Napoléon Wrote: ...

Mockery and criticism of certain actions are important and constructive in many instances. It can highlight things that are wrong with society, encourage people to speak up and speak freely.

...

FYI there is a difference between mockery and hate. Criticism != hate.

Mockery is evil however you justify it. Constructive criticism is often times helpful. But you can criticize someone in a disrespectful manner which is never justifiable.

You seem to be thinking that I am saying we should always respect a person's views. I have never said that we have to always respect a person's views. What I have said is the we are to respect THE PERSON. If in the course of criticizing someone's views you stoop so low as to disrespect the PERSON, you have erred and are not acting in love.

(March 15, 2014 at 12:05 pm)discipulus Wrote: You justify your own hatred and mockery and bitterness in the same manner that those who you mock justify theirs.

Look at you, ascribing emotions to me! That's adorable!

Hatred? Bitterness? Nah, man. I don't really have the mental energy to spare in my day to day to spin up emotions that virulent. Dislike? Sure! Mockery? Why not! But maybe next time you could ask me the way I feel, rather than just assuming you know.

Not that I think you were assuming anything. No, I think you're following a script, here; you're preaching, not thinking. It's like assuming, just over the entirety of... everything.

Quote:If they earn contempt by doing what they do then by the same token you earn contempt yourself for you do the very same things they do.

Except you don't really know what I do, do you?

I would submit to you that sitting here and deconstructing arguments is much kinder than, as the example we're using, interrupting people in their grieving at a funeral, wouldn't you? No matter the level of sass, I'm trying to present an argument and possibly change minds, and unlike picketers, I'm not having to sacrifice anyone else's feelings to do so.

I know you're on the binary equivocation train, where there's only two modes and no shades of gray, but could you at least attempt to see some contextual nuance, if you can take a break from your didactic rigidity?

......

---

(March 15, 2014 at 2:57 pm)Deidre32 Wrote:

(March 15, 2014 at 2:53 pm)discipulus Wrote: You judge a tree by the fruit it bears Deidre. You judge a Christian by the fruit they bear.

If someone says they love God and hates their brother then they are a liar, for how can they say they love God whom they have not seen and yet hate their brother who they do see.

Deidre, you have been judging Christianity by looking at the lives of people who live contrary to its teachings. You should not do this. It seems to me you are desperately trying to stockpile reasons why you should not believe.

Rather, what you should do is judge Christianity by looking at the lives of those who do seek to imitate Christ and love their neighbor as they love themselves.

You seem to be under the impression that Christianity is a tremendous evil in the world but I challenge you to a debate to defend that view.

Why judge a worldview by its abuse?

Why not judge it by looking at the fruit produced by them that seek to follow its precepts?

Oh, I do discern people's character by both things...all of their actions. I'm no better than the next person, but I try to live my life in doing well by and for others. That said, I do believe and know good people who think that their good deeds are only accomplished through their faith beliefs. I've asked one of my Christian friends recently...so if you stopped believing in Jesus as your Savior, you would cease to do good things?

*deer in headlights look* Then...'No, dee, I don't think THAT.'

So, why assume that people aren't inherently good? Why assume they are inherently bad, and in need of a Leader? A Messiah? And that without that Messiah, they'd live lives of chaos and destruction?

That's more of what I'm saying. That's why what you're driving at discipulus, is really little more than a house of cards.

Have you not looked at the news recently? Have you not picked up a newspaper?

Have you not observed little children on a playground? How they need not be taught how to be selfish and little bullies? How they have to be taught continuously what it is to share and be kind?

People are not inherently good, but are inherently selfish, self-centered, and egotistical. The behavior of little children demonstrates this. Not to mention the millions of evils committed in the world everyday by adults against adults and against children.

Would you like me to send you some videos of people having their heads cut off while being video-tapped because they had told police of certain activities of drug dealers, or videos of men stabbing and shooting their ex-wives because of hatred, jealousy and bitterness?

I have been in the military Deidre, I have seen how people treat one another, from the east to the west have I traveled, and I can promise you that everywhere I have gone, the story is the same. The evil that men are capable of, if you were to witness it first hand, would cause you to to be forever rid of the naive idea that men are inherently good.

You are living in utter denial if you sit there and think people are "inherently good".

That is about the farthest thing from the truth that I know of.

---

(March 15, 2014 at 3:07 pm)Esquilax Wrote:

(March 15, 2014 at 12:05 pm)discipulus Wrote: You justify your own hatred and mockery and bitterness in the same manner that those who you mock justify theirs.

Look at you, ascribing emotions to me! That's adorable!

Hatred? Bitterness? Nah, man. I don't really have the mental energy to spare in my day to day to spin up emotions that virulent. Dislike? Sure! Mockery? Why not! But maybe next time you could ask me the way I feel, rather than just assuming you know.

Not that I think you were assuming anything. No, I think you're following a script, here; you're preaching, not thinking. It's like assuming, just over the entirety of... everything.

Quote:If they earn contempt by doing what they do then by the same token you earn contempt yourself for you do the very same things they do.

Except you don't really know what I do, do you?

I would submit to you that sitting here and deconstructing arguments is much kinder than, as the example we're using, interrupting people in their grieving at a funeral, wouldn't you? No matter the level of sass, I'm trying to present an argument and possibly change minds, and unlike picketers, I'm not having to sacrifice anyone else's feelings to do so.

I know you're on the binary equivocation train, where there's only two modes and no shades of gray, but could you at least attempt to see some contextual nuance, if you can take a break from your didactic rigidity?

I can only go by what you present to me. If you are not really a bitter and angry person then you have done a great job of acting like one.

still doesn't negate the fact you tout a violent, genocidal, barbaic, masochistic and suicidal diety disciplus.

(March 15, 2014 at 2:56 pm)heathendegenerate Wrote: I don't think a deist god would considers us insignificant.

It's a matter of scale. In the universe, we are as individuals insignificant. My sense of meaning in life is how human civilization will continue after I'm gone. Perhaps God is watching us, perhaps having countless frames of reference while we as humans are limited to one, but I see no reason to think so. I guess I just don't speculate on the nature of God too much beyond "mysterious mind behind the universe".

Quote:If he exists, so does heaven, right?

Not necessarily. Many deists reject the idea of an afterlife. The rest "hope" for one but have no idea what that would be. I personally lack a belief in an afterlife. We just don't know. I'm content that God gives us one shot at the brass ring and then it's fade-to-black, roll credits.

Interestingly, my wife is an atheist who believes in an afterlife. This underscores how the existence of God and the existence of an afterlife are two separate issues. There's a quadrant of possibilities:

1. God exists. The afterlife does not. (See OT Judaism)
2. God exists and so does the afterlife. (Islamo-Christianity)
3. God does not exist but the afterlife does. (Buddhism)
4. God does not exist and neither does the afterlife. (position of many atheists)

Just because there is a god doesn't mean we're important enough to preserve. Just because there is no god doesn't mean there isn't some natural mechanic of consciousness that survives the death of the brain.

Quote:What if we are just some experiment?

Perhaps we're proverbial chips off the proverbial block? We as humans need to create. It's just in our nature. And we need these creations to be bigger than ourselves, ones that can be independent of us and have a life of their own. Maybe God is like that?

Quote:Oh well, at least there's no hell.

I would agree that's the least likely scenario.