(January 12, 2015 at 3:16 pm)LastPoet Wrote: No true christian™ would think different of the way Drich thinks.

Christians being mormons or vice-versa is not a question. They are all idiots either way.

The more I am on line over my 14 years of debate, the less concerned about labels I am. The "idiot" part isn't that religious people are not smart. The "idiot" part is in our species because they use logic and reason to a much better degree outside the issue of religion, but touch that subject or suggest they are wrong and they go ape shit.

No sane person outside the issue of religion would show up at work on payday and accept their boss going "It's and invisible check, just have faith I paid you". Only an idiot would continue to work without getting paid.

There is a deep rooted survival instinct in our species pattern seeking. The problem is we gap fill in creating those false patterns which does have the real affect of creating safety in numbers that allows for offspring and access to resources. But that success does not make the god real or the religion a requirement.

Christians are not "idiots" because they are Christians. Humans are "idiots" for failing to see that they are simply clinging to the past out of a false sense of comfort.

There's the trapping of every superstition: "If I stop doing it this way, and it was really true, then bad stuff will happen! Best not take the risk, and keep doing it this way."

It's a very easy trap to fall into.

(January 12, 2015 at 4:20 pm)robvalue Wrote: There's the trapping of every superstition: "If I stop doing it this way, and it was really true, then bad stuff will happen! Best not take the risk, and keep doing it this way."

It's a very easy trap to fall into.

The worst part is sometimes I get in fights with atheists who think because I say things like you just did, that I am somehow calling for force to outlaw religion.

Once you read Dawkins God Delusion and Stenger's "New Atheism" and you accept evolution as fact which it is, I find it silly to get upset over stating facts.

Our species gap fills and to pretend it is good, even accepting that it is part of reality is like pretending a phantom pain is real.

It is understandable, for example that humans thought the earth was flat. But it makes no sense to hold such a false perception today now that we know better.

(January 12, 2015 at 6:04 pm)Brian37 Wrote: Once you read Dawkins God Delusion and Stenger's "New Atheism" and you accept evolution as fact which it is, I find it silly to get upset over stating facts.

I never read any of these books and have never accepted anything but evolution as fact. Starting at a very young stage and my father telling me that dinosaurs lived millions of years before. Biology class did the rest of the job.

(January 12, 2015 at 11:47 am)Drich Wrote: Just an open ended question.

What's with blurring the lines between those who claim Christianity and those who actually practice it?

The Bible is sufficiently open to interpretation that it seems impossible to determine just what the rules are and who is actually practicing them properly. So I just take the claims at face value. I am here, in part, because I am curious about what people believe and why they believe it. I am not concerned with trying to determine who is or is not an actual Christian. That strikes me as a monumental waste of my time. So I accept the claim from the self-professed Christian that he is what he says he is, and am interested in seeing how he explains his beliefs and point-of-view.

If the lines are blurred, I think that is due to the many interpretations --on both the organizational and personal level-- of just what Christianity means and how a true follower is determined. It is neither my fault nor my problem that so many people lay claim to the label and to the authority to apply or remove the label from others. That's up to the claimants to deal with, if they consider it an issue.

(January 12, 2015 at 3:13 pm)Drich Wrote:

(January 12, 2015 at 2:57 pm)Ryantology (╯°◊°)╯︵ ══╬ Wrote: Can you prove that they haven't received direct heavenly instruction telling them to behave the way they do? If you can't accept the faith-claims of others, why should you expect anybody to accept your own?

Yes I can, as per the bible 'all faith claims' should coinside with Scripture. If at any point a 'faith claim' contradicts scripture then the claim whether it be from a well respected prophet of angel of God, can not come from God.

And if you weren't so fucking picky about what in the scriptures count as being in the scriptures and what does not, you might have a point. But you don't accept all of the scripture as being applicable to you, don't you? You discount the old testament out of convenience, citing the passages that support your argument in the new while ignoring those that contradict you. You interpret all the least appealing, nastiest passages of the new, often to be in conflict with the literal word on the page, and that would be fine too Drich, absolutely fine...

Except you never once support your interpretations with evidence that they were the intentions of the original author. You just say that that's what scripture means, because you said so, and that's always been the end of the conversation. If you want to make the claim that only scripturally accurate actions "count" as christian, then fine, I could see that.

But how the fuck are we supposed to tell the difference between the scripture and just "what Drich wants," when you won't bother supporting your claims at all?

(January 12, 2015 at 6:54 pm)abaris Wrote:

(January 12, 2015 at 6:04 pm)Brian37 Wrote: Once you read Dawkins God Delusion and Stenger's "New Atheism" and you accept evolution as fact which it is, I find it silly to get upset over stating facts.

I never read any of these books and have never accepted anything but evolution as fact. Starting at a very young stage and my father telling me that dinosaurs lived millions of years before. Biology class did the rest of the job.

At the risk of sounding like a hipster, I was an atheist long before I ever heard of Dawkins.

(January 12, 2015 at 11:47 am)Drich Wrote: Just an open ended question.

What's with blurring the lines between those who claim Christianity and those who actually practice it? We've had a couple of recent examples of you guys assuming everyone who claims to be christian happens to be Christian just on their proclaimation. Why is this? I have brought up that Christ himself says in Mat 7 that not everyone who claims to be a follower is indeed a follower. What's more he even went so far as to say even some of those who do great things in His name are followers of Christ. But only those who do the will of the Father.

This means that a Follower of Christ is one who follows the instructions given to us to follow. Not anyone who just calls out 'Lord, Lord.'

I hope none of you think that God is bound by your understanding of some death bed effort on your part to keep you out of Hell.

Since you haven't gone to maccas to stone to death all the staff working on the sabbath, I guess you're just another fake ass christian afterall.

(January 12, 2015 at 11:49 am)Fidel_Castronaut Wrote: I don't think any of us really care.

If someone wants to call themselves a Christian I don't see what business it is of mine to doubt or question them.

Really? You doubt and question everything else, why stop there?
As Sionnach so eloquently stated..

(December 7, 2014 at 9:39 pm)Sionnach Wrote: An individual's word is always mere hearsay without the evidence to back up those words.

(January 12, 2015 at 11:49 am)Fidel_Castronaut Wrote: I don't think any of us really care.

If someone wants to call themselves a Christian I don't see what business it is of mine to doubt or question them.

You're right, however it's the business of the church and when someone who calls them self a Christian and we call them out, why is it you all jump on the bandwagon and question what we have to say?

GC