(May 3, 2019 at 10:07 am)madog Wrote:My views are that I am a Christian and based in my understanding of popular Christian dogma from personal experience and study that Christians are not taught to judge other people. That would be reserved for God, and we are to love even our enemies.
(May 3, 2019 at 11:34 am)Fake Messiah Wrote:That's what suspending the belief means. You "pretend" or delude yourself that what you're seeing isn't real. People will go to all kinds of lengths to dellude themselves (in the example getting rid of all mirrors in the house). You suspend your belief until you can convince yourself that it's more true than false. Belief can be an integrated acceptance or a force of will. Mentally breaking a prisoner down or abusing a victim till they show Stockholm syndrome is a good example. At one point they believed that the abuser is bad, then they believed the abuser was good. The facts didn't change, but the emotional impact of those psychological inputs, changed the belief from one belief to another. Neither were fake belief. Logically we can see that one was more objectively true than another on the outside but from the individual perspective both were true.
I'll have to check out that documentary because I'm not seeing where we're disconnecting at. Side note- Any preacher that gives political advice from the pulpit should have their congregations tax exempt status pulled, as that's illegal.
(May 6, 2019 at 9:11 am)Mister Agenda Wrote:
A. No. The words were "I traveled on speaking teams, preached to thousands of teenagers at a time, wrote blogs, was published, formed curriculum, taught workshops, was an up-and-comer reforming my denomination. The whole time hoping at some point it would click, and become true for me. He did admit to having doubts and questions, which is absolutely fine. He also admitted it wasn't true for him and that he later ascribed "faking it to make it".
B. Doubt and not knowing if something is true, are absolutely fine. Only in the anti-theists view that all Christians are illogical or unreasonable is questioning your belief not allowed. I was always allowed to ask questions and prompted to, and I didn't always find the answers, or the answers I wanted.Christians can harbor doubts and questions, that's rarely what causes people to leave the church, IMO. Most I've spoken with cite particular attitudes, people, dogma or a trauma as their reason. Bold for emphasis again, I'm not stating all Christians who have doubts are fake, just that this guy was by his own admission.
"There ought to be a term that would designate those who actually follow the teachings of Jesus, since the word 'Christian' has been largely divorced from those teachings, and so polluted by fundamentalists that it has come to connote their polar opposite: intolerance, vindictive hatred, and bigotry." -- Philip Stater, Huffington Post
always working on cleaning my windows- me regarding Johari
always working on cleaning my windows- me regarding Johari