Critique Time!

[Ryantology]

I've got a tip for you: get out of the prognostication business.

[MechViking]

I respect someone who can take so much hate and stick around. won't be converting anytime soon, but I like tenacity.

[KUSA]

I think you should bring the nick names back.

[JesusChristLover]

Drich! Listen! Nothing has to change...absolutely nothing! Do what you do best. Proclaim Jesus name the loudest. You don't have to bow down to no-one. I am with you. God Bless you my friend.

[Drich]

Drich, I'm new, but here are some thoughts:

What are you trying to accomplish by participating here?

from post one thread one my stated purpose was to answer biblically based question and provide clarity concerning biblical Christianity.

- converting atheists to Christianity?

not directly no. My purpose is to help anyone looking for a relationship with God lay a foundation, that will help them establish and maintain said relationship. A key part of this is helping a person find a group of like minded believers in their area.

- correcting misunderstandings about Christianity?

biblical/canonical Christianity yes.

- confirming your faith by winning arguments with atheists?

no. If I had a need to confirm anything coming here I would loose what I had.

- converting yourself to atheism?

Ah, no.

- having fun?

having fun is indeed part of it. Especially when one takes himself too seriously.

If you are trying to convert atheists to Christianity, have you ever succeeded?

in 8 years I have had a dozen or so request private study, via email or PM. Some are just single questions, others have a series a questions that lasted days. I had one lady shoot me 6 or 7 paragraphs per day for 6 weeks. Then there was a young man who asked me questions everyday for 3 years...

I have never claimed a conversion as again I hand these people off to the local church. The young man and I even discussed his preachers sermons every week till he felt comfortable enough to go on his own.. Again I will do what ever I need to do to help lay that foundation. I am a sower of seed and a cultivator of the crop. Someone else gets to harvest.

If you are trying to correct misunderstandings about Christianity, has anybody ever thanked you for the information?

Yes many times even daily in the form of kudos and even in PM.

In the christianity section I know I can be abrasive, because to me the truth of what I do here [/quote]trumps everything else. In other sections of this forum I can be more friendly, and have respect and gain the respect of some of the core members here. My rep point and their comments attribute to our mutual respect.

---

Is there anything else that needs to go on my new years resolution list?

Improve your spelling. I notice that you misspell many of the same words in the same way, which means that they aren't typos, you just spell them wrong. I don't know which OS or browser you use, but most of the ones I've seen running in Windows/Linux/Mac will spell-check automatically.

The thing is if one spells the same word the same way long enough the is adapts and does not even underline it anymore.

---

I know I am asking for it when I do one of these threads, but believe it or not deep down somewhere I am here for those who want clarity and biblically based answers. It would be foolish for me to assume that the way I do things fits all people, so I am asking for Constructive criticism so that I may better relay what it is I have to say..

An example is a year or so ago it was brought to my attention that some of my nick names for some of you are off putting.. So I have made an effort to stop using them.

Is there anything else that needs to go on my new years resolution list?

Yeah, I have one.

Stop going around and insisting that you are a source of "biblically-based answers". You are a source of "answers based on Drich's personal interpretation of the Bible", and are objectively are no more accurate than the answers I arrive at on my own.

If at any point you want direct book chapter and verse, I will provide it. If you want the greek or Hebrew I can provide a line by line and word by word analysis as well.

That is why I claim what I claim. I have spent a lot of time going over the texts in the English greek and Hebrew. I have found when I lead with the really technical stuff I like it puts most people off. So I break everything down to its simplist form first. Then add layers of complexity as required. Even when I source non biblical data I will start with a wiki link or something a simple Google search will dig up. But if you want to bring out the heavy bats and swing for the fences on any exegetical matter I do have a collection of really expensive book that do little more than collect dust. (Everything is on line now even the Bdag.)

Not to sound too pompous (I only want to sound pompous enough) but the source material I use is what differentiates your exegesis of scripture and my own. ?

---

I gotta hand it to you Drich, asking these guys for tips is the nearest thing I can think of, to walking into my wife's kitchen closet blindfolded.

I have one of those too.. A wife who is a danger to the rest of the house. Once she put a knife down to move some cups in the cuboard and forgot she left it on the top shelf. So when I reached up for my fav cup I almost lost an eye to a falling knife.

This can be like that, if you are afraid of knives.

[Nope]

Drich! Listen! Nothing has to change...absolutely nothing! Do what you do best. Proclaim Jesus name the loudest. You don't have to bow down to no-one. I am with you. God Bless you my friend.

I am pretty new here but Drich hasn't bowed down to anyone in the short time that I have been reading his posts so I don't know why you advised him not to do that.

Because I am so new here, I have nothing to add except read your bible from start to finish. Seriously. I tell all my religious friends to read the bible. I think that reading the bible is the best way to create more atheists but if you believe the bible is the word of god, you should read it anyway. It always amazes me how many Christians have no idea what their own holy book says.

[Drich]

I've got a tip for you: get out of the prognostication business.

When did I do this? If I talk about the future it is either under the outline of the book of revelation, or it is as a "what if.."

When I take a passage from revelation I try and apply it to what makes sense or is going on today, in order to show continuity of the scripture/to show what John was trying to describe.

---

I think you should bring the nick names back.

There are some "mods" who were the butt of many nick name/jokes and they really didn't like it. Plus I promised my wife I would stop making fun if I was asked.

So I do my best to walk the line of abbreviating screen names in a fun way, but not so much as to make anyone cry.

---

Drich! Listen! Nothing has to change...absolutely nothing! Do what you do best. Proclaim Jesus name the loudest. You don't have to bow down to no-one. I am with you. God Bless you my friend.

Just so long as you don't go off the rails I think I might like you. That said their is a line to walk between offering words of wisdom and a clanging symbol no one wants to hear, and that is love. I was reminded with my exchange with my preacher (again by my wife) that my words lack love, and with out it, all that God gave me in the way of wisdom/understanding was being flushed down the toilet.

So I am here hat in hand because I do care about some of these a-holes and I want to meet them someday on the otherside where they can tell me I was right!


(The was me having some fun.)

But seriously what good is knowing the way home if everyone else is afraid/hates you too much to follow you even if your right?

[Ryantology]

If at any point you want direct book chapter and verse, I will provide it. If you want the greek or Hebrew I can provide a line by line and word by word analysis as well.

So can a lot of people who don't interpret things like you do, and when you suggest you have 'biblical answers', you are implying that you have access to evidence that proves your version of things more accurate than others.

That is why I claim what I claim. I have spent a lot of time going over the texts in the English greek and Hebrew. I have found when I lead with the really technical stuff I like it puts most people off. So I break everything down to its simplist form first. Then add layers of complexity as required. Even when I source non biblical data I will start with a wiki link or something a simple Google search will dig up. But if you want to bring out the heavy bats and swing for the fences on any exegetical matter I do have a collection of really expensive book that do little more than collect dust. (Everything is on line now even the Bdag.)

I don't doubt that you have a back and forth knowledge of what's in the book, and that's not my point of contention. That point of contention is that you have no basis to say that you understand what it means any better than I do. In fact, you have less basis than I do, because:

Not to sound too pompous (I only want to sound pompous enough) but the source material I use is what differentiates your exegesis of scripture and my own. ?

Not to sound too pompous, but your interpretation cannot be trusted because you accept everything within it as factual, without reservation. You accept, as reality, the events depicted within. You can't offer a useful interpretation because you interpret it without allowing for any possibility that it is wrong or fabricated, nor do you account for any other religion's claims or holy texts. I believe that the Bible should be interpreted in all of these contexts.

The last source anyone should seek for a proper Bible interpretation is a believer. You're salespeople selling a product and every one of you has enormous and intentional blind spots.

[Jackalope]

More prayers for cancer and AIDS. Man, those were heady times.

[Godscreated]

Drich, keep up the good work. Being abrasive at times takes a bit of courage when you know what's following. It also shows we care enough to try and get the attention of those who are not listening.
God bless,

GC