The love toward the unbelievers!

[Statler Waldorf]

Statler W. said quote: "Actually I think you’ll find it is the more conservative groups that despise the prosperity gospel movement…."

Great!! After decades and decades of horrible abuse and the export of the bullshit to third world countries (which has been going on for decades also) someone is saying something about this! I'd say this is too little too late.

Can you point to anyone in the Reformed Christian community who was ever condoning the prosperity gospel? They’ve been speaking out against it for decades.

I have heard preacher after preacher call their congregation to action. To knock on doors to spread the word about Jesus, protest a nudie bar (this happened in Pennsylvania) and tell you how to vote (they give you little voter cards to help you). I have never heard any one of them call their congregation to protest a prosperity doctrine preacher. They don't name names, they don't ask people to write letters, they don't give people signs to put on their front lawn or t-shirts to wear. Hell most of them don't even preach against the prosperity doctrine.

This is all purely anecdotal evidence, sounds to me like you just need to hang out with better Christians.

Do you know why? Because most of these preachers are half way there themselves. Even the fairly liberal Methodist church I used to attend is starting to lean this way. People say that churches are hurting because of the bad economy. I say that doesn't justify preaching even a little bit of the prosperity doctrine. If you have to do dirty things to people to survive financially, I say die as a church. Or do the unspeakable thing....live withing your means. Sell your assets and meet in a park, warehouse (I just fixed a typo I made that read "whorehouse". lol) , rented building, private houses...I don't know get creative.

Methodists are not Reformed Christians, so I don’t really care what they do or don’t do, it has no bearing on my beliefs.

No. Clearly it was just an insult.

Well I’ll be, at least you are honest about your irrationality.

You're just being willfully obtuse. There was a recent poll which showed that atheists are the least trusted group in America.

You have Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens to thank for that, people know when they are being lied to.

I often hear Christians talk about how evil, immoral, and sinful atheists are. It's not hard to find those statements on the internet.

Well if you can find it on the internet then it must be true right?

In fact, it was recently on this very thread where you were trying to turn one of my statements around to say that atheists don't have any immorality.

I did no such thing, I was merely pointing out that you were engaging in special pleading by holding Christians to a standard you don’t hold your fellow atheists to.

If you think that Christians don't think they're better than people who don't go to church, then you need to ask your fellow Christians about it.

Not my point, sure there are Christians who think this way, but my point was that they have no scriptural basis to think this way so they are therefore acting in a manner that is contrary to their doctrine.

Even my own mother thinks she's better than people who don't go to church. It's just a Christian trait, like it or not. If you don't think that Christians think they're better than atheists, go to a Christian website and conduct a poll.

My mother doesn’t think she is better than anyone else, so what do you have to say to that?

Let’s see if John UpChurch of AIG thinks he is better than anyone else, he is even addressing the Richard Dawkins hate mail video…

“First of all, I thank you for your thoughtful feedback. Reasoned responses are always welcome. However, you have attributed intent to me that is beyond the scope of that particular article.
Whether I’m “no better” is academic, as I am inclined to think that I am not better than anyone else. That is, we all—equally—fall far short of the measure God set for us (Romans 5:12, 3:23). I will say that there is no excuse for anyone who follows Christ to send “hate mail” to Richard Dawkins or anyone else.”

It seems that your assertion that this is a “Christian trait” is looking more and more incorrect.

"Acting in a manner inconsistent with scripture" is usually code for "They're not doing what real Christians would do." I.E., not real Christians. So are they real Christians sending Dawkins hate mail or not? If they are, then it proves my point that Christians are hypocrites. If you claim they are not, then I am correct in that you are using the "no true Scotsman" fallacy.

I don’t know whether they are or not, that’s not up to me. At the very most they are Christians who are not acting consistent with scripture. Who knows, perhaps they are even atheists posing as Christians to help their cause, I would not put it past them considering they will pose as gays just to try and disrupt events at the Christian Museum. Your guilty by association game is meaningless though, so I am not really sure why you are still insisting we play it.

How do you know what email he's receiving?

Well I assume he receives all the email that is sent to him, is that an improper assumption?

And who cares about the email CMI is sending him?

I do as well as the people at CMI I am sure.

The point of the entire video, which seemed to go way over your head, is that these so-called kind, loving Christians are sending him email full of vile hatred.

So the whole point of the video was to invoke a logical fallacy? Why did he waste everyone’s time? For someone who “doesn’t have the time to debate other debaters and Creationists” he sure does seem to have plenty of free time to behave irrationally.

[DeistPaladin]

Needs some music in the interludes between letters as well as during the intro and conclusion. Maybe something by Handel to drive home the irony.

[Ziploc Surprise]

SW said "Can you point to anyone in the Reformed Christian community who was ever condoning the prosperity gospel? They’ve been speaking out against it for decades."

Any speaking out that anyone has done is too little too late. BTW, I goggled " Reformed Christian community " I can't find it anywhere. I'm not saying you are lying about it's existence, I'm saying I can't find it. Though I am not looking for a wrath of shit, could point me to a simple doctrinal statement and perhaps an article about this movement. I could not find it on Wikipedia.

SW said "This is all purely anecdotal evidence, sounds to me like you just need to hang out with better Christians."

So all I have to do is hang out with better Christians and everything will be hunkey dorey? Just hang out with the Reformed Christian Community people and I can speak out all I want to with no fear of abuse. Even If I went to that church I would not want to (or be able to) isolate myself to just those in the church. Just hanging out with better Christians is not a viable solution.

Sw said "Methodists are not Reformed Christians, so I don’t really care what they do or don’t do, it has no bearing on my beliefs. "

I said this to support anecdotally how a fairly liberal church from a fairly liberal denomination can slip into the prosperity doctrine.

On another note: I quoted SW's statements in the manner that I did because I haven't figured out how to use all the functions on this forum yet.

[Statler Waldorf]

Any speaking out that anyone has done is too little too late. BTW, I goggled " Reformed Christian community " I can't find it anywhere. I'm not saying you are lying about it's existence, I'm saying I can't find it. Though I am not looking for a wrath of shit, could point me to a simple doctrinal statement and perhaps an article about this movement. I could not find it on Wikipedia.

We need to teach you how to use the quote function my friend. Reformed Christians are simply Christians who believe in the doctrines of the Christian Reformation. They are also known as Calvinists and include Orthodox Presbyterians and Reformed Baptists amongst others. I’ll help you out though because I kind of sent you on a fool’s errand, you won’t find any who support the prosperity gospel because their views on saving grace and evangelism are in direct opposition to the prosperity movement.

So all I have to do is hang out with better Christians and everything will be hunkey dorey? Just hang out with the Reformed Christian Community people and I can speak out all I want to with no fear of abuse. Even If I went to that church I would not want to (or be able to) isolate myself to just those in the church. Just hanging out with better Christians is not a viable solution.

Yes you could speak out against the prosperity gospel with a bunch of Reformed Christians, hence why I have no problem with your objection to it; I think it’s a perverted gospel.

I said this to support anecdotally how a fairly liberal church from a fairly liberal denomination can slip into the prosperity doctrine.

I have never denied that, sometimes their liberal views can even lead to such things.

On another note: I quoted SW's statements in the manner that I did because I haven't figured out how to use all the functions on this forum yet.

Well always willing to help you out! So say I wanted to quote what you said, let’s say you said the following…
I like football on Sundays

When I replied to your post I would simply put “I like football Sundays” in between {quote] [/quote}, but use only square brackets “[ ] [ ]”, I used the other ones just so it wouldn’t actually do the quote function.

{quote] I like football Sundays [/quote}

I hope that helps!

[Napoléon]

So the whole point of the video was to invoke a logical fallacy? Why did he waste everyone’s time? For someone who “doesn’t have the time to debate other debaters and Creationists” he sure does seem to have plenty of free time to behave irrationally.

I'm not wasting everyone's time. Just yours. I don't wish to respond to you because frankly I think you're an idiot who has been proven wrong time and time again, by people much smarter than myself admittedly, but it has been done countless times. I don't have to bother really, it's only going over the same old shit.

Besides, posting one fucking video takes a hell of a lot longer than responding to all the crap you come out with doesn't it? /sarcasm

[Ziploc Surprise]

SW wrote

Reformed Christians are simply Christians who believe in the doctrines of the Christian Reformation. They are also known as Calvinists and include Orthodox Presbyterians and Reformed Baptists amongst others.

I am familiar with the doctrines/doctrinal adjustments that came out of the reformation. I have studied theology for many years. You can be more specific than this. If you can post links this would be helpful also.


On another note here's another interesting video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxdgCxK4VUA

[tackattack]

I still find it difficult to understand the extreme hatred that Christians have for atheists.

I don't get it either though, perhaps you're on to something at the end there.

Sometimes I'd just love to say, if you're going to be in church and act like a twat, then you must really need some more God in your life, so have a seat in the front row, this sermon is for you.

[Ziploc Surprise]

I still find it difficult to understand the extreme hatred that Christians have for atheists.

I don't get it either though, perhaps you're on to something at the end there.

Sometimes I'd just love to say, if you're going to be in church and act like a twat, then you must really need some more God in your life, so have a seat in the front row, this sermon is for you.

Fundamentalism does better when it has an enemy. I don't have time to get into this but an enemy is a unifying factor. It's the thing that prompts them to put aside any individual differences they may have and unite to fight the enemy.

In the past the pope was the enemy. For a few centuries he was actually a clear and present danger. Now the "Antichrist" of the past is of no real danger (I think we can thank atheists for this to some degree, hee hee). Fundies (I still have difficulty with this name because it used to be a name of a brand of edible underwear) now have to have another enemie.

[Statler Waldorf]

I'm not wasting everyone's time. Just yours. I don't wish to respond to you because frankly I think you're an idiot who has been proven wrong time and time again, by people much smarter than myself admittedly, but it has been done countless times. I don't have to bother really, it's only going over the same old shit.

Well I was actually talking about Dawkins wasting everyone’s time, not you. You are telling me you don’t wish to respond to me by responding to me? That must only make sense in an atheistic world.

Besides, posting one fucking video takes a hell of a lot longer than responding to all the crap you come out with doesn't it? /sarcasm

Again, I was talking about Dawkins, not you. Chill out…..

I am familiar with the doctrines/doctrinal adjustments that came out of the reformation. I have studied theology for many years. You can be more specific than this. If you can post links this would be helpful also.

Oh well if you studied theology then it should be easy, my beliefs are pretty much in line with the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith.

[Ziploc Surprise]

"Oh well if you studied theology then it should be easy, my beliefs are pretty much in line with the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith."

I still can't find any of your groups online that describe themselves as Reformed Christians. Piper is the only one that seems to come close. I read one of his books and came to the conclusion that he must have a telephone pole shoved up his butt.