Bob McDob said:
I'm a little hestitant to resort toRelgiousTolerance.org on this matter, but...
And you would have us take seriously a site that posts the following ad (right up at the top of the page, no less...)??...
"Love Spells and Love Spell Kits
Purchase powerful love spells and spell kits to help you find - and keep - the love of your life"...
Riiiiiiight...
Wedge009 said:
AFAIK, the Bible (at least the 'New' International Version of it) essentially takes Jewish Scripture as the Old Testament, and scholars went through the thousands of manuscripts which have survived to translate what's known as the New Testament.
I am sad for you. If she truly was Christian, I don't think she shouldn't have forsaken you, and if she really follows Christ, she should be prepared to (re)accept you as her child, no matter what.
-- You got it right, Johnny. There are differences in what NT materials are considered canon (looky, a Wing Commander word!!!...) between the RCC & Protestant. Basically, if you're a RCC person, you get the six extra bonus books.
-- Indeed. That's sad about you & yer Mom, Rance. She needs to get with the (gospel) program. Indeed, mebbe she really ain't a Christian, but merely
thinks she is (sadly, churches are full of folks like that)
BanditLOAF said:
No, it isn't. Religion exists to order society -- 'serving God' is a means to that end, not an end in and of itself...
OK, fine, I'll limit it to the Christian faith, then:
It exists not to order society, but to tell humans how to rightly serve their Creator, and to strengthen them in so doing. Serving mankind is a byproduct and consequence (and tangible evidence) of same.
vindicator said:
Preachey,
you never answered my question. Why, if gay is a choice would we choose to live such a hard life, full of hate, misrepresentation, and fear and stereotypes I could go on. so tell me exactly do you think people would choose to be gay?
... But fundementaly you believe that your faith is right over all the others! Therefore to say you have no problems with others bleifs is a 'lie' because the faith you follow does and you claim to be apart of it so you are subject to your faith's judgement
...Lacking what, the fact that christianty itself requires you do little more than obey some basic rules and believe in jesus and that if you believe in the forementioned you can be forgiven without really being accountable for your actions where as most other religions require much more self accountability and you say yours is right because you researched others? Meh, it's just personal preference.
-- Read on, MacDuff... Oh, sorry: go BACK & read my last post, I meant...
-- You sound as if the two are mutually exclusive; they ain't. I can live with the fact that you are gay, or that my neighbor is a Wiccan. I don't have to believe as they do to "not have a problem with" their belief
-- No, all sinners are accountable for their actions, Christian or not. The crucial difference is, the sin doesn't NEED to separate you eternally from God. Look at King David: He sinned with Bathsheba (among other things), and God gave him big-time consequences for that: The baby born of that union died, and God told David "because you have done this, the sword shall never depart from your house". Ever afterward, strife and conflict was David's lot within his family. Yet, he was forgiven of his sin by God because he truly repented of it, and remained "beloved of God".
Dark Ficus said:
Non religious individuals have no need to see anything as sinful or not sinful behavior.
Indeed. Their vocabulary knows not of the word "sin". If it did, they would have to account for the meaning of that word, and as we know, sin is the act of rebellion against God.
Pedro said:
...Oh come on...Go to mental hospital most have claimed to hear from god.
...There is NOTHING evil about being gay, it hurts no one. ...People who blindly follow ideas like gays are evil DO hurt other people and hence I am under no obligation to respect that belief...
..Your religion has made you an ass, you've activley insulted people who for all you know spend their entire lives helping other people, have saved 10 peoples lives and took a bullet for a small child. At the end of this you're saying god will say... yeah... but you were supposed to shag her, not him.
(1) Yup, and their demeanor, deeds, general lifestyle, and their own shrinkiatrists have only served to expose that fallacy.
(2) I been following this thread since I started it, and as of the last time I checked (~10 minutes ago), I don't recall *anyone* saying that gay folks are evil (oh, wait, I forgot: Some of the posts here have used that phrase when attempting to put those words into our mouths, but the problem is, we never SAID - or even implied - that).
(3) Hmmm, NOW who's being intolerant?...
...A great site I saw once said that had hitler repented on his death bed he would have gone to heaven and someone who saved 1,000,000 children with a vaccicne, lost their leg saving someone they'd never met, gave all their money to charity but didn't believe in god would go to hell.
...So basically he really doesn't care how good we are as people, how well we treat others, it doesn't matter if we make the world a better place... hes an evil egomaniac who punishes everyone who doesn't worship the ground he walks on.
...Most people have something called empathy where we can attempt to put ourselves into someone elses shoes. Of course if someone has already closed their mind to other peoples feelings they can not possibly understand them.
...as an atheist I believe that this life is all anyone gets, if you hurt people whilst you're in it then its a crime against humanity
-- I believe this boy may be on to something!...
-- Sure, He cares about that stuff, but it's not the primary thing of importance to Him, FAITH is. Everything begins with faith. For one who truly has faith in Him, that person will go on to accomplish all manner of "good deeds" thereafter. Check this out:
"... If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. "
(1Corinthians 13:1-3)
FYI, the love Paul speaks of here is not just love of our fellow humans, but moreover, the love of God. All the good deeds in the world will not save a one of us, but only faith in Christ. Conversely, all the evil deeds in the world will not cancel out for heaven for even ONE sinner who repents (so long as he TRULY repents, and turns from doing such deeds from there onward, the true proof of the genuineness of his faith). Marvel not that these concepts are hard to get your human minds around, for Paul tells us:
"The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. 14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment"
(1Corinthians 2:10b-15)
-- Empathy is exactly it, Pedro!... It is empathy with our fallen human condition that caused God to LITERALLY put Himself in our shoes; moreover, in our very SKIN. It is this (among other things) that motivated God to become a man in the form of Jesus Christ. As a result, He is not "closed- minded" with our condition, but sympathizes in a way that only someone who has "been there" could. Hebrews 14:14-16 tells us that Jesus "was a man like us, in all things but sin". Check it out, for it has some other great stuff on this subject
-- Yeah, but notice how you didn't say it was a "sin". Interesting....