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[gaurdduck]

*Sigh.*
With deep sadness, I have to agree with the anti-Christian sentiment.
I was raised in a Christian home and have had a relationship with God since before I can remember.  But Christians have done some horrible things to me and people around me.  That's just my personal experience, to say nothing of the Crusades, the Inquisition, etc.  Most Christians, if pushed, reveal themselves to be hypocrites.
That said, most Christians that I know personally are decent people who want to make the world around them a better place.  Unfortunately they think that one of the ways they have to do that is to support things like the drug war, anti-immigration laws and practices, and honor the veterans that are "fighting for our freedoms."

A great lie was perpetrated, and the people bought into it.  Lack of courage, lack of thought, lack of integrity...I don't know.

Agreed.

I'm getting out of Dodge City while the gittin's good. Adios amigos y burros.

[Claire]

In all due respect, I certainly didn't mean to imply that "any good person who studied the Bible would come to the same conclusions as I"

Ah, but you not only implied it. You came right out and said it, in slightly different words. (Below)

You feel insulted, it seems. Yet in your polite way, you deliver an insult that goes beyond anything anybody has aimed at your beliefs. Not a single non-believer here thinks you deserve eternal punishment simply because your studies have led you to conclusions different from theirs.

Once again Claire, please understand that when folks begin to talk of Christians being "stupid", "dangerous", "a religion for sheep", and I happen to be Christian, then yes, how is it not reasonable to assume that practically anyone else would also feel a bit of an insult as well. Do you think that is wrong of me to feel this way? After all, I am only human.

Clip Johnson, I never said you were wrong to feel insulted. In fact, I said I understood why you would feel insulted.

You just don't perceive that the insulting statements flew in both directions.

But more importantly, please tell me what I said that was so insulting.

Well, here are a couple of statements that come near the beginning of your long proselytizing message and bear a lot of weight because they set up the premises for the rest of your argument:

When one objectively looks at the overwhelming amount of evidence to support the authenticity of the Bible, an individual can only come to the conclusion that the Bible is from God and Him alone.

and ...

if You are wrong and I am right about Jesus and where we will spend eternity, well, you will unfortunately have everything to lose and I will stand to gain everything. Furthermore, without a shadow of a doubt, God Himself wants you to hear this and learn as much as you can about Him and His promises.

Obviously if "an individual can ONLY come to the conclusion"  that you came to, then everybody here who studied and came to a different conclusion is either a nimrod, a scoundrel, or delusional.

That's pretty insulting. I understand it wasn't your intention to be insulting. But it's the only possible interpretation of your statement. And given the choice of that intellectual variety of insult or just  being called 'stupid," I'd personally opt for being called stupid.

The statement that everybody else has everything to lose and you have everything to gain is smug as a cat in a rug, pardon my saying so. It places you as possessor of The Truth and relegates us mere seekers and former seekers as those destined for -- and by implication deserving of -- Ultimate Doom.

That's cheeky.

You have also, there and in several other places, positioned yourself as a messenger conveying God's own stated wishes and instructions.

BTW, that "I'm making the right bet on God and you're not" position is also known as "Pascal's Wager." And you'll discover if you study it that it has a whale of a lot of logical flaws. Among other things, it presumes that God approves of betting on his existance. And then there's always the problem of "what if there really is a God, but his values aren't what you've assumed they are."

In short, your long message, though I recognized it was composed from the sincerity of your heart, assumed that this very well-read and thoughtful group of people, the non-Christians of TMM, is either an illiterate bunch of rubes or we're deliberately disreputable deniers of your god.

But no worry, because your god will get us for our disagreements. And you know that because you are a messenger of God.

I know that's not the impression you aimed to give, and I'm sure some people didn't get that impression, especially any of your fellow evangelicals. But that's how it reads to me. And that's exactly why I find evangelical religion so grating. You've got the only truth. Everybody else can literally go to hell -- and it matters not one whit whether hell is defined as boiling oil or separation from God. You believe that hell is an unspeakable thing, and you're intending to be eternally happy even as millions of other people -- perhaps even your own parents or children -- are being tortured for all eternity.

Sorry, I just couldn't be happy under those circumstances. I'd be too worried about the sufferers, and there'd be no way I could persuade myself they deserved that while I deserved to sit on a cloud or whatever. And I wouldn't want to share eternity with people who could be in bliss while such pain was being inflicted on millions of good folk.

So no, I don't blame you for feeling that you and your faith have been insulted. But as I said ... that goes both ways.

[Clip Johnson]

Claire, I sincerely thank you for pointing that out. I guess I did come across as being pretty 'Holy-er than Thou' and insulting in my reply. I truly didn't mean to come across as such, but as I said, I'm simply not that proficient with my writing skills, and it surely comes through. I really should have looked at my post a little more closely before submitting it so as to better word it without coming across as I did. But yes, you are indeed correct that what I was writing did in fact come from the heart, with the exception of talking down to or being insulting towards anyone. And for that I sincerely apologize for to you Claire, and everyone else who was offended by my remarks.

[Claire]

Claire, I sincerely thank you for pointing that out. I guess I did come across as being pretty 'Holy-er than Thou' and insulting in my reply. I truly didn't mean to come across as such, but as I said, I'm simply not that proficient with my writing skills, and it surely comes through. I really should have looked at my post a little more closely before submitting it so as to better word it without coming across as I did. But yes, you are indeed correct that what I was writing did in fact come from the heart, with the exception of talking down to or being insulting towards anyone. And for that I sincerely apologize for to you Claire, and everyone else who was offended by my remarks.

Clip Johnson, you are a very nice person and on a better day I'll promise not to be so hard on you. Apologies more than accepted and for my part, I apologize for my own waspish tone.

Wherever else you and I might disagree, it's clear that you have one sterling Christian virtue -- humility.

You've got me beat there, I'm afraid. 

[padre29]

*Sigh.*
With deep sadness, I have to agree with the anti-Christian sentiment.
I was raised in a Christian home and have had a relationship with God since before I can remember.  But Christians have done some horrible things to me and people around me.  That's just my personal experience, to say nothing of the Crusades, the Inquisition, etc.  Most Christians, if pushed, reveal themselves to be hypocrites.
That said, most Christians that I know personally are decent people who want to make the world around them a better place.  Unfortunately they think that one of the ways they have to do that is to support things like the drug war, anti-immigration laws and practices, and honor the veterans that are "fighting for our freedoms."

A great lie was perpetrated, and the people bought into it.  Lack of courage, lack of thought, lack of integrity...I don't know.

Well I find myself in the camp of supporting (or whatever the term of art may be) the military people who do go and fight the Empire's wars, not out of some misplaced sense of Patriotism, rather out of an appreciation for their misplaced idealism.

In my view, they have large amounts of courage to go overseas and potentially be killed or maimed or what have you, that said, it is disheartening that more don't return with Eyes that have been Opened.

Perhaps oddly, I've attended a Church service maybe 5 times in my life, most were for funerals, and a baptism of a friend's child, perhaps that is why I find myself convicted that Faith is not hostile to freedom, perhaps because I don't see the carnage of the sausage making that is Religion?

As for the historical things, I would point out that A)Government has killed tens of millions at least wars back then were "honest" in the sense that the "Heroic conquering army of the lord almighty so and so" got to keep all the spoils they could carry, at least there was a profit motive and not just an idealistic one in support of some .Gov somewhere.

As for "Believe or you are going to HELL!!!!!!

I've always found that to be the most curious complaint, "if" there is no Deity, then there is no "hell", whomever says that may as well say "repent or you are going to Disneyworld for all eternity"...

Lew Rockwell had a great article up about how Judeo Christian religions are both founded on State persecution of it's adherents, in a way Islam was as well (the Haji), but instead of learning from the lesson of what it is like for the State to grind under it's heel, all three decided what was needed was to "become" the State so they could do the grinding.

And for all that Paul had written, it was mentioned that 'you are Citizens of a different Kingdom' no matter what State currently was treating one as chattel property.

[ZooT_aLLures]

all three decided what was needed was to "become" the State so they could do the grinding.

yeah..................that says an awful lot.............but I'll leave it to the readers to decide what it says an awful lot about.......

[padre29]

all three decided what was needed was to "become" the State so they could do the grinding.

yeah..................that says an awful lot.............but I'll leave it to the readers to decide what it says an awful lot about.......

That is what typically happens, if the proto "freedom" efforts in the West are looked at, from the Magna Charta to the Diet at Worms to the Constitution, freedom/rights/dignity are typically reserved for a class of victors who dictate their own freedoms..

[ZooT_aLLures]

Yeah...............and what about "this" freedom movement?
Is that where it's headed?...........with folks who once were ground under the boot grinding others under the same boot with a different foot inside it?

[Rarick]

1.  Every group has it's share of assholes.  It's a requirement.  While it is necessary to understand that any group cannot be wholly regarded by the nature of its assholes, there is value to be found in how that group deals with its assholes.

A very true statement.  If whatever group you belong to does not have any asshole the most very likely you are, in fact, that asshole. 

  Very good, Who...me?! I thought scarmig's post was pretty much spot on, but I hope he'll consider adding this as a corollary to "Scarmig's Law."

Reminds me of an old poem (origin unknown) that I sometimes use to keep myself humble:

See the happy moron.
He doesn't give a damn.
I wish I were a moron.
By god, perhaps I am!

Scarmig's Law?  Not in the wiki, Edumacate me?

[Claire]

Scarmig's Law?  Not in the wiki, Edumacate me?

Very smart of you to check the wiki, Rarick. Scarmig's Law isn't there, but maybe somebody will want to add it.

I just made the name up on the spot, referring to scarmig's multi-point post above, where he said (paraphrase) "Every group contains at least one asshole."

Sounds like a nameable law to me. And Who...me?'s comment that if you don't see the asshole in the group it's most likely you is an excellent corollary.  I believe I've been in that position a time or two.

[Silver]

...on a better day I'll promise not to be so hard on you.

Yah, probably best not to discuss this on laundry days!   

Peace,

Silver

[Claire]

As for "Believe or you are going to HELL!!!!!!

I've always found that to be the most curious complaint, "if" there is no Deity, then there is no "hell", whomever says that may as well say "repent or you are going to Disneyworld for all eternity"...

  To a committed atheist, the threat of hell is indeed meaningless. But the threat of Disneyland might not be so bad.

OTOH, to somebody who's seeking answers and believes in the possibility of a deity, it's a cruel threat. It's also a very arrogant statement. Anybody who claims to know for sure that he's going to heaven and those who simply disagree with him are going to get the worst sort of punishment, forever and ever, world without end, amen, could be said to be suffering from a severe case of pride. And we all know what pride "goeth before."

[Claire]

...on a better day I'll promise not to be so hard on you.

Yah, probably best not to discuss this on laundry days!   

Sigh. Yeah. I was on kind of a roll yesterday, and not necessarily a good one.

[Lenny]

Sorry, my Christian friends, but I've always perceived Christianity to be among the most authoritarian religions (next, perhaps, to Islam). I know some people say that by worshipping G*d, they resist worshipping the state. But to me, once you've learned to bow the knee to one outside authority figure, you've learned to bow the knee to authority figures, period. IMHO it's a bad habit of mind, no matter where you place your unquestioning loyalties.

Lots of Christians fit that description, it's true. It's pretty hard to find someone who will submit to one authority (say, God) but reject other authorities. For most, submitting to God and submitting to the Church and government are all wrapped up together.

For a very few, it works oppositely. Taking God as my authority sets the bar; anyone aspiring to be an authority in my life is out of luck unless he can beat God in a cage match. He being infinite and all, that's not just a little challenge--when Obama (or anyone else) offers himself as my Messiah, they don't just lose, "Better luck next time." Their attempt to assume God's role in my life is infinitely blasphemous, and makes them infinitely worse criminals than a mere murderer or rapist. One consequence of that, however, is that I'm not widely regarded as Christian at all, because I also reject the authority of the Church. When it tells me three is one and one is three, I tell it to go get stuffed, and it tells me I'm going to hell. When I tell them Catholic hell is a myth, and biblical hell is a metaphor, they tell me I'm getting the extra hot and nasty spot in hell.

[padre29]

Sorry, my Christian friends, but I've always perceived Christianity to be among the most authoritarian religions (next, perhaps, to Islam). I know some people say that by worshipping G*d, they resist worshipping the state. But to me, once you've learned to bow the knee to one outside authority figure, you've learned to bow the knee to authority figures, period. IMHO it's a bad habit of mind, no matter where you place your unquestioning loyalties.

Lots of Christians fit that description, it's true. It's pretty hard to find someone who will submit to one authority (say, God) but reject other authorities. For most, submitting to God and submitting to the Church and government are all wrapped up together.

For a very few, it works oppositely. Taking God as my authority sets the bar; anyone aspiring to be an authority in my life is out of luck unless he can beat God in a cage match. He being infinite and all, that's not just a little challenge--when Obama (or anyone else) offers himself as my Messiah, they don't just lose, "Better luck next time." Their attempt to assume God's role in my life is infinitely blasphemous, and makes them infinitely worse criminals than a mere murderer or rapist. One consequence of that, however, is that I'm not widely regarded as Christian at all, because I also reject the authority of the Church. When it tells me three is one and one is three, I tell it to go get stuffed, and it tells me I'm going to hell. When I tell them Catholic hell is a myth, and biblical hell is a metaphor, they tell me I'm getting the extra hot and nasty spot in hell.

More or less Lenny, though I have no problem with a Trinity concept, and I also somewhat think the "Church" will ebb and flow over time, not become a Monolith that is "infalliable" no matter how corrupt it becomes.