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Author | Topic: The Marketing Of Christianity | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
I could name a thing or two that I believe in without evidence. That isn't what stops me in my tracks from accepting the God that is marketed. One concept which stops many at EvC in their tracks from accepting GOD as real is the lack of evidence for a Creator and/or Jesus Christ:Alive Today. Suppose you see an ad for a car that goes from 0 to 60 in 3 seconds, sells for $1.30 and gets 900 miles to the gallon. But you know people who own them and they're always late for work and always blaming it on car trouble. You might be inclined to think that the ad is inaccurate.
Phat writes:
That's a convenient copout for situations where there is no evidence. Bigfoot hides from people because he wants them to accept him by faith.
... it appears to me that GOD by design requires Faith rather than Evidence.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
Nonsense. The "fruits of the spirit" show up as often - if not more often - in people who don't have faith in God. The "fruits of the spirit" have a lot more to do with humanism than with religious faith.
Without faith it is impossible to please God...
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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GDR writes:
So why do the mindless particles often produce more fruits than the voice of God?
That's fine but it is a matter of faith as to whether the "fruits of the spirit" or acts of unselfish love, is a result of the voice of God in our hearts or the result of a chance collection of mindless particles deciding that it's a good idea, regardless of our religious beliefs.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
GDR writes:
The fact of evolution is not a matter of faith. We know that social conscience can be a result of evolutionary processes. There is no room for faith.
I believe that acts of unselfish love, or even more so sacrificial love, happen because we respond to that still small voice of God in our hearts. You choose to believe, (as I understand it), that they happen as a result of an evolutionary process that began with mindless particles that has eventually produced beings that are capable of making those choices. In either case those are our beliefs and a matter of faith.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
Your earthly employer would probably tell you to do your prayer and fasting on your own time; as long as there are customers waiting to be fed, your job is to feed them.
It is also our responsibility as Christians to pray and fast as led by the Spirit.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
I consider myself responsible for how I use the time, whoever "owns" it.
Do you consider your life "His Time" or "Your Time"? Phat writes:
Of course. It's a little disturbing that you would even ask. Does God expect us to skip prayer simply to feed one more person? Remember Matthew 25? I think it's been mentioned at EvC before. Jesus said we'll all be judged for feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the prisoners, etc. - not praying for them. Praying when you should be doing comes dangerously close to mouthing, "Lord! Lord!"
Phat writes:
Better re-think that analogy. You're advocating turning customers away while you have a staff meeting. You're pretending to "strengthen yourself" while you're defeating your own purpose.
Yet if we fail to pray, we have failed to attend company meetings all in the interest of feeding one more of the masses. Im quite sure you will want to keep the store open for the late straggler rather than edify andf strengthen yourself through prayer.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
You can't do more than X before you do X. ... a Christian is called to do more than to simply be a worker bee that feeds and clothes people. Jesus said we will always have the poor with us, so you're never finished doing X.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
GDR writes:
Exactly. Which is why "spiritual" mumbo-jumbo isn't somehow "more" than "merely" helping people.
I just wanted to add that I agree, but also in that there was no awareness that they had done those things for/to Jesus. They simply did them because that's where there hearts were, and not because they were thinking about some future benefit from God.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
What good is it to know "The Truth" if you're dead? So what good will it do merely to keep people fed if they die without knowing the Truth? Edited by ringo, : No reason given.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Phat writes:
What good is "eternal" life if this life is miserable?
ringo writes:
John3:16 writes: What good is it to know "The Truth" if you're dead?For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Phat writes:
And I keep asking you, what is beyond that limit? What are you doing that is so much more important than what Jesus told you to do?
I'm just saying not to limit a Christian to this task...its a waste of talent. Anybody can feed people.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
So it's all based on wishful thinking and fantasy.
No one knows in the critical thinking and reality-based logic of daily life....
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Phat writes:
That's pretty much the definition of fantasy.
Not everything can be proven through evidence but this does not make it fantasy.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
C.S. Lewis writes:
Lewis seems to think we need some external source to direct our instincts but in fact it's our social instincts directing our individual instincts that makes us "good people".
The Moral Law is not any one instinct or any set of instincts: it is something which makes a kind of tune (the tune we call goodness or right conduct) by directing the instincts.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
Nobody disputes that. But we fail because - as I said - there's a conflict between our social instincts and our individual instincts. We want to save ourselves and at the same time we want to save our family. Thus Lewis supports the idea that we often(if not always) fail to do what we should do. In reality, problems are complex. There are no easy solutions. THAT is why we fail. No magical spook is going to change that.
Phat writes:
He "supports" it with nothing but ignorance and incredulity.
Lewis then supports my quote about chance being a myth.
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