Children aren't born Christians. Neither are they raised Christians.
Wow, all those Sunday schools had better close then. I was under the impression that my parents were raising me to believe in Christianity but I was obviously grossly mistaken.
So by the time these children get to adulthood they can be unbelievers who'll have (hopefully) heard the gospel in appropriate manner.
Oxymoron, little bit?
Presumably the "appropriate manner" means what
you believe to be appropriate.
Any Christian who majors on their being dirt on Gods shoe is a seriously mis-guided Christian.
You seem to be deeply confused. Throughout this thread you have been describing people as being hopeless sinners who have to be saved from their innate evil by the grace of God, and somehow this mythical primordial couple have caused us to be guilty before we're even born.
Message 114There are no good people Rick. All people sin. All people wilfully do what they know to be wrong. All people deserve punishment for their evil doing.
If you came to my door telling me that I'm going to hell and stating the above, I'd be inclined to tell you to sod off and take your philosophy of hate and guilt-tripping somewhere else. I wouldn't use those words because it's rude, but I'd find a way to quickly make you go away. My husband used to wear his "Hammer of the Gods" Led Zeppelin T-shirt when the Christians came recruiting; another effective rebuff (I've heard) is to say, "I'm gay."
I don't need a concept of hell and I don't need "original sin" which needs atonement because while I am capable of treating people like shit, manipulating them, lying, stealing and so forth, I don't because I respect others. Would you rather your children acted kindly because they respected others, or because they feared your punishment if they didn't? Maybe . . . you might say that they grow out of the latter and into the former? Why are we still stuck with religions that treat people like children who can't tell right from wrong unless a parent is there to guide and punish? How patronising.
My wifes training to be a counselling psychologist. She see's unbelief bring lots of people in.
A few guesses here. There are people who feel left out when the majority of their community has one belief and they have another. There are people lacking spirituality in their lives and who would like to find it. IMO there are many paths in this direction, though I have a feeling I know which one you would tell them to take if they don't want to go to hell. Somehow I doubt you'd suggest they read the Bhagavad Gita.
Your study of Christianity should have instructed you on the chief pitfall of man: man going his own way, relying on himself and getting into trouble.
Going astray in life does not have to be labelled "sin." A person can accept that they've made mistakes, hurt people or hurt themselves, learn from that, and move on. No offended God or hell required.
I'm becoming more and more inclined to suppose you haven't actually studied Christianity at all.
Curiously, this is what I tend to hear from people when my beliefs don't square with theirs. Because it would be impossible for me to really know stuff about Christianity and reject it, right?
And here we have another example: you relying on you for arrival at truth. You relying on you to decide what is true and what is not. You relying on you to decide this god proved or that God proved.
I am a thinking person who makes decisions based on morals. I don't blindly check a list of religious rules to see if what I want to do is encouraged or forbidden. I really don't like being preached at by people who think they know better, which is why it's quite liberating to rely on "me." I believe that we are all part of the divine, so there's no guy with long white hair up there making rules for us anyway; those were written by the leaders of certain religious and cultural groups long ago.
Perhaps you've never been loved absolutely and unconditionally. In so far as you have been, can I suggest you worshipped the ground that person walked on?
You seem to have "worship" confused with respect and love. Someone who wants to be worshipped is quite likely a narcissist, and people who want to worship others are doing that due to unhealthy psychological need. You do know that we stopped being ruled by kings quite a while ago, don't you? These "king of kings" metaphors were coined for people who saw it as normal to worship a king (and indeed dangerous not to).