What is a True Christian?

Yes, I have watched the 700 Club.Pat Robertson and Jerrry Falwell are racist, homophobic, sexist, anti-intellectual power mongers, showing little in the way of Christian values.They are the ones who blamed the ACLU for the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and even claimed that the prayer drive they hosted was what caused a homosexually-caused hurricane to drift off to sea instead of hitting southern Florida.Yes, you read that right. They believed that gays cause hurricanes.

[quote]Don't forget, Schraf, that though you hate Robertson and Falwell, they are Biblically correct on all points of yours and yes, Sodom and Gomorah was the result of debauchery including homosexuality. The Bible is full of the consequences of disobedience to Biblical principles. It's the Bible you seem to [i]really[/ii] hate.[/quote]So, do you believe that the WTC attacks were caused by the ACLU (and gays, feminists, NOW, "abortionists", the People for the American Way, pagans, and lesbians), as Falwell and Robertson said?Yes or No?That is the same ACLU that helped to DEFEND Falwell in a religious freedom suit against the state of Virginia, you know. I wonder if he's changed his tune?Soddom and Gomorah were destroyed because of the poor way they treated strangers, according to my interpretation.If God thinks that debauchery is bad, then why did he allow all those Old Testament men to have multiple wives?Why did God let the Jews take the women of conquored nations as the spoils of war, which basically meant that he was condoning rape and the ownership of human beings?

Here you go...Falwell and Robertson, verbatim from the transcript. "The thing" Falwell is referring to is the 9/11 suicide bombing of the WTC: To be fair, Falwell later apologized and Robertson distanced himself from his statements. However, this was only because there was national exposure of the comments and public condemnation of them by representatives of some of the groups he named.The fact that they would hold such an opinion and make such a hateful and bigoted statement on the record in the first place just shows their true colors as hate mongerers and anti-Americans.

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Multiple wives were sanctioned by nearly all cultures back then nor did God forbid it. Biblically it was not considered debauchery. What was forbidden was for Jews to marry heathen wives.

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Well, then God was encouraging debauchery back then if he allowed multiple wives. Having multiple wives is pretty debauched, wouldn't you say? Just like owning slaves and genocide, which are also endorsed and encouraged by God.Oh, and can you please back up your claim that most cultures allowed multiple wives back then?At S&G, the people in town demanded that the travelling angels come outside so they could "know them". A poor way to treat strangers, to be sure. Instead, Lot sends his poor virgin daughters out to be raped by the mob. Yet another example of the low status of women in the Bible. The angels destroy S&G.Then Lot's daughters get him drunk and have sex with him, which makes incest apparently OK with God.Num 31:17
Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.Num 31:18
But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.Deut 20:14
But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.Zech 14:2
For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished;Deut 21:11-13
And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife;Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house, and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails;And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife.Why would they want virgins if it wasn't to rape them?Why do they want all the women and children if it isn't to enslave them?What is happeining in the last schenario if it isn't a man picking out a beautiful prisoner of war, taking her home with him, and eventually raping her after marrying her?This message has been edited by schrafinator, 05-25-2004 08:46 AM

Okey dokey!Pat Robertson/ Racist/Bigot. "Individual Christians are the only ones really---and Jewish people, those who trust God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--are the only ones that are qualified to have the reign, because hopefully, they will be governed by God and submit to Him."--Pat Robertson, defending his stance that only Christians and Jews are fit to hold public office, The 700 Club, 01/11/85."I never said that in my life...I never said only Christians and Jews. I never said that." --Pat Robertson, Time magazine, when confronted regarding his statement on The 700 Club on 01/11/85."When I said during my presidential bid that I would only bring Christians and Jews into the government, I hit a firestorm. `What do you mean?' the media challenged me. `You're not going to bring atheists into the government? How dare you maintain that those who believe in the Judeo-Christian values are better qualified to govern America than Hindus and Muslims?' My simple answer is, `Yes, they are.'" "The New World Order," page 218(talking about apartheid South Africa) "I think 'one man, one vote,' just unrestricted democracy, would not be wise. There needs to be some kind of protection for the minority which the white people represent now, a minority, and they need and have a right to demand a protection of their rights."--Pat Robertson, "The 700 Club," 3/18/92"The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians." -- Pat Robertson, fundraising letter, 1992"NOW is saying that in order to be a woman, you've got to be a lesbian."--Pat Robertson, "The 700 Club," 12/3/97"You see what happened in 1962. They took prayer out of the schools. The next year the Supreme Court ordered Bible reading taken from the schools. And then progressing, liberals, most of them atheistic educators, have pushed to remove all religion from the lives of children...The people who wrote the "Humanist Manifesto" and their pupils and their disciples are in charge of education in America today." --Pat Robertson, "The 700 Club," January 13, 1995"The key in terms of mental ability is chess. There's never been a woman Grand Master chess player. Once you get one, then I'll buy some of the feminism..." (According to the Chess Federation of the U.S. there were already two women Grand Masters at that time, both from Georgia. Since Robertson's gaffe, three more women became Grand Masters)I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!
-- Rev. Jerry Falwell, America Can Be Saved, 1979 pp. 52-53, from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious FreedomThe Bible is the inerrant ... word of the living God. It is absolutely infallible,without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as well as in areas such as geography, science, history, etc.
-- Jerry Falwell, Finding Inner Peace and StrengthThe ACLU is to Christians what the American Nazi party is to Jews.
-- Rev. Jerry Falwell (attributed: source unknown)That's the same ACLU that helped him win a religious freedom case in Virginia! I guess he is just like a Nazi-loving Jew.

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Thanks, Ned and Asgara. My response to this is that I believe Falwell was remiss in making an apology atol.

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Wow.all I can say is...wow.Are you really so filled with hate and fear?

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The moral of that point is to be careful, and always check in with God.
He does answer all prayers, and protects you from evil, after all.

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I can only really speak for myself.

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I think asgara's point was, though, that if people can be filled with a demon spirit and completely believe that it is the holy spirit, then it doesn't matter how "careful" an individual is, right?When you think you are checking in with God, maybe you are checking in with the demon.How do you know it's God and not a demon that is making you think it's god?

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I guess you never seen 2 athiests in a bar fight, and then pulled out knives on each other?

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No, I have never seen this ever in my life.Maybe because I don't go to bars much, and I certainly don't have any atheist friends who are in the habit of getting drunk at bars nor do they carry knives.If you think that atheists are more prone to crazy drunken violence, then why are the prisons filled with Christians and other believers instead of non-believers?

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I still studied the Bible, but for 25 years I remained without believing in God. I gave my heart to Jesus 5 years ago, but didn't feel anything until very recently. My life is fine, I am a very sucessful business man with 5 lovely children. I own a home, and I am debt free, cept for the mortgage. I have all the toys I could want. Why would I need God?

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Because you fear death?

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By knowing Gods word.

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So, the way you can tell that you are not currently being fooled by a demon into thinking you are following it is "by knowing God's word'?What does that mean, exactly?

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I can't really answer that completely. I don't know what it is like to be demon spirit filled.

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How do you know?How do you know that you haven't been demon-filled and the demon tricked you into thinking that you were God-filled?

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For myself it is obvious, but for others I cannot answer.

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But this doesn't make sense.You said that demons could trick you into thinking that they were God, but now you say that you know for yourself if you are demon or god filled.If you were being tricked, then by definition you would think you were God-filled when you were actually demon-filled, and you wouldn't know it.If this is possible as you say it is, you couldn't know when it was happening.

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Listen dude, don't get caught in the the trap of trying to twist my words around.

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I'm not twisting your words around.

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I explained cleary what was told to me about being demon filled.

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Well, I'm afraid it wasn't very clear to me.

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For me its simple to ask God if its him or not. Once you know the truth, it is inside you and you cannot be fooled. The truth is built into us from God.

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Unless you have experienced this truth, it is hard for me to describe.

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The word truth becomes much more than just a statement meaning the opposite of false. It becomes a feeling from deep within yourself, and then a way of life. The Holy Spirit is truth, and it dwells inside you . Its all there inside you, you just have to go get it. Its so simple, yet so hard, because you only have to do a few things, but they are hard to do.

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The thing is, all of what you just described seems like arbitrary, made up stuff, no offense intended.I mean, how do you know you aren't just talking to yourself when you think it's God?

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I stated that what the guy saw was someone else being demon filled. This is what God told him. Whether that person was being fooled or not is an unknown to me.

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Then why did you mention it as something that was possible at all?Couldn't the guy who thought the other guy was becoming demon-filled have been demon-filled himself?this kind of stuff can go on forever if you don't have some standards for evidence.All I can say is that the guy who was thought to be demon-filled by the other guy is very lucky he wasn't born during the Dark Ages. There's a great chance that he would have been killed by the all-powerful Christians by now.

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I could only make an assumption that it is possible to be demon filled. How the person feels or why it is happening is unknown to me. The point was that where ever God is, so is the devil.

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Both are assumptions to me, I'm afraid, that are believed only through blind faith.

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One could also be mis-lead by a group of people with beliefs not in line with the bible.

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The thing is, "beliefs not in line with the bible" has changed constantly depending upon the denomination, nation, culture, politics, socioeconomic factors, time in history, etc.

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This is why the bible is so important. It is the way to find out the truth. It is the best guide we have for finding the way of the truth.

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Maybe, maybe not. It all depends on who you are and where and when you live(d).

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It worked for me. So either I am a victim of the greatest scam on the face of the earth, have been fooled countless times by scriptures, I am psychotic delusional(I am not talking about seeing things, just feeling),

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Feelings are funny things. Very maleable and not always the most reliable indicators of reality.

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all the prayers that were answered are figments of my imagination,

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You cannot really use answered prayers as evidence of anything, most likely, because there is something called "confirmation bias". This bias causes us to place weight on "hits" or confiming evidence that supports our belief, while we ignore or discount disconfirming evidence, or "misses".You probably didn't keep records of the things you prayed for, either, and you probably didn't pray for very specific things, kept track of when they were supposed to happen by, and you probably didn't make note of all of your prayers that didn't get answered.You also have probably not considered that your prayers might be answered by a God or gods other than the Christian God you think is answering them. Or perhaps there are invisible alien life forms with superpowers who are causing things to sometimes go in your favor.Or, maybe sometimes your prayers are answered, and sometimes they aren't, because life sometimes goes your way, and sometimes it doesn't, regardless of your prayers.

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the blessings I have recieved since tithing are merely a coinsidence,

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Did you keep track of your blessings before tithing? Might be more confirmation bias here.Or, it could be many other mundane factors that you just aren't paying attention to, such as being a happier person since joining a supportive social group (which happens to be religious) made you more effective at work, so you get more comissions or got a raise, or whatever.

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people tell me I look ten years younger and wonder what I did to myself was just a conisidence, the peace I feel within myself is self-inflicted,

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As a non-believer, I would definitely say your inner peace is self-inflicted.People decide to have inner peace without God all the time. I did. My husband did. A lot of my friends did, too.Don't sell yourself short.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 06-03-2004 03:13 PM

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I've noticed you mention this "confirmation bias" a lot. In an attempt to handwave our answered prayers away into your nice comforting pigeon hole.

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I'm hardly "handwaving away" anything, mike.Confirmation bias is a pervasive, very real part of the way human minds work, no matter if you like it or not. It is useful for gathering nuts and berries on the savannah, and maybe figuring out if someone you don't know is likely to be friendly or not, but very much gets in the way of determining the real frequency of wished-for evidence of the reality of one's beliefs.I am NOT saying that your prayers aren't being answered.I am simply saying that without the kind of record keeping and exactuitude that counters the very natural and normal confirmation bias that we all use every day, you have no idea at all if your prayers are being "answered" at a rate greater than plain old random chance would predict.You can believe what you like, but unless and until you put your answered prayer claims under some simple experimental controls, they can't mean anything to an outside observer wishing to determine if they are, in fact, being answered or not.

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But we would call this "belief". It's very obvious to a doubter, that this is "confirmation bias".

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It is very likely that it is bias, yes.Judging by the stories you have told about your answered prayers, you are just as subject to it as the rest of us.

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I have had "doubt" creep up on me and try to convince me that faith and belief isn't it. But in the end, this will always come down to two simple things; those who have belief, and those who don't.

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but mike, don't you want to know if your answered prayers are happening at a rate greater than chance?Don't you want to know if you are fooling yourself?I would.

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Critical thinkers and skeptics don't create answers just to manage their anxiety--Karla McLaren

I don't have time to anwer all that I want to at the moment, but I will address this...

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Prayers are always answered. It just not might be the answer you were looking for, or come within the time you expect it to. The reason for this is always reaveld to you eventually.

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This is post-hoc reasoning.http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Post_hoc"Post hoc, also known as coincidental correlation , is a logical fallacy which assumes, or asserts, that if one thing happens after another, the first must be the cause of the second. It is a particularly subtle, and tempting, error because temporal sequence is basic to causality."A true test of if prayers are answered or not is to be very specific about what a "successfully" answered prayer looks like. What, when, who, etc.You must also take into account all other factors besides God that might account for this very specific thing happening and rule them out as causes.

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The truth is not maleable, and is 100% reliable.

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But one's feelings are not 100% reliable at determining the truth.Are you saying that your feelings are representative of Truth?What if I give you a drug that makes you feel paranoid and that people hate you. Does that mean that people, in reality, actually hate you?

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That statement makes no logical sense whats so ever.

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Sure it does.You have no way of diferentiating between your God that you think is answering prayers and another god or gods that may be actually answering them.The evidence for any of them is the same; your assurance and your feeling that you are correct.My problem is this.There are plenty of people who believe just a ferverently that they have been abducted by aliens as you believe that the Christian God exists.Thousands of otherwise regular folks can give evidence, testimony of very powerful emotional experiences, and they truly believe with all their hearts that they have been abducted by aliens.Why should I believe you and not them?

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Random chance doesn't cater for specific requests.

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I think you misunderstand.Random chance isn't the "cause" of anything.There are many causes for many things.There is a wonderful experiment that has been done many times which demonstrates our propensity for confirmation bias.The Newsletter of The North Texas Skeptics The students saw what they wanted to see in the horoscope, and discounted or ignored the inaccuracies. They also did not notice any gaping holes or glaring omissions, because it is just much easier for humans to notice things that happen compared to things that do not happen.

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What would chance help for anyway though? Aren't the chances of abiogenesis impossible?

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Certainly not impossible, and there's really no way of calculating the odds.Remember, the odds of a specific thing happening at a specific time and at a specific place are very small, but the odds of something happening at any place at any time are much higher.

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What are the chances of us existing? I guess the odds are against these things, yet you claim we still came about in this way.

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Ah, but the difference is evidence.We have evidence that we exist that any disinterested observer can test and observe, and through this testing and observation a reasonable conclusion can be drawn that we do, in fact, exist.I am not saying that God doesn't answer your prayers.I am just saying that unless you are willing to subject your claim of prayers being answered to normal experimental controls, I am inclined to strongly suspect that your "hit rate" of answered prayers is no greater than chance would predict once we control for post hoc reasoning and confirmation bias.If God answering yes sometimes and no at other times is indestinguishable from random chance, why pray? The practical outcome is exactly the same.

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So how accurate or useful is chance? If I ask for a specific request and it happens, what are the chances of that?

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It depends upon the request.If you request that the sun rise tomorrow morning, I'd say that your odds of your request being granted is near guaranteed.If you request that the entire world be peaceful and free of hunger and strife, I'd say the chances of your request being granted are quite low.Of course, if God was really all-powerful and in charge, the liklihood of something happening would be irrelevant. God could just do it.I mean, how many millions of people over thousands of years have prayed to God to stop all hunger, and to stop all war, and he has never seen fit to answer a single one of those prayers?But he seems to listen to you. Why not pray for the end of hunger and war and see if he answers those prayers?

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But I am not fooling myself. I cannot have had these answered prayers in this way.

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How do you know?It isn't the individual answered prayers that prove anything, mike. It is the success rate over time.People who do not pray have wished-for things happen to them sometimes, and wished-for things not happen sometimes.People who pray have prayed-for things happen sometimes, and prayed-for things not happen sometimes.Unless you can show me that your rate of prayed-for things that happened is greater than chance would predict, then the most likely explanation for your perception of a greater-than-chance success rate is the demonstrated, observed, well-understood phenomena of confimation bias and post hoc reasoning.

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How can I be fooling myself when I have the truth?

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Are you seriously asking me that?Let me say what you wrote a different way:"How can I be wrong when I KNOW I'm right?"

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Random chance cannot point itself into one area and focus on it. It's like me winning the lottery, if I win it one week then I guess it is random chance, but what if I win it every week for three years, would you still think of it as chance?

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No, I would take notice of that. If you told me that you prayed for, and received, winning lottery numbers every week, and you told me about them before the lottery was drawn, and there were no evidence of cheating, this discussion would end and I would believe you.The thing is, the lottery is an example of a random event that is very narrowly defined. The odds can be calculated very easily and accurately, and there is no way to be swayed by confirmation bias or post hoc reasoning.Either you picked the correct numbers or you didn't. There's no "interpreting" after the fact, there's no reason to account for non-events because we are only interested in a small number of identical, very specific events.The lottery has exactly the kind of controls on it that I have been talking about.

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And even prayers that seemingly go unanswered - you cannot know if the answer is not according to God's will.

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That is post hoc reasoning.You make up excuses for why a failure is really a success.What you are saying is that you actually didn't get the winning lottery numbers correct every single week, but you still claim a 100% success rate.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 06-05-2004 07:54 PM

Can you be more specific about exactly what the requests were, exactly how you wrote them down and exactly why you think they were fulfilled?

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You desire God to be like a computer.

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No, I am simply looking for reliable evidence that God is the cause of what you say He is the cause of.So far, your entire post consists of giving God credit for when you believe your prayers to be answered, and also giving God credit for answering prayers when they aren't answered.That is classic post hoc reasoning.You claim to understand the ways of God when good things happen, yet when bad things happen, you claim to not understand God.

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You desire him to be under your control and always give the desired output. You assume that your wisdom is greater than God's.

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No, I am simply trying to determine if the benefits to praying to your God are any different from random chance combined with post hoc reasoning and confimation bias.

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The proof is not in the success rate of prayer over time. This is only an indication of a believer's maturity and conformity to the image of Christ. The proof is in the growth in faith and power in the believer's spiritual life.

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So, you are basically saying that I just have to take your word for it that the effects of prayer are manifested in the natural world, even if you cannot demonstrate that you aren't actually self-deluded.Sorry, can't go there.