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Author Topic:   Why Are Christians Afraid To Doubt?
Larni
Member (Idle past 163 days)
Posts: 4000
From: Liverpool
Joined: 09-16-2005


Message 256 of 300 (393061)
04-03-2007 12:41 PM
Reply to: Message 252 by CTD
04-03-2007 12:12 PM


Re: OT is cool!
CTD writes:
You can do these things without ever learning math, can you not?
True, but you must learn to connect what you see with your actions. If you have never used the actions to catch you will be very bad at it.
CTD writes:
Otherwise you couldn't know anything until you learned language.
This is in fact true; can you remember not being able to think in words?
CTD writes:
Some of the most basic, important, fundamental things we know are the ones we learned before we could speak, let alone apply formal logic to explain them.
Conditioning is not thinking, though is it?
CTD writes:
No, I don't buy for one minute that everything I can't express logically and rationally is inferior knowledge on that basis alone.
It is; in the same way that in school, when you do an exam you are told to 'show your working' and justify how you arrived at your answer. Thats how we can tell we are not just pulling answers out of thin air.
If we cannot 'show our working' we could have any old answer written down.
CTD writes:
But maybe it's been forgotten that logic isn't foolproof. Just look at the number of logical fallacies available. Are we so perfect that we can catch them all? If so, every post that contains one is evidence of an intentional lie.
To commit a logical fallacy is to go against logic. Logic has not failed, the user has failed.
But this does not always imply intent, sometimes it is ignorance.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 252 by CTD, posted 04-03-2007 12:12 PM CTD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 282 by CTD, posted 04-04-2007 12:47 AM Larni has replied

jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 257 of 300 (393062)
04-03-2007 12:41 PM
Reply to: Message 255 by CTD
04-03-2007 12:35 PM


Am I to understand you invented a straw man Christianity in order to dispute what I said, and then decided to convert to it in order to conform to the rules? Puh-leeze!
Not at all. In fact if everything in the Bible is no more than stories told round the campfire, the message, import and value is still the same.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
 Message 255 by CTD, posted 04-03-2007 12:35 PM CTD has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 264 by Phat, posted 04-03-2007 1:54 PM jar has replied

LinearAq
Member (Idle past 4675 days)
Posts: 598
From: Pocomoke City, MD
Joined: 11-03-2004


Message 258 of 300 (393063)
04-03-2007 12:46 PM
Reply to: Message 240 by ICANT
04-03-2007 10:13 AM


Of course we are certain!!!!
Ringo writes:
The supernatural - if it exists - inherently has no natural symptoms. It can not be "proven".
ICANT writes:
To me it has been Proven. The supernatural tells me where the Universe came from. It tells me where Life came from.
Preach it brother! There can be no doubt where the Universe came from.
From Chaos came Erebus and Night...then Love was born. From Love came Light and Day....then Gaea, the earth, was born.
oh wait...
I mean...First there was Muspell, a place of light and heat with Surt at its border guarding it with a flaming sword. Beyond Muspell is the yawning void of Ginnungagap where heat and cold meet to form the first frost ogre, Ymir...
er umm...
In the begining there was only water and water animals lived in it. Then a woman fell from a torn place in the sky. Two loons saw her falling and caught her. The woman tok a little soil from inside Toad's mouth and placed it on Turtle's back to make land...
really...
The Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe, a mountain, and a midget....
I forgot...was it one of these or the Bible's version that had the most evidence supporting it?
I fail to understand why you can doubt science's theories on beginings with some evidence supporting it, yet have no doubt about a creation story that has only the evidence of its being written in a religious book. I doubt that you can produce one shred of evidence that can differenciate between it being God or Your Belief that supported you in your 67 years of service to Him.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 240 by ICANT, posted 04-03-2007 10:13 AM ICANT has not replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 259 of 300 (393073)
04-03-2007 1:20 PM
Reply to: Message 229 by CTD
04-03-2007 2:10 AM


I would maintain that God's message has been preserved, and one of the present forms is quite probably 100% accurate.
If it's among countless perversions of the message, with no way to distinguish them, it hasn't been preserved. It's been lost in the static.
It's like the Ark at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Stuck in a box among thousands of identical boxes at the Office of Naval Intelligence. Lost to history, forever.
Preserving is preserving.
Indeed. Since his message clearly hasn't been preserved in any meaningful way, it's ludicrous to assert that he's done so. And remember that this was an assertion you made with absolutely no evidence. Well, there's considerable evidence against your position. It's now time for you to present some in favor of it, or else this discussion is pretty much over.
Even if that were true, at least I started at zero.
...wha?
I have consistently maintained that the martyr is sincere. 'Honest' would also apply.
Is sincerity a concept so foreign that you cannot comprehend the term?
I think you've misunderstood something, here, which is why you're leveling these false accusations of misrepresentation.
I've never asserted that the martyrs weren't sincere. But their sincerity is not evidence in favor of the veracity of their views. It's only evidence of the incredible power of religion to deceive.
Is deception such a foreign concept that you cannot comprehend the term? (Strange, since you're clearly so practiced at it.)
Martyrdom does rule out the possibility that the martyr is telling lies on purpose.
You're arguing with a strawman, then. Nobody's disputed that. I doubt very much that people die for things they know not to be true, except crazy people maybe.
But it's remarkably easy to get people to believe things that they can see aren't true. A common experiment is to show people these figures:
and ask them which were longer and shorter. But there was a catch:
quote:
In reality, all but one of the participants were confederates of the experimenter, and the study was really about how the remaining student would react to the confederates' behavior.
The participants ” the real subject and the confederates ” were all seated in a classroom where they were told to announce their judgment of the length of several lines drawn on a series of displays. They were asked which line was longer than the other, which were the same length, etc. The confederates had been prearranged to all give an incorrect answer to the tests.
While most subjects answered correctly, many showed extreme discomfort, and a high proportion (32%) conformed to the erroneous majority view of the others in the room when there were at least three confederates present, even when the majority said that two lines different in length by several inches were the same length.
Asch conformity experiments - Wikipedia
Any idiot can see which lines are longer and which are shorter, and indeed, in control groups with no confederates, all participants correctly answered the questions. But in the face of three other people appearing to agree, nearly a third of the people rejected the evidence of their own eyes in order to go with the flow.
It's not hard to get people to believe things they know aren't true; a lot of people will do it just because everybody else is.
By the way, why do you fear my little statement so much? You appear terrified of the ramifications, while you maintain that you still don't understand it.
I guess I have no idea what you think you're talking about. Which little statement? I've replied to every statement of yours that I felt was salient to your point. (Largely, I'm ignoring your personal attacks.)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 229 by CTD, posted 04-03-2007 2:10 AM CTD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 265 by anastasia, posted 04-03-2007 1:56 PM crashfrog has replied
 Message 286 by CTD, posted 04-04-2007 2:05 AM crashfrog has replied

anastasia
Member (Idle past 5952 days)
Posts: 1857
From: Bucks County, PA
Joined: 11-05-2006


Message 260 of 300 (393074)
04-03-2007 1:23 PM
Reply to: Message 254 by jar
04-03-2007 12:27 PM


Hope
jar writes:
Of course you can. The whole field of mathematics is based on proofs.
There are also things where we can have so high a level of confidence that it approaches surety. Examples would be that evolution happened or that there has never been a flood as described in the Bible.
The doctrines of salvation fall into that category of unknowable. I did not think we were discussing the known or the pretty well concluded.
Sorry but that makes no sense. Hope is by definition related to uncertainty.
HOPE...
1. A wish or desire accompanied by confident expectation of its fulfillment.
To sin against hope is to make God a liar.
Catholic Encyclopedia writes:
Despair, ethically regarded, is the voluntary and complete abandonment of all hope of saving one's soul and of having the means required for that end. It is not a passive state of mind: on the contrary it involves a positive act of the will by which a person deliberately gives over any expectation of ever reaching eternal life. There is presupposed an intervention of the intellect in virtue of which one comes to decide definitely that salvation is impossible. This last is motived by the persuasion either that the individual's sins are too great to be forgiven or that it is too hard for human nature to cooperate with the grace of God or that Almighty God is unwilling to aid the weakness or pardon the offenses of his creatures, etc.
It is obvious that a mere anxiety, no matter how acute, as to the hereafter is not to be identified with despair. This excessive fear is usually a negative condition of soul and adequately discernible from the positive elements which clearly mark the vice which we call despair. The pusillanimous person has not so much relinquished trust in God as he is unduly terrified at the spectacle of his own shortcomings of incapacity.
The sin of despair may sometimes, although not necessarily, contain the added malice of heresy in so far as it implies an assent to a proposition which is against faith, e.g. that God has no mind to supply us with what is needful for salvation.
I thnk it is important before you become responsible for another's despair to clarify whether you are talking of distrust in God's message and promises, distrust in our own worthiness, or over-all doubt of the existance of the supernatural. 'You don't know if you are saved' is a big burden to put on an initiate or one of weak faith.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 254 by jar, posted 04-03-2007 12:27 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 261 by jar, posted 04-03-2007 1:30 PM anastasia has not replied

jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 261 of 300 (393076)
04-03-2007 1:30 PM
Reply to: Message 260 by anastasia
04-03-2007 1:23 PM


Re: Hope
Read what you posted.
HOPE...
1. A wish or desire accompanied by confident expectation of its fulfillment.
To sin against hope is to make God a liar.
Wish
Desire
Expectation
All involve uncertainty.
I thnk it is important before you become responsible for another's despair to clarify whether you are talking of distrust in God's message and promises, distrust in our own worthiness, or over-all doubt of the existance of the supernatural. 'You don't know if you are saved' is a big burden to put on an initiate or one of weak faith.
Of course it is a big burden, but also an honest and necessary one.
No one knows if they are saved. They may believe so, may hope so, may expect to be saved, may wish they were saved, may even hold a confident expectation that they are saved; but until one has died and been judged one cannot know that they are saved.
It is also a step towards a stronger faith.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
 Message 260 by anastasia, posted 04-03-2007 1:23 PM anastasia has not replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 262 of 300 (393078)
04-03-2007 1:37 PM
Reply to: Message 251 by anastasia
04-03-2007 11:52 AM


Crashfrog, I never said this.
To the contrary. Allow me to quote your exact words:
quote:
What do you want?
Do you want a collection of books that are accurate to the letter?
Do you want a group of people that are no more than clones of each other? Do you want to see zombies in action preaching the gospel?
In other words - God allows his message to change and shift throughout the ages so that people won't be "zombies", and we can have all these super-interesting religious conflicts - just to liven things up. (Wouldn't want people to be clones of each other, after all. Might get boring!)
You have not shown that you are able to doubt yourself or think critically about the way another person has arrived at their conclusions. There is nothing wrong with saying, 'yes, this makes sense, but it doesn't feel right to me as a personal belief'.
I doubt myself all the time. I'm not sure what you think you're talking about.
My point is that what you believe doesn't make sense. It's ridiculous in the extreme to assert that God has successfully preserved his message through the centuries when his message, as far as we can tell, has been completely lost if it ever existed in the first place. It's illogical in the extreme to suggest that you, Anastasia, are one of the only people on Earth to have a "legitimate" copy of the message, when the millions upon millions who disagree with you make the same identical claim.
Why should I believe you, over them? You give me no reason at all, which makes me suspect that you're all wrong. And a thousand thousand differing messages is exactly what we would expect if no supernatural message preservation was occurring, which makes that verification of my view.
I think that all of the Christians here are willing to do this towards you folks. We are willing to see that you don't need to be a stark raving lunatic not to believe in God. We are willing to say that you don't have to be an immoral scoundrel as a result either.
Congratulations on your collective enlightenment, but it's only come about as the result of strenuous efforts on my part, and on the parts of the other atheists here, to engage you people in discussion and educate you about atheism. (A little credit where credit is due, please.)
And as far as your assertions about "all the Christians" go, I doubt it'll be a week before another Christian shows up here saying "it takes too much faith to be an atheist" and "I don't know how anybody could trust an atheist, they have no morals" and the like. Your churches are churning them out wholesale.
I for one will never, ever tell you that my faith has no logic to speak of.
Of course not. That would be an open admission that the whole enterprise is relatively silly.
Yet, for a person to believe based on what they know of their own experiences, is not something that is is irrational.
Rational people realize that, in fact, personal experience is a relatively poor tool for getting to the truth. The plural of anecdote is not data, and our memories are a notoriously unreliable tool for developing a truly fair sample space. If there's one thing that allows the specious reasoning at the heart of faith and religion to continue, it's the popular ignorance of even the most basic scientific findings into human cognition.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 251 by anastasia, posted 04-03-2007 11:52 AM anastasia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 267 by anastasia, posted 04-03-2007 2:19 PM crashfrog has replied

ringo
Member (Idle past 411 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 263 of 300 (393084)
04-03-2007 1:53 PM
Reply to: Message 255 by CTD
04-03-2007 12:35 PM


CTD writes:
Am I to understand you invented a straw man Christianity in order to dispute what I said...?
No, I didn't originate any of the ideas that I've mentioned. The fact that they're new to you suggests that you need to pry open the blinkers a little bit. You're like the boy who kisses a girl for the first time and says, "If that's all there is to it, I'm not impressed."
You remain a fine example of the mental stagnation caused by fear of doubt.

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

This message is a reply to:
 Message 255 by CTD, posted 04-03-2007 12:35 PM CTD has not replied

Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 264 of 300 (393086)
04-03-2007 1:54 PM
Reply to: Message 257 by jar
04-03-2007 12:41 PM


Tales Told Round The Campfire
Jar writes:
In fact if everything in the Bible is no more than stories told round the campfire, the message, import and value is still the same.
NIV writes:
1 Cor 15:1-2--Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
So what did the author mean when he said that by this gospel a person was saved?
Edited by Phat, : fixed quote

This message is a reply to:
 Message 257 by jar, posted 04-03-2007 12:41 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 271 by jar, posted 04-03-2007 2:56 PM Phat has not replied

anastasia
Member (Idle past 5952 days)
Posts: 1857
From: Bucks County, PA
Joined: 11-05-2006


Message 265 of 300 (393087)
04-03-2007 1:56 PM
Reply to: Message 259 by crashfrog
04-03-2007 1:20 PM


Now the Lord had said to Abram: Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." {Gen. 12:1-3}
Magnificat writes:
Suscepit Israel puerum suum recordatus misericordiæ suæ,
Sicut locutus est ad patres nostros, Abraham et semini eius in sæcula.
My soul doth magnify the Lord. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid; for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
Because he that is mighty, hath done great things to me; and holy is his name.
And his mercy is from generation unto generations, to them that fear him.
He hath shewed might in his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble.
He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.
He hath received Israel his servant, being mindful of his mercy: As he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed for ever.
From the time of the ancient Israleites, to the New Testament and the song of Mary, there is a preservation of the promises and messages of God. I defy you to show me that these same beliefs are not held and remembered by modern Christians. Show me that no one remembers the promises of salvation, show me that no one believes in them, show me that these things are not 'really' remembered but only made up by countless sects.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 259 by crashfrog, posted 04-03-2007 1:20 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 266 by crashfrog, posted 04-03-2007 2:05 PM anastasia has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 266 of 300 (393091)
04-03-2007 2:05 PM
Reply to: Message 265 by anastasia
04-03-2007 1:56 PM


What translation of the Bible are you using? You don't specify. Aren't the various translations more evidence that there's little to no universal agreement on what that message is supposed to be?
From the time of the ancient Israleites, to the New Testament and the song of Mary, there is a preservation of the promises and messages of God.
Um, where, exactly, do you see that? I don't see anything that's the same between the Bible verse and the Magnificat. As an example of message preservation you couldn't have chosen two more divergent texts.
Show me that no one remembers the promises of salvation, show me that no one believes in them, show me that these things are not 'really' remembered but only made up by countless sects.
11,000 individual Christian denominations worldwide, that differ on every conceivable doctrinal point. And that doesn't even include para-Christian traditions.
How can you still continue to assert that God's message has been eternally preserved, when nobody can even agree on what that message is? How long can you continue to ignore that very basic point?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 265 by anastasia, posted 04-03-2007 1:56 PM anastasia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 268 by anastasia, posted 04-03-2007 2:27 PM crashfrog has replied

anastasia
Member (Idle past 5952 days)
Posts: 1857
From: Bucks County, PA
Joined: 11-05-2006


Message 267 of 300 (393096)
04-03-2007 2:19 PM
Reply to: Message 262 by crashfrog
04-03-2007 1:37 PM


Crash writes:
In other words - God allows his message to change and shift throughout the ages so that people won't be "zombies", and we can have all these super-interesting religious conflicts - just to liven things up. (Wouldn't want people to be clones of each other, after all. Might get boring!)
No! I asked you personally. What do you WANT to see in order to believe? Does it take a million clones before you could believe in the possibility that one message is preserved? I believe the message of God evolves. It is revealed in due time. This does NOT mean that I am also believing that all messages are 'right' or that they are even from God. God allows people to be wrong. This has no bearing on whether or not He is preserving one message.
Why should I believe you, over them? You give me no reason at all, which makes me suspect that you're all wrong. And a thousand thousand differing messages is exactly what we would expect if no supernatural message preservation was occurring, which makes that verification of my view.
Why? Why does the number of wrong answers rule out the right one? Oh my goodness, you have too many choices, poor thing. It's all about your own logic. To me, it is perfectly logical that a thousand messages would result from anything transmitted by God. If I saw nothing, then I would have to assume that this 'message' was inconsequential. To the contrary, you have many diffent sects and Bibles, and the similarities amoung those who believe, no matter WHAT Bible they use, is quite striking when put next to the differences. This gives credence to MY belief that God's message is living in people, not in books. This number of different people believing is also something which is found in the Bible, that all nations will be taught, and that all believers will not be found 'correct' at judgement. There are also any number of predictions that this message of God will appear lost, that all traces of faith will be wiped from the earth. When this happens, tell me again that there is no preservation.
Congratulations on your collective enlightenment, but it's only come about as the result of strenuous efforts on my part, and on the parts of the other atheists here, to engage you people in discussion and educate you about atheism. (A little credit where credit is due, please.)
And as far as your assertions about "all the Christians" go, I doubt it'll be a week before another Christian shows up here saying "it takes too much faith to be an atheist" and "I don't know how anybody could trust an atheist, they have no morals" and the like. Your churches are churning them out wholesale.
Don't act like I have never met an atheist in my life before this lovely group. I have had ample opportunity to review where my beliefs are concerning this. As far as incredulity goes, aren't you also guilty of 'I don't know how anyone could possibly believe in this junk?'. I'm only asking you to start finding that out 'how'. No, you don;t have to believe me, and I also see no reason to believe you. You have given no indication that your position is founded on anything 'real'. You have nothing to show except your own opinions. Tell me again that personal experience is relatively poor for getting at truth, and then that you don't 'believe' in a God because you have no personal experience of one.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 262 by crashfrog, posted 04-03-2007 1:37 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 269 by crashfrog, posted 04-03-2007 2:38 PM anastasia has replied

anastasia
Member (Idle past 5952 days)
Posts: 1857
From: Bucks County, PA
Joined: 11-05-2006


Message 268 of 300 (393099)
04-03-2007 2:27 PM
Reply to: Message 266 by crashfrog
04-03-2007 2:05 PM


Crashfrog writes:
What translation of the Bible are you using? You don't specify. Aren't the various translations more evidence that there's little to no universal agreement on what that message is supposed to be?
The Latin Vulgate and the Douay-Rheims. Go look at some more if it pleases you. There is no difference in the message.
Um, where, exactly, do you see that? I don't see anything that's the same between the Bible verse and the Magnificat. As an example of message preservation you couldn't have chosen two more divergent texts.
Well then you are not looking. It is so obvious it is not even something I had to look for.
11,000 individual Christian denominations worldwide, that differ on every conceivable doctrinal point. And that doesn't even include para-Christian traditions.
Sure, 11,000 sects that believe in the God of the OT who revealed himself via Christ for the good of mankind. You are being obstinate, and exactly what I told you. You are not willing to see another person's perspective.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 266 by crashfrog, posted 04-03-2007 2:05 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 270 by crashfrog, posted 04-03-2007 2:41 PM anastasia has replied
 Message 290 by CTD, posted 04-04-2007 3:44 AM anastasia has not replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 269 of 300 (393101)
04-03-2007 2:38 PM
Reply to: Message 267 by anastasia
04-03-2007 2:19 PM


What do you WANT to see in order to believe? Does it take a million clones before you could believe in the possibility that one message is preserved?
Yes, exactly. If God was preserving his message, there would be one Bible, one Church, and absolutely no inter-Christian warfare over doctrinal issues.
But what happened to the Christian church and the Christian message is absolutely identical to what happens to organizations based on any other message; once the "message-giver" is no longer around to continually clarify his message, doctrinal issues result in schism. It happened in Scientology, for instance, after L. Ron Hubbard died. It happens in every religion, over time.
And if God were maintaining supernatural lockdown on the fidelity of his message, as was claimed, it wouldn't be happening in Christianity. Clearly, he's not doing that. (I believe he's not doing that because there's no such thing as God, and therefore God can't do anything.)
Why does the number of wrong answers rule out the right one?
Because that's what it means to preserve a message! A message that no one hears is not preserved. Sending a message requires someone to send it and someone to receive it. If all you get on the other end is static - from the interference of random signals - then the message wasn't received, and it's lost forever. That's a basic truth of what it means to preserve a message.
Oh my goodness, you have too many choices, poor thing.
Indeed. A God who was maintaining message fidelity would prevent those other choices, so that it would be obvious which message was the "right" one. That's what it means to preserve a message.
To the contrary, you have many diffent sects and Bibles, and the similarities amoung those who believe, no matter WHAT Bible they use, is quite striking when put next to the differences.
To the contrary - there's almost nothing that unifies their disparate belief systems. Churches that support homosexuality. Churches that oppose it. Churches that stress the divinity of Jesus. Churches that reject it. Churches that ordain women. Churches that refuse to. Churches that preach that all can be saved, by their own volition. Churches that stress that only God's elect will be saved. Churches that stress free will. Churches that teach free will is an illusion.
I've heard it all. Man, have you ever talked to Jar around here? He's got all kinds of crazy ideas that I've never heard from a Christian church, and yet he's still a Christian. Isn't he over here somewhere telling you how the Passion isn't even integral to the Christian experience? It seems as though there's nearly nothing you can agree on.
This gives credence to MY belief that God's message is living in people, not in books.
The fact that nearly every Christian has their own interpretation of God's "timeless, unchanging" message is proof that it isn't living in people, either.
This number of different people believing is also something which is found in the Bible, that all nations will be taught, and that all believers will not be found 'correct' at judgement.
All will not? In other words, no believer has the accurate version of God's message?
Isn't that what I've been saying all along? Maybe you misspoke.
As far as incredulity goes, aren't you also guilty of 'I don't know how anyone could possibly believe in this junk?'.
I've never said that, and I challenge you to produce a direct quote. It's no mystery at all to me how people could believe this junk; I recommend for starters that you review the post I just made to CTD (the one with the lines.) The emerging science of human cognition is providing a lot of answers for why people choose to believe things that are obviously false.
You have given no indication that your position is founded on anything 'real'.
Are you saying that there aren't more than 11,000 different Christian denominations worldwide? That there aren't two dozen or more individual, contradictory translations of the Bible, in English alone?
Are you saying those things aren't real? I've got a couple of those different translations sitting around the house. Are you saying I'm being delusional, that there's only one Christian denomination and only one English translation of the Bible?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 267 by anastasia, posted 04-03-2007 2:19 PM anastasia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 273 by anastasia, posted 04-03-2007 3:14 PM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 270 of 300 (393102)
04-03-2007 2:41 PM
Reply to: Message 268 by anastasia
04-03-2007 2:27 PM


Well then you are not looking.
No, I'm looking. The Bible verse is a message to Abram, about the formation of the Hebrew nation of Israel and the glorification of the Israelites. The Magnificat is about the glory of God.
They're not about the same thing. You appear confused because they both mention "Israel."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 268 by anastasia, posted 04-03-2007 2:27 PM anastasia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 272 by anastasia, posted 04-03-2007 2:59 PM crashfrog has replied

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