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Author | Topic: The Marketing Of Christianity | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
That's what I'm saying: Don't buy this nonsense that everlasting torment is your own fault.
Also stay as far from religion as you can. They breed goats.
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jar Member (Idle past 422 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Phat writes: Also stay as far from religion as you can. They breed goats. It is not religions that breed Goats but rather the Christian Cult of Ignorance.
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Phat Member Posts: 18348 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
ringo writes: I suppose you would blame God. Don't buy this nonsense that everlasting torment is your own fault.Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith "as long as chance rules, God is an anachronism."~Arthur Koestler
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ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
Be honest with yourself. If somebody left a loaded gun in a crowded playground and children got hurt, who would you blame? ringo writes:
I suppose you would blame God. Don't buy this nonsense that everlasting torment is your own fault. You'd blame the one who caused the problem, wouldn't you? You'd scoff at the idea that the children "chose" to be harmed, wouldn't you? So why would you give your "loving", omniscient God a free pass?
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Phat Member Posts: 18348 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
Tangle writes: Not totally. I rarely attend church lately.
You can be forgiven for believing in "a" god - at least until we know more about how our universe works - but you also believe in the ridiculous idea of religion.Tangle writes: No. The God I believe in does not require worship. He desires relationship through prayer...largely for our benefit rather than His. No belief system is condemned, but He desires to draw all men unto Himself.
You believe in an interventionist god that requires worship and condemns all other belief systems and their believers.Tangle writes: I focus on the present. I do not merely parrot belief like a sheeple.(Buzzsaws favorite word) You believe in heaven and, I suppose, hell and all the daft human invented biblical trappings.Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith "as long as chance rules, God is an anachronism."~Arthur Koestler
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Phat Member Posts: 18348 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
I see no evidence of guilt. I see no connection with your metaphor. Hell, if hell exists was never created for fallen humanity nor innocent children. You gotta work to get there. Choose your works wisely.
Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith "as long as chance rules, God is an anachronism."~Arthur Koestler
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ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
The "fall" itself is evidence of guilt. God doomed every subsequent generation of humans to atone for Adam and Eve's "sin".
Hell, if hell exists was never created for fallen humanity nor innocent children. You gotta work to get there.
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Tangle Member Posts: 9512 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
Phat writes: Not totally. I rarely attend church lately. Totally. Your religion is Christianity, you pray to a Christian god.
The God I believe in does not require worship. He desires relationship through prayer...largely for our benefit rather than His. No belief system is condemned, but He desires to draw all men unto Himself. This is the trouble arguing with you believers - you all believe something different even within the same belief. It's almost as if you're cherry picking what suits you.....
I focus on the present. I do not merely parrot belief like a sheeple You're telling me that you don't believe in heaven and hell?Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London. "Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
God doomed every subsequent generation of humans to atone for Adam and Eve's "sin". Humans and every other animal too if you let some people tell it. Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend. Thomas Jefferson Worrying about the "browning of America" is not racism. -- Faith Some of us are worried about just how much damage he will do in his last couple of weeks as president, to make it easier for the NY Times and Washington post to try to destroy Trump's presidency. -- marc9000
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Phat Member Posts: 18348 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
I'm continuing the Marketing Of Christianity Topic. A couple of new questions have come up.
If you recall, we were discussing at length the character and motive of Saul Of Tarsus 3.0, otherwise known as Paul. jar writes: Who wrote Jude? Zondervan says this: Paul would only be happy marketing a new Pauline Christianity. Paul was not happy marketing James' Christianity or Peter's Christianity, Paul insisted on marketing Paul's Christianity. Pauline Christianity is based on Paul amplifying and explaining what Jesus really meant. What you see in Paul's Epistles is Jesus through the filter of Paul.Remember that Jesus ministry only lasted 2-3 years. Paul converted when he was about 25-30 year old and his ministry lasted for over 30 years, ten times as long as Jesus ministry. The book of Jude tells us that it was written by Jude, slave of Jesus the Anointed One, and brother of James. There is a consensus that the brother of James identifies the author as the brother of that James who led the community of Jesus-followers in Jerusalem from at least 40 CE until his execution in 62 CEin other words, the same person who wrote the book of James. That would make Jude the younger brother of Jesus. In lists of Jesus’ brothers, James is always listed first and Jude is listed last (Matthew 13:55) or next to last (Mark 6:3). But note that neither Jude nor James mentions a family relationship between them and Jesus.Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith Paul was probably SO soaked in prayer nobody else has ever equaled him.~Faith
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Pressie Member Posts: 2103 From: Pretoria, SA Joined: |
And plants, too. Just because Adam and Eve sinned.
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jar Member (Idle past 422 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Phat writes: Who wrote Jude? Likely the same person or someone from the same chapter of Club Christian as the author of Jude that wrote 2Peter but we will never know the actual author. BUT, like 2Peter it is apocalyptic literature and points to one of the first crisis that shook the new creation Christianity, the failure of Jesus to return during the lifetime of the first generation of converts. Those three books, James, Jude and 2Peter are very interesting. For example, James makes no references to the death or resurrection of Jesus or even hints of Jesus as the Son of God and uses the title Lord more as a leader or ruler than as a divine being. All three have a common theme though of patience under adversity and continued faith. They stress behavior and finally in 2Peter offer the apologetic that Jesus changed his mind and did not end the world to give more people time to join the club. Remember, early Christianity was not a "The End is Near" religion but a "The End is Here" based religion. Like so many cults today the basis was that it's over, the fat lady done sung and here comes the trumpets. But that never happened. The END did not come. Jesus did not return and so Christianity had to evolve, to change the story, to create some new revised Christianity. Another interesting part often overlooked is that the author of Jude quotes passages from the Book of Enoch that is only seen as canonical by the Eritrean and Ethiopian churches.
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Phat Member Posts: 18348 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
Concerning the marketing of Christianity, I've come across several blogs on the internet lately that have in my opinion some persuasive words and food for thought.
The first one is titled The Christians Making Atheists by John Pavlovitz. It is short, to the point, and in my opinion worth fodder for further discussion. Edited by Phat, : punctuationChance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith Paul was probably SO soaked in prayer nobody else has ever equaled him.~Faith
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Pressie Member Posts: 2103 From: Pretoria, SA Joined:
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One of the comments on that article hit the mark for me. It is:
quote: For me it was simply that I stopped believing in existence of a God or Gods due to the lack of reliable evidence for the existence of Gods. The so-called "evidence" provided by the so-called experts on theology were totally unreliable, often contradictory and most often outright lies. That's it. Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.
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Phat Member Posts: 18348 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
Your comment certainly calls to mind the reason that one is or is not a believer. Biblical Christians may claim that the experience which they had at one point--the well known Born Again claim popularized by evangelist Billy Graham, was what they chose at a certain point. Supposedly, after such an experience, the choice becomes internally obvious.
As an atheist, you mention the E word--evidence---and say that is what stopped you from accepting the call. So what do we make of this? Is the difference between believers and non-believers simply a matter of choice? Past experiences? Upbringing? Or does God Himself pick and choose? (Or are some people rational enough to see that not only is the Emperor wearing no clothes but that there is no Emperor! ) Personally, I go with confirmation bias. Some of us want to have a guiding father figure while others recoil at the prospect of spending eternity enslaved. In addition, some of us need evidence in order to make important decisions, while others are emotionally impulsive. The article concludes by saying:
the reason the Church soon will be teetering on the verge of extinction and irrelevance, will be because those entrusted to perpetuate the love of Jesus in the world, lost the plot so horribly, and gave the world no other option but to look elsewhere for goodness and purpose and truth. Soon these Christians will ask why humanity has rejected Jesus and we will remind them of these days, and assure them that they have not rejected Jesus at allthey just found no evidence of him in the Church. And this brings up a point. Perhaps if the church were more loving and relevant, more atheists would attend out of the social need to do something relevant and fun for other people---regardless whether they believed in God or not. Sadly, the secular groups have met the need for social interaction much better than the phoniness of todays church. Tangle has said it all along---religion is dying globally...on the way out. Edited by Phat, : addedChance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith Paul was probably SO soaked in prayer nobody else has ever equaled him.~Faith
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