The Marketing Of Christianity

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.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. 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.

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.

So why do the mindless particles often produce more fruits than the voice of God?

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.

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.

I consider myself responsible for how I use the time, whoever "owns" it. Of course. It's a little disturbing that you would even ask.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!" 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.

You can't do more than X before you do X.Jesus said we will always have the poor with us, so you're never finished doing X.

Exactly. Which is why "spiritual" mumbo-jumbo isn't somehow "more" than "merely" helping people.

What good is it to know "The Truth" if you're dead?Edited by ringo, : No reason given.

What good is "eternal" life if this life is miserable?

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?

So it's all based on wishful thinking and fantasy.

That's pretty much the definition of fantasy.

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".

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.In reality, problems are complex. There are no easy solutions. THAT is why we fail. No magical spook is going to change that. He "supports" it with nothing but ignorance and incredulity.