Believer's rhetoric: coating love with slime

S

SkippingStones

splunk!
Registered Senior Member
Suposedly, God is about love. Well I am too. Love is the single greatest thing in the world.
Why then, when I hear many Christians talking about anything to do with spirituality, do I get angry? I want to throw things, like I've just witnessed one of the greatest evils on earth.
I mean, I don't want to feel this way. A lot of Christian teachings make sense, especially Jesus' teachings on love. It's just that whenever hot shot believers go babbling on about this and that, using the memorized messages and rhetoric, it seems all so horribly ignorant and defiling.
Humanity, life, etc, It's all so amazing and wonderful but people just keep missing the point!
Maybe what Christianity needs is a lot less Christians.
 
Skipping Stones,

Good points. I have been around a lot of Christians.

A Mormon missionary actually yelled at me once that "doing nothing IS love".

It's ill, the way many of those who call themselves Christians practice love.
 
SkippingStones said:
Suposedly, God is about love. Well I am too. Love is the single greatest thing in the world.
Why then, when I hear many Christians talking about anything to do with spirituality, do I get angry? I want to throw things, like I've just witnessed one of the greatest evils on earth.
I mean, I don't want to feel this way. A lot of Christian teachings make sense, especially Jesus' teachings on love. It's just that whenever hot shot believers go babbling on about this and that, using the memorized messages and rhetoric, it seems all so horribly ignorant and defiling.
Humanity, life, etc, It's all so amazing and wonderful but people just keep missing the point!
Maybe what Christianity needs is a lot less Christians.
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Skipping stones your post is very vague? you do not post an example?

All Praise The Ancient Of Days
 
I saw a Christian based dog talent show the other day. The dog part was really neat actually, they did stunts and jumped over things. Anyway, the narrator of the event kept inserting little statments about Jesus being our master just like the owners were to the dogs. It wasn't bad, just annoying that he kept repeating it over and over again. There was a group of young camp kids there watching the show to.
At the very end of the show, he went into the shpeel I've heard a thousand times about how he didn't know where people were in their relationship with Christ and how he hoped that because they heard him droning on and on about nothing that they would suddenly realise the truth and "be saved". Then he did a quasi-alter call where people closed their eyes while he blathered on some more about how he hoped each and everyone was getting saved as he spoke. He even had little papers at the end that people could take and sign, pledging their allegiance to Jesus.

I've had hundreds of experiences like this throughout my childhood. After a while, you notice it has nothing to do with God at all, and all to do with inflating the egos of the presenters. People worship the ceremony, thinking it is the truth, the only way.

It's not that simple. Life isn't that simple.

I also just finished talking with my older cousin who is all hell-bent to go on this missionary trip to South Africa to plant extensions of his church there. His view is that he can just waltz into a culture he knows nothing about, GET people saved, and do good. I shuddered under my breath.
 
His view is that he can just waltz into a culture he knows nothing about, GET people saved, and do good. I shuddered under my breath.
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YOur right. He can't do it on his own, but with God in the picture, anything is possible. Miricles DO happen!
 
Enigma'07 said:
YOur right. He can't do it on his own, but with God in the picture, anything is possible. Miricles DO happen!
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*************
M*W: Your learning basic grammar and spelling would be a miracle.
 
What I find so appalling in the love one often gets from Christians is the sheer coldness.
They "loved" me so much that they became blind and deaf for my cries. I was smothered under their "love". Such a love is worth nothing.
 
The Bible speaks of different kinds of love. Perhaps the most dominant usage of the word "love" in Western society refers essentially to sexual love but is not found in the New Testament. One kind of love which the Bible does speak of is a friendship sort of love. This is expressed by the greek word "phileo". It is a preferential type of love and not much different than a person saying that they love chocolate icecream. "Agape" love however is the most common form of love in the Bible. It might be more likened to the sacrificial love a parent has for their child regardless of whether such love is reciprocated. It is the love which drives one to save the helpless, even driving one to help one's enemies. Phileo love tends to be focussed on how you feel about someone else. But Agape love focusses on how you can meet the other person's needs.

After his resurrection Jesus visited Peter who had denied him three times prior to the crucifixion. Peter, ashamed of his unfaithfulness, couldn't bring himself to acknowledge agape love towards Jesus. The exchange went as the following:

Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you truly love (agape) me more than these?"
"Yes, Lord," he said, "you know that I love (phileo)you."
Jesus said, "Feed my lambs."
Again Jesus said, "Simon son of John, do you truly love (agape) me?"
He answered, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love (phileo) you."
Jesus said, "Take care of my sheep."
The third time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love (phileo) me?"
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, "Do you love (phileo) me?"
He said, "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love (phileo)you."
Jesus said, "Feed my sheep."

Peter could only admit to preferring Jesus as a friend, for he felt that he failed to demonstrate agape love towards him. However Jesus did provide a way for him to show his love - through obedience. One way our Agape love is revealed to the Lord is by our obedience. Jesus said, "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me." John 14:21

http://www.bcbsr.com/topics/love1.html
 
YOur right. He can't do it on his own, but with God in the picture, anything is possible. Miricles DO happen!
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ARRgg. That's the kind of statement that sets me on edge. By themselves, those words are fine, even wonderful. But, if God does exist, he isn't at your beck and call. Christians think you can stand on one side of the fence, with God on their side, and point fingers.
People don't "get saved" by preaching! "Of course not, it's God's doing," you'd probably say.

Christianity, like all religions is just a facade. Just one way of expressing some of the feelings and thought processes present in all humans. Those people in South Africa, they already have all the God they ever will have. You can go in and convince them to smush their thoughts and beliefs into your mold but that doesn't change what's underneith it all, it only covers it. When people finally figure out who they really are, they have to climb through all this sludge built up over years of brainwashing.

If you feed someone's mind poison from the day their born, how will they ever be able to think for themselves, to become self-actualized, to live fully?
 
The Bible speaks of different kinds of love.
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I'm talking about the love most often associated with God. It is there in the most basic of humanity, and the most complex. It is part of every interaction, every conversation, every meeting. It cannot be separated from humanity or from God, only dulled and hidden. "God is love."
 
Medicine Woman said:
*************
M*W: Your learning basic grammar and spelling would be a miracle.
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Ironic how you grammar-blasting comment isn't even grammatically correct.

"Your learning basic grammar" doesn't make sense syntactically.
 
M*W: Your learning basic grammar and spelling would be a miracle.
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Sorry, I'm not very good with English. Perhaps you could correct the sentence for me?
 
Ignore her. When a discussion degenerates to the point where a side can no longer attack the point but only the method the point is being delivered, this tells you they have nothing else to offer the discussion.
 
No. I think that if it bothers her, then I would like to try and improve on it. I'm just not quite sure how to.
 
Your call. But what do you gain? What does it matter insofar as the argument is concerned, that you mis-spelled a couple words? Everyone knows what you said, what you meant. That kind of attack on her part has long ago been established to be nothing more than a self-assertion. Trying to make herself appear better.
 
SkippingStones said:
Those people in South Africa, they already have all the God they ever will have. You can go in and convince them to smush their thoughts and beliefs into your mold but that doesn't change what's underneith it all, it only covers it. When people finally figure out who they really are, they have to climb through all this sludge built up over years of brainwashing.
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I am really impressed. The word infidel is a translation of the word Kafir in arabic. Now what intrigues me in what you wrote is this. You explained the word kafir correctly, as he that covers the inherent belief in God/Allah, and you used the most apt word. "Cover". It is also said that the words "Cover" and "Kafir" have the same root or that "Kafir" is root of "cover". I had to learn this second hand.

:m:
 
Halcyon said:
Your call. But what do you gain? What does it matter insofar as the argument is concerned, that you mis-spelled a couple words? Everyone knows what you said, what you meant. That kind of attack on her part has long ago been established to be nothing more than a self-assertion. Trying to make herself appear better.
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I have tried to make that point known to Enigma for a while now, but he appears to be obstinate. Perhaps time will be his teacher.
 
SkippingStones said:
I'm talking about the love most often associated with God. It is there in the most basic of humanity, and the most complex. It is part of every interaction, every conversation, every meeting. It cannot be separated from humanity or from God, only dulled and hidden. "God is love."
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Well I'm telling you the kind of love God requires. Don't hide behind what "everyone else says".
 
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