What Christians Believe

[Medicine*Woman]

LOL!

JesusisLord51 *Thinks* - "Shall I continue to spread the Good News of Jesus or shall I say to heck with it and watch a war movie instead"

JesusisLord51 *Types* - "I Got to go Band of Brothers is on; I will edit and finish tomorrow."


So much for faith eh? LOL
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M*W: Vienna, you have no idea what you seem to be talking about. Whether you know it or not, Christianity is declining worldwide. In a few more years, there will be no place for Christianity in the world. Faith has nothing to do with it. It's false doctrine.

 

[James R]

Whether you know it or not, Christianity is declining worldwide.

That's strange. I read recently that Christianity is actually growing worldwide, particularly in Africa and South America.

 

[Rappaccini]

I don't think there's such a thing as a Christian that really knows what they purport to believe.

I've never met one. No joke. Not even the old guys over at the church.




The only Christians I've ever met are old guys and women.
I think it's because old guys fear death, and women are generally dumb.

 

[JustARide]

Homosexuality is as controllable as is any other immoral addictions like drugs and alcohol.

Just curious... Can you control your sexual preference?

Let's assume you're a regular heterosexual guy. If I showed you a picture of Ed Asner right now, could you force yourself (against your own will and natural instincts) to be attracted to it?

Josh

PS - Apologies if you happen to actually be sexually attracted to Ed Asner. I tried to pick someone unlikely.

 

[Katazia]

JL51,

God made us male and female.

So who made hermaphrodites then? A small proportion of the world population have both sex organs and are neither male or female.

Kat

 

[Katazia]

JL51,

Sin is an eternal disorder.

Sin is an entirely religious concept which in Christianity means to disobey God. Once you realize that there is no such thing as God then of course it follows there can be no such thing as sin.

And we all have it.

No, only religionists. To cure yourself of sin you need to become an atheist.

Kat

 

[Mystech]

Your personal deeds are a result of your faith. No faith, no good-ness. NOT THE OPPOSITE.

Oh? What about secular humanism or non-religious charitable organizations? God isn't involved, and in fact Athiests are even involved! How is it that they are driven to do good works without motivation from any faith?

 

[Mystech]

Just curious... Can you control your sexual preference?

I always find this to be an amusing argument. Think it's something we can turn on and off, people? Alright, then go sit in the comfort of your own homes, and you just decide to be gay for maybe a half an our or something, watch some TV, be attracted to members of the same sex and experience something new! haha.

If it were really so simple I doubt very much that anyone would "choose" to be gay, not with so many annoying homophobes out there (Hmm and I use Annoying in the tie you to a fence post and beat you to death form, not the 8 year old nephew explaining every single pokemon to you sense).

 

[lizey]

Great, two arguments in one thread! Ah well.
1) "choosing to be gay" - ridiculous concept. I knew a kid at school who was ten, all his friends were girls, he was the only boy in the dance group, very feminine. So. He picked this, huh? Get out, he mightn't even have known what homosexuality was at the time. I didn't.
2) The religious debate. Rappaccini, that's such an arrogant statement. "Women are generally dumb"? I'm going to ignore that argument as it so lowers your IQ. I'm sure you've met all of the millions (billions?) of Christians in the world. I know what I believe, but without going into it all, I'd like to say something about the Bible and the church. The Bible was written by humans, mainly men. Most of them were considered wise in their time, and the Bible contains a lot of wisdom. But people are fallible, so the Bible has a fair bit of crap in there, too. It's quite obvious - a lot contradicts the principal messages of the Bible. On the same note, the church is fallible - it's an old institution also run by men. I personally don't listen to much they say now, I think they're too detached.
With the sheer scale of Christianity, there are hundreds of interpretations and views if not more. Don't condemn them. Mother Theresa was a Christian, remember?

 

[alain]

"Starting with the fall of humanity in the Garden of Eden, we became sinful creatures. God cannot stand sin, and with His perfection, we cannot be near him with it"

sorry, and no offence , but that is screwed

why should i be punished because of what Adam and Eve did????

what could I have possibly done, to make Eve not eat that apple?

you say "all people are evil"
then you blame people for being evil
whos with me??

 

[lizey]

Probably shouldn't be posting again so fast, but hey...
I don't believe that, particularly, Alain. Douglas Adams says that religion was once the best explanation we had for things, now we have better ones. I don't agree in many areas, but in the area of creation...I'm skipping it back a bit and tentatively believing that God caused the Big Bang, and as a result of that we have consciousness, the ability to choose between right and wrong. I kinda put the original sin thing aside and just assume that humans make bad choices sometimes, we aren't perfect.
I'll shut up now .

 

[atheroy]

First, Starting with the fall of humanity in the Garden of Eden, we became sinful creatures. God cannot stand sin, and with His perfection, we cannot be near him with it. Romans 6:23 says, "The wages of sin is death."
I have to contest this. Adam was setup to fall. He did not have any concept of what he was doing was wrong or the consequences that might follow his actions. If god was so perfect he would see this as how it is. My interpretation is that god didn't even create adam and eve with complete free will as it requires a concept of good and bad to be able to comprehend ones actions. Adam and eve clearly didn't have this so god is imperfect in his judgement.

God then had a conflict. The punishment for any sin is eternal separation from God (Hell). But he loves us and created us for the purpose of willful fellowship with us. Since God is perfectly just, He has to punish sin. But he knows the punishment would take us away from him. So He devised an answer: Send himself to take our punishment for us.
What about the years in between adam and eve and jesus. Did everyone go to hell in this time period including adam and eve? This is the way I am currently seeing it so any clarification would be good.

They had him crucified. This was all a part of God's plan.
Why such a gory plan? Why not show mercy or simply absolve everyone's 'inherited sin' (I have trouble with this concept for obvious reasons).

He was able to be a perfect sinless human sacrifice. Otherwise it would have just been punishing his own sin. But like I said, he never sinned, so it didn't matter. He took all sin, past, present, and future, had it put upon Himself, and died. He spent three days in hell. On the third day He rose from the dead (symbolic of how humanity can now rise from its ashes). This is THE MOST significant event in Christian history, without it, Christianity is pointless. (You can try to prove the resurrection wrong, but in reality, it happened. Truth.)
It would take a time machine to prove this event absolutely. And again what's with the old school sacrificing, why not use a more profound event to affect meaningful change?

Keep this in mind: Faith produces good works, rather than the opposite. This is what separates us from other religions. You don't have to be 51% good to get into heaven or 51% bad to get into hell. Accept Jesus and you become like him and become 100% good. Then you do your good works out of your Jesus-esque goodness.
Are you saying it is only possible to be good if you are christian? Because I have to disagree. I have done some good things in my time so far, as well, many other non christians have done great things. Don't say that this is the affecting will of christ as you should know for me at least that doesn't hold true.

a

 

[Medicine*Woman]

That's strange. I read recently that Christianity is actually growing worldwide, particularly in Africa and South America.
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M*W: James R, you did correctly read that article. However, these are the only two continent/countries where Christianity is increasing, and that's probably due to missionary work and/or the lack of the use of birth control methods. In the rest of the world, though, Christianity has been declining. The decline has become rampant in Australia, Europe (and especially Italy!), North America, most countries in South America (except for Brasil), and Asia. The work of Christian missionaries, and the laws governing population growth in China, have kept Christianity in China from increasing. I suspect that the decline in Christianity worldwide may also result from Islam increasing worldwide.

 

[DoctorNO]

Christians are not actually abandoning the religion in droves. They are just becoming non-practicing christians. Birth rates are still ensuring an increase in their numbers.

In Islam people are threatened with death or disownment if they leave the religion, thus people come in and hardly anyone could come out. Plus they have huge birth rates. Thus explains their better growth rates.

 

[Medicine*Woman]

JL51,

So who made hermaphrodites then? A small proportion of the world population have both sex organs and are neither male or female.
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M*W: Good point! When a child is born with both sets of sex organs, DNA can determine what the correct sex of the child REALLY is, and remove the wrong set of sex organs. Most always this results in infertility, but not everytime. This is done early in life so the child won't have to be confused of his/her gender, and so the parents could raise the child either a boy or girl. It's not a fool-proof system, because later when the child reaches puberty, one could only hope that the physical body matches with the biological. Ideally, the biochemical body matches with the physical body, but puberty is another thing--that's when the hormones surge.

Homosexuality, however, is another thing entirely. It's NOT a choice. It's a preference. Why should anyone spend their life with someone they're not attracted to? Homosexuality is God's way of blending the races and genders. It's inevitable. That's the direction where our evolution is going. To deny homosexuality, to ridicule and to criminalize sexuality, is the sin. In God's eyes, they are more perfect than all of us heterosexuals. We are incomplete. We have not evolved enough. Homosexuality also means that they are more spiritually evolved than the rest of us. They are in touch with their sexuality, and they are more spiritually fulfilled than heterosexuals. I believe that homosexuals (both male and female) who want to deal and heal with what they've experienced from society should first abandon all forms of Christianity. As homosexuality increases, Christianity will decrease. That's only natural. It's more important to be homosexual than Christian. Christianity destroys what God has created.

 

[Flores]

Homosexuality, however, is another thing entirely. It's NOT a choice. It's a preference. Why should anyone spend their life with someone they're not attracted to? Homosexuality is God's way of blending the races and genders. It's inevitable. That's the direction where our evolution is going. To deny homosexuality, to ridicule and to criminalize sexuality, is the sin. In God's eyes, they are more perfect than all of us heterosexuals. We are incomplete. We have not evolved enough. Homosexuality also means that they are more spiritually evolved than the rest of us. They are in touch with their sexuality, and they are more spiritually fulfilled than heterosexuals. I believe that homosexuals (both male and female) who want to deal and heal with what they've experienced from society should first abandon all forms of Christianity. As homosexuality increases, Christianity will decrease. That's only natural. It's more important to be homosexual than Christian. Christianity destroys what God has created.

I'm sorry MW, but that's pretty weak and far streched. To link homosexuality with evolution is way beyond me. I can use the same argument to justify pedophile, murderers, and even adopting christianity, ect....Still, you should be free to think and rationalize contradictions in this life as you wish.

 

[TruthSeeker]

Giving homosexuals a Christian burial, homosexuality in general, that's kind of their bent in that particular church, they really hate homosexuals. That's why they run the God hates fags website. And yes of course it's a bad thing. How would your loved ones feel if a gaggle of unwashed Kansinians showed up with signs protesting the fact that you ever lived to begin with at your funeral?

Yeah well...some people are just plain weird...

 

[TruthSeeker]

It isn't in the sense that we think of it, like "HOLY CRAP IT'S GOD! HIDE YOUR :m: :m: :m: !" It is a respect thing. We fear fire because we respect its power. It can be useful and provide us with heat and light, but come too close and you will get burned.

Respect is a very low kind of love. It is too self-centered. If you love God, you don't just respect Him. You agree with Him and follow Him. There's no reason to fear God if you know Him well and follow Him.

God provides us with love and mercy. But get him angry (it takes a lot) and you get burned.

I don't think God gets angry and punishes. This is a very primitive concept of God.

 

[1Dude]

Homosexuality, however, is another thing entirely. It's NOT a choice. It's a preference. Why should anyone spend their life with someone they're not attracted to? Homosexuality is God's way of blending the races and genders. It's inevitable. That's the direction where our evolution is going. To deny homosexuality, to ridicule and to criminalize sexuality, is the sin. In God's eyes, they are more perfect than all of us heterosexuals. We are incomplete. We have not evolved enough. Homosexuality also means that they are more spiritually evolved than the rest of us. They are in touch with their sexuality, and they are more spiritually fulfilled than heterosexuals. I believe that homosexuals (both male and female) who want to deal and heal with what they've experienced from society should first abandon all forms of Christianity. As homosexuality increases, Christianity will decrease. That's only natural. It's more important to be homosexual than Christian. Christianity destroys what God has created.

Homosexuality, "in all its glory", claimed the life of my brother Kevin. It killed him. I really miss him!

 

[Katazia]

JiL51,

Originally Posted by JesusisLord51
Your personal deeds are a result of your faith. No faith, no good-ness. NOT THE OPPOSITE.

How about the International Red Cross and all its workers and volunteers - the largest humanitarian organization on the planet and entirely SECULAR.

Kat