freemonkey

the key word here is consciously

G V

Amen, preach it, Sister Kally. <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

Sephiroth

David Matthews, you say you are not here to convert anyone but I'm seriously starting to question the nature of your stay here. It's almost as if you want to drive people away from Christianity as far as possible.

&lt;Darth Vader Impression&gt;Tricia, welcome to the Dark Side!&lt;/Darth Vader Impression&gt; Anyways, I hope your stay here is long, fulfilling, and etc. .

[ July 21, 2002: Message edited by: Sephiroth ]</p>

Dajah

Rotflmao! that's great!

G V

If you have never read 'Hound of Heaven' by K. Gibran, you will love it.

Dajah

hm...never heard of it.

ansarthemystic

Hello Trish,

You do not know me of course so let me introduce myself. my name is Sam. I think that's all the info I will reveal for now since this is the internet.

Since so many people have given you advice and I have witnesses you struggle, let me also give you some advice.

Many people here have given you a lot of parental advice. let me give you some peer-to-peer advice.

If you don't feel in you heart that you are a christian and have serius doubts, my advice stop being a christian!..at least for now.

I was there girl! Someone your age probably was indoctrinated before you had the chance to explore religion for yourself.After years as a christian I experienced a crisis of faith simply because no one could answer my questions about christianity. My initial doubts centered around the trinity concept and how it wasn't biblical.But this allowed me to remain a christian since rejecting non-biblical theology and remaining a christian is still possible.So I read the Bible twice for myself, and then completely rejected christianity.

I later became a muslim after some admittedly cursory research. Then I briefly became an atheist. Later I became a theist who totally rejected organized religion, but "felt" a higheer power or force which I ignorantly labeled "God".

With so many muslim friends I re-examined Islam and became a muslim, remain one to this day.

My advice to you?
Stop being a christian! Read the bible for yourself at least twice. Then decide if you want to return to christianity. If you decide to leave christianity, don't be a religion nomad like i was. Start with atheism first. If you are comfortable with it, remain so. If you are not then I suggest you follow your heart, AND CONTINUE TO STUDY UNTIL YOU FIND THE "REAL YOU", SO TO SPEAK.This way you won't waste your time

In the meantime, please be content in the knowledge that you have many people, including me, on II who love you without even knowing you personally.

Love and blessings

[ July 21, 2002: Message edited by: ansarthemystic ]</p>

Queen of Swords

Originally posted by David Mathews:
<strong>Hello Tricia,

...I have no desire to know you. </strong>

Tricia, this is your lucky day.

Tricia

Well, me being an old male atheist, why would he be interested in me?

~Tricia

P.S. - I must say this: David Mathews POed me to no end until I simply laughed it off. This guy is a joke, so I take nothing he says seriously anymore. Helps a lot. And if he is a Christian, well, .

HelenM

Originally posted by David Mathews:

Tricia's character is inclined to provocation.

I think that's because she's human

I can't help but think that "she" would make a better atheist than Christian.

Perhaps you do think that.

However you know very little about her, do you? So what you think is not necessarily very reflective of who she really is.

I suspect that it is better for her church that Tricia become an atheist.

That seems like an odd thing to say. It's hard to interpret that as saying other than "they are best off without her".

Which seems somewhat unkind, to me.

That is my advice for "her". She is evidently not a Christian even in a rudimentary sense and therefore needs to become a full-fledged atheist.

It sure seems like she was as much a Christian as the next conservative Christian teenager, to me.

The battle for Tricia's soul was lost a long time ago.

She's only been questioning recently, as best I can tell.

I believe it best to surrender this soul to Satan.

I don't imagine that there is much hope for recovery in this case, for Tricia has consciously abandoned "her" Christianity.

As such, I think it best that Tricia remain an atheist. Perhaps some day in the future she might question her decisions and return to Christ, until that time comes I believe that Satan does have a legitimate claim upon "her" soul.

This is where the theology of your church, which evidently is also yours to some extent, is rather hurtful, imo.

My church believes Roman 8, that nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

That would even include our own doubts.

After all, the Bible says that God adopts people as his children in love, when they become Christians. A person can no more become unsaved, according to the way my church believes, than a child can become not a child by saying to the parents "I hate you!" or "I'm never going to see you again!" The child is still their child. That can never be changed.

I think that the way my church believes is far preferable than the fear-driven belief you seem to hold, that a person can be a Christian and yet by some sin or another, condemn themselves to hell.

My church definitely believes "once saved, always saved"...

love
Helen