yguy

You better believe it, babe.

It was meant to indicate that there are damned few of them, and to delineate them from the ever-visible windup toys. That's all.

I don't see why. If the Christians who deconvert were merely programmed into their beliefs externally to begin with, why would deprogramming be anything remarkable? Of course, if it is your position that a belief in Christianity is always the result of such programming, the logic would escape you.

That wasn't particularly a criticism of the demeanor of infidels generally. I know quite a few from other boards. They seem rather more able than this crowd to both take it and dish it out, if the moderation on this board is any indication. I guess I kinda miss it. The more people cuss at me, the easier it is for me to make mincemeat of their arguments.

Philosoft

Terribly good form, old bean.

One mincemeat sandwich, coming up...

Opera Nut

Philechat you've already refuted one of his vague statements quite nicely. No True Scotsman fallacy may be beyond some peoples' comprehension.

Another point: "Searing, penetrating intellects on this board"??
Do I detect a note of sarcasm?? I think your problem is that you think anyone who contradicts you is an idiot and worse, a heathen. That's why I pointed out my intellectual accomplishments. Anybody who calls me a dolt is gonna remember saying it, that's for sure. And it ain't gonna be pleasant.


"Laws Jesus would rather die than violate"???
I assume you are referring to the 613 Jewish Laws of the OT? Like not wearing a shirt of mixed fibers? Or not eating shellfish? Or not eating pork? Or not eating meat that has not been ritually slaughtered in accordance with Jewish law? Or not eating a cheeseburger due to the prohibition "You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk"? Or if not that, what?

You are being extremely vague.

"Deconverting from being a True Christian is like deconverting from being human"?? What does that mean? That makes no sense. Nobody can make me "have a personal relationship with Jesus". Nobody can force me to "get right with God". Not if I do everything I am supposed to do, pray, go to church, read the bible, get baptised and all, and God doesn't talk to me, Jesus doesn't talk to me or show himself to me or anything. It's incumbent on him to show me that he exists, if he wants me to believe in him.

"Deconverting from being human"??? That is insulting to all the atheists, agnostics, deists and members of other religions around the world. Do you think that the Iraqis killed in the recent war do not bleed, suffer, grieve and cry?? Haven't you seen the pictures of the dead and wounded civilians?

"True Christians from wind up toys???" What the hell does that mean?

Am I gonna grow gills, fins and scales?

You should read about the Southern Baptists. They got so right wing that Jimmy Carter resigned from them.

yguy

Not much gets by you, huh?

Likely you are projecting.

That was supposed to make me respectful? What the hell do I care how many instruments you can play, or how many degrees you have? Believe me, any egomaniac who is determined to make an idiot of himself by crowing about accomplishments that have nothing to do with the subject at hand will have my full support.

Maybe you oughta start warming up your vituperation engine right now, cause I'm not far from it.

That's not what I said. The actual quote was nonsensical due to sloppy editing on my part, but what I meant to say was that there are some things He believed that He would not - and did not - renounce on pain of death. For instance, He believed it was OK to heal on the sabbath though it was a technical violation. And, of course, that He was the Son of God.

As for the ceremonial laws, He was an observant Jew, and presumably would have died rather than violate any of them except as noted above.

Who wants to? Not me.

Obviously the analogy didn't work for you. Sorry.

That says a lot for the Southern Baptists, as far as I'm concerned.

lpetrich

ROTFL!!!!!!!!!

HelenM

People here are very capable of 'dishing it out' but - to their credit, in my opinion - those who run this board expect posters to maintain some civility towards one another.

Helen

philechat

Fun, ain't it? A board full of character-attacks and ad hominems. God alone will determine whom the true Christians are, yguy. It is only possible that he took drunken, fornicating, blaspheming atheists just for the fun of it. You will never know.

Hobbs

Yes, there are verses that teach this view. But there are also verses in favor of disembodied souls (or at least heavenly [or helly] bodies granted to souls immediately upon death), such as when Jesus said to the repentant thief on the cross that that "today you will be with me in paradise," yet their bodies were still dead on Earth for the rest of that day. There is also the story of the rich man and Lazarus (in Luke 16), when they die and the rich man is in hell and asks if Lazarus, also dead and now in heaven, can go warn his brothers (who are still alive on Earth, so this is before any resurrection at the end of history). In the first chapter of Philippians, Paul says he is torn between wanting to depart and be with Christ or to remain in his body to perform fruitful works here. And again in 2 Corinthians 5, Paul says when we are in the body we are away from the Lord, and we would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.


The disagreements, contradictions, ambiguities, vagueness, or silence on a large number of points both major and minor in the Bible is why Christians must pick and choose, it is why there are so many different denominations all of which believe that they have picked and chosen correctly, and why I ultimately had to come to the conclusion that I might as well throw away the whole thing.

JCS

What christian ever became a christian without any outside influence. Is there evidence of individuals spontanously believing in this religion without prior exposure?

yguy

What I'm getting at is that any idiot can believe the truth because he's indoctrinated into it. That, IMO, wouldn't be a Christian worthy of the name. Solzhenitsyn didn't become a believer in Christian ideals because he was indoctrinated into them, obvoiusly, but because, having seen the horror of Stalinism "up close and personal", it was like spring water to a man dying of thirst.