notMichaelJackson

What exactly is "accepting Jesus as your Personal Savior?" If I just hear that a man named Jesus Christ existed, and died to save the world, and accept it as truth, am I saved? Or do I need to have an extensive knowledge of his life? How many parables do I need to memorized to be saved?

Demigawd

Technically, it consists of kissing the ass of some other person's imaginary friend.

Magus55

You need to admit to Him you are a sinner and ask His forgiveness. Believe and have Faith that he died on the cross to save you of your sins, and thank Him for taking your place, even though you are undeserving and believe that He was ressurected on the 3rd day, and ask Him into your life to work your life in accordance with Him. Ask Him to be your Lord and Savior.

Any variation of that works ( commonly called the sinners prayer). The most important things are asking His forgiveness, believing int he accounts of his life, death and ressurection - and devoting your life to Him. It has to be sincere and honest. The rest ( works, wanting to learn more about Him, reading the Bible, giving up sin etc ) follows.

Opera Nut

I did that already.....and after a few months of their BS, tried to kill myself. That's pretty serious. I'm not the average lazy bum, either.

Atheists tend to be more intelligent and more educated than the average American. The American Protestant denominations that have the highest income levels and highest average education are the liberal denoms, such as Anglican & Presbyterian. The lowest education, the fattest people, and the lowest average income are found in the fundy churches.

I have checked out a couple of other major religions and in no way was I ever insulted and constantly criticized as I was in a Xtian church.

Most Xtians (The right wing ones anyway) are hateful, ignorant, uneducated, self righteous, and full of crap. And they just can't shut up about how wonderrful life is in that smug country club they call "the saved". And they have to tell the rest of the world that they're all going to hell, like we should give a damn about their opinion. They certainly haven't made any friends with me by telling me what a worthless sinful P.O.S. I am.

spurly

Do you mind me asking what type of Christian church you attended? I think a lot of churches miss the fact that the whole string that holds the Bible together from beginning to end is not that men are sinners, its that somehow, for some strange reason, God chose to place his affection on us and love us, even when we weren't loving him.

I think you are right about atheist being pretty highly educated. Most atheist are pretty smart in at least one or two areas - some in many more areas than that. I think that is why I enjoy conversing with them.

I'm sorry you had an experience in church that was the equivalent of spiritual abuse. At least that seems to be what happened according to what you wrote.

Kevin

Magus55

Calling Christians hateful, ignorant and full of crap? Talk about your hypocrisy - guess you don't read posts from many atheists on this board do you Opera? Or maybe your are just too blind to see that atheists are just as bad? Its a shame you had a bad experience with church, but its no reason to insult Christians and say they stupid, fat, low income people.

Paperstreet

There really shouldn't be any stereotypes for either christians or athiests. I don't see much evidence telling me that one is better then the other. Sure, I can see why you would call the fundies names, a lot of them deserve a little name calling once and a while. But being athiest doesn't automatically make you a step higher on the intellectual ladder. You still have to earn it like anyone. Thats a big thing in chosing a religion. A lot of people follow a certain philosophy or religion not because they think its the right way to live, but because "everyone else is an ignorant piece of sh--"

You would think its only those fundies and right wingers, but a lot of reasonable folk are guilty also.

Opera Nut

Note I did not say ALL Christians are that way, only particular denominations.

I have read many hundreds of posts on IIDB and the main thing I see is atheists arguing logic here, and Xtians just not getting it.
The atheists here are not nearly as rude as many Xtians I have run into. I have been hanging with atheists in places like Mensa and the Unitarian church for over 2 decades, and I have never had one insult my intelligence, try to instill fear in me, or tell me I am a worthless sinner because of a couple of fruit-munching simpletons in the Garden of Eden.

Right wing fundies are anti intellectual and afraid of education. They can't or don't argue logically, and don't want to explore other ways of thinking, because they are scared to leave their Big Daddy in the Sky. I've tried to argue with fundies and it doesn't work; they don't have logical answers. The last one I argued with gave me some shit about how I didn't know what I believed, and I was "confused". I confronted him about which version of the 30-odd varieties of salvation he followed that were posted at secweb sometime ago. He refused to answer a simple question.
He was out-argued and didn't want to listen to me. He gave me some crap about how God made men to rule over women. Everything he had a biblical answer for, I had a biological answer for. The reason men are bigger and stronger than women is the hormone testosterone. Simple biology. Merely because men are bigger and stronger than most women does not mean that men are smarter than women. I cannot accept any religion where the main principle is penis owner = wisdom.

That's bullcrap.

Christians here are deliberately not thinking logically about why they should have faith. I have never had a subjective "religious" experience. I have never seen any evidence that God exists. He has never talked to me. I have never seen any evidence that prayer does the slightest bit of good.

That's why I don't believe in God. I believe in science. If I wanted to worship something that was predictable and reliable, I might as well worship Apollo, the sun god. Or the moon. The sun and moon are reliable and predictable in their motions.

Are you saying I'm not intellectually up to arguing with fundies? I'll put my post high school education up against anybody's in breadth and diversity. I'd even put up my resumes from one junior college, two fine universities and one college of law, not to mention my spare time accomplishments and volunteer work, and IQ scores, but that would take too long.

In college I learned to THINK. Most people never learn to think. They just believe what their parents and the society tells them.

spurly

I try to encourage the students involved in our youth ministry to begin thinking way before they enter college. They must be able to look at their faith and their world view rationally. If they can't, they won't be able to stand in the long run.

Kevin

fatherphil

this is a rhetorical question, right.