In this thread I would like to explore how wolf web users feel about Christians and Christianity as a whole.

Interesting points would be:

1.When you here the word Christian what denomination or group do you think of.

2. Your views on the history of the Christian faith.

3. Your views on Christian beliefs.

4. What your spiritual beliefs are.

5. The experiences that brought about your spiritual beliefs.

7/31/2010 2:01:38 AM

here

7/31/2010 8:14:55 AM

OMG CHRISTIANS ARE PERSECUTED BECAUSE YOU GODLESS ATHEISTS WON'T LET US FORCE THE BIBLE ONTO ALL OF AMERICA!!!! OMG FREEDOM OF SPEECH MEANS PUBLIC OFFICIALS CAN DO AND SAY WHATEVER CHRISTIAN STUFF THEY WANT WHILE IN OFFICE!!! OMG WE CAN'T LET YOU GODLESS ATHEISTS TEACH EVOLUTION WITHOUT ALSO TEACHING CREATIONISM!!! OMG GOD HATE FAGS!!! OMG THE MAN IS HEAD OF THE HOUSEHOLD BECAUSE IT MAKES GOD HAPPY AND GOD IS ALSO A MALE!! OMG IF YOU HAVE PREMARITAL SEX YOU'RE GOING TO HELL!!! RAAAWR! OUR GOD IS THE ONLY GOD!! AND GOD IS AWESOME!!!
ALL TOGETHER NOW:

OUR GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD! HE REIGNS, FROM HEAVEN ABOVE!
DUR DURRRRR, DERPA DER, DER DERP, BLAH BLAH DERPA BLAH BLAH FART

ibsolinari&hooksaw&grumpygop

[Edited on July 31, 2010 at 9:10 AM. Reason : ]

7/31/2010 9:06:10 AM

1.When you hear the word Christian what denomination or group do you think of.
A variety of them. It inherently strikes me as a big tent kind of word. It usually gets me thinking of what falls around the edges. Some people say Catholics don't count, some say Mormons don't count, and I wonder where the line is drawn, but over all it strikes me as a blanket term.

2. Your views on the history of the Christian faith.
They borrowed so much from earlier religions like the water to wine, immaculate conception, the resurrection, the demi-god with the healing touch, heck they even rescheduled Christ's birthday to have it line up with pagan traditions, that its hard to take a lot of the mythology around it seriously. But in so far as it as prompted people to love thy neighbor throughout its history, good for it, and in so far as its prompted religious war/conflict/inquisitions bad for it. Its a mixed history that makes the history of the world richer in culture.

3. Your views on Christian beliefs.
They are fine, when not imposed on others via governments or force. Some people take some poorly translated bronzed age mythologies a little too seriously though. And they say the bible is the literal word of God & then pick and choose which parts of it actually count.

4. What your spiritual beliefs are.
Agnostic. I don't have any particular belief that if I follow a particular set of rules that I get to be immortal, but I figure as long as I try to be a good person, who doesn't make anyone's life I encounter intentionally worse, and act charitably when I can, anything else will sort itself out.

5. The experiences that brought about your spiritual beliefs.
I certainly grew up Christian, and was saved, and all that jazz. But with a dose of college, philosophy, ancient mythology, encountering other religions, and some thought, I cannot find any reason to commit to one particular spiritual avenue over another so I just call myself agnostic. Although undefined might be a better term. Asking me what my religion is, is sort of like asking me what my official stance is on whether or not orange is a good color. I just don't have an official stance on the Orange question. But I don't mind that others do, so long as they don't hassle me about it.

7/31/2010 11:43:56 AM

I usually reject Christianity for the same reasons as I reject most other religions.
But I found this article that's "primarily designed to address the reasons that Christians themselves believe."

The biblical details it contains are so boring and irrelevant to my life that I've never been able to thoroughly examine them myself, and probably never will. I dismiss the notion of a sentient God entirely -- so unless I wish to debate Christians, there's no reason to bother spending any time on biblical things.

But, since the article is for a Christian audience, I thought that GrumpyGOP and others would love to respond to the author. I think you all would love to accept the authors challenge that "if you cannot respond to each of these objections with evidence and coherent argumentation--as opposed to with faith and shouting--then you need to start shopping for a new religion."

Have fun!

Quote :

"10 Reasons Why Christianity Is Wrong Mar 5, 2008 By Trevor Burrus 10. It is Absurd: This may seem like I am re-stating what this list sets out to show. However, this is misleading. When someone comes to us with an extravagant claim the most common reason we may discount the claim is because, to put it curtly, we find it absurd. The reason why the majority of people don't believe in Scientology, reincarnation, Mormonism, Greek Gods, etc. is not because they have extensively researched the historicity and veracity of the claims, it is because they don't believe such things happen in the world. In other words, common sense tells us that when someone claims the absurd almost anything is more likely to be the case (i.e. they are lying, they are delusional, they are relying on misinformation) than for the absurdity to be real. Men do not miraculously heal the sick, raise the dead, cure the blind, and rise from the grave. The claims of Christianity are prima facie absurd. The burden of proof is on them. 9. Jesus Has Not Returned: This, also, may seem a soft point. However, for 2000 years--80 generations--a substantial number of every single generation of Christians has whole-heartedly believed that Jesus' return was imminent. This often included exact dates that, when they came to pass, did not cause the believers to toss their erroneous ideologies aside. And this perennial incorrectness goes back to the beginning. One can only understand the earliest Christians--the generation immediately following Jesus' death--as a group who were expecting Jesus to return at any moment (I Thess 4:15-17). Why did they believe this? Because, on more than one occasion, Jesus unequivocally said so (Mark 9:1, Matthew 26:64, Mark 13:30). Christians have proven to be resolutely imperturbable and incorrigible to their continued failures. 8. God Doesn't Care: Most people believe in God. And, when asked why they believe in God, the most common answer is taken from the argument from design: the universe is too ordered and beautiful to have arisen without an intelligence behind it. Whether or not this is true, this claim has little to do with Christianity. Christianity claims that God not only created the world but also takes an active part in its management, in our moral choices, and in our fates. In other words; He cares. It is this conception of God that bends credulity to the breaking point. God as essence--that is a "first cause" God or a "higher power" God--is a far less difficult concept than God as being. First of all, according to centuries old Christian dogma, God is immutable. In other words He is a static, non-changing "being" that cannot create new beliefs, make inferences, or adjust desires. Secondly the idea of an omniscient, omnipotent "being" having desires borders on the nonsensical. If all things are known--all that ever was, is, or will be--what would be the point of desiring anything? This is not just a simple word game. Christians consistently claim that God "wants" us to believe in him and follow his commandments. However, they also claim that he knows whether we will do so or not. So, what is the point of Him wanting anything? A God as essence is palatable. A God as being is not only ridiculous but likely impossible. (P.S. This one is for the non-predestinarians. If you are a predestinarian there are other reasons you are wrong: see below. However, most Christians are not predestinarians; although, if they care about consistency [not high on the list], they should be.) 7. Other Religions: For most of Christian history the problems caused by other religions were not pressing, if they were considered at all. In the enclosed world of medieval times--when most people would never travel more than 10 miles from their place of birth--people of non-Christian faiths seemed almost phantasms. However, in the modern world the pots have been poured together and the faiths now intermingle on a daily basis. This, of course, brings religious problems to the forefront. But it also should force Christians (and other faiths) to make a few realizations: first, that faiths are conveyed primarily genealogically--from parents to children--as opposed to through dialectical, later-life conversion. We can never reasonably expect everyone to become Christian. This is not because Christianity is right or wrong, but because faiths carry their own momentum that is not derived from the truth or falsity of the beliefs. Secondly, that people of other faiths can live saintly lives of intense moral rectitude that rivals any Christian saint. And third, that people are exceptionally good at perpetuating, believing in, and dying for faiths that are manifestly false (as Christians believe). In other words, as Christians must unhesitatingly accept, people are very good at making up fantastic stories about events and figures in the past and then believing in them with fervor. If Christianity was the only belief system in the world that made extravagant claims, and if its claims resembled none others in the world, then we would have more reason to believe it to be true. However, this is obviously not so. In fact, often the claims of Christianity are hopelessly derivative. Healing and resurrecting god-men have been the objects of stories for millennia (these god-men were particularly common in the Hellenized world of post-Maccabean Palestine. i.e. Apollonius of Tyana). Also, in addition to sharing many strong features with Mithraism and Zoroastrianism, many early Christians found much distaste with the idea of the virgin birth, finding it too pagan. Plutarch writes in Convivial Disputations, "The fact of the intercourse of a male god with a mortal woman is conceded by all." 6. There is No Soul: The inexcusable flippancy of the term "soul" abounds. And, although most people believe in it and freely use the term, they have no idea what it means. The evidence for physicalism--that the mind is the brain--has become nothing less than overwhelming. This evidence exists not only in the highest levels of research--where scientists can now point to, and manipulate, the exact location in our grey matter where essential characteristics lie--but it exists in the everyday lives of millions of people who take psychotropic drugs on a daily basis. These users will tell you drugs such as Prozac, lithium, Paxil and Ritalin don't just give them a slight pick-me-up, they make them an entirely different person. Some of them must wonder if their "soul" is depressed or happy, anxiety filled or laid-back. Only by ignoring 200 years of medical progress can we believe that we simply inhabit our bodies--dropping by on the way to something better. It isn't "I have a brain," it's "I am a brain." 5. Evil: The tried and true returns. If you are a Christian you are probably rolling your eyes because you've heard it time and again. Why don't we atheists understand that: [A] God works in mysterious ways, [B] God gave us free will which allows us to commit evil and good, [C] the world is in a fallen state, and [D] Satan represents a real presence in the world? No, we don't understand because: [A] clearly God doesn't work in ways that are too mysterious for you to be unhesitant in calling something "He" did "good" and asking him to do "good" things in the world on your behalf. You can either use moral qualifiers to describe God's actions or you cannot; you can't have it both ways. [B] Not only does this point not jibe with argument "A" (if God works in mysterious ways we couldn't claim that free will is a "good") it is difficult to see how, if free will is good, the using of free will to take away another's free will (i.e. murder) is not intensely problematic in God's eyes. Hitler used his free will to take away the free will of 10 million others. Thus, if, in 1919, God flipped the "become an artist" switch in Hitler's mind, the result would have greatly added to the net amount of freedom in the world. [C] This is a non-starter if the Old Testament is not accurate but, even if it is, a God who holds great-great-great... grandchildren responsible for their ancester's actions does not pass even the bare minimum test of human morality. Without a defined concept of desert, morality is a completely empty concept. It seems God is playing fast and loose on this count. [D] If this objection is forwarded seriously, then it is little more than ditheism (dual theism). Otherwise, in the Christian universe the only power Satan has is that which God lets him have. If you believe in the traditional Christian conception of God you must believe that, ultimately, everything is His fault. Everything. This in a world where rocks fall out of the sky onto innocent people and babies are eaten by dingoes."

7/31/2010 12:08:36 PM

cont'

Quote :

"4. The Bible is Not Consistent: Many, if not most, Christians would say that the Bible is inerrant. Well, they are wrong. Saying so doesn't require an appeal to history, science, and/or archaeology; it only requires a demonstration that the Bible is incoherent--that is, it contains claims that cannot be true simultaneously. In such instances either one claim is false or they are both false--there is no other possibility. If you wish to throw rationality out the window and claim that a contradiction is possible, then you can just take your ball and go home; you are now playing a game that you can ask no one else to play with you. One example of many: Matthew (1:1-16) claims that there are 27 generations between David and Jesus, Luke (3:23-38) claims 41 generations. These cannot be reconciled. The Bible is not inerrant. QED 3. Christianity Cannot be the Religion that Jesus Preached: The story of Christianity is the story of the beliefs that Jesus professed developing into the religion that professes Jesus. In other words; dogma. It is pure folly to believe that Simon Peter, Thomas, Mary Magdalene et.al followed Jesus because, when he died, they would be able to absolve their sins by believing in him. This later theological construction was created by believers who were searching for a meaning to the seemingly pointless execution of their leader and teacher. Those who originally followed Jesus did so because of his life--because he was an exemplary teacher who radically reinterpreted the Law in favor of inclusion rather than exclusion. Those who now follow Jesus do so because of his death. They turn a man's poignant teachings--his life's work--into a secondary and near meaningless preface to the panacea of his death. We primarily have Paul and John the evangelist (two people who did not know Jesus in his life) to thank for this inexcusable dumbing-down of Jesus' life. With Paul and John's help, what Christianity would become is embodied in the Nicene Creed. Take a look at it. Dogmatic fiat has expurgated everything the man stood for. 2. The Gospels are not Historically Reliable: We need not demonstrate Biblical errors solely through appeals to internal consistency. Doing so only tells us that something in the "word of God" is awry--but not necessarily which word is wrong. In order to perform Biblical analysis that actually broadens our view of what is true and false in the "good" book we need to bring in external sources. From these external sources we learn that the Bible makes claims that cannot stand up to even the most cursory historical examination. In the Gospel of Luke the story is told of a census enacted by the governor Quirinius (Luke 2:1-7). The census, according to Luke, required everyone to return to their ancestral homes to be counted. Thus Joseph, being in the line of David, travels from Nazareth to Bethlehem where--after unadvisedly traveling ninety miles with a woman in the final days of pregnancy--Mary gives birth. The Romans, being meticulous record keepers, did take censuses. However, because of this meticulous record keeping, we know that the only census conducted during Quirinius' governorship took place in A.D. 6-7--a time over ten years after Herod was king of Judea (Luke claims they are contemporaries). However, aside from this fact we can use common sense to realize that the story is totally unbelievable. Luke invents an empire-wide migration for a simple tax registration: millions of people traveling hundreds or thousands of miles to go to their ancestral home of a millennium past (David predates Joseph by approx. 1000 years) in order to sign a simple form. Imagine this happening today. Imagine the cataclysmic disruption of societies resulting from the masses of people crossing boarders and oceans in order to sign a form. This, of course, supposes you could even find your ancestral home of a millennium past. No, something is wrong here and it isn't that the Romans liked to periodically enact sadistically cumbersome legislation. No, I think our evangelist needs to go back to history class. But wait... 1. The Gospels are not History: This may seem like a paltry excuse for the number one spot on a list that makes such a grandiose claim. This reason, however, is the lynch pin. The historicity of the Gospels represents the most crucial element of Christianity--for either its truth or falsity. Christianity claims a specific historical relationship between God and man. If that relationship is historically inaccurate then Christianity is wrong. Or, as Paul memorably put it, "if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith." (1 Cor. 15:14). As we've seen the Bible is often contradictory and the Gospels are not historically accurate. However, the Christian mistake is compounded by believing that the Gospels are even history--that is that they were written or designed to accurately portray historical truths. The evangelists did not intend their writings to be taken as historical truths. If they could see modern Christianity they would be shocked at the millions of Christians interpreting their writings as historically authoritative. Please don't misinterpret what I am saying. I am not saying the Gospels were entirely made up. I am saying that they were primarily written as myths that forego historical truths (but use many of them) in favor of conveying larger, theological truths that the evangelists believed about Jesus of Nazareth. The evangelists poured through the Old Testament and found "prophecies" that predicted Jesus' life. After all, there had to be grander reasons why their great teacher had been executed like a common criminal. In the pages of Jewish scripture they found those reasons. They then consciously wrote their gospels in order to retroactively fulfill prophecy. That this happens at all is beyond dispute. Sometimes, while stumbling over themselves to "fulfill" prophecy, they get it horribly wrong: Mark (1:1-3), using shoddy sources, begins his gospel with "prophecy" that mistakenly conflates two Old Testament versus; Isaiah 40:3 and Malachi 3:1. Matthew (1:20-23) uses a mistranslated Old Testament, in which the Hebrew almah, (meaning "young woman") was changed to the Greek parthenos (meaning a physical virgin), as a justification for the immaculate conception. Matthew (21:1-7) so wants to fulfill a "prophecy" from another shoddy source that has combined Isaiah 62:11 and Zachariah 9:9, that he misinterprets the passage--which only speaks of one animal (with subsequent qualifiers)--and has Jesus ride into Jerusalem, in some bizarre act of balance, on two animals. (The other gospel writers are quick to correct this grievous error.) Thus, we begin to see that not only is it a manifest absurdity to believe the Gospels are history, it becomes tenuous to believe they are even accurate. Each evangelist had his own interpretation. The theology of the evangelists--and specifically their Christology (the nature of Christ)--developed into more grandiose claims as Jesus' life moved further into the past. If you wish to discover this for yourself, I advise you to successively read the Gospel of Mark (almost universally agreed to be the earliest Gospel written between A.D. 65-70) and the Gospel of John (agreed to be the latest Gospel written between A.D. 90-100) in a single sitting. Ask yourself this question; are they telling the same story? In Mark's Gospel, Jesus largely speaks in parables and evasive third-person proclamations about someone called "the Son of Man." In John's Gospel, Jesus tells no parables and spends most of the time talking about himself, his godly status, and what the future will bring."

7/31/2010 12:09:33 PM

cont'

Quote :

"So, here is a brief lesson in the development of the concept of Jesus as God - the transition from focusing on what Jesus said to focusing on who he was. We will only look at the beginning and the end; Jesus' birth and death. Changing the birth and death of Jesus is the most direct route to altering Jesus' status from one contained within a life to one transcending it. First the birth narratives. In Mark there is no birth narrative. Jesus' higher metaphysical standing begins when He is chosen at his baptism. This is a story that Jews would have known well. The Old Testament is replete with God adopting servants - sometimes even called "sons" - during a communicative moment in their lives. Mark did not believe Jesus' status differed greatly from God's chosen sons of the past; David, Elijah, Moses, Elisha etc. In fact, in writing for a Jewish audience, he thought it important to strongly align Jesus with the prophets of old. Mark's Christology is thoroughly earthly and - when judged against later alterations - mundane. However, this aspect of Mark is of paramount importance; the earliest Evangelist, the one least removed from Jesus' life, did not know what Christians now "know." It is simply absurd to believe that, of all the things Mark knew about Jesus and with all the time he took to compose and disseminate his gospel, Mark just didn't know that Jesus' birth was a once-in-an-eternity miraculous event. While Mark certainly plays up the figure of Jesus, he was not willing to go that far. When Mark is taken by itself--a gospel lacking a birth narrative and a resurrection narrative (the last twelve verses are almost universally agreed to be later additions), fraught with a persistent "messianic secret" in which no Apostle is able to completely understand Jesus' status, and Jesus' constant, oblique, third person references to a figure called the "son of man" (almost assuredly a reference to Daniel 7:13)--no interpretation even remotely resembling Christianity can be culled from it. Instead Mark fits squarely into well-known traditional Jewish stories of chosen prophets instructing the Jews as to God's will. For Matthew and Luke this "Jewish Jesus" would not do. Rather than taking a modern viewpoint that the earlier source should be trusted (that is, if you care about historical accuracy which, as I've said, they clearly did not), Matthew and Luke (written c. 80-90) decide to insert important "facts" into Mark's general narrative that raise the status of Jesus to a figure whose scope extends beyond Judaism. With this in mind, doctoring what he said was not as important as doctoring who he was. Thus, they go back to his birth and tell incompatible, incredible, and clearly manufactured stories of Jesus' miraculous birth to a virgin. In doing so they both establish Jesus' higher ontological status than the prophets of old, and - by bending over backwards to place Jesus in Bethleham - they make sure that Jesus satisfies the prophecy that the Messiah was to come from the "city of David." Looking at the differences between the Synoptics, we are also able to see the solution to the oft-mentioned "problem" of Jesus' missing years. Other than Luke's small story of a twelve-year-old Jesus teaching in the Temple, we have no other (canonical) stories of Jesus between birth and baptism. By comparing Mark with Matthew and Luke, the obvious answer presents itself; such stories didn't exist because no one cared about Jesus until he established a ministry. Jesus' "missing years" are no more bothersome than the "missing years" of the majority of Hebrew prophets. But John would change everything and one-up all who came before him. Jesus wasn't merely "chosen," "adopted" or created from a miraculous set of circumstances. No, Jesus is something else all together. Feeling it wasn't good enough to go back the the beginning of His ministry or the beginning of His life, John decides to go back to the beginning of time (John 1:1 "In the beginning was the word...") to establish the nature of Jesus. Thus, Jesus has been raised to the ultimate heights; dizzying heights that would have confused and shocked Mark. Likewise, the death of Jesus changes dramatically throughout the Gospels. The changes (of which there are many more than these) can be summed up in the three different accounts of the last words of Jesus: Mark 15:34 and Matthew 27:46 "My god, my god, why have you forsaken me." Luke 23:46 "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." John 19:30 "It is finished." The development of Christianity is encapsulated in the move from the utterance of pain, ignorance, nonacceptance, and suffering seen in Mark and Matthew to the statement of acceptance, foreknowledge, and peace that is seen in John. These are incompatible interpretations of Jesus. The character in the gospels may have the same name but it is not the same man hanging on the cross. The Gospels are guides to belief written by believers. This is a horribly unreliable way to learn accurate information. When you already believe "The Truth," distortions that you consciously engage in - that you see as promoting "The Truth" - are not seen as lies, but rather, as efficacious ways of getting "The Truth" to the hearts of readers. We don't know why the evangelists believed as they did, but in the gospels they don't give us the reasons they believe, they give us reasons to believe; an entirely different matter. But we do KNOW they invented things. We KNOW that the theological conception of Jesus changed as the believers grew more distant from his life. What Christians believe most fervently (i.e. Jesus being God, appearing after he died, dying for the sins of the world) are concepts that were developed later. They are concepts that did not exist in the earliest generations of Christian belief. They certainly did not exist when Jesus was alive. Early Christians invented myths to overcome the "stumbling-block" (1 Cor. 1:23) of the cross. Paul knew that, for the Jews and Gentile Greeks, the execution of Jesus represented a major problem. The "king of the jews" was not supposed to be an executed lowly peasant. The "savior of mankind" was not a common criminal. Over time, theological concepts developed that explained this hang-up. Thus, an executed traitor was turned into a victorious Messiah. Conclusion: This article is primarily designed to address the reasons that Christians themselves believe. In other words, I consciously stayed away from having catchall reasons that counter any religion - i.e. "because evolution is true," "because of the Big Bang," "the anti-anthropic principle," "because God doesn't exist," etc. None of these abstract issues reach the core of any religion's believers - particularly not Christians. Christians believe for one, over-arching, epistemologically primary reason; the figure of Jesus represents God's will on this Earth and this story is accurately related in the Bible. In the gospel stories they see something miraculous that they believe to be true. After this belief is established the others will fall neatly into line. They will most certainly not believe in evolution, the big bang, the age of the Earth, etc. All of this simply because they think one paltry Jewish techné (not a carpenter, just a craftsman) did some special stuff. In debating Christians, for the sake of argument, I will concede every point they make - that the universe had to have a beginning, that it had to be designed, that God cares, that evil doesn't exist, etc. - except (generally) those based on the reliability of Christian tradition. A Christian's house of cards is usually built entirely upon this foundation. This is what matters to them and, thus, for these purposes, it is what matters to me. I am aware of the counterpoints that numerous, well-informed Christians and theologians have made to many of my points. This article isn't meant to be comprehensive but only informative. While none of these reasons is entirely convincing by itself, when taken together they create a strong case for the falsity of Christianity. If not that, then these points at least deserve pause, consideration and research. Most Christians and atheists do not know much of what is enumerated here. If you are a Christian and you are reading this (which I highly doubt) and if you cannot respond to each of these objections with evidence and coherent argumentation--as opposed to with faith and shouting--then you need to start shopping for a new religion."

7/31/2010 12:10:07 PM

yeah, here is my response: so?

that should be good enough for the first few points. then we get to this:

Quote :

"Many, if not most, Christians would say that the Bible is inerrant"

the arguments after that are based on the idea that the literal word is inerrant. that's not something that my denomination believes, so its arguments are mostly moot. and i don't know that "most" is accurate.

[Edited on July 31, 2010 at 12:17 PM. Reason : i mean seriously? some of those points are retarded. ]

7/31/2010 12:11:11 PM

What does your denomination believe concerning the Bible?

Actually I'd agree that certain parts of the Bible have something more than just a literal translation.

[Edited on July 31, 2010 at 12:37 PM. Reason : ]

7/31/2010 12:32:47 PM

death cult

7/31/2010 12:46:29 PM

How so?

7/31/2010 12:47:03 PM

Well, when you think about it isn't the drive of christianity more leaned upon getting people to go to church for afterlife salvation, even more so, than say being a good moral person. I'd say yes.

If that being the case, then christianity really is a death cult. One that praises the undead, or risen dead however you like it.

[Edited on July 31, 2010 at 12:52 PM. Reason : .]

7/31/2010 12:51:49 PM

Even if I believed in Christ, I still wouldn't call myself a Christian.
That term -- that historical distinction -- is forever fucked. Forever. Period.

(Even Blackwater had the common sense to change their name.)

7/31/2010 12:52:40 PM

1.When you here the word Christian what denomination or group do you think of.

All of them. Asides from Catholicism and Mormons, they're all the same. And when you include Mormons and Catholics, they are still almost all the same.

2. Your views on the history of the Christian faith.

Problematic. Filled with prejudice and hatred.

3. Your views on Christian beliefs.

I'm atheist. I don't care what other people's beliefs are, and would prefer to avoid conversations revolving religion, even with family members. I find that older people and religious zealots are best left alone.

4. What your spiritual beliefs are.

When you're dead, that's it. Remember what it's like when you're asleep? Feeling nothing, doing nothing, just laying there. Yeah. I think that's death. It's not bad, it's not good, it's nothing. A hard concept for many people to grasp or accept, as they want to believe that there is something more to it.

5. The experiences that brought about your spiritual beliefs.

Logic.

7/31/2010 1:01:47 PM

Quote :

"to go to church for afterlife salvation"

I agree that many organizations do this to gain money, calling a meeting place a Church is a misnomer anyway since the only Church is supposed to be the Holy Church which is a collection of the saints (people who have salvation).

And I agree with indy the designation Christian has been horribly marred throughout history, but the designation was not used by Christ himself but was something that Paul came up with later. Not that it was Paul's fault for the historical marring.

Sometimes I feel that by grouping a large amount of people into a group and calling it Christian, people miss the important things, which means it is more important to be part of the Holy Church, than to just call oneself a Christian.

Unfortunately, I believe some who call themselves Christian are not part of the Holy Church and it may just that may because of ignorance, because people have deceived them.

7/31/2010 1:02:06 PM

Quote :

"Well, when you think about it isn't the drive of christianity more leaned upon getting people to go to church for afterlife salvation, even more so, than say being a good moral person. I'd say yes."

um, well not really. essentially this:

Quote :

"28One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?" 29"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.[e] 30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'[f] 31The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'[g]There is no commandment greater than these." "

Quote :

" Unfortunately, I believe some who call themselves Christian are not part of the Holy Church and it may just that may because of ignorance, because people have deceived them."

i'm not sure what you mean here

[Edited on July 31, 2010 at 1:26 PM. Reason : .]

7/31/2010 1:25:27 PM

Quote :

"For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Romans 10:12-13"

Quote :

"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Romans 10:9"

That is the scriptural requirement for salvation.

When people start to add additional things, like priests and different dogma in reference to salvation it starts to muddy the waters.

Scriptures states that God, through Christ, forgives sin.

7/31/2010 1:34:33 PM

1. Like Supplanter, I think of several.

2. I think that there really was a rabbi/radical from Nazareth named Yeshua, but I don't think there is enough archeological/anthropological evidence to support claims of his more miraculous feats, much less that he was the son of a deity.

3. Christ had some astoundingly good ideas for his time (eg "turn the other cheek"). As far as Christ dying for your sins and therefore forgiveness is automatically bestowed upon those who follow him, I can't agree with that. Being sincerely sorry for one's actions is one thing, but I'm suppose to believe that a serial murderer/rapist gets a clean slate by becoming a convert, or by reciting a few Hail Marys? No, sometimes forgiveness is not something that can be handed out for free. Sometimes it has to be earned, and sadly there are some things for which there is no forgiveness. You don't get to decide when you've atoned enough for massive fuck-ups.

4. I don't think that christianity is any more the "correct" path than any other religion on the planet. In fact, I'd venture to say that none of them is the correct path, or if you'd prefer, no single one is the correct path. People's faiths are a product of the cultures that they reside in, ie you believe in God and Christ because that's the system you were born into. Were this instead a predominantly muslim country, this thread would instead be about islam. Same with all other religions and philosophies.

As far as the "spiritual," I'm a skeptic and fall in between agnostic/atheist. I recognize that the question of God's existence is an unanswerable one. It is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of something which by all accounts is undetectable, therefore it is a meaningless mystery to pursue. However, if I had to guess, there is no such thing.

5. Grew up in a christian household, pretty much the only reason we went is because mom made all of us go. I tried harder to genuinely believe in high school, but after a while I decided that I was getting nothing out of it.

[Edited on July 31, 2010 at 4:44 PM. Reason : reworded 5]

7/31/2010 4:39:07 PM

Quote :

"you believe in God and Christ because that's the system you were born into"

Incorrect.

Quote :

"No, sometimes forgiveness is not something that can be handed out for free. Sometimes it has to be earned, and sadly there are some things for which there is no forgiveness. You don't get to decide when you've atoned enough for massive fuck-ups. "

This is not the forgiveness of man we are talking about. I'm not saying that having salvation deserves the forgiveness of man. And being truly saved may be more difficult than you'd think.

7/31/2010 4:47:31 PM

here is what i thinki about christians/ christianity:

i am personally still not sure of my own views on christianity, all i do know is that it annoy me when people who don't know anything about it or have a completely misguided understanding of it attack it. not believing in it is one thing, but if you are actively going to attack and criticize it you should try to know what the hell you are talking about or i'll make you look like an idiot about it. i also find a lot of the stories and parables in the bible to be good advice regardless of your religion and have read the bible (many parts multiple times) because i think its important to understand something that effects society that much.

7/31/2010 4:56:14 PM

Any input is valuable here, no matter how much it appears to be misguided or biased. That's the idea of the thread. Though I can certainly see how it could be offensive.

7/31/2010 5:00:34 PM

message_topic.aspx?topic=590022

7/31/2010 5:05:01 PM

Quote :

"ibsolinari&hooksaw&grumpygop"

indy

What?! I don't even identify myself as a Christian, for Christ's sake (pun intended)! I wish some of you would just stop with the caricature of me that you've ginned up in your feverish little minds.

I do not like, however, the way I see many Christians and Christian groups treated by would-be intellectuals here and elsewhere. It seems to me that Christians and their groups receive much closer scrutiny and much more ridicule than individuals and groups that practice other religions.

[Edited on July 31, 2010 at 5:08 PM. Reason : .]

7/31/2010 5:08:06 PM

1.When you here the word Christian what denomination or group do you think of.
Faggots

2. Your views on the history of the Christian faith.
It's the history of fags.

3. Your views on Christian beliefs.
They're gay

4. What your spiritual beliefs are.
Not Christian

5. The experiences that brought about your spiritual beliefs.
Not being a faggot.

7/31/2010 5:12:46 PM

Quote :

"Any input is valuable here"

Well maybe not the last comment.

7/31/2010 5:22:09 PM

you said it could be misguided and baised or offensive, I went for all three

7/31/2010 5:28:28 PM

1. The broad swath of humanity that extols faith as a virtue.
2. A massively destructive force on the progress of mankind. Pointless. Self-perpetuating bullshit.
3. Absolutely no basis in reality.
4. None. What the hell does the word spiritual even mean? A naturalistic view of reality is the only view consistent with....reality.
5. I have a brain and eyeballs. I see things happen. They make sense in the context of reality. I actually have read and continue to study the Bible. I think anyone who actually reads it could not possibly be a Christian. The way Christianity is *generally* practiced, there is certainly a lot of cherry picking going on.

I generally dislike Christians because the more extreme of them can't help but try to subvert education and medicine and the more moderate create the notion that believing in something without any evidence is a virtue. I loathe people that tell young children that they're going to hell unless they pray to a bloody god that will wash their little sins away in blood.

Quote :

""you believe in God and Christ because that's the system you were born into" Incorrect."

Prove that this statement is inaccurate. If you grew up never hearing about Christianity, how could you possibly have become a Christian? Why isn't every single person on this planet a Christian?
You can't prove this to anyone other than yourself. That's called a delusion.

7/31/2010 9:39:15 PM

Quote :

"A naturalistic view of reality is the only view consistent with....reality."

except for the part where it can't explain how reality came into existence or how life was originally created. Now you can argue there are theories out there, but theories require faith to believe in them.

I love playin devils advocate with you disco!

1. Disappointed. Because I often feel like many people who profess to be Christians don't get it.
2. Grows during persecution, recedes during good times.
3. I am a non-calvinistic baptist. There's more to it than that, but thats basically the jist of it.
4. Creation, Fall, Redemption
5. Brought up in church. Experienced challenging questions while in college, read, researched and became a stronger believer. Lived in Uganda for 3.5 months and experienced and saw first hand the love and dedication people can have for one another that this world cannot explain if evolution were true.

7/31/2010 9:53:27 PM

Quote :

"Prove that this statement is inaccurate. If you grew up never hearing about Christianity, how could you possibly have become a Christian? Why isn't every single person on this planet a Christian? You can't prove this to anyone other than yourself. That's called a delusion."

none of that logic follows.

- if you grew up isolated from christianity you couldn't possibly be a christian, although you may feel a presence and try to define it and explain it yourself
- every person on this planet has free will, and if you meant why hasn't ever person on this planet heard of christianity its because some may never have been exposed to it

neither of these things can be used to draw any conclusions on what you are trying to show, what exactly are they supposed to prove? even outside of any faith based arguments the logic set forth here just doesn't work. you don't need to prove any of that inaccurate and why would you try?

7/31/2010 10:38:51 PM

Quote :

"except for the part where it can't explain how reality came into existence or how life was originally created. Now you can argue there are theories out there, but theories require faith to believe in them."

It can't prove them....YET! And that's where my viewpoint is better faith-based ones. It can change given new evidence. If God appears and proves empirically that he's God, I'll believe it. Until then, jumping to any conclusion without sufficient evidence is pure delusion.

Quote :

"none of that logic follows. - if you grew up isolated from christianity you couldn't possibly be a christian, although you may feel a presence and try to define it and explain it yourself - every person on this planet has free will, and if you meant why hasn't ever person on this planet heard of christianity its because some may never have been exposed to it neither of these things can be used to draw any conclusions on what you are trying to show, what exactly are they supposed to prove? even outside of any faith based arguments the logic set forth here just doesn't work. you don't need to prove any of that inaccurate and why would you try?"

"feel a presence"?????? That proves it! Human sensory input is so prone to malfunction that you'd have to be a simpleton to attribute "feeling a presence" to something supernatural instead of just a sensory illusion. Of course, if you're a bronze age desert people, you might be prone to such superstition. Or if you take their writing literally, maybe you would as well.

There is evidence of thousands and thousands of years of civilization before Jesus Christ. Were all those millions and millions of people Christians?

You're not making sense because you don't accept the evidence that suggests that religions are constructed by man. We have documented nearly 10,000 religions worshiped by humanity throughout our existence. You're an atheist to 9,999 of them. I just go one more.

If you never heard of Christianity you wouldn't be a Christian. It's very nearly impossible that you'd feel a presence and conclude that it was the God of the Bible without ever having been exposed to the Bible. I could make up an infinite number of metaphysical things that could not be disproven, and any of them are exactly as likely as the God of the Bible. You would be exactly as likely to attribute any of those things to your "feeling a presence" as you would the Christian God.

[Edited on August 1, 2010 at 12:38 AM. Reason : evidence]

8/1/2010 12:38:17 AM

Quote :

"that you'd have to be a simpleton to attribute "feeling a presence" to something supernatural "

Perhaps, but then the vast majority of humans on this planet are simpletons then.

8/1/2010 1:05:32 AM

To the detriment of the entirety of humanity.

8/1/2010 1:13:41 AM

1. I was baptized Catholic as a baby, raised Methodist, and eventually became a Baptist, so I've made my rounds. Catholicism is a bit different, but overall, I would say those 3, along with most other denominations have the same general principles. There are some differences, but overall, I'd say most are similar.

2. I believe the history has brought progress and promise to areas, but many throughout its history have also brought great tragedy to people. As Supplanter put it, it's a mixed bag throughout history. Some Christians aren't willing to accept that bad things have happened in the past resulting from those with "Christian" beliefs. They tend to be ones who cause more harm than good for believers and non-believers.

3. Overall, I think they are positive. Unfortunately, there are zealots and wing-nuts, who, like in many groups, tend to try to force their beliefs on everyone, and automatically condemn those who don't believe their interpretation of the religion (the Preacher Garys of the world). The vast majority of Christians, as well as Muslims, Buddhists, Atheists, Agnostics, etc. are good people, but are unfortunately silenced by the idiots in the crowd.

4. I am a Christian. I believe when our time is over, we die, and move on. Now, as for what happens after that, I guess we'll find out when our time comes. I have my beliefs on that, but I don't push my beliefs on those who say we just die and rot, or meet 72 virgins or come back as something else. Someone will be right, someone will be wrong. Eventually we all get the answer to that question. My beliefs are probably more liberal than most Christians (I know they are at my church).

5. I grew up in church, but as a kid, I just went b/c my parents made me. Eventually I began looking at my life and began to sort out my thoughts on religion. I've gone on mission work to help those in need, as a representative of Christianity instead of a preacher of it (more of discussing my beliefs over preaching what they have to do). I coach soccer and basketball, and have done that in church leagues and other leagues (not quite Uganda like Lutz). I have a sense of caring more about helping the kids, in a general sense than I did prior to my decision. That doesn't mean without the faith, there is no sense of caring or morals (after all, many so called Christians aren't exactly the greatest moral examples). But for me, it just gave me a moral purpose that I didn't feel I had before. There are tests of faith, and I've gone through those (loss of friends, parents divorce, etc), but without my faith, I don't know that I would have made it out of certain situations the way I did.

[Edited on August 1, 2010 at 1:40 AM. Reason : .]

8/1/2010 1:37:34 AM

1) I don't really think of one in particular, though normally when people spout off unprompted about how they are "Christian" I generally assume protestant (since Catholics and Orthodox will usually use those titles)

2) It has its ups and downs, like everything else.

3) Well, I'm Orthodox, so I guess I view them favorably enough.

4) See #3.

5) Mind your own business.

---

Now, onto Indy, who apparently thinks I am the rabidly outspoken Christian on this board. I can see how he got that idea, what with my firm belief in evolution and natural selection, my oft-mentioned fondness for alcohol, my lack of opposition to gay rights, my slightly pro-choice stance on abortion, the lack of any quotes from Christian texts in my posts, and the fact that I have not even approached suggesting to anybody else that they should so much as consider adopting my religion.

Anyway, as to your challenge, I'm not going to clog up this thread with three pages of response to your article. I'm pretty sure I could respond to the objections listed in it with evidence and coherent argumentation (although, given your first post, I find it hilarious that you bemoan all of our Christian "shouting"). And the reason I'm not going to do it is that your normal response to any discussion about which you have already made up your mind is to simply abandon it.

When we got into a discussion about overpopulation, you said I was so patently and obviously wrong you weren't even going to dignify me with a response -- and, when I came back with data and arguments to back me up, you didn't. This won't be any different. You already think that everything I say is so clouded by stupidity that even if it seems to make sense, it must not, because I'm a (not-very-observant) Christian.

So I'm gonna save us some time here and not bother, at which point you will claim victory and share a good long chuckle with disco_stu about how religion is bad. Meanwhile I will avoid slamming my head into the wall that is attempting any sort of "coherent argumentation" with you.

8/1/2010 1:50:47 AM

lol@I'm not going to both because you'll just have a circle jerk w/ disco_stu.

Does that mean we're not allowed to have a circle jerk now?

Bottom line: Metaphyiscal things cannot be proven. If they could, then we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

Now here's my opinion: things that cannot be proven to exist should not merit any time in contemplation let alone modifying your behavior in any way or <GASP> worship! See: infinite number of metaphysical things that we don't worship.

8/1/2010 1:55:45 AM

Now now, I said I wasn't going to because indy's a shit, not because of anything to do with you. In fact, I wholeheartedly encouraged you guys having a circle jerk after he declared victory because of my refusal to put forward a point-by-point rebuttal of his three-page article.

8/1/2010 2:00:54 AM

Quote :

"You're an atheist to 9,999 of them. I just go one more."

You could say that. Believing in Jesus Christ and the God of Abraham is certainly a choice.

However, it is necessary to following the word of God:

Quote :

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:3"

If we accepted other religions as true wouldn't that be the same as when the nation of Israel worshiped Baal, Chemosh, and Ashtoreth.

I do not accept other religions as true, nor do I think they are just misguidedly worshiping the God of Abraham. They are worshiping other "gods." Excluding the Jews of course, who worship the God of Abraham in the manner of the old ways. Though I'd imagine that is difficult these days since, the Temple of Jehovah was destroyed and the Arc of the Covenant was lost.

Keep in mind that though that just because I do not agree with other religions does not mean I don't respect there boundaries. One reason is because when a saint calls out another religion they have cast judgment on the spiritual beliefs of another person, and are saying that the worshiper is at fault for their beliefs.

Quote :

"Judge not, that ye may not be judged; for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you. Matthew 7:2-3"

I believe that the mission of the saints is merely to spread the word of the God, mainly the gospels, and not to condemn other religions or become overly involved in the affairs of things outside of the Holy Church. Interfering with policy of nations or influencing the policy of nations goes against scripture:

Quote :

"Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?" "Caesar's," they replied. Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's." Matthew 22:17-21 Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. Romans 13:7"

8/1/2010 2:02:43 AM

Oh boy, this is going to be another one of those threads.

1. People who believe Jesus existed and was what he claimed to be.

2. Some bad things happened and some good things happened. Some bad things didn't happen and some good things didn't happen. It's simply impossible to quantify the whole of Christianity's effect on the progress of humanity as "good" or "bad".

3. Christian beliefs are illogical but not all of them are "bad". I don't think a purely logical world would lend itself to a happy existence.

4. I believe that humans have souls. I don't believe that things like human consciousness, creativity, dreams, etc are merely the result of a specific arrangement of molecules.

5. I have experienced a few unexplainable phenomena, such as precognition. About a year ago I had a strange dream. In it, I met my dead uncle and he told me that his father is moving in with him soon. This dream was not strange because of its content, but because it simply felt different than any other dream I've ever had. About a month later, my grandfather, who was healthy at the time of the dream, passed away. It was the first death in my family in 14 years. After it happened, I found out my father had a similar dream. I've tried finding rational explanations for my experience, but nothing works. After that I started looking into "near-death experience" studies, and it appears there are a lot of unexplainable phenomena regarding death. I'm not going to go into it, but it's very compelling from a logical viewpoint.

8/1/2010 2:57:13 AM

Quote :

"disco_stu: To the detriment of the entirety of humanity."

I agree, I think.

Could you explain how belief in the supernatural has existed to the detriment of the entirety of humanity?

[Edited on August 1, 2010 at 7:01 AM. Reason : consistency]

8/1/2010 7:00:37 AM

Quote :

" "feel a presence"?????? That proves it! Human sensory input is so prone to malfunction that you'd have to be a simpleton to attribute "feeling a presence" to something supernatural instead of just a sensory illusion. Of course, if you're a bronze age desert people, you might be prone to such superstition. Or if you take their writing literally, maybe you would as well. There is evidence of thousands and thousands of years of civilization before Jesus Christ. Were all those millions and millions of people Christians? You're not making sense because you don't accept the evidence that suggests that religions are constructed by man. We have documented nearly 10,000 religions worshiped by humanity throughout our existence. You're an atheist to 9,999 of them. I just go one more. If you never heard of Christianity you wouldn't be a Christian. It's very nearly impossible that you'd feel a presence and conclude that it was the God of the Bible without ever having been exposed to the Bible. I could make up an infinite number of metaphysical things that could not be disproven, and any of them are exactly as likely as the God of the Bible. You would be exactly as likely to attribute any of those things to your "feeling a presence" as you would the Christian God."

- it wasn't meant as proof
- christianity was constructed by men, this is actually pretty central to the religion as christians believe that god came down in the form of man
- where are you getting this idea that christianity requires every person in history to be christian to have any kind of validity? that's where your logic doesn't make sense, you can't just make something up as a proof for something else.

8/1/2010 8:48:24 AM

Leon's claim was that he would have been a Christian had he never heard of Christianity.

The fact that every single person in the history of humanity before Christianity was not a Christian is pretty solid proof that his claim is inaccurate.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bridget,

1)Continuous suppression of science and medicine, even in the contemporary.
2)Bigotry against homosexuals, atheists, anyone else that doesn't conform to mythology.
3)Violence against said people.
4)A uniform continuation of the zeitgeist of "faith is a virtue". This his holding us back. "No explanation for how it all started, so it must have been God." is preventing us from really attempting to answer the big questions the right way: through evidence, testing, and further testing.

Also, for some specific examples: http://whatstheharm.net/ . Also has a lot of other categories about the damage that superstition does to our society.

8/1/2010 9:21:18 AM

ah, i missed that you were responding to leon's claim

8/1/2010 9:36:38 AM

Quote :

"5. I have experienced a few unexplainable phenomena, such as precognition. About a year ago I had a strange dream. In it, I met my dead uncle and he told me that his father is moving in with him soon. This dream was not strange because of its content, but because it simply felt different than any other dream I've ever had. About a month later, my grandfather, who was healthy at the time of the dream, passed away. It was the first death in my family in 14 years. After it happened, I found out my father had a similar dream. I've tried finding rational explanations for my experience, but nothing works. After that I started looking into "near-death experience" studies, and it appears there are a lot of unexplainable phenomena regarding death. I'm not going to go into it, but it's very compelling from a logical viewpoint. "

So… having dreams about old people dying is somehow proof of gods?

8/1/2010 11:17:53 AM

What makes you think I believe in gods?

8/1/2010 11:29:30 AM

I believe he's trying to say that his dream indicates that there is more to life than just normal perception.

Quote :

"Leon's claim was that he would have been a Christian had he never heard of Christianity."

I never claimed that, but I'll tell you one thing, my view of Christianity before was not a very good one. My view of some denominations now, or the people running the show for those denominations is still not a good one. But it's not my business to go in and tell them there wrong, though sometimes I lose my cool and do it anyway.

8/2/2010 7:53:07 AM

Quote :

"Quote : "you believe in God and Christ because that's the system you were born into" Incorrect."

Care to elaborate on what you mean by 'Incorrect' then? The claim is that were you not born into Christianity you probably would not be a Christian. I refined this claim by stating that if you never heard of Christianity at all, you definitely would not be a Christian.

8/2/2010 8:45:02 AM

religion

8/2/2010 9:15:45 AM

1.When you here the word Christian what denomination or group do you think of.

The group of people who believe that eternal salvation was made available to mankind by way of a human sacrifice in Roman Palestine.

2. Your views on the history of the Christian faith.

Rather spotty.

3. Your views on Christian beliefs.

As they tend to vary, I can only speak to the main one. I think the idea that there is an intelligent, inter-dimensional being who not only created the universe, but continues to meddle in it, and who 2,000 years ago decided to impregnate a virgin in a remote village in the Middle East, whose offspring would end up spending his latter years performing various acts of sorcery and magic while wandering about in the desert, only to be tortured and killed by the Romans, all so that Homo sapiens, by believing in this story, can have the option of spending eternity praising the supreme being in his hidden dimension, is fucking ridiculous.

4. What your spiritual beliefs are.

I don't believe in spirits.

5. The experiences that brought about your spiritual beliefs.

None, except for the various experiences of thinking.

[Edited on August 2, 2010 at 10:42 AM. Reason : ]

8/2/2010 10:37:07 AM

kill all gods

8/2/2010 10:43:55 AM

Quote :

"Care to elaborate on what you mean by 'Incorrect' then? The claim is that were you not born into Christianity you probably would not be a Christian. I refined this claim by stating that if you never heard of Christianity at all, you definitely would not be a Christian."

thats not a logical refinement of that claim. there is an entire gradient between never hearing about christianity and not being born into it. i'm really trying not to take any kind of faith based argument in this thread, your logic just doesn't work. for example a person could not be born into christianity but be exposed to it when they were 10, or 20, or 50, or 95. all of these things are not being born into it yet not never being exposed to it. you seem to consistently tell christians what their position is so you can argue against it (maybe because thats the position you found on one of your websites?). this is the type of thing i am talking about when i was saying that if you are going to be an outspoken critic of christianity you need to have a halfway decent understanding of it.

8/2/2010 11:12:30 AM