Comment: So you have based your current view on the entire Christian faith on an experience with a church you attended? Have you ever tried moderation? If there is one thing I have learned it is this.... becoming a Christian does not wash away how screwed up you were the day before. You have just begun the life-long process of growth. Growth is slow and sporadic. Ironically, satan uses that unquenched desire for instant gratification to convince you that you were a moron for believing as you did. -Zapchaser

I was unclear. My church-going experience was not short lived. It's not like I went one Sunday and didn't like it so decided never to go back. For over three years I gave up Sunday and many Wednesdays all in an attempt to curry favor with God. I don't believe that my experience was worthless nor do I feel that anything like satan has made me feel like a moron for believing as I once did. The ideas (except for the immoral "love your enemy") are not bad ones and I do my best to live them as lessons and as guides but not as anything tied to a God-figure. That was when I became free--when I started living according to doing right for the sake of right and not for the sake of staying in good with God.

Comment: If you "woke up" as you say, then why are you here in this forum? Are you on a crusade to save the rest of us from Christianity? Are you not quite sure you have the answers that satisfy your questions?
and since then I've asked the questions that a number of people don't want to answer. -Zapchaser

I am in this forum because I belong to JSH and enjoy the discussion that religion/philosophy brings. If this is a Christian Forum then someone forgot to add that part in the forum title. Odd that you used the word "Crusade" in positing a question to me. I'm on no crusade whatsoever nor do any of my posts ask people to believe in anything they are not comfortable with. My initial response here had to do with a member writing a response to another member and feeling the need to insert a smug "right Abra" after just about every point.

Comment: Sorry you have had that response.flowerforyou Ask me and I will gladly help you find the answers to your questions if they are answerable. wink
but I've always asked them with respect--always. Zapchaser

I will absolutely start a thread (today) with some questions for believers. If you would like to answer them, I'll read your answers with an open mind. If not, I'll not think less of you or more of me for that result.

Re-read Abra's posts. I would describe them as preaching more than discussing. While discussing, I try to see the other person's view as best I can. I can also be irritated when the van with the megaphones on top comes around blaring their hate for any particular group, not just Christians. Me: discuss, learn, moderation. flowerforyou bigsmile
I'm not ripping you Drew, I am simply trying to understand where you are coming from. I know where abra is coming from and I apologize as my post was geared more in his direction. There are a few here that are here not for sharing, learning, or understanding but to demean, ridicule, and bash Christians and Christianity. I have never been known to turn the other cheek. laugh drinker

Your initial response to me was mocking. Since you've asked me to re-read something, I'll ask the same of you. Your response indicating that "she" really did break up our "bash God and all of those damned Christians" parade was not awe inspiring. First, I did not bash anyone last night. Second, there was no parade (as you put it) going on. I was discussing with Abra some issues. He is responsible for his opinions and behavior and I don't know they guy so it's not like we came in here to kick up a Holy war. That all stated, all is good. I'll be putting together a post here today and in so doing please, when reading, consider that I have seen both sides of the highway here. It would be awfully moronic of me to question Christianity if I had never experienced any portion of it. Surely we can agree that being exposed to both sides of an argument is pretty much necessary before deciding that one is right and one is wrong.



Thanks,
Drew

Aware, for the most part. Blissfully walking through life unaware is not confidence inspiring and tends to keep people from being willing to invest in you as a person--especially when they might really need to.

That stated, there are times (though rare) when I wish a bell could be un-rung.

-Drew

Hahahahahahahaha

Thank you! I don't even normally post here but it is a forum set up for the discussion (not as it sometimes feels, the judgment) of religious views. My doubt in a prescribed set of religious doctrine isn't because I'm too lazy to investigate. As I mentioned in an early post on this thread, I used to be quite involved in a church (replete with, "GOD despises those who are lukewarm") so don't, whatever you do, be lukewarm.

I will remain civil because I don't fear my position. I don't feel the need to blast anyone's faith because I'm not insecure in the practice of my own. I don't fear God because I don't believe that fear and love are in any way compatible. There are so many views and versions of what faith "is." There are those who would seek to kill Christians simply because they are Christian and there are those who would seek to harm Muslims because they cannot distinguish between those who practice faith in a peaceful way and those who do not.

If in the end I were to be sentenced to an eternal damnation because I doubted, because I could not wrap my mind around something (though my heart might be tempted) then I guess that's the way of it.

Religion (the organized variety) has done some unbelievably evil things. Before we understood that violent seizure was sometimes the result of a real medical condition called epilepsy, people were killed as the conventional wisdom of the time made it clear that they were in fact possessed by pure evil--by the devil himself. We know better now. Slavery (which is as evil as any institution ever created) was (and still is) acceptable by Biblical standards--but we know better now. An adulterer was to be stoned, as was a prostitute but again, we know better now.

To be fair, vapid anti-theism has also spilled much blood. The list is known: Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler and their acts were abhorrent. Some would say that my position is easy because it puts me on the fence. But that is not how I view it. I don't think of myself as on the fence about anything because I recognize that with a finite mind, limited intelligence, and the belief that asking questions and challenging dogma is both healthy and appropriate I am simply too busy to sit anywhere, lest of all on a fence.

What I don't understand is why. If you know, absolutely know that you are one of the select, one of the people with whom God is eternally proud then why ever, even for a moment, be upset with those who are not? That is one (of the many) reasons I left my church. I was never happy there. No one in my church was ever happy...., much less free.

A God who needs constant adulation, constant praise and constant thanks isn't a confident figure. People who need such things are emotionally suspect, some would go as far as to say, emotionally insecure.

Since I don't know, since I don't have all of the answers and since I believe that the questions are worth asking, I'll continue to ask them. If, in the end, that is something that costs me something eternal then OK. But I'd rather live a life of secure doubt than one of insecure faith.

-Drew

You've got mad wisdom CS.......thanks for your thoughts but really more than anything, thanks for your approach.

-Drew

No, she showed that the civil debate of ideas and legitimate doubt can't be done around those who are convinced beyond doubt that they have the golden ticket. Nowhere did I bash God or Christians--nowhere did I rip your faith or the faith of anyone else.

-Drew

Yeah, here is the thing---a dream for one might have been the nightmare of another.

-Drew

Bexter, actually when I first saw this a few years ago, that was what I thought. I thought that it was to eliminate the sister so that she could not date him. Or some variation of that.

-Drew

And the answer is---

So he would come to her sister's funeral.

So, Twilights, we'll be keeping an eye on you! :)

-Drew

Oh, and I wasn't a Sociopath either.

At this point none of you (save for Gypsy) are Sociopathic. OK, kidding, Gypsy isn't either. This thread won't live long so I'll explain here in a few.

-Drew

I was thinking that you and CS probably had.

Hola, my friend.

(If you've seen this before, please allow some time for others.) Thanks!! -Drew


A woman, while at the funeral of her own mother, met a man whom she did not know. She thought this guy was amazing, her dream guy, and she fell in love with him right there, but she never asked for his number and then could not find him. A few days later she killed her sister.

Question: What is her motive for killing her sister?

Unreal! I'll let Abra address the specific questions you asked as he/she wishes. But what I find most interesting about your response in general is the way in which you felt the need to insert a "right Abra" after every question in a way so mocking in nature as to announce your presence with all the subtlety of a Bull Shark. Why was that needed? The conversation Abra and I were having (and I just reviewed it) was not disrespectful in any way. I know that I never blasted anyone's beliefs nor did I engage in mocking faith in general. It was a debate of ideas of logic and of faith and it was, if nothing else, informational.

In case you were wondering, your disdain of those who question is one of (though certainly not the only) reasons that a great number of people are turned off by dogma/religion/God. Your response to Abra was not based in anything that looked or felt like real compassion or care. It was not an attempt to engage in understanding that there are a number of people (though clearly not people as confident as you) who have legitimate doubts.

My doubts are many and I come from a place of having once belonged to a Christian Church. For years I nodded in agreement and felt cloaked in justified arrogance when week after week I got to hear all about how those who reject the "gift" will spend an eternity apart from God but not apart from suffering. My reward? Well, I alienated most of my family and friends. No one wanted what I had or what God was offering because they could not see the message through the arrogance of the messenger. I was that guy, that guy you hated to see coming down the hall because invariably I'd find a way to make sure you KNEW how washed in the love of God I truly was and how likely you were to be cast apart from anything having to do with eternal love.

One day, I woke up and since then I've asked the questions that a number of people don't want to answer but I've always asked them with respect--always.

A number of people struggle a great deal with faith and being asked to feel guilty for a father sacrificing his son and a lot of those people are sincere in their doubts. Perhaps instead of responding to them in a mocking and irritatingly insulting way you might engage in the discussion. You blew off everything that Abra was discussing and appealed in an unhealthy way to the very subject of this thread---guilt.

I find that beyond tragic.

-Drew

Ahh, don't forget the dial-up 95% transfer complete only to lose the connection. Boy, weren't those fun days?

:)

Drew

If you aren't going to read it how can you be so sure that the things said are so silly?

Interesting counter-argument.

-Drew

What excellent points. I stand by the idea and sincere belief that NO loving father could ever or would ever condemn someone to an eternity of punishment EVEN if that child did not love him. As flawed as I am I don't think there is anyone I'd wish that upon because eternity doesn't have a half-time. And if it did, what then? If I am going to a blissful place for all of eternity because I was afraid of the alternative then I did not get there by anything that looks or feels like love. The typical response to that (and this is so twisted) is that God has "offered" us a gift and that if we choose to reject the gift, we've sealed our own fate.

What?

Let's say Abra, that I offer you a gift. It is a gift I spent a great deal of time crafting and in the process sacrificed a great deal. In fact, I spent years on it. On the day I hand it to you (and for whatever reason) you reject it. So what then? Sure, I'd be disappointed. It might make any conversations very strained and it might lend itself to us not talking, perhaps forever. But I would never argue from a moral standpoint that you should be "punished" for rejecting it.

If a gift is offered and refused and the consequence of that rejection is eternal punishment then it was NEVER a gift to begin with.

It's no more a gift than a man who says to you after putting a gun to your head: "I want all of your money. If you give it to me as a gift, you live. If you don't I will kill you." No one would look at your giving the money over as you having willingly given of yourself. It would not be a gift--it would be pure duress.

I honestly believe that in the hearts of many people their love for God is nothing more than a fear of the alternative. But that is not love. Love does not dictate or intimidate. If it is freely given then you don't eternally punish someone for not accepting it.

That is sadistic and cruel.

-Drew

A fair and valid point. You know what else just kills me here? Where were all of the "we hate dictators" crowds when Saddam was gassing the Kurds in northern Iraq? Some people here have no trouble participating in calling GWB everything from a liar to a warmonger but you'd think that sprinkled in for flavor would be a few posts condemning those who rape, torture and murder people (and were doing so for decades) people like Saddam. I wonder if there are any posts here at all that even mention that? Again, I won't hold my breathe.

-Drew

The whole premise of this thread has turned in to a scenario akin to someone saying:

"I'm diabetic and I visited and ice-cream shop and the first thing the guy behind the counter asked was if I wanted to sample some Rocky Road--how insulting!

-Drew

Hey, I realize it's your own gig and so enjoy but I wonder why you'd be at a site called "datehookup.com" with or without a boyfriend and then be surprised that you are being asked questions about physical appearance. I'm not judging your being there in any way, just asking why you are surprised that he went down that road, especially considering you did mention to him that you enjoyed sex quite a bit.

-Drew

Abra--perfectly stated! I've never understood the way it was supposed to have worked:

1. I am born guilty and with a sinner's mind and heart.
2. I cannot find eternal peace of any kind without God
3. So I'm supposed to fix what's broken with....what is broken.

It seems that I've been "created" in a manner that precludes me from being able to do right but am then asked to do right anyway.

Back when I believed differently than I do today I remember a Pastor telling me that I should think of God as the perfect "father." He insisted that human fathers are great but that because they are human they are limited and imperfect. GREAT, I thought to myself and so I thought about a perfect father and then came to some odd conclusions about "guilt" and forgiveness.

1. My imperfect dad would never, no matter what, punish me for a lifetime (let alone eternity) for failure to please him.

But my perfect father is capable of doing just that.

2. My imperfect dad didn't see me as a sinner when I was born. He saw me as a perfectly newborn.

But my perfect father saw me as a sinner on the day of my birth.

This is really very much on topic because it relates to guilt. I know I've done some crappy stuff in my life, but rest assured that I've never taken any person of any faith and hung them from a cross or taken delight of any kind in anyone of faith that differs from mine being punished.

Just my 02

Drew