awwwwww shuddup!!

The Jedi Creed:

1)Jedi are the guardians of peace in the Galaxy.

2)Jedi use their powers to defend and protect, never to attack others.

3)Jedi respect all life, in any form.

4)Jedi serve others rather than rule over them, for the good of the Galaxy.

5)Jedi seek to improve themselves through knowledge and training

These are my rules for adult conversation We should all follow these rules

well, don't you think they are just going to delete it again?

Spider.

here's to cleaning up the forum

What are points and why was it deleted? What's the deal? I'm so confused.

That's okay, I have it saved at work, I can always post it again. Heck, I'll probably add a couple more points to the list with my next post.

I read that far and had a belly roll. Thanks for the laugh Spider.

I'm still waiting for anyone to address the points I've made. Wouldee, keeps attacking my personal credibility directly which is the highest compliment I can imagine. I’m flattered. People only attack the author’s credibility when they feel that he has made such an air-tight case they can’t possibly refute it.

Spider has been doing the same thing lately saying things like, “I’m tired of always defending all the time”

Well, don’t do it then.

Forums are to be enjoyed. If they don’t make you happy then go do something else. You don’t need to be a Zen Buddhist Monk to figure that one out.

Go play in a forum that you are happy playing in. Life really is that simple Spider.

that hurts
I thought i had broken enough of ur rules 2 get the blacklist
And how dare u quote my religion so freely!
In the words of another member of the richards/storm/grimm family Its clobberin time

"1) Adults do not ignore the facts or dismiss them as irrelavant. When any topic is discussed, you cannot simply dismiss the facts in favor of your own opinion. For instance: Nobody at Nicea questioned Jesus' divinity. That's clearly recorded by history, but yet members of this forum will dismiss the historical record and demand that a conspriacy theory with no basis in fact should be taken as fact."

If that were true more people would accept global warming as fact and not propaganda and would not question evolution as anything other than fact, we havent inveted time machines ye so people continue 2 debate

2) Adults do not change the subject. When someone makes a good point, which disproves your own point, it is rude and childish to change the subject. If someone were to show using the Bible and historical records that early Christians considered Jesus God, a response of "But that doesn't prove Jesus is god!" is stupid. That's changing the scope of the discussion. If the discussion is "Did early Christians believe that Jesus was God?", any topical response will only address that issue. The question of if Jesus is God is a completely different subject.

Questions like "is jesus god?" have a very selective audience: christians and assume that jesus was in some way divine, which is something that millions of people around the globe dispute,
yes i am aware i just changed the subject BUT Evolved/enlightened humans dont take a subject and strangle it until there is no life left in it, evolved/ enlightened humans are willing to agree 2 disagree )I for one am not enlightened but the first step to itis regonizing my own occassional ignorance)

3) Adults do not offer backhanded insults. When someone makes a comment like "The god of Abraham is evil and cruel, if someone can fool themself into believing otherwise, that's their problem. But I am honest with myself". In that sentence, you have accused everyone, who believes in the God of the Abraham, of being delusional. That's not discussing your beliefs, it's a backhand insult to those who believe differently than you do.


Yet the god of abraham supports the stoning of witches and the persecution of "Infidels" (to coin a phrase from one of the sects who believe in the god of abraham)
More blood has been spilt in the name of god/jesus/allah than all other religions combined, so when an infidel like myself states that the god of abraham is a wicked concept then we are supported by history


4) Adults are not offended by the beliefs of others. Adults are forced to live in a world where everyone has their own beliefs. As a consequence, adults believe in the plurality of ideas. That means this: I may not like your beliefs, I may not respect your beliefs, but I will allow you to believe the way you do without being offended by your beliefs. Those who cry foul that Christians claim that anyone who doesn't believe Jesus is God will go to hell are petulant children. An adult is not bothered by talk of an (to him/her) imaginary god sending (him/her) to an imaginary place. An adult can sit in a room while various members of various religions make statements affirming their beliefs to be totally correct and all others wrong without being offended. Please note, that some of the children here believe that backhanded insults are their beliefs and they are not, it's simply the childs way of striking out impotently at those with whom the child disagrees.

a good rule...
but u r as willing as any of us to defend ur beliefs, Noone except the most truly enblightened people can really deal with other beliefs in such a way, those of us who need dating sites to find meaningful human interactions are not among their ranks


5) Adults use logic and knowlege in discussions. Logic and reason are required to understand just about any subject. Knowlege of the subject is require to speak with any authority on a subject. An adult will always try to use logic to understand a subject and educate him/her self about the subject before speaking. Many of the people here, who think and act as children do, will simply speak without understanding the subject in the least. This is especially true in regards to the Bible. A single verse will be taken out of context and when the mistake is explained to the person, he/she will ignore the facts and continue making the same illogical, uneducated assertions.


Especially true in regards to the bible? The people who most regularly take verses out of context are THE MOST RELIGIOUS PEOPLE


6) Adults do not make gratuitous assertions. A gratuitous assertion is a statement of fact without any supporting data. So someone might say "The persecution of Christians wasn't as bad as everyone says it was", but then refuse to offer any evidence to support their statement. This is a childish tactic, which can be gratuitously denied. The proper response to the example gratuitous assertion is "Nuh Uh!" They are both equally valid in a polite adult conversation, which is to say they are equally invalid.


But sir u wite this on the internet, where each and every person can claim 2 be an authority or journalist without the slightest amount of proof, the very medium through which you transmit these statments has a cloud of untruth and fantasy over it
THE INTERNET IS ONE BIG GRATUITIS STATEMENT

7) Adults do not lend support to childish behavior. This one is self explainitory. Bad behavior from children or other adults is not approved of or given support. If someone breaks rule 3, no adult involved in a polite conversaion will send support or approval of the rule breakers action.

You expect anyone to follow this rule? Intelligent as it may sound, u have no way what so ever to punish ur rule breakers for acting childish and those who do so really dont care if u wag ur finger and say dont do that


8) Adults do not deny obvious truths. When logic and facts support one side of the arguemnt and not the other, an adult will admit his/her error and not continue to repeat their disproved statements.

HA! says the guy using the "historical jesus argument" (see rule 1)


9) An adult will not twist the words of another. Anyone can misinterpret the words of another, but to knowingly change the meaning of another's statement is not acceptable. This also applies to written documents. If someone took the statement by Jesus of "Before Abraham was, I AM" to mean that Jesus was a pantheist, that's an obvious misinterpretation. That's an attempt not to discuss reasonably, but to influence and confuse those who are following the discussion. It's like an octopus squiriting ink, it does nothing but hide the truth so that the octopus can get away without loosing face.


But all the judeo christian religion r various misinterpretations of many unclear statements...


10) Adults do not question the meaning of words, when the meaning is clear. If someone says "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is", that person has used a childish tactic. If an adult can't win a debate with the words defined correctly, then the adult would admit that fact instead of trying to continue the discussion by changing the defintions.

But an intelligent human being questions all statements so as to better understand them better...

11) Adults take responsiblity for their actions. If an adult slips up and breaks one of the above rules, said adult will apologize for the mistake.

Again how r u going enforce that?
all american society is geared towards taking the lowest amount of responsablity while appearing to have the most so yeah...

12) Adults realize that arguments are facts put together into a logical structure. Sarcasm, condescension, one line jokes and other verbal retorts are not arguements and should not be considered rebuttals.

Explain the importance of joke and humor in politics then


What does this have to do with religion? This: Christians take discussions of their beliefs seriously, non-Christians don't. They make jokes, insult and demean and then feign innocence. It's this childishness that has driven many Christians from here and this childishness that makes many Christians reluctant to post. This sort of behavior is a choice by the members of these forums. Many here choose to behave in a way that would be firmly rejected anywhere outside of the internet. It's time to come in out of the mud, clean yourselves up and start acting like the adults which time has made of you.

I would say the same thing to all american/christian society


That was the hippy rebuttal

ya mirror mirror

The Jedi Creed:

1)Jedi are the guardians of peace in the Galaxy.

2)Jedi use their powers to defend and protect, never to attack others.

3)Jedi respect all life, in any form.

4)Jedi serve others rather than rule over them, for the good of the Galaxy.

5)Jedi seek to improve themselves through knowledge and training



If we all would follow the Jedi Creed we wouldn't be having all these conflicts

That is a bald faced lie. I take my beliefs very seriously, but I make it a point to be flexible and I am able to laugh at myself.

At least I don't loose my sense of humor. You seem to have lost yours. Lighten up, and lay of the stupid rules for adults because you can't even adhere to them yourself.



Really? Then welcome to the real world. We non-believers have been insulted, cursed, condemned, demeaned, preached at, screamed at, called names, accused of communing with Satan, called stupid and many many other things for as long as we can remember.

Welcome to our world, get used to it cause it isn't going to change.




Oh Spider grown up.

The other point that I think needs to be made here is that the OP pretty much represents the Christian mentality. Rather than just enjoying life for their own sake, they try to define and control how everyone else should behave.

You’re never going to enjoy life if you always go around trying to define how others need to behave and passing judgments on their behavior based on your own judgmental standards. That’s the heart of bigotry and prejudice.

You can only be responsible for your own life and your own actions. You can give friends support, and offer other people wisdom. But to become upset when they don’t buy it is truly childish and immature.

Who pays for that? You do!

You seem to be the one who is always upset Spider. You’re causing your own anguish. No one else is forcing you to react to life in this way. The choice is entirely yours.

You’re clearly just upset because you can’t compete on a solely intellectual level, so you have to stoop to trying to discredit those you cannot rebut.

You just sound like a sinking ship sending out it’s final S.O.S.

I’ll gladly discuss any issue with you head-on and not even come close to making it personal. I don’t take things personal. My comments are entirely logical arguments.

If I say that I think it makes no sense for an all-loving God to thrive on blood sacrifices. That’s a logical argument. It’s not meant to be taken as “I think people who believe this are stupid”. That’s definitely not what I said. Hell, I used to believe it myself at one time, and I don’t think I’m stupid.

But you do seem to be the master of twisting words around. You’ll take a perfectly logical statement and twist it around trying to claim that it is a personal insult when it was never intended as such.

According to you, anything that suggests that the biblical story might not be correct is an insult!

That’s absurd in and of itself. All you’re trying to do there is renounce freedom of speech.

Please! Don’t take us back to the dark ages!

I personally feel that any true adult is capable of discussing any idea whether it agrees with their own personal beliefs or not. As a scientist I certainly do this all the time. I have to consider all possibilities. And not be offended when someone suggests that something I believe might not be true. People suggest to me all the time that evolution isn’t true. I’m not offended by that. I just think their wrong.

you know this all too well.

He gets it abra
you don't fool him
you're done being your own best secret
get used to it
you can't have your way forever bashing people into the ground
just learn to regain your perspective and be real and stand on your own nmerits without telling others what theirs are and you will find that you will heal, abra

Spider it seems that both you and Wouldee claim you are not offended by the beliefs of others.

I have to remind you that the beliefs of others conflict with Christianity which has usually been shoved down their throats their entire lives.

Therefore, even when a person turns his beliefs to something other that Christianity, and Christianity is all that they have been brought up with and told is true, they FIRST have to reject Christianity in order to move forward.

This rejection of Christianity is necessary and part of the process of getting out of the cult.

I had to do it with Eckankar. I had to reject it and investigate it and learn that it was a lie and declare that it was a lie. (I had already rejected Christianity at a younger age.)

Our rejection of Christianity is part of our spiritual evolution and part of the spiritual evolution of all of man kind. You have no business standing in the way of people's spiritual paths and part of that path is to reject the current status quo and stating so to those who would still try to convince us otherwise.

In doing so, some Christians are going to feel insulted (Like you and Wouldee) but you will never admit that you are.

You are obviously. Perhaps because your own core belief system is faltering. You are questioning your own beliefs. You are fighting to hang on to them and lashing out at others who have made a step FORWARD to spiritual freedom and enlightenment.


JB

Spider has chosen to ignore Abracadabra, so what did he do, ask you to speak for him?

No, I beg to differ JB.

I and others do not need to hang on to Christianity.

I know what I believe.

I do not force my beliefs on anyone, never have.
I have stayed quietly on the sidelines, until it
became clear that others who have a need to
destroy christianity to make themselves feel better
would wish to tell me what to do and what to think.

That will not happen.

Not now, not ever.

Nothing personal JB, I have seen your posts in other
threads, have enjoyed the advice you have given others.

Check out proverbs, chapter 9, says much the same thing, but more elegantly. And besides, it depends on what your definition of "adult" is. I did kind of notice some folks getting under your skin in this forum. Best to have thick skin and take stuff with a grain of salt (several!).

Is this a case of the kettle calling the pot.....????? I believe so

Just for you mirror, I will

I was not referring to you. It seems that some people become frantic in the face of opposing ideas or beliefs or in the face of hard questions about Christianity and to me, I feel that these people are faltering in their own faith.

I did not mean you. Many people are happy and secure where they are and are certainly not threatened.

JB