Belief


A Christian believes(definition 2, see above) in Christianity. Therefore, a Christian won't say "I believe" or "In my opinion" about many of their beliefs as a Christian. This is offensive to others, but I honestly can't see why. It wasn't offensive to me in the 32 years I lived, when I wasn't a Christian. I had a couple Christians get really confrontational with me, that was offensive. But in a forum, every post has equal weight. You are free to read/ignore any post that is made. Nobody can force you to read the post. So I guess, I would like to know why a post that says "You need Jesus to go to Heaven" is offensive. Shouldn't a Christian be equally offended (and accuse you of "shoving your beliefs...") if you say that Jesus isn't required to go to heaven? I think we really need to get past this victim mentality of so many people here claiming "soandso shoved his/her beliefs down my throat" whenever there is a disagreement. Disagreements will happen. The likelihood is that if you aren't Christian, then most Chrisitan beliefs will be in conflict with your own. Since Christianity is here to stay and the forums are open to everyone, no matter their beliefs, perhaps the adult and reasonable thing to do is to just accept that Christians will state their beliefs as a fact and stop being offended. If you don't believe then how can their beliefs possibly be offensive to you? Why can't you just hear it and ignore it? I have to watch nearly every Christian portraited on TV/movies as being evil, twisted, perverted, cowardly, etc. I own Sin City, even though the villian (and sexual deviant and corrupt and cowardly and cannible) is a Christian. Just ignore those statement which offend you. Or at the very least, show a little even-handedness with your proclamations of "shoving beliefs!".

thank the gods iam not alone, and yes i gods as in more than one

YES! State your beliefs. I will disagree with you, but I won't complain that you have your own beliefs which are different from mine. Hopefully other's will figure out that the only way to discuss religion is to accept that other's beliefs will be different and possibly offensive to them.

Christianity is infamous for proselytizing.

This is nature of the religion that causes other people to slam it.

After all, you can only have Christianity slammed in your face for so long before you are inspired to slam back.

I let the damn break. I don’t care anymore. I try to be careful about not making ‘personal attacks’ but when it comes to the religion be prepared for some reverse-proselytizing.

After all when Christians proselytize to me they are basically degrading and disrespecting my beliefs. So since they feel this is an appropriate way to treat other people then why not return the favor?

If they can act like my religion is nothing more than a false make-believe myth then so be it. That’s precisely how I will treat their beliefs. They can reap what they sow just as their religion proclaims.

I’ll make their prophecy come true for them.

It’s the least I can do.

Finally allow me to add something that most Christians don’t seem to get. Jesus himself taught to walk away when someone doesn’t want to hear it. Telling them that they are sinners, or that they be sorry later when you’re standing next to Jesus thumbing your nose at them is NOT what Jesus ask Christians to do!

A person doesn’t need to be a Christian to know that. People who use Christianity as a person ego weapon deserve all the hassle they get.

Abracadabra,

While I think you have convinced yourself that I do those things, I don't and I agree with you. When someone says "Is X sinful" I will answer their question. When I am having a religious conversation, if the discussion comes back around to Jesus, I won't avoid that discussion. You do have a habit of slaming Christianity, instead of simply saying what's so great about pantheism. I really think you would do well to stop attacking Christianity and focus on what you love about your own beliefs. Christians state their beliefs. You tend to state what you hate about Christians, why they don't understand what Jesus taught and eventually you get around to mentioning what you now believe.

state my beliefs, huumm ok I dont believe in one all powerful god. i have a hard time with "your" religion telling you that every other religion is wrong but the one you worship. i am polythestic (i cant spell to save my soul), iam more along the line of greek, roman and egyptians. i think each individual person can have there set of beliefs and morals a be a good hell (lol) a great person. iam bastized catholic and resent the fact i didnt choose my religion it was chosen for me. I have a daughter and she has not been taught religion she understands the concept of god and has been to church but it was her choice, not mine. i have been told you cant raize a child with out religion or faith. thats not true, my daughter is kind and caring, she loves others as her own family and cherishes her pets. when a 9 day old kitten i was feeding died, my x told her god wanted the kitten, so he would have something to love in heaven, my daughter couldnt understand it, i told her to think of what we gave the kitten, a new mom, food, warmth, a bed, a house and all the love her mother couldnt give her, the kitten was buried under a rose bush. when it blooms my daughter says its the kitten reminding us, that she too loved us. my daughter never memtioned god.

the ture freedom is this country is speech, but people forget, words hurt, you may not agree or like but i wrote but i have feelings too. and if i can respect yours you can respect mine

Jesus taught that he is the only way to heaven. If I say your way is right for you, I am calling Jesus a liar. I don't doubt that non-Christians are good people, I never have doubted that. Please remember that your beliefs are just as exclusive as mine. I believe in one God. You believe in many. One of us is right, can't we just leave it at that? You don't believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven, I do. Can't we just leave it at that? I'm not offended by your beliefs, why are you offended by mine? Because mine exclude you? Yours exlude mine too. Just be happy in your own beliefs and ignore mine if you don't like them, being offended takes too much effort.

iam sorry if you miss understood me, my beliefs are mine, but too many others have "use" me to start arguments. iam not like that, you have every right to do and say as you believe, who knows maybe i will burn in the eternal fires of hell, my veiw is hay iam warm, or nice clouds. so were kool.

Oh well, I don't believe that hell is eternal fire. The Bible discribes hell in three completely different ways. As darkness, as being eaten by worms and as a lake of fire. I think those three discriptions are pointing to one image, which can't fully be understood by the human mind. While I'm sure that "hell" is going to be horrible, I don't believe it will be anything like a lake of fire. Revelations is coded, so I think "Lake of Fire" is just one more descriptive term used to discribe something our minds can't yet comprehend.

Spider,

I think you’re right about misunderstanding each other. I think we both mean well in our own ways, but our ways are so drastically different that we will never understand each other.

For example, you say,…


But this isn't true. I don’t hate Christians. I simply believe that the religion is false, and it’s also detrimental to our society. There’s no emotion involved, and certainly not directed toward the believes. I merely point out that the religion isn’t valid.

Although I will say bad things about people who preach extremism (such as using Christianity to denounce science). Them’s fight’in words!

You see I’m not concerned about selling pantheism. I don’t care how other people believe from a religious point of view. My objection to Christianity extremism is not even a religious one, it’s more of a humanitarian concern. I’m concerned with the spread of ignorance based on myth.

You feel offended that I consider Christianity to be a myth. But I sincerely believe this as truth. I have seen the religion produce far too many negative results over the course of history. It hasn’t even succeeded as a religion in modern times. Just look at the moral state of the USA which is predominantly Christian. The religion is a failure as a moral structure for society. The bottom line is that it had its chance and fell flat on its face. You can blame that on the individual churches if you like, but the bottom line is that the religion didn’t work.

When I see people using the religion to denounce things like a respect for the intellectual achievements of scientific knowledge in favor of a belief in unsubstantiated myths it just makes my skin crawl. There’s no way that I’m going to believe that the creator of this universe would be behind such an obvious institution of ignorance.

Moreover, when the religion is used to attack things like science then it’s already on the attack.

And this doesn’t stop when it comes to other social matters either, such as the civil rights of people who chose not to interpret the biblical ‘laws’ in the same way as the church.

In short, my belief is that Christianity is false.

This is my belief.

Since the religion was arrogant enough to proselytize to the masses (brainwash them into their way of thinking) I think it’s about time that someone speaks out against it.

Thank God for Freedom Of Speech!

Actually that should be 'Thank Man for Freedom Of Speech!' Because if it was left up to the church there wouldn’t be any such thing as freedom of speech.

The religion is just going to have to take it’s own medicine now. That’s all there is to it. They’ll have to see what it’s like from the other end of the stick.

That’s just the way things are now.

From my point of view the religion breeds ignorance, fear, and misunderstanding. It spread lies.

Maybe not in all its forms, but certainly in its radical extremism which is usually the topics I’m addressing.

So from my point of view, I’m looking at things from a purely humanitarian perspective. I’ll gladly point out the reasons why I believe the religion is invalid. It’s a modern society and this is what we do now. And we must do it to offset the still-active proselytizing of the religion itself.

Someone needs to fight back against the proselytizing of ancient unsubstantiated myths. The people who want to continue proselytizing would love nothing more than to make any and all resistance go away.

But that’s not going to happen. The dark ages are over and I'm going to do my part to make sure that we don't move backwards.

a men

a aa meen


aaaaa aaaa a a a men

I don't have any.... none, that have a sticky label...

Everyone else tries to label my understandings,(beliefs, for those who likes the word).... but they don't stick..

I was raised Christian, then pulled away in my twenties, don't know what I would call myself now. I have come to believe that all beliefs have their truth, that misguided humans and some with adgendas have taken the teachings and manipulated them to fit what they wanted. I believe the biggest problem those of us who are spiritual face is allowing ourselves to be turned against each other. In all the reading I have done on all of the different religions the one belief that is most taught is
"love one another".
Not preaching...just my thoughts on the subject

In my understanding, spider, hate is based on fear,
and I think it speaks volumes that most of the people here who claim to be hated, or see their religion hated, are Christians,
while most of us others have no space for hatred in their world.

I think it would be nice if you would read some of the posts made about Christianity with an open mind. I guess maybe it's something you have to experiance before you know it's happening. I had to date a black woman before I realized how previlant racism is, until then I hadn't experianced it up close and personal. Do you think Christians like being accused of believing in a flat earth? Especially given the fact that early Christians would excommunicate people who suggested that the earth was flat. The truth is, I don't have a problem with science and I don't believe many Christians do. Evolution is very bad science. The Big Bang? That's cosmology, which is as much religion as it is science. We can't know anything about the big bang, it's all guesses. Those are the two "science" topics that Christians have the most problems with and I don't see that either one has enough evidence to be taken seriously.

I didn't say you hate Christians. You attack Christianity, therefore there must be some emotion involved. Let's assume that Evolution is real. Let's assume that all Christians deny Evolution happened. How is that detrimental? How does that effect you at all? Can't you just say "Oh well, they are wrong, but at least their hearts are in the right place".



You know full well that your constant attacks against Christianity are offensive. You also assume that Christians do such terrible things...can you name some of the good things that Christianity does? Surely you have looked at both sides of the equation.



Science is supposed to test itself. When Christians question Big Bang or Evolution, it should be a good thing.



Not in the least. Say it all day, it doesn't matter to me. I have only complained when you do pages and pages of insults against Christianity. You insist that Christians don't think for themselves, but yet you point out the differences in various Christian beliefs. You don't even see that saying "Christians don't think" is refuted by saying "You guys can't even agree". WE THINK. STOP INSULTING US. WE DISAGREE WITH YOU. If you can't disagree with someone without calling them ignorant or stupid, then there is a problem in you, NOT US.

This is what I believe...


'Inside Christianity'


In the truest of senses... I believe one 'conforms' unto his/her own idealogical exposure, whether out of need or out of convenience, or both, which may or may not include or agree with another's definition of 'law'.

The separate and individual uniqueness of this world's fingerprint upon one shapes his/her world according to the 'agreements' made within each individual.

We are all... each... a law unto ourselves... incorruptably so, without one's own recognition of themself.

You know, the absolute purest beauty of what 'Christianity' brought to my life was the beginning of my own self-recognition... the salvation from the fingerprint of the world... although not completely understood as such at the time...

Until one quits searching for 'inner peace' by looking outward, and at the source of the fingerprint, through the fingerprint, it will always be incorruptable... if there is such a thing as enemy my friend, one is his own worst, when one does not recognize themself, and that which steals one from the 'Spirit' that lives within each of us...

It’s a two-way street buddy.

You seem to think that it’s ok, and not insulting, to constantly dismiss the beliefs and views of others. Yet when they do this to you, you scream foul.

When you claim that scientist have no clue, you are the one who is insulting people.

When you claim that Gay people can’t possibly know God and feel good about their behavior, you are the one who is insulting people.

Yes, we disagree on many issues Spider.

However, when you disagree with me that’s somehow supposed to be alright.

When I disagree with you, then all of a sudden I’m insulting you?

I think your judgmental system is a little bit biased there my friend.

I’m not insulted by your views. I just think they are without merit.

You seem to be grossly insulted by my views.

I can’t control how you perceive things.

The only thing I will agree with you on is that we disagree on many very deep and profound issues.

I try to steer clear of you on the forums anymore whenever I can. And the reason I do this is because of the fact that you do seem to try to turn all issues into a matter of personal insult.

I don’t want to go there anymore.

I responded to this thread because you brought up an important issue. I think it’s good that we had this talk.

I’m not insulted by your personal views. I do, however, often feel personally insulted by your personal innuendos.

I make no bones about it, I have an ax to grind with a religion that does indeed stress proselytizing. To me, this is a fascist organization that prefers to brainwash people with unproven myths over intellectual endeavors. It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Spidercmb. It’s not a personal thing.

Because of the religion's proselytizing nature I feel a need to educate people to alternative ways of thinking. And one of those alternative ways of thinking is to actually question the religion itself.

I have just as much right to proselytize my views as the organized religion has to proselytize theirs.

You can scream foul until your blue in the face. I’m doing nothing more than what your religion has been doing for millennia - denouncing the beliefs of others in favor of their own views.

It’s precisely what the religion itself has been doing for millennia. Offending the hell out of anyone and everyone who doesn’t agree with it. I’m doing nothing more than holding up a mirror to the very religion itself. If you don’t like what you see in the mirror you should think twice about what it is that you are supporting.

Do you really want me to go back and read all the insults YOU PERSONALLY have thrown at people for refusing to believe as you do??
I think not.
And if you are prepared to give, you have to be prepared to take as well.

I agree with abra's view here, with regards to belief itself as an independent posture.

I would point out that even nepotism is equal to proselytizing neophytes.

But the neophyte must first be identified and willing, in order to be proselytized.

That , hopefully, is a humorous observation with merit.