I just want to sin!!!

[ppp]

Different opinions on the state of the dead... Okay to have them.

Which is just saying that they didn't tell you no. Therefore the answer was yes

 

[muhammad_isa]

As for your question if China is becoming more westernized, I would say not really...

Not really?
It seems to me that it has embraced western values, with its skyscrapers and heavily populated cities and increasing urbanisation and industrialisation.
I suppose "westernised" is not the appropriate term?

..looks rather like "if you can't beat them then join them" to me.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Christ says to love one another so a good sincere and honest Christian obeys Him and treats people with kindness, compassion, generosity and love. Where is the truth in the argument that by obeying Jesus to love one another would cause destructive behaviour?

That's not the Christian definition of love. Love in Christianity includes a deity that sets a couple of kids up to fail and then punishes them and their descendants with pain, strife, and death. Love in Christianity includes a deity that drowns almost all terrestrial life for no reason (if the purpose was to replace sinful man with something better, the deity probably shouldn't have used the same human breeding stock). Christian love includes marginalizing and demonizing the "abominations" of atheism and homosexuality. God so loved man that he tortured somebody to a slow, painful death on a cross (check out the etymology of excruciating). God loves man so much that he prepared a torture pit and stocked it with demons, and gratuitously keeps those that don't show sufficient obeisance conscious to suffer.

Any secular humanist can tell you that none of this is love.

Who is more likely to commit sin? A person who is trying to remember G-d and avoid sinning, or a person who mocks religion and is careless?

I find secular humanists to be more moral than either. For one thing, they aren't given a flawed moral system, one that defines morality as obedience to a received, ancient moral code. Plus, he has to answer to his conscience. He doesn't get forgiveness on demand. He has to answer to that conscience.

And the good he does is for the sake of goodness

Would you trust a non-repentant serial rapist?

I wouldn't, but then I'm not a white evangelical Christian. They vote for them.

G-d cannot make a square circle, so stop making nonsensical arguments please.

What do you think of the claim that God is perfect, but makes mistakes that he regrets and attempts to remedy? Being an imperfect perfect deity has got to be as hard as being a square circle.

I can see from the staunch atheists on this site, that some people have an agenda of leading people away from G-d.

You've got that backwards. It's the theists trying to lead people into religion. Nobody here is telling you or any other theist to stop believing.

You may have seen this from me before. I've said repeatedly that if my neighbor wants to dance around a tree in his back yard at midnight baying at the full moon while shaking a stick with a chicken claw nailed to it in order to center himself and give his like meaning, that's fine, as long as he keeps the noise down. I might ask him how he came to his beliefs, but I'm not going to argue with him about them, or even ask about his god, if any.

And it's the same here on RF. I never try to talk others out of their beliefs. I simply explain mine, why I believe them, and why I don't believe what they do. I've commented several times on these threads that I don't think most people in the last third of their lives are capable of a major shift in their worldview. I did it at age 20 when I became a Christian, which was easy, and again at age 30 when I returned to atheism, which was much more difficult and disorienting, but I still had the time and the resources to reshape my mental landscape.

I believe that if I could pull that rug out from somebody in his 60s or above, that it would likely be harmful, since it's really too late to benefit from a religion-free life. I think his choice to believe by faith was a mistake, as was mine, but at this point, trying to correct it is also a mistake. Faith is right for him now. Let him have his God.

Besides, how many have told us that without that belief, they would have no reason not to go berserking. If they don't know, it means they have never developed an internal moral compass (conscience). I don't think it would be too wise to talk these people out of anything except any theocratic tendencies they may have, and their bigotries for the "abominables."

Can you say the same? If there were words that could convert me (or any other unbeliever) to your faith, would you write them? I'd bet the farm you would. If so, which of us is trying to lead the other to or from a god belief?

We do baptisms for the dead.

That was a topic on the Bill Maher show after Mitt Romney had his deceased father-in-law baptized against his stated wishes when alive. Here's Maher trying to reverse the spell (there's an f-bomb in the video if anybody needs to know that in advance):

Saying a comment is a false dichotomy doesn’t make it one. Which in the conversation you entered into there were just 2 choices. Jesus is God or He is just a man.

Actually, that wasn't the dichotomy. You wrote,"*Either Jesus Christ is God who became man. Or *He was a blasphemer and false prophet"

Actually C.S. Lewis said something similar, but offered three options (trichotomy, trilemma): "Christ either deceived mankind by conscious fraud, or He was Himself deluded and self-deceived, or He was Divine. There is no getting out of this trilemma." He added deluded to your dichotomy. But he came up with a false trilemma. He didn't consider that Christ also might not have claimed to be a deity, or that Christ never lived or spoke at all.

 

[robocop (actually)]

Which is just saying that they didn't tell you no. Therefore the answer was yes

Sometimes people claim to feel that the person accepted, but in general we have no idea if they say yes or no.

We don't claim that they say yes; usually we don't know if they accept.

A living person could probably tell us not to do them after they're dead.

 

[muhammad_isa]

I give up, how?

It doesn't affect the outcome.
The future is either known or not known.

I know you argue that the future can be only one outcome if it is known, but it can only be one outcome if it is NOT known as well.

 

[robocop (actually)]

I had no idea they do them against people's stated wishes when alive.

 

[ppp]

Sometimes people claim to feel that the person accepted, but in general we have no idea if they say yes or no.

We don't claim that they say yes; usually we don't know if they accept.

A living person could probably tell us not to do them after they're dead.

Which is what I just said. You are talking silence as consent. The very best that I can say about is that it is morally bereft.

 

[ElishaElijah]

Actually, that wasn't the dichotomy. You wrote,"*Either Jesus Christ is God who became man. Or *He was a blasphemer and false prophet"

Actually C.S. Lewis said something similar, but offered three options (trilemma): "Christ either deceived mankind by conscious fraud, or He was Himself deluded and self-deceived, or He was Divine. There is no getting out of this trilemma." He added deluded to your dichotomy. But he came up with a false trilemma. He didn't consider that Christ also might not have claimed to be a deity, or that Christ never lived or spoke at all.

In the conversation I was having with @MyM the choices were either Jesus is God or man.

 

[robocop (actually)]

Which is what I just said. You are talking silence as consent. The very best that I can say about is that it is morally bereft.

Silence is not consent. Silence means we don't know if they've accepted.

 

[Sheldon]

Exactly; if we're wrong it doesn't matter.

I am entitled to say it doesn't matter to me, that doesn't make it right, I think I will start looking at obituaries for Mormons, and converting them to Satanism posthumously. That'll be fine right?

If they're scared we might be right they can research us.

All you're doing is playing on people's fears, that is pretty cowardly in my opinion.

This is the very work according to us of saving the human race; how is that heinous?

It's your belief, not theirs, so it is wrong to force your beliefs onto others. Mother Theresa was accused of the same thing, I may not care if you get your bone shaker to do his woo woo voodoo on me after I die, but I find the idea sickeningly arrogant, nonetheless.

 

[robocop (actually)]

What we believe we're doing to the dead is nothing. We don't make them do anything.

They can choose to convert. We don't assume just because we've done their work that they've converted.

 

[Clara Tea]

I totally agree. Treat people how they want to be treated, including yourself

"Do unto others."

If Christians are right about everyone having sinned, then some would seek punishment for their sins.

But, wouldn't others object if we punished them too?

 

[ppp]

Silence is not consent. Silence means we don't know if they've accepted.

And then you perform the ritual. Without consent.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

We care how people feel about us. We don't let people rejecting us stop us from doing missionary work.

And we respect Jews asking us not to.

That's hard to believe when it required being sued to stop doing it.

Silence is not consent. Silence means we don't know if they've accepted.

Rapist tend to use that same logic. They didn't say no, so that doesn't mean it was without consent. Or there was no resistance so that was consent.

 

[robocop (actually)]

I am entitled to say it doesn't matter to me, that doesn't make it right, I think I will start looking at obituaries for Mormons, and converting them to Satanism posthumously. That'll be fine right?



All you're doing is playing on people's fears, that is pretty cowardly in my opinion.



It's your belief, not theirs, so it is wrong to force your beliefs onto others. Mother Theresa was accused of the same thing, I may not care if you get your bone shaker to do his woo woo voodoo on me after i die, but I find the idea sickeningly arrogant, nonetheless.

If they wanted to choose Satanism after death, that would be their choice. Missionary work tries to help people be happy in any way. It's up to them if they decide. There is missionary work after death.

 

[ppp]

That's hard to believe when it requited being sued to stop doing it.

Or, at least, stop doing it publicly.

 

[robocop (actually)]

That's hard to believe when it required being sued to stop doing it.

Rapist tend to use that same logic. They didn't say no, so that doesn't mean she didn't consent.

We don't want to do missionary work to Jews in the afterlife or in Israel. We obey honor and respect the law.

 

[Sheldon]

Not really?
It seems to me that it has embraced western values, with its skyscrapers and heavily populated cities and increasing urbanisation and industrialisation.
I suppose "westernised" is not the appropriate term?

..looks rather like "if you can't beat them then join them" to me.

Have you told them about your idea to eradicate usury? Maybe they adopted capitalism and international trade prematurely.

 

[ppp]

If they wanted to choose Satanism after death, that would be their choice. Missionary work tries to help people be happy in any way. It's up to them if they decide. There is missionary work after death.

You have no idea. You are just blindly lobbing a grenade into a room you have never looked in.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Or, at least, stop doing it publicly.

I suspect that is likely the truth of it. The Mormon Church just does not seem to want to comprehend or accept that no means no and why people don't want to involved with it.