I just want to sin!!!

[robocop (actually)]

Exactly, it's your belief not theirs. It's not your choice to make, no matter how you dress this up it is simply wrong, and that is from an atheist, who thinks you might as well get a witch doctor to put a curse on them after they die.

For the 26th time, you are right it's not our choice to make. It is the deceased's choice.

 

[ppp]

For the 25th time, they don't have to accept the baptism, and we don't know if they've accepted the baptism, except rarely people believe it's revealed to them.

And for the second time. You have no idea. You have no objective method for distinguishing a revelation from imagination.

 

[muhammad_isa]

However if a deity knows that single outcome, before it happens, then we have no free will to affect it.

Ah, ah, ah.
Haven't I just said that it makes no difference whether the future is known or not known?
Free-will has nothing to do with whether the future is known or not.

You talk about a "single outcome" ..
..as if it is not a single outcome if the future is not known!
You are just talking yourself into it by your thoughts being "stuck in a rut".
Try lateral thinking .. that might help.

 

[Psalm23]

I am ever-so-often told by Christians who find out that I do not believe that a god exists, that “You are denying God because you just want to sin.” This has always struck me as a bizarre thing to say, as I cannot think of anything that a Christian would consider a sin that I would have needed to leave Christianity to do.

I mean there are lots of good Christians out there doing great things, and most of you are perfectly decent people who I would probably enjoy having as coworkers and neighbors. But seriously folks, you all sin. Every last one of you. You sin inadvertently. You sin impulsively. You sin with premeditation. You covet coworkers, neighbors, friends and random strangers. You covet their stuff and their bodies. Unless you are asexual or (possibly) greysexual, you commit adultery in your hearts, and roughly 25% of you commit adultery in your pants as a married person.

Christian employees steal quarters from their coworker’s desks to buy cokes and they steal office supplies from their employers. Christian employers don’t pay a living wage, and then call the employee lazy when they refuse to work extra hours (bearing false witness). Sometimes the employer even fires them; and while there is no ‘Thou shalt not be a jerk’ commandment, the golden rule takes a beating several times a day/

You leave your parents in nursing homes when you could move them in with you. (C’mon folks! Honor your mother and father.)

You do illegal drugs. You take the lord’s name in vain. You get divorced.

And yet, You are saved by your acceptance of Jesus Christ into your heart as your own personal Lord and Saviour. Hallelujah and Amen. Sing it, Sister!

"I've been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb,
saved and sanctified I am.
All my sins are washed away,
I've been redeemed."​

“unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly”

So, exactly why would I need to leave Christianity to do anything? All the “sins” I might ever commit, I could commit as a Christian. And be saved.

The argument of saying you just want to sin implies to me that they are saying you are not truly atheist but just in denial about God's existence. To which I think, who is anyone to tell you what your personal beliefs are?

 

[robocop (actually)]

And for the second time. You have no idea. You have no objective method for distinguishing a revelation from imagination.

Post noted.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Sure, the development of industries, the extensive use of fossil fuel and the demographic explosion of the 19th and 20th century accelerated those process massively, but secularism has little to do with it. Religion isn't hostile to free human reproduction, far from it, and isn't hostile to industrialization or the overwhelming majority of scientific development either.

Christianity and Islam are not against scientific development, no.
However, it is against usury that underpins modern capitalist philosophy.

Before the Reformation, both Christian and Islamic countries forbade usury, and it wasn't until the Reformation, that Protestants started banks that fueled colonialisation and the industrial revolution. First in Amsterdam, and then in London.

 

[epronovost]

Christianity and Islam are not against scientific development, no.
However, it is against usury that underpins modern capitalist philosophy.

Before the Reformation, both Christian and Islamic countries forbade usury, and it wasn't until the Reformation, that Protestants started banks that fueled colonialisation and the industrial revolution. First in Amsterdam, and then in London.

That's not entirely accurate either; at least as far as lending money is concern though you are correct about banking and lending money at profit being one of the main characteristics of capitalism. While usury is considered a crime both in Christianity and Islam (as well as in many secular philosophy, chief of them all anarchism and socialism), what defines usury is often fraught and open to debate. For example, lending money for an enterprise and getting it back with some extra since profits were generated in said enterprise is considered largely legal in both those systems since you participated in a venture and are thus entitled to some of its product; of course that's only if the venture was successful and your share of the profit in line with your level of participation. With such an exception, a capitalist economy is possible without being considered usury. In fact, the basis of the economical system that would one day be called "capitalism" was developed in the Muslim world during the eight and twelfth centuries when Bagdad was basically the economical center of the world. It's importation in Europe following the Crusades and its further development would create modern capitalism.

 

[blü 2]

I am not afraid of the Christian hell but I am afraid of the Baha'i hell because I don't love God, the way I am supposed to, and that is what lands a Baha'i in hell. But I cannot pretend to love God, and God would know it was not sincere anyway, because God knows everything.

It follows, does it not, that God, being omniscient, has known this was going to happen since before [he] created the universe; so rather than being your fault, it's [his] own design that things are this way.

Given such a God, nothing else makes sense.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

For the 25th time, they don't have to accept the baptism, and we don't know if they've accepted the baptism, except rarely people believe it's revealed to them.

You don't give them a choice. You just do it.

 

[robocop (actually)]

You don't give them a choice. You just do it.

Post noted.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Post noted.

Which brings me back to the rapist logic. You question a no, you say "but this and but that," you keep insisting, you keep refusing to listen to and consider the objections, and the lack of verbalized consent does not phase or bother you. Just like a rapist who says "well, she didn't say no." She didn't say yes either, which makes it wrong.
If someone does not give you verbal consent to do something to them then it is wrong to do it. Not understanding this is how your Church got sued over this practice.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

And we respect Jews asking us not to.

Doesn't seem to be the case.
Mormons defy church to again perform baptisms on Holocaust victims

 

[Wildswanderer]

I just saw the statement on another thread and thought I would raise it. Doesn't seem to be any dissention on the point.

We are least try not to sin.
No one is perfectly sinless, but wouldn't you like be forgiven? Have you ever done anything you felt guilty about?

 

[muhammad_isa]

For example, lending money for an enterprise and getting it back with some extra since profits were generated in said enterprise is considered largely legal in both those systems since you participated in a venture and are thus entitled to some of its product; of course that's only if the venture was successful and your share of the profit in line with your level of participation. With such an exception, a capitalist economy is possible without being considered usury.

That is absolutely correct. You refer to stocks and shares.
But that is not what we have today,
Credit cards are certainly usurious, as are the banking systems that underpin central banks.
Money is becoming more and more connected to usury, and is increasingly being represented by electronic means. It is all computation of the highest return etc.
One can travel 500 miles by train, and pay say $50, while on another route it might be $100.
It is all about what the computer algorithm has worked out. The same with air fares.

It is also the same with the banks and energy firms. They do the same.
Usury is effectively responsible for destroying the planet.
Big trucks go up and down highways .. instead of short journeys to market towns etc. etc.

 

[loverofhumanity]

Well, you said, "I’ve yet to become a true Baha’i. I’ve been a member for 46 years but that means zilch if I don’t live up to my beliefs." That makes it sound like you see yourself as a failure.

To me "true" actually means sincere or genuine. Not perfect. The idea that you have to be perfect to be a "true" follower of whatever, is inherently wrong. I think that's the error of a lot of spirituality in the West. They mistake error-free with "perfection". The goal is maturity, not perfection. A genuine faith, recognizes imperfection and does not go walking around with guilt and shame for being human. Such beliefs are anti-human, and anti-spiritual.

I was just making the point that verbal belief alone without backing it up with good deeds is not true belief. In other words mere lip service doesn’t mean much. But I couldn’t be happier and more grateful for having looked into this religion.

 

[Trailblazer]

Are y'all allowed to get non-religious therapists? It might help to talk to someone who doesn't have a dog in the fight.

Of course we are allowed but therapists don't help people sort out their feelings about God because that is not their job. They only address psychological issues.

 

[loverofhumanity]

Oh I'm not an atheist because countless theists imagine countless different deities, or because theists imagine countless versions of the same deity. I am an atheist because there is no objective evidence for any deity.

That was my contention once as well.

 

[Trailblazer]

It follows, does it not, that God, being omniscient, has known this was going to happen since before [he] created the universe; so rather than being your fault, it's [his] own design that things are this way.

Given such a God, nothing else makes sense.

God knew this was going to happen but God did not cause it to happen. However, I do not think is my fault because God fated many things to happen to me that caused me to feel this way, and I am sure God understands.

 

[blü 2]

God knew this was going to happen but God did not cause it to happen. However, I do not think is my fault because God fated many things to happen to me that caused me to feel this way, and I am sure God understands.

If there's an omnipotent God, then you're right that it's not your fault ─ once you're omnipotent, all the bucks stop at your desk, good and bad and other alike.

 

[muhammad_isa]

If there's an omnipotent God, then you're right that it's not your fault ─ once you're omnipotent, all the bucks stop at your desk, good and bad and other alike.

Oh yeah .. "It's not my fault sir, G-d shouldn't have made me".

I wouldn't accept that excuse, so why should G-d or anybody else?