the right religion

[Ingledsva]

I believe in my previous posts I have used those arguments and that they are better. Can Hinduism take away a person's sin? No. Can Islam take away a person's sin. No. Can Judaism take away a person's sin? No. Can Buddhism take away a person's sin. No. Only Christianity can do it.

Uhmmmm! There obviously is NO proof Christianity can take away anyone's sin! :sarcastic


Also - most religions contain elements for improving self.


Which would obviously mean recognizing and doing no more wrong.



*

 

[Ouroboros]

So classifying right as right an d wrong as wrong is distasteful and illegitimate.

Eh... uh... wha'??? How did you get anything of that kind from anything we've talked about?

No wonder virtually every moral statistic has plummeted since the secular revolution in the US in about 1960 and why this immoral plunge is called "progress"

What the elle does this have to do with anything I've said?

So you are claiming that you have been a born again Christian.

Yes, I was.

Since then, I've been reborn a couple more times.

To have experienced God then concluded at some point later you do not believe in God.

I have learned that my experiences were spiritual. I don't deny a spiritual experience, but I deny the literalist and fundamentalist interpretation of scripture to fit people's personal agendas instead of the spiritual inspiration it can give. You read the letter of the law. I read the spirit.

I doubt this, but in biblical contexts that is what you must mean. This is like saying you were sick, took some medicine, got well and then later determined medicine does not exist and the entire medical field is full of it. I have spend thousands of hours in debate and listening to debate (formal and informal) you are one of two people I have heard claim that is if that is what you do claim.

I had some really radical spiritual experiences as a Christian.

I also had some really radical spiritual experiences as a non-Christian and non-believer.

I do believe in the spiritual experience and that life/consciousness/spirit are mysteries of this world but still part of the world. I don't separate my experience from my existence. It's all one package.

The other is Schumer of skeptic magazine which I like very much) but the claim is still irrational. I imagine rather you are interpreting differing levels of doubt as faith or non-faith. That is at least rational whether right or wrong. It is very much like a person asking another one if they have ever been in love. If you have you know it, if you have not (and in this case would like to think you were) you will interpret less doubt as faith.

Have you ever been in love in someone who you later were not in love with anymore? I guess you can't because then your first feeling must've been wrong.

Again this is not a moral or intellectual distinction, it is one or access. The hardest person to convince of their irrationality (analogy to a lack of saving faith) are the most irrational. The most wrong (potentially) are the least able to know. Just for kicks do you know where the most self assured persons are held, insane asylums. They do not believe that Christ existed they KNOW for a fact they are Christ.

Again, you're blabbering.

There are other ways of looking at it, but you're blind. You have eyes, but you can't see.

Let me summarize very briefly the experience of every born again Christian I know. I have been asked to write several papers on it so know in general what is common. You can get in the proximity of faith by diligent effort (historical, philosophical, personal introspection in general). However the last infinite foot hat separates our ability to know and God is all God's doing. I went from not having any good reason to doubt Christ to being cognizant of his reality and historical role as a certainty by supernatural means. I know it unlike I perceive anything else I have ever adopted as true. I have no way to explain that certainty but it is not of my own effort. I also have never known personally anyone born again who later disbelieved. I am sure it has occurred but I am also sure it is so rare that among the hundreds I know of it never has. Doubt of course a resignation of what was revealed never in my experience, it almost seems the supernatural component of born again faith compensates for whatever natural doubt exists dynamically.

Whatever. You're a ******* regardless.

I didn't leave Christianity because of disappointment in people, but disappointment in people for sure is keeping me away from it.

I have to get out of here. So whatever side your own have a good one. A heart (kingdom) divided against it's self cannot stand was true long before Lincoln existed. Or as the great sage "rush" said there is no hero in neutrality or if you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.

Phrases I would've used 20 years ago.

There are more sides to the story than your dogmatic fundamentalism. You're blinded by your own folly.

Maybe one day you'll see it and be embarrassed for the past, just like me. (I was just like you. That's why you rub me the wrong way. I see myself, and I wish I could change it.)

 

[Ouroboros]

And this has been a major problem with especially a great many fundamentalists who almost constantly stereotype people and then paint them as being angels or demons, such as stereotyping "liberals" as if they're a herd that simply follows the leader.

Yup. I can tell fundamentalists by their judgmental attitude towards different minded people. There's no tolerance. No acceptance of difference. No grace. I believe those are the ones Jesus talked about. The liberation from dogmatic religion was lost to a new dogmatic religion.

Generally speaking, the term "liberal" actually equates a person who doesn't follow the herd but who typically develops their own train of thought, and studies done have helped confirm that they are generally more willing to do this and that it's the conservatives that are more herd prone.

I remember some Christians I met in the past who considered Jesus to be the most liberal and even the inventor of communism. LOL! And see what we have today. So very different crowd today.

 

[metis]

I remember some Christians I met in the past who considered Jesus to be the most liberal and even the inventor of communism. LOL! And see what we have today. So very different crowd today.

Yes, I remember that well, but that was before we had a Marxist, Kenyan born, Muslem, racist, anti-American President. Now Jesus is this conservative, Republican oriented, flag-waving American that adores Limbaugh and watches Fox News regularly.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Yes, I remember that well, but that was before we had a Marxist, Kenyan born, Muslem, racist, anti-American President. Now Jesus is this conservative, Republican oriented, flag-waving American that adores Limbaugh and watches Fox News regularly.

Jesus is all things to all people.

 

[1robin]

I consider myself to be in the true God camp. Categorizing people like you're doing is harmful to yourself and others.

...

(deleted. I don't care discussing this.)

That is perfectly fine but know I am required to speak the truth as best as I can determine it to be and not give in to the desire to get along at the truth's expense. I however am not required to intentionally or unintentionally offend for no reason so I will drop it.

 

[Quirkybird]

In the end it really doesn't matter whether you are religious or not; when you are dead you cease to be, end of, imo.

 

[1robin]

And this has been a major problem with especially a great many fundamentalists who almost constantly stereotype people and then paint them as being angels or demons, such as stereotyping "liberals" as if they're a herd that simply follows the leader. Generally speaking, the term "liberal" actually equates a person who doesn't follow the herd but who typically develops their own train of thought, and studies done have helped confirm that they are generally more willing to do this and that it's the conservatives that are more herd prone.

I do not care what is preferred or PC at this moment I care about what is true. Certainly placing people into camps is not a get along kind of action. Christ was not a get along kind of guy. I am not debating to win friends. I debate to defend truth. Truth is exclusive. It almost always excludes more than it includes. Therefore defending it will exclude more people than include (or it would seem to follow since we al have such radically different views). Claiming all religions are he same and/or all faiths are valid is a stupid and potentially evils claiming all medicines are the same.

I think liberals are far more collective and subservient in their views but that is not what I was talking about nor what the word means.

Liberal means multiplicity or over abundance. Politically it means anything goes. Conservative means to adhere to traditional or excusive methodologies or truths. Liberals IMO do not seem to ties ideologies to truth or any-kind of foundations. They simply wing it based on preference. Conservatives are more restrictive in their ideology. They tie them to things that have substance like the sanctity of life, the equality of men under God, faith, family values, economic responsibility. I will avoid the attempt to show how these play out. It is too depressing but suffice it to say I am having to sit back and watch the greatest country in human history (built by far more conservative and Christian thinking than liberal) being systematically destroyed and it does not sit well. Liberals unlike truths are inclusive (and somehow manage to be the most intolerant people I know at the same time), conservatives like truth are exclusive (yet tolerant, we did not come up with Jim Crow laws and freed the slaves).

 

[1robin]

No, human carelessness.

Human carelessness is erasing religion for a nation and turning it into Stalin's USSR. I should have said evil not carelessness.


"If there is no God -then everything is permitted."
Dostoevsky
If There Is No God -Then Everything Is Permitted

Nietzsche went on to say that because God had died in the 19th century there would be two direct results in the 20th century.

First, the 20th century would become the bloodiest, most catastrophically destructive century in history, and second, that a universal madness would break out and turn the West upside-down. Truth would become lie and lie truth; evil would become good, the unnatural would become natural, and the unholy would become holy. Nietzsche has been right on both counts.

But what is ironic about his prophetic vision about universal madness is that Nietzsche led the way. In a self-fulfilling prophecy, Nietzsche spent the last eleven years of his life insane.

In the wake of the insurrection against the God of Revelation that started many centuries ago and finally erupted in fire, brimstone and spurting rivers of blood during the 20th century, ex-atheist Alexander Solzhenitsyn said,

".....the world had never before known a godlessness as organized, militarized, and tenaciously malevolent as that practiced by Marxism. Within the philosophical system of Marx and Lenin, and at the heart of their psychology, hatred of God is the principal driving force, more fundamental than all their political and economic pretensions. Militant atheism is not merely incidental or marginal to Communist policy; it is not a side effect, but the central pivot.”
Nietzsche's Dire Visions: Universal Madness and Genocide

If you kill off God then man has no inherent value, dignity, equality and life no sanctity. Then who cares if you kill off millions of biological anomalies in the womb or slaughter 20 million of your own countrymen as Stalin did. If he said murder was just fine and I said it was wrong there no longer exists any objective foundational truth to settle the issue. You can do as liberals do, wing it up based on preference.

 

[1robin]

Uhmmmm! There obviously is NO proof Christianity can take away anyone's sin! :sarcastic


Also - most religions contain elements for improving self.


Which would obviously mean recognizing and doing no more wrong.



*

Why do you say this? I have subjective proof in no uncertain terms my sins (a weight that gradually builds over years so as to not be noticed, like the frog on the stove) were remitted. I have never in my life experienced greater relief and contentment and it came with supernatural revelation of what the nature of the event meant and concerned. Now that is not proof available for a microscope (for that matter most of science is not either) however a microscope is not the arbiter of all truth.

Substitutionary atonement comes with the goal and incentive to sin no more but does jot include that qualification for salvation. It is a goal not a destination. It is also a goal that is evident in changed lives like Johnny Cash or George Foreman among millions.

 

[Quirkybird]

If you kill off God then man has no inherent value, dignity, equality and life no sanctity.

The deity featured in the Bible didn't give a monkey's about those qualities if that book is to be believed!

 

[metis]

I do not care what is preferred or PC at this moment I care about what is true. Certainly placing people into camps is not a get along kind of action. Christ was not a get along kind of guy. I am not debating to win friends. I debate to defend truth. Truth is exclusive. It almost always excludes more than it includes. Therefore defending it will exclude more people than include (or it would seem to follow since we al have such radically different views). Claiming all religions are he same and/or all faiths are valid is a stupid and potentially evils claiming all medicines are the same.

I think liberals are far more collective and subservient in their views but that is not what I was talking about nor what the word means.

Liberal means multiplicity or over abundance. Politically it means anything goes. Conservative means to adhere to traditional or excusive methodologies or truths. Liberals IMO do not seem to ties ideologies to truth or any-kind of foundations. They simply wing it based on preference. Conservatives are more restrictive in their ideology. They tie them to things that have substance like the sanctity of life, the equality of men under God, faith, family values, economic responsibility. I will avoid the attempt to show how these play out. It is too depressing but suffice it to say I am having to sit back and watch the greatest country in human history (built by far more conservative and Christian thinking than liberal) being systematically destroyed and it does not sit well. Liberals unlike truths are inclusive (and somehow manage to be the most intolerant people I know at the same time), conservatives like truth are exclusive (yet tolerant, we did not come up with Jim Crow laws and freed the slaves).

Oh, how you twist words and history around to suit your own fancy? It's virtually impossible to have any meaningful discussion with you because you just invent your own "history", and your continued stereotyping of others is truly repugnant.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

I do not care what is preferred or PC at this moment I care about what is true. Certainly placing people into camps is not a get along kind of action. Christ was not a get along kind of guy. I am not debating to win friends. I debate to defend truth. Truth is exclusive. It almost always excludes more than it includes.

Really I doubt you could present a clear definition of 'truth', in your own words, and then discuss your concept and answer questions about it.

Anyway, if such a thing as 'truth' actually exists, why would anyone think that 1robin is the guy with the best window on it?

 

[1robin]

Eh... uh... wha'??? How did you get anything of that kind from anything we've talked about?

You denigrated and condemned the classification of things or people. Since right and wrong are classification then you condemned distinguishing between them.

What the elle does this have to do with anything I've said?

When you no longer care or "put up with" placing things in categories then what the nature of things are can be determined by whim. Just like the moral insanity to call abortion and homosexuality progress. If no objective right and wrong exists and no desire to categorize accurately either one then anything goes and justification is simply invented out of this air.

Yes, I was.

Since then, I've been reborn a couple more times.

Now you are starting to loss my confidence. There is no such thing as being born again more than once in Christian doctrine. Jesus said he forgave all sin. He did not have to die twice and will not do so. His first death and provision was sufficient or it never was and never will be. I cannot possibly know what is in your head but IMO your mistaking something else for being born again. I have read religious doctrine for years, been a prayer councilor for years, watched and read hundreds of debates. Not one person from either side of Christian faith has ever even mentioned being born again more than once in my experience. It is to trivialize the event and the bible flat condemns it.

It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. It is impossible to bring such people back to repentance; by rejecting the Son of God, they themselves are nailing him to the cross once again and holding him up to public shame..
Hebrews 6

Now this is a complicated and controversial verse that has two primary interpretations and neither of them allow for being born again spiritually more than once.

I have learned that my experiences were spiritual. I don't deny a spiritual experience, but I deny the literalist and fundamentalist interpretation of scripture to fit people's personal agendas instead of the spiritual inspiration it can give. You read the letter of the law. I read the spirit.

I know of no one that ever claimed to have been born again that did not arrive at that experience by using the Gospels as a roadmap and receiving supernatural confirmation of their accuracy within the event. The worst possible conclusion is to determine the destination was valid but the map that led to it was inaccurate.

I do not think you are being dishonest but I am not able to agree that what you consider being born again has anything to do with the traditional concept experienced by hundreds of millions. I was asked to write two papers on salvation for a family member and a theological group. I have studied no one subject as much. I even found a site that was simply a blog for describing the event with hundreds of entries. Not one in all my experience lines up with what your saying.

I had some really radical spiritual experiences as a Christian.

I can agree with this in theory but you have lost me so bad with the born again thing that the necessary foundation for accepting this very reasonable claim is missing.

I also had some really radical spiritual experiences as a non-Christian and non-believer.

I have no reason to doubt this one as it does not have a necessary premise to occur.

I do believe in the spiritual experience and that life/consciousness/spirit are mysteries of this world but still part of the world. I don't separate my experience from my existence. It's all one package.

This sound like some metaphysical speculation. Let me ask you something where did the natural universe come from?

Have you ever been in love in someone who you later were not in love with anymore? I guess you can't because then your first feeling must've been wrong.

My closeness or level of experiencing Christ varies. (it at times varies by need and at others by obedience. What does not change is the confidence established by my original experience. Using the analogy I fell in love to the extent of perfect contentment and satisfaction, I would have given my life for the person. If I later grew less enthralled I would not then suggest being in love is no true or that that person did not inspire it in me.

Again, you're blabbering.

I go way out of my to say anything I think offensive in the least offensive way. I see you are not inconvenienced by the same criteria. In fact he very paragraph you insult me concerning was only added to make sure you do not think I am saying anything intellectually or morally degrading about you. I will not waste my time trying to be courteous from now on.

There are other ways of looking at it, but you're blind. You have eyes, but you can't see.

That is exactly what the Bible says about people who hold your theological position. It is also what every person says about anyone who disagrees with him.

Whatever. You're a ******* regardless.

I have no idea what his was but if you continue to act childish I will no longer be able to justify this discussion. The subject mater deserves better.

I didn't leave Christianity because of disappointment in people, but disappointment in people for sure is keeping me away from it.

That is irrationality and further evidence to me that you do not know Christ. After my experience with Christ I would not care if every word in the bible was wrong and every Christian a disappointment, the character of the experience makes neither of them a barrier to faith in him. I do however remember that before I met Christ the most important criteria (and the most irrational) to me concerning faith was the behavior of others. I have no faith in people because they are not God and as fallible as I am. What they do has nothing to do with my faith. This also the most common excuse for not having faith and the worst.

Phrases I would've used 20 years ago.

There are more sides to the story than your dogmatic fundamentalism. You're blinded by your own folly.

Maybe one day you'll see it and be embarrassed for the past, just like me. (I was just like you. That's why you rub me the wrong way. I see myself, and I wish I could change it.)

Those phrases are thousands of years old and still stand tall. I am embarrassed. You cannot imagine the shame in my remembering using the same arguments you have in contention with people of faith. I used to seek them out and attempt to debate them into giving up. Daily I am reminded of some argument or some claim I made back then a physically cringe with shame.

Something you said struck me as absurd yesterday and wanted to mention it because I laughed my self silly for half an hour. You just mentioned it again above. You said how you resent fundamentalists who categorize people. Since fundamentalists is a category then you basically said: I hate it when people in that category categorize people. From top to bottom if a person does not hold to the truth they will condemn themselves and self contradict themselves if listened to long enough. Here is a bonus from the almighty Hawking. "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing," Stephen Hawking says universe not created by God | Science | The Guardian

Even a genius who holds to non-truth is not immune. Gravity and the universe are something not nothing. So his statement is equivalent to saying. Because something exists then something create it's self from something" That is a moronic tautology that is dressed ias wisdom.

 

[1robin]

Yup. I can tell fundamentalists by their judgmental attitude towards different minded people. There's no tolerance. No acceptance of difference. No grace. I believe those are the ones Jesus talked about. The liberation from dogmatic religion was lost to a new dogmatic religion.

So your categorizing people who categorize people as being wrong for categorizing people. Nice work. Do you mean like liberals tolerating what the "duck commander" said his opinion on homosexuality is? Or tolerating what the chick fillet guy's personal opinion was. Liberals are the most intolerant group in history. They are the ones who attempt to control dialogue and shut up disagreements. I will give you a perfect and typical devastating example. Several in fact. Carter (and I like him personally) tried to buy votes with government backed housing, Clinton to distract from his own failures doubled down on it. In 2002 McCain and other republicans held congressional hearings. I think I can supply the link to video. They said the housing market was a bubble ready to burst. Forget the fact they were perfectly right. The liberal congressmen did not debate the economic issues they shouted them down like school children. Accused them of fear mongering, and making up problems. Of course the whole disaster ensued and the liberals blamed republicans. Then they even bailed out the exact same programs and called anyone opposed to it as being against people having a home. Next the republicans not the democrats ended slavery, opposed Jim Crow laws, and supported civil rights. Martín Luther King and Fredrick Douglass, Thurgood Marshall, and judge Thomas are republicans. The most hypocritical group on earth are liberals demanding tolerance.

I remember some Christians I met in the past who considered Jesus to be the most liberal and even the inventor of communism. LOL! And see what we have today. So very different crowd today.

Now this is an argument that while wrong has some justification. I can get into this one specifically if you wish. I will show that view perfectly wrong but I can admit that a selective and surface reading of some parts of the Bible could mistakenly be used to claim this, but it will take time. Your choice?

 

[1robin]

Oh, how you twist words and history around to suit your own fancy? It's virtually impossible to have any meaningful discussion with you because you just invent your own "history", and your continued stereotyping of others is truly repugnant.

What I said is a simple fact of history. It is available in voting records and legislation that cannot be denied. Let's start with this. What party was the president who did more to free the salves than any other human in US history a member of? And what is the party who had the most recent racial language in their official political platforms? What party did the governor who blocked the doorways to a college to blacks belong to?

Since you did not even attempt to supply any justification for your assertions I have no idea what it is you are claiming is wrong with what I said. So I did your work for you and picked a few examples. Your move.

 

[1robin]

Really I doubt you could present a clear definition of 'truth', in your own words, and then discuss your concept and answer questions about it.

Anyway, if such a thing as 'truth' actually exists, why would anyone think that 1robin is the guy with the best window on it?

It is not really my concern what someone things concerning my forum name and truth. It is my task to present the truth as best as I can determine it and leave the believing up to others. How we actually arrived at the point you deny truth exists. Is that really where we are?

 

[1robin]

If you kill off God then man has no inherent value, dignity, equality and life no sanctity.

The deity featured in the Bible didn't give a monkey's about those qualities if that book is to be believed!

Back up the truth trolley a second. I made an ontological argument, your making an epistemological one. One at a time. My argument is about foundations not apprehension. Only with God can humans have inherent value, is human life endowed with dignity, can men who evolution made unequal find equality. Now before we get into whether God did so according to your liking or not, you need to understand there exist no potentiality for these objective qualities without God possible at all. Without God humans are biological anomalies who practice speciesm by making all other life forms (of no less value) suffer to maximize our happiness.

The deity involved paid the highest price possible to redeem a race that had rejected their creator. It is the most beloved story in human history. The moral insanity to term that God as non-loving is appalling and proof that without objective moral foundations morality is whipping in the wind and can be used to claim anything because it is not tethered to truth. However first things, first.

As even the non-Christian Jefferson said only with God does man have rights and moral duties. Without God moral truth does not exist. Nature does not have the capacity to tell us what should be done. As the philosopher of science Ruse said: Without God morals are illusions fobbed of on us for convenience.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

It is not really my concern what someone things concerning my forum name and truth. It is my task to present the truth as best as I can determine it and leave the believing up to others.

What can I say. You just aren't doing very well at that in my view. In order to convince people that we have a superior truth, we can't just preach and argue. We have to demonstrate our own wisdom and sincerity by actually listening to the other person.

You seem to think that truth exists out there and that your job is to show it to people.

Try following my suggestion. Try to define what you mean by 'truth.' It might shock you when you learn that you're unable to do it. Shock is good.

How we actually arrived at the point you deny truth exists. Is that really where we are?

Since you can't define what you mean by truth, I wouldn't know how to deny that truth exists. I can only deny something if that thing is described for me.

 

[metis]

I do not care what is preferred or PC at this moment I care about what is true... I debate to defend truth. Truth is exclusive.

First of all, I have no interest in debating you for reasons previously mentioned, but I just have to comment on this post of yours because it's a classic.

For you to claim you're defending the truth is such a terribly arrogant statement because it implies that you are certain you know what the truth is and that you are some super-hero who has to defend it.

Claiming all religions are he same and/or all faiths are valid is a stupid and potentially evils claiming all medicines are the same.

I have never made such a claim so now you resort to lying.

I think liberals are far more collective and subservient in their views but that is not what I was talking about nor what the word means... Liberal means multiplicity or over abundance. Politically it means anything goes.

The above is totally illogical since "liberal" can't be "anything goes" and "collective" all at the same time.

Conservative means to adhere to traditional or excusive methodologies or truths.

There's that word "truths" again, as if self-proclaimed "conservatives" have some sort of monopoly on it.

Liberals IMO do not seem to ties ideologies to truth or any-kind of foundations. They simply wing it based on preference.

Actually there are studies that clearly indicate that it's actually the other way around, but why would you be willing to accept any study that goes against your "truths".

Conservatives are more restrictive in their ideology. They tie them to things that have substance like the sanctity of life,...

Oh, "liberals" now don't believe in the "sanctity of life". Interesting.

the equality of men under God, faith, family values, economic responsibility.

So, liberals really don't believe as much in equality, God, faith, family values, or economic responsibility. That's "interesting".

It is too depressing but suffice it to say I am having to sit back and watch the greatest country in human history (built by far more conservative and Christian thinking than liberal)...

Ah, it was not "conservatives" who built this country, as the founding fathers certainly didn't fit that billing. Anyone who even has an elementary knowledge or greater of American history well knows that if we had followed the "conservatives" we would be singing "Hail to the Queen".

being systematically destroyed and it does not sit well...

Actually we are in recovery, but maybe the news gets to your location very slowly.

Liberals unlike truths are inclusive (and somehow manage to be the most intolerant people I know at the same time),...

How can "anything goes" liberals be intolerant and inclusive?

conservatives like truth are exclusive (yet tolerant, we did not come up with Jim Crow laws and freed the slaves).

Jim Crow laws were passed by conservatives who were upset with the ending of slavery, and anyone who actually believes that it was conservatives who "freed the slaves" is operating out of the wackiest sense of "history" imaginable.

Now maybe even you can see why discussing anything with you is a total waste of time. You make up your own history, have people posting things they never posted, make up your own definitions, and then prance around in your own self-righteousness.

OK, so now I will crawl back to my "liberal" collective where we can do whatever we want, rampage against God, try to bring back slavery or at least the Jim Crow laws, and try to tear families apart while destroying the country. Btw, I'm not actually a "liberal", but explaining this would probably cause your head to explode.