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Author Topic:   Conversations with God
jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


(2)
Message 211 of 530 (884946)
03-16-2021 7:56 AM
Reply to: Message 209 by Phat
03-16-2021 3:27 AM


the classic compartmentalization of Biblical Christianity
Phat writes:

Thats not true for most of us. I have committed no crimes against humanity and neither have most Christians that I know personally.

Christianity likes to enjoy willful amnesia. It loves separating itself from "Them". Its anthem is the 'I was not a Nazi' polka as presented by the Mitchell Trio.

Jim Jones was a Christian.

The Christian Nationalists are Christians.

The anti-vaxer's are Christians.

The Creationists are Christians.

The vast majority of the Global Warming deniers are Christians.

The Crusaders were Christians.

The Pogroms were Christian acts.

The Genocide of the Americas were Christian Acts.

The Holocaust was carried out by Christians as a Christian duty.

Yet you and so many others simply fall back on your anthem.

You claim that you did not commit the atrocities; that you are not responsible; that you are not like them; but there is no outcry from you or most other Christians condemning and opposing and sanctioning those very same elements that still exist in much of Christianity today.

You actively support and practice and encourage willful *********; divorcing reality; placing belief over evidence' which all are the root traits that have allowed Christianity over the eons to be such a cause of so much suffering and evil.

The first step in the Act of Confession is to honestly evaluate past sins. What is missing from much of Christianity is the understanding that the body of the church is the people and that as a communion we are all responsible for all of the sins of the Church since it first began as well as the sins of the Church as it exists today.

Until Christianity grows up and stops denying the evil it created in the past and the evil it is creating today it has nothing except it's Anthem.

Edited by jar, : appalin spalln


My Website: My Website

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Replies to this message:
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ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


(1)
Message 212 of 530 (884948)
03-16-2021 12:17 PM
Reply to: Message 206 by Phat
03-15-2021 3:16 PM


Re: Why You People Think The Way You Do
Phat writes:

Im not rich...im poorer than most of my high school class. I cant afford to give all that I have and throw myself on the altar of socialism.


It isn't the altar of socialism. It's the altar of Christianity. It's what Jesus said to do. Do you think all of the early Christians were rich?

Phat writes:

You wouldnt want to be homeless either so you have no room to talk.


Stop it. You wouldn't be homeless.

Phat writes:

ringo writes:

That's because your perspective is wrong. We know that because you draw your conclusions in defiance of the evidence.


Nonsense.

No. Fact. You have mocked the idea of evidence many times.

Phat writes:

At worst, there is no evidence possible to disprove what I believe.


Again that's just a convenient copout. As AZPaul3 pointed out to you the other day, there is evidence for everything we know to be true. That's how we know something is true - evidence.

To say that there is "no evidence possible" is just egregious.

Phat writes:

You guys simply want evidence and critical thinking to be the default method of determining reality...


It is the default. And you know it because it's the default for you in everything except your belief.

Phat writes:

... in fact, reality itself says that you can have no proof.


No it doesn't.

Phat writes:

Where we differ after that is that I believe and you dont.


Then how do you differ from the person who believes in Shiva or the person who believes in Ahura Mazda? You use the same arguments against them as we use against you.

Phat writes:

You with hold belief pending evidence.


And so do you, in every case but one.

Phat writes:

I felt that I had enough subjective experience to take a leap of faith...


So you're infallible.

Phat writes:

I could never be as coldly rational as you


Sure you could. Anybody can.

"I've been to Moose Jaw, now I can die." -- John Wing

This message is a reply to:
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FLRW
Member (Idle past 476 days)
Posts: 73
Joined: 10-08-2007


Message 213 of 530 (884951)
03-16-2021 3:10 PM
Reply to: Message 211 by jar
03-16-2021 7:56 AM


Re: the classic compartmentalization of Biblical Christianity
Remember that Hitler gave his troops belt buckles that said, God is with Us.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 211 by jar, posted 03-16-2021 7:56 AM jar has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(2)
Message 214 of 530 (884952)
03-16-2021 3:29 PM
Reply to: Message 206 by Phat
03-15-2021 3:16 PM


Re: Why You People Think The Way You Do
Jebus H! You still don't understand?
(borrowing from The Simpsons and to understand the middle initial read the results of my research into it at "Jesus H. Christ": Why "H"? which even (and especially) believers would find interesting since it seems to stem from Christograms -- BTW, my research was triggered by a visit to a chapel in Cadíz, Spain, which had the initials "JHC" painted on the walls)
You claim to believe in and follow your "Jesus", though you seem to have a unique "Jesus" different from others' and certainly different from what's in the Bible (which you choose to ignore when it gets inconvenient) and whom you created for your own personal use (while claiming that he actually exists, unlike all the other Jesuses). And yet you adamantly refuse to follow his teachings.
Stop making up excuses and address the question. We already know and agree with you that actually doing what you claim to believe would be inconvenient for you and would impact your life style. We already know that! But that is not the issue nor the question. Rather, the issue is your flagrant hypocrisy in which you claim to believe Jesus' teachings and try to follow them while at the same time rejecting and refusing to follow his teachings.
Try actually discussing instead of constantly deflecting.
... and throw myself on the altar of socialism.
You're in a union! Where do you think that unions come from and how they were formed? You already worship at "the altar of socialism" and serve it.
Plus, it would help if you were to try to learn something about "the S-word" that you throw about so easily. I don't think it means what you think it means.
Edited by dwise1, : BTW in Cadíz

This message is a reply to:
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AnswersInGenitals
Member (Idle past 151 days)
Posts: 673
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 215 of 530 (884954)
03-16-2021 6:31 PM
Reply to: Message 211 by jar
03-16-2021 7:56 AM


The real culprit
Joseph Stalin - caused the death of millions od Russians and Ukrainians
Mao Tse Tung - caused death of over 10,000,000 Chinese during “communization” experiment
Pol Pot - caused death of millions of Cambodians during “deWesternization” campaign
The real culprit is not religion, but the placing of Dogma over humanity. Religion is just the perennial and most visible practicioner of this travesty.
Edited by AnswersInGenitals, : No reason given.

Edited by AnswersInGenitals, : No reason given.


This message is a reply to:
 Message 211 by jar, posted 03-16-2021 7:56 AM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
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AnswersInGenitals
Member (Idle past 151 days)
Posts: 673
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 216 of 530 (884955)
03-16-2021 6:44 PM
Reply to: Message 206 by Phat
03-15-2021 3:16 PM


Re: Why You People Think The Way You Do
I cant afford to give all that I have and throw myself on the altar of socialism.
You live in a socialist country (and benefit greatly from its socialist entities).
Every country on earth is partly capitalist and partly socialist. The US is 40% socialist. Out of its (pre-covid) GDP of $20trillion, $8trillion is based on socialist, i. e., government owned, controlled, and managed entities. I suspect that there are very few of these entities that you would be willing to forgo.

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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 217 of 530 (884956)
03-16-2021 7:23 PM
Reply to: Message 215 by AnswersInGenitals
03-16-2021 6:31 PM


Re: The real culprit
Yup. They were all mere pikers, a pale shadow of Christian Genocide; imitators perhaps but hardly significant.

My Website: My Website

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(2)
Message 218 of 530 (884957)
03-16-2021 7:58 PM
Reply to: Message 216 by AnswersInGenitals
03-16-2021 6:44 PM


Re: Why You People Think The Way You Do
Part of the issue is that almost nobody has any idea what "socialism" is. For most in the USA, it's just a word to use to vilify anyone you don't like and to scare the rest.
Rick Steves (yeah, that travel guy on PBS) did a one hour special on the rise of fascism in 1930's Europe. Worth watching. At one point he got to Hitler's best-seller book, Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"). Incoherent and almost completely unreadable, but everybody had a copy (kind of like the Bible if you stop to think about it, only far worse). Then Rick Steves showed us two small bookshelves next to each other, a Communist one and a Nazi one. The Communist bookshelf was filled with books that you needed to read and study. For example, Das Kapital by Marx is a very dense multi-volume work which was the result of years of research into the deaths and mutilating injuries of workers. The National-Socialist bookshelf contained only one book, Mein Kampf, which nobody read anyway.
Watching on USA Netflix "Genius of the Modern World", I was amazed at the insight of Karl Marx into the failings and flaws of capitalism, though I still do not see the alternative that he offered as being a viable solution. His thinking was so strongly influenced by Hegelian dialectics (in the 2016 Coen Bros film, "Hail, Caesar!", the moment one of the actor's captors mentioned "dialectic" I whispered to my friend that they were Communists).
From the simplified presentation of dialectics in the US Air Force Communications Command Leadership School (circa 1982), you have a thesis and its opposite, an antithesis, which then resolve into a synthesis. So from my military training in dialectics, I would view the thesis and antithesis as being capitalism and socialism (in its extreme sense; see below), so the synthesis would be some form of capitalism that still took care of the workers.
This video by a Swedish Marxist, AzureScapeGoat, seems to explain it well:
So basically, the salient thing that all the different things that are called "socialist" have in common is ... nothing. That "s-word" mostly gets thrown about so much as to render it meaningless.
What I like about that video is that it lays out rather clealy the difference between social democracy (SD) and democratic socialism (DS). The video sets up a kind of Venn Diagram dividing the universe into Capitalism (ie, private ownership of the means of production) and Socialism (ie, state ownership of the means of production). SD (used by many nations in Europe, hence the "European model" touted by American "socialists") is very firmly entrenched on the capitalist side of capitalism with support, a "social safety net", for workers. Unfortunately, while supporting such a system, US supporters of such a system falsely call themselves "democratic socialists", which is solidly on the side of state ownership of the means of production (Cuba being a prime example). Talk about lifting oneself upon one's own petard.
Military history. One function of military engineers is that of the sapper, the troops who breech the enemy's defenses. One such tactic a couple/few centuries ago was to take an A-frame and lean it against the fortification's gate with an explosive charge attached to it to blow the gate open. That was a petard. On occasion, a sapper would set up his petard but one of his harnesses would get caught up in that petard, which he had already set to explode, so he couldn't escape. That is what getting hoisted on your own petard means.
We clearly need a solution. Capitalism doesn't work, at least not for the vast majority of the population. Socialism/Communism also have proven to not work.
We need a viable synthesis.

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Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 219 of 530 (884958)
03-16-2021 10:14 PM
Reply to: Message 211 by jar
03-16-2021 7:56 AM


Re: the classic compartmentalization of Biblical Christianity
I read what you said and am digesting the implications. But I ont fully agree with your conclusions without some elaboration.
Jim Jones was a Christian.
If so, he most definitely had mental illness issues...as did Hitler, by the way.
The Christian Nationalists are Christians.
Perhaps many are, but we need to revisit our discussion (and unlikely consensus) on what defines a Christian aside from mere declaration.
The anti-vaxer's are Christians.
They dont trust what you and ringo and AZ Paul call "the rational people". They feel threatened by the idea that the secular society insists on defining morality and protocol and never admitting that a globalist agenda may not automatically be the best step for humanity. You dont believe in original sin or that people are selfish by nature. You seem to think that God simply loves and accepts everybody regardless if they acknowledge Him or not.
The Creationists are Christians.
I claim to be a Cosmological Creationist in that I believe that GOD is the source for everything. All matter, energy, and life itself are due to His input. I do not necessarily believe that God created earth the way that Ken Ham preaches, however. Science has proven a lot of biological processes.
The vast majority of the Global Warming deniers are Christians.
They are conservatives who fell for political propoganda rather than using their brains.
The Crusaders were Christians.
True.
The Pogroms were Christian acts.
Perhaps.
Wiki writes:
The noun pogrom, which has a relatively short history, is used in English and many other languages as a loanword, possibly borrowed from Yiddish (where the word takes the form פאָגראָם).[13] Its widespread circulation in today's world began with the antisemitic violence in the Russian Empire in 1881–1883. A series of genocidal persecutions, or pogroms, against Jews took place in Russia. These arose from a variety of motivations, not all of them related to Christian antisemitism. They have been attributed in part to religiously motivated antisemitism arising from the canard that Jews were responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus.[9][10] The primary trigger of the pogroms, however, was the assassination of Tsar Alexander II.[11]
The first pogrom is often considered to be the 1821 anti-Jewish riots in Odessa (modern Ukraine) after the death of the Greek Orthodox patriarch in Constantinople, in which 14 Jews were killed.[12] The virtual Jewish encyclopedia claims that initiators of 1821 pogroms were the local Greeks that used to have a substantial diaspora in the port cities of what was known as Novorossiya.[13] [
Christian Acts should follow the teaching of jesus. should. ! Reality shows us that many Christians are like me. They profess the teachings of Christ yet are unable to achieve the suffering and denial thus required.
The Genocide of the Americas were Christian Acts.
Nope. Not everything a Christian does is a Christian act. Though you do have a point regarding guilt by association.
The Holocaust was carried out by Christians as a Christian duty.
Most citizens...never mind, Christians, conflate Christian moral duty with patriotic moral duty. ringo does have a point in his accusation that I never do what Jesus said. In a literal word sense, he is right. Several angels would have to appear for me to even be able to give half of what I own towards others. Maybe my critics are right. Maybe I actually don't trust Jesus. I will say, however, that even snakes have their hand out. Jesus is to me more than simply a character in a book. Critics can say I make Him up in my head. This may or may not be true...I honestly don't think so. I listen to my conscience and heart which is at war with my natural fears of abandonment, lack, and survival.
Yet you and so many others simply fall back on your anthem.
Guilty. Not sure what the anthem is, but you likely have a point. Im human. Im selfish by nature due to certain lifelong insecurities. I feel that God is changing me slowly only as I allow, but that there is no way I will or would give my hard earned resources away to just anybody. I see that as satan stealing from me.
You claim that you did not commit the atrocities; that you are not responsible; that you are not like them; but there is no outcry from you or most other Christians condemning and opposing and sanctioning those very same elements that still exist in much of Christianity today.
Still thinking about this one.
Edited by Phat, : clarity

"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain "
***
“…far from science having buried God, not only do the results of science point towards his existence, but the scientific enterprise itself is validated by his existence.”- Dr.John Lennox

“The whole war between the atheist and the theist comes down to this: the atheist believes a 'what' created the universe; the theist believes a 'who' created the universe.”
- Criss Jami, Killo

“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” — Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You
(1894).


This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 220 of 530 (884962)
03-17-2021 11:24 AM
Reply to: Message 207 by Phat
03-15-2021 3:19 PM


Re: Why You People Think The Way You Do
Is this an example of a changed heart?
Long has been described as a quiet, religious person who loved guns and hunting.
And he murdered 8 people last night.

This message is a reply to:
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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 221 of 530 (884963)
03-17-2021 12:12 PM
Reply to: Message 220 by PaulK
03-17-2021 11:24 AM


Re: Why You People Think The Way You Do
Maybe a truly demented individual helped along his demented way by belief in a truly loving god with a gun.
Poor kid's going to get some help now.

Eschew obfuscation. Habituate elucidation.

This message is a reply to:
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ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 222 of 530 (884964)
03-17-2021 12:14 PM
Reply to: Message 219 by Phat
03-16-2021 10:14 PM


Re: the classic compartmentalization of Biblical Christianity
Phat writes:
They dont trust what you and ringo and AZ Paul call "the rational people".
Not trusting rational people is a sure sign of mental illness.

"I've been to Moose Jaw, now I can die." -- John Wing

This message is a reply to:
 Message 219 by Phat, posted 03-16-2021 10:14 PM Phat has replied

Replies to this message:
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Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 223 of 530 (884967)
03-17-2021 1:29 PM
Reply to: Message 222 by ringo
03-17-2021 12:14 PM


Re: the classic compartmentalization of Biblical Christianity
Perhaps. But I think it far fetched to label every single anti vaxxer as mentally ill or unstable. And I worry that in the future, the "rational" secular majority will label anyone who is religious as mentally unstable as well. They dont get to use the standard which they have adopted to govern everybody. Hence why we have division in this country. (And im even giving you the benefit of the doubt on liberal non-authoritarians being rational.)

"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain "
***
“…far from science having buried God, not only do the results of science point towards his existence, but the scientific enterprise itself is validated by his existence.”- Dr.John Lennox

“The whole war between the atheist and the theist comes down to this: the atheist believes a 'what' created the universe; the theist believes a 'who' created the universe.”
- Criss Jami, Killo

“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” — Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You
(1894).


This message is a reply to:
 Message 222 by ringo, posted 03-17-2021 12:14 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 224 by AZPaul3, posted 03-17-2021 4:31 PM Phat has replied
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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 224 of 530 (884972)
03-17-2021 4:31 PM
Reply to: Message 223 by Phat
03-17-2021 1:29 PM


Re: the classic compartmentalization of Biblical Christianity
... will label anyone who is religious as mentally unstable as well.
I admit to owning this one.
It's a personal incredulity thing. I can't fathom how a properly operating brain capable of functioning in this society could so abandon the obvious physics they use to exist in this universe and submit life decisions instead to old stories and what Fr. Priest used to say. How many rosaries can fit on the edge of a piece of texas toast burnt with the image of jesus.
If the default operation of a rational mind is one that understands, appreciates and uses the reality presented to them, then one that allows for the delusions of ghosts and gods, as real entities that have some gossamer existence in the 5th dimension somewhere is not operating at peak rational capacity. They gotta screw loose.
That is mentally unstable.
They dont get to use the standard which they have adopted to govern everybody.
If more of us agree to it then, yah, we do. You did it for a couple millennia. Now it's our turn.
Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.


Eschew obfuscation. Habituate elucidation.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 223 by Phat, posted 03-17-2021 1:29 PM Phat has replied

Replies to this message:
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Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 225 of 530 (884982)
03-18-2021 11:37 AM
Reply to: Message 224 by AZPaul3
03-17-2021 4:31 PM


Re: the classic compartmentalization of Biblical Christianity
If more of us agree to it then, yah, we do. You did it for a couple millennia. Now it's our turn.
Yeah it is prophesied that you will get your turn. You will be the ones ridiculing and denigrating Christianity and all of our fringe woo woo stuff until you realize that its real but by then the planet will be in flames and going down quickly.
.
You will likely say that this is fake, though I know for a fact that it is real.
Isaiah explains basic Christianity quite well. Yes, I know you refuse to even consider anything that you cant prove...;but part of the problem of many of your attitudes is a product of the spiritual war within you. The main challenge for you is to trust God, the Holy Spirit.
It starts with Jesus. I only hope that I myself overcome the struggles I have that I may share this amazing Man with you. And yes I know...you have heard it all from many nuts for many years. You are unimpresed and unmoved. In the following comments you likely will curse the "God whom I "market" but you dont ever give the issue a fair hearing.

"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain "
***
“…far from science having buried God, not only do the results of science point towards his existence, but the scientific enterprise itself is validated by his existence.”- Dr.John Lennox

“The whole war between the atheist and the theist comes down to this: the atheist believes a 'what' created the universe; the theist believes a 'who' created the universe.”
- Criss Jami, Killo

“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” — Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You
(1894).


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