Ray Comfort on The Atheist Experience

Yes, those that claim exclusivity make such absurd claims yet what does the Biblical evidence show?Should I go over what is actually written and attributed directly to Jesus about that yet again? Do you really not remember what is actually written and attributed directly to Jesus and that we have gone over many times before?Look again at Luke 4: Look at the story of "The Good Samaritan".It's comforting to think that "Truth is not inclusive" and that "YOU" hold it but it is also the ultimate expression of arrogance and vanity.

OK, Im looking at Luke 4 and also at the Good Samaritan parable. I may have time to study them before work. What is it I am looking for, again? Support for an argument towards inclusion?

I even quoted the part from Luke for you.Again, it is the basics that so often don't seem to get taught."But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon" Sidon was not a Hebrew area and a peoples that believed in the Hebrew God, yet in the tale God sent a major prophet to them."And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian" Naaman, a Syrian was the one cured not lepers in Israel. There is far more in the story of Naaman that I have also pointed out to you many times; how when he asks about going with his master to worship the God Rimmon if it was okay to kneel with his master and the answer was "Sure". The Good Samaritan was NOT a believer. Yet it was that unbeliever that helped.And think of the quote you often use from Paul about the Gentiles that hold God in their hearts yet don't know the law or of Jesus.Why try to limit where wisdom and love and mercy and bounty can be found.

I will say that Christians should respect other beliefs and should show no partiality towards helping others equally with "our own" but I will also state that Christian belief itself is not inclusive. There is one way. The way of Jesus. The way of the cross of suffering and self-denial. We have yet to learn the self-denial part...its the toughest part of the lesson.

That's such a self-flagalistic thing. There's a really unpleasant masochism about your kind of Christianity. It matches with this need for the world to end and everything having to get worse all the time.It's so fucking miserable it can't be godly.

"Beat ME!" said the masochist."No!" said the sadist.

Lies, lies and more lies. There is no NEED expressed by Christians for the world to end; all we ever say is that it is prophesied to end under certain circumstances and those often appear to be underway. No need there at all, simple warning based on prophecy. What looks like it's getting worse to us may be our oversensitivity to the work of the devil which is always at work in the world and may not be any worse now than it was a thousand years ago, though it can look that way to some of us. So we could be wrong about the timing but we have no need at all for it to be getting worse. Take it or leave it.Actually the world got a lot better as Christianity spread in the early days because what it spread was a love of humanity that did not exist in the pagan empires. People's lives were improved in many ways, morality improved, civilization flourished wherever the doctrines of Christ were followed. But scripture predicts that the devil will regather his forces and undermine the good before Jesus comes back to bring it all to an end.There is no NEED for any of this to happen. We'd love to see the world keep improving. Denying ourselves is what we should be doing because it thwarts the flesh and the devil and allows the spirit to thrive, there's nothing masochistic about it.
\Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Sorry but Christianity remained a small pointless cult throughout the early days and it only began to grow beyond a fringe niche cult when it became a Nation Religion and was spread by sword and coercion. There is no evidence it was ever as peaceful as most of the so called pagan religions.

I'm SO sick your your revisionist disinformation. Christianity was already in the British Isles by the time of Constantine and they had already sent out missionaries to northern Europe. It didn't spread far for a few centuries, and it was NOT spread by force and corruption at ALL. There were occasions when a whole tribe was converted because the king was converted, which isn't the way it should have happened but I don't call that coercion as you are using the word. The unfortunate effect of Constantine was that his influence brought about the political world domination of Romanism, but even then there were true Christians who spread the true word.And I didn't use the word "peaceful" although in essential ways it was. It brought about humane policies, rescued babies put out to die, rescued the elderly put out to die, over time influenced liberal policies in government, -- the Magna Carta was inspired by Christianity for instance == reformed law, fostered a general spirit of kindness and tolerance.
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There is still a lot of Christian influence in the west, and parituclarly in the US, but it has been eroding rapidly since the sixties so that we get the angry antichristian stuff we read every day at EvC, including yours. There is a resurgence of the paganism that had been overcome in Europe, much of it through the Marixist influence that got going strongly in the sixties. The influence of the pagan eastern religions that flooded into the country in the seventies following the sixties political upheavals is at least a symptom of the big change the sixties brought about. The legalization of abortion is a major change back to paganism, also the push toward voluntary euthanasia. The giving of tax exempt status to witchcraft and other satanic and pagan religions is another move in that direction. We can see the beginnings of this resumption of pagan influence back in the Enlightenment, through Nietzsche and certainly Darwin, who inspired Hitler's eugenics though you all want to deny it. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Pointless? Excuse me? The Man gave His life. It was not taken from Him.

You want me to quote you some of the times you've told us that the we're in the end-times and that you're looking forward to it?

quote:

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I have Rosh Hashana in mind or some time around there or afterward, and although it would be lovely I am not at all dogmatic about it, just hoping.
  —Faith

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You guys love it, want it, need it. You're so disappointed with your own lives and so sure that you're 'saved' that you wish for the end of the world to make it happen for you.

What I'm saying in that quote is not that I relish the idea of the world coming to an end, just that the Rapture itself, being with Christ, would be lovely. I could have gone on to say, and I'm sure I have many times, that I can't wish too hard for the Rapture because it would mean the destruction of the world was coming soon and I really do NOT want that.AND this is not some personal wish to end life, it's just a way of saying tht the Rapture would be glorious. Paul himself said he was torn between the promise of being with Christ and the work he needed to do here. That's a typical Christian position.\
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And then there's the worship of the sadism, the masochism of martyrdom, self-flagellation and sack cloth and ashes, kneeling in front of the cross and worshipping the torture and human sacrifice. The Catholics are particularly fond of it with their 'stations of the cross'.I'm afraid the whole thing is just sick. Sad and sick.

Nothing one can say about all that I guess. The Catholic stuff does go too far but you are including all of Christianity and your view is so far from our view of it there's just nothing to say.

Yes Phat, Christianity was simply another tiny irrelevant cult until it became the State Religion. Sure there were small bodies and had been since the mid Roman expansion but it was simply not significant until it became the State Religion and once it became the State Religion it was spread by sword and coercion.