136 replies to this topic

[Reflectionist]

If that's true, then there wouldn't be a need for Salvation. Dress it up as much as you like. But examine your responses. You wouldn't bother defending that view if you weren't a Christian. So you're really defending your own title. Which means that the more you try to argue your sincerity, the more you try to argue that I misunderstood you, the more you're proving my point.

Multiply that exponentially because this is yet another thread where we give our opinions and say "okay, that's your opinion and I disagree with that," and be done with it. I gave my opinion and you said, "No. That's wrong."

Thanks, Goose. You're the third person today to go out of their way to prove that they don't give a fuck about what I'm saying.

Edited by Reflectionist, 27 March 2009 - 08:49 PM.

[Nevermind]

All modesty aside, I like to think I'm an exception. I give a crap regardless of God. I believe in God but He does not decide how I treat other people. That's my own perogative. My own free will, if you...will. It's just the type of person I am and with 5,999,999,999 other people to choose from, I could almost guarantee you I'm not the only one like that. I do agree that the majority out there are as you said, though, so it is very easy to generalise.

Though, after reading your edit, you're right, it is just your opinion and it's nobody's place to tell you you're wrong. Like I said, I agree with most of what you said as far as the general theistic population goes.

Edited by Lazurukeel, 27 March 2009 - 08:58 PM.

[TheAvengerLever]

All modesty aside, I like to think I'm an exception. I give a crap regardless of God. I believe in God but He does not decide how I treat other people. That's my own perogative. My own free will, if you...will. It's just the type of person I am and with 5,999,999,999 other people to choose from, I could almost guarantee you I'm not the only one like that. I do agree that the majority out there are as you said, though, so it is very easy to generalise. You are mostly right but it is still just a generalisation.

I always saw that as the way a Christian is supposed to be though.

We shouldn't care just because God tells us to. With or without God, I care about (certain) people.

But humanity as a whole I want to DESSSTROOYYYY.

Literally. Call me a bad person.

[Reflectionist]

Said the self-righteous preacher, "What, in your judgment, is the greatest sin in the world?"

"That of the person who sees other human beings as sinners," said the Master.

[Nevermind]

What becomes of the person who doesn't?

[Goose]

Said the self-righteous preacher, "What, in your judgment, is the greatest sin in the world?"

"That of the person who sees other human beings as sinners," said the Master.

From Mathew chapter 7

"Do not judge, or you too will be judged.
For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?
You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.


The question I ask is this, do our two examples imply the same thing?

Edited by Goose, 27 March 2009 - 09:21 PM.

[Reflectionist]

Laz: See the second spoiler in my sig, yo.


Goose:
Why do you expect me to be able to answer this? Am I the Master? Am I a self-righteous preacher? I don't have an answer - but I'm pretty sure no preacher or pastor has it. They're in the business of saving souls. It's your job to see people as sinners because no one would accept your "salvation" if there were no preachers to make them hate themselves first. This goes back to something I've said a while back: "Would you be grateful for someone who cut you with a knife in order to offer you a band-aid?"

"I've got free band-aids! Here, sir, have a band-aid!"
"Why...? I'm not bleeding...."
*Slice*
"Yes, you are. Look at you. There's blood all over you, you poor guy. Here, take a band-aid."
"Ooh, thanks!"

Edited by Reflectionist, 27 March 2009 - 09:31 PM.

[Nevermind]

Oh, right. I have sigs turned off.

Is such a person one who manages to look past the finger and see the moon and stars? So-called blasphemers rejecting the finger pointing for them and using their own eyes to view the moon, right? I feel I'm on the verge of grasping the Master's concepts, though my brain is not working quite so well as of late.

[Reflectionist]

Yes.

[Nevermind]

Would it be a sign of arrogance to consider oneself a moon-gazer?


(I really like that finger-moon analogy)

[Reflectionist]

I don't know. I would think it could be.

I mean... I've been called a blasphemer before (and much worse), so I consider myself to be one... so it's kind of a qualifier thing. But then again, I've also been called arrogant.

[Nevermind]

I've also been called arrogant.

Oh yes, I have definitely attracted that label.

[Goose]

Goose:
Why do you expect me to be able to answer this? Am I the Master? Am I a self-righteous preacher? I don't have an answer - but I'm pretty sure no preacher or pastor has it. They're in the business of saving souls. It's your job to see people as sinners because no one would accept your "salvation" if there were no preachers to make them hate themselves first. This goes back to something I've said a while back: "Would you be grateful for someone who cut you with a knife in order to offer you a band-aid?"

"I've got free band-aids! Here, sir, have a band-aid!"
"Why...? I'm not bleeding...."
*Slice*
"Yes, you are. Look at you. There's blood all over you, you poor guy. Here, take a band-aid."
"Ooh, thanks!"

Good analogy.

Would you say that people are not sinners?

[JRPomazon]

Reason I chose to be agnostic is simple really. I didn't want to be scared into following a certain set of rules that I don't completely understand or agree with but I can't just write off God as an imaginary friend of sorts because of the years I spent as a christian. It's not like it's programed into my head or anything I just can't contemplate how existence came to be without the aid of some intelligent being. So I think there is a good chance that there is something out there, but I don't think it's something we can have any hope of understanding what is no matter what books of faith say.

[Reflectionist]

Goose:
Why do you expect me to be able to answer this? Am I the Master? Am I a self-righteous preacher? I don't have an answer - but I'm pretty sure no preacher or pastor has it. They're in the business of saving souls. It's your job to see people as sinners because no one would accept your "salvation" if there were no preachers to make them hate themselves first. This goes back to something I've said a while back: "Would you be grateful for someone who cut you with a knife in order to offer you a band-aid?"

"I've got free band-aids! Here, sir, have a band-aid!"
"Why...? I'm not bleeding...."
*Slice*
"Yes, you are. Look at you. There's blood all over you, you poor guy. Here, take a band-aid."
"Ooh, thanks!"

Good analogy.

Would you say that people are not sinners?

I would say that there is no such thing as sin, so it's impossible to define people as being 'sinners' or 'not sinners.' Sure, nobody's perfect, but that's still a long way from "everyone's a sinner."

[Goose]

If sin doesn't exist, what is it not, as compared to other definitions of sin?

[Reflectionist]

If sin doesn't exist, what is it not, as compared to other definitions of sin?

Did you read my post?

I don't believe sin exists; period. I'm not going to answer this question.

[Psytronic]

Why do Christians consider the minor "sins" in life to outweigh all of the general goodness in life?

It reminds me of the saying "no news is good news". Do Christians consider a placid lifestyle unnoteworthy? Do men have to move mountains to be considered good men?

[SOAP]

Why do Christians consider the minor "sins" in life to outweigh all of the general goodness in life?

It reminds me of the saying "no news is good news". Do Christians consider a placid lifestyle unnoteworthy? Do men have to move mountains to be considered good men?

Well considering that the Bible states that Jesus even turns down people who have cast out demons in his name if they lack sufficient faith, yeah I guess you're right. You'd have to be extremely powerful person to be able to do that. Other people are hard enough to deal with, but something not human and probably more intelligent and ancient and violent than any human can imagine would be great feat if vanquished by a human being. That man would be a not only a good man but a great man. And yet even that's not good enough.

I guess it all boils down to the whole faith vs. works debate. I can see how faith is emphasized to discourage people from becoming too arrogant in their own abilities and thinking they're gods in their own right, but on the other hand, it leads to the notion that you're only good or of any worth only if you belong to a certain belief system (namely Christianity) and if you deviate too far, you're of the devil and are nothing but kindling for the fires of hell.

[Khallos]

The love cannot possibly be sincere.
Some people are just more practiced at not being assholes than others.
But you're all a cozened black inside.

Personally despite being an Atheist I believe in sin in the sense that it's part of being human. Every human is a sinner through and through in my eyes, it's part of being born to a truly terrible species. We're all capable of doing the most base and vile things, oh so easily, at the very least while we perhaps do not kill a person, we 'wish' their death or misfortune often. Sin is a nice dramatic term for human nature for me, it's part of being conscious. No new born is a sinner for me however, they are not truly aware and in this way I guess my view of sin differs to that of Christianity's.

And if I have to choose between humanity being tarred with the 'evil' brush or the 'good' brush, 'evil' is much more fitting.

I mean... I've been called a blasphemer before (and much worse), so I consider myself to be one... so it's kind of a qualifier thing. But then again, I've also been called arrogant.

Interestingly this reminds me of a teacher at my school calling me deeply cynical and saying that I had an evil view of the world. This was in response to something you've basically already said that:

That Christianity seems a poor source of morality in the most simple of manners. Christians do good deeds to secure eternal life, as such this is their God giving them their moral code. Clearly such a system is selfish, and its morals are dubious if all good deeds are peformed for personal gain. If their God was removed, as often quoted by some of them, we'd have no morality and we'd act in an utterly selfish manner and uncaringly harm others. Without the ultimate reward of immortality, how many Christians would be 'good'? At the same time, I am an atheist, [img]http://forums.legendsalliance.com/public/ALOT.png[/img] of my actions when interacting with people are selfless to the point of being unbeneficial to me. Who in the end is without sin? I have a pile stones ready for a-casting actually...

^I think that was what I basically said, but perhaps better put in some places and worse in others. My actions throughout my life are based on inner judgements, Christians just choose between a very tasty Carrot and a very pointy Stick.

[Goose]

My actions throughout my life are based on inner judgements, Christians just choose between a very tasty Carrot and a very pointy Stick.

I agree with a lot of what you are saying, but the thing that gets me is that you refer to Christians, as if we all think the same things. A lot of us do differ. While there are things that we generally have in common, like the believe that Jesus is the son of god etc. A lot of us differ in ways of thinking about nearly everything.

Recently in Australia, there were horrible bushfires in Victoria and people were killed, it was an all out tragedy. Some of the people from my church traveled down to act as counselors for people, from all faiths, a lot of churches and religions did so.

Fred Phelps and his people, yelled that God did it to punish Victoria for having Gay people and even though he was on the other side of the world, people thought we all thought that, and lumped us all in that category. The thing that shits me is that all we wanted to do was help people, yet because of one arsehole and his church, the rest of Christianity paid the consequences.

We dont all think the same things. Sometimes its a good thing to differ in opinion, because if we were all Fred Phelps, the world would be an even worse place to be in.

[SOAP]

While yes it's wrong to lump all Christians into the same category, making unwanted bedfellows is the kind of baggage you inherit by choosing to call yourself Christian. Who's to say Fred Phelps and his ilk aren't giving Christians everywhere a bad name when they're following the very same Bible as you, just to it's literal extreme. As diverse as Christian philosophy goes, there's no denying that the Bible has some very offensive things to say about gay people that aren't unlike the opinions of the Westboros Baptist Church. Sure they seem a little too hung up the whole gay thing. The Bible says some hateful things about other people too like foul-mouthed teenagers, uppity women, and idol-worshiping pagans. I guess you can accuse them of focusing so much on the "Letter of the Law" they forgot the "Spirit of the Law" but point is, that baggage is still there. You can't cut it off and say that's not what you're about when it's in the very same Bible you try to promote. That's part of the cross you bear as a Christian. Otherwise you'd be something vague like agnostic, theist, or a spiritualist.

By that same token, I think most intelligent people are at least able to dissociate the Westboros Baptist Church from the rest of Christianity. Though sometimes, it's all too easy to make that link.

Edited by SOAP, 31 March 2009 - 05:52 AM.

[Khallos]

I agree with a lot of what you are saying, but the thing that gets me is that you refer to Christians, as if we all think the same things. A lot of us do differ. While there are things that we generally have in common, like the believe that Jesus is the son of god etc. A lot of us differ in ways of thinking about nearly everything.

It's more the fault of me reusing an old quote, but I do agree with you. After all I'd like to see how many Christians if magically told 'God was dead' would simply drop it all, it's of course a slightly silly hypothetical situation which could be argued by saying that you would have failed as a Christian if you lost your faith. And I realise most Christians are just humans, many who have bound themselves by strict self-regulating laws...which if I'm honest is probably beneficial and makes them better people than most of the world's population despite my dislike of baptism or babies, indoctrination of the young....blah, blah, blah, blah.

I was attempting to provoke a particuarly annoying Christian teacher at the time, such as the viscious attempt at pretending I'm sinless (which is just not true if you take sin to be moral misbehaviour). And that I felt like throwing stones at his face.

The danger of lumping and categorising people is ever present and can stir up emotions like no other. I guess as long as people want to 'belong' we'll have it, we're social animals, and I've got to the stage of ignoring it even if it means I make grandiose labels on occasion.

[Sir Deimos]

Okay I'm curious. What religion is that?

Germanic Neo-Paganism. more commonly Odinism. All hail the Allfather xD

[Reflectionist]

The love cannot possibly be sincere. Some people are just more practiced at not being assholes than others. But you're all a cozened black inside.

Personally despite being an Atheist I believe in sin in the sense that it's part of being human. Every human is a sinner through and through in my eyes, it's part of being born to a truly terrible species. We're all capable of doing the most base and vile things, oh so easily, at the very least while we perhaps do not kill a person, we 'wish' their death or misfortune often. Sin is a nice dramatic term for human nature for me, it's part of being conscious. No new born is a sinner for me however, they are not truly aware and in this way I guess my view of sin differs to that of Christianity's.

And if I have to choose between humanity being tarred with the 'evil' brush or the 'good' brush, 'evil' is much more fitting.

Sure, but that would just make it a semantics game. It doesn't make it 'sin,' it just makes it 'human nature.' The idea behind sin is that it's like a disease that humans carry that needs to be fixed by Jesus. I'm talking about sin as abnormality. If sin is just what you said, then God is punishing us for making us who we are.

I mean, like I said - of course no one's perfect, but sin is a strong word and a very specific concept, so I don't believe it exists. It is only Christianity that tells us it exists for the purpose of evangelism, and we usually take their word for it.

You've made a great point (if not a little negative) - it's just not sin.

My actions throughout my life are based on inner judgements, Christians just choose between a very tasty Carrot and a very pointy Stick.

I agree with a lot of what you are saying, but the thing that gets me is that you refer to Christians, as if we all think the same things. A lot of us do differ. While there are things that we generally have in common, like the believe that Jesus is the son of god etc. A lot of us differ in ways of thinking about nearly everything.

Recently in Australia, there were horrible bushfires in Victoria and people were killed, it was an all out tragedy. Some of the people from my church traveled down to act as counselors for people, from all faiths, a lot of churches and religions did so.

Fred Phelps and his people, yelled that God did it to punish Victoria for having Gay people and even though he was on the other side of the world, people thought we all thought that, and lumped us all in that category. The thing that shits me is that all we wanted to do was help people, yet because of one arsehole and his church, the rest of Christianity paid the consequences.

We don't all think the same things. Sometimes its a good thing to differ in opinion, because if we were all Fred Phelps, the world would be an even worse place to be in.

There is a difference between the one who misinterprets the dogma (and thusly propagates it as being legit), and the dogma itself. However, as far as relation to the original teaching, there is NOT a difference between someone who mispropagates the dogma as being belligerent, and the person who believes it to be benevolent. They are both interpretations, and if you're going to stick by yours then you should let someone else stick by theirs.

If not all Christians think the same, then what the fuck is a "Christian" in the first place? If you have a very specific line to draw between "Christian" and "¬Christian" then someone needs to draw it irrevocably. Here's the problem though: someone is going to argue with it, whatever it is. If you draw it to include Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc, or not, someone is still going to complain and say it's wrong. Everyone's got their scripture verses, their own interpretation of the Axiom (Just look at the differences between the Catholic Bible and the Protestant Bible. The condemnations just write themselves if you belong to one of those views). Christianity is a prime example of the Forer Effect. You've got people that have certain interpretations, and then you've got Paul and John and all these verses that talk about false prophets, false teachings, and that whoever changes anything in this book is fucked. Seriously. The religion was tailored to create distrust and hatred between people - "love" is just a word that it uses as a chess piece as if it validates or proves the opposite. The Bible says a LOT about Love - but it never, EVER gives an example of it. Even Jesus' sacrifice wasn't Love, and couldn't have been love - any all-powerful God would've just snapped his ever loving fingers and done away with "original sin" in the first place, but no. God wants your blood if you don't accept that he let humanity fall.

Secondly, the line cannot be drawn. As I've said before in the Death of Christianity thread (which, my post made a nice little blog entry in case you need to be reminded), "Adding to that the more philosophical approaches to Christianity, which include postmodern interpretations such as "Christian Atheism," and "Post-Theism," things are just getting too vague to tell if anything is really "Christian" anymore - there certainly isn't a Christian canon anymore. (Not that there ever was, considering the early Gnostic writings, the Apocrypha, etc. that people just dismiss as heresy, (or worse, Satanic) because it's not in the Bible - which was compiled by fallible man.) So, maybe "Christianity" is dying, if there even is a Christianity anymore."

Christianity is nothing - I repeat - nothing more than a title from which to claim authority to throw out a fucking ridiculous position on morality that specifically excludes other people. Not that it ALWAYS was, mind you, but somewhere between the Council of Nicea and the Renaissance it all kind of got fucked up. Jesus was a pacifist for crying out loud! Christianity is nothing but a title, Goose. A name. It means nothing on its own if there is no line to draw between what IS Christian and what is not. And I assure you - even though it looks like one, even though there was a time in YOUR life when you went from being not Christian to being Christian, the specific line in the theological landscape is just NOT there.

The most basic of lines you can draw is that "You have to believe in Jesus and God." But that's not really a specific line at all, is it? I mean, shit - that includes Muslims!

Edited by Reflectionist, 11 April 2009 - 06:54 PM.

[SOAP]

There must be some kind of way out of here
Said the joker to the thief

Me to the theists

Theres too much confusion
I cant get no relief

What I'm feeling whenever I'm in a religious debate

Businessman they drink my wine

Tele Evangelists

Plow men dig my earth

Fred Phelps and his ilk

None will level on the line
Nobody of it is worth
Hey hey

Anyone who uses Jesus as posterboy for whatever their agenda is

No reason to get excited
The thief he kindly spoke

Me to the atheists and extheists

There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke but uh

We might feel that this all one big joke

But you and I weve been through that
And this is not our fate

There is more to life than this pointless debate

So let us not talk falsely now
The hours getting late
Hey
Hey

I want everyone--atheists, theists, what have you--to be adults here and be honest with themselves because life too short to waste on BS and deception.

All along the watchtower
Princes kept the view

The presidents, the Pope, various world leaders who use religion to control the masses

While all the women came and went
Bare-foot servants to, but huh

The masses that allow themselves to be controlled like mindless sheep into slaughter

Outside in the cold distance
A wild cat did growl
Two riders were approachin
And the wind began to howl

A change is coming and it will be painful for those who cling to the past

Hey
Oh
All along the watchtower
Hear you sing around the watch
Gotta beware gotta beware I will
Yeah
Ooh baby
All along the watchtower

So better watch out

Edited by SOAP, 11 April 2009 - 08:12 PM.

[Reflectionist]

^


....wat?

[SOAP]

^


....wat?

I'm suffering Battlestar Galactica withdrawals...

[Goose]

Christianity is nothing - I repeat - nothing more than a title from which to claim authority to throw out a fucking ridiculous position on morality that specifically excludes other people. Not that it ALWAYS was, mind you, but somewhere between the Council of Nicea and the Renaissance it all kind of got fucked up. Jesus was a pacifist for crying out loud! Christianity is nothing but a title, Goose. A name. It means nothing on its own if there is no line to draw between what IS Christian and what is not. And I assure you - even though it looks like one, even though there was a time in YOUR life when you went from being not Christian to being Christian, the specific line in the theological landscape is just NOT there.

I agree with you, on some points. Christianity is nothing more than a title for a group of people who believe a very vague and much argued about concept. People use it to abuse others. People use it to look down upon others. People use it to spread hate. the term "I"m a Christian" can be an affront to hate other people. People can use to, and do, to moralize others and say that "my way of living is right!" when really they have no idea. I see people like that all the time. People do it without realizing.

Consequently in England, Christian became a term for someone who is moral and just. "I'm a good Christian man" became a phrase that had nothing to do with Jesus, just hat the person was moral and just.

But then you have to separate the term for people who just believe in God and Jesus, and that he died and rose again. You need to come up with another name. Hence the relatively new "Jesus follower" term has come into existence. I'm going from my marketing background, but it seems little more than a re branded way for young people to try to separate themselves from those older than them and validate what they believe. It has its own cool image.

So we have this problem. What do people who want to separate themselves from what the Fred Phelps crew think, but also keep their dignity and not rebrand themselves as a different kind of post modernist, call themselves, yet still believe in Jesus and God, and the general Christian beliefs?

Its the power of language and how it frames the way people think.

You mentioned the Nicene Creed.

The Nicene Creed

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.

Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.

And I believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

If a person believes in the above creed, what can they call themselves?

[Reflectionist]

You're right. It's a huge problem - because I was right. There's no consistent Christianity, therefore there is no "Christianity." It's not a difficult concept.

Oh, and as far as your question... and I hate to do this to you... but that's like saying "It's Easter. There are eggs involved. What's your favorite McDonald's breakfast?"