fallenchicken
Well-Known Member
If you love jesus so much why don't you marry him, Deron?
Through Jesus, I am defined by being God's child.
- Thread starter Archie Moses
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Stickler
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Beantown, JazzSpazz, and the others of the religious among you, I would like you to know that there is something that you are saying that is completely untrue. You don't realize that it's untrue, so you're not to blame, but you should know.
Praying with a searching heart and sincere intentions does not result in knowledge of Jesus Christ. I've done it. Others have done it with no results. And it's kind of ****** for you guys to keep insisting that it's guaranteed to work, because it sets up this paradigm where the only possible way someone can try it your way and come to a different conclusion, is because they didn't pray sincerely enough or with enough passion, or something. They didn't want to know badly enough.
This is hogwash. You are not in a position to know the sincerity or the greatness of desire that another man might have to discover the truth. We are all seekers, of one kind of another, even the atheists. There are few enough things that any of us can be sure of, but gentlemen, tonight I tell you this: You can be utterly and completely certain that you are wrong to phrase things this way.
Praying with a searching heart and sincere intentions does not result in knowledge of Jesus Christ. I've done it. Others have done it with no results. And it's kind of ****** for you guys to keep insisting that it's guaranteed to work, because it sets up this paradigm where the only possible way someone can try it your way and come to a different conclusion, is because they didn't pray sincerely enough or with enough passion, or something. They didn't want to know badly enough.
This is hogwash. You are not in a position to know the sincerity or the greatness of desire that another man might have to discover the truth. We are all seekers, of one kind of another, even the atheists. There are few enough things that any of us can be sure of, but gentlemen, tonight I tell you this: You can be utterly and completely certain that you are wrong to phrase things this way.
Not so fast.
before you call hogwash. . . .
consider whether religion is actually science, or whether it should be. Or logic, or rational, or objectively demonstrable, or . . . and would you really want it to be?????
We had a thousand years of state religions in Europe, we've had thirteen hundred years of state religion in the Mideast. . . . Do you really want librarians going shhhhhh!!!!!!!!!! pointing their fingers at the DeweyDecimal Stone Tablets wherein God has Himself writ the laws of the land???? saying Be Reverent. . . . . this is the word of God, proven incontrovertibly to all Mankind. . . . .?????
I think there is no better way than for God to leave people free to have faith than the "Pray. . . . ask God. . . . follow your heart" thing. And of course folks who expect rational answers should just be made to wait until they get the right attitude about it all. If you can possibly make them wait, and not just start a new State Religion for everybody to believe.
faith is just something different, entirely. . . . . it is like Love, in a way. I hope God doesn't want me love Him for some silly stupid little reasons, for a bit a logic, for a "trick of thought". . . Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a poem about love, "If Thou Must Love Me. . . ." well, maybe it's a bit uppity to be telling people why they should love you in the first place.
What if God just wants you to make a free will choice to love Him?
My faith in God is a freely given gift from me to Him, just like my life is a freely given gift from Him to me. . . . .
and I'm not sure whether it's the religious or the unreligious who most fail to understand this. . . .
Stickler
Well-Known Member
I have no idea what you're talking about. Is this post a joke? I'm being serious.
Stickler
Well-Known Member
Well, look. Let me try to tackle this. I'm going to skip the utterly nonsensical gibberish of your first few paragraphs, if you don't mind, and come to the points that don't sound as if they were written by a man on LSD. (And I say that with love. LSD is ****ing wonderful. But also you were sounding unutterably insane for a minute there.) 
This is such a massively sucky thing to say. I forgive you, because I believe you don't fully realize what you're saying, which is this: The only reason you haven't received the answers you crave is because you have a bad attitude; When you prayed for answers you didn't follow your heart; When you prayed for answers you expected rational, scientific results; God is making you wait because you don't presently deserve His redemption. Babe, this is a bunch of rotten assumptions about things you're not privy to.
You don't know God's mind on this issue. You don't know the minds of the men who seek but find no answers. Your points are, first, insulting; and second, something there isn't exactly a word for -- some combination of arrogant, superior, and smug. And in the name of science, I reject your findings.
Again, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you have no idea how awful you sound. You fail to find the answers you crave because you approach God with silly stupid thought tricks, rather than with the righteous sincerity of the just. You don't know what faith is. You haven't experienced what I've experienced and are therefore incapable of formulating real thought on the topic. Let me try to explain this in a way someone like you might understand...
I'm glad that you have this faith. I hope it fuels you to do good. I hope you're having a happy life. You don't know what you're talking about. I don't love God? Pfff.
Here's what I think. I think you read my post, and reacted emotionally immediately, without a thought. I don't think there was any verbalization in your mind. You just came instantly to a series of conclusions, based on the emotions that hit you all at once. Probably these emotions didn't hit you very hard. And I don't imagine that they were emotions of confusion or anger. I think you probably felt some human warmth toward your fellow man, we lost wanderers, and I think you may have had the desire to share something meaningful, to lay down some serious truth. I think you knew -- knew -- based on the magic of your own religious awakening (or strengthening, more likely) and the love for Jesus that you carry inside yourself, that you had the answer. I think even now, you're reading this post and feeling like there's no way you could be wrong. Probably you have a slight sense of sadness that we who don't get it, just don't get it. You are certain about this in the calm center of your heart in a way that those of who don't know simply cannot understand. You know the answers, and they're exactly the way you've set them out. We are not sincere enough. We are not righteous enough. We are not seeking Jesus with full hearts.
You're sorry if we don't like it, and normally you would be careful not to phrase things that are precious to us in a way that might hurt our feelings, but you cannot compromise for the sakes of our wickles on a matter such as this. You have vowed to speak the truth when it comes to Jesus Christ, and so you must.
You have Jesus. We don't. That's simply all there is to it. YOU are the authority.
Do I have that right?
Allow me to correct you. You are not the authority. You do not know my secrets, or the secrets of God. (If you knew the secrets of God, you couldn't be so very, very wrong about everything. It wouldn't be possible.)
Edit:
I am not in a position to claim that your general religious beliefs are wrong. That isn't what I meant. I would like that to be clear.
This is such a massively sucky thing to say. I forgive you, because I believe you don't fully realize what you're saying, which is this: The only reason you haven't received the answers you crave is because you have a bad attitude; When you prayed for answers you didn't follow your heart; When you prayed for answers you expected rational, scientific results; God is making you wait because you don't presently deserve His redemption. Babe, this is a bunch of rotten assumptions about things you're not privy to.
You don't know God's mind on this issue. You don't know the minds of the men who seek but find no answers. Your points are, first, insulting; and second, something there isn't exactly a word for -- some combination of arrogant, superior, and smug. And in the name of science, I reject your findings.
Again, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you have no idea how awful you sound. You fail to find the answers you crave because you approach God with silly stupid thought tricks, rather than with the righteous sincerity of the just. You don't know what faith is. You haven't experienced what I've experienced and are therefore incapable of formulating real thought on the topic. Let me try to explain this in a way someone like you might understand...
I'm glad that you have this faith. I hope it fuels you to do good. I hope you're having a happy life. You don't know what you're talking about. I don't love God? Pfff.
Here's what I think. I think you read my post, and reacted emotionally immediately, without a thought. I don't think there was any verbalization in your mind. You just came instantly to a series of conclusions, based on the emotions that hit you all at once. Probably these emotions didn't hit you very hard. And I don't imagine that they were emotions of confusion or anger. I think you probably felt some human warmth toward your fellow man, we lost wanderers, and I think you may have had the desire to share something meaningful, to lay down some serious truth. I think you knew -- knew -- based on the magic of your own religious awakening (or strengthening, more likely) and the love for Jesus that you carry inside yourself, that you had the answer. I think even now, you're reading this post and feeling like there's no way you could be wrong. Probably you have a slight sense of sadness that we who don't get it, just don't get it. You are certain about this in the calm center of your heart in a way that those of who don't know simply cannot understand. You know the answers, and they're exactly the way you've set them out. We are not sincere enough. We are not righteous enough. We are not seeking Jesus with full hearts.
You're sorry if we don't like it, and normally you would be careful not to phrase things that are precious to us in a way that might hurt our feelings, but you cannot compromise for the sakes of our wickles on a matter such as this. You have vowed to speak the truth when it comes to Jesus Christ, and so you must.
You have Jesus. We don't. That's simply all there is to it. YOU are the authority.
Do I have that right?
Allow me to correct you. You are not the authority. You do not know my secrets, or the secrets of God. (If you knew the secrets of God, you couldn't be so very, very wrong about everything. It wouldn't be possible.)
Edit:
I am not in a position to claim that your general religious beliefs are wrong. That isn't what I meant. I would like that to be clear.
Last edited:
I enjoyed your response. I take it that my particular way of dealing with faith is just new to you.
No, I don't expect to be persuasive. I expect you will go right on with your fundamental world views. . . . oh, maybe with a grain of sand inside that clamshell which will stimulate some secretions, maybe produce a pearl of your own one day.
I think what it amounts to is that I fully realize I have nothing I can actually expect anyone else to understand. . . . but I'm ok with that. . . . and I don't see any need for others to cave and adopt my views. In fact, if anyone did, I'd probably have a strange urge to come up with something new.
No, I don't expect to be persuasive. I expect you will go right on with your fundamental world views. . . . oh, maybe with a grain of sand inside that clamshell which will stimulate some secretions, maybe produce a pearl of your own one day.
I think what it amounts to is that I fully realize I have nothing I can actually expect anyone else to understand. . . . but I'm ok with that. . . . and I don't see any need for others to cave and adopt my views. In fact, if anyone did, I'd probably have a strange urge to come up with something new.
anybody read the book STIFF? It's a non-fiction account of facts and beliefs about death and the dead over the last few centuries. Very fascinating - and it includes a couple chapters that describe scientists' experiments on cadavers trying to prove that we have a soul, that there is life after death, stuff like that.
don't recall the author, it was written about 5-7 years ago I think, google it if you're interested - - it's really full of fascinating stuff.
Duck Rodgers
Well-Known Member
Stickler, you're not exactly helping these people out. At least Gameface just says he worships the mind, and doesn't care much for spirituality at all, and doesn't like the concept of answering to an omnipotent.
You are an anonymous Internet poster that hasn't shared anything about your life while portending interest in the spiritual if it exists and asking why you don't feel anything. There is a reason proselytizing is done face-to-face. So people can get to know who they are talking to, and then suggest measures to take thereafter. What are you expecting these guys to tell you when they don't even know you?
You are an anonymous Internet poster that hasn't shared anything about your life while portending interest in the spiritual if it exists and asking why you don't feel anything. There is a reason proselytizing is done face-to-face. So people can get to know who they are talking to, and then suggest measures to take thereafter. What are you expecting these guys to tell you when they don't even know you?
We seem to be at an impasse here. Two sides of a discussion that will not agree. I have done it and it works, and in all fairness we are talking about one specific portion of a whole system of things. You tried it and it didn't work. Why did it not work for you, I have no idea becasue I wasn't there to watch you do it, and I have no way of knowing what is in your mind and heart.
It kind of reminds me of when I have computer problems. I am trying to install this program and I am following the instructions, but it just will not work. I tell my IT person, and say I am following the instructions exactly but it still will not work... what's the deal. My IT guy has no way of knowing how to help me, so he will do it while I watch. It works for him, and as it turns out I actually missed a step, even though I thought I was doing it right. Wierd. I was so adamant that I was doing it right. How was it possible I was missing something?
Before you start blanketing anything that you couldn't get to work as hogwash, you might want to be more... I dont know the words.... objective?, humble?, ... leave room that it is possible you are wrong. Before you say I could do the same... I do try to. If someone says something that I may take offense to, or think is way out there I try to think about it maybe from a new perspective to see if there is, or can be, any truth in what they are saying.
LogGrad98
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This is very often the way it works with discussion about religion, and politics, etc. Any time it is an emotional topic with no clear way for either side to validate their argument you will in all likelihood reach that impasse.
Just like the constant discussions about Boozer's influence. In the end it cannot be proven that we would, or would not, be any better with Boozer rather than AJ. That is purely in the realm of speculation. Still the back and forth and open discussion can be fun if no one takes it too seriously.
Jerry Lundegaard
Banned
Through biology, I am defined as my mother and father's child. A dynamic entity capable of genetically limited actions that may or may not be great and beautiful depending on circumstances.
I would too, but it will never happen. It can't.
LogGrad98
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That was seriously deep. Who did you copy it from?
AAA Atheist Alcoholics Anonymous
The negative of any logical proposition is inherently more difficult to prove than the positive. To prove the positive existence of God, we only need to compel Him to show up and prove his Identity. To prove He doesn't exist would mean we have to traverse the entire universe in all dimensions, looking for all entities that could by any stretch of the imagination fit any of our imagined contructions of the concept "God". But still, "can't be done" has generally been proven wrong in human experience, as once we know enough about a proposed project to say that, our imaginations as a virtually infinite set of human beings combine with the power of statistical mechanics with the result that someone does it, though in a previously unconceived manner. . . . .
So the flying spaghetti monster exists!!!
LogGrad98
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Have you been touched by his noodly appendage? It is something you will never forget.