The Simplicity Of The Christian Message

[sdelsolray]

I agree, Thumbelina is not making the LoTR argument, but seems to make the argument that because it's written in the Bible its true. My point was, if that's your logic then Harry Potter is true. (Which we know its not.)

 

Hmm minor observation here: in re-reading her question it seems loaded in a way that atheists often get accused of loading questions. Is that what you are referring to as "disingenuous questions" sdelsolray?

 

 

Well LF, my post was:

 

 

The actual empirical evidence demonstrates that all carbon based lifeforms on Earth, including homo sapiens, eventually die, perish, cease to function, or whatever you want to call it.

 

Wishful thinking otherwise does not change this reality.

 

 

To which Thumby inquired:

 

So you're agreeing with the bible which says this planet is cursed & entropy & death occurs?

 

Yes, it's disingenuous.  Its attempt to control and direct the conversation, tries to put words in my mouth and reeks of religious bias.  Fits her MO quite nicely.  Nothing new there.

 

She was wrong about me agreeing that the Earth is cursed.  I suspect she used the word "entropy" to try to sound all sciency or something.  That was another boo boo.  I did agree with death part.  How surprising.

 

Her question drips with wishful thinking bordering on delusion.

[LogicalFallacy]

Thanks for clarifying.

 

Yes, an interesting way of phrasing the question since there was a next to zero possibility that you (or any non believer here) would agree with the question in its entirety.

[ironhorse]

 

Salvation from what, Ironhorse?

 

Do tell.

 

~ BAA

 

 

saved from perishing

 

What three letter word, found many times in the Bible, causes us to perish, Ironhorse?

.

.

.

Hint :  A B C D E F G H  I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

 

(But you have to rearrange the highlighted letters to make the proper answer.)

 

 

 

BAA, are you testing my reading compression skills?

 

I started on page one of this thread and tried to find where you asked me for a three letter word answer. I didn’t find that “three letter” word question.

 

Am I missing it?

[Jeff]

Another dodge

[Jeff]

1. Thou shalt go among them and try their patience. Thou shalt ignore their request as they are accursed in their surfing.

2. Thou shalt ignore them even to the 100th day and more. Verily thou shalt ignore and play dumb.

3. When thy fu is weak thou shalt dodge. Yea thou shalt dodge with all thy might, and pick the fruit of the cherry tree wisely.

4. If thou shalt see the battle turn against thee, run and hide for many days and return with a song upon your lips to dismay them. And the words of the poet will disarm them.

5. Thus speaketh thy imaginary guide, thy den into which thy crawl to escape and return to troll thy foes many days to come.

[TABA]

1. Thou shalt go among them and try their patience. Thou shalt ignore their request as they are accursed in their surfing.

2. Thou shalt ignore them even to the 100th day and more. Verily thou shalt ignore and play dumb.

3. When thy fu is weak thou shalt dodge. Yea though shalt dodge with all thy might, and pick the fruit of the cherry tree wisely.

4. If thou shalt see the battle turn against thee, run and hide for many days and return with a song upon your lips to dismay them. And the words of the poet will disarm them.

5. Thus speaketh thy imaginary guide, thy den into which thy crawl to escape and return to troll thy foes many days to come.

 

 

Thou speakest great wisdom, as one who heareth the words of the Lord, and doth convey them to those who doth walk on the earth below. Thou art numbered among the prophets of old: Moses, Elijah and Jeff.

[Thumbelina]

The RedneckProfessor:




"Thumperina,"



Why call ye me a thumper? Do you feel persecuted by the Word? The Word cuts but it's the cut of a physician; it cuts to heal. Don't resist it, man, it's for our sake. I said this lightly but I realize that many had bad experiences, hence you being ex-Christians.

"If god had not betrayed Adam and Eve in the garden, by placing a test before them, which he intentionally made impossible for them to pass, then perishing, death, entropy--call it whatever you want--would not be something god would need to "save" us from. god is a joke; and a bad one at that. He's the clumsy fool who sets up a series of tragedies in an effort to impress the fair maiden by swooping in to save her at the last minute. What must we be "saved" from? god's regret for making us as he did, "tempting" us as he did, intentionally setting us up to fail, as he did in the garden."




If you alone are innately immortal (1 Timothy 6:16), how would you ensure you are not enslaving beings to live with you against their will? Will you give them a choice between life or death? ... or will you just leave them to live miserably forever & resenting you? Would you be a merciful God & give quasi naïve transgressors (Luke 23:34) probationary time to see if they truly want to die or live? If you love your children & they rebel & as a result they face oblivion, would you want to prevent it as far as possible with you? Why do some folks who know eating a lot of sugar & not brushing their teeth will cause tooth decay, continue to do those things but when nerve pain actually starts it spurs them on to follow the rules for healthy teeth?

"Were god not such an incompetent ass, we'd have no need for "salvation". In truth, if god were even the slightest bit intelligent, we'd have no need for him at all; because his "plan" would have been circumspect, forward-thinking, and rational (like the plans humans make). Instead, your god purposefully sold us into sin so that he could buy us all back as slaves. He genuinely expects us to be grateful for his betrayal. What hubris! To think that we, mere mortals, would not be able to see through his designs to create evil and unleash it upon the earth using Adam and Eve as his scapegoat.

god hates himself most of all.

No sentient being could be so full of false-pride, arrogance, simultaneous lust for blood and praise without a deep-seeded hatred for himself. Why would he be so hell-bent on hell, unless he knows deep down inside, that he deserves it most of all? Why would he demand, with such vigor, the destruction of his creation, if he didn't see in it the very nature he hates within himself? Your god is a hideous distortion of all that is good, noble, and beautiful in the world and in humanity. A tyrant, a despotic idiot with the mentality of a 12-year-old and a codependency to match. WE don't need to be saved by him; HE needs to be saved from himself.

And in saving himself; maybe there's a chance the rest of us could be saved from him."




That god you described is not my God. You described Satan, except he can't create anything exnihilo. You're right, no created being can handle Glory & Praise; with that comes SND-- Situational Narcissistic Disorder. Only God is innately selfless, therefore He's the only one that is worthy of praise & honor.

"Have a good day,
TheRedneckProfessor"





Thank you for the well-wishes. Hope this day is good for you.

 

[Thumbelina]

Ficino


So you're agreeing with the bible which says this planet is cursed & entropy & death occurs?
What hope does atheism offer anyone?
-----------------------------

"Hi Thumbelina, welcome back."



Hello. Thank you . I tend to miss bantering with you. Hope you're Ok?



"I think that by now, you know that people don't just decide to make an act of faith in atheism. Rather, they discover, often after much travail, that Christianity's unique claims have no foundation. Life and everything in it starts to make sense as it never did before."



Yes, I realize that, friend. Most people who become atheistic did not get a good, practical picture of God that will offer them something better than what the world offers.



Thumbelina: So what is the hope of a person who has come to realize that there is no God?

"The hope of everything good that we experience, create, and share. It's not hard.

It's better to live in reality without a pie in the sky fantasy than to live the disordered life that the fantasy, and the leaders who profit from it, demand."



... but if we're realistic we see that many people use fig leaves of self-medicating- alcoholism, materialism, escapism etc., to deal with this transient life & world?

The peace that this world offers is based primarily on material success. What happens when all that crumbles? Can atheistic beliefs give hope to people. Even the rich tend not to be happy. People want to steal from them or use them etc. & I believe we're all made with a yearning for God.



Ficino, I think you realize I care about unbelievers not perishing for the reason of them misunderstanding God's love for them, right?




 

[TheRedneckProfessor]

Thumperina,

 

When you say that the god I described was not your god, but Satan, are you admitting that you DON'T worship the god of the bible, or that you DO worship Satan?

 

Have a good day,

TheRedneckProfessor

[Thumbelina]

Thumperina,

When you say that the god I described was not your god, but Satan, are you admitting that you DON'T worship the god of the bible, or that you DO worship Satan?

Have a good day,
TheRedneckProfessor


Neither.
I do worship the God of the bible who is a wonderful, loving, merciful savior.
Satan is the bloodthirsty tyrant you described in your blasphemous statements.

[bornagainathiest]

 

 

Salvation from what, Ironhorse?

 

Do tell.

 

~ BAA

 

 

saved from perishing

 

What three letter word, found many times in the Bible, causes us to perish, Ironhorse?

.

.

.

Hint :  A B C D E F G H  I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

 

(But you have to rearrange the highlighted letters to make the proper answer.)

 

 

 

BAA, are you testing my reading compression skills?

 

I started on page one of this thread and tried to find where you asked me for a three letter word answer. I didn’t find that “three letter” word question.

 

Am I missing it?

 

 

Thank you for your diligent search through the eleven (11) pages and two hundred and nine (209) posts in this thread, Ironhorse.

 

However, the only post you need to look at to answer my question about the three-letter answer is this one.   So please read on.

 

Yesterday, in post # 172, you wrote that we are... 'saved from perishing.'

 

I then asked you, in post # 174, what three-letter word, found many times in the Bible, causes us to perish.

 

In the hint I gave you I highlighted three letters from the alphabet... I and N and S.

 

So that three-letter word, the thing that the Bible says causes us to perish, consists of only these three letters.

 

Since the following combinations are not in the Bible and do not cause us to perish, you can exclude them when you reply to this post and answer my question.

 

ins   isn   nis   nsi   sni   

 

There is only one other combination of the letters I and N and S that is a word mentioned many times in the Bible and which the Bible says causes us to perish.

 

Please tell us what that word is, Ironhorse.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

Thumperina,

 

Would you agree that you haven't really read and studied the bible as much as you should, and therefore do not realize that the god revealed in the bible is, in fact, exactly as I have described him? Keep in mind that many of us here, myself included, can put forth plenty of verses to support the aforementioned description.

 

Have a good day,

TheRedneckProfessor

[LogicalFallacy]

 

 

Salvation from what, Ironhorse?

 

Do tell.

 

~ BAA

 

 

saved from perishing

 

[What three letter word, found many times in the Bible, causes us to perish, Ironhorse?

.

.

.

Hint :  A B C D E F G H  I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

 

(But you have to rearrange the highlighted letters to make the proper answer.)

 

 

 

BAA, are you testing my reading compression skills?

 

I started on page one of this thread and tried to find where you asked me for a three letter word answer. I didn’t find that “three letter” word question.

 

Am I missing it?

 

Good god!

 

It's right there!

 

I'll help - it's highlighted in red.

 

If BAA was testing, you failed rather miserably.

[ironhorse]

sin

[Guest Furball]

1. Do you feel persecuted by the Word? The Word cuts but it's the cut of a physician; it cuts to heal. Don't resist it, man, it's for our sake.

 

2. I said this lightly but I realize that many had bad experiences, hence you being ex-Christians.

 

 

 

 

1. Been awhile since I've seen this kind of christian mind control displayed. 

 

2. Why do christians keep saying we're ex-christians because of a bad experience?? I'm an ex-christian because christianity is false. There is no evidence to support any of it. Infact all the evidence we do have: Historical Records, Geology, Cosmology, Science, Archeology, false prophesies in the OT/NT, promises made by god and jesus towards believers that don't ever materialize, 2,000 years of unanswered prayers etc. prove it to be a hoax beyond a shadow of a doubt. 

 

It's not what you believe, it's what you can prove. In the 2,000 years of christianity, not one christian, ever...has proven christianity to be true using factual evidence. Why doesn't the christian stay up at night worrying about going to allah's hell? The koran also claims to be the only word of god, and that it as well is the only health for your soul and that if you follow anyone else other than mohamad, you'll perish in hell for all of eternity. Religions that predate christianity, even judaism, also have their own scriptures which also state that their scriptures are the only true words of god, and that by listening to their scriptures your soul will be healed and that if you don't listen explicitly to them you're going to have one terrible afterlife. It's fascinating to see the christian brainwashing at work. When it comes to all other religions, be they existed before or after christianity, christians will use critical thinking skills to dismantle these other beliefs as false. They can easily see the blatant contradictions and absurdities in all other religions..........but their own. How strange is that?? Mohammad flying around heaven on a winged horse? Utterly absurd and idiotic says the christian. Oh, but jesus flying to heaven on a cloud..........that's totally real. Give me a break.

 

And stop saying god cares about me. If adam and eve were righteous (sinless) in god's sight, yet god still allowed them to be tempted and allowed satan to infiltrate their abode, showing god did NOT care about their well being...then why would god care about me if I am not righteous (sinful) in his sight? If you say god put the tree there and allowed satan to tempt them to test their faith, then that doesn't make any sense with fact that god is all knowing and knew his creation would fail beforehand thus rendering a test of faith pointless; not to mention god's statement that his creation was very good would be a blatant lie. There are more holes in the bible and the gospel story itself than a warehouse of swiss cheese. 

 

Please turn your brain back on.

 

Sincerely,

 

your fellow humans. 

[LogicalFallacy]

sin

Thank you Ironhorse!

 

Righty we can proceed (BTW feel free to answer my questions in the "In the beginning thread" we are going on 80+ days with no reply from you.)

 

 

Ironhorse and Thumbelina,

 

We now have the answer - the three letter word that causes us to perish is "sin".

 

Thumbelina asserted in a previous post that the world was cursed, caused as we know by sin. So considering this, "Where and when did this curse originate"?

 

 

Now Ironhorse, you and I have some outstanding questions relating to all this as its very important, contrary to what you say, to know what view you hold. You asserted in post #132 (http://www.ex-christian.net/topic/74125-the-simplicity-of-the-christian-message/page-7#entry1129636) that it did not matter to the simplicity of the Christian message as to which opposing and mutually exclusive Christian view you hold.

 

I strongly disagree and have the following questions:

 

1) Do you accept that doing away with a literal Adam and Eve negates the plan of salvation? Paul said "for for ONE MAN (Adam) did sin come into the world, and by one man (Jesus) sin is taken away". Therefore any 'Christian theory' that does away with a literal Adam and Eve does away with sin and thus the need for salvation. Therefore it is very important as to which view you hold. (You have previously stated what view you hold doesn't matter, but I have shown it does... if you believe the bible.)

 

2) IF you don't accept that Adam and Eve were literal, then how do you explain Jesus referring to them as literal, and how do you account for original sin?

 

3) Why won't you be straight up with us an tell us which view you have? You will have a view of Genesis chapters 1-4. (Literal or metaphorical) So be straight up and tell us.

 

 

 

Thumbelina, a specific question for you: are you a Seventh Day Adventist? If not, what is your particular flavour of Christianity?

 

 

Thanks

 

LF

[TheRedneckProfessor]

 Why do christians keep saying we're ex-christians because of a bad experience?? 

 

That's the simplicity of the ex-christian message, I suppose.

[♦ ficino ♦]

... but if we're realistic we see that many people use fig leaves of self-medicating- alcoholism, materialism, escapism etc., to deal with this transient life & world?

 

The peace that this world offers is based primarily on material success. What happens when all that crumbles? Can atheistic beliefs give hope to people. Even the rich tend not to be happy. People want to steal from them or use them etc. & I believe we're all made with a yearning for God.

 

 

 

Ficino, I think you realize I care about unbelievers not perishing for the reason of them misunderstanding God's love for them, right?

Hi Thumbelina, yes, I think you care about unbelievers. I think you could be more candid than you have been - for example, why not just tell us your denominational affiliation? But I think you do care. You are no troll (there are some others who I do think are trolls).

 

I strongly disagree about what you say re the peace that this world offers. First, I don't think "this world" should be personified as it is in phrases like "the world" from scripture, as though we can talk of its "offering" us things. There is only a huge universe, in which we are very tiny players. I deny that there is a dichotomy between "the world" and "the kingdom of God" and such.

 

Second, as far as I've seen and experienced, peace and meaning must be constructed by each person. And it doesn't rest in material success. It rests in our loving relationships, our work and contributions, our wonder at what surrounds us every day. Some day, the atoms that make up me will become part of other things. That's OK. I will have been glad for having been conscious and having given and received. Our sense of wonder is what I take to be what, to you, seems like a yearning for God. I think all people can feel awe at the sublime and all yearn to give and receive love. We don't need to postulate God to account for our humanity, and much that the God postulate brings with it can choke off the best parts of us.

[bornagainathiest]

sin

 

Ironhorse,

 

Thank you for admitting the Christian message isn't as simple as you claimed at the beginning of this thread.

 

There, you wrote that you... 'simply believe in Christ and go from there'.

 

But now you are now saying that the Christian message also requires a belief in... sin.

 

So why didn't you say this 103 days ago, in your opening post?

[Jeff]

 

1. Thou shalt go among them and try their patience. Thou shalt ignore their request as they are accursed in their surfing.

2. Thou shalt ignore them even to the 100th day and more. Verily thou shalt ignore and play dumb.

3. When thy fu is weak thou shalt dodge. Yea though shalt dodge with all thy might, and pick the fruit of the cherry tree wisely.

4. If thou shalt see the battle turn against thee, run and hide for many days and return with a song upon your lips to dismay them. And the words of the poet will disarm them.

5. Thus speaketh thy imaginary guide, thy den into which thy crawl to escape and return to troll thy foes many days to come.

 

Thou speakest great wisdom, as one who heareth the words of the Lord, and doth convey them to those who doth walk on the earth below. Thou art numbered among the prophets of old: Moses, Elijah and Jeff.

It's the beard mostly

[♦ ficino ♦]

This commentator puts things well:

 

"Once people realize they can get everything religion offers without religion, they are free. Religion offers nothing that people can't generate for themselves, on their own. In fact, that's what religion is counting upon - that people will generate feelings of euphoria, rapture, bliss, and then attribute it to the religion or the suggested actions of its various "gods". And what religion encourages and fosters is a baseline of depression, disappointment, and despair (for which it claims to offer a "cure"). The religious rituals such as prayer and chanting are a vehicle for self-hypnosis - they render the individual suggestible and susceptible to religious manipulation. Religions employ "critical-thought breakers" - "mysteries" that are irrational and impossible to make sense of, so that people are reduced to "You just have to have faith." Virgin births, 1+1+1=1, etc. "How" and "why" are forbidden question starters."

 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rolltodisbelieve/2017/01/18/a-creationist-accidentally-exposes-the-big-problem-with-creationism/#comments

 

 

[bornagainathiest]

A brief announcement.

 

I will be away from Ex-C for (perhaps) the next two weeks.

 

My partner has just received some very sad news and we are acting upon it today.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

A brief announcement.

 

I will be away from Ex-C for (perhaps) the next two weeks.

 

My partner has just received some very sad news and we are acting upon it today.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

All the best, BAA.  If there's anything I can do to help you and yours, let me know.

[sdelsolray]

Yes, BAA...anything you may need let us know.  Take care of your family.

[bornagainathiest]

 

My sincere thanks go out to those members who wished me well and offered me help and support in my recent days of difficulty.  You know who you are and by way of thanks I'd now like to affirm that I'd do the same for you, if the need arose.  Imho, the word 'family' can mean more than blood and kin.  It can also refer to people who are physically separated, but linked and joined in other deeply meaningful ways.  My family of Ex-Christians in this forum are proof of that.  

 

Thanks again,

 

BAA.