Why We Need Ex Christians To Come Back To The Church

[white_raven23]

No thanks.

 

For the life of me I cannot figure out why christians think nonbelievers are unhappy. Pretty big assumption on the lives of complete strangers in my opinion. Not to mention pretty damn insulting for someone who doesn't even know me, to think they are in any way qualified to give me advice. Particularly when the advice is unasked for.

 

I think unhappiness is the understandable response to living in a dog eat dog world. i ain't dancin' on clouds. but i was more miserable when i had no God.

 

I'm offering my experience cause two years ago I would have appreciated it from someone else.

 

For my part, no thanks.

 

The most valid life experience a person has, is their own. As for the lives of others? Observing their experiences is useful when wishing to avoid certain outcomes, like becoming addicted to drugs, or unplanned pregnancy. Such outcomes are clearly avoidable, so long as you realize you are no "better" or "stronger" or "more special" than they are. You can only avoid drug addiction by not experimenting with drugs under the assumption of being strong enough to "handle" them. And you don't prevent pregnancy by just believing it won't happen to you.

 

The critical difference I've seen with christians? They are mask wearers. They have this beautiful smiling mask they put on when asked about their faith, when they go to church, and whenever they are in the presence of fellow church members. But if you pay attention, catching them in those unguarded moments where they are being themselves....their lives are no better than anyone else's. And they may even be worse as they try to convince everyone, including themselves that the mask really really is their face.

 

I have better things to do with my life than try to be someone else's idea of "better". Especially when that "person" is the extrapolated superbeing based on the character in a book.

[truthseeker10000]

No thanks.

 

For the life of me I cannot figure out why christians think nonbelievers are unhappy. Pretty big assumption on the lives of complete strangers in my opinion. Not to mention pretty damn insulting for someone who doesn't even know me, to think they are in any way qualified to give me advice. Particularly when the advice is unasked for.

 

I think unhappiness is the understandable response to living in a dog eat dog world. i ain't dancin' on clouds. but i was more miserable when i had no God.

 

I'm offering my experience cause two years ago I would have appreciated it from someone else.

 

For my part, no thanks.

 

The most valid life experience a person has, is their own. As for the lives of others? Observing their experiences is useful when wishing to avoid certain outcomes, like becoming addicted to drugs, or unplanned pregnancy. Such outcomes are clearly avoidable, so long as you realize you are no "better" or "stronger" or "more special" than they are. You can only avoid rug addiction by not experiementing with drugs under the assumption of being strong enough to "handle" them. And you don't prevent pregnancy by just believing it won't happen to you.

 

The critical difference I've seen with christians? They are mask wearers. They have this beautiful smiling mask they put on when asked about their faith, when they go to church, and whenever they are in the presence of fellow church members. But if you pay attention, catching them in those unguarded moments where they are being themselves....their lives are no better than anyone else's. And they may even be worse as they try to convince everyone, including themselves that the mask really really is their face.

 

I have better things to do with my life than try to be someone else's idea of "better". Especially when that "person" is the extrapolated superbeing based on the character in a book.

 

 

i agree about the fake smiles - to me the idea of God is humbling.

i wear no mask - i bet i am more miserable than many.

after all the world is pretty crappy. but hope gets me through. hope that I can refrain from giving in to greed, and pride, and all that. those are the things that hamper my ability to give of myself completely.

 

good night all. don't worry- i won't pray for any of you. I'll only ask that god will see my efforts here as charitable and not prideful.

 

thanks all

[♦ nivek ♦]

10k...

 

I don't even "clean up nice" nor do I give a damn about your religious flavoring of b u l l s h i t.

 

Your IP address and handle do come back in the foggy recesses of my mind as someone who might oughta find his way back out front door.

 

Gonna take a legal pad or two of searching but your style and SoCal address were unique your last visit here..

 

kFL

[hereticzero]

[...i'm a scientist.

Reality check. I doubt you are a scientist. Where do you work? What field? No one talks theological shit and claims to be a scientist too.

Let's see some credentials.

 

 

I worked in a genetics lab working on the isolation of the sequence responsible for galactosemia.

I worked in a biotech research lab in san diego where I studied better ways to produce western blot kits testing for various bugs. burdorferi pertussis etc.

I taught 10th grade physics, 7 and 8th grade science and computers.

 

and the reason i can talk theological shit is cause i know what i'm talking about.

science doesn't touch truth.

 

it just says how stuff works.

 

absolute truths lie in invisible stuff. happiness, love, why?, etc.

 

You are are a fucking moron! I bet you don't work teaching anyone anymore. 'science doesn't touch truth.' 'it just says how stuff works.' What are you? Really? You just don't talk shit here without proving something along the way. I've confronted many people like you. You are no scientist except in your own mind. Delusional thinking is a sign of mind control. Perhaps you should seek mental health? Try some Zoloft. It will make the manic high go by by. What would Jesus do?

 

 

science suggests models based data. the models explain the data. taken out of context the models explain nothing. look at newtonian mechanics. when you look at big stuff , it works. airplanes fly, cars run.

 

when you change the context. move to the very smalll. newton breaks down. in comes a different model. quantum physics.

 

each model explains particular phenomena in a particular context. there is no model that explains everything. if you had one maybe you'd be god.

 

and stop being mean.

 

if my son ever talked like that i give'em a crack.

You are no scientist. You can't even explain physics.

I'm not your kid.

Fuck you, kiss my crack.

[Tabula Rasa]

Truthseeker, I'll tell you why I won't ever set foot in a church again.

 

Because I tried the church one last time and when I went they turned away me and my girlfriend. My sweet, loving, caring girlfriend. Someone who volunteered for Habitat for Humanity, someone who was a Big Sister to a lonely girl, someone who would give you the shirt off her back.

 

But no, they didn't like they way she looked so I refuse to ever darken a church with my shadow again.

 

 

 

Here's a picture of her:

[Evolution_beyond]

if everyone goes to church the world won't necessarily be better.

if everyone goes to church and lives like christ the world would be better.

 

So why go to church? That's the part that doesn't seem to make any difference one way or the other.

[Michael]

I think unhappiness is the understandable response to living in a dog eat dog world. i ain't dancin' on clouds. but i was more miserable when i had no God.

 

Since I am an ex xian I feel much better then before. Things are suddenly making sense, I feel again in control over my life. I was more miserable when I had god.

[Evolution_beyond]

buddhists seem to end on empathy and compassion and charity, but it takes a long freakin time to reach that end. christ says start with charity. i just seems easier to me.

 

clean the outside - you can always clean the inside later. No, because if the inside is left filthy then you will never have enough goodness in your heart to get the outside clean.

 

That's why Buddhism takes time to work on the inner mind and heart of a person. Because only when you can work on the inner person, can that person be a good and compassionate person to others.

 

Christianity understands this principle too. It's there in your bible. Jesus used that metaphor about people who clean the outside but the inside is full of rot and decay.

 

Also Paul points out that you can't be saved by works, because no-one can be saved by works. First you have to have a renewal of the mind.

 

So why do many christians, such as yourself, make such a virtue out of cleaning the outside first???

[Kuroikaze]

After many years of seeking I've returned to the Church. It feels good to be home.

 

The church needs you. The body of Christ is the members of its church. We don't need robots we need people that love each other. You people have gone through torment destroying the childish parables taught to children. You've become intellectuals and have every reason to turn away. I say turn back and look closely one more time. Don't look for how stuff works in the world, ie. evolution, big bang, bla bla bla, that is the stuff of science. There are questions science can't answer. Like why evolution, why the big bang, why I exist. Go back to the basics. Read the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Look for your reading to touch your spirit, not satisfy your intellect. Some members of the church have made a mess of things. They've embarrassed us. They made decisions that don't seem to jive with the teachings. But WE are the church. It is the body of people that make up the body of Christ. And you are the thinking people. If you could get back on track you are powerful. You might see what is important and what is not.

 

It is because I am a thinking person that I see this as emotionalist nonsense. Its true that I don't know where the universe came from, but neither to you "know" where it came from, it is folly to assume that because we don't know the answer, god must have done it.

 

I don't care about arguing if there is a God or not.

 

Then don't start presenting arguments for gods existence, your previous post is a poorly worded ontological argument.

 

The world is better when you seek happiness as instructed in the Catechism. Happiness is the hole puposely left which needs filling. It can only be filled by seeking out God. You can become closer to God only through Charity. Charity is defined as loving one another the way Christ loved us. That means loving each other more than yourself or at least attempting to.

 

I'm not unhappy, I am actually much more happy now than I was as a believer, your argument fails to match my experience.

 

 

Would this make a better world.

 

Perhaps, but I don't see why god is necessary in the equation.

 

Does it make a difference who made the sky or whether or not a man lived in a whale.

 

The story is about love.

 

I think questions of historical accuracy are important if we are to take Christianity seriously.

 

 

If you've been following recent political events you might agree we could use some love. We need community. The church needs you to come back. We need to be a united people, we need thinking leadership, under God, living with focus, and making the world a better please.

 

I agree that we need to find a way for all of us to get along despite our differences, but I don't see that religion has done much to alleviate this problem, it usually just exacerbates it.

[Michael]

I'll only ask that god will see my efforts here as charitable and not prideful.

 

thanks all

 

So you are being kind to us to please god? Not because we are human beings that deserve a kind treatment? this is one thing I really hate about xians, that I always have the feeling, that it is not me they care about. They care about god only and non xians are worth nothing, except that you can convert them.

 

I am as charitable and compassionate as every xian I know. And thats, because my non xian parents raised me to treat other people friendly, accept others and try to make this world a better place.

[Grandpa Harley]

[...i'm a scientist.

Reality check. I doubt you are a scientist. Where do you work? What field? No one talks theological shit and claims to be a scientist too.

Let's see some credentials.

 

 

I worked in a genetics lab working on the isolation of the sequence responsible for galactosemia.

I worked in a biotech research lab in san diego where I studied better ways to produce western blot kits testing for various bugs. burdorferi pertussis etc.

I taught 10th grade physics, 7 and 8th grade science and computers.

 

and the reason i can talk theological shit is cause i know what i'm talking about.

science doesn't touch truth.

 

it just says how stuff works.

 

absolute truths lie in invisible stuff. happiness, love, why?, etc.

 

You are are a fucking moron! I bet you don't work teaching anyone anymore. 'science doesn't touch truth.' 'it just says how stuff works.' What are you? Really? You just don't talk shit here without proving something along the way. I've confronted many people like you. You are no scientist except in your own mind. Delusional thinking is a sign of mind control. Perhaps you should seek mental health? Try some Zoloft. It will make the manic high go by by. What would Jesus do?

 

 

science suggests models based data. the models explain the data. taken out of context the models explain nothing. look at newtonian mechanics. when you look at big stuff , it works. airplanes fly, cars run.

 

when you change the context. move to the very smalll. newton breaks down. in comes a different model. quantum physics.

 

each model explains particular phenomena in a particular context. there is no model that explains everything. if you had one maybe you'd be god.

 

and stop being mean.

 

if my son ever talked like that i give'em a crack.

 

My turn to cry Bullshit... Newton was ALWAYS at best a good approximation at commonly encountered scales QM kicks in at the nanometre scale, but above that this Newton modified by Relativity that is accurate. The fact that we ignore with impunity the small deviations above the nanometre and below the megametre range does not make Newton 'right', it just means we're sloppy... and Newton explains aerodynamics? in which universe?

 

Your God of the gaps is just you making up stuff to try and bolster the fact YOU can't deal with an incomplete model, and assume it's the same for the rest of us... I'm personally quite happy to see the model develop, in which ever direction that may be and see where it goes... but I don't see the hand of a god who would give a good bugger about what people who live here

 

 

think, feel or do... the scale, that you've invoked, is just plain wrong for that supposition... as a physicist you should have a grasp of scale...

[Grandpa Harley]

We are not interested in your version of reality. Read this before you post another word. And yes, there *will* be a test.

 

i like how when you get backed in a corner you get all huffy and threatening. as if i might destroy atheism or something. this is what the fundamentalists used to do when they ran out of arguments too.

 

 

and so the Troll nature comes to the fore... how very 'unexpected'

[Grandpa Harley]

buddhists seem to end on empathy and compassion and charity, but it takes a long freakin time to reach that end. christ says start with charity. i just seems easier to me.

 

clean the outside - you can always clean the inside later. No, because if the inside is left filthy then you will never have enough goodness in your heart to get the outside clean.

 

That's why Buddhism takes time to work on the inner mind and heart of a person. Because only when you can work on the inner person, can that person be a good and compassionate person to others.

 

Christianity understands this principle too. It's there in your bible. Jesus used that metaphor about people who clean the outside but the inside is full of rot and decay.

 

Also Paul points out that you can't be saved by works, because no-one can be saved by works. First you have to have a renewal of the mind.

 

So why do many christians, such as yourself, make such a virtue out of cleaning the outside first???

He evidently doesn't under stand the 'Whited Sepulchre' nor the general tenor of "The Picture of Dorian Grey"

[Legion]

Truthseeker, if you read up on some anthropology it might give you some insight into God.

[R. S. Martin]

TS10000, you just showed up here and started preaching your personal superstitions without lurking long enough to find out who we are and why we're here.

 

Essentially what you're doing is equivalent to handing out free beer at an AA meeting. As far as we're concerned, you are the ass here.

 

 

I'm very familiar with this site. I've posted here before, many months ago. I'm here because I didn't bring beer. I brought a new kind of beer. A beer alternative that doesn't break up families

 

DON'T YOU DARE SAY THAT!!!!!!!!!! YOU LIAR YOU THIEF YOU SCOUNDREL YOU SCUM OF THE EARTH.

Religion does nothing BUT break up families. Roman Catholicism does nothing BUT kill off its enemies. YOUR ANCESTORS MARTYRED MY ANCESTORS. And now you've come to poison me, you traitor you turncoat you betrayer of the truth and all that's good and noble and worth living for.

Yes I'm angry--more than angry--and rightfully so. You believe in purgatory. Hope you go there and stay there. Don't you dare go to hell because lots of my friends from exC will be there having a great time. Can't have it polluted by the likes of you. Just stay in your catholic purgatory for ever and ever amen.

[Grandpa Harley]

You missed "Lard faced sniffer of the pizzles of dogs!"

[Warrior_of_god]

I'll only ask that god will see my efforts here as charitable and not prideful.

Thats selfish. If thats all you want then why this diatribe about god and the broken church?

[R. S. Martin]

and the reason i can talk theological shit is cause i know what i'm talking about.

 

The reason *I* can talk about theology is because *I* know what I'm talking about. I'm trained in it. Professionally. So are a whole lot of others here. We've actually studied the stuff. We've read the Bible, we've studied church history. We've investigated claims for god and truth. We've tried it out in the labratory of life--we've put it to the test in the real world, expecting the promised results. GOD FAILED TO DELIVER.

 

We find love, truth, beauty, joy, all the good stuff. But YOUR brand of truth is empty.

[hereticzero]

I suspect most of ex-christians on this board study their babbles more than the usual xtian ever did. i've known xtians wearing jackets or baseball caps with a scripture reference on it, such as John 3:16, but they could not tell me what the verse was right off the top of their head. If i wore the stuff i'd at least have a general idea of what it said. Then again, look at how many xtians cannot rise above their cult training.

[Deva]

The thing about christ however is that his church is his body. The body is the sum of all the parishioners. The church has screwed up in the past. To change it you need a body of better representatives of christ. There are thinkers in these forums. That can be put to use.

 

Are you referring to women as well as men? I am mystified how thinking people, especially women, are supposed to effect changes in a heirarchical all male power system like that centered in the Vatican. Why would that church need thinking people at all? Isn't obedience the most important quality?

[Antlerman]

After many years of seeking I've returned to the Church. It feels good to be home.

 

The church needs you. The body of Christ is the members of its church. We don't need robots we need people that love each other. You people have gone through torment destroying the childish parables taught to children. You've become intellectuals and have every reason to turn away. I say turn back and look closely one more time. Don't look for how stuff works in the world, ie. evolution, big bang, bla bla bla, that is the stuff of science. There are questions science can't answer. Like why evolution, why the big bang, why I exist. Go back to the basics. Read the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Look for your reading to touch your spirit, not satisfy your intellect. Some members of the church have made a mess of things. They've embarrassed us. They made decisions that don't seem to jive with the teachings. But WE are the church. It is the body of people that make up the body of Christ. And you are the thinking people. If you could get back on track you are powerful. You might see what is important and what is not.

 

I don't care about arguing if there is a God or not.

 

The world is better when you seek happiness as instructed in the Catechism. Happiness is the hole puposely left which needs filling. It can only be filled by seeking out God. You can become closer to God only through Charity. Charity is defined as loving one another the way Christ loved us. That means loving each other more than yourself or at least attempting to.

 

Would this make a better world.

 

Does it make a difference who made the sky or whether or not a man lived in a whale.

 

The story is about love.

 

If you've been following recent political events you might agree we could use some love. We need community. The church needs you to come back. We need to be a united people, we need thinking leadership, under God, living with focus, and making the world a better please.

 

-truthseeker10000

Well thank you for your plea for love and charity in the world, but may I ask you this? If those who have this in their hearts, who live that in their lives, aren't they then that "body of Christ" as some might call it? Isn't living love doing this, and whether or not one is asked to set aside their intellectual doubts or objections to doctrinal statements is utterly beside the point? What do you consider 'returning to the body of Christ"? How does doctrinal affiliation have anything to do with love?

 

Maybe it has just taken you to step inside the walls again to be able to see what's outside them? A book of religion can help act as a lens for you to focus on these things, but there is a point of no longer needing that book.

 

You need to ask yourself, what is it really that people have left in leaving the church? Have they left Love, or tried to find it?

[florduh]

Actually, "truthseeker," your church has been one of the greatest causes of human misery throughout its history. It has fought every scientific advancement and has killed and tortured untold numbers to bring mankind its brand of love and peace. If you really want this "crappy" world to improve, help rid us of the Catholic church.

 

- Chris

[xandermac]

I don't think this person is real. I think he is just stirring up shit.

[Grandpa Harley]

Cottaging dandy!

[florduh]

I don't think this person is real. I think he is just stirring up shit.

 

It is very difficult to tell a sincere Catholic from a liar or lunatic.

 

- Chris