Hi My Name Is Aaron And Im A Christian How Are You Today/nite/morning/afternoon?

[blackpudd1n]

Destinyjesus3000,

 

You are yet another in a long line of xtians to come here, saying the same things, asking the same questions, making the same assumptions.

 

I think the questions you should be asking yourself are:

 

1. Why do we even bother replying to you at all?

2. Why aren't we really, really, really nasty to you, despite the fact that we're rather exasperated by you christians who come here?

 

Let me make it easy for you, and give you some answers:

 

1. We feel genuinely sorry for you, because we've been in your shoes;

2. We have a stupid hope that something we might say will kick-start the thinking in you.

 

Really, Aaron, you are playing with fire being here. You are up against former pastors and theologians in this community. You are up against people of impressive intellect, who have studied the bible extensively, know it back-to-front, investigated the history of the church, and as a result of all of that investigation, lost their faith.

 

Many of us here lost our faith accidentally. It was the end result of thinking, researching, and logic.

 

You know what started my journey to losing my faith? The very bible itself. The bible told me to "work out thy own salvation with fear and trembling". I took that to mean that God expected me to research, question, and learn, in order to strengthen my faith. Except... the opposite occured. I lost it.

 

Now, if you want to play with fire, please go ahead. But at some point, someone's going to say something that's going to stick in your mind, that you're going to be unable to forget. A little seed of doubt. As small as a mustard seed. And your faith, too, will eventually crumble, just as ours did. It will start with one little thought. One idea. One question, that you just can't let go of. And then you will end up in the same position as us: losing our families and friends, simply because, through no fault of our own, we lost our faith. And you will also have to deal with christians like yourself, trying to save back your soul for a god that doesn't exist, out of fear that you will go to a hell that doesn't exist. And you will feel very, very, very alone.

 

But, as much of an arse you may be to us, with your assumptions and derogatory language, if you do lose your faith, we will still accept you. because, surprisingly, when God is taken out of the picture, people become much nicer. We will still welcome you, even though every christian in your life will reject you for losing your faith. WE will be here for you. Now tell me who the arseholes are: us or christians?

[bornnormal]

@blackpudd1n:

 

I don't think that he will engage in an intelligent conversation.

 

 

Come on Aaron, prove me wrong!

[mymistake]

Wait for it, wait for it...(deep breath in)...TROLL!!! Seriously dude, are you even reading what's being said? You're surely not paying attention or putting any thought into it. Are you going to debate, or just spout your nonsense? I need to know, so I know whether to waste my time or not.

 

 

It does smell like troll in here.

[mymistake]

Hi i want to make it personal, Again my name is Aaron, i will be participating on this site for the long Haul, i hope to learn and grow in my christian faith, and i hope to Learn and Grow in different theology and perspectives, and understand the view of the world and of the unsaved.

 

I'm going to laugh so hard when you get banned.

 

You are rude. You start topics you don't finish. And you are going to make this personal.

[blackpudd1n]

Wait for it, wait for it...(deep breath in)...TROLL!!! Seriously dude, are you even reading what's being said? You're surely not paying attention or putting any thought into it. Are you going to debate, or just spout your nonsense? I need to know, so I know whether to waste my time or not.

 

 

It does smell like troll in here.

 

I'm going to give Aaron the benefit of the doubt.

 

I don't think he's trolling; I think he's genuinely interested, but completely out of his depth as to how to respond to the posts. And you know what can come out of being completely out of your depth? Thinking. Questions.

 

And, to me, he seems to be quite clearly baffled by us. I doubt that he joined up on a whim; I suspect this bafflement regarding us has been going on in his head for some time. And what does bafflement indicate? An inability to find answers to questions.

[Ouroboros]

We all know whats absolutely wrong,

Like taking slaves, killing innocents in the name of God, and sending people to Hell for something silly as not believing. In other words, your religion is representing the absolute wrong.

 

It's good to have that cleared and out of the way, so let's talk about a better belief than your ancient sheepherder superstition based religion.

[JoeCoastie]

There are approximately 38,000 denominations of Christianity. I think God should have been a bit more clear when putting his one true objective moral code into our hearts.

[TheBluegrassSkeptic]

Im sorry are you stating that culture or society should decide the the Moral law or code of the world? im not speaking of individual laws, im speaking of MORAL laws, greed, bravery, loyalty cowardice, Man did not make these up they were implanted into our Hearts by God. How can culture and societies serve as the source for Objective Moral values for the entire world? Given the fact that many cultures and People who live in America are used to the american court system, some court systems are twisted in other countries, some cultures they love their neighbors and in some they eat them. We all know societies exist, and they can differ quite a lot where their moral framework is concerned. Which one is the right choice in which the entire World must act upon as an absolute right or wrong? If a singular culture cannot be chosen as the Moral standard for the world, then another possibility is just to let each culture decide on morality, and yet this becomes an issue because unless human beings around the world want to turn a blind eye to customs such as widow burning (a practice where a living wife is burned alive, with he deceased husband) The problem of even deciding what is a moral Law for the world to abide by within a culture becomes problematic, if the majority rules that rape is good does that make it morally good?

Well seeing how your introduction says that subjectiveness is only opinion, this entire last paragraph is YOUR opinion. There are not any facts here except what you believe to be the facts by information YOU made the OPINION in your heart to be sound. It is your OPINION that an idol implanted certain morals into our hearts. You might not see it as an opinion, but as a fact because, like I stated a moment ago, you made an opinion in your mind that the words from an idol are sound and must be true. Purely subjective on your part.

 

Secondly, you are going on about majority rules. Well, that is EXACTLY how you are operating within your religion. Because the majority agrees abortion is wrong, does that give you the right to tell me what to do with my body while at the same time the Christian majority feels circumcision is necessary and has mutilated young boys all across America and even purport it as medically necessary to the unsaved? Because the majority agrees theft is wrong, does that mean children should have to starve because there aren't enough jobs out there? Society IS complex. That is the only decent observation I see in your post here. An idol had very little to do with the moral code except creating a mythological boogey man to enforce said code.

[centauri]

Christians dont always take the best approach in dealing with the Unsaved and so they get attacked, but that will happen either way regardless of approach, we will get attacked even if we agree with an unsaved person.

This is a version of the popular "Christians are persecuted" talking point.

Your use of the term "unsaved" is only a matter of opinion.

Aren't you attacking people by labeling them as such?

How do you know that you're saved and in a position to be dealing with others from a position of superiority?

Do you have any actual evidence that you're "saved" and people here aren't?

You simply assume these things based on your whims.

 

But Then again who am i to say what is appropriate and what is not?

Indeed.

You would help your case by not assuming that your opinions are facts.

 

God Made us so he Wrote the Law on our Hearts Bible says this in Romans 2 :15 " They Demonstrate that Gods Law is written on their hearts for their own thoughts either accuse them, or tell them they are doing right"

If God wrote his law on your heart you'd be following it.

However, you already claimed in another thread that the law was null and void except for the ten commandments.

Both statements contradict the Old Testament, so I have no idea why you use the word "God" when you don't really believe in the Old Testament deity.

 

We all know whats absolutely wrong, then is there an absolute standard of righteousness. Without this objective standard, any objection is your personal opinion.

Is your definition of "absolute wrong" objective or is it your personal opinion?

 

Granted the unsaved don't need to believe in God to discern moral duties or understand that objective morals values exist but in order to ground an objective moral law, then you need to have a Transcendant source of those Values, because universal Moral law transcends humanity, and because a law requires a law giver, then the universal law requires a universal law giver and guess who that is?

It's a bearded old man that lives up in the sky, who tosses out thunderbolts and smites misbehaving humans with them.

[Suzy]

Have you ever read your Bible? Do you REALLY think the Biblegod has good morals? Ordering the murder of whole nations - including women and children, rape, slavery, discrimination against women, homosexuals, people of other religions, playing with people's lives just for the fun of it (eg. Job), mass-killing youth just for mocking a fucking prophet, poligamy and so on and so forth. We would be pretty fucked up if we truly followed the Biblical moral code today but thankfully we have moved forward since the Biblical times. To suggest that the Biblegod is moral is a false premise in itself, let alone calling him the source of our morals.

 

[mymistake]

I'm going to give Aaron the benefit of the doubt.

 

That is always your right. Your mercy and grace are nobel.

 

I don't think he's trolling; I think he's genuinely interested, but completely out of his depth as to how to respond to the posts. And you know what can come out of being completely out of your depth? Thinking. Questions.

 

I hope you are right. To me it looks like he lets his indoctrination do his thinking for him. I think the key issue with Christians is how do they react when they are confronted with the flaws in their belief system. In my experience the ones who shrug it off without pausing and keep going like nothing happened are not going to have a real conversation. Your millage may vary.

 

And, to me, he seems to be quite clearly baffled by us. I doubt that he joined up on a whim; I suspect this bafflement regarding us has been going on in his head for some time. And what does bafflement indicate? An inability to find answers to questions.

 

Yes. He left a lot of unanswered questions in the Why Does Christianity Exist? thread, the Why Christians Come Here thread? and the Why Are Athiests Afraid of Hell Yet They Don't Believe In It thread?. Now he is going to leave a lot of unanswered questions in this new thread he started. He does have a problem finding answers. Maybe it's time for him to make a new thread?

[par4dcourse]

Hi Aaron. I'm Larry and I'm an atheist and you're another annoying fucking christard. Now, go back to your xian forum and tell 'em all how awful those darn atheists are, since you now know all about us.

[LivingLife]

Drive-by buybull mooning 4 Jeebus

 

[JoeCoastie]

If you truly are sincere about getting to know us Aaron, please don't be so condemning. You're on our turf here and trust me there is no magic verse in the Bible that'll turn us around. I burned my bible and used some of its pages to create my user photo. It's language is no longer a source of authority in my life. If you want to appeal to us you must use logic and reason. To do so you must think for yourself.

[Destinyjesus3000]

thanks Larry for your name and introduction, i am on break at work, i often dont have time to respond to all, only in general, but i will try to do a bit better, but i need the physical time to do so, Thanks for the one who gives me the benefit of the doubt, i am a genuine person looking for answers, and trying to understand but i cannot do that without knowing what the other side thinks. so when im not on m break i will try to answer a few questions. I will say this,...lets say for example a childs father tells the child the stove is hot, they child believs at first, but when the father leaves, he tests it out for himself and finds out it really is hot, as his father says, then one day an heat and stove expert comes in and tells the child, he lil dude, this stove is not Hot...The child says, Sir....i dotn care what degree you have i dont belive the stove is hot i KNOW its hot. This si the way i feel about my Faith i know what my Father(God) says and so i wont be shaken by skeptics.

[Margee]

this becomes an issue because unless human beings around the world want to turn a blind eye to customs such as widow burning (a practice where a living wife is burned alive, with he deceased husband)

 

My dear friend.....where do you think people from all over the world got their ideas for doing horrid things. Not from the devil....From the bible and all the other so-called 'holy' books' from aroung the globe.

 

If the above 'tradition' is true - I can guarantee that they got the idea out of one of their holy books!!

 

do yourself a favor........ as a good christian.....read the old testament!!

[Ouroboros]

I will say this,...lets say for example a childs father tells the child the stove is hot, they child believs at first, but when the father leaves, he tests it out for himself and finds out it really is hot, as his father says, then one day an heat and stove expert comes in and tells the child, he lil dude, this stove is not Hot...The child says, Sir....i dotn care what degree you have i dont belive the stove is hot i KNOW its hot. This si the way i feel about my Faith i know what my Father(God) says and so i wont be shaken by skeptics.

So you do believe that the Bible tells you the proper morals to live by?

 

What about this Biblical law?

 

Deuteronomy 21:18-21

If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

That's cruel and inhuman. In other words, immoral. Your Bible does not teach to avoid "hot stoves" but to "stone unruly children."

 

Besides, have you ever thought about that people all around the world, even non-Christian cultures from thousands of years before 1 AD, knew how to teach their children not to touch a hot fire. How come they knew that without your God? It proves that people can know right from wrong without the Christian God, without Yahweh, without Ahura Mazda, and without Santa Claus.

[FeelHappy]

#1. Give it time and your faith will be shaken. Pride comes before the fall. This site is called ex-christian which means most of the people here were christians at one time.

 

#2. Ask yourself if morality could come from somewhere besides god. Obviously I don't have to believe in god to not harm someone. Ask yourself if you stopped believing in a deity would you go out and kill someone?

 

#3. why then are there multitudes of people who DON'T follow objective morality. Did god forget to write his law on these individuals hearts? Did they just change one day?

 

#4. as the other posters have pointed out, modern societies don't follow gods biblical law

[JoeCoastie]

thanks Larry for your name and introduction, i am on break at work, i often dont have time to respond to all, only in general, but i will try to do a bit better, but i need the physical time to do so, Thanks for the one who gives me the benefit of the doubt, i am a genuine person looking for answers, and trying to understand but i cannot do that without knowing what the other side thinks. so when im not on m break i will try to answer a few questions. I will say this,...lets say for example a childs father tells the child the stove is hot, they child believs at first, but when the father leaves, he tests it out for himself and finds out it really is hot, as his father says, then one day an heat and stove expert comes in and tells the child, he lil dude, this stove is not Hot...The child says, Sir....i dotn care what degree you have i dont belive the stove is hot i KNOW its hot. This si the way i feel about my Faith i know what my Father(God) says and so i wont be shaken by skeptics.

That analogy just shows how stuck you are in your Christian mindset. In other words you say I can't think differently because the Bible says so. To not let God think for me will cause me pain.

That's why its hard for us to relate to you.

The stove-ologist says the stove isn't hot. Yet because your father says it is hot you're not willing to believe anything else or test the stove for yourself. You could pour water on the burner to see if it bubbles, place your hand a few inches from the burner, you could hold a thermometer towards the burner. There are many ways you can challenge your fathers belief in stove-ology and not get burned. And yet you'll never touch the stove (think free, live free) because you're too danged scared to think that your father could be wrong.

[ConureDelSol]

Aaron, here's a link to a thread I posted that may help you with conversing with us.

 

http://www.ex-christian.net/topic/49890-tips-for-talking-to-atheists-from-a-christian-pov/

 

These tips were written by my dad, who is a Christian as well. Using terms like "the unsaved" is considered offensive to most atheists/agnostics. The reason is that the words convey a message to us that you believe you are superior and we are inferior. I'm not saying that is what you really think, but that is how using words like that might earn you hostility pretty quickly.

 

Try to stick with just non-Christians, non-theists, etc. and try your best not to lump everyone into one group or stereotype. My hopes are that you're not a troll and you really are sincere. Like some others, I will give you the benefit of the doubt for now.

[ToonForever]

This is going to be interesting.

 

I disagree. Looks like the SOS to me...

[Spectrox]

Hi i want to make it personal, Again my name is Aaron, i will be participating on this site for the long Haul, i hope to learn and grow in my christian faith, and i hope to Learn and Grow in different theology and perspectives, and understand the view of the world and of the unsaved.

 

I want to make it personal too. When you call others "unsaved" you are being a pompous twat.

 

Christians dont always take the best approach in dealing with the Unsaved and so they get attacked, but that will happen either way regardless of approach, we will get attacked even if we agree with an unsaved person. However Christians, as do myself need to be respectful in our approaches, and if i have not i apologize, i want to Learn how to approach people even though believing something different but seeing the other side as well. When we really think about it, we are all more alike than different. We must seek to understand before we are understood i believe that is the appropriate thing to do when discussing things with the unsaved and vise verse. But Then again who am i to say what is appropriate and what is not? This brings me to my Topic.

 

Someone has already pointed out the unnecessary Capitals mid-sentence. But what's with the small "i". Has God diminished your essential self so much?

 

Who is Moral? What is right and wrong?

 

God Made us so he Wrote the Law on our Hearts Bible says this in Romans 2 :15 " They Demonstrate that Gods Law is written on their hearts for their own thoughts either accuse them, or tell them they are doing right"

 

Everytime we dispute right and wrong we appeal to a higher law that we assume everyone is aware of, holds on to and not free to individually change this universal law so that everyone else can follow their personal view of it. Every Law has a Law Giver, we all know there is a Moral law, then obviously there is a Moral Law Giver. right? Who said we should help people? is that a universal Moral obligation? who or what woman/man made that obligation then? Even the most remote tribes cut off from civilization observe a moral Code similar to someone else's there may be differences in civil matters but bravery, loyalty, greed etc are universal, if man invented this moral law or code then it would be differ as much as every other thing man has invented and it would no longer be universal but it IS universal so if what someone believes does hold tru to what we know already exits, it should be discarded.

 

There is no objective morality, you idiot. I have my own moral code. So does everyone on this forum. So do you. The Christian sheeple are just dishonest about how they have arrived at their conclusions. Baaahhhhh.

 

We all know whats absolutely wrong, then is there an absolute standard of righteousness. Without this objective standard, any objection is your personal opinion. Granted the unsaved don't need to believe in God to discern moral duties or understand that objective morals values exist but in order to ground an objective moral law, then you need to have a Transcendant source of those Values, because universal Moral law transcends humanity, and because a law requires a law giver, then the universal law requires a universal law giver and guess who that is?

 

I judge moral acts by the harm to myself and others. This standard makes the God of the Bible a sick spoilt retard.

 

The Bible isn't moral enough. Isn't accurate enough. Isn't true enough. Isn't big enough. Isn't believable enough. It just isn't good enough.

 

Christianity is simply the Greatest Story Ever Sold.

 

There's one born every minute...

[MrsRoper]

This had to be a joke. I couldn't even get through reading the whole thing.

[Margee]

i am a genuine person looking for answers, and trying to understand but i cannot do that without knowing what the other side thinks.

If you were really genuine, you would have spent months and months reading our testimonies as to why we are not christians anymore. I'm quite sure you would have got all your answers there.

[mymistake]

thanks Larry for your name and introduction, i am on break at work, i often dont have time to respond to all, only in general, but i will try to do a bit better, but i need the physical time to do so, Thanks for the one who gives me the benefit of the doubt, i am a genuine person looking for answers, and trying to understand but i cannot do that without knowing what the other side thinks. so when im not on m break i will try to answer a few questions. I will say this,...lets say for example a childs father tells the child the stove is hot, they child believs at first, but when the father leaves, he tests it out for himself and finds out it really is hot, as his father says, then one day an heat and stove expert comes in and tells the child, he lil dude, this stove is not Hot...The child says, Sir....i dotn care what degree you have i dont belive the stove is hot i KNOW its hot. This si the way i feel about my Faith i know what my Father(God) says and so i wont be shaken by skeptics.

 

So you don't have time to answer our questions but you do have time to ask more questions of your own and start new rude threads.

 

Your decision to not be "shaken by skeptics" indicates that you are not going to have a genuine conversation. If others make meaningful and valid points you are just going to ignore that. Great, you have a religion. But that doesn't give anybody else any reason to believe your opinion or that how you feel reflects the truth, or any reason to listen to the Bible. Why don't you just drop the attempts to convert us? We would all be grateful and then we can talk with you about other things or even answer your questions about why we don't believe. You see it's your attitude that you are superior and need to help us change that is offensive.