Given your options

[sdelsolray]

I missed this one.  It appears that was fortunate.

[TruthSeeker0]

1 hour ago, NeverHealed52Years said:

That's what happened to me...I bumped into this sight , IDK, 10-12 years ago, something like that. From time to time when searching for topics this sight would be in the search results and I would pop in again and read some stuff...at first it made me angry or uncomfortable or ..other not positive emotions. Some of it hurt my feelings. But then I started saying, Oh yeah, you know I question, think, feel that too. Or wow that makes me nervous or scares me. But I kept reading anyway! And , well here I am deconverting.

Kudos to you, that's hard to stick to if it makes you uncomfortable and particularly if you feel like you have a lot invested in your beliefs/community. Some people have said to me, wow, you deconverted so fast, but the truth of the matter is that I had nothing to invest anymore in Christianity or my church, it was giving me nothing but grief, and I had every motivation to get out, socially as well because I couldn't stand my community anymore. So I can understand why it's mixed baggage for a lot of people when they are out and they miss aspects of it, but me, I'm still doing hallelujahs (in an atheist sense of course lol).

[TheRedneckProfessor]

Now we have this little gem from a member of the christforums website (emphasis mine)

Hieronymus     6

 

"Unfortunately humans often need serious misery to humble themselves and to cry out to God and seek Him."

 

I'm not sure about the rest of you; but I had plenty of misery, plenty of humility, and did plenty of crying out to god and seeking him.  He just wasn't there or didn't care.

[TruthSeeker0]

52 minutes ago, TheRedneckProfessor said:

christforums' response:

 

 

"Hello ExChristian,

 

It stands to reason that if God does in fact miraculously heal today then God heals all manners of illness including severed limbs. Unfortunately, faith healers are rampant on various Christian publications claiming one healing after another. I've even seen one grow out a limb that was shorter than another!

 

Now the problem with this reasoning is that it supposes miraculous healing continue today. And to compound the issue there are Christians that claim it not only does but there are those in the church today that possess such ability. However, certain signs such as healing were used in Biblical times to authenticate offices such as Prophet, Christ and Apostle. Since those offices are no longer open today such signs are not given to authenticate the person claiming to hold such office. Offices such as Prophet, Christ, and Apostle were responsible for the revelatory process which developed Scripture.

 

We are told to beware of false Christs and Prophets and unfortunately Christianity has no shortage today. These very same people when faced with proving ones claim by using a sign which in essence was to actually prove or authenticate an office pass it off as lack of faith or works on part of the sick. This has caused all kinds of frustrations, doubts, etc by the sick which are not healed. Many are under the false impression that God would never ordain sickness etc to fall upon people. God wants you to be healthy and to prosper! A familiar message from the Prosperity Gospel which has plagued Christendom.

 

So does this mean that God does not heal? No, what this means is that God may not authenticate certain offices by gifting them with supernatural means to perform miraculous healings today though God uses ordinary means. That is, gifting us with the ability, reason, knowledge, and wisdom to fulfill one of the first universal commandments to mankind which was to subdue the earth (to fight disease, combat pollution etc.).

 

God bless,

William"

 

Essentially, god doesn't heal anymore; but when he does, he uses people.

This is so fucking ridiculous (and triggering) for people who fight with chronic pain or any other illness, or disease, and have to hear the same old shit again, that god does ordain sickness, and he's trying to teach, or guide you, or inspire you, or get you to repent, or show you your pride, or humble yourself, and the list goes on. Only one thing I have left to say to such a toxic message and the people who carry it: fuck off with your god is love speeches.

[TruthSeeker0]

11 minutes ago, TheRedneckProfessor said:

Now we have this little gem from a member of the christforums website (emphasis mine)

Hieronymus     6

 

"Unfortunately humans often need serious misery to humble themselves and to cry out to God and seek Him."

 

I'm not sure about the rest of you; but I had plenty of misery, plenty of humility, and did plenty of crying out to god and seeking him.  He just wasn't there or didn't care.

More humans judging other humans. It's amazing how some humans always know what their supposed god is thinking and what he needs to teach other humans hey!

Edit: And they talk of having ego. LOL

[ag_NO_stic]

38 minutes ago, TheRedneckProfessor said:

Now we have this little gem from a member of the christforums website (emphasis mine)

Hieronymus     6

 

"Unfortunately humans often need serious misery to humble themselves and to cry out to God and seek Him."

 

I'm not sure about the rest of you; but I had plenty of misery, plenty of humility, and did plenty of crying out to god and seeking him.  He just wasn't there or didn't care.

 

Yes, that's exactly what happened for me. I begged god. I was worshipping, praying, crying my eyes out, begging god. Luckily for them, they have an out. All they have to do is say they don't know the mind of god or that we were never christians so that they can write off all the people who call bullshit on the whole thing. 

[wellnamed]

1 hour ago, TheRedneckProfessor said:

Essentially, god doesn't heal anymore; but when he does, he uses people.

 

I've seen this stance before, although not all Christians accept it. From an outside perspective the most glaring problem with it is just that it's very ad hoc, a very "just so" explanation. From an internal Christian perspective the problem is that the justification for God ceasing to heal miraculously is pretty weak. It's clearly working backwards from the apparent lack of healings to find some explanation which could harmonize with biblical accounts of healing. Actually I guess that's the same complaint both times. It's noteworthy that this explanation is ad hoc regardless of whether or not you grant any authority to scripture.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

17 minutes ago, wellnamed said:

 

I've seen this stance before, although not all Christians accept it. From an outside perspective the most glaring problem with it is just that it's very ad hoc, a very "just so" explanation. From an internal Christian perspective the problem is that the justification for God ceasing to heal miraculously is pretty weak. It's clearly working backwards from the apparent lack of healings to find some explanation which could harmonize with biblical accounts of healing. Actually I guess that's the same complaint both times. It's noteworthy that this explanation is ad hoc regardless of whether or not you grant any authority to scripture.

It seems to me that when I was in bible college, I learned that there was something significant about the verb tense in Isaiah 53:5.  "By his stripes we are healed."  It was something about that verb originally being in a tense for which there was no equivalent in English; because the tense was present and continual.  So it would be along the lines of "By his stripes we are continually being healed."  I might be misremembering; there's been a lot of whiskey in the jar since then.  But I do remember using that in debates against heretics who claimed that healings no longer take place today.

[wellnamed]

18 minutes ago, TheRedneckProfessor said:

It seems to me that when I was in bible college, I learned that there was something significant about the verb tense in Isaiah 53:5.  "By his stripes we are healed."  It was something about that verb originally being in a tense for which there was no equivalent in English; because the tense was present and continual.  So it would be along the lines of "By his stripes we are continually being healed."  I might be misremembering; there's been a lot of whiskey in the jar since then.  But I do remember using that in debates against heretics who claimed that healings no longer take place today.

 

I think that's probably about right grammatically (as far as a translation), but I expect someone is trying to make too much of the different verb tenses. English does allow for a continuous present tense using a participle and some form of the verb to be, as you said: "We are being healed". But you wouldn't conclude purely from grammar that such a sentence implied that the healing never ends The grammar allows for it to some extent but I think people present what are fundamentally interpretive decisions as grammatical ones because presenting them as a consequence of grammar makes them seem more authoritative.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

1 minute ago, wellnamed said:

 

I think that's probably about right grammatically (as far as a translation), but I expect someone is trying to make too much of the different verb tenses. English does allow for a continuous present tense using a participle and some form of the verb to be, as you said: "We are being healed". But you wouldn't conclude purely from grammar that such a sentence implied that the healing never ends The grammar allows for it to some extent but I think people present what are fundamentally interpretive decisions as grammatical ones because presenting them as a consequence of grammar makes them seem more authoritative.

Seems like an omniscient god would be able to have his autobiography translated without so much trouble.

[TABA]

7 hours ago, ag_NO_stic said:

 

Lemme just say this, I really agree with this assessment and I think we all picked up on it really, really quickly. It was very disingenuous, in my opinion. I actually think he was less tolerable than usual, because he was acting more smug than average. Sorry if I'm the one @ThereAndBackAgain is referring to, I certainly didn't mean to come across as hostile. I just can't stand when people come in, shit all over our experience, tell me I was never a christian, act like they're better because they "hung on longer," and then act like we're attacking them, playing victim, or being unreasonable for refusing to play the game.

 

WHY do they all do the same thing? "I'm not going to thump my bible at you, [insert some joke about not biting or being that bad]" *proceeds to go to Lion's den instead of some other place to talk about their faith lol, where they talk about what their bible says about our hateful rebellion and sin*, *finds some reason, like god calling them away or being persecuted, tuck tail and leave*

 

This one was fast for sure.

 

 

No, @ag_NO_stic, I wasn't referring to you.  I think he found @TheRedneckProfessor to be too harsh, prompting his withdrawal.  Probably would have happened sooner or later anyway.  I think he was looking for a more structured debate, the kind we rarely have but for which we do have dedicated forum sections.  Or maybe I'm being too charitable toward him.  I was just sorry to see him up and leave so quickly.  I do see that several of our members have signed up over at William's Christian community, so maybe we will get a fruitful dialog out of all this anyway.

[wellnamed]

I sort of randomly stumbled upon this blog from Scientific American today (https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/how-wrong-should-you-be/) and part of it reminded me a bit of that explanation of healing, and the problem with ad hoc explanations:

 

Here another answer comes from cognitive science, in a paper by Samuel Gershman of Harvard University titled “How to Never Be Wrong.” In the paper Gershman considers the problem of auxiliary hypotheses. The idea is that any given theory comes with a set of undisclosed assumptions, which can protect the core theory from being disproved. For example, the seven-day creation story of Genesis is at odds with the fossil record. So if you accept the fossil record, do you have to forfeit Genesis?

 

Nope. All you have to do is note that a “day” doesn’t have to be 24 hours—especially not if God hasn’t created the sun and moon yet. The definition of day is merely an auxiliary hypothesis of the core theory that God created the world. Such auxiliary hypotheses form a “protective belt” around the core theory, deflecting contrary evidence from pesky one-offs, such as a handful of really old rocks, while leaving the main argument unscathed.

 

But never being wrong isn’t an especially good thing. To the contrary, being wrong is important because it is the first step on the way to being right. If you’re never wrong, you never learn anything you didn’t already know. So whether you’re taking a test from the Laser Guy or reconsidering your slate of metaphysical tenets, getting a few answers wrong is like salting a meal: a little bit makes the whole thing better, just don’t take it too far.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

13 minutes ago, ThereAndBackAgain said:

 

No, @ag_NO_stic, I wasn't referring to you.  I think he found @TheRedneckProfessor to be too harsh, prompting his withdrawal.  Probably would have happened sooner or later anyway.  I think he was looking for a more structured debate, the kind we rarely have but for which we do have dedicated forum sections.  Or maybe I'm being too charitable toward him.  I was just sorry to see him up and leave so quickly.  I do see that several of our members have signed up over at William's Christian community, so maybe we will get a fruitful dialog out of all this anyway.

Geez.  I was being nice to him, too.

[LogicalFallacy]

51 minutes ago, ThereAndBackAgain said:

 

No, @ag_NO_stic, I wasn't referring to you.  I think he found @TheRedneckProfessor to be too harsh, prompting his withdrawal.  Probably would have happened sooner or later anyway.  I think he was looking for a more structured debate, the kind we rarely have but for which we do have dedicated forum sections.  Or maybe I'm being too charitable toward him.  I was just sorry to see him up and leave so quickly.  I do see that several of our members have signed up over at William's Christian community, so maybe we will get a fruitful dialog out of all this anyway.

 

If TRP was "too harsh" that Christian (CF) needs to find the armour of God. TRP called CF out on where he was heading with his 'arguments' and that upset CF methinks.

 

Looking at the way he responds on his forum I think you'd end up with a lot of scripture quoting with the presupposition that because the bible says so it's correct. So it really depends on the subject as to whether debate is worthwhile. Actually debating on a Christian forum could be worthwhile. Large audience to affect.

[TABA]

37 minutes ago, LogicalFallacy said:

 

If TRP was "too harsh" that Christian (CF) needs to find the armour of God. TRP called CF out on where he was heading with his 'arguments' and that upset CF methinks.

 

Looking at the way he responds on his forum I think you'd end up with a lot of scripture quoting with the presupposition that because the bible says so it's correct. So it really depends on the subject as to whether debate is worthwhile. Actually debating on a Christian forum could be worthwhile. Large audience to affect.

 

A couple of our members have already registered at William’s Christian forum and are off to a very solid start.  I wonder how long such Devil’s Advocates will be tolerated.  Yes it could possibly be fruitful - certainly can’t hurt - although I think those who lurk here on our forums are likely more open to our counter-apologetics than the people of faith who inhabit christforums.com. 

[LogicalFallacy]

4 minutes ago, ThereAndBackAgain said:

 

A couple of our members have already registered at William’s Christian forum and are off to a very solid start.  I wonder how long such Devil’s Advocates will be tolerated.  Yes it could possibly be fruitful - certainly can’t hurt - although I think those who lurk here on our forums are likely more open to our counter-apologetics than the people of faith who inhabit christforums.com. 

 

Totally.

 

Was thinking of joining up meself.

[wellnamed]

Granted that apparently he was inviting people to debate, but their terms of service say:

 

We do not "argue" with nor do we solicit the membership of people who espouse secular or cultic ideologies. We believe that our conversations are to be faith building and posts that advance heretical or apostate thinking will be immediately deleted and the poster permanently banned from the forum. This is a Christian community for people to explore the traditional theologies of Classical Protestantism. Those who would challenge the peace and harmony that we enjoy here as fellow believers are directed to another website.

 

Seems like something they'd have to clarify before I barged in

[TheRedneckProfessor]

1 hour ago, LogicalFallacy said:

 

If TRP was "too harsh" that Christian (CF) needs to find the armour of God.

Let's see... breastplate of righteousness, belt of truth, helmet of salvation, sword of the spirit, shield of faith, shoes of the gospel of truth... and finally...

 

The jock strap of anti-logic to protect your most sensitive parts from those pesky little thoughts and doubts that keep trying to kick at them.

[NeverHealed52Years]

4 hours ago, ag_NO_stic said:

Now we have this little gem from a member of the christforums website (emphasis mine)

Hieronymus     6

 

"Unfortunately humans often need serious misery to humble themselves and to cry out to God and seek Him."

 

I'm not sure about the rest of you; but I had plenty of misery, plenty of humility, and did plenty of crying out to god and seeking him.  He just wasn't there or didn't care. 

 

Another Xian AHole who has never had a "real" problem....insensitive, cold hearted. I have met thousands of them who have NO Clue about having any kind of real or significant problems of any kind...yep while in my mothers womb, when the abuse started, I needed  serious misery to humble me so I would seek and cry out to God, Oh wait unborn babies ARE capable of crying...I did cry out to God and I was obviously totally humble....? What an Ahole

[Geezer]

1 hour ago, wellnamed said:

Granted that apparently he was inviting people to debate, but their terms of service say:

 

We do not "argue" with nor do we solicit the membership of people who espouse secular or cultic ideologies. We believe that our conversations are to be faith building and posts that advance heretical or apostate thinking will be immediately deleted and the poster permanently banned from the forum. This is a Christian community for people to explore the traditional theologies of Classical Protestantism. Those who would challenge the peace and harmony that we enjoy here as fellow believers are directed to another website.

 

Seems like something they'd have to clarify before I barged in

 

Christian forums typically censor posts and they usually ban problem posters too. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. They carefully control content so the indoctrination process isn’t disturbed with problematic questions or faith challenging evidence. 

[sdelsolray]

37 minutes ago, Geezer said:

 

Christian forums typically censor posts and they usually ban problem posters too. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. They carefully control content so the indoctrination process isn’t disturbed with problematic questions or faith challenging evidence. 

 

Not surprising at all.  No need to waste time going there.

 

[◊ DestinyTurtle ◊]

On 1/16/2019 at 1:45 PM, Christforums said:

Why is your only option to reject God? And, why has the option been the basis or foundation of your position against God?

Huh. I don't see it as rejecting God at all. Perhaps you mean why did I opt to reject a particular, cultural Christian picture/interpretation of a divine personality? I wouldn't say it was the only option - it simply seemed like the most sensible option once I realized how limited that particular worldview was. I didn't help me or people I know to be better people (maybe it helps some people be better - in which case cudos to them and I hope they keep it to themselves), and in general answers provided by the worldview seemed inapplicable and irrelevant to me.

 

I'm not sure what the second question is asking. It seems to me you're asking "Why do you have to make your position against God?" to which I'll reiterate my previous point - I am not against God I simply appear to disagree with particular beliefs a group of people have.  It only seems like rejection if you mistake disagreement for rejection, and if on top of that you attribute that rejection as being directed at God  

 

 

[offtheromanroad]

On 1/16/2019 at 7:45 PM, Christforums said:

Hello,

 

Just dropping a question that I think may lead to some interesting dialogue. Based on my introduction and the responses received I am under the impression that a lot of people think I came to this board with clear intent armed with an argument etc. Well, I came upon this website and began skimming through various threads and had an idea. Eh, that idea hasn't been received well so I'd like to pose a simple question in order to learn about others here. To note, this is a first for me, I actually have never joined a board outspokenly against Christianity. 

 

Now I'm sure some answers to my question may be emotionally charged, some answers may be derived from personal experience through relationships, others through propositional knowledge learned from books etc. I'm not looking for any particular way of answering but would like to hear from anyone taking the time to address the question.

 

Here's my 2 part question, Why is your only option to reject God? And, why has the option been the basis or foundation of your position against God?

 

Enjoy,

William

 

Hi William,

Welcome.

What leads you to the assumption rejecting god is my only option?

Best

OTRR

[Derek]

To reject something implies that it exists. "God" does not exist. Therefore, it is not possible to reject him/her/it/ whatever.

Actually, according to your bible, your god is a murderous, bloodthirsty terrorist. Why on earth would you love and worship a psychopath like that? That's just crazy. Hitler killed less people than your god did.

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

AWw...... he's already gone? I was gonna reply. guess i missed the boat on that one. Hope they are having fun stirring the pot over on christforums. Thats not for me. I get a really bad headache when having to deal with large groups of fundementalists. 

 

On another note. I noticed that his title wasn't True Christian. It was Delusional fundamentalist. LMAO!!! I dont know who made that change but that's pretty funny :-). 

 

DB