ok.....I've been reading these threads and posts and I have a pretty good idea about what you all are talking about....I just wanted to tell everyone that if you really want to debate about God and Christianity than you should at least read some of the bible.....yes, i do believe in it and I am a Christian, in fact I had just gotten home from church a little bit ago.

I feel that it was uncalled for, for Cris to say that he wanted Christianity to die out all together...when i bet he doesn't even know a thing about it....Cris, I don't know what an atheist is (sorry if I misspelled it), but I would like you to explain to me exactly what that is.

Tony, you don't really give your opinion much when you reply to things, all you do is list the quote and say some unsatisfying remark as to answer it. Also, when you say that you are never wrong....that is not correct because we are all sinners and we are all wrong sometimes....some more than others.

I think that's all I have to say for now, but I would really like to hear your responses, and if you all have any questions for me feel free to ask!

have a nice day!

*~Sarah~*

Hi Sarah,

I feel that it was uncalled for, for Cris to say that he wanted Christianity to die out all together...when i bet he doesn't even know a thing about it How much are you willing to bet?

....Cris, I don't know what an atheist is (sorry if I misspelled it), but I would like you to explain to me exactly what that is. You sound very young and you appear to have an awful lot to learn yet. You also appear to have been comprehensively indoctrinated into a particular narrow set of beliefs without having examined any alternatives for yourself.

You might have tried a dictionary first you realize, but I wouldn’t recommend that since nearly every different dictionary version gives a different definition and most have it wrong as well.

Here are some definitions and an introduction to atheism. (http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/intro.html) This is a good place to start.

Follow this link to view a massively different world to the one in which you have been indoctrinated. (http://www.atheistalliance.org/index.htm)

Open your mind to the many alternative ideas there are in the world. No one has found the answer to the universe yet, and it is foolish to jump to any conclusion before we have the necessary information. We are only at the beginning of this search.

Have fun and try not to judge people so much until you have more information about them.

Cris

cris, EXCUSE YOU!

What do you think you are doing talking to my VERY young sister about convincing her to switch her religion?? you don't even know who she is and you have know right to talk to such a young and vonerable child like that.

Have fun and try not to judge people so much until you have more information about them.

Exactly!

What do you think you are doing talking to my VERY young sister about convincing her to switch her religion?? you don't even know who she is and you have know right to talk to such a young and vonerable child like that.

I am loathe to attack spelling errors, but I would like to point out that (if that really was your little sister and not you, who's to say) she has a better spelling sense than yourself. The most important thing in life is an open mind. How can she be certain of her position without knowing the opposing arguments.

I just wanted to tell everyone that if you really want to debate about God and Christianity than you should at least read some of the bible

Again I cannot agree more. This is a parallel statement to my own. spunks239 has much to learn from Sarah.

I too was a good christian boy until the day I realized that I was gaining nothing from visiting a hall filled to the brim with closed minded individuals. My attention waned as I discovered the emptiness of the stories. Eventually I was unable to sit through the dreadful thing without my trusty Gameboy. At some point I became so disinterested that I stopped attending. This is made even more important in light the local churches' particularly charismatic preacher. I saw through his veil of jokes and entertaining story-telling. This was a man who every session passed around a collection plate. Even the poorest felt inclined to give their earnings. Did this man really need such wealth? He has a beachfront property and nice cars! Certainly not!

He was one example, but through my life I have found other examples of hypocrasy in the church and the religion in general.

Sarah, you asked if I had read the book. It would be an imense task to scan the entire thing, but I have read enough to know that it holds no particular value. It is just another work of fiction. It preaches great ideals, but gives horrible accounts of supposed heros brutally slaying and an unjust god doing unspeakable acts as a test of faith. Should not a god be held to the codes of conduct that said god imposes on his underlings?

I doubt the existence of a god in general, but I am more fervant in the case of your god.

Teg,

Yes, I do misspell things alot because I type really fast when I have an idea that comes to mind and sometimes a couple words get mixed up, but it is still readable....and may I point out that I found a misspelling on your part too!

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"How can she be certain of her position without knowing the opposing arguments."
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Well you say yourself that you once was a Christian....and you know it can be hard sometimes when you are raised into a Christian family and that is all you have known all of your life...I know a couple people who have lost faith as well, but yet at the closing of your post you seemed to have a little bit of faith left in you....or was that just my own imagination?

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"Again I cannot agree more. This is a parallel statement to my own. spunks239 has much to learn from Sarah."
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Just wondering what you think I should learn from my sister Sarah?

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"I too was a good christian boy until the day I realized that I was gaining nothing from visiting a hall filled to the brim with closed minded individuals."
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How could you have not learned anything from going to church? It is a great way to sing and rejioce and learn more about God personally.

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"Eventually I was unable to sit through the dreadful thing without my trusty Gameboy."
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And what is a gameboy going to do for you when you die?

At some point I became so disinterested that I stopped attending. This is made even more important in light the local churches' particularly charismatic preacher. I saw through his veil of jokes and entertaining story-telling.

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"This was a man who every session passed around a collection plate. Even the poorest felt inclined to give their earnings. Did this man really need such wealth? He has a beachfront property and nice cars! Certainly not!"
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Certainly if you had listened in church you would have known where that money goes to and what it is used for....it is used to have missionaries sent out to other countries and places to teach others about the Lord. And some is also used for the poor and homeless, and children who need clothing and shelter.....besides if you did not want to donate any money it was you chioce and there is no obligation....all you need to do is go to church and save your soul.

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"He was one example, but through my life I have found other examples of hypocrasy in the church and the religion in general."
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I would like you to list some more that you have found throughout your life in the church of the Christian Religion.

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"Sarah, you asked if I had read the book. It would be an imense task to scan the entire thing, but I have read enough to know that it holds no particular value."
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This is not Sarah, but i still think that your statement was totally false, because the Bible hold much value in everything uncluding religion and everyday life.

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It is just another work of fiction. It preaches great ideals, but gives horrible accounts of supposed heros brutally slaying and an unjust god doing unspeakable acts as a test of faith.
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You say supposed, but I feel like you once believed in the Bible...just becausethe chruch service was boring or something that does not mean that you should just give up and give your life away to the Devil.......you should REALLY think about your decisions.....HELL or HEAVEN? it's your choice in the end.

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Should not a god be held to the codes of conduct that said god imposes on his underlings?
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I'm not exactly sure what you meant there,but God does test his people and if you are faithful all the way through, temptation and torment, your reward shall be eternal.

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"but I am more fervant in the case of your god."
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FERVENT (lol) initially comes down to this sentence: to arouse the feelings or passions of something..
does this mean that you still have some bit of hope left in you??
If not, I would suggest reading the thread: I am demon
Maybe you will realize what the Devil is doing to you, and making you numb to reality.

Well you say yourself that you once was a Christian....and you know it can be hard sometimes when you are raised into a Christian family and that is all you have known all of your life...I know a couple people who have lost faith as well, but yet at the closing of your post you seemed to have a little bit of faith left in you....or was that just my own imagination?

I was playing a hypothetical. I give no validity to the position that there is a god. Beyond that I would conjecture that we mortals would not have any chance of discovering the nature of any diety. Therefore I hold religion to be a wasted pursuit.

Just wondering what you think I should learn from my sister Sarah?

She stated that one should know about what they speak. You were trying to deny her of this.

How could you have not learned anything from going to church? It is a great way to sing and rejioce and learn more about God personally.

No church I have attended has told me anything pertinent about any diety. They tell you stories about how god is vengeful and jealous and then end with, "God loves you." Who is to trust such a chaotic beast. He is like an abusive husband.

Certainly if you had listened in church you would have known where that money goes to and what it is used for....it is used to have missionaries sent out to other countries and places to teach others about the Lord. And some is also used for the poor and homeless, and children who need clothing and shelter.....besides if you did not want to donate any money it was you chioce and there is no obligation....all you need to do is go to church and save your soul.

Indeed I listened. They held crusades with that money, and as for the missionaries...they had those but then cut the funding. Those missions are dreadful things anyway. It is all just a rouse to assimilate more potential christians, rob them of their culture and their dignity. They are playing the world domination game.

I would like you to list some more that you have found throughout your life in the church of the Christian Religion.

Jesse Jackson, Pope John Paul II, many church goers I have had the displeasure to quarrel with, Sir Reverand Graham, our current president, Mr. Jung my English teacher, many more that I don't whom I don't have the time to waste.

This is not Sarah, but i still think that your statement was totally false, because the Bible hold much value in everything uncluding religion and everyday life.

like this:

"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man." -- James 1:13

"And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham..." -- Genesis 22:1

Your book has many fatal flaws. The least of which is a tendency to contradict itself. It is a laughable store of fairy tales. And its protagonist: a man who at first fled and then was captured and executed. It is said that some great lesson was gained from his death. All I see is a bitter man who like most cowards ran for his life. Any tales of his ability to heal are obviously bogus. He was probably just a kid born of an adulterous affair, who later died on a cross. These are the details that are left after comparing the contradictory four tales. You must remember also that these were first recorded 100 years after his supposed death. Is it any wonder they are so unreliable?

What good came of this? Crusades, two inquisitions, and many witch trials. Paranoia, greed, and hatred. That is what your book has been shown to teach.

I'm not exactly sure what you meant there,but God does test his people and if you are faithful all the way through, temptation and torment, your reward shall be eternal.

In certain instances your book preaches honesty and pacifism. Based upon your book, your god knows not these things.

FERVENT (lol) initially comes down to this sentence: to arouse the feelings or passions of something..

I am passionate in my rejection of your book. It was a point of reference. If I dislike any notion of dieties, yours is the one for which I have the most rejection.

Maybe you will realize what the Devil is doing to you, and making you numb to reality

Have you yet read Letters From the Earth by Mark Twain. It is a story told entirely from the devils point of view. He is condemned to observing life on this planet and is confounded by our stupidity. My point is that you people always cloud issues with your insistance on ideas of good and evil. The devil is a nice way to remove guilt from yourself. It is also a childish notion to which only those of inadequate brainpower still cling.

Quote:
"He is condemned to observing life on this planet and is confounded by our stupidity."

Yes, very much so in more than others....the devil is very real i don't know how you could think otherwise.
Just keep this thought in your mind...whenever you do something bad or mean or evil...that was him pushing you....and he will keep pushing you until you are his, his slave to torture for eternity.

Spunks,

cris, EXCUSE YOU!

What do you think you are doing talking to my VERY young sister about convincing her to switch her religion?? you don't even know who she is and you have know right to talk to such a young and vonerable child like that. Sarah should take my comments as a compliment. There are many here who I know are considerably older than Sarah and who show a quality of English much lower than hers.

Her style showed intelligence and someone articulate, typical of someone much older. I had no way to know she was very young. If she is not capable of debating here in what is after all an often heated and controversial area of philosophy, then she should not post at all or preferably have her own userid where her age and capabilities are shown in her profile.

This is a public forum and while we do well here to refrain from abuse and bad language we do expect that if you post then you are prepared for the consequences.

As for converting here: That isn’t correct, she stated her beliefs and I indicated that she might be wrong. That, given the nature of the forum is a fair comment. This is not an area for children unless they can compete on an equal basis and if you are responsible for her then you need to take more care.

Otherwise please convey my apologies to Sarah if she was in any way upset.

Cris

Cris,
you are pretty stupid if you couldn't figure out that i'm Sarah and Ashley, someone else figured it out, but i guess your brain isn't working as well as it should......obvious by previous discussions
by the way y do you spend all your time on this gay site that has no meaning towards life or purpose????
that's pretty messed up........
and don't even ask me that same question 'cause i've only been on this site for one day, my first and my last.....

*Originally posted by spunks239
I feel that it was uncalled for, for Cris to say that he wanted Christianity to die out all together*

As long as you don't get all bummed out about stuff like that you'll be OK.
That is what atheists do, after all.

*Tony, you don't really give your opinion much when you reply to things, all you do is list the quote and say some unsatisfying remark as to answer it.*

What were you hoping for in the way of satisfaction?

*Also, when you say that you are never wrong....that is not correct because we are all sinners and we are all wrong sometimes....some more than others.*

Oh, rats.
You actually PROVED that I was wrong.
No, wait....you're saying that "we" are all wrong.
OK, but I will have to assume that you mean "you" and someone that agrees with "you" when you say "we."

In that case, I'm still right, but you are wrong, as you say.

*I think that's all I have to say for now, but I would really like to hear your responses, and if you all have any questions for me feel free to ask!*

Thanks.
I hope you realize that while my reply is tongue-in-cheek, it does contain the germ of a point.

*Originally posted by Cris
Open your mind to the many alternative ideas there are in the world. No one has found the answer to the universe yet*

There is one alternative idea now.
The alternative to that, in turn, would be that the answer is written down for us to read.

*Originally posted by Teg
Should not a god be held to the codes of conduct that said god imposes on his underlings?*

You weren't paying attention to even the GameBoy you were playing, NO.
What video game has the top guy playing by the same rules as his underlings?

*He has a beachfront property and nice cars!*

So what?
Do you live under a bridge?

*"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man." -- James 1:13

"And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham..." -- Genesis 22:1*

Let's try that with the quotation marks in the right place.

Let no man say when he is tempted, "I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man." -- James 1:13

Some questions to anyone else who reads this.

How can you tell from an unsigned anonymous userid posting that there are differnt people making the posts? Did I miss something?

And why would someone consider this a gay site? I don't understand that conclusion.

Personally, I'm curious at the number of people posting on each other's id's. I try to ignore them, since I never know who it is I'm posting to. Every once in a while, though, there's an irresistable point to address. But at the same time, it's not that I dislike Patman or GypsyQueen (is that the right duo?) but that I never know which one of them I'm going to get. It hasn't proven problematic yet, but you apparently haven't gone out of your way to treat Patman's sister equally, so you haven't had time to offend him. (This actually has nothing to do with Patman ... it's a nice contrast, though.)

In the present case, though, I'd start with a big F.U. And then I'd go with an Excuse me, but what the hell is the problem? This is why Net Nanny doesn't work, because the people who are responsible for implementing it won't. It's like the MPAA: first they rate the movies. Then the parents get too lazy to care about the ratings. Now, because the parents don't want their kids to see "bad" stuff, they want Hollywood to stop making certain movies. Hey, pay attention to the ratings, and if that's not satisfactory, pay attention to the industry; it's not like it takes more than five seconds to figure out what Hollyspeak means. In the present case, if the website is inappropriate for a child to view, then why is the user allowing the child to not only view it in the first place, but to actively participate in its processes? Really, if ... whichever one of them is older ... had a porno account and no Net Nanny, whose fault is it if the user lets a little girl run around in the limitless resources? Is it somehow the porno provider's problem that the user has allowed a child to take the Virtual Stroke? More directly, how many of the family's computers is the older one using? Are they all cookied to respond to the spunks id at Sciforums? How is it your fault, Cris if the user allows a child access and posting power at this site? Like I said, a big F.U. is appropriate, and since I'm so tempted to be funny about it I'll remind you that in the US we use only one finger. (That's a better joke if you know my friends who have gone to UK and wished they stayed.)

As to a gay site ... well, I'm just going to speculate, but I think it's that old-fashioned hatred welling up again. A frustrated user needs to let us know, so she negatively characterizes the site in a manner that is intended to challenge the myth of your identity. It's an ineffective insult in this context since there's nothing wrong with being gay.

I'd be willing to find a different definition of the word "gay" to apply to her post, but it doesn't seem plausible. I'd say it's just another Christian resorting to bigotry in lieu of thinking. It's a national tragedy, that.

thanx,
Tiassa :cool:

Tiassa,

Aye, I’m probably too sensitive. I dislike receiving abuse as well and definitely feel discomfort on the rare occasion I give it. I suspect that a lot of the abuse is because most have anonymous userids and that encourages people to feel safe and invulnerable, perhaps then we see their true personalities emerge. What would they really be like in the same room as their opponents? Would they still be so abusive?

I have not been aware of more than one person per userid at sciforums before, but I can see the temptation. That can definitely be confusing. The worst experience I had here was with truestory and her alias Christian, a case of one person with multiple userids – that was really confusing until Dave confirmed the same IP addresses.

I guess I have become accustomed to taking great care with what I say using electronic messaging after some 20 years using them and almost exclusively for business use.

As for the child issue: I see there is a lower age limit at sciforums of 13, so I guess Sarah was using sciforums illegally anyway. But it is often difficult to guess ages through these systems. I have been surprised when I have finally discovered some posters ages. My biggest surprise was discovering that synesthesia was only 17 when his style and knowledge indicated an experienced and well-qualified scientist. Just shows my ignorance perhaps.

Oh well another interesting lesson I guess.

Thanks for your comments and time.

Cheers
Cris

by the way y do you spend all your time on this gay site that has no meaning towards life or purpose????

Well that certainly reveals your maturity. Ashley/Sarah please understand that learning is often a painful process. When a person has aquired some bit of wisdom, the signs are there. You display no such signs. I can only guess at how much growing you need. You were right however in stating that such wisdom is not necessarily based upon age. You were wrong in thinking that you were one of those special cases. No indicator brings speciousness to a statement more than boasting. It is a compensation, needed only when one cannot carry the argument through their own merrit.

People of faith are most like children. They both have blind faith in their superiors, be they parents or religious doctrines. They both have a need for ritual, be it naptime or church. They are also both are very ignorant of their surroundings. Christians are just atheists waiting to grow up.

I suspect that a lot of the abuse is because most have anonymous userids and that encourages people to feel safe and invulnerable, perhaps then we see their true personalities emerge. What would they really be like in the same room as their opponents? Would they still be so abusive?



Cris,

Well that really doesn't seem like her true personality. I know ASHELY in person and she is not at all like this. She i the kind of person thats quiet and only says "hi" if you say it first. Makes me kind of wonder what else am I missing in other peoples/friends personalities.

Some_guy01,

Well that really doesn't seem like her true personality. I know ASHELY in person and she is not at all like this. She i the kind of person thats quiet and only says "hi" if you say it first. Makes me kind of wonder what else am I missing in other peoples/friends personalities. Yes that wouldn’t surprise me. I know many people feel insecure among others, and are shy and timid. But alone they have very strong feelings and desperately need an outlet to express themselves. A message board offers a perfect outlet. They can rant and abuse as much as they want knowing that no one knows who they are and they don’t have to face the consequences of their actions. Notice her last post stated that she wouldn’t be reading any answer I might give – i.e. do as much damage as she could and then run away. She urgently needs to leave the computer alone and get out and mix with real people and learn some people skills.

But thanks for letting me know her real world personality; that is interesting. I think this also reinforces the dangers of religion. A perfect father figure who will never do any harm, someone who will listen in silence to her prayers and never tell her she is wrong. When I seriously questioned her beliefs and didn’t allow her an escape route, she began to feel her security blanket of religion was being pulled away and she reacted violently. She is still a child and needs to mix with real people rather than imaginary super-beings.

Cris

*Originally posted by Cris
I dislike receiving abuse as well*

Why would you set yourself up as a target for it, as you said yourself?
You must have been expecting people to miss.

*My biggest surprise was discovering that synesthesia was only 17 when his style and knowledge indicated an experienced and well-qualified scientist.*

Just shows how childish science really is.

by the way y do you spend all your time on this gay site that has no meaning towards life or purpose????

You are aware that the word "gay" originally meant "happy" and in that case, yes, we are a very happy bunch of people:p