BF2S Forums Confessions of an average Christian

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Bernadictus wrote:

I believe in one thing tough, that the world will at last be in peace, the moment all religions disappear from the face of the earth.

While life exists, there can be no peace. Humans are an especially cantankerous species, and need no help from random dogmatic beliefs to butcher one another.

So true....we are a pretty messed up bunch.

Post #75

SpaceApollyon wrote:

This thread is great, mainly thanks to Stingray and ATG.

My question to you Stingray, is as follows.
Are churches and (paid) priests a necessity for you to practice your faith? It seems to me that most of the bad things related to religion spring from the organization. When men are given powerful positions, some of them are bound to abuse those powers. Why elevate the status of these few individuals, when most religions teach equality? Why advocate such methods when they have so bloody consequences?

When you have your faith, couldn't a more personal and private form of worship be an alternative?
The institution has grown and grown - and the side affects with it - but still the majority of the population on earth are not Christians or any other religion and thus are doomed and on their way to hell.

In a nutshell: I think the benefits of this kind of institution cant counter the huge negative effects they have. A more personal faith could be as effective and those power hungry individuals would be out of the picture.

Churches and paid priests/ministers/pastors are not a necessity for me to practice my faith.  Without them I could still learn more about my faith, especially with modern technology that is available, but I think they are an asset for the most part.  The true Church is the people, not the building or the organization.  However, a genuine pastor can have a huge impact on his congregation in a positive manner.  I have had the privilege of learning from two different pastors whose teaching of the Bible helped deepen my knowledge of my faith.  I've also endured several pastors who were not helpful and I was glad to see them leave.

Your observation about the abuse of power springing from the organization is true in a way.  When the organization becomes the focus instead of God, things go downhill fast.  As I like to say, we humans are selfish wankers down deep.  The two pastors I mentioned are very humble men, even though they are very knowledgeable.  Though they are in leadership, they do not act superior.  Religion elevates individuals and has disastrous consequences.  In contrast, true faith asks for those with the most knowledge to teach others humbly with the goal of pointing them to follow God, instead of themselves.  It takes a special person to be able to suppress their own selfish nature to teach others.   

The more personal, private form of worship is an extremely important part of Christianity.  In my opinion it should be the focal point.  If all I do is go to a service once a week and never pursue anything on my own, my faith will grow very slowly - if at all.  In all the churches I’ve attended, I’ve been encouraged to study and pray on my own in addition to attending services.  I agree with your point that a more personal faith would be as effective and eliminate power issues for the most part.  A limited amount of organization might be necessary for practical purposes.

EDIT: on to page four!

Last edited by Stingray24 (2006-12-22 22:02:33)

Oooooh yeah, gotta watch them ouija boards.

A friend of a friend said he once saw a horned devil with a pitchfork when he played with one.
Or was it on telly? Not sure.

Can I ask what caused you to believe the bible (sorry, Bible, don't want to upset any greater beings here) is NOT fictitious?

I'm currently working on your questions, lowing.  Challenging questions that cause me to ponder.  Well done.

Luzer wrote:

Stingray I like the post. I came to the forums for an answer to a question about BF2S and fell upon your post. I registered here just to reply.

I am an atheist. This will come accross offensive but I think people that are religious are simply uneducated.

Oganized religion is truly dissapointing and burdens science and technology. I'd like to think that the early christian intensions were good but its just big business and  poltics now. For someone to stand proud of thier incompetence makes me sad, ill, and very dissapointed.

The worship a higher power came at a time thousands of years ago when human brains really started to develop and when man realized that one day he will die.
As simple as it may sound it is the fear of death.  The religions/beliefs man have merely out of survival and self preservation.

Wow.
Where to begin.
1st of all,  welcome to the forum. As this appears to be your first post I'd like to acqaint you with the spell check button. I have to assume you are not American and English is a second language. May I be so bold as to suggest writting a draft in Word, then using spell/grammar check for clarity  and then posting?

_{sorry, i went all year without a grammar Nazi rant. I'm done now.}

Last edited by ATG (2006-12-23 23:49:23)

Stingray24 wrote:

I'm currently working on your questions, lowing.  Challenging questions that cause me to ponder.  Well done.

thanks buddy.

From a Christian view point you have a Deity which is all powerful, all knowing, present, future, past etc. So now here is the kicker. You have this all powerful being create angels one of which is Lucifer. This being is all knowing so he knows very well what this Lucifer is going to do. So here is the catch he willingly creates a being which will now bring about the "fall" of man. So now you have a situation where man is now fallen, imperfect and stuck in this world which he apparently isn't from. So what better way to send himself via incarnation to save them from that which he put them into. You have Jesus whom is now going to save you from that which he created. So essentially you would have no reason for Jesus to save mankind if he had not created Lucifer. So now we have a dilemma here, this perfect Deity, essentially, his left hand is Lucifer and his right had is Jesus, but the catch is we pretend he doesn't know what the left hand is doing and go along with the entire story.


Please explain why God created Lucifer.....and we pretend....that he doesn't know of all the supposed bad things he will do to mankind.

Its all an illusion, a good one at that, but it does not work too well when you have a perfect Deity creating the problems before they start especially since he knows the outcome of everything apparently.

And for those that fear that not believing in this sort of God results in a afterlife which you are in a state of none existence simply needs to ask themselves can you experience NOTHINGNESS...you simply can not experience nothing, because the act of experiencing nothing is something..kinda doesn't work.

Last edited by Fen321 (2006-12-25 09:52:47)

Budist not Nudists ROFLOLA although the fear of being nude is what got us in trouble in the first place=D

Post #78

lowing wrote:

Stingray, we are supporters of one another in this forum but I have a few questions as well.

1. Who on earth is qualified to tell me what happens to me when I die?

2. If there is someone qualified, what is his credentials and experience to be so qualified?

3. If man wrote the bible, and edited the bible (left out certain scripture and text because they felt it didn't belong) what qualifications did these men possess to become the editors of God?

4. Why, if there is only "one word" are there so many variants to the Christian faith?? Is it because Christians sculpt their beliefs to be more convenient to them? maybe looking for convenience over truth??

5. Why have Christians killed more people in the name of God, throughout history, than for any other cause?

6. Why, if our world is so full of God fearing Christians and Muslims is it so screwed up?

7. If Jesus was a JEW, shouldn't that be an indicator as to which religion we should all be scampering to be a part of??

These questions are NOT attacks on you Stingray, these are really questions that I have pondered over the years.

1&2 - Who on earth is qualified to tell me what happens to me when I die?  If there is someone qualified, what is his credentials and experience to be so qualified?

There are several facets to this question.  The first component is that only God knows your inner thoughts, so no matter what you tell those of us on earth, only He knows.  In light of that, no one is qualified unless you express your internal beliefs to them.  After comparing your beliefs with what God tells us about the afterlife in the Bible, we could arrive at an answer. 

3 – The men who wrote the Bible. 
The men who wrote the books of the Bible did so under the divine influence of God.  They penned words that were given to them supernaturally and they recorded them in their native language.  This categorizes their role as a hybrid scribe/author since an author formulates the words written and a scribe merely records the words.  The authors total more than 40 and come from every walk of life – kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, poets, statesmen, scholars, etc.  Those authors span over 1,500 years and 40 generations so there is not a template into which each author would fit regarding qualifications.  Throughout the Bible, God uses the most unlikely folks (in human terms) to be His messengers.   

The men who “edited” the Bible:
Books have been written about this subject and I am not extremely well-versed on the details, but I will attempt to give a satisfactory answer in short form.  To truly do the subject justice, it would be better to read a book containing research and have a conversation in person.  Here goes: In my view, the “books” which are now a part of the Bible were established by God and merely discovered by God’s people.  It’s really important to distinguish between the determination and the discovery of the books.  God is solely responsible for determining; God’s people are responsible for discovery.  Logically the books that were included were those that were reliable when compared to the testimony of eyewitnesses to the events recorded in the books.                     

4. Variants to the Christian faith –

Especially when regarding gray areas which are open to interpretation, some passages in the Bible can be understood differently.  Each of us possesses an intellect which has been exposed to different levels of knowledge on any given subject.  Knowledge of doctrine is no exception.  As I’ve studied the Bible, I’ve adjusted my beliefs when I discovered my views did not agree with Scripture.  Until I studied that area, though, my understanding was not entirely correct.  In my mind, the answers to some issues are completely obvious.  However, someone else may disagree who has a better understanding based on their study.  No matter what our views may be on the gray areas, there is one thing all true Christians agree on - that Jesus is the Messiah and provided salvation through His death and resurrection.  Certainly some Christians fashion their beliefs to justify the lifestyle with which they’re comfortable – this is a basic human flaw.  Another factor that comes into play is that there is a significant difference between head knowledge of doctrine and actually putting it practice.  In this life, none of us will ever live according to the teachings of the Bible with 100% consistency. 

5.  Christians have killed more in the name of God, than for any other cause. 

We’ve touched on this in other threads so I won’t repeat the whole topic here.  In a nutshell, I believe people who have called themselves Christians have used Christianity as a smokescreen to justify their murderous ways while serving their own selfish purposes – acquisition of wealth/power/land.  True Christians have not committed such acts.  I submit decidedly non-Christian people (Stalin, Hitler, etc) have killed more than those who misused Christianity for their own gain.

6. Why is the world so screwed up when it’s full of God fearing people?

We humans are selfish wankers, religious or not.  “Religious” people do their best to live their lives according to the principles of their faith, but we still have basic human nature with which to contend.  Most of the time our principles win, but sometimes they do not and things can go downhill fast.  I’m not so sure the world is bursting at the seams with God-fearing people.  There certainly are a lot of us running around, but I don’t think we outnumber non-religious people yet.  I’m open to statistics on that point.         

7.  Jesus was a Jew, why aren’t the rest of us trying to be?

Jesus was born a Jew, a descendent of the line of King David as prophesied in the Old Testament.  The Old Testament details the history of the Jews and the promise of the coming Messiah.  Jesus came to earth as described in the New Testament, but the Jews were expecting a warrior who would toss the Romans out and establish His kingdom.  Instead He came humbly, born the son of a carpenter, without the fanfare associated with the birth of a king.  The Jews rejected Jesus as Messiah because He did not fit the image of the Warrior King for which they longed.  During His time of ministry, Jesus challenged the Jewish religious leaders regarding their addition of their own rules on top of what was required of traditional Jewish believers.  The Pharisees had turned the focus to doing additional good work to please God, rather than the normal sacrifices which were involved in the worship of God.  Most of the Jews did not acknowledge Jesus as Messiah, but yet He gave His life for all humanity on the cross.  The focus changed from faith in a coming Messiah (Old Testament - Judaism) to faith in the Messiah Who completed His purpose (New Testament - Christianity).  Judaism paved the way for the arrival of Jesus and His establishment of Christianity.

Hope these responses have answered your questions to some degree, lowing.  Feel free to ask more if you like.

Post #84

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

jimmanycricket wrote:

what sets us apart form other life forms is that we have the greatest power over our planet.

I would argue that our planet has power over us.

We certainly haven't completely harnessed nature, but we have the greatest power over our planet compared to the animal kingdom.  They don't build bridges, dams with hydroelectric plants inside, skyscrapers, etc etc

The bit you're missing is that the difference in mis-beliefs cause more conflict than those differences between the believers and non-believers. You fools have been killing each other for thousands of years (that's right, THOUSANDS) because THEY"VE got the wrong colour hat on.

That's a pretty big bit to miss.......

Post #100

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Colfax wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Why should I? They'd just be preaching to the choir. I can do better as a Christian just by trying to live up to the moral standards of charity and kindness, rather than spending a couple of hours indulging in self-praise.

So your perfect and know everything about living a moral life?  How do you define your moral standards?  Because charity and kindness are biblical princples.  And i don't spend a couple of hours.  its about 30 mins really of actual "preaching" if you want to call it that.

And you and churches are perfect and know everything about living a moral life?

Certainly not.  No one on this earth knows everything about living a moral life.  That is why a church that teaches biblical principles and explains how to apply them in daily life is extremely important.  It is certainly commendable to try to live up to the moral standards of charity and kindness.  But why stop there?  All of us can always learn more.  From your post I'm guessing you had a less than favorable experience at a church.  I have too, but don't give up.  There are some great churches out there that have solid teaching.