Religion: Real or Fake

[Ming]

Why not just hang a sign?
no soliciting

Around here, that only stops the sales people... the religious nut jobs claim they aren't soliciting... they are only trying to save you.

[Imran Siddiqui]

In this context it is in reference to the Books of Moses and the Prophets. Jesus was directly asked if that meant they were being overturned and he said "No".

Jesus is, of course, smarter than the average bear. The Pharisees were trying to trap Him. So he indicates that he wasn't overturning the law, but fulfilling it. There is a reason that Christians call the pre-Jesus Bible as the "Old Testament". And, of course Jesus states that his two commandments (Love God, Love your neighbor) encapsulate all the rest.

In addition, if the law was still active, wouldn't Jesus be in violation of it by healing on the Sabbath and eating that which was not kosher?

Nonsense. You may have a sensation that you have free will, but if someone(Yahweh) already knows what choice you are going to make(being all knowing) then it's already pre-ordained.

This is an incredibly ridiculous line of thinking. It's like saying someone that has gone forward in time and knows your choices means you lack free will.

[N35t0r]

It either has a good effect or a bad effect. "According to whom" doesn't make sense.

You claim that hope can have a good effect, or a bad effect, but not both. This is false.

[Elok]

This is an incredibly ridiculous line of thinking. It's like saying someone that has gone forward in time and knows your choices means you lack free will.

I agree; I never could fathom how God's knowing what you're going to choose negates your act of choice. A man tells his son, "if you clean your room, we'll have ice cream tonight." The man knows his son, he's pretty sure the kid is going to clean his room for such an incentive. Does that mean the child isn't choosing to clean his room at all? If the father is more or less certain of the child's response, does that in any way alter the degree to which the child is making a decision?

While I can't see what the problem is here, it's apparently helpful for some people to think of God as seeing all of time at once, like a timeline stretched out before him.

[Docfeelgood]

Around here, that only stops the sales people... the religious nut jobs claim they aren't soliciting... they are only trying to save you.

For just five dollars I''ll hear your sins!

[Zoetstofzoetje]

For five dollars someone will bend over and experience sins, too!

[Docfeelgood]

For five dollars someone will bend over and experience sins, too!

Your bad

[Jon Miller]

In addition, if the law was still active, wouldn't Jesus be in violation of it by healing on the Sabbath and eating that which was not kosher?

I don't think that coincides with Christ's statements. He repeatedly said that the Pharisees didn't understand the law, and that He wasn't breaking the Sabbath by healing on it.

Not that I disagree with the general statement that Christ came to fulfill and not to break the law. He didn't overturn it and say 'this is wrong'. He said He was fulfilling it, which He did by His death and resurrection. Christ saves, the law condemns. Read Paul/rest of the new testament.

JM

[Ben Kenobi]

So, Omnipotent(and omnescient) but gets a kick out of seeing people screw up and burn in hell for all time due to insufficient brown nosing.

If he does, then why did he destroy the world in a flood after he believed that he had failed in his creation? Then after he made a promise to Noah, that he would never again destroy the world in a flood, but would try something different with man. He wants us to be with him in heaven, but he wants us to choose to love him.

The answer is that the God Squad are more likely to push their worldview on to me through official means than the atheists.

I disagree. Christians originated the concept of religious freedom.

So, Omnipotent(and omnescient) but gets a kick out of seeing people screw up and burn in hell for all time due to insufficient brown nosing.

In the officially atheist soviet union, Christians were not free to practice and many who openly espoused Christianity were jailed in the gulags. If what you say is true, we would not have seen such persecution in the Soviet Union, yet that is precisely what we do see.

We see the same thing with Hitler in the Third Reich. The same thing is happening in China today, where one cannot be openly Christian and defy the regime.

Yet, here in America, what penalties are imposed by Christians on Atheists? Are you forced to wear a star of david? Are you arrested? Are you free to practice your occupation? Are you permitted to buy and sell and trade? Are you permitted to write about atheism and declare that you hate God without further punishment?

You are free to do all of these things. Why? Because America was built on the principle of religious freedom where the refugees of various statist systems that persecuted believers and unbelievers were permitted to come to America, and make their own way on the world. You live in the freest country in the world, founded by Christians, and you are worried about the Christians persecuting you?

Blue Laws close merchants on Sundays.

So having to stock up on Saturday is persecution? Let me tell you something. When I lived in Canada, I cannot simply walk into the nearest corner store and buy whatever alcohol they happen to have. I had to go to the government controlled liquor store, which was open only during normal business hours. Their selection was limited and prices were high. Here, I can buy from a huge range of alcohol, even at 3am in the morning as it is carried in 24/7 grocery stores. And they fight for customers by keeping prices low.

Would I trade the right to shop on Sunday for having better selection, cheaper prices, and 24 hours during the week? Heck yes. You don't even live in an area where blue laws are in effect, so you are complaining that communities that you don't live in choose to limit the hours that merchants can trade alcohol. You've made your decision to live elsewhere, which means that liberty is working.

elected officials on school boards will pander to the God Squad and tell outright lies in history texts

So you don't consider it a problem when money is taken from people in order to provide for the school system? Shouldn't parents be the ones paying to educate their children? If we expect people to pay for the school system, then the one who pays the piper plays the tune.

If you don't want your children to go to a public school, you can educate them yourself. Liberty again at work. If you don't think your money should be going to public schools that do not educate well, then you have my full support.

If I take the stand in a trial I am automatically "the bad guy" if I don't swear on a Bible or say "so help me God".

Where do you think Laws come from, Lonestar? They don't just spring about naturally. The US could implement the Laws of the Soviet Union, which lacked important things like trial by jury, and habeaus corpus. You swear on a bible, because in America, the laws are based on the bible, on the concepts of freedom and liberty expressed therein.

Crap, I can't even hold public office in Texas!

Neither can I. Some Christians, (Mennonites among them), have a problem with swearing a loyalty oath to the State.

Since I moved to a apartment complex without a gate I've had Christians of various stripes(Mormons, JWs, Baptists) solicit at unlikely hours. Would you care to guess how many secularist organizations I've had solicit? None, zero, zilch. By and large secularist groups don't go "you know what? We need to go get into peoples personal lives!".

Are these churches funded by private enterprise? How many businesses advertize to you on a daily basis? You watch cable tv at all?

You are correct that publicly funded secularists don't solicit you for money. They take from your paycheck and put you in jail when you refuse to pay for their largesse, and programs that you never voted for, and do not want or need. *

*Barring certain free states like TX and FL. Slave states, YMMV.

If you don't like solicitors, (and there are plenty of non-religious ones), live in a gated community where they cannot bother you. Liberty wins again.

And since God doesn't like Homosexuals, working on the Sabbath, or alcohol, or premarital sex, or polycotton, or not getting your pecker mutilated, or birth control, or teaching science in a science class then obviously it is up to the God Squad to help save the country from the Godless Secularists.

Let me ask you something, Lonestar. What are the consequences for you in America for expressing any of the opinions you've said here?

I'm going to knock on their door at 2130 on a Friday night to give them the Good Word.

Well sure. Persecution amounts to your neighbour knocking on your door and then leaving.

[Ben Kenobi]

If you are all-knowing that means EVERYTHING is predetermined, if not by you then by some other power. So "Free Will" is a crock. And God is willfully allowing people to burn in hell for the decisions they made "of their own free will".

I think it's a choose your own adventure. The paths are all there, but the path you choose has not been determined.

[Kidlicious]

You claim that hope can have a good effect, or a bad effect, but not both. This is false.

If you want to act obtuse, go ahead. Why not, from the beginning to make such stupid points?

[Docfeelgood]

If you want to act obtuse, go ahead. Why not, from the beginning to make such stupid points?

you sure use that word ( obtuse ) a lot.

[Kidlicious]

What if it's 7:30 in the morning on a Saturday?

Well I don't know what you're talking about. What if they knocked down the door and molested all the children and killed all the homosexuals?

[giblets]

Religious solicitors are a compelling argument for gun ownership. If those ******* are knocking on your door at 7:30 in the morning, show them they're not welcome.

[Lonestar]

Around here, that only stops the sales people... the religious nut jobs claim they aren't soliciting... they are only trying to save you.

Ding ding ding.

Jesus is, of course, smarter than the average bear. The Pharisees were trying to trap Him. So he indicates that he wasn't overturning the law, but fulfilling it. There is a reason that Christians call the pre-Jesus Bible as the "Old Testament". And, of course Jesus states that his two commandments (Love God, Love your neighbor) encapsulate all the rest.

In addition, if the law was still active, wouldn't Jesus be in violation of it by healing on the Sabbath and eating that which was not kosher?

I guess he gets a pass because he is the son of God. After all God gets a pass for murdering people, so why not Jaysis?

This is an incredibly ridiculous line of thinking. It's like saying someone that has gone forward in time and knows your choices means you lack free will.

So God is just a time traveler, as opposed to all-knowing and all-powerful? Because one is a lot different than the other.