Reply With Quote
You have been given the freedom of choice...
[QUOTE]Thanks for expressing faith in my powers of persuasion but I seriously doubt that anyone is going to see you in a different light because of my posts.
The important difference between our opinions on war is that I don't insinuate that those Christians who differ with me aren't "true Christians".
Wanting to stop terrorist's from killing innocents is not political. Do you think Scripture backs terrorism? Do you believe that God wants innocents killed by terrorists? Do you believe He wants us to sit back and watch them picked off by the hundreds or thousands or more?That's what Jesus believed, and you called that drivel, because it's obvious that your political views come first before The Word. You and others have twisted the Word into fitting your political beliefs, to say that war is Just.
Sorry to tell you this but Jesus Christ wasn't and isn't a pacifist.
You've probably aired your views on War and Christianity dozens of times and there's nothing to be found in them (they're simplistic, close-minded, redundant views) that would merit me taking a closer look into what I believe.What can I bring up in a spiritual manner (in jocc's definition of spiritual manner) that you would agree with or take a look at? I've been nice in the past when I have raised this issue, you've just ignored it or spun it. I doubt that you would take it in and think about it. That would go against your political views. But it's nice to know that you would want people to believe otherwise and take the easy road and try and label me.
Don't judge other self proclaimed Christians sincerity and the "do not judge card" won't be played.It's real easy to play the "do not judge" card. That would make it easy to avoid the subject, but yet, you judge democrats and people all the time, but I guess since this raises the issue of morality and what Jesus would do in times of war, I guess it's different.
Me having differing political views with any political party's adherents does not equate toyour judging those who declare themselves as Christians as not being a "true Christian" because they don't support your theology. Nice try (actually it wasn't)
You have been given the freedom of choice...
if cant be faded is trying to disprove the existence of god he is as misguided as you bible thumpers.
^^Have you been drinking today??
??
i could argue that you'd have to be drunk/on drugs/crazy to believe in the Bible literally.
And I could argue that anyone who is a mavericks fan is a big pussy face as well but you don't see me doing it either
wow...good one.
zing.
sorry if you took that as a personal slap in the face buddy.
it pained me to see you losing in an argument to a religious fundamentalist, but your "if god isnt dead why can i sin?" line of argument ensured that.
you leave a lot to be desired as a theologian.
How could it with the great theologian pussyface putting forth his great arguments,
like: "if cant be faded is trying to disprove the existence of god he is as misguided as you bible thumpers.".
What he say?
He's saying if you believe in the bible "literally", then some kind of medical examination would be appropriate.
my point, xray, was that cantbefaded saying that the fact that he could chose to sin proves that "god is dead" is as ridiculous as someone saying they "know" everything about everything because its all in the Bible.
the notion of a divine gift of "free will" is a well known and intellectually viable tenet of Christian theology, for instance. I am not someone with an anti-Christian axe to grind; I am however skeptical of anyone claiming to "know" the nature of God/the afterlife etc.
Tom Leykis is God and will answer all your question people
I really have no quarrel with anyone about religion. It is a to much of a personal
thing to quarrel about. You either believe or you don't. Some people who
have doubts, well they have doubts. I don't condemn them for those
doubts. I believe in god. And should have stayed out the conversation
all together. So please accept my apologies. I was just trying to interject
a little humor and failed badly.
This is the most meta post ever.
God said it, its in the bible I believe it. All you people are jusy amking it complicated.
For all of those that claim that Christianity impedes the progress of Science (a topic debated often on this forum) check out Rodney Stark's latest book...
Here is a review
The "secret" of Western civilization's success? One factor above all: Christianity
Victory of Reason
by Rodney Stark
By the end of the Middle Ages, Western Europe was set to dominate the globe, while other civilzations like Islam and China were in decline. Why? As Rodney Stark shows in The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success, the triumph of the West has one and only one ultimate cause: Christianity, and the breakthroughs -- intellectual, political, technological, and economic -- it made possible.
As Stark demonstrates in detail, while the other world religions emphasized mystery and intuition, Christianity alone taught that man's capacity for reason was his supreme gift from God. Encouraged by the Scholastics and embodied in the great medieval universities founded by the church, faith in the power of reason infused Western culture, stimulating the pursuit of science and the evolution of democratic theory and practice. The rise of capitalism also was a victory for church-inspired reason, since capitalism is in essence the systematic and sustained application of reason to commerce -- something that first took place within the great monastic estates. And, Stark shows, whereas other faiths asserted the superiority of the past, Christianity was oriented to the future, which allowed the dynamic new societies of late medieval Europe to take off.
In explaining the West's dominance, Stark convincingly debunks long-accepted "truths" about the supposed conflict between Christianity and progress, and proves that far from impeding what we most admire about our world -- scientific discovery, democratic rule, free commerce -- Christianity is what made these developments possible.
The Christian origins of Western success
- The nature and consequences of the Christian commitment to rational theology. Its absolutely essential role for the rise of science
- Why science arose in Europe but failed to do so in China, ancient Greece, or in Islam
- Important moral innovations achieved by the medieval church -- e.g., how Christianity fostered a very strong conception of individualism consistent with its doctrines concerning free will and salvation
- How medieval monasticism cultivated regard for the virtues of work and plain living that fully anticipated the Protestant ethic by almost a millennium
- The role of early and medieval Christianity in fostering new ideas about human rights
- How, among all major faiths, Christianity was unique in evolving moral opposition to slavery -- all but abolishing it by the tenth century
- How, after the resurgence of slavery in Europe's New World colonies, it was Christianity again that produced and sustained the abolition movements
- The material and religious foundations of capitalism laid down during the so-called Dark Ages -- an era, in fact, of spectacular technological and intellectual progress
- How Christian commitment to progress played an important role not only by prompting the search for new technology, but by encouraging its rapid and widespread adoption
- How medieval theologians stoutly defended private property and the pursuit of profits
- The Christian foundations of Western democratic theory -- including the doctrines of individual moral equality, private property rights, and democratic self-rule
- The perfection of capitalism in the Italian city-states. How they developed the management and financial techniques needed to sustain large industrial firms
"Every once in a while a book comes along that not only provides new answers but also transforms the old questions. The Victory of Reason is such a book." -- Richard John Neuhaus, editor in chief of First Things
"Rodney Stark may be the most influential religious researcher of the past hundred years. He has revolutionized contemporary thought about religion and economics, and in this book - his most provocative yet -- he makes a compelling case for the claim that we owe our prosperity, freedom, and progress to centuries of faith in one great, loving, and rational God. The Victory of Reason is itself a victory of reason in a field long dominated by anti-Western, anti-capitalist, and anti-religious myth." -- Lawrence Iannaccone, George Mason University
"Stimulating and provocative . . . Stark demonstrates that elements within Christianity actually gave rise not only to visions of reason and progress but also to the evolution of capitalism." -- Publishers Weekly
Another Book...
What evolutionists, environmentalists, and global warming Chicken Littles hope you never learn about science
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science
by Tom Bet
In science, dispassionate, objective inquiry reigns supreme, and researchers will readily give up their most cherished views if the evidence proves them wrong -- right? Unfortunately, the answer is no. Science, like virtually everything else these days, has become a highly politicized field in which the Left has worked energetically to present its pet theories and schemes -- all of which just happen to advance their case for the necessity for ever more government control over our lives. But in The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science, Tom Bet , who has for several years been making the case for real science as opposed to its politically correct counterfeit in the pages of The American Spectator, sets the record straight about some of the most controversial and politicized issues of our time.
Not only does Bet tell the truth about evolution, global warming, and stem cells -- he also reveals the politically motivated manipulation behind the classification of species as endangered, the denigration of nuclear power as unsafe, Third World health crises, the banning of DDT and other supposedly unsafe pesticides, and more. He even skewers the modern scientific faith of materialism, showing how scientists embrace the evolutionist faith not because it is scientifically unassailable, but because they hate and fear religion -- and direct their supposedly detached scientific efforts to debunking it.
Among the scientific myths exploded by Tom Bet :
- Why, quite independently of Intelligent Design, fewer informed people than ever believe in evolution now
- Evolution from the primordial soup: not a scientific truth but a highly questionable philosophical worldview, whose real premises have been carefully concealed
- How boosters of the evolutionary theory systematically stifle debate on the premises of Intelligent Design, and shamelessly silence challenges to evolution
- How evolutionists twist any outcome in nature as a "confirmation" of Darwin's theory
- The famous (and non-believing) philosopher who admitted that "It's easier to believe in God" than in evolution
- PC madness: how the government and private firms have spent billions to clear away trace amounts of chemicals that are actually beneficial in small doses to humans
- Death by environmentalism: how the banning of DDT has created a health crisis of catastrophic proportions in Africa
- How DDT was banned despite clear evidence that it did not pose a significant cancer risk
- Stem cell research: How many of the "breakthroughs" trumpeted by the liberal media have in fact been based on wrongly interpreted or fudged data
- Ugly tissue malfunctions that have resulted from hasty and ill-informed injections of stem cells
- Genetic engineering: how it is turning out to be as hard to achieve in our day as social engineering was in the Communist era
- How, despite the manifest failures and broken promises of the genetic engineering movement, budgets for the Genome Project and similar efforts continue to soar
- The AIDS epidemic in Africa: how it has been trumped-up (requiring the imputation of Hollywood lifestyles to rural Africans) to support the media's myth of heterosexual AIDS and exponential increases in funding for AIDS research
- How Leftist dogmas have interfered with finding genuine solutions to the problem of AIDS and other diseases spreading in Africa
- War between science and religion? Why modern science would never have developed at all without Judeo-Christian religious principles
- Why the Victorian notion of conflict between religion and science refuses to die: it's still being waged by some eminent Darwinians, in defiance of the facts
- The materialist supers ion: how, having (they think) disposed of God, some scientists are eager to fill the void themselves
Charles Darwin: not merely a detached agnostic (his public pose) but a determined antagonist of Christianity
- Global warming debunked: why the environmentalist dogma that the increase in temperatures has been caused by human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels, is unequivocally false
- How, as the inadequacies of global warming theory became apparent, its disciples have resorted to scare tactics and name-calling
- Solar energy and other pet projects of the Left: why they won't work (contributing a mere 0.19 percent of total U.S. energy needs despite massive efforts) and are wasteful to boot
- How economic depression would unavoidably result from the U.S.'s adoption of the Kyoto accords so beloved of leftist environmentalists
- The remarkable study that was intended to demonstrate the danger of nuclear radiation to workers, but instead showed just the opposite
- Why radon spas are so popular -- and other surprising facts about radiation's effects on the human body that environmentalists hope you don't find out
- An open admission by a Sierra Club official that they want to keep the DDT ban in place because it reduces African populations
- PC myth exploded: a worldwide epidemic of extinctions? No: how most species extinctions can be proven to have had nothing to do with human activity
- How the myth of mass extinctions of species caused by humans has been embraced by mass-circulation, once mainstream magazines such as National Geographic, as well by internationally respected scientists -- despite there not being a shred of evidence in its favor
- Why -- despite vehement denials from environmentalists -- property rights are intimately connected with the survival and flourishing of species
- How the environmental movement abandoned science and logic in the mid-1980s -- just as mainstream society was adopting all the more reasonable items on the environmental agenda
- Hormesis: how this little-known but well-attested phenomenon could revolutionize our understanding of how to deal with hazardous materials
- The Flat Earth Myth: how no educated person in the history of Western Civilization since the third century B.C. believed that the earth was flat -- and how the myth that they did has been a powerful weapon of ridicule in the war against religion
- Galileo: one of the first casualties in the war between science and religion? Not quite: how he could have avoided trouble with the Catholic Church if only he had stuck to science and not ventured into theology
- Science: objective? Why it is more politicized today than ever before in history
Punchy, breezy, blisteringly honest, and consistently entertaining -- as well as carefully argued and meticulously do ented -- The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science is a perfect aid for the non-specialist trying to find the truth amid the PC distortions and half-truths that surround us everywhere these days. Here is a strong effort to wean our society and public policy from the scientific myths and cant that have dominated public discourse for far too long.
wow you are a dumb mother er hegamboa
well i guess that dispels my cherished and long-held beliefs that eddymication is the answer to the evils of the world
I didn't write the book you ignorant twit... I don't even know if it's been released yet.... which means if you've read my posts you would know that I don't readily accept something unless I've read it... this was only a review.
Hega: I didn't know you were into scholarly, secular texts!
In the interest of a better-rounded brand of intellectualism, try one like this too.
THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING SON OF MAN: HOW RELIABLE IS THE GOSPEL TRADITION?" by ROBERT PRICE
Ulster Humanist, April-May 2004
"This informative and gripping books shows us how the Gospel stories were put together in order to satisfy religious craving."
Freethinker, April 2004
"...for all scholars concerned with Christian origins...nothing of comparable importance has been written for at least a decade."
Book Description
What do the Gospels really reveal about the historical Jesus?
Scholars have dissected the Gospels and other stories about Jesus for more than a century, attempting to determine their historical accuracy. Many experts today believe that the writings of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John cannot be taken as revelatory. A group of more than 100 scholars called the Jesus Seminar concluded that only about 18 percent of the Gospels is historically correct.
Believing his Jesus Seminar colleagues "too critical," Robert M. Price presents THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING SON OF MAN, a balanced yet radically pessimistic new assessment of gospel historicity. While indebted to two centuries of scholarship, Price's latest book charts new territory, illustrating the virtual lack of historical information in the New Testament's Jesus stories. After an excellent introduction to the historical-critical method in language tailored to nonspecialists, Price analyzes sections of the Gospels, separating fact from fiction in all episodes of Jesus' life. Price examines both familiar parables and Jesus' teachings for authenticity, carefully studying miracle stories and drawing surprising conclusions. In addition, Price critically explores whether Jesus preached his Messiahship or predicted his own death as a means to save souls.
Written for a general audience in a refreshing and accessible style, Price's highly informative discussion will interest anyone who has wondered about the origins of Christianity.
From the Inside Flap
In THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING SON OF MAN, Robert M. Price, a noted biblical scholar and a member of the Jesus Seminar, investigates the historical accuracy of Jesus as written in the New Testament stories. Beginning with the assumption that Jesus indeed walked the earth, Price discovers that the Bible provides no paint with which to draw a historically accurate portrait of such an important religious figure. Price juxtaposes Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John's accounts of Jesus' life, revealing both well-known and not-so-obvious contradictions in the Gospels.
In his introduction, Price defines and defends higher criticism of the Bible, a tool he uses to reconcile history with Scripture. Next, Price presents the sources the Gospel writers used to compose their works, as well as the territory already charted by biblical scholarship. Price's investigation follows a traditional life-of-Jesus outline, starting with Jesus' birth--why is it celebrated on December 25? Was it really a virgin birth?
In chapter 4, Price analyzes Baptist and other Christian beliefs about Jesus and John the Baptist, proposing that the latter's role may not be historical. Price wrestles with the controversial question of miracles, setting the groundwork for judging the authenticity of these stories. Many miracle accounts, Price shows, have parallels in other Jewish and enistic traditions, and each miracle story has a particular structure, which fits a general pattern. Does this mean that historians cannot judge any miracle stories as occurring historically?
After scrutinizing stories of Jesus as a man of the people, Price delves into the descriptions of the twelve disciples, analyzing each one, especially Simon Peter. In this thorough examination, Price draws parallels with other religious traditions. The next two chapters take this comparison a step further in a brief review of Buddhism. Finally, Price surveys the details of the accounts of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, concluding that similarities in Christian and other religious traditions must mean a common origin--one with no room for a historical Jesus.
THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING SON OF MAN belongs in the tradition of David Friedrich Strauss and Rudolf Bultmann, scrutinizing the Gospels concisely and in astonishing detail. Price takes a consistent, thorough-going critical look at the gospel tradition, discarding faith's mandates and delivering good reasons for every skeptical judgment of the Gospels' historical accuracy in depicting Jesus.
A prequel to Price's DECONSTRUCTING JESUS, THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING SON OF MAN explains advanced scholarship on the historical Jesus in terms--and with references to popular culture--that any reader can understand
A great read! Also worth noting, you can always import a random book to justify pretty much whatever you want.
also check out one called THE JESUS PUZZLE.
interestin, thought provoking stuff if you arent already anchored in your beliefs
Interesting stuff... but not new.
These are arguments that have long been debated.
BTW I am anchored in my beliefs due to the personal manifestation of GOD's presence in my life... can I prove it?? No. But I believe it because I don't believe in coincidences...
Last edited by hegamboa; 06-27-2006 at 03:24 PM.
Do you believe in irony?
It will happen every now and then when I stick my foot in my mouth... so to answer your question.... yes.
Fascinating, imo.
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