I've decided that I'm giving up on Christianity.

[Stealth]

EDIT: ...hmm...I'm surprised I haven't been kicked off yet...oh well, I bet it's only a matter of time...

No reason for that. You haven't said anything at all that would merit a ban.

[stratoplayer]

Right you are, that is your opinion and it is not any more or less valid than any one else's

[Neorave]

Right you are, that is your opinion and it is not any more or less valid than any one else's

I dunno, I've gotten kicked off for getting pissed at a moderator for changing the contents of my post...though that was on BemainStyle...and the thread that they changed my post on was a really stupid one...and technically, the server crashed the next day when I posted another thing the night before about how stupid the leadership of the board was...and...yeah...but I'll save that story for another thread.

Anyway, my comments in my last post were kinda rushed because I was in class at the time, and we were on break.

[browneyedgirl]

Fools, who do you think you are to question the Infinite Wisdom of the Holy God? You people are in serious danger of hellfire. Please visit the following site and review the material carefully.

www.yourgoingtohell.com

That was a funny parody site&I do believe that is what it may be. The thing is, what if by chance it may be true!

I saw that link somewhere else, posted by someone but, I just cannot place it. It will come to me, by and by.

[neonlightchild]

EDIT: ...hmm...I'm surprised I haven't been kicked off yet...oh well, I bet it's only a matter of time...

No reason for that. You haven't said anything at all that would merit a ban.

what do you think abot this Dave?

[miditek]

It's cool that I can talk to a Christian who actually knows what he's talking about, NeoRave. But let's get one thing straight... I followed this religion for no less than twenty years. There's nothing you or anyone else can say to me to make me change my mind about leaving it.

No Christian should try to force anything, particularly God, upon you, although I don't think that is what NR had in mind.

The one thing that I'll never understand about athesists, in the general sense is; why do they get so excited about something that they do not believe in? Why not laugh it off, and go on with life? We don't see impassioned debates and research into whether Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny is real, so why all of the excitement about Jesus?

No arguments about Apollo, Zeus, or any of the other foreign gods. No big write-ups about Bhudda. Very few would deny that Mohammed existed, although I personally considered him to be a military commander.

Is the church filled with sinners? Absolutely. Does this mean that every Christian is bad? Absolutely not. Just as not every Jew is a greedy loanshark, and not every Muslim is a jihadist.

Why do atheists spend hours on end writing books and blogs trying to disprove something that that can be neither proven nor disproven, in the mortal sense? The Poet Shelley wrote a famous paper, "The Necessity of Atheism", and yet his life was rather tragic, and he drowned at a fairly young age- a self-fulfilling prophecy that he had long feared.

While I can certainly sympathize with your disillusionment with Christianity; it is difficult to understand, for me at least, the postmodern atheistic viewpoint, which often includes ridiculing Christians with supposed academic evidence that God does not exist, and wrapped in some sort of self-styled intellectual superiority.

I've seen some people that have a great command of the English language and still end up looking rather boorish, intolerant, and somewhat unsophisticated when attacking Christian beliefs with venomous rants and supposed proof.

Was Dr. Werner von Braun, for example, an idiot? He possessed one of the sharpest scientific minds in history.

If atheism were an actual religion, the Cromwell-like fervor with which it is represented, particularly by the media, never ceases to amaze me.

Again, this is atheism and its adherents in a general sense, and not a personal attack towards you.

But if you remember correctly, diversity and multiple languages was the punishment from God for their arrogance.

No, the Tower of Babel was a story about stupid, proud people that tried to be just like God, by building a tower to reach up to heaven.

I feel it was more or less God's way of showing some the people who was in control. More of a way of addressing the foolishness of people, with a lack of faith in God, rather than arrogance.

What pastors try to teach is the Gospel.

So you'd think, but the last time I went to church, I was told by a pastor (privately) that I could basically ignore everything in the Book of Leviticus.

Leviticus is in the Old Testament, and is not part of the Gospels themselves. The pastor may have referred to some of the old Kosher dietary laws. I believe that Leviticus, being one of the first five books of the Bible, is also part of the Hebrew Torah.

The pastor's theological basis for this statement could have came from the Book of Acts, when Peter saw the great cloth with many animals unfold in his vision. God told him to go kill and eat. Peter argued with God about what food was kosher until God reminded him;

'Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.'

This would not give a Christian carte blanche to ignore all of the laws of Leviticus, but Peter's account in Acts certainly showed a revision to the old dietary laws.

Legalism is a much a problem in the Church as is a failure to lead Godly lives. Many Christians fall in the trap of legalism, even though Christ warns against it, and that all have fallen short of God's ideal, which, theologically speaking, is why Christ came into the world to begin with.

The Law is there to illustrate how far Creation has fallen, and to provide a roadmap on how to live, as well as how to behave in society.

Which book is it? Because if I'm right, you probably should read the context as well to fully interpret it.

Not sure, probably Exodus. But there's many times when you hear the phrases, "Wrath of God,' or "Wrath of the Lamb," while we are taught that wrath is a sin, and God is holy and above sins.

We are taught that uncontrolled anger (one definition of wrath) is a sin), however righteous indignation is another matter. However, as a Holy God, God Himself cannot tolerate sin, as we are also taught, and therein lies one source of God's anger.

no common man was able to read and interpret the Scriptures.

Exactly, and the church took advantage of that. They also played a large part in governing the nations of the world.

Christ also issued warnings to clergy, particularly the Pharisees and other Rabbis that abused their positions of power, (and I believe that this rule certainly applies to ministers and priests as well) when He asked; "Sons of snakes and brood of vipers! How will any of you escape hell?"

Clearly, Christ's teachings did not favor the clergy in any way, but the common man. Modern Christianity teaches that all Christians are to function as ministers, meaning to serve others, rather than simply preach. Lots of inspiration for this argument comes from the Book of James, and one quote that comes to mind was "Show me a faith without works, and I will show you a faith that is dead."

I feel that C.S. Lewis put it best with his question of "Liar, Lunatic, or Lord?" Few people, even agnostics, ever say that Christ was a liar. Fewer still claim he was a lunatic. Billions of people have declared him to be Lord though.

[Stealth]

The one thing that I'll never understand about athesists, in the general sense is; why do they get so excited about something that they do not believe in? Why not laugh it off, and go on with life? We don't see impassioned debates and research into whether Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny is real, so why all of the excitement about Jesus?

Well, who says we don't laugh it off? Besides, the example you give about the existence of Santa Claus and the easter bunny is not good because there's one major difference: There's no debate about their existence because no one believes in them, so there's nothing to be debated (ok, you might say that someone believes in them, but come on, you know what I mean). God's existence is debated because some believe and some don't. And trust me, as an atheist, I can honestly tell you that those who believe are MUCH more excited about Jesus than those of us who don't believe.
On the other hand, your question can be asked in the opposite direction: Why do religious people get so excited about something they believe in? Whether you believe or not, I see nothing wrong with an open debate. Without debates in any field (science, religion, social sciences, humanities, etc.) we would be stuck in time and would progress very slowly.

Why do atheists spend hours on end writing books and blogs trying to disprove something that that can be neither proven nor disproven, in the mortal sense?

Again, your question can be turned upside down: Why do religious people spend thousands of hours writing books (the bible, the koran, the talmud, etc.) trying to prove something that can't be proven? The answer is simple: They DO think that the existence of God can be proven, just like I DO think that it can be disproven.

While I can certainly sympathize with your disillusionment with Christianity; it is difficult to understand, for me at least, the postmodern atheistic viewpoint, which often includes ridiculing Christians with supposed academic evidence that God does not exist, and wrapped in some sort of self-styled intellectual superiority.

For us, this evidence is not "supposed". And I don't know what atheists you have met in your life, but I think that you are generalizing too much when you say that most atheists ridicule Christians. Furthermore, for the sake of seeing things from both points of view, that "self-styled intellectual superiority" could also be attributed to theologians who study religion "scientifically". So what's your point? Yes, I'm sure that many academic atheists are arrogant about what they say and do, but don't you think that the same could be said about many theologians, for example? I think that you are seeing only one side of the story. In any case, remember that during the Crusades, the Inquisition... hell, during most of ancient history, atheists were the ones punished and killed by Christians and not the other way around... Talk about feeling intellectually superior.

I've seen some people that have a great command of the English language and still end up looking rather boorish, intolerant, and somewhat unsophisticated when attacking Christian beliefs with venomous rants and supposed proof.

Why do you think that atheists "attack" Christian beliefs?? I'm not interested in "attacking" your beliefs. I hope that the mere fact that I have different arguments and opinions with respect to the existence of a god is not taken as an attack.

If atheism were an actual religion, the Cromwell-like fervor with which it is represented, particularly by the media, never ceases to amaze me.

Well, that's the thing about atheism; it is not a religion. It is not an organized insitution with organized practices, and it has no book with one common set of rules to which all atheists adhere, so it is not as easily publicized as religion.

Again, this is atheism and its adherents in a general sense, and not a personal attack towards you.

I know that you are not attacking me and I really have no problems with your opinions, but what you described is NOT atheism and its adherents in general.

Few people, even agnostics, ever say that Christ was a liar. Fewer still claim he was a lunatic.

However, many doubt that he ever existed at all... I never read anything about him, so I don't know anything about the evidence supporting his existence or non-existence. In any case, if he existed (btw, there are MANY similar stories to that of Jesus in other religions) I don't believe in him in our present time, so it makes no difference for me.