I'll hear no more of your apologies. Shape up or shut up.

[Beautiful Ignorance]

I havn't ever met an honest atheist.

Well I'm not an atheist, wasn't advocating atheism as an alternative and I don't see what this has to do with anything in this thread

With that said, I doubt you have met many atheists. It's been my experience that atheists as individuals are often as honest as anyone on the earth. I believe that atheists are mistaken but I do believe they are at least honestly mistaken.

 

[Beautiful Ignorance]

um why are you here on a Christian Forum.

Why don't you go away and leave us alone?

Methinks thou dost protest too much.

Never ceases to amaze that someone would go to a site and complain like this, it's like me going to an atheist forum and whinge, whine and complain about how I used to be an atheist and how wrong they were. Get a life.

I am referring more to the efforts of Christian to spread the faith in real life. Where I live, people still go door to door, telling people about Jesus. I still get post cards advertising seminars and whatnot from my old church that I went to growing up but haven't attended since '97 despite that I have long since asked them to take me off their mailing list.

Also, I'm trying to draw attention to the fact that you don't have each others backs, you don't take proper care of each other and you will let each other starve.

 

[someguy14]

My religion falls under the larger unmbrella of Judaism. Technically, I am a Noahide which is the gentile branch. The way it works is Noahides are the 'congregation' and Jews are the 'priests.'

Matisyahu - Jerusalem (Out Of Darkness Comes Light) - YouTube

God bless friend.

 

[salida]

Sorry you ran into christians who try to force it on you-they shouldn't have. Many christians are CINO's-please don't confuse christians in name only with real ones.

 

[homeofmew]

It may come across as Christians trying to sell you something you recruit you for something or to save your soul from damnation. Well that's what it looks like right. honestly I don't blame you. Once in the mainstream Christian Church they pressure you to do more stuff like go on missions and tithe 10% of your money and sometimes you feel forced to do it. And what do you get in return a bunch of feel good stuff where you have to recruit other now?
And ya the money you gave just went to buy a new shiny object for the church to make some more feel good nonsense?

yeah Christianity today seems like that and is a far cry from what it really is.
All true Christians believe is repent of our sin and accept Christs free gift any of the above is just "dos and have tos and works beyond what is needed".

We will never be good enough even as humans. Hey even Christians Screw up too, and some of them aren't even Christians. Jesus loves You follow what he says not some preacher, parent, or human.

 

[someguy14]

Have you ever heard of the "no true Scotsman" argument?

I love all Scotsman. I am Scottish and German. I will eat anything, and keep my figure.

No true Scotsman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Notedstrangeperson]

Beautiful Ignorance: So if I've got this right, you dislike Christians because in your experience, they all acted as though they were so much better than you.

You then write a post saying you and your religion are so much better than Christianity ...

 

[Aeneas]

You could say I belong to the world's oldest and largest cult.

That would be either shamanism, which may not exactly count, so you follow some Neolithic Great Goddess cult? That would be the oldest.

The largest is Christianity, so I don't really understand where you are coming from here.

 

[Soothfish]

Bravo! I had some pretty bad experiences in churches when I used to be a Christian. I met a few genuinely nice Christians, but sadly the majority were quite unpleasant people. Having a deity love you must be the ultimate ego trip, which is probably why Christianity is so appealing to some people. God loves YOU! - now go and act like a jerk to everyone and say you're sorry at night and everything will be fine again - repeat until death.

Are you sure that this past animosity towards the Christians has not impacted your ability to reason objectively? I'm not putting you on the spot but that may be something to ponder. It may be true that the majority are Christian-in-name-only but it seems strange to me how so many opponents of the faith mention these "bad Christians" at the drop of a hat.

Also, the fact that many Christians are hoping for the end of the world (notably some American Presidential Candidates share this hope) makes them somewhat fatalistic and lacking in real compassion. Check out the Rapture Ready forums sometime - these people literally get excited about earthquakes, famines, disease and any other bad news because they think their rapture is close. Ironically, these same people laugh at the likes of Harold Camping for simply putting a date to this rapture nonsense.

I have never heard any presidential candidate talk about hoping that the world is destroyed in Armageddon even though spend hours a day studying politics. if someone said it, then I need to see the full context to believe it. However, I HAVE heard atheists claim that conservative politicians are secretly hoping for it. That doesn't cut it.

 

[Soothfish]

Have you ever heard of the "no true Scotsman" argument?

She was not arguing, just making an empirical statement. There are many many Christians who do not take their faith seriously.

Are you able to understand this?

 

[LOCO]

I am referring more to the efforts of Christian to spread the faith in real life. Where I live, people still go door to door, telling people about Jesus. I still get post cards advertising seminars and whatnot from my old church that I went to growing up but haven't attended since '97 despite that I have long since asked them to take me off their mailing list.

Also, I'm trying to draw attention to the FACT that you don't have each others backs, you don't take proper care of each other and you will let each other starve.[/SIZE]

The above highlighted statement is just inane and a generalisation.

There are 3+million people dying or dead of starvation in Africa over the past 2years. it is the Christian/Muslim organisations who were there from the beginning. Only later did UN/other government agencies arrive.

Let's see about the word FACT you used.

Can you provide the source/evidence of the worldwide research which shows overwhelmingly that Christians:

a) Don't care for each other

b) Don't have each others backs

c) Let each other starve



Otherwise it is just hot air.

If your opinions are based on your own experience then we can't very well take that as overwhelming evidence now can we? Anecdotes while interesting are not reliable evidence. You cannot extrapolate isolated incidents into a worldwide phenomena.

It is unfortunate that you keep getting harassed, I also get regular visits from Mormons and JW's trying to 'convert' me. I entertain them with tea and biscuits anyway because that is what I believe a Christian should do.

I think they knew after a couple of visits that I am a hardcore Catholic and won't change but they continue coming, I think we became sorta friends, I especially felt sorry for the Mormons because they are American and had never left their country and are very young adults. Like that saying 'friends are just strangers you have not met yet'.

However I know that if I asked them to stop they would, my neighbour did and they stopped. If you have asked them to stop and they continue that sounds like a cult. You should call the police.

The majority of the worlds Christians are Catholic 1billion+ and we don't do door to door.

BTW you haven't answered my question 'why are you on here if you only have negative things to say about Christians?' Surely that would not be spiritually healthy for you.

 

[LOCO]

The insane ones have a tendency to group together and if you happen to walk into one of these kinds of churches (they do exist. I grew up in one) a person has the tendency to think that all Christians are this way.

If you are a narrow thinker then you would assume all Christians behave this way.

I know a few Catholics who bear strange opinions, they don't like Prots. don't care to want to know them. I also know the majority of Catholics do not buy into the us/them mentality.

I also read/study a lot of varying historical texts, watch documentaries and the news. You have to be discerning, you can't base your opinion of an entire group of people based solely on your experience, what you see Friday morning or via gossip or through one news channel who may very well have their own agenda.

 

[razeontherock]

Stop trying to sell me a faith that doesn't work and start working on learning how to live a faith that does.

And this is what Jesus was saying with His comment of "witness unto Jerusalem, and Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the world."

 

[Hakan101]

My religion falls under the larger unmbrella of Judaism. Technically, I am a Noahide which is the gentile branch. The way it works is Noahides are the 'congregation' and Jews are the 'priests.'

What, exactly is your good news? Considering the way that Christians treat each other I'm not the least bit convinced you have any. It's been my experience that even atheists treat people with more compassion and empathy than many Christians.

You are unfamiliar with the Gospel? Should we really judge things by experience alone? My experience has not been the same as yours. Not by a long shot.

By and large Jews have been more resistent to conversion to Christianity than any other group because they already have a better deal going. A Jew would have to be absolutely insane to go from being treated like a Jew (or Noahide) by other Jews to being treated like a Christian by other Christians.

This is a most ludicrous thing to say. Please explain.

Uh, no! If one functional individual joins a group of disfunctional people, what usually happens is that person quickly becomes disfunctional themselves. Anytime you have a group of disfunctional people, it's always best to split up the individuals and put each one with a group of people that are functional.

And how do you know this? This is the problem with mankind, when things break, they would rather it aside and seek a replacement. They never want to fix that which is broken. God wants to fix those broken things for us, and make them new again.

 

[Beautiful Ignorance]

Sorry you ran into christians who try to force it on you-they shouldn't have. Many christians are CINO's-please don't confuse christians in name only with real ones.

Your behavior right here is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Everyone born from a Jewish mother and Everyone who completely conversion is a Jew and every Jew is obligated to treat them as a Jew. Or as Jews sometimes say, "a Jew is a Jew is a Jew is a Jew is a Jew is a Jew. "

If you are a Christian, on the other had, if a Christian doesn't like you or disapproves of you for whatever utterly arbitrary reason, they they just decide you are a CINO (Christian in name only), or not a real Christian and they are treated like an outsider.

I was often consider a fake Christian and treated as an outsider. Sometimes it was because I made mistakes and did sinful things (whatever happened to the 'we are forgiven' part? Oh yeah, that only applies to me. Everyone else has to be perfect or they are not real Christians) but most of the time it was because I didn't wear "Christian clothes," read unChristian books and comic books (no real Christian (TM) reads Swamp Thing or Lovecraft), I listened to unChriistian music (real Christians (TM) don't listen to Metallica) or did some other thing that was considered unChristian for utterly arbitrary reasons.

So fine. I'm not a Christian. But two can play at this game. None of the rest of you are Christians either. Since there are no Christians, stop trying to spread a religion that doesn't really exist.

Straight out, as long as there are fake Christians, I'm not going to convert. I simply am not going to ever again subject myself to that kind of treatment. When all of you, and I mean ALL OF YOU recognize all the rest of you, and I really do mean ALL the rest of you as Christians, come talk to me. Until then, forget it because I simply don't want to be a fake.

 

[Beautiful Ignorance]

Matisyahu - Jerusalem (Out Of Darkness Comes Light) - YouTube

God bless friend.

I liked the video but I could barely understand the vocalist through the accent and so I failed to understand what you were attempting to communicate.

 

[Beautiful Ignorance]

Beautiful Ignorance: So if I've got this right, you dislike Christians because in your experience, they all acted as though they were so much better than you.

You then write a post saying you and your religion are so much better than Christianity ...

No, you misunderstand. I disliked Christianity because when worse came to worst, my fellow Christians just let each other starve to death.

My current religion has a history stretching back thousands of years of people surviving because everyone does take care of each other.

Jews stick together and take care of each other. Christians don't. Christians don't even recognize each other as being Christian.

 

[Beautiful Ignorance]

That would be either shamanism, which may not exactly count, so you follow some Neolithic Great Goddess cult? That would be the oldest.

TMK, there hasn't been an unbroken succession down through the ages of people worshiping Neolistic Great Goddesses.

But I'm not playing games here. Right below my name, it says straight up what I am. I am a gentile worshiper of the God of Abraham, the Old Testament Deity. The 'cult' I was referring to is Judaism.

The largest is Christianity, so I don't really understand where you are coming from here.

I don't think Christianity qualifies as a cult any more.

 

[Beautiful Ignorance]

Are you sure that this past animosity towards the Christians has not impacted your ability to reason objectively? I'm not putting you on the spot but that may be something to ponder. It may be true that the majority are Christian-in-name-only but it seems strange to me how so many opponents of the faith mention these "bad Christians" at the drop of a hat.

It's your behavior right here that I am pointing to. YOU are one of those "bad Christians" because here you are refusing to own most of your fellow Christians. Jesus said, "you will know them by their love." If that's true, then it's not the Christians because the Christians have no real love for one another.

 

[Beautiful Ignorance]

The above highlighted statement is just inane and a generalisation.

There are 3+million people dying or dead of starvation in Africa over the past 2years. it is the Christian/Muslim organisations who were there from the beginning. Only later did UN/other government agencies arrive.

Let's see about the word FACT you used.

Can you provide the source/evidence of the worldwide research which shows overwhelmingly that Christians:

a) Don't care for each other

b) Don't have each others backs

c) Let each other starve



Otherwise it is just hot air.

If your opinions are based on your own experience then we can't very well take that as overwhelming evidence now can we? Anecdotes while interesting are not reliable evidence. You cannot extrapolate isolated incidents into a worldwide phenomena.

I'm going partly from personal experiences and partly from history. Growing up, my parents were ill equipped to be good parents and so I turned to the Church for help and despite there being over a 1000 members, there still wasn't anyone to take up the slack that my parents were leaving. My problems simply weren't their problem and so they simply didn't care.

In studying both Jewish and Christian history, I learned about a repeating pattern: Jews had almost always prepared long ahead of time for the coming famine whereas most Christians have not been so careful and then when the famine strikes (as it always does eventually) everyone is starving to death but the Jews. This has been the source of much anti-Jewish sentiments.

It isn't just that the Jews prepared but the Christians didn't but also that even the Christians that did prepare let those that didn't starve to death. Because of my parents and my church I have experienced a version of this first hand.

It is unfortunate that you keep getting harassed, I also get regular visits from Mormons and JW's trying to 'convert' me. I entertain them with tea and biscuits anyway because that is what I believe a Christian should do.

I think they knew after a couple of visits that I am a hardcore Catholic and won't change but they continue coming, I think we became sorta friends, I especially felt sorry for the Mormons because they are American and had never left their country and are very young adults. Like that saying 'friends are just strangers you have not met yet'.

However I know that if I asked them to stop they would, my neighbour did and they stopped. If you have asked them to stop and they continue that sounds like a cult. You should call the police.

The majority of the worlds Christians are Catholic 1billion+ and we don't do door to door.

Except for where my old Church is concerned, I wouldn't say harass is the right word. I actually enjoy religious discussions. But isn't that anyone is offending or bothering me or anything like that. The point is that Christians are trying to sell me this "product" that anyone can plainly see is defective.

I actually get hit more by JWs and Mormons also but I don't consider them Christians. Not just because their beliefs are so far removed from mainstream Christianity but because they also use different bibles.

BTW you haven't answered my question 'why are you on here if you only have negative things to say about Christians?' Surely that would not be spiritually healthy for you.

I like having my beliefs challenged. If I had been more willing to challenge my beliefs when I was a kid, I would probably left the churches for the synagogues much earlier in life and would have been much better off for it.