Where are they now?

[Aron-Ra]

Christian teaching isn't determined by the opinions of men, but by scripture.

Which does nothing to explain why there are so many denominations sharding from a core belief which no one can identify anymore. Obviously, opinions do count when interpreting scripture.

These things are not taught in scripture.

Are you sure? Because I thought there was something in there about the wages of sin being death, meaning that our immortal soul can't be immortal without everlasting life in Christ. In which case, we just die, right?

By "most of them weren't Christians", I meant that most of them weren't Christians.

They believed they were. They proclaimed as much, and lived according to what they felt that belief required. What more criteria is there?

Both Jim Jones and David Koresh preached a false gospel. In fact, both of these men proclaimed themselves to be the Christ, which shows us using both scripture and logic that they could not have been Christians. Where was the evidence of regeneration? Both of them lived ridiculously sinful lifestyles.

Of course their interpretation is different, and guided by faith, which seldom listens to reason of any kind. They obviously proclaimed a belief in Jesus as the son of God, and they pursued it to the ends of their lives.

What about Martin Luther?

What about him?

Was he a Christian or not? He obviously felt he was, and he certainly lived as one according to his beliefs, and there are a heckuva lot of Lutherans (and others) who believe he was Christian too.

He felt he was doing the Lord's work?

What does Matthew 7:21-23 say about that?

About what you are; that there is no such thing as a "true" Christian; so that whomever I list, you can surely excuse.

Hitler was not a Christian. He was an occultist. That Hitler was into the occult is one of the most widely known facts about him.

I'm not arguing that he was interested in the nature of supernatural things. But the fact that he was a Christian is also well documented.

So then the fact that Dracula was not a Christian at the time of his death proves that he was a Christian?

Well, you certainly can't argue with that logic.

That is not what I said. Dracula fought for the Christians, and there is reason to believe that he adopted that religion as well. But to the best of my knowledge, the only reason to suspect that he ever rejected that belief was Bram Stoker's fiction.

By the way, Bram Stoker's "Dracula" was not a biography.

Well, duh. Give me some credit.

every one of the other people I listed as Christians did indeed proclaim themselves as such and continued to indicate that to the ends of their lives.

But were they? Did they live for Christ? Did they follow Christian teaching? Sadly, the answer for most of these people is no.

"Most" means more than half. And as far as I can tell, more than half, (if not all) of those I listed proclaiming to be Christians really were Christians by the only definition of that word I know.

Yes, I know who they are.

Then why did you ask if Hypatia was a reborn Christian or not?

Simply believing in something does not make it so.

Very good. Just bare that in mind as I do.

You can be sincere, yet be sincerely wrong.

Certainly.

The bottom line is that you can't say you follow Christ and then contradict His teachings.

I don't see that it is possible not to contradict him, since he contradicts himself. He supports the teachings attributed to Moses, but he violates the fifth commandment. I mean Ghandi never urged his followers to sell their clothes to buy weapons. He also violates the fourth commandment by promising to destroy families in his honor; husbands from wives, children from parents, etc., and for what? To believe something preposterous for no reason at all? He violates the 8th commandment by saying that others are gods just as he is, and referring to the Pharisees as "vipers" and the spawn of Satan. Not only that, but he violates the very first commandment by placing himself ahead of God, by saying that no one can reach God except through him. That's why Muslims accuse Christians of idolatry.

Either you follow him or you oppose him.

See, that's one of the places where I have to question how accurately Jesus' thoughts and words were recorded in scripture. This all-or-nothing, black-or-white perspective is not something I would expect from any superior intelligence. It is rarely (if ever) applicable, yet it is applied here in the broadest possible sense. I have to wonder, if Jesus were here today, how many things he would say were not really his words, or weren't what he really meant. Surely there are errors in that since the entire history of journalism fails to produce a single flawless document. There are a host of religious tomes similar to this one, and this one is rife with absurdities and contradictions, so why do you afford it none of the scrutiny you would apply to any other document ever written?

 

[Aron-Ra]

I'm pretty 'up' on my history, thank you.

Evidently not. You've gotten most of your historial "facts" wrong.

Once again, "most" means the majority, and so far, the only thing I've gotten wrong was that I forgot that (at one point) Joseph Smith had a gun. No matter. That one thing cannot equate to a majority. Every other error in this discussion has been yours.

Joseph Smith was not unarmed.

In fact, one of his own cellmates (and co-conspirators) tells in the book, "The Gospel Kingdom" (a Mormon source, no less)...

"Elder Cyrus H. Wheelock came in to see us, and when he was about leaving, drew a small pistol, a six-shooter, from his pocket, remarking at the same time 'Would any of you like to have this?' Brother Joseph immediately replied, 'Yes, give it to me,' whereupon he took the pistol, and put it in his pantaloons pocket. The pistol was a six-shooting revolver, of Allen's patent; it belonged to me, and was one that I furnished to Brother Wheelock when he talked of going with me to the east, previous to our coming to Carthage" (The Gospel Kingdom, p.358).

Smith had a pepperbox, not a revolver, and he was still unarmed when he was shot. There were four men in one room with three guns between them, yet they fired a total of only six shots between them when the room was seiged by up to 100 men with muskets. Smith fired his three shots only after his brother had already been killed. There were several musket barrels already inside the door by then, and hundreds of bullets were raining in from the window. This hardly counts as the gunfight you claimed it to be. Smith was still shot in the back while trapped in a cell, just as I said. He was unarmed and trying to escape out the window when he was hit from both sides.

My whole family, and most of the people I have ever known in my childhood are all Mormons,

So what? Most Mormons don't even know what Mormonism teaches.

This was probably the most important first lesson in religion for me. When I was a kid, people would ask me what my religion was. I would state what my family's religion was, because I knew I didn't have one of my own. Not realizing that, whomever I was talking to would jump in to tell me all sorts of weird, stupid things that I was supposed to believe, as if they would know more than I what my family believes. Of course, when I mentioned to my parents what the people accused, I got only confused stares and "How could anyone think we believe such things?"

Ask a Mormon about the "Mountain Meadows Massacre" or why up until just a few years ago, they didn't even allow blacks to receive the priesthood and they won't know what you're talking about.

The issue with blacks in the priesthood came up in a family discussion back in the late 1970s that resulted in a heated argument in our house. My mother is still very active in that church, and she says there was a time when the Gentiles didn't have the priesthood either. Did you know that? I also asked my mother this evening what she knew about the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and she said she didn't remember all the details, but that it was a sort of a feud between two Mormon families. She also said that she saw surviving members of those families on TV a couple of years ago, when they showed a newlywed couple joining the two clans. I don't like to get her started on her religion, so I tried to cut the conversation short when I heard enough. She would have talked for hours on that if I had let her. So you're wrong yet again.

I researched that religion in-depth from outside, independent sources.

You may have but you didn't study the account at the

Carthage jail.

Yes I did. I watched a documentary of that particular occurrence on PBS a few years ago, and I have since read other accounts of it from both Mormon and non-Mormon sources. I'm sure the gun was mentioned in there somewhere, so I must have just forgotten about that. Doesn't really detract from my point though.

You need to study your history a little. He was killed in a gun battle at the Carthage (Il.) city jail. He may have been shot but the idea that he went, "as a lamb led to the slaughter" is just not true.

Yes it clearly was true, and you have misrepresented the situation significantly.

What else could they have been? Muslim? Hindu? Do you think Smith was murdered by renegade Buddhists of the Old West?

So then, you don't know, you're just assuming?

That is correct. Since these men were not required to document their religious beliefs for posterity, then I must assume that any militia amassed in a country that is almost exclusively Christian will also be almost exclusively Christian.

How do you know? Your statement above seems to indicate that you're just guessing.

I know because the prejudicial hatred and outrage felt against the Mormons has (in my personal experience) never come from anyone but other Christians, who feel a special indignation against Mormons. So of course, in a country that that has a white population of about 90% Christian you would expect that those most anxious to kill Mormons would also be (at least) 90% Christian, and (I think) more likely 100%. It is a guess, but it should be an accurate estimate, and one backed up by Smith's own testimony, recorded in his autobiography included in the Book of Mormon:

"I soon found, however, that my telling the story [of the vision] had excited a great deal of prejudice against me among professors of religion, and was the cause of great persecution, which continued to increase; and though I was only an obscure boy, ...between fourteen and fifteen years of age, ...yet men of high standing would take notice sufficient to excite the public mind against me, and create a bitter persecution; and this was common among all the sects-- all united to persecute me."

Do you believe that he was a heretic?

Of course. But then I don't use the word in that Excorcist II sense that so many Christians do when they chant charges of heresy. Even Martin Luther was a heretic, and may have been more heretic than Smith was. Protestants think its OK in Luther's case, because it begat their church, which continued to shard into many denominations. But it wasn't OK for Smith to do the same, and they murdered him for it.

The indignation of other Christians over the Mormons lead Governor Lilburn Boggs of Missouri, (a Kentucky Christian himself)

Normally, I would take your word for this, but since most of the people you've listed as Christians actually weren't Christians, how do we know that this man was a Christian?

Several ways I would think. (1) Most (if not all) the people I mentioned were Christians whether you like it or not. (2) Boggs started his career as a snake oil salesman, which would have made him an excellent Creation scientist. (3) All his noted associations were among elected officials and society figures in heavily Christian communities like Louisiana, a state so religious it has Parishes instead of Counties, and currently has the highest church-going population per-capita. One couldn't have these associations in the South at that time, and not be a Christian. And one certainly couldn't be elected to public office at that time without being Christian. And finally, (4) Lilburn Boggs was born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1792. Now Kentucky has always been an extremely Christian state, and still is today. But it was even more so in the early 1800s due to a revival of Protestant Christian religiosity across the South, called "The Great Awakening". From 1800 to 1820, membership in America's Christian churches doubled, most of that within the newly formed "evangelical" churches that swept the South and held it ever since. Up to 15,000 people camped at one sight for services that lasted several weeks, given by evangelists that were already nationally famous. Hundreds of people at a time were given to screaming fits and collapsing in unison as they shrieked their prayers and "rent the very heavens". This unprecedented Christian revival began -in Kentucky- when Boggs was 9 years old.

I can't find any documentation to specifically state his religious perspective. But every time I had found that for others, you just rejected them out-of-hand, saying that most of my monks, priests, Bishops and saints weren't really Christians despite what they themselves claimed. So if I had found documentation of his church, it wouldn't be good enough for you, but it is almost inconceivable that Boggs could have been anything other than a Christian.

And at the very least most of those mobs were Christians.

How do you know?

There's certainly no doubt that this mob must have consisted of mostly Christians, as having a majority of anything else in white America would have been highly improbable even today. But in 1838, it would have been impossible.

 

[Aron-Ra]

I don't define it and I don't exclude anyone.

You certainly did! In this one post, you’ve excluded several clergymen and a few others who’ve proclaimed themselves to be Christian, and who then acted in a matter only a believer could.

The Bible tells us that if we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord, we will be saved. But don't be fooled into thinking that this is just lip service.

The Bible goes on to tell us that, if we have believed in our hearts, the heart will be regenerated by the Holy Spirit and that this will be evidenced by our lifestyles. This is why Jesus said, "by their fruits, you shall know them".

Then according to you, Christianity is not the world’s largest religion comprising 1/3 of the global population. According to you, Islam would be the largest, then Hindu, then Buddhist, and Christian would be some tiny faction numbering probably less than Shinto.

Most of the people you've listed did not live a lifestyle that showed regeneration by the Holy Spirit.

Who on Earth ever did?

The truth is, that you would think that Hitler did says more about you than it does about Hitler.

It doesn’t say anything about me. I don’t believe anyone ever showed “regeneration by the holy spirit”. All I’ve ever seen are sinners saying they’re Christians. And while many of Hitler’s associates were Odinists, Hellenists or Hindu, Hitler himself still declared his Christianity to everyone he knew, publicly or privately. He evidently did believe that people were created by God, and that Jesus was the son of that god, and his Lord and Savior. When someone believes that they are Christian. If you don't believe me, look it up in any standard dictionary.

So then, if the answer is no, what does the Bible say?

Well, there’s a contradiction there. It says that good works are important, "by their fruits, you shall know them”, but then it also says that all our good deeds are like filthy rags, and the only criteria to achieve salvation is sheer gullability in swallowing this story, and nothing more than this. So all the greatest people in history are apparently all to be tortured for eternity along with virtually the entire remaining population of the world, (2/3rds of which aren’t Christian by anyone’s definition. while only a tiny few are in heaven perpetually praising an insecure deity with an unjust system of judgement.

Not only that, but I said she was female, a respected scholar, and an advocate for reason in science education.

Oh, well, in that case, she couldn't possibly have been a Christian.

Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Kent Hovind, R. J. Rushdoony, Martin Luther, and a host of others would agree.

Yet you seem to think that is reason enough for your god to torture them forever without mercy.

No, I don't but then again, putting words in my mouth seems to be a regular thing with you.

I’m not putting words into your mouth. The Bible you support does seem to say that is reason enough for your god to torture them forever without mercy.

When have you ever one time heard me make declarations about who is and who isn't in Hell?

All through this post.

Then it shouldn't be that hard for you to give us an example. I've never said such a thing and if you're going to say that I have, then you need to back it up.

Certainly. I pointed out that most of the people who lived after Jesus were (and are) non-Christians, and asked if they are all in Hell now, along with pre-Christians and the Christians you won’t accept as such. Then you responded in the affirmative with the implication that no one could escape Hell without first being “reconciled to God through Christ's atoning sacrifice on the cross”. So you have indicated very clearly that you believe almost everyone on my list is in Hell.

You did it again in the very next line:

does acceptance of Jesus as Christ count as the only criteria for getting into Heaven?

What does the Bible say?

Pretty much that.

Then there's your answer.

Now yours sounds like a typical Christian’s black-or-white, all-or-nothing, “with him or against him” position. So you probably don’t have any other option than Heaven or Hell. If that is the case, then you have declared nearly that everyone on my list, including respected statesmen, beloved holy men, great philosophers and scientists, and a handful of humanitarian souls, are all being roasted on fiery pokers as we speak. And worse, since you seem to support this dogmatism, then you believe they actually deserve it! This is why I find no evidence of morality in common creationist Christianity.

Really? Where does the Bible say this?

Where does it say that Jesus "squishes [sinner] into his winepress all day".

Revelations 14:14-20 and 19:11-18 describe someone known as “the Word” and “the Son of Man” treading the “winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God”, a parallel of Isiaih 63.

How do you reconcile this with Rom 5?

What do you mean, reconcile? Where do you see a contradiction? If I compare your statements to this, it seems to be saying that blind gullability is the ultimate ticket to paradise, and scarcely a ritcheous ["true" Christian] man even exists. And how do you reconcile this chapter with the people in my list? Enoch, Eve and Elijiah specifically?

You tell me that I should study history (despite the fact that I have minor in history), yet, you don't know anything about the Christian teaching or Mormon history that you are commenting on.

Yes I do. It seems your minor degree has you full of yourself. You keep making assumptions that aren’t warranted, and assuming I don’t know what I know.

Yes, He is a loving Saviour. So loving, in fact, that He went to heroic lengths - even to the point of laying down His own life - to reconcile us to God and to save us from Hell.

If that really happened, why would he do it? There isn’t a shard of logic involved in that whole story. He sacrificed himself to himself, so he could forgive for the flaw he gave us, or so that he could forgive us for doing what he forced us to do. For some reason, we had to do something really bad before he would forgive us for doing something good. And the only thing that will save us from merciless anghish and eternal torture is if we forsake our reason and swallow a bizarre and senseless story for literally no reason at all. Nothing about any of this belief makes any sense.

Did you know that the Bible invites us to reason and to love God with all of our heart, mind and soul?

No. In fact, reason was the original sin. According to the story, we had the choice to remain as we were always, or we could advance to sentient cognizance. We were forced into that “choice”, and in fact were given no choice in the matter, but the crime was still our acquisition of reason, and the “sin” since has been its usage. We are even forbidden to question the nature of God. Where inquiry is restricted, and blind faith insisted upon instead, then reason is clearly not permitted.

There are those who need to believe, and there are those who instead desire to understand.
"A fool finds no pleasure in understanding, but delights in his own opinions."
--Proverbs 18:2)

Well, since you've shown that you have absolutely no idea what the Bible says, could you please give us a couple of examples of it's errors about the world, citing chapter and verse, please?

What, are you kidding? That list is too great! The idea that rabbits chew cud or that snakes eat dust, that snakes or donkeys can talk, the geocentric notion of the flat Earth fixed on pillars, created four days before everything else in the universe; with a crystal firmament over it to keep the water above the firmament (in space) from getting the stars (which are beneath the firmament) from getting wet. The flood wasn’t global, and didn’t involve two of every “kind”, there were already other languages all over the world long before the tower of Babel, (which was really dedicated to Marduk). Ritual death spells and magic wands do nothing to rid the body of lice. You can’t remove all memory of Amalek under Heaven if you write into your history in such detail. And it would only take a couple of weeks for a large party to walk North from Egypt to Canaan. The stars can’t fall from the sky, and the sun can’t be made to stop without stopping the Earth, that isn’t possible either, and even if it was, it still wouldn’t stop the moon.

I could go on and on, and I don’t think you need chapter or verse since you’ll probably ignore it anyway, or just make the excuse that it doesn’t really say what it says.

 

[12volt_man]

Which does nothing to explain why there are so many denominations sharding from a core belief which no one can identify anymore.

Yes, there are many denominations and that there are so many denomination and, yet, they agree on the essentials of the faith is a testimony to the veracity of scripture.

Obviously, opinions do count when interpreting scripture. Are you sure? Because I thought there was something in there about the wages of sin being death, meaning that our immortal soul can't be immortal without everlasting life in Christ. In which case, we just die, right?

No. Perhaps you should study to learn the fundamentals of Christian theology before you move on to the more difficult points of doctrine. This will save you from gaffs, such as the one above.

They believed they were. They proclaimed as much, and lived according to what they felt that belief required. What more criteria is there?

Unfortunately, merely believing in something doesn't make it true.

Of course their interpretation is different, and guided by faith, which seldom listens to reason of any kind. They obviously proclaimed a belief in Jesus as the son of God, and they pursued it to the ends of their lives.

Not only was their interpretation "different", it was so different as to be unrecognizable from any teaching of Christ or any historically accpeted doctrine of orthodoxy.

Their interpretation was "different" enough as to be meaningless in the context of Christianity.

As I pointed out to you before, both of these men claimed to be the Christ, which both scripture and common sense tell us eliminate them as Christians.



About what you are; that there is no such thing as a "true" Christian;[/quote]

Actually, that's not what that passage says at all. Did you bother to read it?

I'm not arguing that he was interested in the nature of supernatural things. But the fact that he was a Christian is also well documented

Then why don't you list some of this documentation and, while you're at it, why don't you detail the signs of regeneration that we can see in the way he lived his life.

Dracula fought for the Christians, and there is reason to believe that he adopted that religion as well.

What Christians did he fight for and what evidence is there to suggest that he became a Christian?

Well, duh. Give me some credit.

No. You can't have it both ways. You can't cite Bram Stoker's "Dracula" as historically authoritative and then feign offense I point out to you that it is fiction.

"Most" means more than half. And as far as I can tell, more than half, (if not all) of those I listed proclaiming to be Christians really were Christians by the only definition of that word I know.

Then I question your definition of the word.

Then why did you ask if Hypatia was a reborn Christian or not?

Do you know what a rhetorical question is?

Very good. Just bare that in mind as I do.

So then, if you understand this is not true, why do you keep claiming it?

Again, you can't have it both ways.

Christ supports the teachings attributed to Moses, but he violates the fifth commandment.

Demonstrate, por favor.

He also violates the fourth commandment by promising to destroy families in his honor; husbands from wives, children from parents, etc., and for what?

Please demonstrate.

He violates the 8th commandment by saying that others are gods just as he is,

First of all, I'm not sure how this violates, "Thou shalt not steal" but, in any event, had you actually bothered to read the text, you would have seen that Christ is not referring to them as divine in nature and certainly not worthy of worship, but quoting a verse from the Psalms in which the judges of Israel are said to be as gods in their authority. Likewise this verse isn't ascribing any sort of divinity to them, but stating that their authority comes from God.

This is not at all dissimilar to Christ's statement to Pilate, "you have no authority over Me, except that given to you by God".

Not only that, but he violates the very first commandment by placing himself ahead of God, by saying that no one can reach God except through him.

No, he doesn't place Himself ahead of God, He is God. The entire Bible points to Him as our way of salvation.

Surely there are errors in that since the entire history of journalism fails to produce a single flawless document.

So then, why don't you point out to us some of the flaws in scripture?

There are a host of religious tomes similar to this one, and this one is rife with absurdities and contradictions, so why do you afford it none of the scrutiny you would apply to any other document ever written?

First of all, if you're going to claim that the Bible is "rife with absurdities and contradictions", then it is incumbent upon you to demonstrate such.

I'll make it easy for you. Just give me your top three contradictions.

Second, it's more than a little condescending on your part to assume that I just woke up one morning and decided to be a Christian.

The truth is that I have held the Bible up to stringent criticism and, after studying it for sixteen years, I can say without one doubt that this is the infallable word of God.

Once again, "most" means the majority, and so far, the only thing I've gotten wrong was that I forgot that (at one point) Joseph Smith had a gun.

That's not the only thing you've gotten wrong. You've listed several people as Christians who, clearly, were not.

You've made errors in presenting even the most fundamental of Christian doctrines.

You did not "forget" that Smith had a gun.

Remember, you stated dogmatically (more than once, no less) that he was "shot in the back" and was "unarmed".

When I pointed out to you that this wasn't true, you then claimed to have studied Mormon doctrine and knew this to be a fact.

Those are not the actions or words of someone who simply "forgot", but of someone who got caught and is now trying to weasel his way out of it.

Every other error in this discussion has been yours.

Demonstrate, please.

Smith had a pepperbox, not a revolver, and he was still unarmed when he was shot.

I've presented evidence from an eyewitness to the contrary. You've presnted a claim and asked us to take your word for it.

No thank you.

So you're wrong yet again.

No, I'm not wrong "yet again".

First of all, your mother, evidently, does not know the history of the Massacre so I'm not wrong on that count.

Secondly, even if she did have her facts straight, your mother, as fine a woman as she may be, does not constitute "most Mormons".

I watched a documentary of that particular occurrence on PBS a few years ago, and I have since read other accounts of it from both Mormon and non-Mormon sources.

And just what were these sources?

Yes it clearly was true, and you have misrepresented the situation significantly.

If it's true, then , by definition, I haven't misrepresented anything.

You're the one who claimed that he was an unarmed victim, not me.

What else could they have been? Muslim? Hindu? Do you think Smith was murdered by renegade Buddhists of the Old West?

So then, once again, you're assuming.

I know because the prejudicial hatred and outrage felt against the Mormons has (in my personal experience) never come from anyone but other Christians,

In other words, you don't know but your hostility toward Christians is so great, you just really, really hope it's true.

This is what your entire argument is based on: grasp at straws, throw something against the wall and hope it sticks.

It is a guess

Yes. It's a guess. This admission is pretty much game, set and match.

Of course.

So, then how do you say that it was "prejudicial propaganda"?

Are you basing your opinion on prejudicial propaganda?

If he was a heretic, as you claim, then he, by the very definition of the word, cannot be a Christian.

Most (if not all) the people I mentioned were Christians whether you like it or not.

Well, I've already demonstrated that three of them weren't, one of whom, you even admitted was a heretic.

All his noted associations were among elected officials and society figures in heavily Christian communities like Louisiana, a state so religious it has Parishes instead of Counties, and currently has the highest church-going population per-capita. One couldn't have these associations in the South at that time, and not be a Christian.

So then, merely having an association with Christians and, from your earlier statement, living in the same country with Christians makes one a Christian?

I can't find any documentation to specifically state his religious perspective. But every time I had found that for others, you just rejected them out-of-hand,

Actually, you haven't documented anything, you've merely made statements. I've asked you several times to document the things you're saying.

So far, the only documentation you've given at all was a quite from Joselh Smith that turned out to be completely irrelevant.

So if I had found documentation of his church, it wouldn't be good enough for you,

Well, that's convenient.

There's certainly no doubt that this mob must have consisted of mostly Christians, as having a majority of anything else in white America would have been highly improbable even today. But in 1838, it would have been impossible.

Again, you're assuming.

Face it: you have no idea whether these people were Christians or not. You just hope that, by an outside chance, they were so that you can paint Christianity in a bad light.

 

[12volt_man]

You certainly did! In this one post, you’ve excluded several clergymen and a few others who’ve proclaimed themselves to be Christian, and who then acted in a matter only a believer could.

But they didn't act "in a matter (sic) only a believer could"

They taught heresy, proclaimed themselves to be the Christ and lived lifestyles of deliberate, unrepentant immorality.

Either of these things, according to scripture, tells us that someone is not a Christian.

Then according to you, Christianity is not the world’s largest religion comprising 1/3 of the global population. According to you, Islam would be the largest, then Hindu, then Buddhist, and Christian would be some tiny faction numbering probably less than Shinto.

The problem here is that you are talking about anyone who calls himself a Christian or, according to your above statements, even lives in the same country as a Christian or has friends who are Christians.

I'm talking about people who have been born again and are actively living for Christ, in a personal relationship with Him.

By your standard, yes, Christianity is the world's largest religion. It has to be. After all, no one is excluded.

By the Bible's standard, not everyone who claims the name of Christ is following Christ.

This is precisely what the Bible talks about when it talks about people "having a form of religion but denying the power thereof".

Who on Earth ever did?

Many people. Everyone who is a Christian is supposed to.

It doesn’t say anything about me.

It says both that you're ignorant of scripture and Christian doctrine and that you're ignorant of history.

I don’t believe anyone ever showed “regeneration by the holy spirit”.

But if they haven't experienced this, then they're not Christians.

So, which is it? Is everybody a Christian or is nobody a Christian?

And while many of Hitler’s associates were Odinists, Hellenists or Hindu, Hitler himself still declared his Christianity to everyone he knew, publicly or privately

Or so you keep saying. We're still waiting for you to show some evidence.

He evidently did believe that people were created by God, and that Jesus was the son of that god, and his Lord and Savior.

But the Bible says that even the Devil and his demons believe that Jesus is Lord.

If Hitler was a Christian, then how do you explain his lifestyle and his actions?

When someone believes that they are Christian. If you don't believe me, look it up in any standard dictionary.

Thank you, no. My sole authority in determining doctrinal matters is scripture, not the dictionary.

Well, there’s a contradiction there.

No, there's not.

The two statements are referring to two different things.

In one instance it is referring to salvation attained by good works. In another, it is talking about good works perfomed out of a heart of gratitude for the salvation one has already recieved.

and the only criteria to achieve salvation is sheer gullability in swallowing this story, and nothing more than this.

Actually, it doesn't say that at all.

If you're going to quote scripture, maybe it would help if you cited the verse or passage you're referring to.

Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Kent Hovind, R. J. Rushdoony, Martin Luther, and a host of others would agree.

Really? Can you demonstrate this?

I’m not putting words into your mouth.

Actually, you've done it several times now.

The Bible you support does seem to say that is reason enough for your god to torture them forever without mercy.

Where does it say this?

Certainly. I pointed out that most of the people who lived after Jesus were (and are) non-Christians, and asked if they are all in Hell now, along with pre-Christians and the Christians you won’t accept as such. Then you responded in the affirmative with the implication that no one could escape Hell without first being “reconciled to God through Christ's atoning sacrifice on the cross”. So you have indicated very clearly that you believe almost everyone on my list is in Hell.

This would be an outright lie on your part.

Here is my exact response to the question of who is in hell and who isn't:

Depends. Were they reconciled to God through Christ's atoning sacrifice on the cross?

As you can see, I did not answer "in the affirmative", nor did I declare anyone to be in Hell.

You did it again in the very next line:

And you lie again. Here is my statement:

What does the Bible say?

Notice that I didn't decalre anyone to be in Hell by this question, nor did I rule out the possibility of Heaven. I merely asked what the Bible said about it since, no matter what my opinion may be, the Bible is the final authority.

[/quote]Now yours sounds like a typical Christian’s black-or-white, all-or-nothing, “with him or against him” position.[/quote]

OK, lie #3.

Here, again, is my statement:

Then there's your answer.

Please, can't you do any better than this? You're coming off as an idiot and I'm not looking to good, myself, for bothering to respond to your sillines in the first place.

So you probably don’t have any other option than Heaven or Hell.

Unfortunately, those are the only two options we're given.

If that is the case, then you have declared nearly that everyone on my list, including respected statesmen, beloved holy men, great philosophers and scientists, and a handful of humanitarian souls, are all being roasted on fiery pokers as we speak.

Please see my above responses where I demonstrated that you were lying.

And worse, since you seem to support this dogmatism, then you believe they actually deserve it!

That may be the first thing you've gotten right.

All of us deserve Hell, including the people on your list.

All of us are sinners who have rebelled against God and deserve to lie in the bed we've made for ourselves.

All of this only makes it more amazing that God would reach out His hand in love to us to reconcile us to Him.

Revelations (sic) 14:14-20 and 19:11-18 describe someone known as “the Word” and “the Son of Man” treading the “winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God”, a parallel of Isiaih 63.

Again, please take a few minutes to study these passages before you post them.

What do you mean, reconcile? Where do you see a contradiction?

There is a tremendous contradiction between you're portraying Christ as trampling sinners in a winepress and Romans 5, explaining to us that Christ has reached out in love and gone to incredible lengths to save us, in spite of our sinfullness.

If I compare your statements to this, it seems to be saying that blind gullability is the ultimate ticket to paradise, and scarcely a ritcheous ["true" Christian] man even exists. And how do you reconcile this chapter with the people in my list? Enoch, Eve and Elijiah specifically?

You didn't even read it, did you?

You keep making assumptions that aren’t warranted, and assuming I don’t know what I know.

I assume you don't know because nearly everything you've said is either historically wrong, based on assumptions or bad guessing or you completely bungle even the simplest of Christian doctrines. On top of all of that, you still haven't demonstrated any of your claims.

Given all of that, I think it's probably a safe assumption to make.

If that really happened, why would he do it?

Had you read Romans 5, like I asked you to, you would know this.

He sacrificed himself to himself, so he could forgive for the flaw he gave us, or so that he could forgive us for doing what he forced us to do. For some reason, we had to do something really bad before he would forgive us for doing something good. And the only thing that will save us from merciless anghish and eternal torture is if we forsake our reason and swallow a bizarre and senseless story for literally no reason at all. Nothing about any of this belief makes any sense.

It doesn't make any sense to me, either. I sure am glad Christianity doesn't teach any of the nonsense you're spouting.

No.

Well, it does. Several times, in fact. In addition, all throughout the Psalms and Proverbs, wisdom is praised. Did you know that when God chose to bless Solomon, he blessed him with wisdom?

In fact, reason was the original sin. According to the story, we had the choice to remain as we were always, or we could advance to sentient cognizance.

No for a couple of reasons.

The first is that reason was not the original sin, rebellion was.

Second, if you had actually read the Genesis account, you would know that Adam and Eve were both sentient and cognizant from the beginning.

We were forced into that “choice”, and in fact were given no choice in the matter, but the crime was still our acquisition of reason, and the “sin” since has been its usage.

Why don't you be a sport and show us where in the Genesis account this is found?

We are even forbidden to question the nature of God.

By whom? Did you know that God invites us to investigate Him?

What, are you kidding? That list is too great!

OK, then, just give us your top three.

I don’t think you need chapter or verse since you’ll probably ignore it anyway, or just make the excuse that it doesn’t really say what it says.

No, you know that you're making it up. You have my word that if you will back your statements up with scripture, I will examine them fairly.

So far, all you've done is

a) make wild historical claims without backing them up

b) made claims about Christian teaching that anyone here can tell you are not found in the Bible or taught in scripture (did you forget that you're posting on a Christian message board to hundreds of Christians? Didn't you think that we'd be just a little familiar with our own doctrine?)

c) put words in my mouth

d) lied outright

I have to be honest, if it doesn't improve, this will more than likely be my last response to you.

 

[Aron-Ra]

Yes, there are many denominations and that there are so many denomination and, yet, they agree on the essentials of the faith is a testimony to the veracity of scripture.

This is not a logical statement. I see inconsistencies as inconsistencies, yet you're somehow equating segregation with solidarity. What is permissible for one denomination is inexcusable for another. Young Earth Creationists, Old Earth Creationists, Gap theorists, theistic evolutionists, and even white supremists within inter-conflicting denominations all cite their interpretations of scripture as proof of their position; and those are some pretty big differences! Some denominations add dogma while others edit it out. Some of them exclude whole groups, saying that the Mormons are a cult, the Catholics are just "Mary-worshipping pagans" and the Jehovah’s Witnesses are just "freaks". If you don't believe me, flip though some Chick tracts. All of them say the others aren't "true" Christians, and all of them bicker with each other about just about everything, even about the very existence of Hell, much less how (or if) one gets there. And the mere fact that each asserts that all the others are deceived is a clear indication that their compiled religious doctrines are inadequate, inaccurate, and subject to severe revision at the hand of man. Now, if the scriptures were what they are often (but not always) advertised to be, then there wouldn't be multiple factions in discord even on such major points as there are.

No. Perhaps you should study to learn the fundamentals of Christian theology before you move on to the more difficult points of doctrine. This will save you from gaffs, such as the one above.

What "gaff"? Every conversation with you guys is the same. Until you start to realize how much I really do understand, you all want to pretend to be so superior. The problem is that (collectively) you're all quite inconsistent in what you do or don't believe. Some Christians don't even believe in spirtual souls, and believe we'll all die (as in really dead) until God decides to resurrect a select few to praise him forever. In any case, I thought John 3:16 was a fundamental tenet of Christian theology, and it implies that non-believers do not have a posthumous life, and die both in the flesh and in the spirit just as I said. Of course that's not the only passage indicating that. There are several.

"If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death." [John 8:52] The obvious implication here is that if a man does not keep his saying, he will taste of death, and will not be "passed from death unto life", meaning that he'll just die, one time, and permanently, just like atheists believe we're going to anyway. Now since, even the very bestest Christians still die despite their promised immortality, then the death they're talking about obviously can't be the inescapable death of the flesh. The death they're talking about is the death of the spirit, meaning of course, that anyone not keeping Christ's word will just die die, for real, (just like Lifesaver said animals did earlier in this thread) for "the wages of sin is death". I fail to see how this is a "gaff", nor how this indicates any ignorance of fundamental Christain theology.

Unfortunately, merely believing in something doesn't make it true.

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." [John 5:24] This implies both that believing in Christ does make one Christian, and that not believing in Christ results in just plain ol' death, just as I said.

Not only was their interpretation "different", it was so different as to be unrecognizable from any teaching of Christ or any historically accepted doctrine of orthodoxy.
Their interpretation was "different" enough as to be meaningless in the context of Christianity.
As I pointed out to you before, both of these men claimed to be the Christ, which both scripture and common sense tell us eliminate them as Christians.

That depends on how you define Christianity, or rather how you define a Christian. I define that as someone who believes and embraces then tenets of a Christian belief, or denomination. I won't argue that both these guys were whack-jobs, or that their views were corrupt. But that doesn't make them non-Christian. And contrary to what you think, I do not use them as any kind of example of Christianity. You gravely misunderstand me here.

About what you are; that there is no such thing as a "true" Christian;

[quote]Actually, that's not what that passage says at all. Did you bother to read it?[/quote] I described it accurately, so yes, I did. First it says that not everyone who believes will be saved, (which contradicts my quotes from John above) but then it contradicts itself by saying that everyone who asks will receive and everyone who seeks will find. At the same time, it says we shall recognize them ("true" Christians?) by their fruits. It contradicts itself again by saying that not everyone who asks will be received, except those who do the will of the lord. It limits that even further, and contradicts itself again, by casting out even those who have done many wonderful works in Christ's name, the 'fruits' by which they should have been known. And all these people who all claim to "know" Christ personally, and who adamantly insist, and legitimately believe they have a "personal relationship" with him (including you) could be wrong, and "on that day", Jesus will tell them so. See, I obviously did read it.

I'm not arguing that he [Hitler] was interested in the nature of supernatural things. But the fact that he was a Christian is also well documented.

Then why don't you list some of this documentation and, while you're at it, why don't you detail the signs of regeneration that we can see in the way he lived his life.

I can't provide the latter, not just for Hitler, but for anybody, since you've yet to give me any of the examples I asked for. But the former is easy enough:

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them...
-Adolf Hitler, excerpt of a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)

There are numerous such speeches and writings in his publications and private letters that attest to his devotion to Catholic Christianity. However, I must admit that in looking them up again, I happened across some other references to comments he allegedly made to the contrary. If these are legitimate, then he may not have been "truly" Christian even as I would define it.

What Christians did he fight for and what evidence is there to suggest that he became a Christian?

He wasn't always prince of Wallachia, but he was always Christian, initially orthodox until he lost his throne to the turks in 1462. Then he turned to the Holy Roman Church for aide, but was imprisoned by them for 12 years. In that time, he renounced his former faith, and converted to Catholocism. He was also made a captain in the Hungarian army. Once reinstated in the seat of Wallachia, he continued to fight for the church as well as for his own ends.

No. You can't have it both ways. You can't cite Bram Stoker's "Dracula" as historically authoritative and then feign offense I point out to you that it is fiction.

Go back and show me where you thought I cited Stoker as "historically authoritative" or even remotely accurate. And you say I put words in your mouth!?

as far as I can tell, more than half, (if not all) of those I listed proclaiming to be Christians really were Christians by the only definition of that word I know.

Then I question your definition of the word.

Well then, since you reject any concensus of dictionaries for their alleged misunderstanding of simple laymen's English, then I'll have to paraphrase this for you.

Being an "evolutionist", I tend to see things in an evolutionary perspective. Allow me to explain: Jim Jone's "People's Temple" was a sub-set (or offshoot) of the "Disciples of Christ", a more conventional Protestant Christian church. The Branch Davidians were previously a "branch" of the Davidian Seventh-day Adventists, another sub-set (or offshoot) of Protestant Christianity. And of course all Protestant denominations evolved (descended with modification) from Luther's Protestant reform, an off-shoot of Catholocism; itself a sibling of Orthodoxy, and possibly gnostism.

I expect that if I were talking about the collective Islamic world, someone would doubtless say Mohammed Atta wasn't a "true" Muslim either. But al-qaeda is one of several sub-groups of Islam, just as the Branch Davidians, the People's Temple, and the Christian Identity are all sub-sets of Protestant Christianity; they're Christians. They believe differently than you do because all demoninations believe differently. That's why there are different denominations. But I would expect most (if not all) of them to support every line of your Nicene Creed, so that they could only be categorized as Christians.

Simply believing in something does not make it so.

Very good. Just bare that in mind as I do.

So then, if you understand this is not true, why do you keep claiming it?

I don't. Believing in Christianity doesn't make it true. But it does make you a Christian.

 

[Aron-Ra]

Christ supports the teachings attributed to Moses, but he violates the fifth commandment.

Demonstrate, por favor.

My apologies. I glanced at the wrong ten commandments. I meant that he opposed your sixth commandment, "Thou shalt not kill" when at his last supper, he urged his followers to sell thier clothes to buy swords.

He also violates the fourth commandment by promising to destroy families in his honor; husbands from wives, children from parents, etc.,

Please demonstrate.

Its a bit hard to "Honor thy Father and thy Mother" when families are being torn asunder for Jesus.

First of all, I'm not sure how this violates, "Thou shalt not steal" but, in any event, had you actually bothered to read the text, you would have seen that Christ is not referring to them as divine in nature and certainly not worthy of worship, but quoting a verse from the Psalms in which the judges of Israel are said to be as gods in their authority. Likewise this verse isn't ascribing any sort of divinity to them, but stating that their authority comes from God.

Forgive me. I did read the text, but I tried to put this post together too hastily, amid many interruptions, and so it is an incomplete statement. I meant that Jesus violated your 9th commandment, "Thou shalt not bear false witness", (1) when he told the pharisees they were gods, (2) when he told them they were "of the devil", (3) when he told them they were a generation of vipers, and (4) when he told his apostles that some of them would still be living when he returned to Earth "in the glory of the father and with his angels". By my estimate, he's about 1,930 years too late.

No, he doesn't place Himself ahead of God, He is God. The entire Bible points to Him as our way of salvation.

No it doesn't. The entire Bible consistently shows that Jesus is not God, but his son, a distinctly separate person. Jesus constantly tells his people not to confuse him with God. Jesus and the father are "one" in their mission, but Jesus points out that we may also be "one" with the father just as he is. Jesus doesn't know all that only the father knows, and the father isn't even where Jesus is, but somewhere else. All Jesus did was what Akenaton did, promote himself as the sole prophet of God so that no one could get to Aten / "the Father" without going through him first.

What you want is more like what Lord Krsna claimed in the Bhagavad-Gita. Krsna didn't just claim to be the son of God, nor God's right-hadn man, nor his representative. Instead, he said he was God, God-in-the-flesh. Krsna said he was an avatar of Vishnu, a physical extension of the supreme personality of the god-head, and the creator of all things. He was the final authority, where all Jesus promised to do was to put in a good word with the final authority. Krsna said he was what you say Jesus was. But Jesus said he wasn't what you say he was.

So then, why don't you point out to us some of the flaws in scripture?

I already did. Not surprisingly, you snipped and ignored them, and now pretend not to have seen them.

First of all, if you're going to claim that the Bible is "rife with absurdities and contradictions", then it is incumbent upon you to demonstrate such.

I already have, only this time you didn't snip them all, but still ignored them.

I'll make it easy for you. Just give me your top three contradictions.

Let's make it even easier on me, and just let me cut-and-paste the previous list you're now pretending you didn't snip.

"The idea that rabbits chew cud or that snakes eat dust, that snakes or donkeys can talk, the geocentric notion of the flat Earth fixed on pillars, created four days before everything else in the universe; with a crystal firmament over it to keep the water above the firmament (in space) from getting the stars (which are beneath the firmament) from getting wet. The flood wasn’t global, and didn’t involve two of every “kind”, there were already other languages all over the world long before the tower of Babel, (which was really dedicated to Marduk). Ritual death spells and magic wands do nothing to rid the body of lice. You can’t remove all memory of Amalek under Heaven if you write into your history in such detail. And it would only take a couple of weeks for a large party to walk North from Egypt to Canaan. The stars can’t fall from the sky, and the sun can’t be made to stop without stopping the Earth, that isn’t possible either, and even if it was, it still wouldn’t stop the moon."

Second, it's more than a little condescending on your part to assume that I just woke up one morning and decided to be a Christian.

I don't believe that. I don't think you've woken up yet.

The truth is that I have held the Bible up to stringent criticism and, after studying it for sixteen years, I can say without one doubt that this is the infallable word of God.

That's amazing. I saw right through it before I was sixteen years old, and have spent the last couple of decades discovering how it can't survive the slightest scrutiny because it is a hopelessly-flawed collection of previously pagan parables mixed with occasional spells that don't work, and a couple mentions of actual people and places.

That's not the only thing you've gotten wrong. You've listed several people as Christians who, clearly, were not.

With some verification of sources, I might be convinced to concede Hitler, but not the others. The others were clearly Christian.

You've made errors in presenting even the most fundamental of Christian doctrines.

No I didn't. I presented my own interpretation, and (surprise) it doesn't agree with yours.

You did not "forget" that Smith had a gun.

Yes I did. I lapsed back into the idea that he was in a jail, so why would he have a gun? Now that I've read it again, I do remember the pepperbox.

Remember, you stated dogmatically (more than once, no less) that he was "shot in the back" and was "unarmed".

There was nothing dogmatic about it. I'm only restating what the history of the church says.

When I pointed out to you that this wasn't true, you then claimed to have studied Mormon doctrine and knew this to be a fact.

That is correct.

Those are not the actions or words of someone who simply "forgot", but of someone who got caught and is now trying to weasel his way out of it.

I am still correct. And instead of "weaseling out" of anything, I admitted you were right about the gun. Now why don't you admit that Smith really did go "like a lamb to a slaughter" just as he predicted?

Every other error in this discussion has been yours.

D

emonstrate, please.

OK. First the fact that the various denominations continue to split apart is in no way a testament to their common bond. The Bible really does repeat the idea that the wages of sin is death, and it does it so consistently that many Christians interpret scripture to mean that Hell doesn't even exist, while others say it never will. Even if they believe differently than you, they are still Chrisians if they adhere to your Nicene creed. Whether you reject dictionaries or not, they'll tell you that, as will any member of the demoninations you wish to exclude, all with scriptural references in their support of course.

And Joseph Smith was unarmed when he was killed, just like I said. He was given a pepperbox, (not a revolver) and he didn't even use it until there were enemy barrels already inside the door and his brother Hyram was already shot in the face point-blank. Smith then discarded that gun, and later, when he tried to jump out the window, he was shot in the back, by two different blasts at the same time. He was also shot in the front, because he was hopelessly surrounded.

You also called me a liar, and you said I hadn't read Matthew chapter 7 when directed. Well, obviously I did, and I suggest you go back and read it too. Read the 1st verse a few times until it sinks in. Then check out the 5th verse, and the 16th. And then compare that to the 23rd. I don't expect an apology, but hey, you might surprise me.

I've presented evidence from an eyewitness to the contrary. You've presnted a claim and asked us to take your word for it.
No thank you.

As I told you before, I wasn't citing my impeccable word, I was citing from (probably) the same eyewitness you were. Although the book you cited, The Gospel Kingdom, was written by Inez Smith Davis, daughter of Heman C. Smith, who was not present in that room.

No, I'm not wrong "yet again".

OK, you're still wrong then.

 

[Aron-Ra]

First of all, your mother, evidently, does not know the history of the Massacre so I'm not wrong on that count.

Yes you were. You said she wouldn't know what I was talking about, but she did, both times. You were wrong twice just then.

Secondly, even if she did have her facts straight, your mother, as fine a woman as she may be, does not constitute "most Mormons".

Let me guess, she's not a "true" Mormon? How many other Mormon opinions would you need? I got lots of bishops and elders I can go to pretty easily, you know. I would be surprised if any one of them didn't know what you were talking about, except perhaps the very young adults.

And just what were these sources?

As I told you, one was a PBS documentary, a really good one that was aired on the 4th of July, 1996. I was eight 1-hour episodes showing post civil war to WWII discrimination in the U.S. against blacks, Jews, Native Americans, Japanese and Chinese Immigrants, women, the Irish, and Mormons. Disturbing, but gripping stuff. Then of course I can't remember all the anti-Mormon and secular websites I've read, and you would just call me a liar again whether I could post any links or not. I believe I still have Dr. Willard Richard's account here somewhere. But I don't know which book its in. So I'm left with the one source I have on-hand at the moment: the History of the Church, chapter 34, which was written by John Taylor. Was that the "co-conspirator" who you thought wrote your reference?

the idea that he went, "as a lamb led to the slaughter" is just not true.

Yes it clearly was true, and you have </FONT>misrepresented the situation significantly.

If it's true, then , by definition, I haven't misrepresented anything.

It is true that Smith went like a lamb to a slaughter, (as he predicted) and you did misrepresent that by trying to say that four men with two six-shooters and two shilaylees doesn't quite count as a gun battle so much as a slaughter when trapped in a jail by a mob of 100 men armed with muskets?

You're the one who claimed that he was an unarmed victim, not me.

You're the one falsely pretending he was not.

So then, once again, you're assuming.

Yes. Once again, I am making the only logical, probable assumption that can be made.

In other words, you don't know but your hostility toward Christians is so great, you just really, really hope it's true.

You accuse me of hostility when you refer to those in Smith's company at the slaughter "co-conspirators"? I have no hostility against Christianity perse'. My beef is against dogmatic faith, regardless of what religious order it emanates from. Have you ever debated a Hindu creationist? They sound just like you.

"What Krishna has said 5,000 years ago in the Bhagavad-Gita has stood the test of time. You can read it today and it is still perfectly valid. Your scientific theories will come and go but the Absolute Truth will not change".
--Madhudvisah dasa Swami; Talk.Origins, 07/14/95

This is what your entire argument is based on: grasp at straws, throw something against the wall and hope it sticks.

I am not grasping at straws. I am stating simple facts. You don't like them, and that's not surprising.

Yes. It's a guess. This admission is pretty much game, set and match.

Only in your mind. While it is a guess, it is the only logical, probable one to make. Your counter guess is a just a guess also, and it is neither logical, nor probable, and in 1838, it wouldn't be possible either.

So, then how do you say that it was "prejudicial propaganda"?

This coming from the same guy who described the men trapped with him as "co-conspirators". I say it was for the same reason you demonstrate a few lines down. I obviously have a better understanding of that word and its usage than you do.

Are you basing your opinion on prejudicial propaganda?

If you had been paying attention instead of leaping to all your weird, and automatically negative conclusions, you would realize that I am arguing against prejudicial propaganda of all kinds.

If he was a heretic, as you claim, then he, by the very definition of the word, cannot be a Christian.

See? This is why I say you don't pay attention. The very definition of the word is "one who dissents from an accepted belief or doctrine". This definition usually refers only to the accepted beliefs of the Catholic church exclusively, but even when it doesn't, it still applies to Martin Luther, and everyone else who ever founded any of the variant and inter-conflicting denominations which you now say "agree on the essentials of the faith as a testimony to the veracity of scripture". Your particular denomination, whatever it is, was probably started by a heretic too, by the sound of it.

Well, I've already demonstrated that three of them weren't, one of whom, you even admitted was a heretic.

Well since you reject dictionaries, your definition of heretic was erroneous, and Smith is still in, as are Jones and Koresh. I may end up retracting Hitler, but if I do, it will be due to my own research, and certainly won't be for any reason you've presented.

So then, merely having an association with Christians and, from your earlier statement, living in the same country with Christians makes one a Christian?

You're deliberately trying to misunderstand this, aren't you? I'm beginning to think you're just taunting me for the fun of it.
Speaking as a non-Christian myself, it would be hard for me to live in Kentucky now, in this century! My risk of being lynched there just for being a non-believer rises exponentially every 50 years or so, and we're talking about someone who was born in the 1700s, in the heart of a Protestant Christian revival. I doubt very much if you could find any non-Christians in the whole state at that time, apart from the Indians of course, and even they were being converted or killed. That's what Christians do. You will be assimilated or you will be exorcized.

Actually, you haven't documented anything, you've merely made statements. I've asked you several times to document the things you're saying. So far, the only documentation you've given at all was a quite from Joseph Smith that turned out to be completely irrelevant.

You misspelled 'pertinent'.

Well, that's convenient.

For you it is. I actually have to worry about accuracy. You can just spit out whatever you like.

There's certainly no doubt that this mob must have consisted of mostly Christians, as having a majority of anything else in white America would have been highly improbable even today. But in 1838, it would have been impossible.

Again, you're assuming.

Not this time. It would be impossible to assume anything other than this as the only reasonable conclusion.

Face it: you have no idea whether these people were Christians or not. You just hope that, by an outside chance, they were so that you can paint Christianity in a bad light.

You're mirroring your own weaknesses here. I don't need, (nor necessarily want) to present Christianity in a bad light. I know many fine Christians who are not dogmatic idolaters like you. Your problem is that I am right, and the majority of those in my list of Christians were in fact Christians. You and I both have very good reasons to believe this, and most other people, (including other Christians) would agree, and recognize them as such. All the dictionaries do, and you know that, that's why you reject them dogmatically.

This problem stems from a much larger problem that you're also trying to project onto me, but that just cannot apply. Yours is the prejudicial position, and it is a paranoid one that caused you to completely miss the whole point of my exercise, which was simply to demonstrate that such a narrow, inconsiderate black-or-white judgement is neither fair, nor just, nor likely in any way, and certainly not the will of even a superior being, much less a supreme one. You're unable to realize that of course, because you&#8217;ve been conditioned to swallow whatever your sacred fables feed you.

 

[12volt_man]

God bless you, Aron. I'm praying for you.

 

[Aron-Ra]

God bless you, Aron. I'm praying for you.

Should I take that as a very polite way to say that you will not apologize for your foul judgement and false accusations of me? That you will not address any of the many Biblical contradictions and abundant absurdities I listed? And that you will not concede any of your obvious errors in this thread?

But they didn't act "in a matter (sic) only a believer could"

I would think that consigning yourself and others to mass suicide would indicate a strong level of conviction, especially when that would be literally and utterly pointless if you didn't really really believe. What about Deanna Laney and Andrea Yates? Could they have done what they did if they didn't really really believe?

They taught heresy, proclaimed themselves to be the Christ and lived lifestyles of deliberate, unrepentant immorality.

Either of these things, according to scripture, tells us that someone is not a Christian.

No it doesn't. Heresy, as we've already discussed was the catalyst for the formation of most churches in existence today. In some way, most of them have dissented from the common belief, which is all heresy is. So they believe differently, and they interpret scripture differently. So what? Most people do. That in itself doesn't make them non-Christians. If it did, then since Martin Luther was a heretic even in the strictest definition of the word, then all Protestant Christianity brought about by him is non-Christian too, and that includes you.

The problem here is that you are talking about anyone who calls himself a Christian or, according to your above statements, even lives in the same country as a Christian or has friends who are Christians.

I'm talking about people who have been born again and are actively living for Christ, in a personal relationship with Him.

See, I don't believe anyone has ever been "born again". I went through that, and I later considered it nothing but a self-induced illusion. I was also an occultist once upon a time, and I know how these manifestations of mental conditioning work. Otherwise your description covers most of the Mormons I know, and covers them probably better than any other Christian collective I am familiar with.

By your standard, yes, Christianity is the world's largest religion. It has to be. After all, no one is excluded.

As I have already pointed out, 2/3rds of the global population are excluded. But in the United States, polls indicate that we can only exclude about 20% since the U.S. is (and always has been) overwhelmingly Christian. Anyone who does not believe that Jesus is the son of God is automatically excluded. This can be extended to exclude some Hindus as well who believe that Jesus is an avatar (as you describe him to be) but that he is the 9th avatar of Vishnu, not Yahweh.

By the Bible's standard, not everyone who claims the name of Christ is following Christ. This is precisely what the Bible talks about when it talks about people "having a form of religion but denying the power thereof".

That's a fair point. Basically, anyone who rejects the Nicene creed (in whole or in part) could be excluded from consideration as a Christian. But (contrary to the assertions of this board) Mormons do accept every line of that creed, and therefore should not be barred from participation in the "Christians only" threads. This is especially true when the header on this board says Christian Forums is a &#8230;non-denominational Christian forum community uniting all Christians as one body.

Most of the people you've listed did not live a lifestyle that showed regeneration by the Holy Spirit.

Who on Earth ever did?

Many people. Everyone who is a Christian is supposed to.

I asked you for examples of the sort of people you're talking about, but you have ignored that request. To show that you are not using a failsafe definition which would allow you to eliminate everyone you don't like in order to preserve your position, show me three celebrated or historic figures who exibit these additional traits in some way we can objectively verify.

It says both that you're ignorant of scripture and Christian doctrine and that you're ignorant of history.

I think I have adequately demonstrated otherwise. How are you doing with that doctrine about judging other people? Have you noticed yet that all the hostility and animosity in this conversation has come from you and not me? I just don't have the hatred and prejudice you want to believe I do, and you sound paranoid when you keep accusing me of this.

I don't believe anyone ever showed "regeneration by the holy spirit".

But if they haven't experienced this, then they're not Christians.

So, which is it? Is everybody a Christian or is nobody a Christian?

Well, I guess nobody is a Christian then. How do you explain people like me, who have experienced it, and yet are not Christians anymore?

But the Bible says that even the Devil and his demons believe that Jesus is Lord.

Of course it does. The Zoroastrian devil has been integrated into the Hebrew, and then Christian mythos. So of course he's now presented as believing that, except in Jewish and Zoroastrian versions of those stories of course. Would you be at all surprised to discover that Hanuman believes that Krsna is lord?

If Hitler was a Christian, then how do you explain his lifestyle and his actions?

His Catholic upbringing. Some European Catholics have historically been extrememly anti-semitic. The Christian tracts of Jack Chick are too, even though they are extremely anti-Catholic and anti-Mormon as well. Not all Christians are like this, (whew!) but Chick.com and their supporters commonly exhibit all the blind, stupid, hateful, prejudice I am against in American dogmatism today. Within these tracts you will find all the hatred and prejudice you wrongly accused of me, and these are being passed among the masses by Christians.

My sole authority in determining doctrinal matters is scripture, not the dictionary.

Then without some standard to agree upon, the problem is that most people interpret that differently than you do. I'm pretty sure there are millions of people who earnestly believe they have always been Christian, and who can cite scriptural support of that, who have never needed to be "reborn". They were born and raised in that faith exclusively, and possibly were baptized in it also, but just skipped the part where they were supposed to suddenly start believing what they've always already believed.

the only criteria to achieve salvation is sheer gullability in swallowing this story, and nothing more than this.

Actually, it doesn't say that at all.

Yes it does. We are saved or we are damned solely on our faith; whether we buy into this nonsense without reason is the primary (if not the only) determining factor of eternal damnation, and no amount of good works can save you if you don't believe these fables.

If you're going to quote scripture, maybe it would help if you cited the verse or passage you're referring to.

OK. Peter 1:5,
Mark 16:16,
John 3:15, 18, & 36, 5:24, 6:35, 40, & 47, 7:38, 11:25-26,
Acts 26:18,
Romans 1:17, 3:3-4, 14:23
1 John 5:5, & 10
Galatians 2:16
2 Thessalonians 2:12
Hebrews 3:18-19
Jude 1:5

she was female, a respected scholar, and an advocate for reason in science education.

Oh, well, in that case, she couldn't possibly have been a Christian.

Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Kent Hovind, R. J. Rushdoony, Martin Luther, and a host of others would agree.

Really? Can you demonstrate this?

Yes, I think I can. Both Robertson and Falwell frequently express their sexist opinions against women being in charge of anything. But Hypatia was 46 years old and never married. Falwell and Robertson might both take that to imply that she was lesbian as well. And we all know how much they're prejudiced against lesbians, don&#8217;t we?

"The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians."
--Pat Roberston

"I listen to feminists and all these radical gals - most of them are failures. They've blown it. Some of them have been married, but they married some Casper Milquetoast who asked permission to go to the bathroom. These women just need a man in the house. That's all they need. Most of the feminists need a man to tell them what time of day it is and to lead them home. And they blew it and they're mad at all men. Feminists hate men. They're sexist. They hate men - that's their problem"
--Rev. Jerry Falwell

R. J. Rushdoony was also against having such women in positions of authority, and wanted to enforce the sexist standards of the Bible as the law of the land, which is why he created the voting bloc of the Christian Right that Fallwell supports and Robertson tried to use to win the presidency.

But for all of these men, their biggest reason for hating Hypatia was her secularism. True, she was born into a pagan family. But her father, Theon, (a leading mathematician and astronomer) encouraged her never to let any rigid system of religion take possession of her life and exclude the discovery of new scientific truths. Now, we all know how much all these men hate secular science don&#8217;t we? Kent Hovind claims to love science, but admits that he hates scientific principles, and believes all secular scientists are deceived by Satan. All of these guys advocate the removal of objective science in favor of a specific dogmatism that Hypatia spoke out against in her advocacy of reason instead. That&#8217;s why the Christians skinned her alive. And Reverend Martin Luther&#8217;s hatred of both women and even reason itself is well-documented common knowledge.

""Idiots, the lame, the blind, the dumb, are men in whom the devils have established themselves: and all the physicians who heal these infirmities, as though they proceeded from natural causes, are ignorant blockheads...."
"No gown worse becomes a woman than the desire to be wise."
"All our experience with history should teach us, when we look back, how badly human wisdom is betrayed when it relies on itself. Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but -- more frequently than not -- struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God. Reason should be destroyed in all Christians. Reason is the Devil's greatest harlot; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious harlot; she is a prostitute, the Devil's appointed harlot; harlot eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom ... "Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees must be put out of sight and ... know nothing but the word of God."
"The damned harlot Reason...."
"To be a Christian, you must pluck out the eye of reason."
--Excerpts from the publications and sermons of Martin Luther, Protestant reformer.

Even if Hypatia believed herself to be Christian, she would be hated and ostracized by these men.

I'm not putting words into your mouth.

Actually, you've done it several times now.

No, I haven&#8217;t yet, and don&#8217;t intend to.

The Bible you support does seem to say that is reason enough for your god to torture them forever without mercy.

Where does it say this?

In several of the passages I have already listed above..

 

[Aron-Ra]

I pointed out that most of the people who lived after Jesus were (and are) non-Christians, and asked if they are all in Hell now, along with pre-Christians and the Christians you won't accept as such. Then you responded in the affirmative with the implication that no one could escape Hell without first being "reconciled to God through Christ's atoning sacrifice on the cross". So you have indicated very clearly that you believe almost everyone on my list is in Hell.

This would be an outright lie on your part.

Here is my exact response to the question of who is in hell and who isn't:

Depends. Were they reconciled to God through Christ's atoning sacrifice on the cross?

As you can see, I did not answer "in the affirmative", nor did I declare anyone to be in Hell.

As I, and everyone else can see, I did not lie, and yes, you did reply in the affirmative, since you also point out that the Bible makes exacly that implication and you say you believe the Bible to be the final authority and absolutely without error. This proves that you have replied in the affirmative and have indicated that all nearly all of the people on my list are in Hell.

And you lie again. Here is my statement:

What does the Bible say?

Notice that I didn't decalre anyone to be in Hell by this question, nor did I rule out the possibility of Heaven. I merely asked what the Bible said about it since, no matter what my opinion may be, the Bible is the final authority.

Exactly, and by your claim that you believe the Bible is also inerrent, you are stating that you believe whatever the Bible says, and the Bible says they're all in Hell. You are responding in the affirmative, and you are indicating that all (or nearly all) the people on my list are in Hell. Do you think anyone is so stupid as to see this any other way?

Now yours sounds like a typical Christian's black-or-white, all-or-nothing, "with him or against him" position. So you probably don&#8217;t have any other option than Heaven or Hell.

OK, lie #3.

Would this be your lie #3? Because after lying twice above, you proved yourself to be lying here again with your words below.

Here, again, is my statement:

Then there's your answer.

So you probably don't have any other option than Heaven or Hell.

Unfortunately, those are the only two options we're given.

"yours sounds like a typical Christian's black-or-white, all-or-nothing, "with him or against him" position. So you probably don&#8217;t have any other option than Heaven or Hell. "
"Unfortunately, those are the only two options we're given."
See? Obviously I did not lie, as you admit my allegation is correct. However, you snipped the words in blue so as to make it appear as if I were lying. That's dirty pool, old man.

Please, can't you do any better than this? You're coming off as an idiot and I'm not looking to good, myself, for bothering to respond to your sillines in the first place.

Well, I'm not being the least bit silly. I am both serious and sincere. I am destroying you well enough already, and I haven't even warmed up yet.

If that is the case, then you have declared nearly that everyone on my list, including respected statesmen, beloved holy men, great philosophers and scientists, and a handful of humanitarian souls, are all being roasted on fiery pokers as we speak.

Please see my above responses where I demonstrated that you were lying.

Followed by my rebuttal which proved that you were the liar, not me.

That may be the first thing you've gotten right.

I haven't been wrong yet.

All of us deserve Hell, including the people on your list.

No one deserves Hell, not even Hitler. No one could ever do enough evil to deserve an eternity in anguish. To believe everyone does is sick and insane.

All of us are sinners who have rebelled against God and deserve to lie in the bed we've made for ourselves.

Blasphemy is a victimless crime. And even if there is a god, Genesis is still just a fable.

All of this only makes it more amazing that God would reach out His hand in love to us to reconcile us to Him.

According to your sacred tales, God made us what we are and deprived us of any choice in the matter. He stacked the deck and acted surprised when we did as he planned. Then he decided not to forgive us as any normal parent would have. But instead insisted that before he would forgive us for acheiving wisdom, we had to show we had none, by killing an immortal being who knew he wouldn't really die.

Again, please take a few minutes to study these passages before you post them.

It doesn't matter how long I read these, they're not going to get any less repugnant.

There is a tremendous contradiction between you're portraying Christ as trampling sinners in a winepress and Romans 5, explaining to us that Christ has reached out in love and gone to incredible lengths to save us, in spite of our sinfullness.

What "incredible lengths"? He let himself get stuck on a pole, and spent Easter week-end in a Hell that is ruled by Him anyway. None of it had any purpose, and none of it had any effect, and he could have gone to the "incredible lenth" of forgiving us for being what he forced us to be without requiring this stupid ritual to atone for what never needed atoning for.

If I compare your statements to this, it seems to be saying that blind gullability is the ultimate ticket to paradise, and scarcely a ritcheous ["true" Christian] man even exists. And how do you reconcile this chapter with the people in my list? Enoch, Eve and Elijiah specifically?

You didn't even read it, did you?

Once again, since I described it accurately, then obviously I did. Now why don't you answer the question you just ignored?

I assume you don't know because nearly everything you've said is either historically wrong, based on assumptions or bad guessing or you completely bungle even the simplest of Christian doctrines. On top of all of that, you still haven't demonstrated any of your claims.

I've backed up everything where you (to date) have not. I haven't made any errors in my references to history, (except when I forgot that Smith once had a gun) all my guesswork has been soundly-supported where your could not be, and I am comparing the doctrines of the Christian collective as they are expressed to me. Yours is not the only interpretation, and just because you believe it doesn't make it true.

Given all of that, I think it's probably a safe assumption to make.

No. you'll just be wrong again/still.

Had you read Romans 5, like I asked you to, you would know this.

Since I did read Romans 5, I know better. There still isn&#8217;t a shard of logic involved in that whole story. He sacrificed himself to himself, so he could forgive for the flaw he gave us, or so that he could forgive us for doing what he forced us to do. For some reason, we had to do something really bad before he would forgive us for doing something good. And the only thing that will save us from merciless anghish and eternal torture is if we forsake our reason and swallow a bizarre and senseless story for literally no reason at all. Nothing about any of this belief makes any sense.

It doesn't make any sense to me, either. I sure am glad Christianity doesn't teach any of the nonsense you're spouting.

But it does, and you know it.

Did you know that the Bible invites us to reason and to love God with all of our heart, mind and soul?

No.

W

ell, it does. Several times, in fact. In addition, all throughout the Psalms and Proverbs, wisdom is praised. Did you know that when God chose to bless Solomon, he blessed him with wisdom?

And they do the same thing in the Bhagavad-Gita and the Zend Avesta and the Qur'an. Now, exatly what is this test of reason? Let's put this test to the test, shall we?

In fact, reason was the original sin. According to the story, we had the choice to remain as we were always, or we could advance to sentient cognizance.

No for a couple of reasons.
The first is that reason was not the original sin, rebellion was.

It wasn't a rebellion. In fact, God put a talking snake in the garden specifically so that Eve (who was not warned of the rules) would be enlightened by the serpent, who it turned out was right when she did not die "on that day" as God threatened she would.

Second, if you had actually read the Genesis account, you would know that Adam and Eve were both sentient and cognizant from the beginning.

Its a fable talking about how we aquired our understanding of good and evil.

We were forced into that &#8220;choice&#8221;, and in fact were given no choice in the matter, but the crime was still our acquisition of reason, and the &#8220;sin&#8221; since has been its usage.

Why don't you be a sport and show us where in the Genesis account this is found?

Haven't you read it yet? Throughout the entire tome, we are stressed ever to believe, never to doubt, and never to test our beliefs. Gullability is paramount all through the whole compilation.

We are even forbidden to question the nature of God.

By whom?

God himself forbids us to question his existence or his origins in Isaiah 45:
"Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands? Woe unto him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou? or to the woman, What hast thou brought forth?"

Did you know that God invites us to investigate Him?

Where? And how?

12volt_man]Well, since you've shown that you have absolutely no idea what the Bible says, could you please give us a couple of examples of it's errors about the world, citing chapter and verse, please?

What, are you kidding? That list is too great!

OK, then, just give us your top three.

I've already given you better than that, twice. But I'm still waiting for you to address them.

I don&#8217;t think you need chapter or verse since you&#8217;ll probably ignore it anyway, or just make the excuse that it doesn&#8217;t really say what it says.

No, you know that you're making it up.

I have already given you all the proof you'll ever need that I am not.

You have my word that if you will back your statements up with scripture, I will examine them fairly.

Yet you have already broken your word by snipping my list, and pretending you never saw it, then seeing my list again, and again refusing to address it. I'm still waiting.

So far, all you've done is

a) make wild historical claims without backing them up

I've backed up everything so far, where you still have not.

b) made claims about Christian teaching that anyone here can tell you are not found in the Bible or taught in scripture (did you forget that you're posting on a Christian message board to hundreds of Christians? Didn't you think that we'd be just a little familiar with our own doctrine?)

It has been my experience that most Christians know very little of the critical points in their own Bible. You are obviously one of those.

c) put words in my mouth

Never yet. I gave you my impression of something you said and asked if it was correct. you snipped the question so you could make this bogus claim.

d) lied outright

Well, this is a case of the pot calling the silverware black, isn't it?

I have to be honest, if it doesn't improve, this will more than likely be my last response to you.

I wouldn't have bothered replying to you either. But I get very irritated when someone falsely accuses me of lying, especially when they haven't honor enough to apologize for it, or live up to their word.

 

[12volt_man]

What can I say? Your superior intellect, rhetorical brilliance and mastery of the finer points of Christian dotrine have certinaly put me in my place.

I'm convinced that anyone who reads your posts will be awed by your genius.

God bless you. I'm praying for you.

 

[Aron-Ra]

What can I say? Your superior intellect, rhetorical brilliance and mastery of the finer points of Christian dotrine have certinaly put me in my place.

While I'm sure you wanted to be sarchastic, I don't think you can be anymore, since we both know you can't address any of my challenges, (dispite the fact that you gave me your word) and we both know you won't apologize either.

I'm convinced that anyone who reads your posts will be awed by your genius.

God bless you. I'm praying for you.

How do you expect me to react to that? This sentiment means no more to me than if you promised to write to Santa Clause on my behalf. All you can do is hold your rabbit's foot against your mood ring, and wish upon a star that I will become as deceived as you. But short of a serious head injury, I don't see how that can ever happen.

 

[12volt_man]

While I'm sure you wanted to be sarchastic,

No, I was dead serious. I would encourage anyone who's interested to read all of your posts and see how coherent and well thought out they are for themselves.

since we both know you can't address any of my challenges, (dispite the fact that you gave me your word)

While giving you my word did come with a condition that you didn't meet, I will admit that you're right: I can't address your challenges. You win.

How do you expect me to react to that? This sentiment means no more to me than if you promised to write to Santa Clause on my behalf. All you can do is hold your rabbit's foot against your mood ring, and wish upon a star that I will become as deceived as you. But short of a serious head injury, I don't see how that can ever happen.

God bless you. I'm praying for you.

 

[Aron-Ra]

No, I was dead serious. I would encourage anyone who's interested to read all of your posts and see how coherent and well thought out they are for themselves.

Thank you. In that case, I apologize for my curt final comments.