Proselytizing

[Rhea]

The "overall Christian narrative" is that Jesus spent more time with the down and out and the poor in spirit, than with anyone else, and He defended His reason for doing so in the face of criticism from self-righteous 'believers' who wondered why He would bother.

And if you read the story of the Prodigal son you'll see that it's we who have to decide whether we're happy living the 'good' life spending our inheritance or feeding swine or returning to Our Father who never stopped loving us.

Jesus doesn't force salvation on anyone.

And then you look at "Christians." Particularly evangelical ones.

but [Lion's] discourse fits the overall Christian narrative that if you do not believe you are less than human and immoral. It is inherent in the attitude of a Christian who approaches a stranger looking to convert.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

The "overall Christian narrative" is that Jesus spent more time with the down and out and the poor in spirit, than with anyone else, and He defended His reason for doing so in the face of criticism from self-righteous 'believers' who wondered why He would bother.

And if you read the story of the Prodigal son you'll see that it's we who have to decide whether we're happy living the 'good' life spending our inheritance or feeding swine or returning to Our Father who never stopped loving us.

Jesus doesn't force salvation on anyone.

On the other hand, we are told God predestines all from the beginning. God arbitrarily decides who will be the elect and who will not. God The Great Potter decides who will be created a "vessel of honor" and who will be created a vessel of dishonor God does force salvation and damnation on all, in a most arbitrary manner, long before we are born God has decided that. We are told the God and Jesus are one and the same. A crazy, whackadoodle metaphysical scheme and mythology making no sense at all. But God is good! Perfectly good! And omniscient and wise beyond all imagining! Christianity makes no sense at all, it is as illogical and irrational as it is possible to get.

 

[steve_bank]

The "overall Christian narrative" is that Jesus spent more time with the down and out and the poor in spirit, than with anyone else, and He defended His reason for doing so in the face of criticism from self-righteous 'believers' who wondered why He would bother.

And if you read the story of the Prodigal son you'll see that it's we who have to decide whether we're happy living the 'good' life spending our inheritance or feeding swine or returning to Our Father who never stopped loving us.

Jesus doesn't force salvation on anyone.

The Chtistian narratve since the beginnings of the RCC and carried through to the Protestanys is that those who do not believe are inertly defective in some manner. The relief is baptism and accepting JC as savior.

 

[Underseer]

The "overall Christian narrative" is that Jesus spent more time with the down and out and the poor in spirit, than with anyone else, and He defended His reason for doing so in the face of criticism from self-righteous 'believers' who wondered why He would bother.

And what about the part where Jesus instructs his followers to kill non-Christians?

Or the part where he reaffirmed the Old Testament, which would include rules about how it's OK to indefinitely enslave people from other religions and all of their descendants?

That's the problem with basing a narrative on an unprovable Bible that constantly contradicts itself. It pretty much says whatever you want it to say, and you can change it to say something else out of rhetorical convenience at any time.

And if you read the story of the Prodigal son you'll see that it's we who have to decide whether we're happy living the 'good' life spending our inheritance or feeding swine or returning to Our Father who never stopped loving us.

Jesus doesn't force salvation on anyone.

And yet the majority of Christians in America promote policies that benefit the wealthy and cause great harm to everyone else. Mind you, American Christians have much higher religiosity, and probably attend church far more regularly and diligently than Australian "Christians." In fact, they're the most devout in the Western world.

 

[Politesse]

And what about the part where Jesus instructs his followers to kill non-Christians?

Would that be some part of the Bible that you hallucinated during a bad acid trip?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

And what about the part where Jesus instructs his followers to kill non-Christians?

Would that be some part of the Bible that you hallucinated during a bad acid trip?

Luke 19
²⁶ For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him.
²⁷ But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.
²⁸ And when he had thus spoken, he went before, ascending up to Jerusalem.

 

[Politesse]

And what about the part where Jesus instructs his followers to kill non-Christians?

Would that be some part of the Bible that you hallucinated during a bad acid trip?

Luke 19
²⁶ For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him.
²⁷ But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.
²⁸ And when he had thus spoken, he went before, ascending up to Jerusalem.

See, I don't see how you could know about that verse at all, without knowing how drastically out of context you are taking it.

Look, I can prove that you are secretly a Christian:

"God is good! Perfectly good! And omniscient and wise beyond all imagining!" ~Cheerful Charlie, five posts ago.

Fascinating, this quoting business.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Waahhh atheists feel good about things waahh

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Waahh I'm pathetic and I complain about atheists feeling good about things waahhh

 

[bigfield]

Luke 19
²⁶ For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him.
²⁷ But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.
²⁸ And when he had thus spoken, he went before, ascending up to Jerusalem.

See, I don't see how you could know about that verse at all, without knowing how drastically out of context you are taking it.

Is Jesus the nobleman in that parable?

 

[steve_bank]

Luke 19
²⁶ For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him.
²⁷ But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.
²⁸ And when he had thus spoken, he went before, ascending up to Jerusalem.

See, I don't see how you could know about that verse at all, without knowing how drastically out of context you are taking it.

Look, I can prove that you are secretly a Christian:

"God is good! Perfectly good! And omniscient and wise beyond all imagining!" ~Cheerful Charlie, five posts ago.

Fascinating, this quoting business.

Christianity is 99.9999% fitting isolated verses from OT and NT to fit a position or situation in the present,

Christianity vased on verses is pretty much anything you want it to be.

That is why we have strong opposition to Christians , especially politicians, who think rhea are on a mission form god to impose interpretation of verses on all of us.

One of the republican candidates declared his budget would be biblically based, whatever that means.

I can easily make a case for pacifism from NT verses. I can make a case for rejecting materialist capitalism as well. Christian sects do not agree on what it means to be a Christian.

I'd have to look it up, in one of the lessor quote NT books it is said the rich will wither like a flower.

The NT is a handful of random unconnected sound bites of a character named Jesus from which convoluted theologies are derived.

Jesus never rejected Mosaic Law. If you oppose gays from Leviticus why ignore the rest of it? It was Paul who diluted Mosaic Law as a requiring.

 

[Lion IRC]

The "overall Christian narrative" is that Jesus spent more time with the down and out and the poor in spirit, than with anyone else, and He defended His reason for doing so in the face of criticism from self-righteous 'believers' who wondered why He would bother.

And what about the part where Jesus instructs his followers to kill non-Christians?

He never told me to kill anyone. But having said that I never thought of Jesus as an entirely passive weakling who would let His enemies avoid the dire consequences of their deliberate unrepentant disobedience and wickedness.

Grace and forgiveness for all those who ask.
But if you think Luke 19 is rough, see Revelation 20:11
Not for the faint-hearted.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Luke 19
²⁶ For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him.
²⁷ But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.
²⁸ And when he had thus spoken, he went before, ascending up to Jerusalem.

See, I don't see how you could know about that verse at all, without knowing how drastically out of context you are taking it.

Look, I can prove that you are secretly a Christian:

"God is good! Perfectly good! And omniscient and wise beyond all imagining!" ~Cheerful Charlie, five posts ago.

Fascinating, this quoting business.

I didn't say anything about these verses, just pointed to them. It was the punchline to a parable. A horrible punchline, but not directly a commandment. But then you look at Christianity's penchant for religious wars, heresy hunts, and crusades in Europe that brought death and misery for centuries, and you realize that these tall tales of God commanding genocides and massacres and such parables have had consequences. One can cherry pick such crap out of the Bible and use these things to rationalize evil actions, and this is what Christianity did for centuries.

 

[Rhea]

Wouldn’t it be great if there was some sort of signal we could convey to the god salespeople that we’ve already heard their proselytizing and they can just leave us alone? Like an “unsubscribe from this spam” button or something.

One of the most tedious things about the god salespeople is that they each eagerly think they’re the first one we’ve heard from and that they have something new(tm) to say.

This unsubscribe button would go for their efforts to put their god sales into our laws as well. Which is a thing they do when they realize no one wants to listen to them an then they start conniving to make people obey to their “voluntary” religion.

If their religion had any redeeming qualities, all they’d have to do is live by it and people would see that it works. But they can’t even convince themselves to live by it, and they try to mask their failure by glitz and sales as if that’s a substitute for behaving according to their religion. Their religion doesn’t work and they don’t want to live by it, they just want other people to wave the flag so they can feel validated in living their lie.

They only fool themselves, and the rest of us can easily see they don’t even follow their own religion that they try to sell as “truth.”

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Wouldn’t it be great if there was some sort of signal we could convey to the god salespeople that we’ve already heard their proselytizing and they can just leave us alone? Like an “unsubscribe from this spam” button or something.

I already put Lion on ignore after he's demonstrated his only goal here is to treat us as less than human.

 

[abaddon]

I already put Lion on ignore after he's demonstrated his only goal here is to treat us as less than human.

Eh... So long as theists are around, they're something else to wonder at. It's your choice to take offense at whatever you think you're seeing, or let it fly by. My expectation is just that the ideas are presented reasonably, no shiftiness in the exchange. It's the ideas, just the ideas, not the people.

 

[southernhybrid]

There are advantages to living in the Bible Belt. No one ever tries to convert me because they all just assume that I'm a Christian. There are some who I share my secret with but they are the good Christians, who don't judge me. If I'm in a devilish mood, I sometimes tell a zealot that I'm an atheist just for the fun of it. I don't start the argument, but they simply can't resist. If they tell me they will pray for me, I say, "Thanks and I will think for you."

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Sometimes the best thing to do is to prattle about J.R. "Bob" Dobbs or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. No need to get into an argument that you will never win, so start an argument they cannot possibly win. The confused look on their ugly little reddened faces can be priceless.

Long ago, when the Church of the SubGenius arose, SubGenius fanatics managed in some cases to finally run the Moonies and loud Jesus street preachin' creeps off of some college campuses.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

I already put Lion on ignore after he's demonstrated his only goal here is to treat us as less than human.

Eh... So long as theists are around, they're something else to wonder at. It's your choice to take offense at whatever you think you're seeing, or let it fly by. My expectation is just that the ideas are presented reasonably, no shiftiness in the exchange. It's the ideas, just the ideas, not the people.

It's not simply "taking offense". I have no reason to engage with or view posts by an abusive person. Abuse is where I draw the line. They're not worth engaging with and their posts are not worth viewing.

 

[steve_bank]

Wouldn’t it be great if there was some sort of signal we could convey to the god salespeople that we’ve already heard their proselytizing and they can just leave us alone? Like an “unsubscribe from this spam” button or something.

One of the most tedious things about the god salespeople is that they each eagerly think they’re the first one we’ve heard from and that they have something new(tm) to say.

This unsubscribe button would go for their efforts to put their god sales into our laws as well. Which is a thing they do when they realize no one wants to listen to them an then they start conniving to make people obey to their “voluntary” religion.

If their religion had any redeeming qualities, all they’d have to do is live by it and people would see that it works. But they can’t even convince themselves to live by it, and they try to mask their failure by glitz and sales as if that’s a substitute for behaving according to their religion. Their religion doesn’t work and they don’t want to live by it, they just want other people to wave the flag so they can feel validated in living their lie.

They only fool themselves, and the rest of us can easily see they don’t even follow their own religion that they try to sell as “truth.”

How about a pin with a Christian cross and an X over it.