However, not having received these gifts do not prevent one from being saved.
Which immediately puts you well outside of the mainstream of Christianity. Especially since I was speaking of Christianity throughout history, not just your particular splinter faction in the last few decades.
What makes you think that? I was raised to be a good Apocalypse believing, unbeliever hating, book burning Christian. The end of the world is coming any day now (and that’s a good thing), UFOs are piloted by demons, sex is evil, etc.
Wrong.
Elaborate, please.
last!!1!
Christ, that’s gayer than a Maypole in spring time.
To be fair, that would also get you kicked out the grocery store too.
Der Trihs, the Episcopal church is as main stream as you can get. It’s a branch of the freaking Church of England. Dude, don’t make it look like GEEPERS is a representative of all Christians. That’s not fair.
GEEPERS, why are you ignoring the fact that non-atheists here are telling you the same damned thing?
Guinastasia – general theist
No. You have to accept Christ as your Savior to get to Heaven though.
The real world is a different place to different people
Neither can Christians who understand the Bible.
Im a Christian, and I dont believe any different then you.
How is that different from me as a Christian?
Painting all Christians the color of extremist is the same as painting all Atheists like GEEPERS does.
Maybe, but the Christians didnt act any better in the article. Seems like the pot calling the kettle black (as it were) to me. (no offense intended)
I agree here. But we must acknowledge the Christmas tree starts with Christ. I work in a secondary educational institution, and while Kwanza is celebrated, we arent allowed to have anything that represents the Christ is Christmas
The reason Christmas is at the time it is, is because many people were already celebrating harvest and winter at that time. It was selected for convenience. Nobody knows the real date of Christs birth.
Not at all. But this is the fallacy that people who arent Christians use as a rebuttal. God knows if your trying, or if your lying.
You dont have to be a a Christian to be a good person. You do have to be a Christian to go to Heaven.
You’re close!
Search for “God” in this Aramaic Biblical lexicon and the first hit that turns up is lemma 904: Ālah. The identical phonemes as in Arabic Allāh, but with some differences in vowel and consonant length. As I make out from a little googling, the most usual form of the word for God in Aramaic is Ālahā. Still fairly close. The Aramaic/Syriac-speaking areas of the Fertile Crescent gradually switched to speaking Arabic beginning from their conquest by Islam in the years 633–637 (with spoken Aramaic surviving to the present in only a few spots).
The Jews of Yathrib and Christians of Najrān in ancient Arabia would have actually spoken Arabic, though, and would have called God “Allāh” same as Muslims.
In short, we dont ask for forgiveness and then go out and say
ITS TIME TO SIN BAYBEEE!
We are human, we arent perfect. We not only make mistakes, sometimes, we make the same mistake.
If you think we just say words with the thought we fooled God, then you have no clue what forgiveness is.
Is GEEPERS a man or woman? I was just wondering how to picture him or her.
No it isn’t. The world is what it is, regardless of your or my opinion about what it should be.
Christians provide false hope, and push “solutions” that can’t work.
As has already been covered, no it doesn’t. It was originally a pagan tradition.
As a Nazgûl; that solves the gender problem.
perception view what it is differently
All do? Really? You can cite how all Christians act the same? Seriously. Broad Brushing Christians is as wrong as Broad Brushing Atheists.
Yes, the time of Celebration was pagan. I believe it was the Catholic Church who decided to seize upon that time to celebrate the Christmas we know today. (the Birth of Christ)
I guess tolerance isnt an atheist quality… Oh wait, see what I did thar?
insert broad brush image here
Yes, the courts have recognized that schools have the authority to set dress codes. I agree and I think that was discussed earlier. But there would no Constitutional issue with students making and wearing the shirts on their own. It would not be construed as an establishment of religion by the school, and as long as the administrators did not object, there wouldn’t be a problem.
Since there is no God, no Heaven, no Hell, and no souls yes; all do. Or as close to “all” as doesn’t matter.
Let’s see; either I was making a joke, or I actually believe that GEEPERS is a Ringwraith…which is more likely?
How unfortunate for the hundreds of billions of good non-Christians who have lived throughout history and prehistory. Who created this policy? Was it decided by a majority vote, or by tyrannical decree?
This is worth repeating. The faith is incredibly broad; the mansion is of many houses.
I used to be a really nasty atheist. I was the kind of guy who did go out and tear down banners. I chopped down a hilltop cross once. (I thought it was on public property; stupid me, it wasn’t!)
A good, patient, faithful, and gentle Christian took the effort (on a BBS discussion board much like this one) to talk with me. He listened, and, when he disagreed, he did so with respect. He helped me get through my anger. He taught virtue by example.
I’m still an atheist…but it was a Christian who helped me to stop being a hate-filled atheist.
Alas, yes. It’s a sad truth, but one Fred Phelps cancels out a couple of dozen good guys. (And, yes, one M.M. O’Hair cancels out a couple of dozen good atheists.) It’s human nature to give over-much emphasis to negativity. We don’t remember the dozens and dozens of good hamburgers we’ve eaten…but give us one overcooked hockey-puck burger, and we will never go back to any restaurant in the entire chain.
We are all ambassadors. When we act like jerks, we hurt everyone who shares our beliefs.
We have been in the company of a really bad ambassador; but there are good ones too.
An angry little man.
ETA: that’s an educated guess.
In a thread filled with angry little men, apparently. (If you really want to walk that road)
Don’t know. I don’t know you.
**GEEPERS **OTOH is (or at least seems very much to be) someone who believes that as long as the Christian myth gives people “hope”, and as long as some people’s life can be turned around by that myth ; then that myth is a good thing that should be preserved at all costs, or at least at most costs. That, in short, the end justify the means.
I think that’s a load of bollocks, both on principle and in effect.
Not according to the Jews. Oh, sure, they’ll get to a *better *one, being the chosen people and observing all 613 rules and whatnot. But as long as you’re more or less decent peoples, well, god’ll have a couch fixed up for you somewhere in the basement of hirs golden pad.
Personally, my heavily-weighted-on-one-side agnosticism is fairly simple: if there’s an omniscient creator god after all, he must have made me the way I am, rational brain, conscience and all. Wouldn’t be decent of him to both have given me that wonderful analytical tool, and expect me not to use it. Wouldn’t be decent to have expected me to believe in all this bullshit without giving me any reason to whatsoever. Would be even shittier to punish me for using it. But if he *is *that kind of a god, well, fuck him then. Didn’t want his paradise no how and I’ll spit in the smug prick’s face, and you can tell him I said so.
The concept of eternal life gives me the creeps, anyway.