Born Again-I don't get it

No, no, dears, I am not in the slightest bit freaked-out (unless, of course, I am “hopped up on goofballs!”). What I meant was that when ANYONE expresses beliefs fundamentally different to yours, it is somewhat unbalancing. Just as to a religious person, an atheist saying “there are no gods; it’s all superstition and fairy tales,” or a Muslim saying, “there is no God but Allah.” Or, to me, people saying, “Gosh, Billy Crystal is funny!” or, “Mmmm, I love ketchup and mustard on my hot dogs!”

Religion is completely foreign to my way of thinking (as are the Billy Crystal and hot dog cites above), but I am old and wise enough to know that people think a lot of wildly varying things, and I haven’t freaked out in decades.

We all experience a physical birth.

The Christian faith teaches that at that birth we are separated from God, our creator (due to original sin).

When we reconcile ourselves back to God we are ‘Born Again’. This time we are experiencing a spiritual birth.

Christians (and people of other faiths too) sometimes used to freak me out before I became a Christian. I see the world differently now.

Hmm. Apparently one of my posts didn’t make it to the board.

I generalized based on the Barna research group, which has been polling for at least 5 years. Most of their studies show that BAC are more conservative ( more likely to vote bush), more likely to believe morals are going to pot, etc.

If anyone doubts the barna thing, feel free to look at their website – you will quickly find that Barna believes (and has shown in their polling) that BACs are more conservative.

Now, as to the question “Is this valid for the rest of America?” (could it be a systematic barna error). Frankly, I looked for other cites, and I couldn’t find statistics or polls. It seems to match my experience that people who say they are BAC are more conservative, but take that with a grain of salt.

Oh, and Mangetout called me very well on my assumption that more BAC are fundamentalists than are not. I don’t know at all – but of course, I have experienced what Jodi describes, which is that fundamentalists frequently don’t accept that you are BAC if you are not a fundamentalist. So, I retract that – given that I have “no basis more reliable than my own meandering existance”

Me’Corva

Trisk, great post. Gee, you didn’t froth, or drool, or shoot flames from your eyes. Must mean that all Christians are not alike!

Sexy, that was hysterical. Not so funny is actually running into those people, which I do from time to time. “Bad” Mary is good for a laugh on the board, but scary in the supermarket.

I liked Eve’s second post, I too misunderstood her first one. She is a very well-spoken poster (you know what I mean) and that second post said it very well, I think.

I always liked Dennis Miller’s take on being “born again”- he asked if one could be born again and again and again, like an evangelical Gabor sister!

This thread is a perfect example of the fact that although we might not all call ourselves Christians, we are all influenced greatly by Christianity.

The OP said nothing about Born Again Christians, but we all knew what he meant when he asked why they freaked him out. On GD there are dopers who identify themselves as atheists and they like to argue the fact of whether or not Christians think atheists can be moral. The irony of this to me is that the morals that they speak of have been mostly determined by our culture being dominated by Christianity. So it is Christian morals that are used, as the yardstick in determining if the claims that atheists are moral, are true.

What has that got to do with the OP? Well, you see the idea of rebirth is not something that the Christian religion invented or has any special claim on. Every religion has a form of rebirth as the basis of their beliefs. The reason for this is that we are surrounded by rebirth. Take the moon for example. Tuesday night we had a new moon (rebirth) and the first part of September we will have a full moon. Then the moon will slowly go away until it is gone (dead) on September 16, but then there will be another rebirth on September 19. The sun sets (death) and the next morning it rises (rebirth). The leaves on trees will soon turn color and fall off the trees, but next March and April everything will come back to life. Is that not when Easter is? And isn’t Passover celebrating a type of rebirth? Everyone of us goes thru some sort of rebirth. Paul says “When I was a child, I spoke as a child…Now I have put away these things.” Note that I as a Social Christian use Christian examples, but there are similar examples in every culture.
Rebirth is a beautiful part of life and the BAC’s have no exclusive claim to the concept.

I don’t know if anybody here is really answering the question… even though these are some really good points…

There was a play where a man was having alot of trouble and he had these 2 voices… one kept telling him to commit souicide and the other kept talking him out of it… but eventually he does… and what happens is tha explain the metafore…

what happened was he was “dieing to his sin” He basicly took the devel… put him in a head lock… and choked him to death… but what is left now is that he’s dead and now he will be “born again” he will come out like a child… instead of saying… oh I think I’ll go play the stocks… he’ll say What will I gain from this

It’s a metafore with alot more than just a double meaning… like a million-meaning one of which is to “see the world through the eyes of a child”

in Northern Ireland as children the protostants and Catholics play together but when they grow up they hate each other… what you need is to stop being old and be new again… be born again

With all respect, peewee, could we have that again in English? My head hurts.
kniz, while many other faiths believe in various forms of rebirth, only Christians identify themselves with the phrase “born again.”

Jeez peewee, please work on some spelling and punctuation, that was painful.

And wrong about Northern Ireland, BTW.

Part of my point is that Christianity has hijacked a lot of concepts, turned the words around and claimed them for their own exclusive use. I once heard a Southern Baptist preacher claim that Christianity was the only religion with a virgin birth. I was also trying to point out that just because born again freaks some people out, doesn’t mean that the idea of rebirth is a bad one and that we all go thru the process of rebirth but that does not mean we’ve been born again.

sorry EJs… the fact is america has one of the WORSTE schools systems in thhe world… and I’m not exadurating

basicly the idia is kind of reincarnation… when you’re born you inocent… but Mr. Devil comes up and says… WAZZAP! I got some sin juice that tastes real good (but give’s one heck of a hang over) well now your dead (dead to God) and you can keep being dead… or you can be reborn and start again…

being reborn never confused me as much as “Death to sin” well let’s think this way… Death means without now (for now) o.k. so you go out and Die to God… you’re without God (an older definition od hell) so you see a sign sayin “Got God?” so you think… wait I’m dead! I’m pushing up dasies… dead men don’t tell tails… well you can’t do anything when you’re dead so God says "Yo! Dead is dead! Com get some life… se we take you’re old body, burn it… and give you a new one… as blameless as you started… now you are dead (seperate) to sin

that’s how I learned it… can’t make it much simpler

Borther Peewee, please forgive me.

I hope I didn’t misrepresent anything in the translation.

(As an aside, I find it interesting to note that the majority of people who post here went through the various US school systems, and by and large they are easily understood.)

Damn! Thanks, you made my day!

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