True Christian love is like true friendship, it is available to all good people. Though we are reminded not to be judgers of others, we can still choose associates based on what is evident in people’s lives.
From what I’ve seen, lel, you would probably be a friend of mine if we knew each other irl. As far as Doper Friendship goes, I quote a favorite fictional character of mine: “I have been, and always shall be… your friend.”
Spock.
:dubious:
Funny thing about that Christian love. Ideally, it requires that I should love my enemies, too. Love in the principled since of sincerely wanting what’s best for them, even if it means costing me something.
Sometimes this can be a very abstract concept. Especially where certain other Christians I’ve met are concerned. Let me tell you, there are some Christians that I wouldn’t choose as associates, to say nothing of friends.
No, I am by no means even close to perfect, but I just can’t stand hypocrisy, judgemental attitudes, or self righteousness.
Yeah, I know. So crucify me. 
It wasn’t spock?
Since I’m in this thread I’d like to apologise to all the Christian dopers I’ve probably offended lately. Especially you NCB. I admit that I get careless and thoughtless when I discuss theism vs atheism. I really shouldn’t.
It was Spock. :dubious: is my personal Trek smiley.
God or no god debates can get pretty heated by their very nature. I don’t fault you your belief, just respect mine.
As for a believer and an athiest considering themselves friends, I think Lobsang and I can be used as a good example.
I’ll lift a beer to ya in a few. Still kind of early here.
FTR, when I say believer, I include any theistic belief, not just Christianity. For example, could you possibly imagine not liking Zev, Dex, Aldebaran, or carnivorousplant?
Belief in a high power doesn’t automatically equate with Christianity.
“The most effective way to eliminate your enemies is to make them your friends.” --Abraham Lincoln
And pray for me, too; I find myself growing very much intolerant of intolerance! :smack:
I have a question about this . . . I think it’s great when religious groups (or nonreligious groups) go to developing countries or poor neighborhoods and help build schools and hospitals, etc.
But it’s the “witnessing amazing scenes as people came to Christ” part that gives me the heebie-jeebies. How does that work, exactly? I mean, as an atheist, I couldn’t imagine going into a town of Christians and trying to make them “come away from the Lord.”
Eve, I’m just speaking in generalities here, but some Christians view Matthew 28:19, 20* as still being applicable today. So, they feel they are furthering the will of their Lord by prosylatising.
Some are obnoxious about this, I readily realise. My apologies.
*paraphrased: Jesus tells his followers to preach and teach and make disciples.
Hmmm.
Eve, perhaps the best way to explain that one, beyond the Great Commandment (what NCB referenced), is to draw a parallel that is extremely far-fetched, even by the standards of my off-the-wall analogies.
Given: it is a Good Thing for people to be happy with themselves and fulfilled. It is therefore a Good Thing to enable people to become happier with themselves and more fulfilled.
Now, as a boy, you were not happy with yourself. You did not fit the image of yourself that you knew to be true. Becoming a woman in the ways that you were not already was your way of finding happiness and self-fulfillment.
You, being an intelligent and perceptive person, are well aware that most people are not transgendered. But that was what worked for you.
Now, imagine a Bizarro-Eve who is convinced that what worked for her is what will work for everyone else. So she goes out and becomes a public advocate for SRS for everyone – because it will help them to become happier with themselves and more fulfilled. After all, it worked for her, didn’t it?
Herewith, you have the picture of the different flavors of Christian. Each has found “one appendage of the elephant” and is the better for it. And each has in fact captured an element of the Truth, and clings to it for dear life.
But having done so, and moved by the Great Commandment, each wants to have everyone else go through the same experience, and become happier and more fulfilled, to find Jesus in the same way as that person did.
Siege and I and NCB and others want you to come to know God more deeply and in doing so become happier and more fulfilled – just as much as the buttonholing street-corner evangelists do. But we have the common sense to realize that “SRS isn’t for everybody” – that what worked for us is not necessarily what will work for you.
We also have the respect for you and other atheists and agnostics to realize that you have every bit the same freedom of choice that we did – and the humility to know that God, not we, are in charge of what’s going on, and when He decides to noodge you to get to know Him better is the right time for that, and not before. All we can do is to simply say, “Don’t reject what we found to be a wonderful thing because of the obnoxiousness of the particular pushy salesman for it that you had the misfortune to encounter.”
Is there a possibility we’re deluded? Sure – that possibility exists. But we’re happy being who we are, and being a force for good in the world as a result. So in my mind if it is a delusion, it’s a fine and enviable one. And if Fred Phelps or Jerry Falwell is right, I’m not sure I want to have anything to do with the God they are hawking. For me it would be saying, “Evil, be thou my good” to worship that parody of the God I know and love.
. . . Now, don’t you go putting ideas in my head . . .
About a month ago, I read a book called “Stalking the Divine” about prayer as a ministry in a way I hadn’t really thought of before.
Anyway, about me - I currently attend a Presbyterian Church. I’m not a member (I’m not quite ready to call myself a Presbyterian, I generally call myself a generic Protestant) but I’ve been going there for about 4 years now. Right now, I teach Sunday School (6th grade!)… I’m awful at introductions, so I’ll stop now.
Just to add to Poly’s voice, I’m happy even if you remain in your particular choice. If it makes you happy, causes you to feel contentment and peace, then I figure you made the choice that’s right for you.
If there truly is a God, perhaps he has a plan for all those of other beliefs (even those of no firm beliefs), I just don’t know.
What I do know is this: my personal belief in God was a reasoned choice. When appropriate, I may explain bits and pieces of that to people. If it is shown to me that it wasn’t appropriate, I shut up. In the meantime, I try to live a life that (mostly) is in accord with the moral requirements I have chosen to accept.
While I cannot bear much harranging by militant atheists, I also can not agree with the pushy sects (or individuals) of certain religions.
I had no idea Polycarp and Siege were related. What fun.
We do not share any known ancestors short of perhaps Edward III (who appears to have taken being “Father of his country” literally). But we are brother and sister in spirit – she’s “my identical twin sister born 20 years later than me to different parents on the opposite side of the Atlantic.”
Who you calling royalty, brother? My ancestors were peasants, I tell you, peasants! 
First of all, my apologies for omitting NoClueBoy, Vanilla, Zoe, Friar Ted, longhair and a whole host of people whose names will enter my head as soon as I hit Submit Reply.
There’s one other aspect of witness and ministry I’d like to touch on while I’m in here, that of supporting our brothers and sisters in Christ. It’s what formed and cemented the bond between Polycarp and me, and it’s something NoClueBoy, Vanilla and Zoe, to name a few, have all done for me at one time or another. For that matter, that Wiccan I mentioned has strengthened and sustained my faith a few times, including some when those doing the damage were fellow Christians. Then again, the Lord has been known to work in particularly mysterious ways in my life, or so it seems. It’s easy to be a Christian in church on Sunday when you’re surrounded by people who believe the same thing you do. It’s harder in real life, when you go out to a message board and find yourself attacked for being stupid enough to believe in God, attacked because, since you’re a Christian, you must believe homosexuality is evil, or conversely, attacked by other Christians because you don’t believe homosexuality is evil. I’ve been known to describe myself as “middle of the road, getting shot at by both sides”, and several of us here have the (spiritual) bullet wounds to prove it!
By the way, Iceland_Blue, please allow me to offer you a couple of cautions when it comes to mission work. You see, last December, I was on a Greyhound bus from Cincinnati to Columbus, Ohio. The gentleman behind me was coming back from what he obviously considered a successful mission trip and he was describing it at some length and volume on his cell phone. Now me, I’d been up late the night before, and had intended to sleep on the bus, so the volume was bad enough, but then it got worse. You see, first, he talked about converting a Catholic to Christianity. Then he talked about driving the demon of homosexuality out of a person. The final straw, however, came when he talked about a woman who’d been in an adulterous affair for whom he only did counseling. At this point, I found a piece of paper and wrote, “Do not be like the Pharisees who pray out loud on street for their reward is on earth.” The upshot was, while he did lower eventually lower his volume, it was only after attempting to convert me to Christianity! 
The ironic thing is, the whole reason I was on that Greyhound bus was I’d left a gathering of friends early so I could get to an Evensong service at my church that afternoon!
Please, before you try to convert someone to Christianity, do make sure she isn’t one already. Otherwise, she may have to do what I wound up inadvertantly doing and confusing you.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m rather between blessings. You see, I spent today with a woman I’ve been friends with since 10th grade, catching up on old times, having fun, and doing a bit of teaching (archaeology and the way native Americans lived, specifically), and later this evening, that Wiccan is coming over for a visit. He says hello, Polycarp, and vanilla, if you don’t mind indirectly associating with my heathenish friends, I’ve no doubt he’ll say hello to you. He’s heard a lot about you and likes you.
To quote one of my church’s closing blessings, “The peace of the Lord be always with you.”
CJ
Some christians don’t act like it, and some who say they aren’t christian do.
I guess God will sort it all out someday.
“By their fruits you will know them.”
Siege, you are a peach.
Iceland Blue’s mission is making me a little nervous, too. See, Malta is probably the most Catholic nation in the EU. I have been exposed to too many of the people Quadgop describes, people who didn’t accept that my (then) Catholicism meant I was a Christian, too.
And also with you, Siege.
And you too dropzone!
On a Christian board I belong to, the Eastern Orthodox contingent were really offended by the plans of one of the more prominent Baptist missionary organizations to send a contingent to Greece in connection with the recent Olympics, with the idea of converting the Greeks to Christianity! (Given the immense idiocy implicit in that statement, I regret the rule against using the rolleyes smiley in GD.)
The same thing holds with the “Christian nation” jazz – which is a game of verbal three-card monte. Step one is to convince you that the Founding Fathers believed in God – which most of them did, in one way or another. Step two is to equate that with “Christian.” Then step three is to equate “Christian” with whatever sect the debater is a member of, because, e.g., the Founding Fathers didn’t believe in ordaining a gay man to the ministry. (Well, the question never came up, but I suspect Franklin and Jefferson, at least, would have hardly given a sweet patoot about it.) Or, they didn’t believe in Darwinian evolution – which, considering Darwin had not yet been born, is a reasonable point, but not the one they want to make. (Read S.J. Gould sometime on the character of Abp. James Ussher, Church of Ireland, as natural scientist – it’s an eye-opener.)
However, refuting such arrant idiocy means that “you’re calling your brother/sister in Christ into contempt” and hence have some problems in your own faith, according to the sectarians who think like this. That you’re simply not prepared to see them claim the exclusive title of Christian for their own myopia is something they just plain cannot see.
So, brother Iceland Blue, let me say this: I have no problem standing up and being counted whenever circumstances call for it, here or anywhere else. But I tend to avoid doing “witnessing” in the evangelical sense, unless it’s germane to a question being asked. (Q. “Why could a reasonable man put his faith in something that is only testified to by a 2000-year-old book?” A. “Because there are many more evidences for God than the Bible. For example, He and I had a long conversation 15 years ago…” :))
And I find that, when it’s not a naturally-following element of the conversation, but rather grafted in, most witnessing or overt Christian statements become one of two things in the eyes of most readers: the sort of preaching that a couple of the Christians’ answers in the “Why does an omnipotent God allow evil” thread probably sound like to everyone else, or a pseudo-Pharisaical “look at me, ain’t I a good Christian?!” sort of ego-stretching that is, as our Lord said, its own reward.
Which is why I take the stance I do – I’m firm for my faith whenever needed, and nearly every member here knows that I’m a devout Episcopalian Christian, but what I do is talk with friends about whatever interests them, from Tolkien to subduction zones, speaking of Christianity whenever it “fits” the conversation but never forcing it, and with respect for the non-Christians whom I may be addressing. After all, our Lord died for them too, which awards them a dignity beyond anything I can claim for myself.