Just wondering, how many more years left in your sentence?
No. When I was religious, God always mattered more to me than Jesus.
Saved? Nuh-uh, Him first, THEN MAYBE I’ll consider it.
For the sake of Fighting Ignorance, I consider it my duty to maintain that Religiosity is Pathological. I have given many credible cites in the past to support my assertion. Here are a few:
1- Albert Ellis, Free Inquiry, Spring 1988, Vol, 8, No. 2, Spring 1988
2- The Biological Roots of Religion by Morton Hunt, 1999
3- “Why do people believe or disbelieve” by Professor Paul Kurtz, State University of New York at Buffalo. FI Vol. 19, No.3
4- A Forum on Similarities between Religion and Mental Disorder, February 2004
:smack:
Jeez!
I was going to post something, but as it turns out all I’d be doing is joining in on a
group pile-on
Ease up a little folks. The OP asked an honest question and didn’t try in anyway to convert anyone. His witnessing was also on a very low level. Give him a break!
Yup - aged 13/14, it’s been a “long and winding road” since then, and my understanding of what it means to be “saved” has changed a great deal, but here I am…
Grim
I’ve taken a pass on this Jesus fellow, meself, though I wouldn’t quite say he “went bad”. What’s been done in his name, though, is sufficiently blood-chilling to keep me wary of any witness-types.
I don’t need a saviour, thanks. I take responsibility for my own life.
I’m a devout Christian, yet, to be honest, I always get nervous whenever I see someone ask that question, especially if I have reason to believe that person grew up in America, Europe, Australia, or New Zealand. I never had a road-to-Damascus type experience in which I renounced my former life and turned to Jesus. I was baptized as an infant and have never been anything but Episcopalian. I suppose you could say I have always been “Saved”, if you will, and I have always been a sinner.
Here’s what makes me nervous. There have been times when someone has asked me if I’ve been Saved, then, on learning I’m Episcopalian, have been uncertain I’m the right kind of Christian and tried to convert me to their form of Christianity. I find that incredibly rude, obnoxious, and arrogant. I *do * have a personal relationship with Jesus; the Man’s been known to interfere in my love life, for crying out loud! My faith is as real and solid to me as the chair I’m sitting in. It has also quite literally saved my life and I cannot picture life without it, to the dismay of some of our resident atheists. (Sorry, guys!) I get tired of seeing people who have good reasons not to be Christian, specifically the way they have been treated by some Christians, get told they must convert or else.
Excuse me. I’ve been considering opening a BBQ Pit rant about some Christians and I’m afraid some of that may have crept in.
CJ
Nah. Still waiting for a Deity that can:
a) Create the Entire Universe; and
b) fund their own church.
No luck so far.
Nice little Jewish boy.
Don’t know about his fanclub though.
Jesus saves. Moses spends. Buddha invests.
~shrugs~
There’s no soul, there’s no beforelife or afterlife, there’s no invisible man up in the clouds watching over me, and there’s no salvation, no redemption, no damnation.
Yes, actually. I followed that up by reading the Bible on my own.
My time in the Jehovah fan club was a short one.
Yes because he is my favorite fictional character.
Technically I guess I am saved-as I was saved when I was 16 or so. I was an ardent believer.
Now I’m a strong atheist…so I guess that means I’m out on my ass again, right? 
Not to join in the pile-on… but no.
Idle Thoughts, I hope you were aware that the SDMB is Atheist Central before posting. With a 2003 join date and 760 posts, I’d be surprised if you weren’t, actually. We do have a largish number of persons of faith (including some I really admire, like Polycarp and Siege), but much like our leftist tendencies, we lean towards the “no” end of the scale on the whole “saved” thing.
Do you intend to witness, or to debate? If so, onwards. If you wanted to poll or inquire instead, may I suggest that you request this thread be closed and start another in a forum more suited to that? Your original impulse to put it in IMHO might have been the best idea.
No way. The chances of idol worship of a human being who might have lived & died 2000 years ago changing anything that happens after I die are slim to none.
I figure believing in the Easter Bunny gives better odds of improving my life. At least he gives chocolates. Even Santa gives presents and the Tooth Fairy, money. I’ll take them over a Jewish preacher any day. ;j
I suppose I could say I was born in the “acceptance state”, as my Mom took me to fairly fundie church when I was growing up.
When I was 12 or 13 we moved and my Mom didn’t find a church she liked, so we stopped going. Either because the weekly reinforcement stopped, or I just thought about it more (or likely a combination of both) I guess I can say I “unaccepted” Christ, and came to realize the Judeo-Christian God was just the latest in a very long line of mythologies.
Well, he’s a good second basemen, but as far as turning around the franchise…
Oh, sorry, wrong dude.
“Accepting Jesus Christ as your savior” and being “saved” are two entirely different things.
You might have accepted Jesus’s power to save you, but you aren’t saved until judgment comes and the punishment you may have gotten, you don’t get.
I refuse to babble some “I love you Jesus” poem off the back of a tract and mark “get saved” off my list of things to do. Why? Because it’s ridiculous on its face.
I don’t believe that you have been saved from anything any more than I have. If you’re walking this earth, then you and I are in the same position. If we are to be judged, then we can talk “saving,” and who is. Being “saved” means something’s happened to you. But it hasn’t happened yet, so you can’t have been “saved.”
Christ wants us to be like Him, not to worship Him. Christ rejected any notion that we make obesiance to him, whether in life or in death. He gave us a few simple rules to follow and asked us to go into the world and minister by example. I’m working on doing that. And I’m not going to take time away from that in order to make sure that other people are praising Jesus the way I want them to. I’m banking my life on the belief that Jesus would rather have me serving as His representative to the less fortunate, rather than spending all my time telling Him (and others) just how superdupercool He is. Given my understanding of His life, Jesus was pretty secure in who he was. He doesn’t need me to be His Lil’ Jon.
So I guess my answer is that I believe that Jesus will save me, if He’s so inclined. But I don’t believe in the existence of a secure ticket to that party.
While discussing school choices the other day at lunch and why my kid is going to a public school rather than a parochial school or the independent Catholic school my MIL prefers, a co-worker threw out the comment “The Roman Church is the mother of all harlots”. I made what I (now) think is a rude comment and went on. I have read about that argument on, of all places, Jack Chick’s web site and it pains me to find out that this otherwise fine fellow believes such balderdash.
I am, however, ignorant of the proper refutation of such an argument. I have done some searching but have not come up with anything. Can anyone point me to a good discussion of this topic, or offer a summary? I am going to offer an apology for being rude, but I would like to have some kind of argument on hand just to make me feel, um, more preprared, I guess. Thanks.