His4Ever, about that “bearing false witness” thang. You gonna tackle it, or is it easier to praise a bigot than to examine his claims?
Daniel
I open up my Franklin Planner to this quote:
When you have found your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and those who are still in the hall. – C.S. Lewis.
His4Ever, that’s why we “like” Poly and have a problem with you. Poly is almost always kind to those who have chosen a different door and those in the hall. You don’t seem to be interested in being the least bit kind to people who chose a different door - and have put out an “unwelcome” mat for anyone out in the hall.
The deal being, that I’m much more likely to stop by for a visit - and maybe an extended stay - at Poly’s door as a result. Since you aren’t even kind to the people out in the hall, you aren’t going to get many visitors.
What are you trying to accomplish? If its spreading God’s word, you need a little sweetness in with that vinegar - because God’s love is a much easier sell than God’s vengence. If its proving to yourself that you are better than the rest of us, you need to stop judging, as neither your God, nor many of us, look kindly on that behavior.
You are still not getting what many people have told you - your behavior drives people away from Christ, not to Christ. I was once Christian, until a co-worker with an attitude like yours convinced me I didn’t want to belong to that country club. He was trying to bring me closer to Christ, and instead drove me away.
His4Ever (hey, I even used the whole username this time!):
I have my doubts as to you actually listening to me, a damned Mormon, on this or any other issue, but I really do feel the need to give it a go.
Are you aware that vanilla and I, although we’ve never met, are friends here? I credit that mostly to her good character. When she started here with comments about religious traditions other than hers, those comments weren’t much different than yours (sorry, vanilla). The difference is that she took advice from a number of people, Poly and me, to name just two, on how to get her argument across without sounding like she’s sitting on God’s throne. Poly did the bulk of the work. Really, though, again owing to vanilla’s good character, Poly didn’t have much work to do. You see, vanilla really is interested in the moral and spiritual welfare of every single person on this planet. If she were Mahayana Buddhist, I’d say she’s not far off of being a Bodhisattva. I am quite happy to have her as a friend. One of the few cards I got for my birthday was from her–I don’t celebrate birthdays, but because of her good character and her wish to do something nice (you know, like Jesus commands people to do), I relented and let her be nice. <==I’ll come back to this comment at the end of the posting.
You, on the other hand, adamantly refuse to:
[ul][li]Research the claims you repeat.[/li][li]Accept that those claims may not be correct.[/li][list][li]Note here: I am on record here as saying that I am not blind to the fact that I may be deluding myself as to my religious beliefs. It is a possibility that ALL people of religious faith, no matter what that faith might be, may be deluding themselves.[/ul][/li][li]This one’s a biggy: Learn to debate. It does not matter what faith the person you find to teach you this skill holds, just learn the techniques of the skill. Saul of Tarsus learned how to debate long before he even considered accepting Christ.[/li][li]Learn what Comparative Religion is and what it is not. Learning what another faith has to say about the world, the universe, and whatever else, can be very instructive. And it doesn’t mean that you have to accept their version of the universe as being real. All it means is that you accept that they believe it to be real.[/li][li]Quit telling lies. You assert quite a few things here as being facts. And you continue to assert that after you’ve been shown the proof that those aren’t facts. I’ve shown you the proof. Poly’s shown you the proof. Hey, a lot of posters here, one of 'em (vanilla) who, IIRC, is a Fundamentalist Christian, have shown you the proof. Nowhere did they tell you to quit believing the Fundamentalist version of Christianity. They (well, we) just told you to quit touting falsehoods that are demonstrably proven falsehoods.[/li][li]Learn time management. I say this because one of your favourite lines appears to be “When I have more time.” You only use that when you are unable (or unwilling) to respond to a sincere query.[/list][/li]
As promised, I’m back to the comment mentioned above: vanilla wants to be nice to people and it’s impossible to know if it’s her faith that drives that or if it’s her desire to be nice that drives her faith. Honestly, it’s irrelevant. What matters is that, as Scripture says, you know people by the fruits they bear.
You haven’t been nice at all here, His4Ever. I really think it’s because you’re on a search for the martydom experience you’ve glorified in your mind as the only way to prove that you’re serving the Lord. Read the Scriptures and you’ll see that there are more ways of serving Him than that. Also, treat each and every person on the planet as though you’re facing Jesus. After all, that’s what He commanded us all to do. Maybe then, you’ll be as nice a person as vanilla is. I wish I were.
His, and what of the times people have shown you things to be false, and you refuse to admit it?
Like Catholicism. I have argued and argued and argued with you over this, and you still refuse.
“There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.”
See, another thing is, we ALL know your stance on homosexuality. So why keep repeating it? Seriously?
As for “there’s lots of other topics”-same applies to you! When you see a topic you disagree with-quit butting in and repeating the same thing over and over again. And then you act shocked when people get angry over it.
All we are asking-treat us as you want us to treat you. All right? Quit saying you won’t compromise God-because you ARE compromising him. Jesus said, “I DO NOT CONDEMN YOU,”
He DID say “sin no more”, but he knew that if a person is human, they’ll still sin. What he means is, I still love you, and I forgive you.
You are TURNING PEOPLE AWAY FROM GOD. Don’t you understand that? You know, the whole, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” What does it matter what your INTENTION is?
You hated it when people harassed you about your divorce and marriage. Well, that’s how people feel when YOU harass them for being gay.
Forget all that other crap, and simply follow what JESUS said. JESUS. Not Paul, not Moses, not Jack Chick. But JESUS. And what did JESUS say.
A tree is known by its fruit. As you are known by your’s. And your’s is rotten, honey.
It is one thing to be closed-minded about, say, your favorite band, or whether or not Cecil is Ed.
But to take that same approach to PEOPLE when it is clear that you do not understand them …
Well, for what it’s worth, here’s one word whose true meaning (as I see it espoused by Poly, et al., as opposed to the numerous H-Christians I’ve met) I will not attribute to you until you fit it:
Christian.
You do not love God’s creations, you love your Bible. You are not a christian but a bibliolatrist. You serve no other God or love but that which justifies your own purpose and ends, and I rather doubt any god worth serving gave them to you. You’ve said time and again that you refuse to change your mind about certain things. In the end, to me at least, that’s absolutely disgusting.
Absolutely. Disgusting.
God has revealed to Polycarp that the sort of tryst I had Halloween before last is sinful. I have a few theories about why he hasn’t gone on and on about how sinful it was, but mainly I think it’s because A) “an’ ye harm none”, a principle in pagan or wiccan ideology and to which I think he at least partially subscribes, B) anyone who has read some of my posts on my life as I was growing up would realize why it was important to me (here’s a hint: it has to do with me finding out I wouldn’t totally freak out and start crying at the start of intimacy. Not that I respect you enough to tell you shit about my personal life, but if I’m going to make this point I might as well make it thoroughly), and C) because my personal life, unless I had, say, killed someone, is not much of his business.
I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen Polycarp say, in not so many words, “I believe 3-somes for purely physical pleasure are sinful.” I run out of hands counting the number of times you’ve gone on your anti-gay crusade.
As much as I may disagree with what Poly has to say on any aspect of religion, there are … a few things about his presentation that command respect:
- His scholarship
- His politeness
- His love
- His love
- The fact that, if need be, he can play “dueling Bibles”, but prefers to make relevant points rather than just go back and forth citing bible verses
- His opinion that he could be wrong, and is open to change
- His love
You sometimes exhibit 2 and 3. I have yet to see any of the others exhibited.
Given what we all know about Polycarp’s cites and what we know about yours, that’s rather like complaining that while people accept my APA cite on pedophilia, they don’t accept your geocities site run by a 12-year-old who gets his psychological information from Yu-Gi-Oh.
No, you’re not.
Hmmm … I don’t think the Unwelcome mat analogy is quite accurate.
It seems to me more like His4Ever has put a mat out in front of her door that says, “Get in this room, and this one room alone, or you’re going to burn in hell forever!”
Guess because I saw someone getting ganged up on, I know the feeling.
Mangetout, sighhh, it says what it says. Sorry I don’t accept all you guys’ explanations of why I’m wrong.
Sorry to bother, y’all. Guess I should’ve just sent DrChuckie an email and told him he wasn’t going to get anywhere here. You don’t have private messaging.
Bye bye.
Sure. That’s what you always say.
If you can’t take it, don’t fucking dish it out.
Do you at least give thought to why we are saying you are wrong, or do you close down and just ignore us?
“Guess I should’ve just sent DrChuckie an email and told him he wasn’t going to get anywhere here.”
—Thank goodness for that . . . I’d hate to be on a Message Board that didn’t cut his sort down to size!
I take it, H4E, that I was right: you’re unwilling to look at Chuck’s site to find out whether he’s breaking one of the ten commandments before you decide that he’s your ally.
Despicable. At least some crazed right-wing fundies have integrity.
Daniel
I realise it says what it says, but you haven’t answered my question about how and why you take it as incontrovertible fact… by way of illustration, I have in my hand a piece of paper, on it is printed the following words:
Now the thing with this paper is that it says what it says.
I know that it can be trusted because I showed it to an expert and he verified that it is indeed a piece of paper (as it claims to be). In any case it says on the paper that everything on it is true.
I therefore believe that all swans are white, somebody showed me this picture the other day, claiming that it depicts a black swan, but he is clearly misguided as I already know that all swans are white, so clearly this cannot be a swan (or maybe somebody painted it or something).
Anyway, I don’t take much notice of people that say some swans are not white, because it says on my piece of paper that I shouldn’t necessarily trust things if they aren’t on my piece of paper (in fact my belief in the the veracity of my piece of paper is substantially reinforced by the agenda of all these people trying to prove some swans are black. - you see it says on the paper that people will try to convince me and that they are wrong)
In short, I believe that all swans are white because it says so here, it also says that the people who try to convince me otherwise are wrong; I know they are wrong because they say some swans are black, which I know to be false, they hate my piece of paper and say that it is inaccurate, but I don’t have to listen to their lies beceause it says on my piece of paper that I shouldn’t.
If I had my way, I would bleach that black swan, that would fix everything.
Yes, the Bible says what it says. Yes, among the things it says is that male homosexuality is (Lev 20:13) detestable and requires a death sentence, and that both male and female homosexuality are (Romans 1:25) a punishment from God for exchanging the truth of God for a lie.
However, the Bible also says that no matter how badly you have sinned, or how badly you sin in the future, so long as you have accepted Jesus Christ as your lord and savior you will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Bible also says not to judge, lest ye be judged.
Do not the latter things the Bible says supersede the former?
Of course not, tracer. The latter things are things that His4ever is guilty of herself, so they’re not anywhere near as dire of sins as homosexuality, which she can’t imagine why anyone would ever do.
I’m tired of her. I give her up to the Abyss of Ignorance…some walls are impossible to pull down.
I don’t. She has in fact showed some good talents at expressing herself in a forum where she’s less in the minority on issues, and even to grasp and discuss other people’s POV (though like me she’s inclined to avoid discussing free will/determinism at any length, for which I cannot blame her one bit! ;)). I believe in her good intentions. With her strong respect for the words of Scripture, she is disinclined to either buy into authoritative teachings on how it is to be interpreted (à la the Catholic Magisterium) or to sort out for herself what parts are to be read in the context of other parts. And her perspective is so legalistically oriented as to make Zev look like a New Age radical by comparison. But she can and does look carefully at what’s told her and weigh it against the words by which she lives.
So I put up with being told that I “explain away” Scripture by simply saying that what it looks like it says from a 21st Century American perpective may not be what it said when it was written, and that there’s a difference between love and lust. And I pray that God will not judge her with the measure she uses to judge others.
O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O C * /
O O O O O O O O * ~
O O O O O O O C
That’s supposed to be me beating my head against a brick wall. It’s obviously the posting I should’ve made instead of the one I did make above.
{Sigh}
The only time you get ganged up on is when you post something demonstrably false or demonstrably prejudiced. It’s not the “gang’s” fault you are unware as to what truth is.
Again, it is not the “gang’s” fault that you obstinately refuse to learn the difference between “it says what it says” and “I think what it says is…”
Here’s (yet another) exercise for you in debating: go to, not my previous posting in this thread, but the one above it. Now, idicate, item by item, where what I said is wrong. I don’t have to agree with you. I will, on the other hand, actually have some resect for you if you are able to do that without posting something demonstrably false and/or demonstrably prejudiced.
Private messaging, IMHO (<=====the acronym you’ve been asked numerous times to start using instead of asserting your {ill-formed} opinions as facts), would be quite unmanageable on a site with the membership this one has.
Anyone believe this? Bueller? Bueller?
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Here, Monty – several of us have had this one around for a while, for precisely the purpose you were using yours. 
Poly: Dang, you’re good. Not only that, you’re dang good!
{I love that construction in English!}
That posting is now added to my favourites as “Straight Dope Message Board - Poly provides a brick wall icon!”
Would you be so kind, Poly, as to demonstrate, by using my longish posting above (but with correct coding–there’s supposed to be a close list tag after the third marked bullet) how H4E could avail herself of my advice? Feel free to indicate if it’s your opinion where you “show me I’m wrong.” I think it would be beneficial; given your debating skills, I know I’ll learn from it!
It’s the classic “pearls before swine” analogy.