I am so glad that all people don’t have the narrow, bigoted worldview that some of the people on the LBMB do. All they care about, seemingly, is that you’re not a Mormon, a Catholic or an atheist. If you’re not, that’s fine. If you are, LOOK OUT! There’s twenty million fundamentalists who will attack your beliefs and belittle what you hold dear.
Thank you, Cecil, for having a tolerant (for the most part) message board.
No replies to this message are necessary. Thanks, dopers, for being tolerant of me. It makes a real difference in my life, and it speaks volumes about the LBMBers who attack everything different from their own beliefs, that a bunch of non-fanatics can make me feel better about myself than the “pounders” ever could.
Hey, Snark, they aren’t over fond of people with liberal views on the Bible and salvation either. That nit being picked, I (obviously) know just how you feel. This is a great place to be! Even if David B.'s picking apart some religious idea I’ve posted from one side and Adam from the other, while Gaudere or Manhattan writes a perfect parody of it in terms of Invisible-Pink-Unicornianity, it’s fun to throw ideas back and forth here.
Just be sure you don’t disagree with any of our dogmas! :rolleyes:
Yeah, Poly, I think it’s the sheer diversity of viewpoints that makes this board so great. We can all learn from each other without enforcing the “THINK LIKE ME OR ELSE!” rule.
The funny thing is, I tend to hold viewpoints that would probably fit in well over there. But, this place is much more interesting, because of different viewpoints, the ability to understand that not everyone will believe what you believe, and that it is OK.
I like seeing different viewpoints, I doubt I could ever change someone’s strongest convictions just by typing something, and I am OK with that.
And, people sure seem a lot friendlier over here.
Have you voted for your favorite, huggable Mullinator today?
I tell ya, this Board has made me truly think about what I believe and why I believe it (I still believe ).
However, I grew up in a very narrow-minded, rigid denomination (which shall remain nameless) and it finally took me moving to Nashville and going to a non-denominational church for 3-1/2 years to wake me up out of their “brainwashing”, so to speak. Now, when I see fundies spouting off, I wonder if they really ever think about what they are saying and how people in the secular world see them?
I tell ya, this Board has made me truly think about what I believe and why I believe it (I still believe ).
However, I grew up in a very narrow-minded, rigid denomination (which shall remain nameless) and it finally took me moving to Nashville and going to a non-denominational church for 3-1/2 years to wake me up out of their “brainwashing”, so to speak. Now, when I see fundies spouting off, I wonder if they really ever think about what they are saying and how people in the secular world see them?
Well and that is the thing. While I might believe some of what they believe, I do not learn a whole lot about other beliefs nor do I grow in my own beliefs from spending time with those like me. I get enough of that at church.
I like this board because I can learn more about God from other Christians and even non-Christians. Someone questioning my beliefs makes me study and learn more about what I believe and why. Maybe my beliefs change a bit through this process, and maybe they become stronger.
Thanks Snark, Poly, Gaudy, David, Adam, Lib, Glitch, etc. for all I have learned from you guys.
I too came from a conservative background and a lot of those trappings hang on (but I’m learning.) I’ve spent some time at LBMB this past week.
I missed the care that people give here to punctuation, making sufficient use of white space, and spelling correctly their thread titles. I know this stuff is picayune, but it bugs me anyway.
I, too, learn a lot more here about my faith than I do/did there.
Tinker, about the commas, don’t be too hard on, yourself.
I must say I agree with you people. Overall, this is the best message board on the net.
My original quest here was to figure out the “atheist mind set”. (I noticed there were so many here.) That started the Atheist Religion thread in GD, and that started an unbelievable odyssey for me. I was perpetually perplexed by my inability to get a handle on how someone could possible not believe in something as plain and simply obvious as God. Some of you know how I struggled with this.
It was in prayer one day that I finally understood that faith in God — true faith — doesn’t come from the brain, but from the heart. Belief (with the brain) does lead to faith, but belief does not equal faith. Faith is placed in our hearts. By God. Faith is His gift to us.
God helped me to understand this when he told me “I am the Love Everlasting. Whatever men say about me with their minds is vapor. I cannot be known by the mind, but only by the heart. Stop dividing the world between theists and atheists, and start dividing it rightly, as I do. There are those who love, and those who don’t. Those who love, they are my disciples.”
It was then that I understood why I saw so many of the qualities of the God I worship in so many of the “atheists” here. I was inspired to see a whole new way. That would not have happened had I never come here.
That nit being picked, I (obviously) know just how you feel. This is a great place to be! Even if David B.'s picking apart some religious idea I’ve posted from one side and Adam from the other, while Gaudere or Manhattan writes a perfect parody of it in terms of Invisible-Pink-Unicornianity, it’s fun to throw ideas back and forth here.
).
