Yet another person out to get Wildest Bill

The BBQ Pit
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Wow. Seems like in the almost three years (!!!) I’ve been on the SDMB, my heroes list has been expanding more rapidly than in the decades prior.

And Polycarp, you’re the newest member of my list. You’ve been knocking on the door for a while, but that message above didn’t just blast the door open, it landed you in the top echelon.

My hat is off, and I stand humbly in your shadow.

If Wildest Bill understands even a quarter of what you had to say, he’ll be sitting in pensive, introspective silence for a long, long time.

<waits patiently for WB’s response to Poly, with intention of comparing timestamps>

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Thanks, Lauralee, although I probably wouldn’t call myself “devout”…I’m basically going through some very deep analyzation of my faith right now. I’d call me a “Cafeteria CAtholic”…(I believe in God and Jesus and the angels and saints, but I don’t believe in Hell-Hell is here on earth, I believe, and I think that God sends you back to earth if you mess up in one life. Hitler is probably living right now as a Polish Jewish lesbian. Weird, I know).

Bill-we KNOW you’re not a bad guy-you obviously care a lot about your family and your friends. HOWEVER, you are impulsive and very stubborn and often close-minded. Remember-God is more subtle than you think. If you don’t open your mind up, you might miss something. Hey-maybe God inspired US to come here and tell you this.

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Polycarp:

That was truely amazing…
Wow…

Badger

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a very well stated and insightful post.

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WB, didn’t you read anything Polycarp said?

How can you call the ACLJ a “Christian” organization when its founder, Pat Robertson does not believe in democracy for Blacks?

-Ben

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Since a “bump” is not in good taste on this board, although if one were ever excusable, this thread probably furnishes grounds for it, an update:

Wildest Bill has begun a thread on the Pizza Parlor at http://thebruces.stormbirds.org/forum/showthread.php?threadid=2818 where he is exploring the issue of Evolution as “explaining away God.” Since many of that board’s members are Creationists, he’s getting a lot of positive reinforcement.

The issues raised here seem to have gone by the wayside. I’m debating with myself whether they need raising over there, in a thread on how to witness effectively or something. It’s an ethical question for me, how far to push the issue.

But I thought that it was at least worthwhile to bring folks who don’t frequent both boards and who might be interested up to date.

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Bill’s better off over there - he seems to want to be surrounded by mindless yes-men, not shown that he could actually be wrong about something.

Let us know when he starts a thread on “fat-burning” pills on ballysfitness.com…

Esprix

128

Actually, I just read the Pizza Parlor thread, and Billy the Witness (oh my) is being taken to task over there, too. Despite my intemperate OP in my thread about my breakup, Christians are not mindless lemmings, and it is possible to combine a theistic faith with intelligence. I submit Polycarp, Jodi, Lauralee, and a host of others as evidence.
Bill’s problem is that he IS a lemming. I doubt he reads the Bible so much as accept what others tell him about it. He certainly hasn’t read any of the Christian classics, like Law’s A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, Bunyan’sThe Pilgrim’s Progress, Thomas A Kempis’s
Imitatio Christi, or even any C. S. Lewis. His posts don’t show that he has seriously considered the implications of accepting redemption and the concomitant duty to put faith into action. I would point Bill to James 2:18-26, ending with,

I would also suggest that Bill meditate on Matthew 5:13:

Bill strikes as someone who is a practitioner of what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace”. That is, Bill blasphemes Jesus and His Atonement for the sins of the world by accepting salvation without any effort. True, grace is a free gift of God, but we are not suppposed to say we are saved and yet act like the unredeemed. If someone cannot tell that a person is Christian through his or her actions, then something is deeply wrong.

Why does Bill need an evil atheist like me to tell him what God’s Word clearly says?

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Poly,

I wouldn’t say what you said to me in your post has gone by the wayside. You had some good points and I am reflecting on them.

But I think I am still able to have my own opinions on things am I not?

Because afterall, they(my opinions) are opinions just like yours. You think God used evolution to make the world and the things in it and I don’t think He needed to use evolution to make the world. You could be right and I could be wrong or vice versa. We will only know for sure when we die.

Is this a salvation issue? No. But since alot of people on this board look at evolution as the reason they are here and not because God made them then I think they use evolution as an out from a belief in God.

Yes, some people believe God used evolution but alot of people don’t believe in God at all because of evolution. So I do think it is a pretty big issue.

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Bill,
I don’t know of anybody who doesn’t believe in G-d because of evolution. Do you really know people like that?

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WB, you’re committing the sin of willful ignorance. There is a plethora of evidence to show that species evolve from earlier species. There is the evidence of transitional forms in many species, including man. You are not entitled to have an opinion unless you check out the evidence. Take a biology class and learn something, for Jah’s sake!

Second, evoltuion has nothing to do with faith in God. Faith in God tells us about how to live, how to be absolved of sin, how to live in harmony with our fellow men and the Creator. Science is a mthod of evaluating and testing propstions about the material world. Religion and science work two opposite sides of the street. It is perfectly possible to be a Bible-believing Christian and also accepth the clear evidence of evolution.

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Just don’t let the question of evolutionism vs. creationism, although that got me involved in this thread, distract you from the main point of acting responsibily and as a Christian towards your fellow man, in real life and online. Nobody’s so much interested in picking on you for your typing skills and spelling problems as they are upset about the fact that whenever anything happens, your first move is to blame somebody else. It don’t work that way: you’re not your own master, but answerable to your Lord, and He expects you to show what He’d do if He were posting here in your posts, what He’d do if He ran a business in Corpus Christi in your daily life, and so on. That’s what Lauralee and I have been trying to say to you. WWJD – with a vengeance!

Y’know, if David B. started a thread in which he acknowledged that Scientific Creationism had been proven and evolutionism was all wet, it wouldn’t shake my faith in God one bit. (Although I’d be watching out the window for Orthodox Jews trying to net the flying pigs to make pork chops out of them… ;)) But suppose the reverse? Suppose Gator shows up and says that he’s certain that evolution has been proven, and cites statements from the ICR and numerous leading conservative religious authorities as evidence, with his usual skill at posting links? What would that do for yours?

The point I’m going for is that it matters not one whit how you interpret the Bible or what methodology God used in creating the universe; what counts is where your heart is, whether you’ve given Him your allegiance, and how you’re showing Him to others. “Do this, and you shall be saved.” Regardless of what theology and theories you may hold.

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Just my 2 cents - I don’t believe in God. I trust the science behind evolution. But they are totally separate things to me. Considering that I started without a belief in God, then learned more about evolution, my learning about evolution didn’t negate any previously-held religios beliefs. What’s more, I have a difficult time believing that there are religious people who, upon learning about evolution theory, think, “Well, that about wraps it up for God.”

Sorry for the hijack.

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I wish I could believe that right now, Poly. I was involved at the thread over at the PP, but I can’t do it anymore. Not after today, and a…rather hurtful message I got. (If you want to know about it, Poly, PM me over there. I will not go into it in public.)

I will NEVER understand people like you, billy. Who deal in making people like me, who LIVE Jesus’s word, feel like shit because I didn’t read the Bible enough. What on EARTH is the fucking POINT of that? Jesus would have loved everyone. Why the HELL can’t you.

goes off to cry

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Falcon,

What are you talking about? You lost me in your post totally?

Poly,

I will try to keep evol vs creat out of the debate if that is possible here. And I am responsible for my actions I might complain about the reasons but in the end I am resposible for them. But I didn’t run that stop sign.

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A belief in God and a belief in Evolution are not mutually exclusive, Bill. How many times do we have to explain this?

Just when we think you’re making some progress…
:rolleyes:

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Bill has posted his thread in GD, for those who are interested. (Sorry - I don’t have a link)

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Falcon,
I haven’t been following the debate over there, and you and I don’t really know each other (even though we did meet at a Dopefest. Remember? Huh? Huh?), and I don’t want to pry into your life, but if somebody’s sending you insults over e-mail, then they’re a bastard. Don’t let the bastards get you down, please? And, you might want to report them to somebody. If the rules of the PP are like the rules here, then what they’re doing is against board rules.

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Guin, I know that see you are making progress. :wink:

This will a research thread just to see if some atheist are atheist because of evolution. Ok

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EVOLUTION IS NOT A SALVATION ISSUE
EVOLUTION IS NOT A SALVATION ISSUE

Bill, I am not an atheist, but my belief in God is not the same as yours.

This is not because of evolution or science. It is because I was raised in the knowledge that God had given me, and everyone, a nearly boundless capacity for love and thought. I have been taught my whole life to use the gifts He has given me. To me, a belief that the Bible is the word-for-word Truth, and the ONLY truth, is to hide from God and His gifts.

I will not limit God. I am finite, He is infinite. It is the height of arrogance to presume to pigeonhole God. I cannot judge the validity of another, the worth of another, or the value of another’s soul. But even if it were acceptable for me to do so, I would not judge another for accepting the evidence because:

EVOLUTION IS NOT A SALVATION ISSUE
EVOLUTION IS NOT A SALVATION ISSUE

No amount of weaselling will make it important to one’s soul. It is not important. An unbeliever will be an unbeliever with or without a scientific model of evolution. A believer likewise. Why?

Because:

EVOLUTION IS NOT A SALVATION ISSUE
EVOLUTION IS NOT A SALVATION ISSUE
EVOLUTION IS NOT A SALVATION ISSUE

I don’t know how much more clear I can be. How about this:

"I AM."

Doesn’t say a thing about science, does it?

Asides:

(Big hugs, Falcon. You are loved.)

(Polycarp, I just read Spider’s new collection, with his Crazy Years columns–brilliant.)