How come there are over 40,000 christian denominations and more invented daily

[Weatherman2020]

Thank you for settling that. You are officially not on the bubble. It looks like I have outed three militant atheists today. Hunting was good.

Bang, bang, I am the warrior

My personal best was only one before. Wow!

What does Ephesians 4:12 mean?
For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ

Saints (derived from the Greek "holy" or set apart") is mentioned 67 times in the New Testament.
Always referring to the living. Why is that?

Revelation 5:8, Matt. 17:3, 1 Timothy 2:1–4, Rom. 15:30–32, Eph. 6:18–20, Col. 4:3, 1 Thess. 5:25, 2 Thess. 3:1, 2 Thess. 1:11, Matt. 5:44, Matt. 8:13, 15:28, 17:15–18, Mark 9:17–29, Luke 8:49–55, Jas. 5:16–18, Heb. 12:22-23, John 14:13–14, Ps. 103:20-21, Ps. 148:1-2, Rev. 8:3-4, Rev. 5:8

The saints in heaven offer to God the prayers of the saints on earth.

How can there be Saints on earth? Pointy hat hasn't given them the title yet.

I guess you don't know as much about the Catholic Church as you think you do. There are saints we know about and saints we don't know about and that is always how it has been said every single time they are mentioned.

I know all about your cult.
Like your inability to support anything from the Bible because your cult does the opposite of what God said to do.

 

[zaangalewa]

There's only one truth, so there's only one church - one common spiritual body of the bride of Christ. But are Christians able to agree? What you describe here is a kind of explosion or erosion. It started about 1000 years ago with the break into orthodox and catholic church - Orient and Occident, Constantinople and Rome, East and West. This had happened under the hammer of the Islam. The next explosion was about 500 years ago, when the hammer of the Islam transformed Constaninople into Instanbul and Catholics had to replace the main church of the Christendom, the Hagia Sofia, with St. Peters Basilica in Rome. For your world one of the most important persons in this context is Henry VIII. Since this days the catholic church - although it has the most members - is nearly completly unimportant and without a big influence in the english speaking world. Within the protestants this process of erosion continued. 43000/34000 is about 5/4. So in the last 4 years grew the number of the denominations in the USA around 25%. I guess this decomposition means the christian religion in the USA dies and this process accelerates.

Why is it bad if I have 15 Churches I can choose from within a 20 minute drive?
Everyone has their own way of reaching out to God. If a few of those 15 were my only choice, I would not attend. The choices are a positive sign.

Nothing is bad and nothing is good in such case except your idea the belief in god is a kind of trademark. The hyperuniversality of commercial ideas is for me a very strange theology. But what's the real choice between true and truth of different churches and pseudochurches? The unablity of human beings not to be able to understand the world including the transcendent world and to communicate with each other?

Scripture instructs the removal of the unrepentant from the Church.
But you wouldn't know that, because you are a member of the Catholic cult.

Exactly. I understand the words but I do not know what you like to say with this sentence - and much more worse: I do not even like to know. If someone tells me "I'm a Catholic" then I think "Aha - a Catholic".

Your inability to address the anti Biblical cult practices of the Catholic Church is noted.

No problem. I'm sure your are able to solve this pseudointelligent suicide with your suicidal intelligence, manbat. Sometimes I think all Americans are idiots - this is one of this sinny moments. Fortunatelly Bob Dylan got the nobel price. This helps me out of this sin.

 

[ding]

There's only one truth...

Agreed. Ponder this...

For any given thing there is a final state of fact. Once the final state of fact is arrived at it is known that it was always this way and will always be this way.

I believe this describes reality or existence. When asked His name, He replied, "I am."

 

[zaangalewa]

... Catholics don't worship idols or anyone but God. ...

Tell him the truth. Everyone saw us at Halloween riding on our brushbrooms to our castles in Transsylvania. So better to ask him directly what's his blood type. I guess it's wishi-washi. Wishi-washi is a universal aliphatic solvent - so with his wishi-washi we may solve all not existing problems very fast, what makes a good aliphatic sound at Halloween.

 

[Skull Pilot]

The Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary estimated 34,000 denominations in 2000, rising to an estimated 43,000 in 2012. These numbers have exploded from 1,600 in the year 1900.

so which one is the one "true" church?

That's easy

MONEY

religion is big business.

 

[zaangalewa]

The Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary estimated 34,000 denominations in 2000, rising to an estimated 43,000 in 2012. These numbers have exploded from 1,600 in the year 1900.

so which one is the one "true" church?

That's easy

MONEY

religion is big business.

Money is the most popular god - but in the end nothing else than only an illusion. The problem with money today is: If someones serves not the illusion money too then it can happen people will die on hunger. And to die on hunger is not an illusion. I hope I have in the right moment the power to die on hunger, if the evil mights of the world don't give me any other chance any longer. God might help us all.

 

[Mudda]

Atheists don't follow a common moral code, wtf are you talking about?
No doctrine either, just a non-belief, that's it. And not all atheists act belligerently, I know I don't.

Your moral code is defined by human pleasure and leads to support for abortion, free sex movement, moral relativity, indiscriminate indiscriminateness, multiculturalism, cultural marxism and normalization of deviance. Your doctrines are abolition of private property, abolition of family, abolition of religion and communality or equality.

You are what we call a passive aggressive atheist. You don't respect anyone who believes in God and it shows.

I'm not even an atheist, but I guess in your world...
So you think all atheists are alike? Do you have any links to all this shit you claim? Like atheists who want to abolish families? ...

No. Not all. Just the ones I come into contact here on these boards anyway. If you don't believe you are an atheist, then you are in denial. I am married to an agnostic. Probably the only true agnostic in the world. She knows there is more, but has no idea what that more is and has no desire to figure it out.

So you're taking back everything you just said about atheists because you realize that you were wrong? Good for you.

No. See that's how I know you are a militant atheist. Passive aggressive, but still militant. You don't condone respect for anyone who believes in God and it shows.

Don't blame me for your flip-flop on your answer about atheists because you realized the first one was nonsense.

 

[Mudda]

Atheists don't follow a common moral code, wtf are you talking about?
No doctrine either, just a non-belief, that's it. And not all atheists act belligerently, I know I don't.

Your moral code is defined by human pleasure and leads to support for abortion, free sex movement, moral relativity, indiscriminate indiscriminateness, multiculturalism, cultural marxism and normalization of deviance. Your doctrines are abolition of private property, abolition of family, abolition of religion and communality or equality.

You are what we call a passive aggressive atheist. You don't respect anyone who believes in God and it shows.

I'm not even an atheist, but I guess in your world...
So you think all atheists are alike? Do you have any links to all this shit you claim? Like atheists who want to abolish families? ...

No. Not all. Just the ones I come into contact here on these boards anyway. If you don't believe you are an atheist, then you are in denial. I am married to an agnostic. Probably the only true agnostic in the world. She knows there is more, but has no idea what that more is and has no desire to figure it out.

So you're taking back everything you just said about atheists because you realize that you were wrong? Good for you.

No. See that's how I know you are a militant atheist. Passive aggressive, but still militant. You don't condone respect for anyone who believes in God and it shows.

It's hard to take seriously someone who has no proof of their invisible friend whom they worship. You act all snooty like I'm the doofus for not believing in invisible people, when you've not put forth even one shred of evidence.

 

[Mudda]

Since when did an atheist pretending to be a baptist care what's in the Bible? Does it bother you that every time I post, I expose your secret religions secrets?

Do you really think your god will look favorably on you acting like such a jackass in His name? Or are you really an atheist posing as a bible lover?

 

[zaangalewa]

What does Ephesians 4:12 mean?
For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ

Saints (derived from the Greek "holy" or set apart") is mentioned 67 times in the New Testament.
Always referring to the living. Why is that?

Revelation 5:8, Matt. 17:3, 1 Timothy 2:1–4, Rom. 15:30–32, Eph. 6:18–20, Col. 4:3, 1 Thess. 5:25, 2 Thess. 3:1, 2 Thess. 1:11, Matt. 5:44, Matt. 8:13, 15:28, 17:15–18, Mark 9:17–29, Luke 8:49–55, Jas. 5:16–18, Heb. 12:22-23, John 14:13–14, Ps. 103:20-21, Ps. 148:1-2, Rev. 8:3-4, Rev. 5:8

The saints in heaven offer to God the prayers of the saints on earth.

How can there be Saints on earth? Pointy hat hasn't given them the title yet.

I guess you don't know as much about the Catholic Church as you think you do. There are saints we know about and saints we don't know about and that is always how it has been said every single time they are mentioned.

I know all about your cult.

Very good. Will you please tell me: On what reason died Pope Eleutherus in May/24th 189 AD?

Like your inability to support anything from the Bible because your cult does the opposite of what God said to do.

We wrote the bible. We made it not on the reason to create a god for protestants - we made it because of our doddery brains. We did not like to forget or to remember wrong.

 

[Mudda]

There's only one truth...

Agreed. Ponder this...

For any given thing there is a final state of fact. Once the final state of fact is arrived at it is known that it was always this way and will always be this way.

I believe this describes reality or existence. When asked His name, He replied, "I am."

So you're saying that you know the reasons of existence? And you read it in the Big Book of Fiction? Did I nail it or what?

 

[Meriweather]

It's hard to take seriously someone who has no proof of their invisible friend whom they worship. You act all snooty like I'm the doofus for not believing in invisible people, when you've not put forth even one shred of evidence.

Remember, proof requires something physical to measure. God is spiritual, we can offer no proof. There are questions we can propose: What is more likely: Matter and motion have always been and always will be...and that intelligence (non-matter)--spirit--comes from matter. Or, Intelligence/Spirit is what was/is infinite and matter came from this intelligence. Keep in mind science is now dealing with very small, almost invisible, quarks and their even smaller make-up.

It is not an invisible person in which we believe--but a supreme, intelligent being. The Bible describes the universe as a grain of sand to God.

 

[Weatherman2020]

Saints (derived from the Greek "holy" or set apart") is mentioned 67 times in the New Testament.
Always referring to the living. Why is that?

Revelation 5:8, Matt. 17:3, 1 Timothy 2:1–4, Rom. 15:30–32, Eph. 6:18–20, Col. 4:3, 1 Thess. 5:25, 2 Thess. 3:1, 2 Thess. 1:11, Matt. 5:44, Matt. 8:13, 15:28, 17:15–18, Mark 9:17–29, Luke 8:49–55, Jas. 5:16–18, Heb. 12:22-23, John 14:13–14, Ps. 103:20-21, Ps. 148:1-2, Rev. 8:3-4, Rev. 5:8

The saints in heaven offer to God the prayers of the saints on earth.

How can there be Saints on earth? Pointy hat hasn't given them the title yet.

I guess you don't know as much about the Catholic Church as you think you do. There are saints we know about and saints we don't know about and that is always how it has been said every single time they are mentioned.

I know all about your cult.

Very good. Will you please tell me: On what reason died Pope Eleutherus in May/24th 189 AD?

Like your inability to support anything from the Bible because your cult does the opposite of what God said to do.

We wrote the bible. We made it not on the reason to create a god for protestants - we made it because of our doddery brains. We did not like to forget or to remember wrong.

Very good. Will you please tell me: On what reason died Pope Eleutherus in May/24th 189 AD?

That makes no sense.

We wrote the bible. We made it not on the reason to create a god for protestants - we made it because of our doddery brains. We did not like to forget or to remember wrong.

WE? The Old and New Testaments were written by Jews, dufus.
Your inability to justify the catholic cult by Scripture proves it is a cult.

 

[Mudda]

It's hard to take seriously someone who has no proof of their invisible friend whom they worship. You act all snooty like I'm the doofus for not believing in invisible people, when you've not put forth even one shred of evidence.

Remember, proof requires something physical to measure. God is spiritual, we can offer no proof. There are questions we can propose: What is more likely: Matter and motion have always been and always will be...and that intelligence (non-matter)--spirit--comes from matter. Or, Intelligence/Spirit is what was/is infinite and matter came from this intelligence. Keep in mind science is now dealing with very small, almost invisible, quarks and their even smaller make-up.

It is not an invisible person in which we believe--but a supreme, intelligent being. The Bible describes the universe as a grain of sand to God.

What's more likely, us dumb ass humans figuring out the universe? Or getting it wrong? And you have ZERO proof, get a grip, brah.
The universe and everything in it wasn't made in 6 days, a woman wasn't made out of a man's rib, there was no worldwide flood... The bible is a made up book by man, a con man's wet dream, if you will.

 

[Weatherman2020]

It's hard to take seriously someone who has no proof of their invisible friend whom they worship. You act all snooty like I'm the doofus for not believing in invisible people, when you've not put forth even one shred of evidence.

Remember, proof requires something physical to measure. God is spiritual, we can offer no proof. There are questions we can propose: What is more likely: Matter and motion have always been and always will be...and that intelligence (non-matter)--spirit--comes from matter. Or, Intelligence/Spirit is what was/is infinite and matter came from this intelligence. Keep in mind science is now dealing with very small, almost invisible, quarks and their even smaller make-up.

It is not an invisible person in which we believe--but a supreme, intelligent being. The Bible describes the universe as a grain of sand to God.

What's more likely, us dumb ass humans figuring out the universe? Or getting it wrong? And you have ZERO proof, get a grip, brah.
The universe and everything in it wasn't made in 6 days, a woman wasn't made out of a man's rib, there was no worldwide flood... The bible is a made up book by man, a con man's wet dream, if you will.

Prove it.
Until about 50 years ago science said the universe had always existed. Guess what, now the universe had a beginning.
Like it does all the time, the more we learn the more it dovetails with what the Bible says.

 

[Mudda]

It's hard to take seriously someone who has no proof of their invisible friend whom they worship. You act all snooty like I'm the doofus for not believing in invisible people, when you've not put forth even one shred of evidence.

Remember, proof requires something physical to measure. God is spiritual, we can offer no proof. There are questions we can propose: What is more likely: Matter and motion have always been and always will be...and that intelligence (non-matter)--spirit--comes from matter. Or, Intelligence/Spirit is what was/is infinite and matter came from this intelligence. Keep in mind science is now dealing with very small, almost invisible, quarks and their even smaller make-up.

It is not an invisible person in which we believe--but a supreme, intelligent being. The Bible describes the universe as a grain of sand to God.

What's more likely, us dumb ass humans figuring out the universe? Or getting it wrong? And you have ZERO proof, get a grip, brah.
The universe and everything in it wasn't made in 6 days, a woman wasn't made out of a man's rib, there was no worldwide flood... The bible is a made up book by man, a con man's wet dream, if you will.

Prove it.
Until about 50 years ago science said the universe had always existed. Guess what, now the universe had a beginning.
Like it does all the time, the more we learn the more it dovetails with what the Bible says.

Prove what? That the bible is made up? LOL! Really?
There's no proof of any of the big things that take place in the bible. Science is at least looking for real answers and keep an open mind about what they find.
But if you think the bible is true then prove to me that a woman was made from a man's rib. And we'll go from there.

 

[Meriweather]

What's more likely, us dumb ass humans figuring out the universe? Or getting it wrong? And you have ZERO proof, get a grip, brah.

The universe and everything in it wasn't made in 6 days, a woman wasn't made out of a man's rib, there was no worldwide flood... The bible is a made up book by man, a con man's wet dream, if you will.

You're arguing with people who take a literal view of the Bible. Most of us don't. Remember Hebrew is not a subjective language. It uses imagery to convey its point--that men and women are part and parcel of each other.

 

[Mudda]

What's more likely, us dumb ass humans figuring out the universe? Or getting it wrong? And you have ZERO proof, get a grip, brah.

The universe and everything in it wasn't made in 6 days, a woman wasn't made out of a man's rib, there was no worldwide flood... The bible is a made up book by man, a con man's wet dream, if you will.

You're arguing with people who take a literal view of the Bible. Most of us don't. Remember Hebrew is not a subjective language. It uses imagery to convey its point--that men and women are part and parcel of each other.

So you agree that the bible stories aren't true? So what are you asking me to prove?

So how did Noah get marsupials from Oz and back again?

 

[Meriweather]

So you agree that the bible stories aren't true? So what are you asking me to prove?

So how did Noah get marsupials from Oz and back again?

Some people's faith is such that they believe the King James Version of the Bible as published in 1611 is how God meant us to understand creation and scripture. Many others--most, in fact--are cognizant of the fact that English cannot do the original Hebrew justice.

In the example of Noah's flood, a more accurate translations today would have been, The dirt/earth was covered with water--not that the planet earth was covered with water. In the original Hebrew the reader would picture that earth--as far as could be seen--was covered with water. (Imagine horizon to horizon.) In the King James English, suddenly the entire planet is covered with water.

Over and above all this, the lesson in the story had nothing to do with how far the water extended.

What I would like people to know is that there is a supreme being who loves us beyond our capacity to absorb or fully understand. There is the chance that anyone can have an interaction with this God of love. Noah did, Abraham did, Moses did, David did, Samuel did, I did, and so did many, many others--so how hard can it be? Really, really hard if people are more interested in how much water covered the land than they are interested in actually encountering God.

 

[Mudda]

So you agree that the bible stories aren't true? So what are you asking me to prove?

So how did Noah get marsupials from Oz and back again?

Some people's faith is such that they believe the King James Version of the Bible as published in 1611 is how God meant us to understand creation and scripture. Many others--most, in fact--are cognizant of the fact that English cannot do the original Hebrew justice.

In the example of Noah's flood, a more accurate translations today would have been, The dirt/earth was covered with water--not that the planet earth was covered with water. In the original Hebrew the reader would picture that earth--as far as could be seen--was covered with water. (Imagine horizon to horizon.) In the King James English, suddenly the entire planet is covered with water.

Over and above all this, the lesson in the story had nothing to do with how far the water extended.

What I would like people to know is that there is a supreme being who loves us beyond our capacity to absorb or fully understand. There is the chance that anyone can have an interaction with this God of love. Noah did, Abraham did, Moses did, David did, Samuel did, I did, and so did many, many others--so how hard can it be? Really, really hard if people are more interested in how much water covered the land than they are interested in actually encountering God.

How can you convince anyone to have a relashionship with the invisible man of the bible if you don't think that any of the big things in it are true? Like, how do you know Samuel did if it's only written that he did in a book you think is fiction?