Is This For Real?

[Steven_R]

It's the childhood brainwashing. Without it all of that utter nonsense would be as dead as cannibalism is today. Anybody who is so arrogant and egotistical that they believe they have somehow been granted eternal bliss in a heavenly community behind golden gates while billions who simply believed something else will do an eternal dance in a roast pot has their heads so far up their asses that they're beyond any kind of help. In a way they are to be pitied. I don't believe in ghosts, holy or otherwise and I for damn sure don't believe in a heaven for those who believe some fairy tale.

I see you are still as ignorant as always. Good luck.

And I see that you are one of the assholes who believe I'll burn in hell. Go somewhere and screw yourself.

Stay warm crispy.

Eat Shit And Die!

At least I won't be toasty. Good luck crispy.

I'm pretty sure Christians aren't supposed to be smug when it comes to all those who will be kindling for eternity. Sad maybe, but not smug, and certainly not standing on a pedestal.

 

[Campbell]

It's the childhood brainwashing and human desperation. Without it all of that utter nonsense would be as dead as cannibalism is today. Anybody who is so arrogant and egotistical that they believe they have somehow been granted eternal bliss in a heavenly community behind golden gates while billions who simply believed something else will do an eternal dance in a roast pot has their heads so far up their asses that they're beyond any kind of help. In a way they are to be pitied. I don't believe in ghosts, holy or otherwise and I for damn sure don't believe in a heaven for those who believe some fairy tale.

No hell below us, above us only sky?

Of course you are right, but you are also wrong.

Do you not think that your certainty that the stories in scripture are basically fairy tales that cannot be literally true is a position above that of superstitious and irrational people who 'just believe' the fairy tales without any comprehension of what they are actually about and even though reality, like a fire that will never go out, contradicts those stories and has contradicted those stories every day and night for thousands of years ?

Do you think its impossible that there could be an even higher ground than where you stand, a place of peace and understanding for those who find and act on the instruction in those fairy tales not directly connected to the literal meaning of the words used that conforms to and is confirmed by reality?? lessons from the past that are relevant and essential to a fruitful and fulfilled life that is above the grasp of the superstitious and derisive ? Teaching that is missed as completely by those who reject the stories entirely as by those who profess to believe every word?

Many people like yourself dismiss scripture as bronze age fairy tales for children. If that is the truth, and given the content I can find no reason to disagree, intelligent people living today with the benefit of a sound education should have no problem learning what bronze age people expected bronze age children to comprehend.

You could at least try.....

I'll be my own judge about what constitutes bull shit:

A ghost floating on a cloud meeting a bunch of dimwits in the air to escort them through pearly gates to an exclusive community.

The 2/3 - 3/4 who are sinners burning eternally in a lake of fire and brimstone.

A flood which covered the earth to a depth of five miles then evaporated within a few weeks....not to mention two of each species on the face of the earth on a home made boat.

Big fish puking up live men.

Seas separating for the good guys and drowning the bad guys chasing them.

Compound walls falling at the sound of a trumpet.

A human being turned into a pillar of salt in her tracks.

Men living through a 1200 degree furnace.

The earth standing still.

Ten commandments presented to one man by god in the form of a burning bush.

A man walking on water.

A man/god on earth feeding five thousand plus women and children who also ate with two fish and five loaves then gathering 12 baskets of leftovers.

Water turned into fine wine.

Lepers healed by touching them.

Selectively raising dead men.

Virgin birth.

Resurrection.

Do I Need To Continue?

 

[AmericanFirst1]

I see you are still as ignorant as always. Good luck.

And I see that you are one of the assholes who believe I'll burn in hell. Go somewhere and screw yourself.

Stay warm crispy.

Eat Shit And Die!

At least I won't be toasty. Good luck crispy.

I'm pretty sure Christians aren't supposed to be smug when it comes to all those who will be kindling for eternity. Sad maybe, but not smug, and certainly not standing on a pedestal.

You are correct. I just get tired of defending my faith against those who are downright blasphemous.

 

[Campbell]

And I see that you are one of the assholes who believe I'll burn in hell. Go somewhere and screw yourself.

Stay warm crispy.

Eat Shit And Die!

At least I won't be toasty. Good luck crispy.

I'm pretty sure Christians aren't supposed to be smug when it comes to all those who will be kindling for eternity. Sad maybe, but not smug, and certainly not standing on a pedestal.

You are correct. I just get tired of defending my faith against those who are downright blasphemous.

John 14:
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Christians believe that two thirds of the population of the world will burn in eternal hell......plus the ones in their faith who have committed unpardonable sins. What a load of horse shit!!

 

[AmericanFirst1]

Stay warm crispy.

Eat Shit And Die!

At least I won't be toasty. Good luck crispy.

I'm pretty sure Christians aren't supposed to be smug when it comes to all those who will be kindling for eternity. Sad maybe, but not smug, and certainly not standing on a pedestal.

You are correct. I just get tired of defending my faith against those who are downright blasphemous.

John 14:
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Your faith believes that two thirds of the population of the world will burn in eternal hell......plus the ones in your faith who have committed unpardonable sins:

The only unpardonable sin is denying the Holy Spirit. Don't tell me what my faith says, I know more about it than you.

 

[Campbell]

Eat Shit And Die!

At least I won't be toasty. Good luck crispy.

I'm pretty sure Christians aren't supposed to be smug when it comes to all those who will be kindling for eternity. Sad maybe, but not smug, and certainly not standing on a pedestal.

You are correct. I just get tired of defending my faith against those who are downright blasphemous.

John 14:
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Your faith believes that two thirds of the population of the world will burn in eternal hell......plus the ones in your faith who have committed unpardonable sins:

The only unpardonable sin is denying the Holy Spirit. Don't tell me what my faith says, I know more about it than you.

You obviously don't know more than I do. I guess you know what happens next:

Revelation 21:8

“But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”

 

[AmericanFirst1]

At least I won't be toasty. Good luck crispy.

I'm pretty sure Christians aren't supposed to be smug when it comes to all those who will be kindling for eternity. Sad maybe, but not smug, and certainly not standing on a pedestal.

You are correct. I just get tired of defending my faith against those who are downright blasphemous.

John 14:
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Your faith believes that two thirds of the population of the world will burn in eternal hell......plus the ones in your faith who have committed unpardonable sins:

The only unpardonable sin is denying the Holy Spirit. Don't tell me what my faith says, I know more about it than you.

You obviously don't know more than I do. I guess you know what happens next:

Revelation 21:8

“But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”

Obviously I do. Unrepentant sins. Cherry picking the Bible to make you look like you know the Bible, when obviously you don't, just makes you look silly.

 

[Campbell]

I'm pretty sure Christians aren't supposed to be smug when it comes to all those who will be kindling for eternity. Sad maybe, but not smug, and certainly not standing on a pedestal.

You are correct. I just get tired of defending my faith against those who are downright blasphemous.

John 14:
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Your faith believes that two thirds of the population of the world will burn in eternal hell......plus the ones in your faith who have committed unpardonable sins:

The only unpardonable sin is denying the Holy Spirit. Don't tell me what my faith says, I know more about it than you.

You obviously don't know more than I do. I guess you know what happens next:

Revelation 21:8

“But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”

Obviously I do. Unrepentant sins. Cherry picking the Bible to make you look like you know the Bible, when obviously you don't, just makes you look silly.

You're full of shit! I lived in the church from the spring of 1957 when I was baptized before a congregation of nearly 1000 until I decided to quit living a lie when I was just over 60 years old in 1994. I taught Sunday school, worked with the RA boys, was a member of the Brotherhood, was one of the visitation committee and gave personal testimony before hundreds in small churches within 25-50 miles of where I lived. I had most of the new testament memorized chapter and verse before I turned 30. The minister tried to talk me into studying for the ministry and for a while my wife and I were actually making plans to do that. Thank goodness I came to my senses. I never believed that crock of shit and I used to look around the sanctuary on Sunday mornings and study the looks on the faces of others because I doubted that they believed it either......I still doubt that they did. Brainwashing of children is the only reason that crock is still around and young people are bailing out of it by the thousands every week and month. It's days are numbered. If you doubt that you either can't or don't want to read:

Young people are leaving the church in droves:

Millennials leaving church in droves, study says - CNN.com

Now....I have a question for you. What do you think the minimum number of members in a church will be required to keep the hundreds of thousands of churches going. There are two churches within a mile of our home and most Sunday's there's less than 20 cars in the parking lots. What's gonna happen?

 

[AmericanFirst1]

You are correct. I just get tired of defending my faith against those who are downright blasphemous.

John 14:
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Your faith believes that two thirds of the population of the world will burn in eternal hell......plus the ones in your faith who have committed unpardonable sins:

The only unpardonable sin is denying the Holy Spirit. Don't tell me what my faith says, I know more about it than you.

You obviously don't know more than I do. I guess you know what happens next:

Revelation 21:8

“But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”

Obviously I do. Unrepentant sins. Cherry picking the Bible to make you look like you know the Bible, when obviously you don't, just makes you look silly.

You're full of shit! I lived in the church from the spring of 1957 when I was baptized before a congregation of nearly 1000 until I decided to quit living a lie when I was just over 60 years old in 1994. I taught Sunday school, worked with the RA boys, was a member of the Brotherhood, was one of the visitation committee and gave personal testimony before hundreds in small churches within 25-50 miles of where I lived. I had most of the new testament memorized chapter and verse before I turned 30. The minister tried to talk me into studying for the ministry and for a while my wife and I were actually making plans to do that. Thank goodness I came to my senses. I never believed that crock of shit and I used to look around the sanctuary on Sunday mornings and study the looks on the faces of others because I doubted that they believed it either......I still doubt that they did. Brainwashing of children is the only reason that crock is still around and young people are bailing out of it by the thousands every week and month. It's days are numbered. If you doubt that you either can't or don't want to read:

Young people are leaving the church in droves:

Millennials leaving church in droves, study says - CNN.com

Now....I have a question for you. What do you think the minimum number of members in a church will be required to keep the hundreds of thousands of churches going. There are two churches within a mile of our home and most Sunday's there's less than 20 cars in the parking lots. What's gonna happen?

So? Good luck and good bye.

 

[BluePhantom]

I'm pretty sure Christians aren't supposed to be smug when it comes to all those who will be kindling for eternity. Sad maybe, but not smug, and certainly not standing on a pedestal.

You are correct. I just get tired of defending my faith against those who are downright blasphemous.

John 14:
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Your faith believes that two thirds of the population of the world will burn in eternal hell......plus the ones in your faith who have committed unpardonable sins:

The only unpardonable sin is denying the Holy Spirit. Don't tell me what my faith says, I know more about it than you.

You obviously don't know more than I do. I guess you know what happens next:

Revelation 21:8

“But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”

Obviously I do. Unrepentant sins. Cherry picking the Bible to make you look like you know the Bible, when obviously you don't, just makes you look silly.

Are YOU of all people accusing people of cherry picking the Bible? Oh good Christ, that's rich.

 

[Campbell]

John 14:
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Your faith believes that two thirds of the population of the world will burn in eternal hell......plus the ones in your faith who have committed unpardonable sins:

The only unpardonable sin is denying the Holy Spirit. Don't tell me what my faith says, I know more about it than you.

You obviously don't know more than I do. I guess you know what happens next:

Revelation 21:8

“But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”

Obviously I do. Unrepentant sins. Cherry picking the Bible to make you look like you know the Bible, when obviously you don't, just makes you look silly.

You're full of shit! I lived in the church from the spring of 1957 when I was baptized before a congregation of nearly 1000 until I decided to quit living a lie when I was just over 60 years old in 1994. I taught Sunday school, worked with the RA boys, was a member of the Brotherhood, was one of the visitation committee and gave personal testimony before hundreds in small churches within 25-50 miles of where I lived. I had most of the new testament memorized chapter and verse before I turned 30. The minister tried to talk me into studying for the ministry and for a while my wife and I were actually making plans to do that. Thank goodness I came to my senses. I never believed that crock of shit and I used to look around the sanctuary on Sunday mornings and study the looks on the faces of others because I doubted that they believed it either......I still doubt that they did. Brainwashing of children is the only reason that crock is still around and young people are bailing out of it by the thousands every week and month. It's days are numbered. If you doubt that you either can't or don't want to read:

Young people are leaving the church in droves:

Millennials leaving church in droves, study says - CNN.com

Now....I have a question for you. What do you think the minimum number of members in a church will be required to keep the hundreds of thousands of churches going. There are two churches within a mile of our home and most Sunday's there's less than 20 cars in the parking lots. What's gonna happen?

So? Good luck and good bye.

LOL! Harry Truman said, "If You Can't Stand The Heat Stay Out Of The Kitchen"

 

[BluePhantom]

You're full of shit! I lived in the church from the spring of 1957 when I was baptized before a congregation of nearly 1000 until I decided to quit living a lie when I was just over 60 years old in 1994. I taught Sunday school, worked with the RA boys, was a member of the Brotherhood, was one of the visitation committee and gave personal testimony before hundreds in small churches within 25-50 miles of where I lived. I had most of the new testament memorized chapter and verse before I turned 30.

You shouldn't have wasted your time memorizing it and instead spent time learning what it means. I doubt your claim very seriously since you cherry pick the hell out of the Bible, and you clearly don't have the most basic understanding of what Christianity and certain scriptures are all about. Frankly, based upon what I have seen from your posts, I would put your understanding of Christianity, the Bible, and faith in general at about the 6th grade level.

But simply, because YOUR faith could never advance beyond a child's understanding does not mean everyone else is stuck at the level you were. It simply means YOU lacked the capacity to allow your faith to develop into an adult faith that was able to deal with the issues of an adult world. It is totally understandable that you would abandon faith, therefore, since your adolescent faith was ill-equipped to deal with adult realities. It also explains your hostility to a large degree.

 

[ABikerSailor]

You know, I find it interesting that the Jews (who Christianity came from) don't have a concept of hell, but rather think of it as a waiting room where ALL souls are purified before rejoining God in Heaven. Matter of fact, many rabbis believe that the maximum amount of time a soul will be waiting is only about a year.

Me personally? I think that hell is a Christian concept, invented to keep the masses in line and butts in the pews. Makes it easier to fleece them for money.

 

[BluePhantom]

You're full of shit! I lived in the church from the spring of 1957 when I was baptized before a congregation of nearly 1000 until I decided to quit living a lie when I was just over 60 years old in 1994. I taught Sunday school, worked with the RA boys, was a member of the Brotherhood, was one of the visitation committee and gave personal testimony before hundreds in small churches within 25-50 miles of where I lived. I had most of the new testament memorized chapter and verse before I turned 30.

You shouldn't have wasted your time memorizing it and instead spent time learning what it means. I doubt your claim very seriously since you cherry pick the hell out of the Bible, and you clearly don't have the most basic understanding of what Christianity and certain scriptures are all about. Frankly, based upon what I have seen from your posts, I would put your understanding of Christianity, the Bible, and faith in general at about the 6th grade level.

But simply, because YOUR faith could never advance beyond a child's understanding does not mean everyone else is stuck at the level you were. It simply means YOU lacked the capacity to allow your faith to develop into an adult faith that was able to deal with the issues of an adult world. It is totally understandable that you would abandon faith, therefore, since your adolescent faith was ill-equipped to deal with adult realities. It also explains your hostility to a large degree.

Let me follow up on the memorization thing, Campbell. You know I started my career as a pastry chef and eventually I became a damned good one. I was the Executive Pastry Chef for the Ritz-Carlton Phoenix, Scottsdale Princess, Arizona Biltmore, Four Seasons, etc. I taught pastries and humanities at Le Cordon Bleu Scottsdale for 10 years. I aint your run of the mill cookie maker....I am among the best there is. Want to know how many recipes I have memorized? Two....simple syrup and chocolate ganache. Each has two ingredients of equal parts. Pretty simple. Yet I have multiple gold and silver medals in international competition and frankly, there's really not much I can't make. Why didn't I ever memorize recipes? Simple...I have my recipe book and instead of memorizing recipes I spent time studying food science in order to understand WHY certain ingredients work together or don't....WHY certain things react to acids one way and bases another way....HOW sugar molecules react to different kinds of stimulus (heat, agitation, chain-reactive properties, etc).

Who gives a fuck what you can quote. My most useless cooks could read my recipe book, but it didn't mean they could do anything with it..it's what you can understand and USE that is important. It's the WHY and the HOW that makes the difference between a cookie maker and a pastry chef. Indeed, I never allowed my apprentices to memorize shit. I wanted my recipe book in front of their face no matter what they were making and I didn't just teach them THAT couverature needs to be tempered, I taught them HOW to temper it and WHY it must be done. I spent time explaining the molecular structure of cocoa butter and how some molecules are stable and some are unstable and I explained how to stabilize the unstable ones and why it works the way it does. That is vital stuff to know if you want to grow within the craft and become a master of the craft because once you know and understand that, you can use that knowledge to adjust your techniques in order to gain different results from what you are working with..

The same is true of faith. A child's faith (yours) may understand the WHAT to a very limited degree, but the HOW and the WHY that really make the difference and are vital to evolve from the faith of a child into the faith of an adult have eluded you. Why is a mystery. Perhaps something in your life soured you, perhaps you simply lack the intellectual and emotional capacity to grow, perhaps you had a shitty life and blame God for your hardships. Who knows? But simply because you are a "spiritual cookie maker" and could never evolve beyond that, doesn't mean that it's all a bunch of horse shit. It just means you grew up and your faith didn't.

Sucks to be you

 

[Campbell]

You are correct. I just get tired of defending my faith against those who are downright blasphemous.

John 14:
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Your faith believes that two thirds of the population of the world will burn in eternal hell......plus the ones in your faith who have committed unpardonable sins:

The only unpardonable sin is denying the Holy Spirit. Don't tell me what my faith says, I know more about it than you.

You obviously don't know more than I do. I guess you know what happens next:

Revelation 21:8

“But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”

Obviously I do. Unrepentant sins. Cherry picking the Bible to make you look like you know the Bible, when obviously you don't, just makes you look silly.

Are YOU of all people accusing people of cherry picking the Bible? Oh good Christ, that's rich.

When I'm arguing about religion I don't give a big rat's ass what somebody's argument is or where it comes from. I'm no rookie at this stuff. In the Rubbin's Racin forum I used to argue with a preacher who had been in the pulpit for about fifty years and I'll guarantee you he quit first.

 

[BluePhantom]

You know, I find it interesting that the Jews (who Christianity came from) don't have a concept of hell, but rather think of it as a waiting room where ALL souls are purified before rejoining God in Heaven. Matter of fact, many rabbis believe that the maximum amount of time a soul will be waiting is only about a year.

Me personally? I think that hell is a Christian concept, invented to keep the masses in line and butts in the pews. Makes it easier to fleece them for money.

Well.......sort of. It has become that in the modern age but that's not how it started. I will give you the breakdown and attempt brevity (and most assuredly fail. LOL). This is also the shorthand so it's not completely thorough.

You are correct that hell and Satan were not originally Jewish concepts. Here's the deal...when the Covenant was made, Satan and hell did not exist in Jewish thought or tradition. God was responsible for all things, good and bad. After the Covenant was made things were pretty rough for the Jews. Remember that God's part of the contract was to provide safety, security, the ability to live in harmony with and closely worship God, prosperity, etc. The Jews' part of the contract was to follow the Law. Well the Jews were not following the Law and so when things went bad they said "well WE are not keeping up our end of the contract so God is not obligated to keep His"

But then the Jews really started to. They got their asses in gear and really started to get it right. The problem was....things didn't improve. In fact, they got worse. They got conquered by the Babylonians, later the Macedonians, Seleucid Greeks, Romans, blah, blah, blah. So this was a problem. 'Why was it that God was not fulfilling His part of the contract now that they were fulfilling theirs?' It was a big dilemma. Later Christian authors and theologians argued that He did not keep up His end because once the Covenant was broken, God never renewed it and hence the Jews lost their status as the Chosen People...of course, in favor of the Christians who had created a New Covenant through Jesus. Pretty convenient, frankly.

But we are jumping ahead.

At the time, Jews needed an explanation and their explanation was that there must be an evil force on Earth that is in direct conflict with the good force and thus God was not fulfilling His end of the deal because someone else was interfering.....and just like that....Satan was born.

It is interesting to look at the depiction of God in the Bible prior to the invention (yes I said "invention") of Satan and afterwards and it's interesting to see how Satan develops in Jewish, and later Christian, thought. God, in the earliest books of the Bible, is a hard nosed ass kicker who is wrathful and stern. But as Satan starts to enter the picture, God become far more loving and forgiving. The positive things started to get emphasized with God while the negative things, that were previously assumed to be the work of God as well, start to be attributed to Satan.

Satan as well develops. In his earliest appearance, Job, he is a meddler, a pain in the ass, and for lack of a better term a devil's advocate. He is almost like an adviser to God whose job it is to point out negative stuff. God is all happy about Job and Satan is like...'yeah but you know....think of this. Tell you what...let's test it and fuck with this guy a bit and see if his faith holds.'. But by the time we reach the New Testament, and especially The Revelation, Satan isn't just a meddler or a manipulative pain in the ass....he has become the personification of all evil.

Now Christianity didn't get kicking until the concept of Satan was really rocking and the influence in the apocalyptic nature of the New Testament is undeniable. That's why it seems so prevalent in Christianity, and later Islam (which is based off both Judaism and Christianity), and not so much in Judaism. Hell, as a place of eternal torment, was a concept that simply never evolved in Jewish thought.

There is a reason for that and why it DID evolve in Christianity...but that's yet another LONG post. LOL

 

[Campbell]

You're full of shit! I lived in the church from the spring of 1957 when I was baptized before a congregation of nearly 1000 until I decided to quit living a lie when I was just over 60 years old in 1994. I taught Sunday school, worked with the RA boys, was a member of the Brotherhood, was one of the visitation committee and gave personal testimony before hundreds in small churches within 25-50 miles of where I lived. I had most of the new testament memorized chapter and verse before I turned 30.

You shouldn't have wasted your time memorizing it and instead spent time learning what it means. I doubt your claim very seriously since you cherry pick the hell out of the Bible, and you clearly don't have the most basic understanding of what Christianity and certain scriptures are all about. Frankly, based upon what I have seen from your posts, I would put your understanding of Christianity, the Bible, and faith in general at about the 6th grade level.

But simply, because YOUR faith could never advance beyond a child's understanding does not mean everyone else is stuck at the level you were. It simply means YOU lacked the capacity to allow your faith to develop into an adult faith that was able to deal with the issues of an adult world. It is totally understandable that you would abandon faith, therefore, since your adolescent faith was ill-equipped to deal with adult realities. It also explains your hostility to a large degree.

Let me follow up on the memorization thing, Campbell. You know I started my career as a pastry chef and eventually I became a damned good one. I was the Executive Pastry Chef for the Ritz-Carlton Phoenix, Scottsdale Princess, Arizona Biltmore, Four Seasons, etc. I taught pastries and humanities at Le Cordon Bleu Scottsdale for 10 years. I aint your run of the mill cookie maker....I am among the best there is. Want to know how many recipes I have memorized? Two....simple syrup and chocolate ganache. Each has two ingredients of equal parts. Pretty simple. Yet I have multiple gold and silver medals in international competition and frankly, there's really not much I can't make. Why didn't I ever memorize recipes? Simple...I have my recipe book and instead of memorizing recipes I spent time studying food science in order to understand WHY certain ingredients work together or don't....WHY certain things react to acids one way and bases another way....HOW sugar molecules react to different kinds of stimulus (heat, agitation, chain-reactive properties, etc).

Who gives a fuck what you can quote. My most useless cooks could read my recipe book, but it didn't mean they could do anything with it..it's what you can understand and USE that is important. It's the WHY and the HOW that makes the difference between a cookie maker and a pastry chef. Indeed, I never allowed my apprentices to memorize shit. I wanted my recipe book in front of their face no matter what they were making and I didn't just teach them THAT couverature needs to be tempered, I taught them HOW to temper it and WHY it must be done. I spent time explaining the molecular structure of cocoa butter and how some molecules are stable and some are unstable and I explained how to stabilize the unstable ones and why it works the way it does. That is vital stuff to know if you want to grow within the craft and become a master of the craft because once you know and understand that, you can use that knowledge to adjust your techniques in order to gain different results from what you are working with..

The same is true of faith. A child's faith (yours) may understand the WHAT to a very limited degree, but the HOW and the WHY that really make the difference and are vital to evolve from the faith of a child into the faith of an adult have eluded you. Why is a mystery. Perhaps something in your life soured you, perhaps you simply lack the intellectual and emotional capacity to grow, perhaps you had a shitty life and blame God for your hardships. Who knows? But simply because you are a "spiritual cookie maker" and could never evolve beyond that, doesn't mean that it's all a bunch of horse shit. It just means you grew up and your faith didn't.

Sucks to be you

LMAO!!! That's the most pointless and limp argument I've ever heard anybody make....'course I'm just 81.

I'm deeply touched by your sorry memory. I'm a licensed amateur radio operator and I'm certified at 25wpm of sending and receiving the international morse code. I played dance band piano with at least half a dozen bands for thirty years from 1950 to 1980 and I do not read music. I really would like to see you either tell the truth or would like to watch a man in action who isn't capable of memorizing more than two pieces of his work.

 

[BluePhantom]

When I'm arguing about religion I don't give a big rat's ass what somebody's argument is or where it comes from.

Yeah no shit....you have no interest whatsoever in anyone else's perspective.

Let's get this clear, Campbell. I SEE YOU. I know what you are all about. You are not here to discuss, exchange ideas, learn, grow, improve your knowledge and understanding, or any such lofty thing. You are angry, for whatever reason and you are here to mock, antagonize, ridicule, troll to be quite honest, and generally establish yourself as the bigoted, intolerant, asshole that you are. You may be that way because you are old and cranky, or maybe you have determined that your life has been unfulfilled, or perhaps it's just that in the internet you are free to be your normal jack ass self without risking a real time punch in the mouth. Whatever the reason, when I DO bother to respond to you, it is not for YOUR benefit or because you have brought up something that I find particularly interesting or challenging. Honestly, YOU are a total waste of my time.

It's for the benefit of others who, like you, may be trapped in a child's faith and are trying to find a way to advance into an adult's faith. People trapped in that juvenile, adolescent level of faith often have the same questions as you and bring up the same points. Your arguments are very rudimentary of course, sometimes even laughable at how thoroughly you have missed the entire concept. But when people transition within their faith from a very basic level to the next step, these are the sorts of things that get brought up. So you are actually doing God's work by allowing me and others who DO understand to use you as an example for those who DO wish to evolve in their faith. You are the perfect person I can point to as an example of how to really fuck things up and miss every point that is critical to faith.

You provide a great service to people of faith by demonstrating how a person can be an adult and yet never develop spiritually beyond childhood. If you think I am angry with you, I am not. You are doing me a favor. But I DO pity you and feel sorry for you.

Like I said earlier....it must really suck to be you.

 

[BluePhantom]

You're full of shit! I lived in the church from the spring of 1957 when I was baptized before a congregation of nearly 1000 until I decided to quit living a lie when I was just over 60 years old in 1994. I taught Sunday school, worked with the RA boys, was a member of the Brotherhood, was one of the visitation committee and gave personal testimony before hundreds in small churches within 25-50 miles of where I lived. I had most of the new testament memorized chapter and verse before I turned 30.

You shouldn't have wasted your time memorizing it and instead spent time learning what it means. I doubt your claim very seriously since you cherry pick the hell out of the Bible, and you clearly don't have the most basic understanding of what Christianity and certain scriptures are all about. Frankly, based upon what I have seen from your posts, I would put your understanding of Christianity, the Bible, and faith in general at about the 6th grade level.

But simply, because YOUR faith could never advance beyond a child's understanding does not mean everyone else is stuck at the level you were. It simply means YOU lacked the capacity to allow your faith to develop into an adult faith that was able to deal with the issues of an adult world. It is totally understandable that you would abandon faith, therefore, since your adolescent faith was ill-equipped to deal with adult realities. It also explains your hostility to a large degree.

Let me follow up on the memorization thing, Campbell. You know I started my career as a pastry chef and eventually I became a damned good one. I was the Executive Pastry Chef for the Ritz-Carlton Phoenix, Scottsdale Princess, Arizona Biltmore, Four Seasons, etc. I taught pastries and humanities at Le Cordon Bleu Scottsdale for 10 years. I aint your run of the mill cookie maker....I am among the best there is. Want to know how many recipes I have memorized? Two....simple syrup and chocolate ganache. Each has two ingredients of equal parts. Pretty simple. Yet I have multiple gold and silver medals in international competition and frankly, there's really not much I can't make. Why didn't I ever memorize recipes? Simple...I have my recipe book and instead of memorizing recipes I spent time studying food science in order to understand WHY certain ingredients work together or don't....WHY certain things react to acids one way and bases another way....HOW sugar molecules react to different kinds of stimulus (heat, agitation, chain-reactive properties, etc).

Who gives a fuck what you can quote. My most useless cooks could read my recipe book, but it didn't mean they could do anything with it..it's what you can understand and USE that is important. It's the WHY and the HOW that makes the difference between a cookie maker and a pastry chef. Indeed, I never allowed my apprentices to memorize shit. I wanted my recipe book in front of their face no matter what they were making and I didn't just teach them THAT couverature needs to be tempered, I taught them HOW to temper it and WHY it must be done. I spent time explaining the molecular structure of cocoa butter and how some molecules are stable and some are unstable and I explained how to stabilize the unstable ones and why it works the way it does. That is vital stuff to know if you want to grow within the craft and become a master of the craft because once you know and understand that, you can use that knowledge to adjust your techniques in order to gain different results from what you are working with..

The same is true of faith. A child's faith (yours) may understand the WHAT to a very limited degree, but the HOW and the WHY that really make the difference and are vital to evolve from the faith of a child into the faith of an adult have eluded you. Why is a mystery. Perhaps something in your life soured you, perhaps you simply lack the intellectual and emotional capacity to grow, perhaps you had a shitty life and blame God for your hardships. Who knows? But simply because you are a "spiritual cookie maker" and could never evolve beyond that, doesn't mean that it's all a bunch of horse shit. It just means you grew up and your faith didn't.

Sucks to be you

LMAO!!! That's the most pointless and limp argument I've ever heard anybody make....'course I'm just 81.

I'm deeply touched by your sorry memory. I'm a licensed amateur radio operator and I'm certified at 25wpm of sending and receiving the international morse code. I played dance band piano with at least half a dozen bands for thirty years from 1950 to 1980 and I do not read music. I really would like to see you either tell the truth or would like to watch a man in action who isn't capable of memorizing more than two pieces of his work.

LOL Yet again you miss the point. I don't memorize recipes because I lack the capacity to do so. I don't memorize them because it's a waste of time. My time can be better spent understanding WHY the recipe works.

You unwittingly continue to make my point. You are focused on the surface...memorizing scripture, regurgitating information upon command....pfft....computers do that. That's what automatons do. But like an automaton, you fail to grasp the deeper meanings. You spent so much time (apparently but I don't buy it) memorizing scripture. Pfft...what good does that do? Who cares? Like my recipe book, why bother memorizing the recipe when you can just grab my book and look it up?

You might think of the Bible in a similar way. It's a sort of recipe book for Christian life. But like so many of my cooks and students just because they have the recipe doesn't mean they have the understanding or the developed skills to do it correctly. If I gave you my recipe for chocolate mousse, I can GUARANTEE you will fuck it up because it requires an understanding of temperatures, how eggs react at certain temperatures, you have to be paying attention to what you are doing because there is a very critical part in that recipe that you have to hit dead on the nose or it will shatter....and there is no way to write it down. You just have to see it...you have to feel it...you have to practice it. The recipe will not help you unless you have a deeper understanding.

It seems to me that this has been your spiritual experience. You can read the recipe. You can even memorize the recipe (although I call bullshit on your claim)....but you have no concept of what it means or how to apply it in any meaningful way. And like a shoemaker (that is an industry term for someone with no future or skills...uh....'their food tastes like the soles of shoes') you have broken the mousse over and over and over because even though you MIGHT have the recipe in front of you, you lack the skills and knowledge of the technique to make it work....and you are furious because you just can't make it come together and you never have.

Dude...that's not my problem, or the problem of people of faith. It's not even the fault of religion in general. That's YOUR problem and you really should stop insisting that YOUR problem has to be everyone else's problem....but of course, that is a child's mindset which, despite your 81 years of age, is where you are stuck

 

[BluePhantom]

And just for the record since it has been brought up in this thread several times.

- I do not believe Satan exists. See my previous post to ABikerSailor. The history is pretty clear here....Satan is a man made concept created by the Jews to explain their continued suffering. It was not until the Babylonian conquest (or shortly thereafter or before) that he came into the picture. Others are free to believe as they wish (that's a critical difference between you and I Campbell...I give others that freedom and you don't)

- I do not believe in hell. Again it was a man-made explanation that was the natural continuation after the invention of Satan. Basically...'if God is all that is good and heaven is for those that follow God and heaven is paradise, and Satan is the antithesis of God, there must be somewhere when the unfaithful go that is the antithesis of paradise'. Beautiful logic...bad understanding of history. When you read the Bible in the orginal languages, it doesn't even talk about a hell as a place of eternal torment. That's all man made. So yes, Campbell....even though you are an asshole you get to go to heaven because frankly...there's nowhere else to go. Although God might call you a dick when you get there. Others are free to believe as they wish (that's a critical difference between you and I Campbell...I give others that freedom and you don't)

- Will people PLEASE stop saying that Lucifer and Satan are the same entity. Good God do some research!

So have I made it clear for you Campbell? All your 'all Christians think non-Christians will burn for eternity in hell' is such bullshit I can't even articulate it. The Bible doesn't say that...and BTW your interpretation of the "second death" in The Revelation is so wrong on so many levels I almost squirted milk out of my nose when I read it. But like I said...a child's understanding.

But I DO find it interesting that you fill these boards with rants about the stupidity of faith, the intolerance of religion, the bigotry associated with faith, the way people of faith shove it down everyone's throats......yet I am the Christian and I am saying 'meh...believe what you want to believe...you will be ok' and you are the atheist demanding that everyone accepts your conclusions. Isn't that interesting?