What's wrong with Christianity

[Gracie]

I applaud your decision to return! Thanks, Gracie.

Don't know how long I will be able to hang in here. But...I'll try. Thanks Meri. I appreciate your kindness.

 

[Stann]

You asked. I responded. If you didn't want a particular answer, you shouldn't have started the thread.

Sorry again, I welcome all answers, everyone is entitled to their opinion, I wasn't saying you were wrong, I just stating fact.

 

[Meriweather]

My father worked his whole life, but he was an ignorant mean drunk who never went to church. My mother was a saint. On his deathbed, mother had the priest give him last rites. She believes that would save him. To me that was grasping at straws. Meaningless.

It may have been grasping at straws, but I would not go so far as to say meaningless. Do you have any pictures of your father as a little boy? In the end it appears he had a broken body, a broken spirit. Your mother had faith this might be healed. As we know, on the other hand he may have preferred evil to good, which is a choice he is allowed. Hope its the former, and blessings for your mother and her lasting faith in both him and Christ.

 

[Meriweather]

Don't know how long I will be able to hang in here. But...I'll try.

Taking the needed breaks works for me, so I recommend them. You are a straight shooter, Gracie, a strength and a blessing. Don't let us get to you.

 

[Gracie]

Sorry again, I welcome all answers, everyone is entitled to their opinion, I wasn't saying you were wrong, I just stating fact.

Opinion. Not necessarily a fact.

 

[ding]

The same Christian values that would allow the colonies to get along at all until they had a common enemy. The British force them to work together.

Funny you should mention colonial times....

 

[Stann]

It may have been grasping at straws, but I would not go so far as to say meaningless. Do you have any pictures of your father as a little boy? In the end it appears he had a broken body, a broken spirit. Your mother had faith this might be healed. As we know, on the other hand he may have preferred evil to good, which is a choice he is allowed. Hope its the former, and blessings for your mother and her lasting faith in both him and Christ.

My father had a rough life. He was 12 years old when his dad was killed in the coal mines. My grandmother told his brother who was 16 at the time, he had to go in the mines to support the family. He did not, he ran away to New York City and ended up being a bum on skid row. So grandmother sent my father to the mines. 12 year olds weren't allowed to work in the mines, they worked outside picking up coal that fell off the coal bins. When you were 16 he was allowed into the mines and worked alongside some very tough characters. They all drank. They all cursed their lives. They thought this was what being men was all about. And everything from them, hate and bigotry foremost. In the early sixties when blacks were getting their freedom and started to move out of Scranton and into the surrounding towns it further enraged my father. I remember him telling me, think about this I was about 10 or so, when when I was a kid they knew their place ( one street in Scranton, Adams Avenue ) and the men kept them in their place. They burnt crosses stop the column banks, sometimes with blacks on them. I was totally horrified that he was saying this to me. I was 10 and I could see how very wrong that was. He went to his grave not knowing that was wrong.

 

[Stann]

Opinion. Not necessarily a fact.

I was saying there's good and bad in any group, sorry that is a fact.

 

[ding]

And here I thought our ideas came from the pagan Greeks. How could I be so foolish not to know they came from an non-inclusive tribal religion.

You mean like the Greek belief that slavery was justified on grounds of moral superiority? Greek values like that.

Christianity is the least non-inclusive religion that there is. Have you been to China or South Korea lately?

 

[Stann]

Funny you should mention colonial times....

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These are all opinions, not facts.

 

[Stann]

You mean like the Greek belief that slavery was justified on grounds of moral superiority? Greek values like that.

Christianity is the least non-inclusive religion that there is. Have you been to China or South Korea lately?

Democracy is a word of Greek origin, I don't know what else I could tell you. Believe what you wish, everyone is entitled to their opinion.

 

[ding]

The mere fact that terrible things can be done in Christ's name means he is just another religious god; which is so very sad because his philosophy of peace and unity was so badly muddied when they made him a god.

You really shouldn't blame acts of imperfect humans on religion or God.

I don't believe Jesus came here preaching world peace, ending poverty or world unity. His message was a much more personal message of individual salvation.

 

[ding]

Democracy is a word of Greek origin, I don't know what else I could tell you. Believe what you wish, everyone is entitled to their opinion.

We aren't a democracy. We are a Republic. And it is nothing at all like Plato's Republic.

 

[ding]

These are all opinions, not facts.

No. Those are facts. Look them up if you like.

 

[ding]

The same Christian values that would allow the colonies to get along at all until they had a common enemy. The British force them to work together.

That's not what eyewitness Alexis de Tocqueville observed. In fact, he made the exact opposite observation.

One Nation Under God: Alexis de Tocqueville

Upon my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things.

In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America I found they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country.

Religion in America...must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it. Indeed, it is in this same point of view that the inhabitants of the United States themselves look upon religious belief.

I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion -- for who can search the human heart? But I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank of society.

In the United States, the sovereign authority is religious...there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America, and there can be no greater proof of its utility and of its conformity to human nature than that its influence is powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.

In the United States, the influence of religion is not confined to the manners, but it extends to the intelligence of the people...

Christianity, therefore, reigns without obstacle, by universal consent...

I sought for the key to the greatness and genius of America in her harbors...; in her fertile fields and boundless forests; in her rich mines and vast world commerce; in her public school system and institutions of learning. I sought for it in her democratic Congress and in her matchless Constitution.

Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great. The safeguard of morality is religion, and morality is the best security of law as well as the surest pledge of freedom. The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other. Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts -- the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims.

Tocqueville gives this account of a court case in New York:
While I was in America, a witness, who happened to be called at the assizes of the county of Chester (state of New York), declared that he did not believe in the existence of God or in the immortality of the soul. The judge refused to admit his evidence, on the ground that the witness had destroyed beforehand all confidence of the court in what he was about to say. The newspapers related the fact without any further comment. The New York Spectator of August 23rd, 1831, relates the fact in the following terms:

"The court of common pleas of Chester county (New York), a few days since rejected a witness who declared his disbelief in the existence of God. The presiding judge remarked, that he had not before been aware that there was a man living who did not believe in the existence of God; that this belief constituted the sanction of all testimony in a court of justice: and that he knew of no case in a Christian country, where a witness had been permitted to testify without such belief."

 

[Synthaholic]

What's wrong with Christianity​

Not enough dinosaurs.

 

[BreezeWood]

You mean like the Greek belief that slavery was justified on grounds of moral superiority? Greek values like that.

Christianity is the least non-inclusive religion that there is. Have you been to China or South Korea lately?

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have you ever read a book of history ....
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Although they were victims of religious persecution in Europe, the Puritans supported the Old World theory that sanctioned it, the need for uniformity of religion in the state. Once in control in New England, they sought to break "the very neck of Schism and vile opinions." The "business" of the first settlers, a Puritan minister recalled in 1681, "was not Toleration, but [they] were professed enemies of it." Puritans expelled dissenters from their colonies, a fate that in 1636 befell Roger Williams and in 1638 Anne Hutchinson, America's first major female religious leader. Those who defied the Puritans by persistently returning to their jurisdictions risked capital punishment, a penalty imposed on four Quakers between 1659 and 1661.
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without denying the undeniable truth ...

 

[Stann]

You really shouldn't blame acts of imperfect humans on religion or God.

I don't believe Jesus came here preaching world peace, ending poverty or world unity. His message was a much more personal message of individual salvation.

What's wrong with Christianity​

Not enough dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs speak to my heart.

 

[ding]

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have you ever read a book of history ....
.
Although they were victims of religious persecution in Europe, the Puritans supported the Old World theory that sanctioned it, the need for uniformity of religion in the state. Once in control in New England, they sought to break "the very neck of Schism and vile opinions." The "business" of the first settlers, a Puritan minister recalled in 1681, "was not Toleration, but [they] were professed enemies of it." Puritans expelled dissenters from their colonies, a fate that in 1636 befell Roger Williams and in 1638 Anne Hutchinson, America's first major female religious leader. Those who defied the Puritans by persistently returning to their jurisdictions risked capital punishment, a penalty imposed on four Quakers between 1659 and 1661.
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without denying the undeniable truth ...

Looks pretty darn inclusive to me.

 

[BreezeWood]

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Looks pretty darn inclusive to me.

Christianity is the least non-inclusive religion that there is.

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sure bing -
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and as friendly as hell -