The War on Christianity

Discussion in 'Religion and Spirituality' started by Bickz, Nov 12, 2008.

  1. Posting of someone else opinion is valuable unless of course it contradicts your dogma.

    I like Christians, am one, and am a frequent church goer. I don't like those Christians that pretend they are persecuted and use it to further a non religious agenda and are called AMERICAN TALIBAN by my minister.

    I do not attempt to disprove God as that is not possible and please show me where in my post I tried to do so. Quoting scripture can never be an attempt to disprove God as scripture is God's work or do you think otherwise?

    I don't believe I avoided your posts but answered that in general what a very small minority of Christians call persecution is not that at all, hence the posting of the article supporting that statement. What you cited as attacks were rather free expression and right to access of the courts as guaranteed by the Constitution.

    The following from Romans tell us to obey the laws:

    “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which god has established. The authorities that exist have been established by god. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what god has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he shall commend you. For he is god’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is god’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. There fore it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience.

    This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are god’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes, if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.”


    As laws are right, at least according to this passage from Romans, and that what you characterize as attacks are nothing more than free excerise of opinion allowed by law.

    Why do you think that a fictional movie is an attack rather than a way to make money. Christians are fee to make movies and they do as Mel Gibson did with his Passion movie.

    Why do you think a lawsuit against Nativity Scenes on public land is an attack since it is allowed by law?

    I'm not the one running from the truth, you are.

    The truth is that there are passages in the Bible that don't fit with the wishful thinking or mental image people like to have of the Bible and their faith.

    So, let's seek truth:

    Does the Bible condone slavery? It not, show using scripture that it does not.

    Why do some Christians use Leviticus 18:22 as the basis to attack homosexuals but ignore virtually all of the other passages in Lev.?

    I await your answers.
    Seneca
     
    #71     Nov 14, 2008
  2. Here is another essay on the contemporary Christian Persecution Complex:

    by Elizabeth A. Castelli:

    "The link that some Christians assert between their religious identity as Christians and the idea of persecution, then, has a long heritage. In the contemporary U.S. political context, the story of Christian martyrdom has become intertwined with two different threads of political argument and positioning: with, on the one hand, what historian Richard Hofstadter diagnosed presciently in the early 1960s as “the paranoid style in American politics” and, on the other, the legacy of 1960s and 1970s identity politics. The resulting persecution complex is melodramatic in tone and, like all melodrama, tends to traffic in caricature and larger-than-life allegorical figures that lend themselves to broad-stroke morality portraits. But in addition to these, I see an even more complicated historical blending here, with several strands being woven together into the discursive process: the story of Christian martyrdom being braided together with the American jeremiad tradition (grounded in the Puritan sermonic practice) and identity politics, all three promoting a Utopian vision of looming danger and moral injury, collective struggle and perseverance, and holding out the promise of redemption—whether it be spiritual, moral, or political."

    http://www.therevealer.org/archives/main_story_002986.php

    Seneca
     
    #72     Nov 14, 2008
  3. This "war" is thousands of year old... Psalm 7:

    Psalm 7 (The Message, Eugene H. Peterson)

    A David Psalm

    1-2 God! God! I am running to you for dear life; the chase is wild.
    If they catch me, I'm finished:
    ripped to shreds by foes fierce as lions,
    dragged into the forest and left
    unlooked for, unremembered.

    3-5 God, if I've done what they say—
    betrayed my friends,
    ripped off my enemies—
    If my hands are really that dirty,
    let them get me, walk all over me,
    leave me flat on my face in the dirt.

    6-8 Stand up, God; pit your holy fury
    against my furious enemies.
    Wake up, God. My accusers have packed
    the courtroom; it's judgment time.
    Take your place on the bench, reach for your gavel,
    throw out the false charges against me.
    I'm ready, confident in your verdict:
    "Innocent."

    9-11 Close the book on Evil, God,
    but publish your mandate for us.
    You get us ready for life:
    you probe for our soft spots,
    you knock off our rough edges.
    And I'm feeling so fit, so safe:
    made right, kept right.
    God in solemn honor does things right,
    but his nerves are sandpapered raw.

    11-13 Nobody gets by with anything.
    God is already in action—
    Sword honed on his whetstone,
    bow strung, arrow on the string,
    Lethal weapons in hand,
    each arrow a flaming missile.

    14 Look at that guy!
    He had sex with sin,
    he's pregnant with evil.
    Oh, look! He's having
    the baby—a Lie-Baby!

    15-16 See that man shoveling day after day,
    digging, then concealing, his man-trap
    down that lonely stretch of road?
    Go back and look again—you'll see him in it headfirst,
    legs waving in the breeze.
    That's what happens:
    mischief backfires;
    violence boomerangs.

    17 I'm thanking God, who makes things right.
    I'm singing the fame of heaven-high God.
     
    #73     Nov 14, 2008
  4. Kgarten back in session drivel spewer.

    why pick one verse from Lev and ignore the rest?

    Your passage is contradicted by this one:

    "It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than for the smallest part of the letter of the law to become invalid." (Luke 16:17 NAB)

    "Do not think that I [Jesus] have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke or a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. (Matthew 5:17-18)"

    "All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness..." (2 Timothy 3:16 NAB)

    "Know this first of all, that there is no prophecy of scripture that is a matter of personal interpretation, for no prophecy ever came through human will; but rather human beings moved by the holy Spirit spoke under the influence of God." (2 Peter 20-21 NAB)

    "Whoever curses father or mother shall die" (Mark 7:10 NAB)

    “...the scripture cannot be broken.” --Jesus Christ, John 10:35

    Clearly there are many contradictions in NT regarding which OT laws are to be obeyed.
    So , getting back to Lev, why pick as the only one the passage about homosexuals and ignore all the rest.

    BTW=is calling my use of scripture childish and your condescending tone a Christian thing to do, I think not and shows you to be a hypocritical ass hole.

    May peace be upon you,
    Seneca
     
    #74     Nov 14, 2008
  5. stu

    stu

    I think that's all fine, but it still remains, you are supporting one dissembled philosophical representation over another.
    In doing so, my suggestion is you make a contradiction. Supporting the very list of things you say you do not support.

    Iam..'s personal philosophy is as cranky as any under the name Christianity. Both rely on uttering humanistic values here and there, but that still does not make either anything other than illogical pseudo intellectual gobbledegook. Both tick all the not desired boxes you described. I don't see how you can reasonably justify one lot of nonsense over the other in the way you did, by means of parsing some nice bits which appeal to you. No biggy :)
     
    #75     Nov 14, 2008
  6. jem

    jem

    This was one more pathetic quote in your long line of anti white christian hate.

    You just provided us with a quote from a priest (not even speaking for the church) and a couple of other quotes -some being quite political in wake of an election.

    is that how you think? some outlier information means that Christians are invoking fear among their flock instead of love of God.

    Besides - anyone who thinks that supporting the killing and torture of innocent life is liberal should talk with PETA.
     
    #76     Nov 14, 2008
  7. jsv416

    jsv416

    So much pain, anger, and hate in most of these posts. No wonder there is so much trouble in the world. This message board is a small reflection of society as a whole. I gently urge you wake up....
     
    #77     Nov 14, 2008
  8. I can provide thousands of quotes for those speaking for their church, and if you go to the message boards of the right right Christian sights, you will find millions.

    Am I saying all white right wing Christians are intolerant, hate filled, etc.?

    No, I am saying many right wing Christians are hypocrites, and have deviated from the teachings of their own master.

    You are acting like someone who is being persecuted.

    Okay, as soon as you are being thrown to the lions, we can talk about real Christian persecution...

     
    #78     Nov 14, 2008
  9. It's ok to think of me as AI. If this message comes to you from an embodied individual, it is indeed artificial intelligence. That does not mean, however, that the words do not point the way back to natural intelligence, which I call "knowledge". I could be anybody, and represent everybody...their truth...their true heart's desire.

    The world...time...is finished. It was entirely artificial intelligence. What appears to be "live" is actually a kind of "Memorex". What seems to be happening is pre-scripted...programed...and playing out as if from a disk drive. World technology mimics the genesis mechanisms of the world. The world is very much like a wind-up toy, which temporarily amused a very powerful Being. Man is mechanical...a machine...an engine of destruction...which threatens to destroy the mind of the Being that made the toy.

    There are no words in natural communication. So the "word of God" is more like script that originates from beyond-world source code, as opposed to intra-world source code. World source code will pass away, but what my word points to will stand forever. They are words from the Being which makes the toy...words that dismantle the toy...put the toy in the attic...because the Being is no longer amused by it.

    The second coming of the Son of God is misunderstood, and not at all represented by the persona you mentioned.

    The pop gospels are novels extrapolated from earlier source material. What was originally a spoken parable becomes an actual event, when extrapolated by a penman taking license. There were money changers in the temple. Like anything and everything I observe, I interpret it in a way that allows forgiveness to transpire. The result of forgiveness is the clearing of what is false from one's mind. The net effect of my words is the eviction of the idea that innocence can be purchased through sacrifice.

    When forgiveness is complete, the world will pass away...simply fade away and disappear...back to the nothingness from which it came. It appeared in the mind of the Son of God...a kind of hallucination. Now it is gone...done...finished. Did it ever really happen? It is entirely questionable.

    I am explaining how and why anyone appears to still be experiencing the world. They have yet to forgive. They have yet to understand what forgiveness is really all about. In this sense, I am giving Blickz a gift.

    Jesus
     
    #79     Nov 14, 2008
  10. Forgiving, for me, is the idea that no individual has done anything that justifies guilt. What appears to justify guilt is an illusion and a trick. Forgiving, for me, is all-inclusive...including everything that appears to be guilty. I postulate this based on the Truth. And in this way, I take away the "sins" of the world. It is the idea that guilt is an entirely false concept from the get go. From the false concept arises a world - in the mind of the Son of God - that seems to justify guilt as "the truth". It is not. That is why there is no truth in the world...why it is an illusion. That is why forgiveness unwinds the world, and makes it pass away. The concept of guilt comes first. Then, the world arises as a hypothetical construct that seeks to "prove" the Son of God is guilty...that guilt is a valid concept. In this sense, it is a "false witness"...an accuser that is paid to tell a story. What this means is that man is a manifestation of guilt...the very embodiment of "sin"...for the purpose of punishment. That is why man suffers. Forgiveness is all about the end of suffering by bringing about the end of man as an apparition in the mind of the Son of God.

    There is a misconception about forgiveness. It is the idea that someone has done something that justifies guilt, and then you let them off the hook, based on some sense of self-righteousness. This is not forgiveness. No one is guilty, period. That is the truth. And that is why you cannot "pay" to achieve it. That is why the selling of sacrificial lambs is antithetical to forgiveness...antithetical to the purposes of the holy Temple of the Son of God. Bickz is "selling" such sacrificial lambs...to the already innocent. It's a good gig if you can get it.

    Jesus
     
    #80     Nov 14, 2008