Growing up with my father being a minister, I had to separate him into two categories. Father/spiritual advisor. Hearing him plant seeds everywhere, and NOT really spend time with me, it was hard to get passed his hipocrocies. Once I was able to do that, and get a college education, I got to a point of understanding "definition of the situation". Define the situation as real, and it's real in it's consequences. Therefore, what you "believe" in is going to aid you if you believe in it, regardless of the outcome. I believe in the gospel of Christ, and pray in times of good AND bad. When I help my friends with some of life's hard times, I don't preach to them in the name of Christ, but use what Christ taught to help them. I'm not a minister, but it feels like I went to church after thoughts like that. I define that as a good deed, therefore a good deed it was.

In a nutshell, I look at Christianity as doing what you think Christ would do in a given situation. It really helps because of his levels of compassion. Compassion being, "taking the troubles of someone and putting them on your back without allowing to weigh YOU down as well." People see you able to carry the weight of your troubles AND theirs, and it give them "hope". Another intangable perception that helps people through.

 

I may be a humanist but I'm not a fundamentalist like many other extream anti-baptist/evangalist humanists out there...either way, I will critisize this (Fucking scary - evangelist children going to extreamist jesus camps that prepare them to "serve and fight for there lord to take back america" - much like islamic extreamists)

http://www.pamspaulding.com/weblog/2...esus-camp.html

"Fear, hatred, and guilt dripped from the screen. The scary part was the fact that these were real people, real children, who participated....he lead nutcase running this camp, Pastor Becky, prayed over everything from the PowerPoint software to the electrical panels to the church pews.....And they speak of gays preying and indoctrinating the young!"

This is flat out scary, dangerous, and disgusting:

http://kidsinministry.com/Current.Pa...esOfGlory.html

 

hello i am new, hope it's ok that i reply on any forums.

duffman you make an interesting point. there are numerous people in the world who choose to take things to the extreme, those commonly known as extremists, but just because there are people like that doesn't mean you can portray all people of religion like that. i myself categorize myself as a christian, but i don't go crazy about faith all the time. i doubt myself and question religion continuously. there aren't many scientific proofs that can explain what religion is and if it's true, but there also aren't proofs that disprove religion.
people can say darwin made a good point, his theory of evolution, but that's the thing, it's just a theory. all science is made up of theories. nothing can be proven 100%.

 

theres always a difference between people who do their best to live for their faith and those that use their "faith" or religion to push their own political agendas. i myself cant stand it and will do a good deal to expose these discrepencies whenever possible.

even mr Jesus did a good deal to tell the people who wanted to "follow" him that he wasnt around to start a political revolution to overthrow the current roman regime, but his matters were elsewhere.


people will forever be flawed. christianity doesnt (or at least shouldnt) preach of attainable perfection, but at the same time it places a huge emphasis on actively seeking to live a life God would want us to. as ive heard before, the entire faith can be summed up w/ "love God, love others," which can only be done w/ his help and nothing else. everything else is supplementary. of course, from this it becomes a matter of methodology, i.e. "how to best love others", and thats where things go crazy.


as for the question about scientific proof, i think therein lies the problem: you want proof that has to be "scientific". youve already created a certain criteria, closing yourself off to other possiblities. not to say scientific proof is innately bad, but it cant explain everything.

besides, what kinds of proof are you looking for? proof of christ's existence, the events, or of God himself? not quite sure if theyd be able to pull up dental records or fingerprints.

 

by the way, welcome to the boards. dont be afraid to say whatever (as long as you stick to the right forums and rules ) and have fun.

 

Heres one for you:

If God is omnipontent (all powerful), omniscient (all knowing), and morally perfect, then how does evil exist? Wouldnt that contradict his characteristics? Sure we're given free will, but isnt it logically possible for good to create a human with less evil with the same free will? See, the problem with this is that it questions Gods goodness and power. Since we're supposed to live in his eyes, why are men so evil? Is it moral evil? Since we have free will, maybe evil is created by humans......

And the reason that its hard to believe/have faith in something we cant prove is a simple concept. We base our knowledge of perceptions that are confirmed with other perceptions on a daily basis. By looking at my chair, I know its a chair. Its a daily occurence. But you cant do that with religion simply because it cant be confirmed the way other things are.

 

why is it whenever i meet really religious people of each religion, the fucking christians try to press their beliefs on me?

 

the great balance of life craig. for their to be good, there has to be bad. for their to be life there has to be death.

 

erased.

 

i mean that does suck, but i dont know if christians would be the only ones doing that to others. personally, i think its just as annoying and retarded as you do. im sure many of them have good intentions (whether they be christians or some other group), but i could care less about their intentions if theyre in my face pissing me off. i appreciate their concern, but it theyre not interested in me as a person as opposed to a number off a checklist of people to 'save', then you wont see me opening up and i dont think other people should either.

i guess thats a question that i (along w/ tons of others) have tried to reconcile. i believe God is absolute good and what love is. but love cant exist on its own; it needs something to relate to. so w/ Gods decision to create humans to grow relationships from, he also gave them free will, b/c forced "love" wouldnt be love at all. of course God couldve made it so there was no evil in this world, but then it would be no "choice".

maybe i see it as him allowing (not creating) evil to exist so that on the humans' end, loving or not loving God would be of choice, not force. and it was also from free choice that i believe our good friend Satan came on the scene, by choosing/wanting to be more powerful than God.