Remember when "atheist" had a negative connotation?

Do you not see the narcissism here?

You think you can define what is window dressing and what is of primary importance for people all over the world, for over two thousand years now, of what their religious faith is and is not supposed to be.

People (likely) far more devout than yourself have fought wars and killed literally thousands of people to define what is and is not of primary import. People have burned others alive in the name of what is of primary importance, and yet you, thejeff, have it all figured out, and everyone ELSE is twisting their scripture.

Maybe they are .. but .. if so .. I'll wager a dollar you do exactly the same thing (sans the burning, of course).

This doesn't even make sense.

If we're all sinners, then church isn't for sinners, it's for everyone. And there'd be no need to delineate saints any differently.

And I believe your Christ was pretty clear that church wasn't a requisite to much of anything. your bible actually says very little about church attendance.

Surprisingly, the main advocates for church going are folks who run churches.

There's plenty of sin inside those church doors, my friend .. don't you worry your pretty little head about that, just me .. especially the door on the right.

Thank you for chiming in, but I was hope to get a reply from Stagger Lee, to whom my post was directed to instead.

You wasted your time replying to my post. Because of your obnoxious and insulting choice of words during this debate, your words are falling on deaf ears here. Please try in the future letting whom ever I replied to, to respond. I really have no desire to converse with you.

thejeff wrote:

Stagger Lee wrote:

1. Actually no. The version of salvation you describe is an evangelical view. Catholics, Episcopalians, Greek Orthodox, etc. certainly view salvation differently.

I am very familiar with the differences among different branches of Christianity. They may worship differently (works vs icons vs faith, etc) but they have the same view of salvation. Jesus is the Way the Truth, and the Life, and nobody gets to the Father except through the Son :-)

Unitarian Christians included?

Charlie says, wrote:

Thank you for chiming in, but I was hope to get a reply from Stagger Lee, to whom my post was directed to instead.

You wasted your time replying to my post. Because of your obnoxious and insulting choice of words during this debate, your words are falling on deaf ears here. Please try in the future letting whom ever I replied to, to respond. I really have no desire to converse with you.

Thank you for chiming in, but I wasn't talking with you, Charlie. My post was directed to 'I agree to disagree." I really have no desire to converse with you.

You wasted your time replying to my post to tell me you don't wish to reply to my post. Your obnoxious and arrogant righteousness is wasted in a civil discussion here. Please try in the future letting whom ever I replied to, to respond [sic].

Always the victim .. someone points out things you don't like to have pointed out, and you complain.

if I said something untoward, direct your victimhood to the moderators, they'll delete. Otherwise .. carry on.

Dust to Dust wrote:

wtfunny wrote:

If you knew ancient Aramaic, you'd be able to answer that question. it's all about context and nuance.

If you mean creative writing then yes anything is possible.

And let's also keep in mind that Cain was the first child of Adam and Eve recorded in Scripture (Genesis 4:1). His brothers, Abel (Genesis 4:2) and Seth (Genesis 4:25), were part of the first generation of children ever born on this earth.

Even though only these three males are mentioned by name, Adam and Eve had other children. In Genesis 5:4 a statement sums up the life of Adam and Eve—“And the days of Adam after he had fathered Seth were eight hundred years. And he fathered sons and daughters.” This does not say when they were born. Many could have been born in the 130 years (Genesis 5:3) before Seth was born. The Bible does not tell us how many children were born to Adam and Eve. However, considering their long life spans (Adam lived for 930 years—Genesis 5:5), he would have fathered children in the triple digits.

Oh, that makes total sense now. All the girls probably got a unicorn for their 6th birthday too.

Wtfunny has a better command of the English language than myself, and his reply was more succinct than mine would have been. I'll try to be respectful.

The only thing I could add is re: lack of belief is a belief. To expand on wtfunny's thoughts, we are presented with: Premise - lack of belief in God is a belief. To universalize that, let's say the lack of belief in a particular god is a belief. So, lack of belief of Zeus is a belief? What about Mithras? Baal? Amen-Ra? Vishnu? Osiris? Would you agree that since these things don't exist to you, any thought about them is not *anti* [insert god here] they just don't exist to you. Take the list in your head, and add one more to it.

To clarify, I'm not "anti" anyone. I'm anti poor reasoning and poor ideas. The majority of the people I deal with are Christian (wife included). I love people, but I won't cheapen my reasoning. It's that bit Socrates said about believing as many true things and as few false things as possible.

I forgot to clarify, re: God. I capitalize God in the text because you capitalize it. I don't need to make an argument about the gods you don't believe in; that battle is won. You refer to your deity as "God," so, in this instance at least, I'm addressing your particular god.

Why did you marry a Christian if you're an atheist?

Hold on a sec.... wrote:Why did you marry a Christian if you're an atheist?

How does this question make any sense at all? Is one supposed to associate solely with people of similar beliefs? That would make it very difficult for most people to find friends or a mate, and would make many people estranged from their families.

Personally, I don't believe in any god or God or gods, but I don't think of myself as an atheist. I think of myself as somebody to whom no religious labels apply, since religion doesn't appear on my radar as something requiring mental energy of any kind on my part. But irrespective whether you consider me "atheist" or agree with my own self-non-label, "", for my religious non-inclination, you should understand that my own personal (non) belief has no influence on my choice to associate, or not, with someone else in consideration of their personal beliefs or non-beliefs.

Hence I find your question a bit puzzling, and maybe, in my context anyway, a bit ridiculous.

The black hole in jeff's head wrote:

thejeff wrote:

I claim to understand others? I don't even understand my wife, and I have known her for the better part of 2 decades, lol

You said ;: "Me: Of course you do. So does every atheist in the world. To say anything else is to twist what I, the anti-atheist, already know about your Religion of Science. Therefore, I am right and you are a childish simpleton for clinging to your atheist views.

lol, that was complete trolling... apologies... just trying to give a few posters a dose of their own medicine :-)

1. Yup. People killed people over window dressing...things that really not that important to salvation. It is sad, really. People have also killed people over Air Jordans, tho... I am not sure the willingness to kill makes someone more devout than me, but I am certainly not a saint, myself.

2. Yes, church is for everyone. That expression is used to fight the stigma that "everyone in church has it figured out", or, even worse, "everyone in church assumes they are better than everyone not in church." Agreed, church (the way they are run now) is not a requisite... but corporate worship (as well as private worship) are expressly encouraged in scripture.

3. Yes, plenty of sinning going on inside church and outside. I even think sinful thoughts INSIDE OF CHURCH sometimes. I am afraid I didn't fully understand your point on this one, tho...

Pointing Out the Obvious wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Here is a quick Bible study for you. It will answer your (very good) question much better than I can :-)

http://www.ccwg.org/userdocs/images/files/new_belivers_outlines/single_workbooks/LESSONS-ON-ASSURANCE.pdf

Thanks dude. I know you are sincere (well, at least I think you are). And I appreciate that.

This study was given to me when I was going thru a rough patch myself, and questioning my own salvation. Yes, completely sincere :-) (I try to make my troll posts really obvious, lol)

Hold on a sec.... wrote:

Why did you marry a Christian if you're an atheist?

Why did a Christian marry an Atheist?

thejeff wrote:

Pointing Out the Obvious wrote:

Thanks dude. I know you are sincere (well, at least I think you are). And I appreciate that.

This study was given to me when I was going thru a rough patch myself, and questioning my own salvation. Yes, completely sincere :-) (I try to make my troll posts really obvious, lol)

It's all trolling jeff, let's be honest.

2 horsepower motor wrote:

thejeff wrote:

This study was given to me when I was going thru a rough patch myself, and questioning my own salvation. Yes, completely sincere :-) (I try to make my troll posts really obvious, lol)

It's all trolling jeff, let's be honest.

Most of what I post on this site (and nearly all of what I have posted on this thread, except for my a-atheist remarks) is sincere. "Trolling" in the sense that I am looking for feedback and dialogue? Sure. But not "trolling" in the sense of posting inflammatory remarks just to get a rise out of someone, no.

thejeff wrote:

not "trolling" in the sense of posting inflammatory remarks just to get a rise out of someone, no.

Stop it. It's all passive aggressive prodding in an effort to smugly appear superior.

This makes the baby Jesus unhappy.

2 horsepower motor wrote:

thejeff wrote:

not "trolling" in the sense of posting inflammatory remarks just to get a rise out of someone, no.

Stop it. It's all passive aggressive prodding in an effort to smugly appear superior.

This makes the baby Jesus unhappy.

^ THAT would be trolling, lol

Minor point re: "lack of belief is (not) a belief."

Spanish, for one, is a language that makes the distinction clearer. "Believing not [X]" is distinguished from "not believing [X]": one uses the subjunctive, the other uses the indicative.

It would be nice if that distinction were in English, but it isn't. Some confusion results.