Religion without God

That's actually pretty great, I'd love to be able to shit at home instead of the festering and disgusting stalls at my office

And Best Pony.

Ooh, I like this word. I can tell I have them all the time.

I agree in spirit here. We get caught up in scolding and condemning people "Stop doing that! It's bad for you!" and that is how the popular media is happy to picture Christians. We should first be focusing on "Come over and do this! It's fantastic!" But of course, everyone's a nitpicker, myself included.

You've brought this up before, and I don't know the history of the thing, but I would agree I have the impression of much greater ignorance these days than in times past. Everyone's too busy watching sitcoms to read the Bible. I know I don't read it as much as I should.

Amen.

Yes. But like exercise or a diet or any other discipline, it gets easier with practice.

Amen.

I like the way you put that and I agree. We tend to define things the way we perceive them, and God is something perceived differently by everyone. And this is a huge, complicated world. So eventually you're going to define God in a way that impedes another person from perceiving Him clearly. It kinda runs together with the dogma thing Elwood was talking about. I find that I prefer less and less to limit God by declaring what he does and does not like, and simply refer back to basic ideas like "love" and "mercy" and "justice".

This is not a universally accepted interpretation, and not one I prefer nowadays. It's quite easy to read Jesus differently.

Do you know what else isn't in the New Testament?

Your posts.

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

Do you know what else isn't in the New Testament?

Your posts.
."[/quote]

No one is using my posts as a basis of a religion.

AFAIK.

No, but you use your extreme lack of understanding of your own faith as the basis of your daily life.

That is your opinion and the opinion of a handful of people on this, an obscure science fiction discussion board. I know many more than that who agree with me.

No, you don't. You know a handful of people from a church congregation - and do you know what? You're lying anyway. I refuse to believe that the majority of those Christians don't realise that only God is allowed to judge others, to say nothing of your other obvious mistakes.

Matthew 7:16. Unless all of your posts are lies.

I'd love @Dayton3 to explain to us what that verse means.

Speaking of an obscure handful of people, isn’t your congregation so small that they’d have trouble fielding a softball team?

Matthew 7:16 is the sixteenth verse of the seventh chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament and is part of the Sermon on the Mount. This verse continues the section warning against false prophets.

In the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men
gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
The World English Bible translates the passage as:

By their fruits you will know them. Do you
gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles?
For a collection of other versions see here: Matthew 7:16

The previous verse warned against false prophets, and in this one Jesus tells his followers how to identify them. He does so by beginning a new metaphor, wholly separate from the wolves and sheep one of the previous verse. The new metaphor turns to botany. It specifically refers to grapes and figs, which were both common crops in the region. Thornbushes and thistles also flourished in the region, and were a constant problem to farmers.[1][2] Jesus states that one will be able to identify false prophets by their fruits. False prophets will not produce good fruits. Fruits, which are a common metaphor in both the Old and New Testaments, represent the outward manifestation of a persons' faith, thus their behaviour and their works.

This warning is paralleled in Luke 6:44 and appears again at Matthew 12:33, a similar fruit metaphor also appears in Matthew 3. In those other places the verse is an attack on the Pharisees, but here it targets false Christian prophets. Matthew also differs in wording from Luke 6:44. In Luke Jesus' words are a declarative statement, while in Matthew they are a rhetorical question. Matthew reverses the order of the grapes and figs from Luke. He also replaces Luke's briarbush with thistles. Gundry feels that thistles were added to create a rhyme with thornbush in the original Greek. He also feels that the author of Matthew is imagining a thornbush as a corrupted version of a grapevine and a thistle as version of a fig tree.[3]

This verse is thus usually understood as saying that one should not simply judge a prophet by their words, but what is implied by fruits has been much debated. F. Dale Bruner notes that there are two competing views.[4] Fruits can be read as referring to the behaviour and life of these false prophets. If their behaviour is not pious, one should not expect their words to be.[5] This opinion was first advanced by John Chrysostom and is supported by many modern scholars such as Eduard Schweizer and Ulrich Luz. The alternate view is that fruits refers to the teachings of the false prophets, that the false prophets will be noticeable by teachings that don't conform to correct doctrine. This understanding has been supported by Augustine, Jerome, Martin Luther, and John Calvin.[6]

Today, the most important... most essential meaning reduces to "Know ye, all men by THEIR deeds." Or simply, "talk is cheap" and you must look beyond the words any individual is saying, to find any integrity of the person saying it. Do their own deeds support what they have done, and how they did it? Jesus suggested that everyone should "be like me." Great righteous words are echoed in the halls of Contress daily, by 'righteous' politicians - but what are the realities of their righteous talking (the 'fruits' of their actions - of being in public office)? This is a more contemporary view. Think about it.

Yes, your "talk" - i.e., your postings on WF - is indeed cheap. We can't see all the wonderful good deeds you do (except encouraging one of your students to go to Iraq, where he ended up maimed), so maybe you should concentrate more on deeds and less on WF. But be mindful also of Luke 18:9-14.

And therein you've proved @garamet's point. That you had to Google it to find out what it was and then couldn't even explain it to me, but rather had to copy and paste someone else's commentary on it, speaks absolute volumes.

Why? Because you are the bad apple. The bad fruit. The bad Christian who regurgitates soundbites and makes claims but doesn't understand the true meaning of The Bible's teachings and doesn't act in a way that reflects them. Like Garamet says, you claim moral superiority. You claim to be a good Christian, but your actions do not reflect Christian values.

This is the part where he defaults to his claim that I "don't believe, therefore you have no right to challenge me." Rinse, repeat.

Is that the part where he conveniently forgets that other board Christians have told him he's full of it? That part?

The genuine Christians? He's more in league with TLS and the other snide, nasty ignorami.

Which actions are you referring to?

I did not encourage one of my students to "go to Iraq". I encouraged him to join the military. Most military personnel never served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Nor did I have any input as to where he was sent. He could've joined the Air Force and been assigned to Little Rock Air Force Base for all I could have known.

Isn't arguing that someone is not a "true Christian" or a "good Christian" a textbook example of a "No True Scotsman" argument.

I'd be genuinely interested in hearing how, as it would be very useful in dealing with the sorts of Christians who feel otherwise. The major roadblock I can see is "no-one comes to the Lord except through me" from Big J. Unless you are suggesting that non-worshippers who essentially follow all other parts of God's message avoid Hell but don't get Heaven?

And if you prefer two different companions, you can have Abeona on the outward journey, and Adiona on the inward/return journey

Let's see:-

- Thinking you have the right to judge others based on sexuality, sexual activity, morality, race, religion (or lack thereof), ethnicity, nationality, marriage and a host of other things, when only God has the right to do that according to your scripture.

- Linked to being judgemental, the declaration that you have superior morals and are generally a superior person.

- Being resistant to changing your mind and adopting any opinion other than those you have had for years.

- Being vindictive.

- Lack of compassion for other human beings.

- Lack of respect for the law, even thinking you are clever if you get away with a crime.

- Accepting goodwill from others without reciprocation generally taking other people for granted if they don't meet a certain profile (and I'm not just talking about people here).

- Trivialising and insulting the accomplishments of others, even when they are superior to your own.

- Putting your arrogant desire for personal career glory before the interests of your loved ones.

- Trivialising war and the deaths of fellow human beings so that you can revel war machines in action.

- Judging charity towards you based on momentary value and not the gesture.

All those are against scripture. In fact some, like God being the judge, isn't even limited to Christianity.

Shall I list some more?

It's funny. You are basically saying all reading of scripture is one of interpretation, yet often when it is another denomination or religion doing the interpreting people always denying them the scope of interpretation and declaration what they think and feel.

Well, I don't know about "no true Scotsman", but there is probably no such thing as a "true Christian" since religion is interpretation and if you decide you're a Christian and follow scripture to some form than that's what makes you Christian to my mind. Whether or not you are a "good" Christian is different. It is both about whether or not you have a basic understanding of many of the messages of scripture, especially the New Testament, and whether you use those teachings positively to benefit you and other people, and society in general.

Feel free. Though I think you would acknowledge that several of the things you listed are NOT "actions" but beliefs and attitudes.

Also a couple of them are redundant (#7 & #11) and one (#6) was a on off event that I apologized for repeatedly.

#8 is not mentioned or indicated anywhere in the Bible as far as I'm aware.

Several of the others are individual value judgements of you in particular that are not necessarily "wrong".

Semantics. They remain against Christian teachings.

How?

No you didn't. You boasted how clever you were.

1 Samuel 2:3
Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.

No, they aren't - and isn't interesting that you haven't denied at least half the list a day after insisting you knew your religion better than anyone?

I'll agree with what 1 Samuel 2:3 says, but it is not directed at or binding upon Christians today.

In regards to #6. What I did was wrong. I have repeatedly and freely acknowledged that. It was still clever. Wrong but clever.

Once again El Chup, you are simply taking your interpretation of the Bible and what Christianity in your mind should be (while you believe in neither) and using it as an instrument to attack me (and probably others when you have a chance).

#3 on your list

- Being resistant to changing your mind and adopting any opinion other than those you have had for years.

Perhaps you can indicate in the New Testament where Christians are instructed not to be resistant to changing their minds and adopting other opinions?

#2 on your list
- Linked to being judgemental, the declaration that you have superior morals and are generally a superior person.

The very concept of morals indicates that certain moral principals are superior to other moral principals.

#9 on your list

- Putting your arrogant desire for personal career glory before the interests of your loved ones.

Perhaps you can indicate in the New Testament where Christians are instructed not to do this? Even assuming I have done it. Which is largely a matter of your opinion.

There you go El Chup, between this post and my earlier one well over half of your claims have been refuted.

Feel free to try again buddy.

How can you say it is my interpration? For instance, if scripture says over and over that God is the only judge and the you not be the judge, what is there to interpret? If the scripture says you should not judge but if you choose to anyway, expect to be judged in return, what is there to interpret?

The more I read from you the more I am absolutely convinced you have never read The Bible.

I’m on my phone, but when I’m not I’ll happily return and cite the verses in question. So yeah, I’ll “try again”!