Those who live a christian life, how do you feel?

[Comparison Ford]

Again, it doesn’t make sense to you. You need evidence.

I don’t. I can choose to believe whatever I want, just like people can identify with anything. Don’t tell me what I can and can’t believe in.

I know you want to take this conversation to us arguing about religion it self but that serves neither of us.

All im trying to do is let you know just how you explained homosexuality doesn’t need to make sense, neither does religion to believers. And you have no right to say it’s right or wrong.

So with all of this in mind, what do you care what anyone else thinks? You believe, you don't feel the need to explain yourself, so why are you here?

Nobody says you can't believe in Christianity or ANY religion. That's a strawman and you know it.

Homosexuality is a very real phenomenon and there is an abundance of evidence to support its existence and legitimacy. The same can't be said for your belief system. The followers of your belief system also like to cite said belief system as a means to justify the oppression of homosexuals, so that kind of kills your whole "let people just believe" stance. You can't weaponize your beliefs against others and then cry "freedom" when people call foul.

You've also done nothing to address my questions, so how about you just bow out and agree to disagree? Not sure what your goal is right now outside of demonstrating how fragile you are.

 

[1995]

Bro who cares man let people believe whatever they want. Everybody out here championing for all types of people and “rights” to be what they want and we’re so “progressive” yet when it’s comes to belief we can’t let people have belief in something? It’s hypocrisy

Why did you put "rights" in quotes here?

Why do you keep alluding to homosexuals or gender identity?

Why don't you just come out and say what you really want to say?

 

[deusavertat]

Religions and cults cannot exist without the exclusion of those who they have deemed "others" and infidels. This is why churches are one of the most segregated institutions in this country.

 

[gry60]

Bro who cares man let people believe whatever they want. Everybody out here championing for all types of people and “rights” to be what they want and we’re so “progressive” yet when it’s comes to belief we can’t let people have belief in something? It’s hypocrisy

You'll notice that I did not talk about having the right to believe.

I simply pointed out some instances of Christians acting holier-than-thou despite the clear teachings of the person they're supposed to model their behavior after.

Not everybody who criticizes Christians is or has always been atheist. Many no longer identify with the tax cheats (give to Caesar ...), the xenophobes (feed and welcome the stranger), the unforgiving (turn the other cheek), the pedos (whoever harms kids has harmed Me) and the greedy (it's always a trip to hear them misinterpret the parable of the rich and the eye of the needle) that have come to dominate the church.

 

[Rootin4EverybodyBlack]

A lot of Christians definitely interject their religion into everything even while living a life full of “sin” and then have the nerve to judge you if you don’t believe in what they do. It’s baffling and annoying.

I’m in no way saying ALL, but in my 31 years I’ve come across a lot that are like that.

 

[1995]

A lot of Christians definitely interject their religion into everything even while living a life full of “sin” and then have the nerve to judge you if you don’t believe in what they do. It’s baffling and annoying.

I’m in no way saying ALL, but in my 31 years I’ve come across a lot that are like that.

Right...I personally have no issue with religious folks who truly practice what they preach as far as acceptance and being good people

The ones who use their religion as a shield for their own bigotry or as a way to put themselves on a pedestal? I have little respect for that

 

[wizards23brown]

I love how the dominant religion in this country always whines about being "oppressed". No one is trying to take "Christ" out of Christmas.

This is perhaps the thing that has come to bother me the most about Christianity and Catholicism, and part of what drove me to drop out. The pervasive mindset that christians are being actively persecuted by non-christians, it’s all “oh the gays and liberals are attacking our conservative/christian values”.. I think that is a very toxic worldview, and makes them view everything as an us versus them situation. When in reality we just want to live our lives free of their shackles.

And they use it as an excuse to try and hold everyone else to their “values” and trying to shove it down everyone else’s throats.. Examples: school prayer, gay marriage, abortion/birth control, not teaching the realities of our countries history on topics like racism, colonization, war crimes etc..

Listen to Michael Flynn (whacko) talk about how America needs to be a mandatory one religion country, that really seems the direction it’s heading. I think they are just very frightened because they see how quickly religion is dying, and this is their defense mechanism.

Again, I’m a very live and let live type person, and have no problem with anybody else’s beliefs. unless and up-until they try to mandate me to follow their beliefs, or try and blame me for the fact their beliefs are becoming much less prevalent as humanity better understands our true nature and place in reality.

 

[fluid hips]

Religion is basically law before the idea of law existed

 

[DCAllAfrican]

I have a Super Christian fried that was on the, "We are being persecuted" tip. He even went as far as saying that sooner or later he and other Christians would have to start avoiding potential beheadings.

True story.

 

[deusavertat]

Christian projection. They think people will do to them what they have been doing to others for centuries.

 

[fluid hips]

I have a Super Christian fried that was on the, "We are being persecuted" tip. He even went as far as saying that sooner or later he and other Christians would have to start avoiding potential beheadings.

True story.

Type to bring a gun to work and shoot the place up talmbout " I heard voices in my head"

 

[wizards23brown]

There will never be “beheadings” or “imprisonment” or anything ridiculous like that. One day in the not too distant future, it will just disappear, not with a bang but with a whimper. It will happen slowly enough over a few decades that nobody will even notice when it breathes its last breath.

 

[moderndarwin]

There will never be “beheadings” or “imprisonment” or anything ridiculous like that. One day in the not too distant future, it will just disappear, not with a bang but with a whimper. It will happen slowly enough over a few decades that nobody will even notice when it breathes its last breath.

I’d take the over. Christianity is here to stay for at least the next 50 years.

Whats eroding Christianity and religion in general is the destruction of the nuclear family and the economic realities that are preventing people from having a lot of children. Work is the religion that people live by nowadays because ain’t nobody got time for Jesus when you gotta work all the time.

 

[prodigiou$]

Today, I ask the Lord to keep me with a humble spirit as I walk in His righteousness in doing His will. All I wish to do is walk in obedience to Him.

 

[deusavertat]

I’d take the over. Christianity is here to stay for at least the next 50 years.

Whats eroding Christianity and religion in general is the destruction of the nuclear family and the economic realities that are preventing people from having a lot of children. Work is the religion that people live by nowadays because ain’t nobody got time for Jesus when you gotta work all the time.

And people reading books that weren't written by someone hallucinating burning bushes 1000s of years ago. The simplest and most straight toward explanation is usually the correct one.

There's a strong correlation between poor education, low intellect and hyperreligiosity.

 

[moderndarwin]

And people reading books that weren't written by someone hallucinating burning bushes 1000s of years ago. The simplest and most straight toward explanation is usually the correct one.

There's a strong correlation between poor education, low intellect and hyperreligiosity.

I think what you fail to realize is that most people are religious for the culture not for the beliefs. It’s for the sense of belonging and community. It’s akin to us on this forum having some shared interests of shoes and bball - the religion is just a shared underlying current that allows for cultural gatherings around it. Having something that is predetermined that you just gotta show up at is a pretty nice way to have some semblance of community and inclusion. I wish we as a society in the US had a better way of doing this for people that aren’t religious. Being lonely is what people are scared of more than of believing in something they probably realize deep down isn’t factual.

 

[Bronson]

 

[deusavertat]

I think what you fail to realize is that most people are religious for the culture not for the beliefs. It’s for the sense of belonging and community. It’s akin to us on this forum having some shared interests of shoes and bball - the religion is just a shared underlying current that allows for cultural gatherings around it. Having something that is predetermined that you just gotta show up at is a pretty nice way to have some semblance of community and inclusion. I wish we as a society in the US had a better way of doing this for people that aren’t religious. Being lonely is what people are scared of more than of believing in something they probably realize deep down isn’t factual.

There are a multitude of ways to build community without succumbing to myths.

work organizations, cultural clubs sans the religion (based on ethnicity, nation of origin, etc), education groups, book clubs, political alliances, sports, shared hobbies, orgies.

And I think you're downplaying how deeply people believe in this BS. I know it's hard to fathom but a lot of them aren't faking it.

 

[gry60]

There will never be “beheadings” or “imprisonment” or anything ridiculous like that. One day in the not too distant future, it will just disappear, not with a bang but with a whimper. It will happen slowly enough over a few decades that nobody will even notice when it breathes its last breath.

As long as there isn't a clear and definitive answer about what mankind's purpose, society will always have room for religion.

Also, even though christianity is shrinking in the West, it has been growing in the southern hemisphere.

My issue with the particular narrative of christians being persecuted in the US, other than being delusional, is that those who believe in this nonsense are often driven into the arms of Christian fundamentalists, who have been very successful at using that talking point to promote their ideas of what christianity should be.

If you’re upset about the Taliban, you should be upset about Christian nationalists too, panelist says – Baptist News Global

Americans shouldn’t judge the Taliban too harshly for its fierce opposition to religious pluralism in Afghanistan when the United States is host to the growing and violent Christian nationalist movement that inspired the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Muslim American activist and...

baptistnews.com

The original meaning of religious freedom already has been all but redefined, Abdulaleem said.

“It’s a dog whistle to certain parts of the country to say, ‘OK, we no longer can discriminate based on race but if we say it’s religious, we can do whatever we want,’” she said. “Far too many people think religious freedom means I can say whatever I want and do whatever I want as long as I have a religious base. That is not what religious freedom is. But the Christian nationalists have taken that baton and run with it.”

A shield or a sword?
Rather than using it as a weapon against political and religious opponents, the value of religious liberty should serve as a shield of protection and as a tool for promoting harmony in society.

“In this nation, Christianity has always been used as a sword. When has it not been used as a sword?”

And that practice has continued in modern history, including in the March 2021 killing of eight women of Asian descent in Georgia, he said. “We’ve seen what happens with this. We don’t have to talk about slavery or the Holocaust. We can look at Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., to see what Christian nationalism does. If you were to look at Dylann Roof’s manifesto, it was filled with Christian nationalism.”

 

[gry60]

There are a multitude of ways to build community without succumbing to myths.

work organizations, cultural clubs sans the religion (based on ethnicity, nation of origin, etc), education groups, book clubs, political alliances, sports, shared hobbies, orgies.

LOL

He does have a point though. In a lot of American communities, especially poor and rural, the church remains the only place where folks can still socialize and participate in some of the activities you mentioned for free (we have to thank the notion that local authorities should divest from public life, which grew out of the resentment that conservatives expressed towards desegregation and led to the transformation of public, well-maintained, tax-funded, free community centers to private neighborhood clubs accessible for a fee, but that's a topic for a different thread).

 

[tupac jordan]

 

[deusavertat]

LOL

He does have a point though. In a lot of American communities, especially poor and rural, the church remains the only place where folks can still socialize and participate in some of the activities you mentioned for free (we have to thank the notion that local authorities should divest from public life, which grew out of the resentment that conservatives expressed towards desegregation and led to the transformation of public, well-maintained, tax-funded, free community centers to private neighborhood clubs accessible for a fee, but that's a topic for a different thread).

I guess in trailer parks it's either Jesus, guns or meth/heroin.

If you've ever driven through really bad neighborhoods, it's nothing but churches.

 

[cragmatic]

I have a Super Christian fried that was on the, "We are being persecuted" tip. He even went as far as saying that sooner or later he and other Christians would have to start avoiding potential beheadings.

True story.

This looks like it has to do with the vaccine lol.

 

[cragmatic]

 

[1995]

Andrea Yates - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Deanna Laney murders - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org