' Onward CHRISTIAN.....$$$$$$$$$$.....SOLDIERS '

[delldude]

Actually, the pastor at my "church"....and yes, it's a church, but it teaches spirituality over "religion"...described spirituality of that oneness with God.  He equated religion to a cookbook...it teaches you how to do it.  The only problem is, one religion "cookbook" says "use one cup of sugar", while the other says "no no no....you use two half cups of sugar", and yet a third one says "wrong....you use 4 quarter cups of sugar" and yet another says "the proper way is to use one half cup and two quarter cups of sugar".    They are all shooting at the same target, but each believes that theirs is the only "right" way to do it.  
 
Personally, I think organized religions are based on fear to scare people into doing what they want.  I personally don't think God is some bearded white guy, sitting on a throne with little else to do than make a list of how each person on earth is screwing up and planning their punishment accordingly.   You do what we say or you are doomed to eternal damnation and the fires of hell.  My father was a Methodist, yet he often asked "If God is all loving and all forgiving, could he send someone to hell".  
 
Apparently many believe that a guy who lived a good life and did many a good deed for others is doomed to hell because he didn't accept Jesus as his Lord and Saviour.  But a murderer on death row can sit with Jesus if he has a jailhouse conversion...repents his sins and accepts Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior. 
 
I don't know if there is an afterlife.  I am kind, generous, loving and do no harm to others.  I believe that there is a God.  But I don't believe that I must to X,Y and Z if I am to ever see him.   I might be wrong and I'll be looking up at all the good Christians who happened to belong to the "right" religion.  On the other hand, if THEY are wrong, they might get to the Pearly gates and find St Peter chatting it up with Rock Hudson and Freddie Mercury. 

 
Watch Ancient Aliens, it will come to you.

 

[signals]

What is that one way?  I have heard that the only way to get to heaven is to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour.  But the Catholics don't teach that, so that confused the hell out of me since I was raised Catholic and apparently they were dooming me to eternal hell.

Yes, I was raised a Catholic, too, with all the doom and guilt that went with it. That is why I shunned the Catholic church and RELIGION in general. Catholics give Christians a bad name since they never use the Bible and blindly follow some rich guy in the Vatican.

 

[signals]

The arrogance of the person you quoted is what I believe is wrong with organized religion.  They arrogantly believe they know the truth, the only truth and everyone else, the billions of people who also believe that they know the truth, the only truth, are all wrong.  The audacity is mind boggling.

Again the fool speaks and talks nonsense. I am more opposed to organized religion more than yourself. Religion is a business that seeks membership to fund it.

You continue to believe that your truth is the only truth, and as I have proven many, many times before...that it's not. I don't try to pass my beliefs, nor do I think that I am holier than thou. Unlike yourself, who believes your always right, I have in the past admitted to being wrong about a topic.

Christianity, not religion, is something you don't understand, that is not arrogance, that is a fact.

Unlike yourself, I don't run up the moderator's @$$ to complain about every little thing. Unlike you, I can dish it out and I can take it, too, and I have a healthy BS radar.

Now, continue to entertain me 😛

 

[signals]

Since the thread derailed a bit back lets keep going with it.  I have been telling many on this board that you have to be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.  Many here have supported in one way or another some form of public prayer.  Well, there was a court case that went all the way to the SCOTUS.  the case is Town of Greece v. Galloway.  The court ruled in favor of the town of Greese.  There was a stipulation that minority faiths cannot be discriminated against.  According to the article when the case was decided the religious right was thrilled with their victory.  Now, not so much.  Why?  Because the birds came back to roost.  A pagan was allowed to perform the opening invocation.  Now, the religious right is not too happy.  OH well.  You wanted freedom, now you have it so suck on it.
 
I keep telling people that if you want a monument of the 10 commandments on public property then I get to put up a satanic octagon or a wiccan pentagram right next to it.  The other option would be to just keep all religion out of the public arena and keep it private like it should be.  
 
Thank you Scalia.  I bet that dumb ass did not see that coming.
 
http://youtu.be/RjkwPK8HuKQ

Case in point to my argument above:

I totally agree with you on this one, even though our sources for doing so may differ. Life is a scale and balance that will eventually equalize itself. Believe it or not, it's a universal law. Christ separated church and state, yet the atheists get credit for it in the USA. We even have GOD on our money which is blasphemous.

The importance of keeping church and state separate is because the government is corrupt and by DEFINITION(not that it isn't) and the church isn't. They can coexist peacefully, but if one interferes, it gives the right for the other to interfere.

I've been preaching to the choir on this one because apparently nobody sees a problem with god on money.

 

[signals]

Christianity.
"The GREATEST Story Ever Told".......(Scratch That),...................." EVER   S O L D "    !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
I'm old enough to remember (back in the mid 50's going forward) when christianity HATED the Jews, and had NOTHING to do with them.  NOTHING !!!!  (Something to do with Jesus getting 'ratted-out' and crucified).
Down in that Cess Pool called the SOUTH (again, back in the early 50's for example), the "KLAN took you out" in this priority order;
1. Black guy
2. a  J E W   !!!!!!!!!
3. a 'Communist
4. a YANKEE
5. and a CATHOLIC(if you really pissed them off)
etc.
But WAIT....WHOA.  All you hear NOW is this Phoney bull-shiit expression especially from the christian end is,..............."JUDAO-CHRISTIAN this"...and "JUDAO-CHRISTIAN that "  !!
 
SO 'WHAT the Helll is going on here"
C'mon eolesen, Jump right in here !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Methinks it's got something to do with all the lack of ASSS'S in the Pews nowadays - $$$$$$$$$$$$.
 
These Kids today are NOT buying into the blatent christian Horse-SHIIT.
BUT I bet the JEWS are NOT seeing the attendance problem as bad !
 
 
 
 
 
KCF.
Good to see you 'back around' !
Your place of worship sounds like a good choice for you !
I'm glad !!

Of course the terrible Christians were the only ones who promoted hate back then.

 

[ChockJockey]

I totally agree with you on this one, even though our sources for doing so may differ. Life is a scale and balance that will eventually equalize itself. Believe it or not, it's a universal law. Christ separated church and state, yet the atheists get credit for it in the USA. We even have GOD on our money which is blasphemous.

The importance of keeping church and state separate is because the government is corrupt and by DEFINITION(not that it isn't) and the church isn't. They can coexist peacefully, but if one interferes, it gives the right for the other to interfere.

 
If you mean 'The Church' in the divine sense as the body of followers under Christ then you're right that it's not, by definition, corrupt; however churches themselves can be and several are.  It seems that often as fellowships grow they become more entrenched with temporal concerns, and this from just bureaucratic necessity.  Some ministries become more like businesses and gauge the quality of work they do for the Lord in terms of revenue.  Christ could have easily foreseen this and probably did but the flaw isn't one of doctrine as it is 'human nature'.  Any group of people sufficiently funded and motivated to achieve an agenda is prone to corruption, governments and churches included (and often cited first).
 
The relationship between state power and church power in the West is an old and complex topic going all the way back to Roman times.  Atheists don't deserve the credit for the separation of church and state in the U.S. but do the founding generation who, Christians themselves, and having witnessed the gruesome and endless religious wars that wracked Europe after the Protestant Reformation, wisely decided on a secular model as part of the basis of government.  Religious dogma is not enshrined in the Constitution, and its only mention is to limit its relationship to the state.  I would agree with anyone who says the best system for protecting religious liberties is a secular one, as historically the largest threat to any one religion has been the religion of others.
 
Perhaps ironically, many of the political sensibilities associated with the American Revolution and the kind of democracy it established had roots in Protestant ideals, including a direct relationship of the individual to authority and a 'priesthood of all believers' sense that insists that the lay people are capable of determining their own needs and direction and have a right to participate in the process.

 

[KCFlyer]

Yes, I was raised a Catholic, too, with all the doom and guilt that went with it. That is why I shunned the Catholic church and RELIGION in general. Catholics give Christians a bad name since they never use the Bible and blindly follow some rich guy in the Vatican.

 
Who wrote the bible.....and secondly....are you absolutely certain that it was translated word for word from what God wrote?   
 
For the record....while I am no longer a Catholic (mostly because of the politics they were preaching on Sundays), when I was practicing, I was a lector and would read on Sundays.  And maybe they were lying and I was too ignorant to know....but the book I would read from (and that the priest read from) was called "the Bible".   Just a refresher from your early Catholic days, but during mass, when the reader went up, the first reader was reading from the "old testament" and the second reader was reading from the "new testament" and the priest was reading from "the Gospels".   So while I'm not a practicing Catholic anymore, to say that the Catholics "never use the bible" is inaccurate.  They use it 3 different times every Sunday.
 
But as I said...I left because of the politics.  In 2004, when we were told...AT MASS...that a good Catholic could only vote for a pro life candidate - I looked at their definition of pro-life....anti abortion...anti death penalty....anti unjust war.  I weighed the two candidates based on those beliefs and voted for the "lesser of two evils".   Turns out I voted for the wrong one.  Seems that the "pro life" candidate was the one who opposed abortion, oversaw the executions of more prisoners while governor of his state, and started an unjust war.  At that, I left. 

 

[NewHampshire Black Bears]

HEY...dell.
 
Methinks our Good Friend  KCF...was talking about....(drum roll please)........E L - C H I M P O  !!!!!

 

[delldude]

 
Who wrote the bible.....and secondly....are you absolutely certain that it was translated word for word from what God wrote?   
 
For the record....while I am no longer a Catholic (mostly because of the politics they were preaching on Sundays), when I was practicing, I was a lector and would read on Sundays.  And maybe they were lying and I was too ignorant to know....but the book I would read from (and that the priest read from) was called "the Bible".   Just a refresher from your early Catholic days, but during mass, when the reader went up, the first reader was reading from the "old testament" and the second reader was reading from the "new testament" and the priest was reading from "the Gospels".   So while I'm not a practicing Catholic anymore, to say that the Catholics "never use the bible" is inaccurate.  They use it 3 different times every Sunday.
 
But as I said...I left because of the politics.  In 2004, when we were told...AT MASS...that a good Catholic could only vote for a pro life candidate - I looked at their definition of pro-life....anti abortion...anti death penalty....anti unjust war.  I weighed the two candidates based on those beliefs and voted for the "lesser of two evils".   Turns out I voted for the wrong one.  Seems that the "pro life" candidate was the one who opposed abortion, oversaw the executions of more prisoners while governor of his state, and started an unjust war.  At that, I left. 

 
Rick Perry started an unjust war?

 

[KCFlyer]

 
Rick Perry started an unjust war?

At the time that the bishops were telling me to vote for Bush, Perry had only been on the job for 4 years.  So at the time I was told by a church to vote for the republican on the ballot, that republican at that time had overseen more executions than any governor in history.  Interestingly though....if Perry were to get the nod from the GOP in 2016, I'm sure the Catholic bishops would overlook his execution record and pronounce him the "pro life" candidate.  

 

[NewHampshire Black Bears]

At the time that the bishops were telling me to vote for Bush, Perry had only been on the job for 4 years.  So at the time I was told by a church to vote for the republican on the ballot, that republican at that time had overseen more executions than any governor in history.  Interestingly though....if Perry were to get the nod from the GOP in 2016, I'm sure the Catholic bishops would overlook his execution record and pronounce him the "pro life" candidate.  

 
Another point-on good post  KCF.
 
Hypocrits like EL-CHIMPO and Perry, while they're 'Granstanding in church", conveniently FORGET the passage in THIER BOOK..........that goes something like this...."Judgement is MINE sayeth the Lord" !
 
I mean help me out here eolesen / dell / southwindBAG / Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do   !!!!!!!!!!

 

[La Li Lu Le Lo]

 
Another point-on good post  KCF.
 
Hypocrits like EL-CHIMPO and Perry, while they're 'Granstanding in church", conveniently FORGET the passage in THIER BOOK..........that goes something like this...."Judgement is MINE sayeth the Lord" !
 
I mean help me out here eolesen / dell / southwindBAG / Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do   !!!!!!!!!!

We are not qualified to give you the professional help that you need. 

 

[eolesen]

Hypocrits like EL-CHIMPO and Perry, while they're 'Granstanding in church", conveniently FORGET the passage in THIER BOOK..........that goes something like this...."Judgement is MINE sayeth the Lord" !

Yeah, that's from Romans 12. But, this is what happens when you pick and choose scriptures to quote out of context. In the very next chapter, Paul makes it clear that the secular laws were to be followed:

Romans 13:1-4

Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore, he who resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same; for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil."

Clearly, the context of "the sword" was in reference to punishment under the rules of the State.

Acts 25:10-11

But Paul said, “I am standing before Caesar’s tribunal, where I ought to be tried. I have done no wrong to the Jews, as you also very well know. “If, then, I am a wrongdoer and have committed anything worthy of death, I do not refuse to die; but if none of those things is true of which these men accuse me, no one can hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar.”

Clearly stated that the laws of Caesar were to be followed, including the punishments.

 

[Dog Wonder]

Yeah, that's from Romans 12. But, this is what happens when you pick and choose scriptures to quote out of context.

Clearly stated that the laws of Caesar were to be followed, including the punishments.

Two entirely different forms of judgment.

 

[eolesen]

Two entirely different forms of judgment.

Yep. I'd actually written that, and decided not to confuse Bears.

One of the issues being dealt with at the time was adherents judging other adherents. That's what I see Rom 12:19 addressing. Rom 13 is responding to Paul's own imprisonment and facing the death penalty.