patrick.net

Strategist says

Rin says

PeopleUnited says

Actually Jesus bore not only the torture of the cross, but also the torment of leaving heaven and living as a human being for 33 years (it was beneath Him to lower Himself to our level and take on flesh, to feel pain, to know hunger, He never had to do that in Heaven but He was willing to endure this torment for us) and then was unjustly tried and convicted, sentenced to death without cause. He never sinned and yet he was found guilty

Considering that he was alive for 1 billion years, prior to a mere 33 yr imprisonment in the flesh, is nothing for a true spiritual master. If anything, he should have been grateful to realize what it was like to be a mere mortal, for such a brief period of time.

If earth was so bad, why did he come back after 3 days?

He had a promise to keep.

John 2:19
Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

Psalm 16:10
For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

Dan8267 says

PeopleUnited says

Great, then talk to me like I was a child.

OK, I'll play your stupid game. You think you are going to trap me, but I'm going to humiliate you yet again.

Dan, I hope what I am about to say causes you to think. It may surprise you but I do not see our relationship as adversarial. I want to be your friend. If I see you on the street, I want to be able to smile and say good day sir. If you are in need of help (or vise versa) I want to be there to lend my assistance. I am not seeking to humiliate you even if that is your intention towards me. I asked about your understanding of morality because it reveals who you are. I don't believe I can win an argument with you (not because you are more intelligent than I am, though you may well be) because the moment one approaches debate in terms of winning or losing, you have already lost. If there is another person on the island you live on, it is best to be friends with them and find common ground. We have more in common than you realize and that is what I am trying to prove. Your clearly stated intention of humiliation of your fellow human being is irrational, possibly even immoral. And despite this, I still want to be your friend.

What you think is moral reveals a great deal about who you are. I am enjoying getting to know you. I am not a master of morality, but I, like you, I am a student wishing to learn. I want to know why everything happens the way it does, not just how it happens but why it happens.

I will first respond to your answers to my questions and then move on to answering yours.

Dan8267 says

"But as long as we are on the subject of animals, my dog killed two of my chickens. She didn't eat them, she killed them for sport. Is this moral?"

No, but dogs are not as sentient as humans and are not as emotionally mature. They cannot be held to the same standards. Dogs are like toddlers that never grow up.

Agreed, my dog is not accountable in terms of upholding morality. However, if my dog continued to kill chickens and/or became violent towards other living creatures I may need to take measures including potentially killing her to protect others. Therefore, killing is both ethical and unethical depending on the circumstances.

God has been accused of being unethical for killing or allowing people to be killed. The above proves that killing becomes necessary in a world where each individual is able to make their own choices. God gave us free will. He did not make us robots incapable of doing wrong. Like a father who lets his son out into the world rather than keeping him locked up in his room all day to protect him, God lets us explore and then chose to do wrong. People argue that it is unethical for God to allow suffering, but suffering is a consequence of sin. It would also be unethical for Him to keep us in restraints all day long (physically prevent us from sinning) so that we could not choose our own destiny as well. Now, if He did not offer a way out once we sinned, He would clearly be unethical. But He did offer a way out, and that way out is freely available to EVERY man woman and child, not just the ones who never did any of the big sins like rape and murder.

As a libertarian you know that the most important ideal is that every person should be able to make their own choice as long as it does not infringe on the rights of others to make their own choices. God is a libertarian, (he is not a conservative who never lets anyone disobey). But he is also compassionate. He gives us the ability to sin, and yet he has the compassion to tell us not to sin. He tells us not to sin because He doesn't want us to suffer the consequences of sin. He doesn't want our sin to cause other people to suffer. And His compassion goes even further. Once we have sinned He was willing to take responsibility for our sin by laying it on Himself. He paid the penalty Himself. And He lets us chose if we want to pay the penalty ourselves, or to just let Him pay it for us. Again, he lets us chose. That is a good God. A libertarian God.

Isaiah 1:18
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

One of the points I was trying to make with my questions for you regarding morality is that virtually every "evil" can also be viewed as good.

Lying is immoral, except when it isn't.

Example: A German farmer was hiding Christian/Jewish refugees in his attic and the S.S. officer showed up asking questions about it, was it ethical to lie or tell the truth?Clearly the lie is the ethical choice.

Example: A woman wants to find a man who will take care of her for the rest of her life. A man wants to have sex with the woman and then go home and never see her again. He tells the woman that he loves her and wants to spend the rest of his life with her and she gets carried away with the ecstatic emotion of being "loved" and has sex with him. He goes home and never sees her again. Clearly lying was immoral because it defrauded the woman.

I only reiterate this point because people continually accuse God of being immoral because sometimes He forbids/condemns actions that he later does/condones and vice versa. We need to keep in mind that circumstances are always relevant. Before you judge God to be immoral, consider that He may know more than you and therefore you may not understand the circumstances.

Dan8267 says

In humans rape is immoral because it creates psychological harm.

Dan8267 says

I'm going to humiliate you yet again.

Dan8267 says

Immorality comes from committing harm either intentionally or out of apathy.

It would seem that you have a problem abiding by your own set of morals. I say this not because I think your intention is evil, but to again prove the point that circumstances are important -for no doubt you have an argument that your attempt to humiliate me is for the greater good ;)

Dan8267 says

A father dies. His daughter longs to see him again and believes that he is in heaven and she will see him there is she dies. So she kills herself. This actually happened. Is it moral for parents to teach their children the lie of the Christian afterlife?

I could just as easily rephrase the question with a Christian bent. "Is it moral for atheists to teach their children the lie that there is no Heaven or hell?

However, I did not color my questions with disputed "facts". Your tactic is deception/prejudice such as asking: When did you stop beating your wife?
Your question is invalid. A valid question would be who is to blame for the child's death? So I will play this hypothetical with you even though it is speculation on our part to try to assess blame.

Possible culprit #1 God. I know you don't believe in Him so it doesn't matter what I say about Him. However I do know Him and He values every human life and does not promote suicide as the answer to human suffering.

Possible culprit #2 the child. However I don't know her age so it is difficult to say if she was capable of making a rational decision. Furthermore, in her state of grief it is likely that she was NOT capable of making a rational decision, in which case there is no one to blame.

Possible culprit #3 the parents/religion. If anyone had expressly told the child that God wanted her to commit suicide so that she could see her dad again we would have reason to asses blame. As far as I know that is not the case. We know that you want to blame the parents/religion. The only way to convict the parents is by calling faith a lie and making faith illegal. That is a slippery slope, but that would be the conservative thing to do.

Possiblity #4 there is no culprit. The child died due to a grief motivated irrational decision. At the very least believing that God wants you to relieve your grief by committing suicide is a misunderstanding of Him and His will. Suicide is irrational.

At this point I am leaning towards #4. How about you?

But that brings up another question for you Dan. Where does irrationality come from? What is the source of irrational behavior?

May Jesus, the force, or whatever else you want to be with you, be with you. I gotta go for now.

PeopleUnited says

It may surprise you but I do not see our relationship as adversarial.

We don't have a relationship. Who advocates a lie is irrelevant to the fact that it is a lie. The messenger is irrelevant. What matters is reality, and reality is that
- your god is false
- your religion has done far more evil than good
- faith is intrinsically bad regardless of the arbitrary mythology underneath it.

PeopleUnited says

I am a student wishing to learn.

One cannot learn morality if one bases his understanding on lies and some fake unquestionable authority figure. To learn any domain, you must accept reality for what it is regardless of how much you want it to be different. Then you must study the domain as a science. Nothing less will yield wisdom.

PeopleUnited says

God has been accused of being unethical for killing or allowing people to be killed. The above proves that killing becomes necessary in a world where each individual is able to make their own choices

Your god is allegedly all-powerful and can simply will reality to his desires. It would NEVER be necessary for such a god to kill anyone, especially infants. No all-powerful being needs to murder the first born of an entire nation to set people free from slavery. He could just teleport the slaves to a new land and temporarily paralyze any soldiers or heads of state that pursued the slaves. Mass infanticide and horribly drowning soldiers ordered to pursue slaves is not necessary and certainly not moral.

PeopleUnited says

As a libertarian you know

I'm not a libertarian. I'm a liberal.

PeopleUnited says

God is a libertarian, (he is not a conservative who never lets anyone disobey).

Bullshit. Neither Libertarians nor Liberals would torture a person for all eternity if that person exercised their freedom to make a choice he didn't agree with. That's some fucked up shit.

PeopleUnited says

Lying is immoral, except when it isn't.

Obviously deception can be justified if it prevents a greater evil. I've already addressed this multiple times. The idea that lying to the masses about the existence of a god and afterlife can be used to manipulate those masses into behaving better is the Noble Lie Hypothesis (TM).

The Noble Lie Hypothesis is simply wrong. It is wrong in general because a lie told, not to a few individuals, but to the entire world ultimately will
1. Cause unintended consequences that outweigh the intended gain.
2. Pervert the original intent twisting it into something that motivates people to do great evil.
3. Will be seen through by the most powerful and dangerous individuals who will pay lip service to the lie but act in opposition to the intent.
4. Will cause the creation of other great lies that also cause great evil.
5. Will prevent a truthful and stable solution to the original problem trying to be solved.

The lie of Christianity empirically resulted in all five of these consequences. Is
1. Caused genocide, slavery, infanticide, torture, war, and many other atrocities. It also held back scientific and technological advancement that would have saved billions of lives of the past 2000 years and greatly diminished suffering. Hell, just child births deaths alone outweigh all the good that the lie was intended to create. Before science, childbirth deaths were the norm, not the exception.
2. Christianity has been used to justify all the evils listed in example one as well as many others.
3. Just look at how state officials have used Christianity to further the evilest of plots. Even noble lies are more easy to corrupt and twist than the truth.
4. From "God hate fags" to "God is on our side" to burning heretics at the stake, so much evil policy and practice has stemmed from Christianity in particular.
5. Christianity has done nothing but hold back morality as I explained in many examples such as enslaving and slaughtering whales, which are clearly sentient beings.

PeopleUnited says

We need to keep in mind that circumstances are always relevant.

I hate to break this to you, but one of the great motivations of monotheists is to make morality absolute and unquestionable irregardless of situation. This is why they insist there has to be a god, and more importantly, only one god. If you had multiple gods, then those gods could disagree, and that would kill morality.

Why the hell should anyone who accepts the Christian god reject all other possible gods? Because acceptance of the mere possibility of other gods would end the monopoly on moral authority.

This is the great hypocrisy of all monotheistic religions.

If you reject all other gods, then why should I accept yours?

PeopleUnited says

I could just as easily rephrase the question with a Christian bent. "Is it moral for atheists to teach their children the lie that there is no Heaven or hell?

1. It is not a lie. The lie is that heaven and hell exist.

If the Christian afterlife were not a lie, then the girl who killed herself would have been wise to do so and it would not be a tragedy. Furthermore, the most moral thing you could do would be to kill babies before they could sin. That way, they are guaranteed eternal happiness in heaven. To allow babies to live would be the greatest evil as you would literally be placing their souls in danger or eternal damnation.

2. It is absolutely moral to teach children that the afterlife is a lie. Really, you shouldn't have to teach them that and wouldn't have to if the lie were not so prevalent in our society. But keeping children from being brainwashed into believing falsehoods on which they might base critical life decisions, is definitely moral.

PeopleUnited says

However, I did not color my questions with disputed "facts".

What a racist statement! You have no problem disregarding every religious belief from Islam to Hindi to Buddhism to dozens of Native American religions to hundreds of African religions. However, the beliefs of your particular religion are "disputed facts"? No, they aren't.

There is absolutely no evidence or rational reason to think that any of your religion's myths are at all real. I could make up some story right now and call it a religious belief. That would not mean the story is something that should be taken seriously as a possible but disputed fact. Case in point: Scientology.

www.youtube.com/embed/FQ4-20wfzZs?start=180

Unless you give equal credibility to Scientology and the myths of every other religion in all of history, then you are a hypocrite. I will not give your religion's myths any more credibility then those. I will not have a separate standard for your religion than I have for any other one including Scientology.

PeopleUnited says

Possiblity #4 there is no culprit. The child died due to a grief motivated irrational decision. At the very least believing that God wants you to relieve your grief by committing suicide is a misunderstanding of Him and His will. Suicide is irrational.

At this point I am leaning towards #4. How about you?

The girl's act of killing herself would be completely rational, wise, and right if the Christian afterlife was not a complete and utter lie. If the Christian beliefs were actually correct, that girl would be happy in heaven with her father right now and the only tragedy in the story is that the mother did not also commit suicide.

Clearly, you do not believe this story had a happy ending. Therefore, deep down inside, you know the Christian afterlife is a lie.

PeopleUnited says

May Jesus, the force, or whatever else you want to be with you, be with you.

That would be the truth. It is the truth that is with us.

Dan8267 says

We don't have a relationship.

Who are you talking to then?

Dan8267 says

What matters is reality, and reality is that

- your god is false

- your religion has done far more evil than good

- faith is intrinsically bad regardless of the arbitrary mythology underneath it.

Honey, repeating it doesn't make it any more true.

The reality is Jesus lives.
There is one mediator between God and humans and that is His Son Jesus Christ.
Humans are intrinsically bad regardless of the arbitrary mythology/dogma they believe. The Bible was written by God to show us we are all sinners who need a savior.

There, fixed it for you (again). We can do this all day sweetheart. It seems like we will, apparently neither of us has any prayer or math that is more important to do.

Do you have an equation to explain this? Surely it must be a product of evolution right?

Romans 3:10-18

10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

13 Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:

14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:

15 Their feet are swift to shed blood:

16 Destruction and misery are in their ways:

17 And the way of peace have they not known:

18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Dan8267 says

One cannot learn morality if one bases his understanding on lies ... To learn any domain, you must accept reality for what it is regardless of how much you want it to be different. Then you must study the domain as a science. Nothing less will yield wisdom.

Well said, and good advice. I suggest you follow it. As much as you don't want the Bible to be God's word, you will never have understanding until you understand it. Here is a good place to start.

Proverbs 1
1 The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel:

2 for gaining wisdom and instruction;
for understanding words of insight;
3 for receiving instruction in prudent behavior,
doing what is right and just and fair;
4 for giving prudence to those who are simple,[a]
knowledge and discretion to the young—
5 let the wise listen and add to their learning,
and let the discerning get guidance—
6 for understanding proverbs and parables,
the sayings and riddles of the wise.[b]
7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,
but fools[c] despise wisdom and instruction.

Dan8267 says

Your god is allegedly all-powerful and can simply will reality to his desires. It would NEVER be necessary for such a god to kill anyone, especially infants. No all-powerful being needs to murder the first born of an entire nation to set people free from slavery. He could just teleport the slaves to a new land and temporarily paralyze any soldiers or heads of state that pursued the slaves. Mass infanticide and horribly drowning soldiers ordered to pursue slaves is not necessary and certainly not moral.

A little much with the science fiction Dan? We already discussed how killing is sometimes the ethical choice. Since you don't know the circumstances or motive of action why are you making this generalization?To demonize a God you claim doesn't exist? Have you always beat your head against the keyboard?

Make a specific claim about a specific circumstance in which you accuse God of acting unethically. I will show you where you are mistaken. Every. Time.

Dan trying to prove God is a lie.

I just need to find the missing variables, then I can make an equation that explains EVERYTHING! Math is the only way to know truth!!! Why isn't this equation working????
(you left God out of the equation genius)

Psalm 14

1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.

2 The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.

3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

4 Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the Lord.

Dan8267 says

The lie of Christianity empirically resulted in all five of these consequences. Is

1. Caused genocide, slavery, infanticide, torture, war, and many other atrocities. It also held back scientific and technological advancement that would have saved billions of lives of the past 2000 years and greatly diminished suffering. Hell, just child births deaths alone outweigh all the good that the lie was intended to create. Before science, childbirth deaths were the norm, not the exception.

2. Christianity has been used to justify all the evils listed in example one as well as many others.

3. Just look at how state officials have used Christianity to further the evilest of plots. Even noble lies are more easy to corrupt and twist than the truth.

4. From "God hate fags" to "God is on our side" to burning heretics at the stake, so much evil policy and practice has stemmed from Christianity in particular.

5. Christianity has done nothing but hold back morality as I explaine...

1. The vast majority of technological development has occurred in the west, in countries where Christianity is practiced freely and where things like "In God we Trust" is inscribed on the money supply. You can just as easily blame God for most of our modern understanding and technology.
2. Misinterpretation of scripture to promote evil is an indictment of the person who presents the misinterpretation, not of the scripture itself.

For example. You misread a map on a trip to Las Vegas and end up in Reno instead. You blame the map. That is exactly what you just did you blamed the map because the idiot reading it couldn't understand it. Dan do yourself a favor and don't blame the map/Bible.
3. see #2
4. see #2
5. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1979/teresa-bio.html
https://www.amazon.com/Christianity-Changed-World-Alvin-Schmidt/dp/0310264499

Dan8267 says

Once more, you are wrong. I'll admit to a little hyperbole here, but humiliating someone in an anonymous Internet debate is not causing harm. Nor am I acting out of apathy. Clearly I'm passionate about upholding truth and rational thought.

However, more importantly, the messenger is irrelevant. How many times do I have to say this? Martin Luther King, Jr. had extramarital affairs. That does not mean his message of equality under law regardless of race was wrong. You are attempting to do the exact same thing the FBI unethically did, which is to character assassinate a person in order to discredit his message. This is called poisoning the well, and it is not only a logical fallacy but a moral and ethical failing. You should be honest enough to debate the issue at hand rather than trying to persuade the audience with such an underhanded tactic.

Once more Danny, you are wrong. Here is the context.

Dan8267 says

I'm going to humiliate you yet again.

Dan8267 says

Immorality comes from committing harm either intentionally or out of apathy.

PeopleUnited says

It would seem that you have a problem abiding by your own set of morals. I say this not because I think your intention is evil, but to again prove the point that circumstances are important -for no doubt you have an argument that your attempt to humiliate me is for the greater good ;)

You are doing exactly what you claimed I did, you are poisoning the well. This, despite the fact that I clearly stated A) I do not suspect evil intentions and B) that the purpose of my pointing out your seeming contradiction is that I was attempting to prove that circumstances are important. You need to work on your reading comprehension.

Dan8267 says

I hate to break this to you, but one of the great motivations of monotheists is to make morality absolute and unquestionable irregardless of situation. This is why they insist there has to be a god, and more importantly, only one god. If you had multiple gods, then those gods could disagree, and that would kill morality.

God said we are created in His image. From this we can infer a lot of things. One of them is that we dwell in a realm where at times killing is moral and at other times it is immoral, at times lying is moral and at other times lying is immoral. I hate to break it to you but that is what the Bible teaches, it isn't as simple as black and white. It rarely is. Oh and by the way, the Bible does talk about disagreement in Heaven. Satan is the first liar in the Bible. His lies inspired Eve to disobey, Adam to sin and Cain to kill. Satan's lies are the origin of the evils of this world.

PeopleUnited says

Who are you talking to then?

Honey, an online argument does not a relationship make.

PeopleUnited, you have not add anything to the conversation in your latest responses. You are simply repeating yourself and all your claims have already been debunked. Trying to use the Bible to convince anyone that the Bible is unerring is just plain stupid. Once more you demonstrate that Christian brainwashing is dangerous. It stops people from thinking.

@Patrick, once more I ask you if you still hold the view that Christianity is without considerable harm just within the United States.

Dan8267 says

When Christians hold up signs that say "God hates fags!", they are doing so precisely because of their religion.

The problem is not that you are wrong, but that you paint with too broad of a brush. The Bible does not teach Christians to hold up signs that insult homosexuals. If Jesus wanted Christians to do so, he would have stood by the side of the road and done the same thing. You can claim that the teachings of Westborro Baptist Church are corrupt because of the vile things they do, I agree. But it is unfair to blame Christ for teaching them to do this. He set the example and when did he ever persecute homosexuals? Hint, he didn't. You are poisoning the well and you are doing so by appropriating the actions of a few people who don't understand the Bible to all of Christianity. It is thinly veiled dishonesty.

Dan8267 says

PeopleUnited says

Who are you talking to then?

Honey, an online argument does not a relationship make.

re·la·tion·ship/rəˈlāSH(ə)nˌSHip/
noun
the way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected, or the state of being connected.

I hate to break this to you sweetheart but we are connected. You had me at (click submit). Come in for a virtual hug!

Dan8267 says

PeopleUnited, you have not add anything to the conversation in your latest responses. You are simply repeating yourself and all your claims have already been debunked. Trying to use the Bible to convince anyone that the Bible is unerring is just plain stupid. Once more you demonstrate that Christian brainwashing is dangerous. It stops people from thinking.

@Patrick, once more I ask you if you still hold the view that Christianity is without considerable harm just within the United States.

Actually Dan you have added nothing to this conversation besides repeating over and over again your opinion that the God of the Bible doesn't exist and that religion has brought ONLY evil into this world. Both of which are lies.

Dan8267 says

The Christian god was not intended to demonstrate what not to do, but actually what to do. Go forth and kill the infidels.

Is that what they taught you in your Catholic schooling? And yet you didn't go on Jihad? None of your classmates when Jihad? Doesn't pass the sniff test. Can you quote chapter and verse when Jesus said to go forth and kill?

No, I didn't think so. More poisoning of the well from the resident viper.

Here is what Jesus ACTUALLY said:

Mark 16:15-16

15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.

16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

PeopleUnited says

The problem is not that you are wrong, but that you paint with too broad of a brush.

This is a cop out. I have never claimed that every Christian does that. I have never even claimed that the majority of Christians murder, rape, or torture, or do various other things that many Christians have throughout history. However, the same can be said just as truthfully about Muslims. The vast majority of Muslims are not Jihadists. And there are plenty of people who claim that Islamic terrorists do not at all reflect Islam or represent Muslims.

You personally have opened this thread and made many posts to counter that very supposition. You have countered that there is something about Islam that is directly and intrinsically responsible for terrorism committed by various Islamic groups and individuals. Your hypocrisy is denying that intrinsic cause does not at all apply to Christianity, but clearly it does as demonstrated by all of history. The intrinsic cause is faith.

Any faith is intrinsically bad and can and eventually will motivate people to do evil. Just because it doesn't motivate every person who is faithful to do evil does not mean that faith isn't a common tool of evil. You reject the supposition that Islam has nothing to do with Islamic terrorism and other atrocities committed by Islam, and then you hypocritically make the essentially identical supposition that Christianity has nothing to do with the atrocities committed by Christians. That is a complete contradiction.

I am holding you and your religion to the exact same standards you are holding Islam and Muslims to.

PeopleUnited says

Dan8267 says

The Christian god was not intended to demonstrate what not to do, but actually what to do. Go forth and kill the infidels.

Is that what they taught you in your Catholic schooling?

That is what the Bible says, and Catholic schooling as well as all other Christian religions teach that the Bible is the word of god. Hell, you have made numerous posts on this very thread that say the Bible is the word of god. So don't claim that my statements are inaccurate.

The Bible is not the word of god, but fools believe it is and act accordingly. That is dangerous. It does not matter if we are talking about the Bible or the Quran. Accepting any book as holy is dangerous. Books are not holy. Nothing is. Faith that something is holy is dangerous and causes irrational and violent behavior.

Strategist says

FortWayne says

Dan8267 says

Be a murderer and believe in Jesus and he'll forgive your sins and you'll go to heaven.

You clearly have not gone to church, because what you said is not how it works. What you said, can only be said by someone who truly has no idea, but probably heard something somewhere. You are just bad at this Dan.

No. That's what I hear all the time, too.

If you accept Jesus Christ as your savior, all your sins are forgiven, and you will go to heaven. I get asked all the time to accept Christ, before it's too late.

-----------------

@Fortwayne is right. It is not the magic words that save like in Islam where if you just say some nonsense about Allah and some prophet and you are Muslim/"saved".

It is the actual resting in faith that makes you a new creature, the testimony of faith is just the result of true belief. That is not to say that people can't make false professions, they clearly do make false professions.

It is like this, people can say "I believe that this chair will hold me. I know that this chair will hold me. Please God let this chair hold me!" But unless you actually sit in the chair you have proven you have no faith.

If you want Jesus to save you, you have put ALL your weight on Him.

1 Peter 5:7

7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

Romans 10:10
For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Matthew 11:28-29

28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

Dan8267 says

PeopleUnited says

The problem is not that you are wrong, but that you paint with too broad of a brush. The Bible does not teach Christians to hold up signs that insult homosexuals. If Jesus wanted Christians to do so, he would have stood by the side of the road and done the same thing. You can claim that the teachings of Westborro Baptist Church are corrupt because of the vile things they do, I agree. But it is unfair to blame Christ for teaching them to do this. He set the example and when did he ever persecute homosexuals? Hint, he didn't. You are poisoning the well and you are doing so by appropriating the actions of a few people who don't understand the Bible to all of Christianity. It is thinly veiled dishonesty..

This is a cop out. I have never claimed that every Christian does that. I have never even claimed that the majority of Christians murder, rape, or torture, or do various other things that many Christians have throughout history. However, the same can be said just as truthfully about Muslims. The vast majority of Muslims are not Jihadists. And there are plenty of people who claim that Islamic terrorists do not at all reflect Islam or represent Muslims.

You personally have opened this thread and made many posts to counter that very supposition. You have countered that there is something about Islam that is directly and intrinsically responsible for terrorism committed by various Islamic groups and individuals. Your hypocrisy is denying that intrinsic cause does not at all...

No cop out. I am just calling you on your bullshit. You are indicting Christianity for the actions of the minority who did exactly the opposite of what Jesus told them to do.

Islam on the other hand specifically teaches it followers to enact violence on non-Muslims.

The difference is striking. Like night and day.

You are arguing that the roadmap that Jesus gave us is evil simply because people don't read it and end up in the wrong place. It isn't the map that is the problem, and it certainly isn't the maker of the map. People end up in the wrong place precisely because they don't trust/use the map (Bible).

Islam however creates a map that leads directly to slavery and murder. That is where the Islamic map leads.

Dan8267 says

PeopleUnited says

Dan8267 says

The Christian god was not intended to demonstrate what not to do, but actually what to do. Go forth and kill the infidels.

Is that what they taught you in your Catholic schooling?

That is what the Bible says, and Catholic schooling as well as all other Christian religions teach that the Bible is the word of god. Hell, you have made numerous posts on this very thread that say the Bible is the word of god. So don't claim that my statements are inaccurate.

So Dan if your statements are true, where does Jesus teach his followers to go forth and kill? Was that a personal revelation from God? I just have never heard Jesus say to go forth and kill so it would appear that you made it up.

Dan8267 says

Just because it doesn't motivate every person who is faithful to do evil does not mean that faith isn't a common tool of evil.

That is the exact argument that people make to enforce drug control. Are you promoting prohibition?

Dan8267 says

Christianity has nothing to do with the atrocities committed by Christians.

What I seek to remind you is that Christ taught his followers NOT to commit atrocities. Therefore the actions of "christians" that do not follow Christ's teachings are not a result of Christ's teachings. You are attempting to indict the schoolmaster for the crimes of the students who rejected their schoolmaster's instruction. It is an irrational accusation.

PeopleUnited says

You are indicting Christianity for the actions of the minority who did exactly the opposite of what Jesus told them to do.

I am stating that Christianity, like all other religions, is based on faith which is inherently dangerous. I am also providing empirical evidence that faith specifically has motivated Christians to do great evil.

If you were at all honest, you would try to debate that premise instead of making a straw man.

You are also being completely hypocritical. After all, only a minority of Muslims have become terrorists. Yet you have no problem saying that Islamic terrorism is caused by Islam. Well, Christian atrocities also are caused by Christianity.

The hypocrisy of your position is unbearable.

PeopleUnited says

That is the exact argument that people make to enforce drug control

That's a lie.

www.youtube.com/embed/CJlqsdezhhk

Dan8267 says

PeopleUnited says

That is the exact argument that people make to enforce drug control

That's a lie.

www.youtube.com/embed/CJlqsdezhhk

Did you even bother to watch the video? You just proved my point. 2:56 Prohibitionists claim that drugs cause people to become violent. You are making the same claim about religion. By the way drug prohibition includes not just marijuana but heroin, crack, ICE, PCP. Prohibitionists want to ban drugs claiming that drugs cause violence. You have made the exact same charge against Christianity and religion as a whole. Own up to it. Oh and just like prohibitionists lie about marijuana causing violence, you lie about Jesus promoting violence.

Honey, your false equivalency does not pan out and your point isn't proven. If you are trying to argue that Christianity has not throughout the past 2000 years caused people to commit violence and atrocities then you are both wrong and a hypocrite. Let me hear you make that same dumb argument about Islam.

Dan8267 says

The hypocrisy of your position is unbearable.

It is your blindness that is unbearable. Open your eyes. Compare Jesus to that other guy. Faith in Jesus causes people to repent and trust in Him. Faith in Jesus requires that you do what He tells you to do. That is why most people don't want to be Christians, they don't want God telling them what to do. Jesus says not to kill, not to hate your neighbor. People who kill, hate, and other such things are not followers of Jesus and they have not acted out of faith in Him. The faithless people who claim to be killing, hating in Jesus name are not His disciples. But don't take my word for it.

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/articles/jesus-muhammad.aspx

Comparing Islam and Christianity
Jesus and Muhammad,
Islam and Christianity:
A Side-by-Side Comparison

It is not the purpose of this site to promote any particular religion,
including Christianity. However, TROP does enjoy refuting nonsense,
such as the claim that Muhammad and Jesus preached a
morally equivalent message or that all religion is the same.

"I will cast terror into the hearts of those who
disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads
and strike off every fingertip of them."
"Allah"(Quran 8:12)

"Fight everyone in the way of Allah and
kill those who disbelieve in Allah."
Muhammad (Ibn Ishaq 992)

"Love your neighbor and pray for those who persecute you."
Jesus (Matthew 5:44)

Even though many Muslims regard terrorists who kill in the name of Allah as criminals, they cannot deny that Muhammad also killed in the name of Allah. What example of Jesus do Christians emulate which has them confused with terrorists and criminals?

Each year, thousands of Christian homes and churches are torched or bombed by Muslim mobs, and hundreds of Christians, including dozens of priests, pastors, nuns and other church workers are murdered at the hands of Islamic extremists. The so-called justification varies, from charges of apostasy or evangelism, to purported "blasphemy" or " insulting" Islam. Innocent people have even been hacked to death by devout Muslims over cartoons.

Yet, there is little if any violent retaliation from religious Christians to the discrimination, kidnapping, rape, torture, mutilation and murder that is routinely reported from nations with Muslim majorities. Neither is there any significant deadly terrorism in the name of Jesus, as there is in the stated cause of Allah each and every day. Muslim clerics in the West do not fear for their safety as do their Christian counterparts.

The "Christian world" and the Islamic world contrast sharply in other ways as well, from the disparate condition of human rights and civil liberties to economic status. An astonishing 70% of the world's refugees are Muslims - usually seeking to live in Christian-based countries.

While Western societies take seriously "scandals" such as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo (where no one has actually been killed), Muslims routinely turn a blind eye to their own horrible atrocities, even those committed explicitly in the name of Allah. The Muslim world has yet to offer a single apology for the hundreds of millions who were consumed by centuries of relentless Jihad and slavery.

These sharp differences are almost certainly rooted in the underlying religions, which begin with the disparate teachings and examples set by Jesus and Muhammad...

Visit this website for a side by side comparison of Christianity and Islam. The chart is half way down the page.

My religion is good. Everyone else's religions are bad. So convincing. Well, that settles it. Let's ignore 2000 years of recorded history because some nutjob thinks his religion is the one true one.

Dan8267 says

Honey, your false equivalency does not pan out and your point isn't proven. If you are trying to argue that Christianity has not throughout the past 2000 years caused people to commit violence and atrocities then you are both wrong and a hypocrite. Let me hear you make that same dumb argument about Islam.

My religion is good. Everyone else's religions are bad. So convincing. Well, that settles it. Let's ignore 2000 years of recorded history because some nutjob thinks his religion is the one true one.

Sweetheart calling me names doesn't change the fact that Jesus does not preach violence. He blesses the peacemakers and called on His people to love their enemies.

PeopleUnited says

List of Islamic Terror:

Last 30 Days as of 4/14/17

This is part of the list of Islamic terror attacks maintained by TheReligionofPeace.com. (note this website does not catch all attacks, nor are they immediately posted)

During this time period, there were 137 Islamic attacks in 23 countries, in which 1124 people were killed and 1081 injured.