Christianity &c

[Guest Vern Gagne]

My philosophy on my Christianity. I believe what, I believe. Never will I force my believes on anyone. People make up their own minds. Civil Debate is fine, but anything beyond that I wouldn't involve myself with.

[Guest Danny Dubya v 2.0]

Perhaps she isn't a sheep.

Aye, that is quite the best and shortest way to put it.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

Read a little further Angel, to understand what I meant.

[Guest Hogan Made Wrestling]

Best flame ever!

[Guest Dangerous A]

I would pay money to see Marney go one on one with Sola Gratia/Dopey.

 

On a personal note, I don't find SP that offensive. Maybe it's because I don't hang around CE folder as often as others do and I see a different side of SP in other forums. Regardless, SP can't shake a stick to the blind fanaticism of Sola Gratia/Dopey. SP is open to discussion and such.

 

For those of you who knew who SG/Dopey was, you'd have to agree that the fireworks would be pretty fierce between him and Marney.

[Guest Vern Gagne]

Is SP a sheep or just someone who has very strong personal beliefs?

[Guest TheGame2705]

Really it's stupid to think that you can be Christian and not do what it says in the bible. I know I'm majorly fucking up in one area but I know I'm wrong. The bible is your set of rules to live by, you can't change it so it's convenient.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

I assume that means that you don't find much of a difference between most religions, but just that the idea of the power of sacrifice has brought you to follow out Christianity.

Not really. I was brought up as a Jesuit and that's what I've been most of my life, excepting some fairly lengthy periods of atheism and agnosticism. Christianity is a neoplatonic religion in its essence and that's what makes it palatable to me once you take the people out - because the people make it insane. It embarrasses me to share the religion with idiots, morons, borderline psychotics like SpiderPoet who constantly go on about "supernatural warfare" and "supernatural events" they "personally experienced" and could only repel by "calling on Jesus" and using "the power of his name." Like I'm so fucking sure the fucking Prince of Darkness decided to come after his fucking soul. But because he's so fucking important Jesus stretched forth His Hand and Saved him by His Grace, thus condemning the rest of us to an everlasting hell of darkness and wailing and gnashing of teeth while he TELLS us about it OVER AND OVER AND FUCKING OVER AGAIN.

Goddamn delusional halfwit.

 

Anyway, no, Christianity isn't the same as other religions because

1) Jesus lost

2) Jesus offered salvation to everyone, regardless of birth or sin (We'll skip over Matthew 15:24 because he admitted he was wrong anyway.)

 

The first reason matters because it demonstrates absolutely that there is a higher principle than self-preservation: the son of God should have been able to do anything, anything at all. Kill the people who wanted to crucify him, change their minds, convert them on the spot, show them the truth - anything. But he didn't, because self-determination trumps everything, and consequently overcoming your limitations means nothing if you're helped in any way by a supernatural agency. Those who were saved weren't saved by Jesus but by themselves. Jesus was just an example. It doesn't matter who his father was; he demonstrated anew what Socrates had argued, and demonstrated, about 400 years ago: it is worse to commit evil than it is to suffer it. It is better to fail and die than it is to redeem by force, or through immoral means:

"In battle it is often obvious that you could escape being killed by giving up your arms and throwing yourself upon the mercy of your pursuers, and in every kind of danger there are plenty of devices for avoiding death if you are unscrupulous enough... but I suggest, gentlemen, that the difficulty is not so much to escape death; the real difficulty is to escape from doing wrong, which is far more fleet of foot. I, the slow old man, have been overtaken by the slower of the two, but my accusers, who are clever and quick, have been overtaken by the faster - by iniquity. When I leave this court, I shall go away condemned by you to death, but they will go away convicted by truth herself of depravity and wickedness."

- Plato, Apologia

 

Socrates delves further into this fact in the Gorgias, when Polus says

"Surely it is the man unjustly put to death who is pitiable and wretched."

and Socrates replies,

"Less so than his slayer, Polus, and less than he who is put to death justly."

and then proceeds to prove it point by point.

 

In other words, Jesus lost deliberately in order to serve as an example of this truth. Mohammed, on the other hand, won - and he did so through immoral means, by breaking treaties, forcibly converting others, and subjugating "unbelievers." And of course the Jews are still waiting for their Messiah who will convert everyone, finally, to a perfect and unanimous worship of God. Excuse me if I don't hold my breath, but at least they don't think that being chosen means they have to make people recite the Torah at the point of a sword. Or by flying aeroplanes into buildings.

 

I agree with the underpinnings of Christianity cited above. I do not agree with the ridiculous belief that an omnipotent God would be so pathetic and powerless that he'd create a hell in the first place ("And I know of the future judgment,/How dreadful soe'er it be,/That to sit alone with my conscience/Will be judgement enough for me." - CW Stubbs), let alone petty enough to consign anyone to it for not believing in him. I know plenty of moral atheists, and any God who'd damn them because they don't give a shit about the Sabbath (Exodus 31:14) is a God who can go straight to hell himself. I don't believe in the vast majority of Church doctrine, all that shit about going to hell if you fuck before you get married, or fuck someone with the same genitalia as you. I still go to Mass because I like the music, and because it gives me a chance to think. On occasion the preachers even say something worth listening to, and if they don't I sometimes waylay them afterwards and make them look silly and ignorant for the amusement of my archbishop. I despise the Catholic church, like most Catholics do to at least some degree.

 

But at least they aren't literally selling the Pope's shit anymore.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Really it's stupid to think that you can be Christian and not do what it says in the bible.

The Bible prescribes slavery of the "heathen." You might have run into a few difficulties in the late 1800s, never mind now. Do you kill people you see working on Sundays? How about mixed fibres? Do you wear clothes with mixed fibres? You naughty, naughty boy.

 

"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God, because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."

- Thomas Jefferson's letter to P Carr, 1787

 

I know I'm majorly fucking up in one area but I know I'm wrong.

Well gee, I guess that makes it all right then. Wait, no it doesn't.

 

The bible is your set of rules to live by, you can't change it so it's convenient.

The first half of the Bible is a cut-and-paste book of myths from a bunch of desert nomads, taken in part from the epic of Gilgamesh. A few books in the second half have some redeeming value. Most don't. And if you really think that no one's ever added to it or distorted it in any way, you're beyond stupid. Anyway, could you tell me which version is the literal word of God, unchanging and unchangeable? The King James Version? The Third Millenium? The American Standard? The New American Standard? The Revised Standard? Douay-Rheims? The New Living Translation? The Good News Translation? Or maybe you read it in the Latin, or the Greek? I'm sure you must know Latin at the very least. I can read Attican Greek (slowly) but the Bible's Greek is pretty corrupt. Or maybe you read it in the Hebrew. Do you read it in the Hebrew? That would be impressive.

 

Hey, thanks for the salvation. I'll await your answer eagerly, you ignorant supercilious hypocritical little shit.

 

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel."

- Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

 

Fuck the Bible, and fuck you. I'll do what I think is right, and I'll take the parts of the Bible that make sense and are moral and chuck the rest in the trash. If that means I'm not a Christian, fuck Christianity, too. At least I won't have to live with the shame of sharing a religion with you and SpiderPoet.

Edited July 11, 2003 by Cancer Marney

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Is SP a sheep or just someone who has very strong personal beliefs?

Neither. He's a fucking psycho who has a decent chance of being on one of my APBs within the next 10 years for deciding that his neighbour's dog is Beelzebub.

 

Supernatural warfare my cute little ass.

[Guest Mystery Eskimo]

"In battle it is often obvious that you could escape being killed by giving up your arms and throwing yourself upon the mercy of your pursuers, and in every kind of danger there are plenty of devices for avoiding death if you are unscrupulous enough... but I suggest, gentlemen, that the difficulty is not so much to escape death; the real difficulty is to escape from doing wrong, which is far more fleet of foot. I, the slow old man, have been overtaken by the slower of the two, but my accusers, who are clever and quick, have been overtaken by the faster - by iniquity. When I leave this court, I shall go away condemned by you to death, but they will go away convicted by truth herself of depravity and wickedness."

- Plato, Apologia

That kicks all kinds of ass.

 

*puts Plato on library list*

[Guest Nater]

"The bible is your set of rules to live by, you can't change it so it's convenient."

 

Thats crazy! I'm glad my life doesnt have an instruction manual.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

(looks at this massive throwdown)

 

Shit. I'm getting too old for this anymore.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

I generally find buffet-style religion pretty annoying for the simple fact that both the good and the bad are included when you read the book. It's better than taking the thing as literal fact from cover to cover, but in that respect it's only the lesser of two evils.

 

I mean, are you a christian or aren't you? Call me an old-fashioned atheist, but being kinda christian is like being kinda pregnant. If all you agree with is the ethics, that doesn't make you a christian. God and Jesus are core elements of the whole equation, right?

[Guest KanadianKrusty]

This better end up in the classic threads folder.

[Guest TheZsaszHorsemen]

What do you mean religion doesn't have anything to say about science? RobStone begs to differ.

If someone will bother looking for it, Stone and I had a WAR over this that lasted multiple pages. It in this folder, and it was a really cool topic that might be classic threads worthy. Hell, Tom even said he loved the premise.

[Guest TheZsaszHorsemen]

I feel the same way. I'm just wondering what Marney believes, since she's the most intelligent Christian on the board, and probably more intelligent than most Christians I know in my own life.

Next time you give cunnilingus to another poster, have the fucking decency to do it in PM.

[Guest SP-1]

Good for you, Marney. I didn't even read the whole rant since I've seen it before. I fail to see see how that was some in-your-face Holy Crusade. All it was, was me explaining that I take no responsibility for the actions of the fundamentalists. I'm not a fundamentalist. I go to a fucking PCA church. We're the black sheep of Christianity more often than not, and FAR from fundamentalists.

 

If posting in the CE folder means that the almighty Marney gets to pass judgement on you, then I pity each and every person that allows that to happen. Posting on a message board does not mean that the others there have the right to judge you, especially when it's judgement based on the actions of people you've never met with beliefs that you may differ on. Good job on the rant. You've completely twisted and contorted anything I've ever said to suit your need to find a target and go off on them, but if that's what you're going to base yourself on around here, then go for it.

 

Now. 9/11.

 

Fuck you, Marney. I sincerely hope that the same fire that got lit under Dames' ass when others brought up the subject gets lit again, because that's the sickest thing I've ever heard. You're going to hold ME responsible for 9/11, based on holding me responsible for the actions of Christians, when MUSLIM TERRORISTS did it?

 

Fuck that. And fuck you. And fuck every single person that is fucking insane enough to even THINK that there's some kind of correlation between the deaths of thousands of people, one of the most horrendous things in American history, and SPIDERPOET.

 

There are some things worth getting angry over. That's one of them. You call ME an extremist? Ha. You've just proven yourself far more extreme than I could ever be, were I so inclined. I'm going to go listen to my devil rock music, dance with some other Presbyterians, and have a smoke while downing some Tequilla. On the church steps.

 

But all Christians are fundamental extremists, right?

 

If TSM is going to allow 9/11 accusatiosn from the resident CE Darling, then every single rule and banning before now hasn't meant a thing, Dames. You know it, and I know it. If this is the kind of shit that flies, then this board truly has gone downhill.

[Guest SP-1]

By the way, anyone who buys Marney's explanations of Christianity, go buy a book of doctrine. She's spewing bullshit. I've sat down and explained doctrine on here quite often, so I'm not going to do it again. It's available, if you want to know what the actual core of Christianity is: Grace.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Well, if you'd read her post, you'd see that she said thumbing your nose at your faith due to a moral issue isn't an excuse, not that you directly organized a terrorist attack.

 

So ease off the trigger, Potatohead.

[Guest SP-1]

Is SP a sheep or just someone who has very strong personal beliefs?

Just a guy with beliefs and a strong grasp of core christian doctrine and it's driving force, grace.

 

I'm just a guy. Just a dude who generally knows his stuff, who doesn't blow up abortion clinics or go hunting down sinners with a handgun. Just a guy who posts on a wrestling messageboard and, *gasp*, lets his beliefs be the support of, well, what he believes.

 

Not a guy who has ever forced his beliefs on anyone (go on, show me where it's happened).

 

Not a psycho who thinks there's a demon around every corner (though there are darker things at work in the world, whether you're Christian, Wiccan, or whatever spiritual belief system you carry).

 

Just a dude. Who believes. And who posts on a messageboard.

[Guest SP-1]

The inference of blame is still on me and my kind, AoO. And I refuse to take responsibility for that. If you're going to go that route, then every person who has slaveowner ancestors is responsible to any descendants of slaves to make up for it. The transfer of blame is still there.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

(though there are darker things at work in the world, whether you're Christian, Wiccan, or whatever spiritual belief system you carry).

 

See, what the fuck is this then? If you're suggesting that there could, indeed, be a

 

DEMON:

 

..around the corner...you have no right to call anything crazy ever again.

 

Besides, vague comments about devils and moral attack, in jesus name, amen, reek of antiquated fire and brimstone religion that you so thoroughly shun as fundie misrepresentation of Christ.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

The inference of blame is still on me and my kind, AoO. And I refuse to take responsibility for that. If you're going to go that route, then every person who has slaveowner ancestors is responsible to any descendants of slaves to make up for it. The transfer of blame is still there.

Of course it is. You refuse to take blame for any wrongdoings committed by the church, right? Even if only when it doesn't involve you directly.

 

You'd say that things like The Inquisition bear no corrollary to YOUR brand of jesus, right?

 

...here's how that's relevant. Simply "not claiming" the more savage sects of christianity doesn't make you exempt from what they do in God's name.

 

As far as the slaves and slaveowners go, I like how that analogy relates to the subject matter in general, but not in this application. I don't own slaves. You still "own" christianity.

[Guest TheZsaszHorsemen]

(though there are darker things at work in the world, whether you're Christian, Wiccan, or whatever spiritual belief system you carry).

 

See, what the fuck is this then? If you're suggesting that there could, indeed, be a

 

DEMON:

 

..around the corner...you have no right to call anything crazy ever again.

 

Besides, vague comments about devils and moral attack, in jesus name, amen, reek of antiquated fire and brimstone religion that you so thoroughly shun as fundie misrepresentation of Christ.

I don't think that's what he meant, AoO. I think he my have been referring to ordinary evil we see everyday: Rape, gangs, murder, theft, sex crimes, drugs. The fact that humanity does this to itself is worse then any demons from hell.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

What people do to each other has nothing to do with demons and angels, or heaven and hell, unless it's a crusade or the son of sam.

 

What you mentioned was crime. By that logic, you're stating getting pistolwhipped by a crackhead for your money is worse than AN ETERNITY IN BIBLICAL TORMENT.

[Guest TheZsaszHorsemen]

What people do to each other has nothing to do with demons and angels, or heaven and hell, unless it's a crusade or the son of sam.

 

What you mentioned was crime. By that logic, you're stating getting pistolwhipped by a crackhead for your money is worse than AN ETERNITY IN BIBLICAL TORMENT.

SP, only said darker forces at work. That refers to evil in general, not just the Christian figure of "Satan." Thus, my post was totally appropriate.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Personally, I think it refers to bullshit, but that's just my two cents. What would the all-purpose evil in general be then? We've got crime covered, what's next? Disease? Famine, maybe? Evil certainly goes hand in hand with suffering, right?

 

Or maybe you mean the kind of evil that involves people being greedy or jealous, and taking advantage of others.

 

Either way, NONE of these things relate, IN ANY WAY to one's supposed afterlife of torture, so there's no "darker than the minions of hell" comparisons to be drawn to them.

 

My bottom line: Being greedy or cappin' a sucka in the hood is NOT in fact "darker" than the popular vision of hell. If real life is worse, then what kind of god are you worshipping?

[Guest TheZsaszHorsemen]

Personally, I think it refers to bullshit, but that's just my two cents. What would the all-purpose evil in general be then? We've got crime covered, what's next? Disease? Famine, maybe? Evil certainly goes hand in hand with suffering, right?

 

Or maybe you mean the kind of evil that involves people being greedy or jealous, and taking advantage of others.

 

Either way, NONE of these things relate, IN ANY WAY to one's supposed afterlife of torture, so there's no "darker than the minions of hell" comparisons to be drawn to them.

 

My bottom line: Being greedy or cappin' a sucka in the hood is NOT in fact "darker" than the popular vision of hell. If real life is worse, then what kind of god are you worshipping?

I don't know. I don't care either. I just posted because I didn't think that SP was implying that demons from hell walked that Earth.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Eh, maybe, but if that's the case, he has to show how crime is worse than hell.