Les,

I guess you probably believe in the Big Bang theory too, huh?..we just sort of evolved out of slime..some cosmic mucus or something..yeah,right..
You did prove or reiterate a point that some Christians actually disagree on..whether we were predestined as in, God chooses us we don’t choose God. I believe God chose me.I believe He creates situations and circumstances for us to cry out to Him so it would seem that we chose Him...pretty arogant in itself to think we can snap our fingers and God would be there to do our bidding..HA!..so maybe, just maybe Les it wasn’t your time when you first “tried religion” or whatever you did..or maybe you aren’t part of the chosen....again, our feeble little limited minds find it difficult or impossible to conceive in a Supreme Being unless you do have the Holy Spirit residing in you..so, I was like you for almost 42 years of my life..how foolish I was..God stands outside of time(He can..He’s God..He “made the concept” if you will)..He has seen the beginning and end of this world. Everyone will know his Sovereignty one day.
I’m glad I know where I’ll go after I die on this earth...my soul, that is..oh, wait..you probably don’t believe you have one of those either..again, pity..

I guess you probably believe in the Big Bang theory too, huh?..we just sort of evolved out of slime..some cosmic mucus or something..yeah,right..

Your ignorance is showing. You cite one theory and then go on to provide an over-simplified explanation to a completely different and unrelated theory.

You did prove or reiterate a point that some Christians actually disagree on..whether we were predestined as in, God chooses us we don’t choose God. I believe God chose me.I believe He creates situations and circumstances for us to cry out to Him so it would seem that we chose Him...pretty arogant in itself to think we can snap our fingers and God would be there to do our bidding..HA!

It’s pretty arrogant to think there’s anything particularly special about us as a species that there’d be any reason for us to have an “afterlife” regardless of what form it should take.

so maybe, just maybe Les it wasn’t your time when you first “tried religion�? or whatever you did..or maybe you aren’t part of the chosen....again, our feeble little limited minds find it difficult or impossible to conceive in a Supreme Being unless you do have the Holy Spirit residing in you.

Ah, it’s the old you-can’t-truly-conceive-God-unless-you-have-the-Holy-Spook-in-you bullshit argument. It’s a shame that it seems that even those folks who are dead sure they’ve got the Holy Spook in themselves, such as yourself, can’t seem to agree on what the conception of God should be themselves. If they did they wouldn’t be having the aforementioned disagreement you brought up.

That’s one of the amusing things about True Believers™, you guys are quick to tell us what we don’t understand when it’s clear you don’t have an understanding yourself.

so, I was like you for almost 42 years of my life..how foolish I was.

Actually, I seriously doubt you were like me for 42 years. For one thing, I can type.

God stands outside of time(He can..He’s God..He “made the concept�? if you will)..He has seen the beginning and end of this world. Everyone will know his Sovereignty one day.

Which brings up one of my favorite arguments: If God already knows how it ends then what’s the friggin’ point of going through the motions? There can be no free will if the outcome is already known so the whole exercise becomes pointless. He may as well just have saved time by separating the wheat from the chaff at the time he created the souls in question and just be done with it. A God with foreknowledge destroys any point to existence.

I’m glad I know where I’ll go after I die on this earth...my soul, that is..oh, wait..you probably don’t believe you have one of those either..again, pity..

You’re right, I don’t believe in souls. Or invisible pink unicorns, dragons, diminutive underwear trolls, the Loch Ness monster, Big Foot, and any of a number of popular concepts that have little to no evidence to support them. Somehow I manage to make it through the day without any of these fanciful figures just fine.

Les,

I’m sorry if I came across as “holier than thou” earlier. It really wasn’t my place nor style. It is definitely your business what you believe or disbelieve in.
Thanks for responding though, I appreciate that.

Andrew

Ah jeebers - now he comes across all apologetic and friendly like (just like a lot of other T.B’s once backed in a corner)
How about this Andrew? -Why dont you actually REPLY TO LES’S COMMENTS ,before wiggling off on some other tangent....Yeah - we know,ya gotta have faith - proof is’nt nessesary,blah,blah,blah.

Frumpa,

The reason I didn’t respond to Les is that it would be pointless in trying to “convince” him just as his opinion or theory won’t change my mind because I do believe in God.
A co-worker (a pastor’s son no less) went through 22 years hearing his father teach and preach about God. He learned from his dad and others and could quote scripture and argue that God did exist, but did he actually believe? No, because God didn’t reveal Himself to him. It wasn’t his time. When he was saved I could see such a miraculous change in him and I was genuinely happy for him, but had NO idea what he was experiencing. He could verbally explain till he was blue in the face, but again, God has to choose to show Himself. Then about 3 weeks later, God did reveal Himself to me and saved me. This I know. No amount of explanation is going to make sense to you or anyone unless God decides to show you or if it’s even in His will to show you. This is not a put-down or an insult. So again, it’s pointless to even have any rational discussion because you don’t know or believe in God. If God chooses to show Himself and change you, He will. If He doesn’t, He won’t. That’s all I can really say to break any discussion or theory down to a simplistic, final denominator.
Also, true faith comes from God. We ourselves (outside of God) may have a self-professed faith which is flimsy at best. It will never hold up.  If you went through so much physical pain or anguish, what little faith you might have on your own would diminish or be gone.
All I can do is to pray that God will show Himself to you if it’s in His will.

Andrew

So Andrew, when I’m frying in hell it’ll be because God didn’t reveal Himself to me?  And what’s the deal with praying that he’ll reveal Himself to certain people?  Enough people pray, and He says, “Oh, all right, I’ll reveal Myself to that person.”

If that’s what your god is like, he’s all yours.

What Andrew is suffering from I think is best described as Delusional Psychosis complicated by Stockholm Syndrome.
The insidiousness of this disease to me at least is horrifying.

decrepitoldfool,

I’ll reiterate from my last posting. You and others that don’t know God will not and cannot understand.

Andrew

Andrew: your god is cruel and capricious.  But you and the others who disavow the use of your rational capacity will not and cannot understand.

Nunyabiz,

Did you learn or BELIEVE that in a Psych 101 class? You either believe or you don’t believe.
Funny though that you or others would think that Christianity, (having the most believers of all the major religions of the world)it’s members (were talking about millions upon millions here) all suffer from some kind of psychosis or some other psycho-babble theory that man has devised to feel comfortble about being a sinner.
AGAIN, if you don’t believe, you don’t believe.

Andrew

Shared Psychosis (folie a deux) or Mass Hysteria is not uncommon among those suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

http://www.devilzown.com/psychosisreligion.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_hysteria

Andrew clearly suffers from what Freud called credo quia absurdum,

“is said to be of a violent nature. This perspective maintains that the religious doctrines of the early Christian church are outside of the jurisdiction of human reason. It is a position that says that their truth must be felt inward, it need not be comprehended. But this is surely an absurd position. If the truth requires something above reason--an subjective experience--how can we expect that reason has any value at all, and what of those who have not had such an experience. There is no obligation for humanity to employ reason at all, and there is an exclusive means of determining what truth is--those that have not experienced it as the church says it is do not know the truth.”

Basically the Fundamentalist Zealot is “Afraid of Religion so long as they consider it a part of the reality to which they belong”.

Being afraid of your own Cognition you are frightened to even question it in rational terms.

Freud further states:

Rather it is our custom to introduce the child at a young age to the doctrines of religion, at a time where the child is not interested in them or capable of apprehending them. Thus, Freud notes, by the time that the child’s intellect emerges he or she is already been assailed by the doctrines of religion. What is the relative merit of closing off a mind by threats of hell-fire? Freud writes:

When a man has once brought himself to accept uncritically all the absurdities that religious doctrines put before him and even to overlook the contradictions between them, we need not be greatly surprised at the weakness of his intellect. But we have no other means of controlling our instinctual nature than by intelligence. How can we expect people who are under the dominance of prohibitions of thought attain the psychological ideal, the primacy of the intelligence?

http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/gthursby/fonda/freud21.html

I dont believe, simply because it does not exist in the natural/real world of which I reside in.

I have never attended any “Psych 101 class” however my room mate at Stanford was a Psych major and we had many a debate about this very subject.

‘Folie a deux’ which you refer to as MASS HYSTERIA, it’s actual translation is “madness has two”. I sure wouldn’t refer to “2” as a mass.
Again, Christianity has probably a billion members and you still believe that a ludicrous (I won’t even call it a hypothesis)idea that 1 billion people all share this same psychosis...whew! Boy, that’s got to be the biggest psychological phenomenon the history of the world has seen and I imagine will ever see.
I venture to say that your psychiatrists/psychologists’ theories and books and whatever else they spew out won’t survive the test of time as the Word of God.
You and I obviously think were both right. Ok, if you’re right, nothing happens. If I’m right..well, you know.

Andrew

Excuse me. “folie à plusieurs” then if that makes you feel better.
actually closer to 2 Billion Delusional Psychotics share this same “Illusion”, psychosis.
and another almost 2 Billion share the Delusion if Islam.
In total 2/3 to 3/4 of the entire planet is suffering from this dangerous Mind Plague/Meme.

Ahh yes then the usual, “if Im right you go to hell” threat....LOL

The insanity of religion knows no bounds.

You may deny Christ; that’s your choice.
Mine is to follow Him.

Andrew

Well, Andrew; peace and happiness to you.  As long as you don’t start asking the government to weave your mythology into our children’s education.

and I can only Pity you as you stroll around afraid of your delusions in the supernatural world you have been brainwashed into.

Im just thankful I have escaped such insanity in my life, except for those infected trying to force their Meme onto me.

The religious Meme is quite insidious.

and probably be just as dissapointed with them as I was with the Lord of the Rings, which I read when I was 14. There were just too many important parts left out of the movies, it’s the old “how to condense 10,000,000 words into 3 hrs or less thing�?.

While some of the “Lord of the Rings” was left out of the movie, I was extremely impressed with the movie version.
and BTW the movie version was 11hrs 38mins not 3. I was not disappointed at all.

For the record the approximate sizes of the top four belief systems is along the lines of:

Christianity - 2.1 billion
Islam - 1.3 billion
Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist - 1.1 billion
Hinduism - 900 million

Source: Major Religions of the World Ranked by Number of Adherents - Adherents.com

Christianity is generally on the decline in most places while Islam and the Non-Religious are both growing groups. Not that the number of adherents means much of anything other than a lot of people hold the same opinion on a particular religious viewpoint, but as long as you’re going to be trumpeting numbers I figured I may as well point out that us non-believers aren’t so far behind in the popularity race.

True, although last chart I saw seems like it was even closer than that.

Think it was 2-2.1 Billion “claiming” to be Christian.

1.5-1.6Billion Islam.

1.5 Billion Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist.

about 1 Billion everything else.

and yes Christians have been positively shrinking in numbers at least since 1990 at approx 1% per year.
In the USA in 1990 pew polls where people claimed to be Christian was at its peak of 86%.

in 2001 was 75% with a 2% drop in that year, going by those rates of attrition we should be between 70-72% currently.

IF this rate continues Atheist/Agnostics would out number Christians in the not so distant future.
We can only hope.

Wow, I am truly surprised, not only that agnostic/atheist/etc. ranks at least a billion, but that Judaism “only” ranks 14 million, per that website.  Whenever I hear/read discussions of major world religions, Judaism is always part of the “Big 5” (along with Chr, Isl, Bud, and Hin).  I don’t mean to say ag/ath should be included in that list or that Judaism isn’t significant in itself, but I dunno, I always thought Judaism was much more prevalent.

While we’re playing with numbers and belief systems:

Population of the world, June 2005 (per Wikipedia:
6.45 billion
Number of Christians:
2.1 billion
Number of non-Christians:
4.35 billion

So next time anyone gives you that “2 billion people can’t be wrong” argument ...

--Joe

Yeah I’ve used that exact argument before.

“Christian says: 2 Billion people cant be wrong”

Then using that logic 4.5 Billion must be twice as right as being Christian you are clearly in the minority.

Christian starts waving the old magic wand frantically to compensate.

Andrew is one of those believers who consider himself most special. It’s an ego thing. He was chosen and we must give him the respect he craves.

According to him, no matter how desperately we seek to know God, it will never happen unless God wishes it to; unless he chooses US.

If God chooses to show Himself and change you, He will. If He doesn’t, He won’t. That’s all I can really say to break any discussion or theory down to a simplistic, final denominator.

So, my next question has to be whether God has ever chosen someone who didn’t want to be chosen? If the crux of the matter is that he chooses independently of one’s desire to be saved then he must not care what an individual wants but only cares for what he wants.

You either believe or you don’t believe.
Funny though that you or others would think that Christianity, (having the most believers of all the major religions of the world)it’s members (were talking about millions upon millions here) all suffer from some kind of psychosis or some other psycho-babble theory that man has devised to feel comfortble about being a sinner.

Belief should be based on reasonable suppositions and discernible facts . You give no good reasons to believe and therefore should be perceived as delusional. You can’t use the numbers claim because within the greater Christianity group there are many divergent beliefs, such that one person’s core beliefs are deal-breakers to others. Each of you believes slightly differently so there is no universal agreement. And throwing the sinner label around is just pathetic. You have no authority to name another’s sins even if you think you are specially chosen to do so.

Mostly Andrew, I’m curious how you can be certain you are saved. You claim bragging rights but where is your proof? I bet you can think of several people you consider misled who say they are saved. They no doubt think you are confused too, and these are members within your own organization.

It is unfair of me to challenge you if what you believe harms no one but I think beliefs like yours harm many. If nothing else you are egotistically furthering a dangerous meme; one that seeks to devalue human worth and curiosity.

You might be wrong, and that to me is what’s most important about this discussion. Yourself, and those somewhat like you, might be wrong.

Brock notes: Andrew is one of those believers who consider himself most special. It’s an ego thing. He was chosen and we must give him the respect he craves.

You beat me to it - this is *exactly* what I thought as well.

The truth of the matter is that Andrew is the kind of person no one wants to hang out with *anyway* - he just hasn’t understood that simple concept. Yet. 

Consider his own admissions - he was into all kinds of immoral behavior, “partying” and “whoring” and whatnot.  He got married because he “had to”, and then - surprise surprise - divorced several years later.  This is not the sort of person *I* would care to associate with, and certainly isn’t the sort most of us choose to hang around with once we grow up and start behaving like adults.

To his credit, Andrew *realized* that he was an asshole - but by reaching out for yet another crutch (religion), he’s still not getting the fact that people just don’t really want to hang out with assholes. Whether they’re druggie/alcoholic assholes or bible-thumping assholes really isn’t important - it’s the “asshole” part that’s at the crux of the problem.

Fix *that*, fella, and everything else will fall into place - fast cars, fast women, and powerful handguns will be yours.  Yewbetcha.

Some people decide to change and they do.  Others need a pre-packaged change in their lives.  Andrew seems to be of the latter variety.

I could hardly fault Andrew for not having started at the finish line - when it comes to interpersonal mistakes I’ve sure made some doozies.  But he should know that not everyone is comfortable with pre-packaged personal change.  It can start to chafe rather badly with time.

Some people decide to change and they do.  Others need a pre-packaged change in their lives.  Andrew seems to be of the latter variety.

Yes, and some people seek that change because they wish to survive or at least be happy and they know their current lifestyles IE drugs, whoring, unhappy marriages etc, promise misery and possibly even death.

Does this sound, in any way, like what Christianity preys on? Hint: The promise of happiness and survival. Christianity creates a fake threat and then provides a one of a kind solution. In other words, it’s simply humankind’s worst fears laid bare and then solved.

If you want to control someone’s thoughts and actions, first you have to convince them that they are imperfectly made. You tell them they are natural sinners, carnal weaklings that are doomed, unless… You convince them that they are dependent upon a greater power for their ultimate survival and to save them from eternal suffering.

Then you sit back and collect the guilt/buy off money.

OK, on to the next mind game and the best way to solve it >>>