Why is this called a " Christian DEbate site"

[Tex]

It seems all people do here is attack God.

It should be called an "atheist" debate site. It's most probably to get Christians to come into the lions den.

[Tex]

double post

[Tex]

What door are you talking about Tex? Do you think this discussion site is a Christian Church?

And what do you mean by "our" religion, or "one of us".

Clearly you are viewing Christianity as some sort of exclusive club.

I'm not even on that wavelength at all Tex. I don't even consider "Christiandom" at all. That is to say, that I'm not the least bit interested in or concerned with groups of individuals alive today who have deluded themselves into believing that they own Christianity or that they own Jesus as "The Christ".

If that's your mentality, then you and I could never have a meaningful conversation about "Christianity" because we'd be talking about two entirely different things.

I speak to the scriptures and the claims made by the ancient authors who wrote this stuff. Those are the only "True Christians" as far as I'm concerned.

The fact that the religion has the effect on you to make you feel that you somehow own the rights to it is precisely the kind of negativity I feel this religion has on humanity. I has the negative effect of causing its followers to believe that they somehow own Jesus.

Tex: Blah Blah Blah.....Do even realize that you have to except LOrd Jesus as your Savior to be a Christian? Is that to hard for you to understand?

I'm truly not concerned with your personal views of me Tex.

That's totally irrelevant.

From my perspective an ancient ignorant male-chauvinistic society created a mythical jealous God who supposedly hates heathens where a heathen is simply defined as anyone who refuses to cower down to the religion created by this ignorant male-chauvinistic society.

I was born into a family and culture that had already bought into this ancient myth and it was for that reason, and that reason alone, that I ever even gave it any consideration at all.

In the beginning I did accept it naively as a matter of pure faith. Only because my parents, extended family, and church members told me that it was true. Of course some of them confessed that even they have doubts, and some of those were even preachers!

I decided that I would like to "spread God's Word" and help people to better understand it. So I looked into the matter deeply myself. What I discovered when I did this is that the religion hasn't a prayer of being true. I've concluded that it cannot possibly be true.

So now you're suggesting that I should just go hide in the corner and not share with other people what I've learned?

Why?

Why should I not share my discoveries that this religion has no more merit than Greek Mythology?

Why should you expect me to hide the truth I've discovered?

This site is not a Bible Study site Tex.

Everyone who is here is not here to support these ancient myths in spite of the overwhelming evidence against them.

The case against these ancient superstitious, and often highly immoral, myths is profound, and people have the right to hear this truth whether you approve of it or not.

You do not own Christianity, neither do you own Jesus, so you can take that mindset and shove it where the sun don't shine.

I reject the fables of an ancient society of male-chauvinistic pigs. And if that offends you, all I can say is that I'm sorry, but that doesn't change a thing.

To be fair, I'm personally shocked that you would support such an immoral collection of fables as being the "Word of God", but that's your problem, not mine.

Tex: Yet again....What you say is Not true..... and I say it is. And I really don't care what you think. From what I read from your posts, you are absolutely clueless to what you believe in. You have made up your own beliefs and are trying to say that mine are false. Who are you to tell ME that my believes are false?
So before you point the finger look at yourself.[/quote]

[cnorman18]

I expect nothing from this site. It's just another place that uses the word "Christianity" for publicity. Once you are here you see there is no discussion about what or what not our Lord wanted from us. We are here only to be used as tools to be made to look like idiots for believing in a so called "fictional" Character.

I personally have extreme arguments against your position on this specific point.

Christianity is a highly proselytizing and evangelizing religion. The religion, both in scripture, and via the people who follow it, is being used to accuse ALL PEOPLE of being heathens, sinners, and worshipers of Satan who have blatantly chosen to reject God via their own free will choice.

That, my friend is one hell of an accusation.

And now you're telling us that we have no right to rebuttal of these charges?

The idea that 'only believers" have a right to speak out positive and supportive view of Christianity and those who STAND ACCUSED of being heathen sinners have no right to speak out against the religion is precisely the brainwashing mentality that has kept this archaic ignorant religion alive for so many centuries.

We THE ACCUSED, (i.e. anyone who doesn't believe in Christianity) have every right to point out the utter absurdities of these ancient myths.

What you are suggesting is that every single web site that discusses Christianity must do so as "Bible Study" by believers only, whilst the accused heathens are silenced by not being permitted to speak out unless they are willing to do so by first accepting that the Bible is indeed the "Word of God" and treating it with this level of respect.

That's baloney.

And you just accused Cnorman18 of being in a position to have to "prove" that his choice was a wise choice.

Which you also left BTW. One who abandoned the teaching of Christ. So your also in a position to make sure you prove your choice was a wise one.

How utterly arrogant is that on your part?

Cnorman doesn't need to prove anything to you in terms of his personal choices in life. That's a very personal accusation being made toward him right there.

It's these kind of personal accusations that get you in trouble here Tex.

No one is passing any judgements on your choices. And you have no right to be prying into the personal choices of others, or making any personal insinuations like that at all.

Here's a graphic that says it all I think:



Christianity is the most hypocritical religion on Earth.

The religion is used to constantly disrespect and degrade non-Christians, but the moment someone speaks out against the Christian dogma, the Christians start screaming foul and demand respect.

How hypocritical is that?

I have no sympathy at all for Christianity the religion, and even less sympathy for the followers who use the religion to belittle others and then scream foul when those people point out the utter ignorance and absurdities of this religion.

And this hypocritical mentality that this religion incites in some people is just more reasons why it's so detrimental to humanity.

You can't be using Christianity to belittle other people and then complain when they show no respect for your religion, accusations, and insinuations toward them.

I'm personally not an atheist, but like the atheist in the graphic above I would love nothing more than to break that ignorant symbolic cross to pieces. It's become nothing more than a club that Christians use to beat other people over the head with just as portrayed in the above graphic.

And then they demand respect?

I don't think they deserve respect after that.

Before I respond directly to Tex's personal attacks and incredibly disrespectful remarks, I'd like to point out this one thing:

Tex is not representative of all Christians.

[cnorman18]

Can you give some specific examples of God being "disrespected"?

If you consider doubting whether God even exists, or even asserting that He does NOT exist, "disrespect," then you are asking something that is not reasonable for a site where nonbelievers are welcome. Many of the debates here are about God's existence or nonexistence; demanding that God be respected as a "living God" is absolutely begging the question. You don't begin a debate by assuming that one side is correct.

If you regard asking why God allows horrible things to happen and remarking that one is not willing to worship a God Who would as "disrespectful," that also is too much to ask. Theodicy is one of the chief subjects for debate here, and it is a legitimate one.

I'd still like to hear from Tex on this, but as long as you've rung in, let's see some specific examples of "disrespect" to God and see if they stand up to examination.

Bear in mind that I DO believe in God.

Amazing....We have to show you when atheist disrespect the God we trust and believe in?

Yes. So far, you have only pointed to Divine Insights remarks; and DI is only stating his opinions. I therefore gather that stating ones opinions, if they arent congruent with your own (confessing belief in God and Jesus, and so on) is equivalent to disrespect to you.

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion as well; but if it is your opinion that the opinions of others ought to be suppressed if you disagree with them -- well, in that case, you are in the wrong place.

Please correct me if I am wrong in my conclusions.

You the defender of the atheist.....The one who state that you can be an atheist but still pretend to belong to the Church or should I say Synagog.

I suppose you mean synagogue, and I have never said any such thing. Atheists may be practicing and observant Jews, and that does not entail pretending anything.

You make belief in God, even more of a joke to the atheist.

Wake up man!!

May I point out that one accurate descriptor of your remarks here is disrespectful?

I have never, as in not ever, disrespected or denigrated your religion in any way; indeed, I have often defended the Christian religion here (as I did in my last post, in fact). You seem to feel that it is perfectly acceptable for you to mock and ridicule the opinions of others, but that it is NOT acceptable for others merely to disagree with your own. How much sense does THAT make?

Like I asked earlier: What did you expect from this site? What would you like to see here that isn't here? How would you change it? I ask sincerely and in good faith; this might help us all understand your complaints.

I expect nothing from this site. It's just another place that uses the word "Christianity" for publicity. Once you are here you see there is no discussion about what or what not our Lord wanted from us.

Apparently there IS something that you expected, and that would be it -- that there would be discussion about what or what not our Lord wanted from us. You will find those discussions in the Holy Huddle subforum, which is reserved for Christians only. The rest is open to all, and those topics are of little interest to people who are not Christians. It seems odd to me to expect that they would.

We are here only to be used as tools to be made to look like idiots for believing in a so called "fictional" Character.

That is an obvious falsehood. You are here for your own reasons; some do believe that believers in God are ipso facto idiots, but that is an idea which I have argued against, and rather successfully in my own way, for five years now. In any case, you dont convince people of anything by silencing them. You convince them by presenting arguments, evidence, or other material to support your own position.

If that approach doesnt interest you -- well, once again, you are apparently in the wrong place. You might try CARM or one of the many Christian forums who more or less discourage or even disallow and ban non-believers who dare to question Christian doctrines and beliefs. This is not such a place.

Which you also left BTW. One who abandoned the teaching of Christ. So your also in a position to make sure you prove your choice was a wise one.

I have not seen that you have shown any capacity for mindreading. You have no warrant to claim to know why I am here -- and THAT accusation is provably false anyway; I have never said that my decision was a wise one, or indeed that it was right or correct at all; I have said that it was the right decision for ME, and that only.

Once again; if you think that only opinions that mirror your own, or hold the Christian faith in reverence and pronounce it to be true, correct, and the only acceptable belief system to follow, you are in the wrong place. Peace to you, but you will never be happy here.

One wonders why you have tormented yourself by staying this long.

[Divine Insight]

Your cartoon really doesn't resonate with me. Can you please specify when Tex or I "used Christianity to belittle you"?

Being a non-Christian the cartoon resonates with me quite well.

To begin with I don't need to specify when you or Tex have personally belittled me. I never made the claim that either of you were personally guilty of that. Although, having said that I could show where Tex had made such comments toward me personally, not in this thread, but in others. I'm not going to do that though because it's clear that he has already been cited for various violations of this nature on this site. You can go to the probation thread and click on the links to the offensive posts there.

The cartoon is quite valid in general, not just with respect to me personally. I did not create that cartoon and that fact that it exists on the web is evidence that I'm not the only one who agrees with its message.

I'm not even an atheist, and I've been insulted and belittled by many Christianity for merely not embracing and supporting Christianity. Do you think they care that I actually believe in God? No. Because they don't even recognize my belief in God because I don't believe in the God of the ancient Hebrews.

So they insult me by proclaiming that I am rejecting "God" when nothing could be further from the truth.

Christianity does not own God, despite its overbearing arrogance concerning that matter.

As I searched for examples for people saying really disrespectful things about God I found a few and they were all written by you.

First off, I would never say anything disrespectful about God.

I reject the ancient Hebrew fables about God because IMHO, it's their fables that are an insult to any God that might exist.

It's ancient fables and superstitions that I say disrespectful things about. And my purpose in doing that is to show that they are indeed unworthy of my respect. That is indeed the heart of my arguments against them.

Obviously something has happened to you in the past that really made you hate the idea of God.

I love the idea of God.

But yes, I hate the idea that you think you own God.

I can understand hating people or organizations who have wronged you. But for the life of me I can't understand hating the cross.

Hating the cross? Now we're getting somewhere.

Yes, to me the idea that any so-called "God" would have his only begotten son butchered on a pole as a symbol of "love" is so sick and demented, that yes, I most certainly do hate that idea.

Yes, I confess. I hate the idea that someone would need to be beaten and nailed to a pole before some insane sick demented God could "love" them.

To me, religious myths don't get much sicker than that. There is nothing pretty about such a thing, IMHO.

And that's just my honest sincere opinion.

Why it is that you can't understand the LOVE of my position on that is beyond me.

Why would I want to reduce love to being symbolized by a crucifixion that some God himself requires? That's not LOVE, IMHO.

Ignore it, sure. But to me it represents God's love for you. Ignore it, don't believe it, sure.
But why hate it?

Having someone beaten and nailed to a pole represents God's Love?

Would you like to debate that particular issues head-to-head?

I can give you a myriad of reasons why that makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.

And I'm certain that you would be extremely hard-pressed to give me a single solitary reason why it could possibly make any sense.

You "Christians" try to ram Christianity down the throats of everyone else, accusing them of refusing to accept "God's Love", and insinuating that they "Hate God", just because they see nothing divine about Christianity.

And you even do this to people like me who actually believe in a real God.

I'm not even an atheist. I just reject religions that make God out to be a monster.

The harder you push Christianity at me, the harder I'll push back.

~~~~~

In fact, here's something that I'm certain never crosses your mind:

I have tried in the past on discussion forums to just present my mystical views of God and just totally ignore Christianity.

Do you think that's possible?

No way!

The Christians will immediately pounce on my thread screaming that "Only Jesus is Lord" and that my mystical views of God, are sick demented views that are clearly from Satan!

You people won't even allow other religions to be expressed with having to jump in and accuse the believers of those other spiritual philosophies of being "misguided" or possessed by Satan.

So trust me, I've been there in the past, trying to support the truly beautiful mystical views of God only to have mud thrown at me by the Christians who "Hate" anyone who doesn't worship Jesus as Lord.

So that's why I finally gave in and realize that the only way to deal with Christianity is to meet it HEAD ON.

The Christians really give me no choice in the matter.

~~~~~

All I ask from any Christian is to simply comprehend why I have legitimate reasons for dismissing Christianity as being implausible and unrealistic.

But no, they refuse to allow for that. Instead all the do is continually accuse me of "Hating God" etc, just because I find Christianity to be utterly despicable.

By the way, I don't even reject Jesus, or the moral teachings attributed to Jesus.

I totally accept that Jesus was most likely a Mahayana Buddhist. Misunderstood, and made into the monster of Christianity via outrageous superstitions perhaps, but still a good man in spite of that.

And I'll gladly debated anyone on that issue head-to-head anytime they so choose.

Even the Jews reject that Jesus was "The Christ".

I just go a bit further and reject the fables of the God of the Old Testament too.

I place God far ABOVE any of that disgusting sickness.

So as far as I'm concerned I'm the one who's trying hard to support a far better picture of God.

[Divine Insight]

Before I respond directly to Tex's personal attacks and incredibly disrespectful remarks, I'd like to point out this one thing:

Tex is not representative of all Christians.

Yes, I fully understand. And I don't hold anything against Christians in general at all.

In fact, many of my friends and relatives are Christians.

On a debate forum like this I address the religion, not the people who believe in the religion.

Or at least I try to keep it to that.

I don't even have anything against Tex. Actually.

I'm just trying to explain that I address religions, not people.

The accusations that seem to come back to me is that I'm a "God Hater".

And that is a personal judgement that misses the point of a religious debate.

[LiamOS]

Your cartoon really doesn't resonate with me. Can you please specify when Tex or I "used Christianity to belittle you"?

Finding examples of you belittling anybody would likely be difficult(That's a compliment).
In the case of Tex however, it isn't.


A quick scan of the thread comes up with the following:

Wake up man!!

I expect nothing from this site. It's just another place that uses the word "Christianity" for publicity. Once you are here you see there is no discussion about what or what not our Lord wanted from us.

Blah Blah Blah....

Do even realize that you have to except LOrd Jesus as your Savior to be a Christian? Is that to hard for you to understand?

And I really don't care what you think.

From what I read from your posts, you are absolutely clueless to what you believe in.

As you can see.....If people don't want to believe in Christ....They know where the door is.

But then you leave and start complaining why it is you left. [...] Hoping a few Christian will hear your cry.

Now, I don't find any of that in itself to be worth commenting on, but Tex is complaining that nobody is respecting his opinion... I don't see how he, or anybody else for that matter, would be surprised; respect is a two way street.

[cnorman18]

Before I respond directly to Tex's personal attacks and incredibly disrespectful remarks, I'd like to point out this one thing:

Tex is not representative of all Christians.

Yes, I fully understand. And I don't hold anything against Christians in general at all.

In fact, many of my friends and relatives are Christians.

On a debate forum like this I address the religion, not the people who believe in the religion.

Or at least I try to keep it to that.

I don't even have anything against Tex. Actually.

I'm just trying to explain that I address religions, not people.

The accusations that seem to come back to me is that I'm a "God Hater".

And that is a personal judgement that misses the point of a religious debate.

I understand everything you say here, and I applaud it; but I don't think you quite get what I meant. Perhaps I should have phrased it this way:

Tex's BELIEFS are not representative of the BELIEFS of all Christians.

Condemnation, arrogant judgmentalism, and blatant contempt toward all other beliefs and approaches are common among Christians, especially of the more conservative iterations of that faith -- but they are not universal, even among those believers. I have know very, very many Christians who are respectful of the beliefs of others, and even of those who reject belief entirely; the most obvious example that comes to mind is that of Otseng himself, the Christian owner and chief administrator of this very forum. That Tex most emphatically is NOT respectful in that way ought not be taken as typical of Christians -- though it is more than a little ironic that he displays his contempt for others in a thread he started in order to demand the respect from others that he refuses to display himself.

A quote from a wise Jew of ages past comes to mind: "Remove the beam from your own eye before you attempt to remove the speck from the eye of another."

(And let it be noted for the record that I am, once again, defending Christianity and not attacking it.)

[Divine Insight]

(And let it be noted for the record that I am, once again, defending Christianity and not attacking it.)

Actually there was a time in my life when I tried to defend Christianity too. Ironically I found that the most hostile audience that I needed to defend against were radical Christian fundamentalists, and extremist.

I do confess though that there were Christians who were far more prepared to embrace a truly loving and forgiving Jesus who was no so demanding in terms of precisely what constitutes requirements for salvation.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), it was actually the hardcore Christians fundamentalists who continually shoved verses from these scriptures in my face to support their radical views of Jesus, etc. And that caused me to realize that the scriptures can indeed be twisted to suit just about any agenda.

But far more importantly overall, I started to question the whole notion of Jesus being the "Sacrificial Lamb" of God. And I felt that the Bible, if it truly was an inspired message from God should make this crystal clear when this was necessary. IMHO, it failed miserably on that count.

It also caused me to consider the "fall from grace" in more depth too, since that would indeed be the entire foundation of the religion. Ironically, the story of the fall from grace is extremely short and presumptuous. That alone was a huge disappointment. After all, if this entire religion stands on the pillar of the fall from grace, then that fall should have been the focus of much detail. Instead it was barely mentioned in passing. And that brief mention of it was not very convincing, IMHO.

I also agreed with the Jews on many points of why Jesus could not have been the Christ. So I gave up on the whole ideal of trying to even hold Jesus up as such.

It wasn't until I studied the history of Buddhism in depth when it became clear to me that Jesus was far more likely to have been a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva.

The similarities between the moral and behavioral values that Jesus taught and Mahayana Buddhism were striking. And the temporal historical timing couldn't have been more perfectly aligned.

Add to this that even the scriptures have Jesus rejecting the immoral teachings of the Torah and calling the Jewish Pharisees hypocrites, and it was a clincher for me.

I'm absolutely totally convinced now that Jesus was far more likely to have been a Jewish Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva, and the idea that he was the sacrificial lamb of the God of Abraham is totally out of the question for me now.

So that's my story and um stick'in to it.

And I personally feel that it's actually a quite respectable picture of Jesus. Jesus would be guilty of nothing but trying to replace immorality with morality and love.

Nothing wrong with that.

[Tex]

Your cartoon really doesn't resonate with me. Can you please specify when Tex or I "used Christianity to belittle you"?

Finding examples of you belittling anybody would likely be difficult(That's a compliment).
In the case of Tex however, it isn't.


A quick scan of the thread comes up with the following:

Wake up man!!

I expect nothing from this site. It's just another place that uses the word "Christianity" for publicity. Once you are here you see there is no discussion about what or what not our Lord wanted from us.

Blah Blah Blah....

Do even realize that you have to except LOrd Jesus as your Savior to be a Christian? Is that to hard for you to understand?

And I really don't care what you think.

From what I read from your posts, you are absolutely clueless to what you believe in.

As you can see.....If people don't want to believe in Christ....They know where the door is.

But then you leave and start complaining why it is you left. [...] Hoping a few Christian will hear your cry.

Now, I don't find any of that in itself to be worth commenting on, but Tex is complaining that nobody is respecting his opinion... I don't see how he, or anybody else for that matter, would be surprised; respect is a two way street.

Tex: Not my "opinion" I mean nothing in this little speck we call earth.
The opinion of the NT. Which to Christians is an important book, which few here have any respect for.
Good Day.