Let's not drive them away unnecessarily ...

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McCulloch
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Let's not drive them away unnecessarily ...

Post #1

Post by McCulloch »

micatala wrote:So, the Christians are a significant presence on the board, but they also make fewer posts per person than the atheists.
Pastor4Jesus wrote:Yes that's the problem. I (and a couple of other Christians) have to reply to five or six people of differing opinion, and when refuting a claim the original reply is usually longer, so do the math my friend, 5x or 6x is a lot of font.
McCulloch wrote:I do feel for you there. I am trying to recruit Christian apologists, currently students at a Bible College where the daughter of a friend of mine attends, to this site. I do try to refrain from posting when I would be the fourth or fifth skeptic responding to the same believer's post. I am not always successful at holding myself back.
Let's try to be considerate. Unless you really feel that you have something new to add, it might be best to avoid being beyond the fourth skeptical responder to a believer's specific post.
Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good.
First Epistle to the Church of the Thessalonians
The truth will make you free.
Gospel of John

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Divine Insight
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Post #11

Post by Divine Insight »

McCulloch wrote: Besides, they are fighting an uphill battle, against the odds without the evidence ;)
But what exactly is their "battle"?

I think this is a very important question to consider.

I find that most of the "theists" I tend to become engaged with are proselytizers who are attempting to make a case that non-believers are somehow ungodly, immoral, and making a knowing free will choice to "reject God". Either than or they are implying that the non-believer cannot comprehend the Bible whilst they can.

So those are types of 'accusations' I tend to respond to. And I confess that I respond to them with no mercy whatsoever.

I seldom argue or debate with "meek" Christians who merely would like to believe in their own faith. In fact, most people who merely want to believe in their own faith probably have no need to argue or debate it with anyone anyway. So there probably aren't too many people here to take that position.

Most of the "Christians" I debate with are basically just preaching. They continually post verses from the Bible as if they represent "The Gospel Truth". They totally refuse any debate over why those verses should be accepted as truth, but instead just act like since they came from the Bible they must be true because the Bible is God's word and anyone who rejects God's word is rejecting God. :roll:

We already know that this is indeed the agenda of Christianity.

Just confess that Jesus is LORD and obey the Bible as if it is the Law of God.

That is their "message".

In fact, one guy I was recently conversing with continually posted verses from the Bible demanding that he preach the Gospel and proclaiming that it is the "Great Commission". So he was clearly just here to preach, not to consider any serious debates.

How do you "debate" with people who simply proclaim that the Bible is truth and they don't want to consider anything other than that, and all they do is continually shove verses in your face from the Bible acting as if those verses are the last word in truth?

And not surprisingly many of those types of proselytizers always dig up the most disgusting verses they can find to support condemnation of non-believers. And there's plenty of verses in the Bible that support that view.

I have yet to meet a genuinely loving evangelist who actually preaches love. Or one who would dare to post verses from the Bible that clearly have Jesus himself proclaiming that there is not need to believe in him.

Where are those Christians?

They probably are afraid to post because as soon as they take the stance that it's not important to believe in Jesus the hardcore fundies will jump on them with more hateful verses demanding that they are not "True Christians".

I think it's extremely difficult for a decent Christian to even post honest views. For when they do the hardcore fundies jump on them. In fact, I've seen that happen on these forums actually.

As a former Christian that was my biggest problem as well. Anytime I tried to make Jesus out to be a nice guy the hardcore fundies would take conniptions.

They simply won't tolerate a nice Jesus.
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Spiritual Growth - A person's continual assessment
of how well they believe they are doing
relative to what they believe a personal God expects of them.
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