Baptist Church Excludes Democrats

[perfessor]

http://www.wlos.com/

I don't get it. Didn't Jesus ply his trade among tax collectors, prostitutes, and other "sinners"?

East Waynesville Baptist asked nine members to leave. Now 40 more have left the church in protest. Former members say Pastor Chan Chandler gave them the ultimatum, saying if they didn't support George Bush, they should resign or repent. The minister declined an interview with News 13. But he did say "the actions were not politically motivated." There are questions about whether the bi-laws were followed when the members were thrown out.

So my question for debate: Should the East Waynesville Baptist Church lose its tax-exempt status?

I say they should, since the pastor has turned the church into an arm of the Republican party.

[bernee51]

Bernee, you will nevere get it that you can have no opinion of what Christianity "Is. You deny the very existence of Jesus. Jesus, actually is Joshua or, Yeshua. A very common Israeli name.

You point being (other than there may have been thousands of men called Jesus or Josh wandering through Palestine).

The one I refer to is the one from the story...resurrecting etc.

If you knew the story, you would know that Jesus said to the religious authorities "For which good works do you want to stone me?" He objected to religious authorities executing Him.

He was killed by Romans by Roman law.

It was you who claimed religious authorites were involved in his sentancing and execution.

And, actually an opinion on someone who never existed is unnecesary...

According to you evolution does not exist...so why do you have an opinion?

The Pastor acted very well indeed. Now, what you seem also unable to "get" is, if the Democrat-voting offenders were to "repent" they would have their seats within the congragation still. That is Christian.

If in order to 'repent' would they have had to change their political views?

If so, I would call that 'political terrorism'...sort of like what happens in godless countries like China.

Is it christian to force your views on anyone?

[AlAyeti]

"The one I refer to is the one from the story...resurrecting etc."

The only "One."

That IS why He is referred to the Holy One of Israel.

Bernee: "According to you evolution does not exist...so why do you have an opinion?"


I believe in evolution, as in adaptation. Skin color is adaptation. Thicker muscles are adaptive responses. Differing beaks on Darwins finches denote activity that facilitated their need.

Nothing to chaos, to primordial ooze, to fish, to frogs dah, dah, dah . . . to human beings is a psychotic vision.

I can have an opinion on evolution because I once believed it existed.

You and the "One" Jesus?

Your perspective leaves you to rant and complain about Christians and their belief system but that is it. Opinions about Christians and how they act towards each other is not applicable.

I don't rail on about Krishna being a supreme being and yet, I hear he was shot in a forrest by a hunter. Why should I care about what Hare Krisna's do towards each other? They seem like sweet and peaceful people to me. If they want to become politically involved I welcome that debate. It seems only anti-Christians want to silence only one body.

Here is my quote about Jesus and the religious authorities:

Jesus very much objected to being insulted, beaten and killed by secular and religious authorities. I believed He called to them "dogs" in reference to non-Israelites and He most assuredly thought even less of the religious hypocrites that sold Him out.

I think that the context is plain. Like I said, if you knew the Gospels, you would see my point. Nit picking or not, Jesus did indeed (or was quoted) object to religious authorities killing him. If you want to blame the Jewish members of the Sanhedrin and can glean that from my statement, I'm OK with that. Funny that your point is actually making mine more focused. Thanks.

But Jesus was in fact executed by a decree from Pontius Pilate. A man who also really existed. But in all honesty I am only assuming he was acting in a non-religious and secular way.

Those Romans were religious fanatics. Many Christians found that out in a horrific way.

[AlAyeti]

Bernee,

I wanted to answer this seperately.

Bernee: "If in order to 'repent' would they have had to change their political views?"

Yes. Abortion for convenience and Jesus?

If so, I would call that 'political terrorism'...sort of like what happens in godless countries like China.

Where and when are hypocrites in a church put into prison and executed like the Chinese are doing right now to Christians in China? How insensitive of you to compare "asking people to leave" to execution, torture and imprisonment?

I'll bet you are thinking about the poor plight of the homosexuals in China as you read the last sentence. You'll feel for them while comparing a peaceful yet Biblically accurate Pastor to Chinese Communist-Atheist murderers.

Man, think about that.

Bernee: "Is it Christian to force your views on anyone?"

You need to prove that Christians are forcing anyone to do anything. I am a Christian now, and know for a fact that forcing Christianty is not allowed in the Bible. Even you have said that the Missionaries in India do not "force" anyone. And I'll state for the record that I claim you are wrong about tricking converts with food. The new convert is welcomed to eat and toss the Bible and his or her new found faith away. Without any fatwa, imprisonment, torture or death.

Christians are being forced to accept many more things than the bizaare notion that they "force" their beliefs on anyone. I was an absolute Atheist in High School, chopping silly Christians to shreds by their lack of ability to defend against my non-godian arguments.

I, like Christians nationwide are defending our faith. We will do that. Like I said before, you better build a lot of prisons and gallows if you think we are going to be silenced.

I never allowed a bully to scare me when I was a child and the all too typical anti-Christian attack is something I am more than willing to challenge while laughing at it most of the time. But the serious nature of the threat to innocent children make the positions I take much more important than bantering with silly Bible haters.

The Christians back in school and not a one now ever once forced me to do or hear anything. I sought them out.

Exactly the way the ACLU is doing it now. And in fact the way Atheists, skeptics do also.

google Christianty and see how many "skeptics" and other anti-Christian websites are among them.

Let me ask you a few questions. When I was a non-believer, I couldn't have cared less if someone prayed in school. There were Catholics, Baptists, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and other religious people that went around talking there stuff in public.

If their beliefs are founded on myth and fairy tales, why is it so important to silence it?

Isn't the secular view relativism? If it makes the person speaking in public happy that they want to thank or acknowledge some "thing,"how is that different than sexual devites wanting and indeed demanding their voice be heard.

Why are religious people forced to live in a closet?

[bernee51]

You and the "One" Jesus?

Of course Al...I was raised in a christian household and spent my entire school years at church schools.

I was fortunately raised to question everything...including 'holy cows'. I still question and don't intend to stop.

Your perspective leaves you to rant and complain about Christians and their belief system but that is it. Opinions about Christians and how they act towards each other is not applicable.

I can have opinions about whatever I like..you saying I can't is not relevent.

I don't rail on about Krishna being a supreme being and yet, I hear he was shot in a forrest by a hunter.

You are all over the shop...what is this apropos of?

It seems only anti-Christians want to silence only one body.

Christians are not the issue - the issue is hypocrisy

Those Romans were religious fanatics. Many Christians found that out in a horrific way.

I can say the same about fundamentalist christians.

[AlAyeti]

"Christians are not the issue - the issue is hypocrisy"

"I can say the same about fundamentalist christians."

Where are fundamentalist Christians hypocritical? Please enlighten me.

You should at least dispense with the disrespectful lower case. I give Atheists proper due.

Hypocrites are the relativists that demand that the words of the Bible (that they believe in) do not say what hey say.

John Shelby Spong a famous "Reverend" wrote a book titled Why Christianity Must Change or Die.

His only position is that the Bible the way it is written cannot be applied the way it is written. He denies such things as the bodily resurrection of Christ and yet claims to be a real Christian.

But not according to Jesus and Paul and everyone else in the New Testament.

You, a person raised among the Christian way, know what hypocrisy that is. Paul goes into detail about it.

The problem I have with your type of argument, is that if I agree with anything, than you think you have destroyed the facts of Christianity as they are reported to have happened in the Bible.

I am a fundamentalist for sure, but there is allegory, metaphor and fact within the Bible. Biblically, Human anatomy is fact. Creation is a fact. Sodom was a fact. The resurrection is a fact. Gravity is a fact. Marriage between and man and a woman is the only kind of marriage portrayed in the Bible and the only kind of marriage that a Christian can support. Jesus and others warned us that the most heinous hypocrites would come from the believers. A Christian believing in abortion for convenience is one of those hypocrites. I am comfortable in my (fundamental) judgmental stance. Mary was not married when she was pregnant. A Biblical fact.

BTW, A secular style government is far better than a religious dictatorship. The Muslims and the Catholics have shown us the badness inherent in religious-political power mongers. But, an Atheist government has also shown the world such horrors that they have to be forgotten as soon as they are told, so the listener can stay sane. A secular government should be democratic. But we see the courts going back to lords and serfs and the elites demanding who follows what.

That is also a fact.

You want to win the argument for some reason. That seems to drive an Atheist in completeness. I want to show that a Christian fundamentalist is not a bigot, but has come to a rational decision to follow Christ exactly the way He said.

The Christian Pastor was expelling hypocrites that think they can stain the name of Christ by supporting abominations that Democrats want to impose on everyone by law.

Bernee: "I was fortunately raised to question everything...including 'holy cows'. I still question and don't intend to stop.

I challenge the veracity in your statement that you want to question everything. Watch one late term abortion, even a video of one. If you think it is not killing a human person than I question your eyesight or whether you could even keep your eyes open. It is not the right of an individual to kill another individual. Motherhood does not endow the mother with the right to murder for convenience.

That is political issue number one for Christians today. Sodomites demanding to be heard was to be expected. Like I said, Sodom was a fact. Christians still have a lot to be concerned about, but if democracy is to survive then Christians will have the free voice that keeps freedom reigning.

If freedom of choice survives the secular assault on individualism, then people will embrace Christ in the light of day without fear of reprisal. If the secularists succeed in outlawing Christians, then the spread will still happen, but once again from prisons.

[bernee51]

I wanted to answer this seperately.

Bernee: "If in order to 'repent' would they have had to change their political views?"

AlAyeti:Yes.

Then it is a political issue not a religious one.

How insensitive of you to compare "asking people to leave" to execution, torture and imprisonment?

I am nor discussing eh level of 'punishment', the political discrimination due to reliogious views is the issue.

I'll bet you are thinking about the poor plight of the homosexuals in China as you read the last sentence.

I wasn't actually.

I lived for over two years in China and met many homosexuals and christians who hadn't been executed. How could that be?

Bernee: "Is it Christian to force your views on anyone?"

You need to prove that Christians are forcing anyone to do anything. I am a Christian now, and know for a fact that forcing Christianty is not allowed in the Bible.

The pastor in question is forcing views on the democrats - either change or don't come back

. And I'll state for the record that I claim you are wrong about tricking converts with food. The new convert is welcomed to eat and toss the Bible and his or her new found faith away.

Not if they want another meal.

I, like Christians nationwide are defending our faith. We will do that. Like I said before, you better build a lot of prisons and gallows if you think we are going to be silenced.

I have no issue with you defending your faith...in fact I would defend your right to defend. I do have issue with you insisting that everyone else adot your views on the choice to have an abortion.

Let me ask you a few questions. When I was a non-believer, I couldn't have cared less if someone prayed in school. There were Catholics, Baptists, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and other religious people that went around talking there stuff in public.

What no hindus, buddhists, moslems, jains, bahai?

Why are religious people forced to live in a closet?

Hardly in a closet.

You are rather given to hyperbole.

[bernee51]

"Christians are not the issue - the issue is hypocrisy"

"I can say the same about fundamentalist christians."

Where are fundamentalist Christians hypocritical? Please enlighten me.

By claiming the right to choose then denying it to others.

You should at least dispense with the disrespectful lower case. I give Atheists proper due.

I treat atheists, christians, moslems, hindus, sikhs, etc equally.

Hypocrites are the relativists that demand that the words of the Bible (that they believe in) do not say what hey say.

Do you mean someone who interprets it differently to you is a hypocrite?

He denies such things as the bodily resurrection of Christ and yet claims to be a real Christian.

I see in that someone trying to find a way forward for christianity before it makes itself obsolete.

... than you think you have destroyed the facts of Christianity as they are reported to have happened in the Bible.

Not at all I would call it a growth in understanding with the opportunity of expanded spirituality.

Biblically... Creation is a fact. Sodom was a fact. The resurrection is a fact. Gravity is a fact. Marriage between and man and a woman is the only kind of marriage portrayed in the Bible and the only kind of marriage that a Christian can support.

Yes - it makes them fact for christians - but for no one else.

Why can't you accept that fact? Why do you wish to impose it on the world at large. Why do you want a theocracy?

You want to win the argument for some reason.

And you are doing it for the love of god.

That seems to drive an Atheist in completeness.

I have many things in my life that are leading me toward 'completeness'. Winning an 'argument' with a religious fundamentalist on a 'net forum is not one of them.

I do this for amusement.

The Christian Pastor was expelling hypocrites that think they can stain the name of Christ by supporting abominations that Democrats want to impose on everyone by law.

Then he is the hypocrite.

No one is imposing abortions on anyone. What they are giving to all is the right to choose.

Watch one late term abortion, even a video of one.

You are moving the goalposts - we have not at any time discussed the stage at which the abortion is carried out.

Besides - I have never spoken in support of abortion - only the right of the individual to choose.

Motherhood does not endow the mother with the right to murder for convenience.

A pregnant woman is not a 'mother' (unless she has had previous live issue).

And abortion is not murder. Why do you keep calling it so (other than for effect) when it has been clearly demonstrated that you are wrong.

That is political issue number one for Christians today.

It is a religious issue made into a religious one by so-called 'pro-lifers'

If freedom of choice survives the secular assault on individualism, then people will embrace Christ in the light of day without fear of reprisal.

Freedom of choice is not in any danger from secularism. It is religious fundamentalists who would restrict choice.

If the secularists succeed in outlawing Christians, then the spread will still happen, but once again from prisons.

You a still yet to provide evidence that christianity per se is outlawed.

[AlAyeti]

AlAyeti:
He denies such things as the bodily resurrection of Christ and yet claims to be a real Christian.


Bernee: "I see in that someone trying to find a way forward for christianity before it makes itself obsolete."

AlAyeti:

I see the kind of liar Jesus mentioned would come from the folds of the faith. Spong is not a heretic, he is a liar purposely misleading Christians.

Bernee quoting me"... than you think you have destroyed the facts of Christianity as they are reported to have happened in the Bible."


Bernee: "Not at all I would call it a growth in understanding with the opportunity of expanded spirituality."

You are trying to change Christianity. It was obsolete the moment Jesus spoke to the first crowd. It is the narrow road for a reason. It is the original undergroun alternative movement.

AlAyeti wrote:
Biblically... Creation is a fact. Sodom was a fact. The resurrection is a fact. Gravity is a fact. Marriage between and man and a woman is the only kind of marriage portrayed in the Bible and the only kind of marriage that a Christian can support.


"Yes - it makes them fact for christians - but for no one else."

Billions of others that is. Some with a college degree or two.

Thank you for agreeing with me that people like Spong who say they are Christians are liars. Your ellipsis takes away an important point that I would like to agree with you from time to time but an Atheist is a totalitarian and I will not agree that you are right about God. I am a free thinker and have seen the error in the secular way. Secular shouldn't have to mean Atheism, but it does.

Bernee: Why can't you accept that fact? Why do you wish to impose it on the world at large. Why do you want a theocracy?"

I have said many times that I am not an evangelist. I only want freedom of speech. I just want to be able to continue to challenge the status quo. (You and other Atheist/Skeptics are more recruiters than I will ever be.)

You know, ultimate unrestricted licentiousness, children pregnant, needles for addicts, sick disgusting sexual perversion taught as a civil right and all of the bad consequences of other peoples choice behaviors having to be paid for by me and others who know right from wrong. People who will not listen to reason and yet want others to suffer the consequences.

With freedom comes great numbers of new Christians. Why do you want to choose what others believe?

And you know you were willingly presenting a false statement about missionaries forcing people to accept Christianity to be fed and clothed. You should apologize for that.

You know, if America never was a Christian nation, never started by Christians, I want you to know that I a Christian, agree with that.

That is why genocide of natives and the enslavment of Africans found such a willing participant in the evil done to them. It was indeed survival of the fittest in action. And of course evil doesn't exist to a godless mind.

[AlAyeti]

AlAyeti wrote:

Watch one late term abortion, even a video of one.


Bernee: "You are moving the goalposts - we have not at any time discussed the stage at which the abortion is carried out."



Bernee, then it is you who do not understand the use of logic, because certainly we have.

But it is not surprising that you do not see it, since you refuse to follow simple math in where all of the complicated things around you found their start. Since an Atheist's origin is from chaos to order, though that is purely unreasonable, it makes the thinking about the worth of a developing human understandable "from that perspective." Sadly.

Bernee: "Besides - I have never spoken in support of abortion - only the right of the individual to choose."

Isn't silence towards wrondoing complicity? I have often mentioned your decency, but I would think that someone who thinks that peaceful Christian Missionaries changing Hindu's into Christians are bad guys, would think the same of an abortion.

Bernee: "And abortion is not murder. Why do you keep calling it so (other than for effect) when it has been clearly demonstrated that you are wrong."

AlAyeti wrote:

That is political issue number one for Christians today.


Bernee: "It is a religious issue made into a religious one by so-called 'pro-lifers."

That is inaccurate. Yes, Christians (real WWJD Christians) claim that God is in opposition to "abortion for convenience," and that it is indeed murder, BUT medical empirical facts are presented. The Bible agrees with science.

Watch one ultrasound of an unborn baby and you will see the truth yourself.

I use empiricism for every topic I argue.

I cannot understand why an Evolutionist isn't the loudest voice against abortion. Or, an Atheist. If this is indeed the only shot for life we get, then why aren't the two kinds of people I mention the loudest voice for not stopping a developing child within the uterus?

They are certainly going against their faith systems.

It is certainly NOT survival of the fittest AND it is still killing an unwanted child.

It is not a religious issue. It is murder for convenience. It was "someone somewhere" who "changed the goal posts" to claim that a developing baby is not supposed to have the same rights as a child carried to term. And unbelieveably, it was those who claim to follow scientific facts!

But not it seems, when it goes contrary to promoting a sexually licentious populace and always at a younger and younger age.

(Hmm, there's a word for that . . .)

Freedom of choice should follow freedom of speech. Let the facts speak for themselves. Show the pictures of aborted children to every class room where sexuality is taught!

Empiricism.

[The Persnickety Platypus]

AlAyeti, will you please explain to me exactly under what circumstances God commands us to:


1. Clearcut forests, pollute our clean God-given air (the same air asthmatic children die from inhaling every year), desecrate beautiful landscapes, strip mine mountains, solute our water with toxic chemicals, and downright RAPE the magnificent Earth God has blessed us with, all for the sake of a sort term profit. There is a difference between utilizing our resources and abusing them, wielding them unfit for future generations.

2. Pass bills that blatantly favor the rich, while the millions of poor and starving people that still lie within our borders continue to get poorer.

3. Wage unprovoked war against enemies for reasons undefined......

4. And then lie about it.

5. Arrogantly discriminate against and when possible, limit the rights of unbelievers, gays, minorities, and (debatably) women.

6. Profess the importance of life, and then murder criminals.





Sorry, I am just very confused. Somehow I must have missed the verses that commanded such things. But of course you, being conservative and all, know all about what God wants, right? Would you be so kind as to enlighten an immoral, unguided Christian such as myself?


But seriously, I am honestly shocked when people profess so surely that the aims of Republicans are Christianly. Are we talking about the same political party here?



And just for the record, I consider Democrats almost, if not equally unethical.