For the Nursery thru 3 year olds Meeting at Grace Church on Monday, August 13th from 6:30 – 7:30 p.m. in the Fireside Room.
We really want to go over some important information with parents about the Early Children’s Ministry Vision, where your kids will go during the remodel and more!
So, hopefully I’ll see you there…Henry will be disappointed if you miss it! You wouldn’t want to break a little boys heart would you?
I'm a mom to four. A wife to one. I believe in story. I love telling you about mine and would love to hear yours. There's really no sense in wasting our suffering and not sharing in each other's joy. We're all in this together...even if it doesn't always feel like it.
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ooh ooh!!! I am coming!! does this mean I get dibs on holding him?!?! :0) Tell Lindsay Iunker to share the baby love! hehehe!!
i won’t be coming, it’s a bit of a drive for just an hour. have a good time, and tell henry we’ll catch him another time! :)
Childrens Ministry is an oximoron and is actually heartless, shameless, and all other things horrible. Parents that subject their children to such brainwashing should be legally held accountable.
Anyone that says, “My child is a Christian,” is outright lying. Children are too young to know what they believe, and any parent that tries to force their innacurate and completely wrong beliefs on their children is a bad parent.
There are no children that are followers of any religion.
Do you think it is a coincidence that ministers realize they have to reach out at such a young and impressionable age to bring in the largest percentage of new “followers” and “believers”? These guys aren’t dumb! They know that any reasonably bright human being that hasn’t been brainwashed at a young age would never believe in such tom foolery as a “trinity”, resurrections, miracles, virgin births at an age where they’ve developed their own reasoning skills.
Religion is a cultural virus that has spread like wildfire among the uneducated, illiterate, feeble-minded, and those that were brainwashed at an early age; these people then take those beliefs with them through life to further spread the virus.
I feel throurough sad for all of you that believe in such nonsense. I feel even worse for your kids that you are now brainwashing and not giving a fair chance. Luckily, the very bright ones do seem to break free of the grasps of religion (see the numerous studies that show an inverse relationship between education and religious faith – the higher the level of education one has completed, the less likely he/she is religious).
It’s fine if you as an adult believe in nonsense, but don’t attempt to brainwash your children.
Look who’s back?
I feel so sad for you.
I’ve never heard anybody tell me that their “child is a Christian.” I have heard parents say that “I hope I am raising my child to be Godly and act as much like Jesus as possible…I hope I raise Godly little man/girl.” Now, based on your post, I’m sure you still disagree with that, however, I think you’re stretching it a bit for the sake of your argument.
I love this crap: “They know that any reasonably bright human being that hasn’t been brainwashed at a young age would never believe in such tom foolery as a “trinity”, resurrections, miracles, virgin births at an age where they’ve developed their own reasoning skills.”…..
Maybe in your world, because that is the type of person you choose to surround yourlself with. The fallen, that believe that they have all of the answers to life? As I said before many months ago to you, what are you betting your life on? What do you believe in? Aren’t you going to use your brain to base the beliefs and faith in your life in something that makes the most sense?
I’m not an idiot, I went to college, I’m “reasonably bright” if not moreso, and that is exactly what I did.
“- the higher the level of education one has completed, the less likely he/she is religious).”
Nice generalization. Show me your numbers and your proof for that statement.
So now I ask you for my own perspective here, truth, what do you believe? Seriously? Are you athiest, evolutionist, agnostic, buddhist, insert belief here?
What do you believe happens to you after you die? Do we, humans, not have souls? If we don’t, then we slip from conciousness and never know we are dead, but if we do, and we’re not religious, what happens to our souls? I’m curious what you believe and where you have your faith placed.
I’m curious, truth, are you somebody I, or my wife Jeannett, know’s directly?
If so, you could reveal yourself. Nobody is going to get offended or “weirded out.” I’m not going to argue with you any differently. You have your beliefs, and I have mine. Business is business, as they say.
I’ll answer your questions tonight and also cite some sources for you to look at in regards to the studies.
For now, think about this little question for a frew moments. If you can answer this question in a scientific manner, then I acknowledge you have every right to believe whatever you believe.
You believe in a creator that is omnipotent, omniscient, etc. correct? This means that your creator is much more complex than humans, correct? That is how things are designed: a being more complex than the designed is required for the designer to create the designed. If your god is more complex than you and me and everyone else, then your god no doubt was created also. Who created your god? Who created the creator of your god? This goes on infinitely and is a major fallacy of any “creator” religion.
The only proven and scientific theory for creating complexity from things less complex is natural selection.
So, Andy, who created your god?
I’ll answer the rest of your questions tonight. Your questions are typical of Christians trying to desperately search for meaning and reasoning in their beliefs. Your questions are based on major assumptions. You don’t have to “bet” your life on anything. Life is what it is, and trying to make it any more than what it is doesn’t change reality.
And Andy, I really feel sorry for you and the millions of other Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc. around the world that are wasting so much of their time and energy in falsehoods.
I do feel sorry for you because you are wasting so much of your life in a fairy tale. That is exactly what Christianity is: a fairy tale.
Students in school several hundred years from now will learn about Christianity along side the Greek Gods as just another myth that people once believed in.
I’ll answer your question about my beliefs here. I am an athetist and a Buddhist and strongly believe in evolution based on the overwhelming evidence of its existence.
And your commment, “I have heard parents say that “I hope I am raising my child to be Godly and act as much like Jesus as possible…I hope I raise Godly little man/girl.” – You just proved my point. You’re trying to brainwash your kid to believe in all that is Christianity.
More to come tonight: the answers to the rest of your questions, specifics on the studies between religion and education, etc. I’ll also throw out the names of a few books that are excellent on these subjects.
“overwhelming evidence of its existence.”
And that is where we part. The evidence is not overwhelming by any stretch of the imagination, and in my scientific opinion, it does not make sense…at all.
Oh, and you never answered if I/we know you directly? Even if you don’t want to say who you are, have we ever met face to face. I ask, because anon type correspondence drives me crazy…it’s a personality thing.
Oh, and to briefly hit on your comments about betting life….do you believe that there is nothing beyond this life here on earth?
Andy, just because you can’t understand evolution doesn’t mean it isn’t true. How many examples of it do you need? The evidence IS overwhelming. There is almost 100% agreement among biological scientics on this matter. Your religious beliefs which obviously contradict this truth are obviously skewing your judgement.
And you didn’t answer my question about how a complex god came into existence.
No, I do not believe in any sort of heaven or hell. Those ideas were made up. Hell, specifically, came from the Greeks and their mythology. I believe in Karma, as that is another way of stating cause and effect.
I suggest that you read a very good book based purely on scientific reasoning called “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins. Many of the arguments for a god that you are asking me in the form of question are logically dealt with in his book and put to rest.
If you take my challenge and read that book, I seriously doubt that you could hold your current beliefs afterwards. You are probably unaware of many of the fallacies in your current mode of thinking.
And to ease your mind, Andy, yes, we’ve met.
“And to ease your mind, Andy, yes, we’ve met.”
Thought so, and I think I have a good idea(s).
As for the rest, I haven’t gotten there yet, takes more time than I have right at the moment.
Sylvania? … BOOF!
You shouldn’t be blogging on company time. :)
Truth and Andy, I love the idea of a book challenge. My dad has done this with one of his friends and it turned out really neat. It works like this: Andy will promise to read the book that truth recommends, and in exchange truth promises to read a book that Andy recommends (maybe “Mere Christianity” by C.S. Lewis or something…?), then you get together and talk about it.
What do you think?
By the way, truth, what belief system were you raised with?
That’s where I was going to go with it, Lara, I just wanted to think about which book to go to….and Jeannett will be quick to point out I’m not a heavy reader, so as long as truth will still be around 6 months when I’m done with his book, we’ll be good to go!
Name your book, Andy. I would love to have a friendly, scholarly debate. No rush, either. I know that we’re all busy with work and other commitments. Six months or more is fine.
Truth, in our argument three months ago, you said:
“There are real forms of spirituality that are free from the man-made dogma of Christianity that are meaningless.”
..and I asked you to expand, but you may have never gone back to the post. So, I ask you to expand on and explain that comment now, as it is related to today’s discussion. What are the “real forms of spirituality”, and what are the “dogmas” in Christianity that are “meaningless”?
The real forms of spirituality that I was referring to are those that are absolutely natural and of this world. It’s enjoying natural beauty. When you go camping or are hiking remotely in the woods, do you ever just feel completely happy because of the beauty of nature? Do you ever just notice something completely mundane but also beautiful? This is an example of what I’m talking about. Nature and the universe are beautiful and wonderful, and it is great to enjoy these natural “wonders,” however I do not attach a deist viewpoint with this. I would say I’m spiritual in this sense. This sort of spiritualism is called pantheism. Pantheists don’t believe in a supernatural god but do enjoy natural beauty in nature and the universe. Complexity and beauty can be explained by natural selection. Just because there currently are “gaps” in the evolution progression doesn’t mean the theory is false. Scientists continue to fill in the gaps, slowly but surely, and are open to changing their explaination as new data arises. Why just recently more humanoid fossils were found that made scientists tweak their theory a bit while still filling in the gaps (http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/08/09/kenya.fossils.reut.reut/index.html?iref=newssearch).
One of the most famous panteists was Albert Einstein.
I believe at one point you basically asked what made me tick and what did I have to live for if I didn’t believe in a god. For one, it is this pantheism that makes life worth living. Enjoying normal things just like you make life worth living as well: enjoying a good conversation with a friend, watching a beautiful sunset, or anything else that a typcial human would enjoy. You see, you can enjoy these things without attaching a superhumn essense to them. I can expand upon this later if you would like.
As for your second question, there are numerous dogmatic points in Christianity that Christians believe that really have no significance. For example, the writers of the gospels felt that they needed to make their account of Jesus’ life fulfill the propheses of the Old Testament. To do so, they had to distort the facts dramatically to make their stories “fit” the propheses. Here is but one example: when the gospels were finally written many years (in some cases several generations after Jesus’ death), no one (as far as historians can tell) knew where Jesus was born. However, the old testament (Micah 5:2) told the Jews that the messiah would be born in Bethlehem. So, the authors of the gospels made their stories “fit” the prophecy, however in very different and contradictory ways. The author of Matthew states that Mary and Joseph were in Bethlehem to begin with and then moved to Nazareth after the birth of Jesus. Luke, however, states that Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth before Jesus’ birth and that Ceasar Augustus ordered a census where he declared that everyone needed to go to their own town for counting. Supposedly Joseph is of the family of David, forcing him to go to Bethlehem, however if David ever did exist, it would have been over a thousand years before Joseph lived. Having Joseph go to such a distant ancestor’s town makes no sense. In addition, historically this census is innacurate. Ceasar Augustus never declared an empire-wide census. A local governor request a census, however is was in 6 A.D., well after the birth of Jesus.
Yet, Christians hold on to these beliefs so that they fulfill the prophecies even though they contradict each other from one gospel to the next as well as contradict historical evidence.
In addition, Chritians hold as a fundamental belief the virgin birth of Jesus. Why is this so important? Christians make this a central point of their religion, yet virgin birth and worship by kings were common beliefs among the Hellenistic religions of the time the gospels were written. These ideas were most likely included by the authors to appeal to the lay people of these other religions.
Again, these are but a few examples. Pretty much every miracle or superhuman story has an equally good explanation or contradiction within the Bible.
I ask you, Andy, how can you believe in a religion whose holly book contradicts itself numerous times?
Also, do you have an explanation for my complexity argument that I addressed in an earlier post?
Here’s a third question for you, and I’ll call it the birth argument. Here’s an example: say you or your child were born in another country, say one that has a state religion (for example, lets say Iran). If you were born in a country like this, you would have Muslim parents that would tell you that Islam is THE correct religion, just like in many families in the U.S., children are told that Christianity is THE correct religion. Do you realize that you would be sitting on the other side of the fence right now and believe that Christianity is hogwash, that their beliefs are ridiculous, etc. just because of where you were born?
If there was one, omnipotent, omniscient god, why would you have no chance at salvation just based on where you were born (i.e. born into the wrong religion)? If you are born in a state like Iran, you have no choice in terms of religion: Islam is the state religion.
The same argument goes for all those people born before, depending on what you believe, the beginnings of Christianity or Judaism. Why did all those people have no chance at salvation? Simply because they were born before the messiah?
I don’t even know where to start, nor do I have the time right now, but I’m chewing your points.
God is self-existing, meaning he does not owe his existence to anybody, or anything else more complex, or less complex than himself. God is his own existence.
And there are just as many holes and contradictories in your sources for the writing of the Gospel. Either way, records had to have been kept for thousands of years. You’ve chosen to choose the ones which were written more recently than the Gospels in the Holy Bible.
You argue that “there are numerous dogmatic points in Christianity that Christians believe that really have no significance,” but it is many of these dogmatic points which carry some of the validity of the Gospel. You, or your sources, have chosen to dismiss them as useless, but they are intentful and important pieces of the Bible and Christianity.
and we’re over it!! so more about henry get over it people.. so hows the kid…oh im sorry i thought this was henrys happenings not a theology debate…. I PREFER HENRYS HAPPENINGS its alot more interesting…
“God is his own existence. God is self existing.” Hmmmm, this is the typical argument of a Christian and I don’t buy it for one second. Why must he be self existing? Well, because every logical argument for his existence doesn’t make sense, so, poof, create a theory that cannot be argued or touched by logic. This is the best defense religion has, and it is an unfair one. Everything you believe should have proper documentation that can be historically verified or it should be testable or provable in a scientific setting. Let me ask you this, Andy, how did you initially gain a belief in god? You seem to admit there is not a rational explanation for believing in him, and his book is riddled with inconsistencies. So how did you come to believe in something that has no basis of belief?
Holes in my argument? Rather than just stating such, tell me what they are. And last time I checked, both Luke and Matthew were in the Bible.
And on your last piece, of course they are important to your belief system. Without them, your religion would be in shambles, and you can’t have that, can you? Even when presented with contradictory evidence within the Bible and facts about the common pagan beliefs of the time, you choose to ignore this because you don’t want your religious theology damaged.
There is a laundry list of inconsistencies and contradictions in the Bible, and I’ve only listed one or two so far as examples.
You’re not worth arguing with, whether you’re a close friend, an acquiatance, or some random far off family member. I’ve only introduced some of my thoughts, and yet you give them no chance and dismiss them before I have even had a chance to list them, so why should I bother? You have the arguments of a typical vengeful non-believer that hates Christians so much, you have specifically studied to attempt to bunk their beliefs. Three months ago, you said that religions were essentially going to destroy the world, but yet you say you are Buddhist today? Nice.
I already stated the holes in your argument. In your system, you’re beliefs are just as bunk as mine because they are based on accounts from thousands of years ago, so if mine can’t be right, neither can yours….but that is just according to you.
I initially came to know Christ because he changes lives. You call yourself panteist, but with God, your love the world he created would be taken to a whole new level. I believe because of the personal answers to prayer I have received, personal miracles if you will allow such an argument (probably not!). God has proven himself to me, over and over, and if you gave him the chance, he would to you too. Actually, he probably already has, you have just chosen to dismiss it completely. And I believe because the world is too damn complex to have happened by chance. I don’t understand how anybody, especially anybody that has a technical or creative mind, can honestly think that. Every little thing you cherish as a panteist happened by chance, and the order by which it exists, happened by chance? I don’t buy it because it was created. Just like a 747 didn’t take to the air by accident.
And on a side note, every logical argument you think you have for your existence I think is unfair, unlogical, and flat out stupid. You consider it my “lack of understanding” of evolution and the beginning of the world (a big bang, are you kidding me, it is a FAR MORE reaching stretch than any religion in this universe!), but I studied it hard (I had to, it’s forced down your throat in school), and even beyond hard, but there are too many holes and the ducks aren’t in a row. Evolution is a stetch by humans to answer the questions they can’t answer, and attempt to be like God by trying to be omniscient. The attempt to support your argument by their reclassification of the fossil, is to me why they were wrong in the first place, and if they were wrong then, why should I believe they are right now? They are human, they have no idea…although they, and you, would like to think they have every idea in the world.
I’ll probably read your book anyhow, just so I can get into your mind a little better. But your inability to give any other argument a chance, and listen, is your own doing.
And what a pathetic existence to really believe there is nothing beyond this world….how can you live like that? You know, deep down inside, there is more. Every human thinks about it and I believe, knows deep inside there is consciousness after death. You choose to bet your life that there is jack crap after death, I chose to bet my life that there is and that I have a creator whose image I was created in. I think my bet is much sounder because if you’re wrong, you go to hell either way. If you’re right, I have nothing to lose.
May God have mercy on your soul when you’re before his throne.
I’ve been Buddhist for years now, including three months ago. You have a common misconception that Buddhism is a religion. It is not. It is a philosophy. There is no god in Buddhism. You better yourself through mindfulness.
And yes, organized, deist faith-based religions are a huge threat to the world. Religion is probably the number one reason why countries and rival groups fight and go to war.
Religion itself does not cause wars. It is the perversion of the religion by man that causes the wars. Cars don’t cause death…bad driving does.
Your logic is faulty.
Oh, and…
“Indian Buddhism had become virtually extinct, but is now again gaining strength. Buddhism continues to attract followers around the world and is considered a major world religion.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism
WOW!!! Fallacy after fallacy. Andy, you should read that book. Every argument for god that you just wrote in that last post has been debunked in the book “The God Dellusion.” You need to read that post because every argument you make is dealt with in that book.
Personal answers to prayers? Miracles? God intervening in your life? – These are all psychological delusions. This is dealt with at length in the book. Think about it for a moment. Do you even give any credibility to somoene that believes in some other crazy belief from another religion? There are southern pacific islanders that belive in “cargo religions.” White men show up in boats with miraculous equipment. When something breaks, the islanders see the white people ship it away, and poof, another boat comes to the island several months down the road with more miraculous items that are so complex the islanders can’t comprehend that humans made them. To them, it must be god that made them. So what do the islanders start doing? They start to immitate the white people and their customs. They believe if they do what the white people do, they’ll be in good standing with the god as well and get more gifts. Really think about that Andy. How is that religion, which we know to be false, any different than yours? Wouldn’t you call these people’s beliefs crazy? Why? How are they any different than yours? Do you realize that people today still pray to thousands of different gods around the world? How are you sure your god is right just because you prayed to him and something beneficial happened down the road? A Hindu can do the same thing in India: he can pray to Shiva and if something good happens down the road, then he probably attributes the good luck to god. Do you believe his god to be false? If so, why? How is his any different than yours?
Andy, I don’t think you understand natural selection at ALL. No, I NEVER said that anything occurs by CHANCE. Natural selection is NOT about chance. You don’t understand the theory by stating such. This is another common argument used by Christians: this world is too 1) complex to come about by 2) chance. See the book. Natural selection is about making very miniscual changes from one generation to the next, and the changes are NOT based on chance. Any variation that has a natural advantage in nature is more likely to survive than a mutation that does not have an advantage. This is basically saying at each minisual step in time, the best option moves forward. There is no random chance involved. The book deals with this in terms of probability, and you’ll easily see that the probabilies are quite good.
And sorry, just because something is “complex” and hence looks “designed” doesn’t mean it was designed. It’s actually quite funny that you mentioned a 747. The author of the book, Richard Dawkins, calls this complexity and chance argument “the 747 argument.”
My arguments are flat out stupid? Really? At least I’m making arguments based on facts. Fact: there are many contradictions in the Bible. What do you believe if it tells you multiple things regarding the same issue? How can you believe anything that it says knowing that it is blatantly wrong in places? Fact: there is historical evidence contradicting some of the stories in the Bible, as I’ve already stated. Name calling doesn’t make Christianity right, Andy.
Your argument against evolution is that they’ve been wrong in a few instances? Again, the article that I cited was a great example. Sorry, the didn’t get anything “wrong” as you would like to classify it. There are skeletons and many of them that are at varying degrees of advancement between apes and humans. What this new article stated was that there were two different branches of pre humans living at the same time when before they believe that they lived sequentially. How does that debunk the theory of evolution? Science is OPEN to updating their theories based on NEW evidence, as this article proves. By your logic, you also just proved that Christianity is completely false because I’ve found not just one but multiple inconsistencies and historical inaccuracies in the Bible. You state that I only need to have one, and I have many. So, by your logic, Christianity is as false and as silly as the Hellenistic gods.
Your last argument for god’s existence is Pascal’s argument. This is also dealt with in the book. The argument goes: God may exist or he may not exist, but it’s better to believe in him just in case he does exist. This is dealt with in the book. This argument has many fallacies again. 1) There are many religions in the world, and many of them are monotheistic like yours. What if you bet on the wrong one? What if the Muslims are right? What if the Jews are right? What if the Mormons are right? What if the Hindus are right with their multiple gods? Then you still go to hell. Sorry! 2) Betting on his existence isn’t true belief. If you believe in him because you’re simply a betting man, then you really don’t deeply believe in god like you’re supposed to to be able to receive his salvation. A big issue that you haven’t dealt with is why your religion is right vs. all the other religions?
Your last comment is also very typical of Christians talking to atheists. It’s the guilt statement, the typical, “may God have mercy on your soul,” or, “I’ll be praying for you,” etc. Sorry, but that doesn’t change reality and is actually really just some sort of bitterness. I’m not trying to say this to be condecending at all, but I do feel sorry for you and the other believers because you waste so much of your time in believing in what amounts to nonsense.
You’re wasting a large portion of your life devoting yourself to something that is mythical and worthless. You could spend that time doing much better things.
And, I’ll go ahead and answer another question that you’ll probably ask me: why do I care? Well, I care because religion causes animosity between religions, which results in violence, hate, and wars. Religion spreads a wealth of hate and negativity throughout the entire world. That’s why I care.
Buddhism has many sects, just as does Christianity. Many people do consider it a “religion.” You’re taking Wikipedia as your “source” for such information? Wikipedia is a horrible source for anything. I can go in and edit a page on Christianity and then cite it. Would you consider that a good source for research?
Now, as I was saying, Buddhism has many sects. Some, through time, have strayed from the original teachings of the Buddha and have picked up local customs and beliefs in the countries that it has spread to. There are sects, such as Pure Land Buddhism in Japan that believe in a “pure land” (equivalent to heaven). They believe that you can pray to a guy named Amida Buddha (who is not the original and actual Buddha), and that he can save you and grant you an afterlife in the pure land. This is complete hog wash in my opinion because it was made up along the way and doesn’t follow the original Buddha’s teachings at all. So, please don’t confuse these sorts of Buddhism with the original teachings of the Buddha which are purely philosophical and not religious. There is no mention of a god in the Buddha’s teachings. Just like there are random sects of Christianity that you probably think are ridiculous, the same applies to Buddhism. The original line of Buddhism which I do agree with and, I guess you could say “follow” is called Theravada. That is definitely not a religion.
Do your research before making such claims.
“Religion itself does not cause wars. It is the perversion of the religion by man that causes the wars. Cars don’t cause death…bad driving does.
Your logic is faulty.” ~ Jeannett
—————————
Oh really? Again, do your research. Guess what? The Bible tells you, as a believer, to kill all non-believers (I guess I should be worried for my life!). The book of Deuteronomy tells you to do that! If you are a devout Christian, you should follow the teachings of your bible, right?
So, that is just one example of where your religion calls for violence. Your religion IS violent.
There are, of course, many places in the Koran that tell followers of Islam to do the exact same thing. Islam is a violent religion.
So I guess, to use your logic, “being a person of faith doesn’t cause violence and wars, being a devout person of religion that actually believes the words of their holy book does.”
You’re wasting a large portion of your life devoting yourself to trying debunk somebody elses faith. It is obvious you have spent FAR too much time dedicating yourself to all of the research you can to equip yourself to argue with Christians. Again, what a pathetic existence. You could spend that time doing much better things. I suggest you get a life, and go do something to make the world more beautiful, if that is your passion. As I said, I’m done with you here, because you’re denser than a nuclear reactor dome.
Back to my main point: don’t attempt to brainwash your kid.
By basically fighting against Christians and others of religion, I am attempting to make a change for the better. If enough people FINALLY “see the light” and realize what nonsense they are beliving in and we eliminate such nonsense, we can eliminate the source of most of the world’s violence. Wouldn’t that be a better place to live? It most certainly would!
That’s the goal. You and your counterparts are the roadblock to a greater amount of world happiness and peace.
Hopefully you’ll start to think about your beliefs a little bit more now without just continuing to blindly believe.
You can call me dense or whatever else you want to call me, but I put forth argument after argument, and you didn’t have one logical or scientific response. I think I answered all of your questions, yet you ignored most of mine and answered a few with mythological statements that are not answers.
Andy and Jeannett, you should read back through all of this and really take a hard look at your beliefs. Ask yourself again each question I posed. Do you REALLY have a good response for each question? If you don’t, you have to ask yourself why you believe in what you do.
I actually find it pretty hard to fathom that someone that states he is so intelligent could actually believe in such nonsense that has no basis for belief and worship.
Truth,
I enjoy reading the points you bring up as they are important questions one must ask themselves before believing. It would be nice, however, if you dropped the holier-than-thou speech, no pun intended. There’s no reason to create more fire on a already heated debate.
Also, why the anonymity? Everyone who posts here knows each other personally. You come to this board, about Henry at that, and douse it with outlandish comments. Whether they are right or wrong you knew they would stir the pot. So if your intention was to prove that you are smart, then excellent job. Move on. But if your objective is different please specify, because I think it’s more than your “Religion spreads a wealth of hate and negativity throughout the entire world.”
Bullcrap. I see and have experienced the Light, the Truth, and the Way. If anything, you are causing more trouble and hostility by being so darn dense. Every argument you have dismissed as “fallacy”, and I have argued twice that your “fact” Bible trivia has no stance, therefore to try something else, but you still use that as your main foundation. So any argument I present, because of you treat your support as “fact”, is dismissible. I can’t reason with that because you’re delusional.
I’m sad for you, I really am, it’s a sad existence.
Well it looks like you answered my last question before I posted….
I REALLY have plenty of answers for your questions. I only presented the framework of where I was going to go with my arguments, with the intention to take the time and attempt to write a theology dissertation with them later (I do have a life, a family, and a job), but I couldn’t even get there with you because they are supposedly “illogical” before I had presented any of my “facts”. You’re smoking your own crack and loving it, and it is obvious in your methods of argument that nothing anybody says is going to change your mind. You’re too pround of yourself. I’ve had enough experience in my life with people like you to draw a FATTY line in the sand.
I find it hard to fathom that somebody who says they are intelligent, and is obviously incredibly book smart, can put so much faith in natural selection, evolution, and chance (because the basis of the galaxy in evolution is chance…big bang, remember).
That is why I feel sad for you.
So, Andy, are you saying that the Bible is not a trusted source and not to be believed? It must not be if I am not supposed to use it as a source of data for arguments against the validity of Christianity.
Slopilot, sorry for any “better than you” connotation that you picked up on from my posts. I didn’t intend for that, and for that I appologize. I don’t claim to be better than you or anyone else in this world. I’m simply trying to throw out some ideas to get you guys to think about. If I did it in a demeaning way, I am truly sorry for that. I honestly did not intended for it to come across that way.
I didn’t have any intention of disrupting a blog about a new born baby. I occaisionally look at it, and I only chimmed in when I noticed posts by Jeannett continually going on about her church and christianity. I only finally decided to post when it became clear that Andy and Jeannett had every intention of trying to brainwash their child and indoctrine him into Christianity. I don’t care what religion you believe in or if you’re agnostic or an atheist, you shouldn’t try to cloud your child’s mind with something as obscure and potentially damaging as religion. Again, Children’s Ministry is an oxymoron and is a blatant attempt at brainwashing. That’s where I cannot stay silent. Three months ago when I first posted, there were numerous posts about God and Christianity, and again, that’s when I decided to post.
Again, there is no “chance” in natural selection or the universe. I hope you read that book so you can abandon that myth.
And, no, Andy, I am not full of myself. There is no “self.” Buddhists don’t believe in a self. They even sometimes refer to the concept as “not self,” but that’s a completely different topic.
If you make a valid argument, I’ll honestly be more than willing to listen. That is a promise. I’ll tell you a little bit about my upbringing, as hopefully that will show you my willingness to listen to strong, scientific, and hard evidence.
I think someone asked me about my upbringing. I was brought up in a household with Christian parents. My mother was brought up Catholic and my father was brought up Baptist. My parents sent me to church as a child and told me that Christianity is the correct religion. When I got to high school, I finally realized for myself that I had other options and at least should investigate what I believed without further just blindly having faith in something. So, I decided to do a lot of reading. I researched many religions. I researched Christian origins. Evolution shouldn’t even be associated with religion, although it sadly is, so I’ll mention here that I researched evolution and evolutionary biology. Remember, I started this journey out as a Christian. The more I studied and learned about the origins of Christianity, the more I simply couldn’t believe in it anymore. There are just too many arguments against the existence of a god in general, and specifically, the Christian god (many Christians fail to recognize the difference in those two statements).
I hope that none of you feel that I am personally attacking you. I am not, and that is nor was my intent. It is your beliefs that are under question by myself, not any of your personally.
I understand what you’re trying to say but, telling parents they are brainwashing their kid is pretty harsh in my opinion. Maybe if they knew who you were it wouldn’t be like someone was hitting them on the back of the head.
Yes, you’ve been very judgemental and that makes it personal. On top of it, I don’t even know who you are so your intentions are gray. Hence my line in the sand, I don’t see justification in the time to write a report with the other things on my plate. So yeah, you win based on time and availability.
You use valid argument too loosely and only for yourself. None of my arguments are “valid”, but yet all of yours are. I haven’t seen scientific, or hard evidence, for some of the things you bring up, so we’d be at a stalemate anyways. You have interpreted them and swallowed them to be fact, I have not.
This is my last post into this conversation:
“I only chimmed in when I noticed posts by Jeannett continually going on about her church and christianity.”
You don’t have to read my blog. It’s a free country. I don’t read blogs that talk about scuba diving, airplanes or slugs. They don’t interest me. So, if you have an issue with what I blog about, you don’t have to come to my site. I’m sure there are plenty of Buddhist sites with lots of ways you can find your so called enlightenment. If you search so desparately for enlightenment, why are you reading my “heartless, shameless and all other things horrible” blog?
Secondly, while I will not apologize for anything I do blog about, (free country, free speech remember?), I spend a huge majority of my posts boasting about my darling little boy. So, to say I go on and on is a bit of a stretch. In fact, any time there is any “going on and on” is whenever YOU decide to comment. Which by the way, I find cowardly and disrespectful that when I went out of my way to disallow anonymous comments, you went on with a fictitious name to continue to be inflamatory and rude.
Lastly, I’m sorry that you disagree so violently with our belief system. However, respect for others should fall somewhere in your radar and for you to turn a blog about an innocent 7 week old boy into a tirade into your obvious hatred for Christianity is completely out of line and inappropriate.
You are more than welcome to continue to visit my blog, but if you hate it so much, remove it from your Favorites.
Excellent final comments Jeannett. Perhaps we can get back to enjoying “Henry’s Happenngs” without some very pathetic person spewing force nothing but crap! I truly feel sorry for someone who is so miserable and angry that they must search for ways to distrupt other’s lives. What amazes me the most is that he/she does not have the guts to identify themself to you–what a coward! He/she needs to crawl back to the slime pond from which they came from!
wow 44 comments, that is hardcore. :)
andy and jeannett, i was reminded of this passage from 1 corinthians–pretty awesome.
“But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.”
“gospel” means “good news.” the poor, oppressed, starving, uneducated, dysfunctional, broken…they thirst for peace only Jesus can bring. isn’t it so true that all He desires is for us to come to Him with a childlike faith!
Macy?
Regardless, I think you pissed my Aunt off. Ouch.
And I deleted the last comment, I was signed on as J. My bad.
Whos Macy?? anyways and we’re over… but i will say this truth guy is pretty smart but needs to tell someone who cares and asks for his opinion…
hey truth why dont you tell us who you are since you say you’ve met, you can come on here and speak your mind and offend people, why dont you just let them know who you are or are you afraid of what they may think or say…. dont be a wuss
Andy – He just didn’t piss your aunt off. I’ve been fuming too.
Truth – I’m Henry’s grandmother, hence I’m the monster that brainwashed Andy, according to your fallacial arguments. You are a coward hiding behind anonymity. It is offense to me how you include Andy and Jeannett’s names in your posts in such a condescending way, and yet are not brave enough to blog with your own name.
Go away.
Bravo Grandma! Bravo!!
I also felt he/she was so condescending when Andy and Jeannett’s names were being used–it made my stomach churn!
I think we all want to know who the coward is. . . but he/she is probably in the slime pond “evolving” again ;0