Don wrote:During many of our early interactions, I was an agnostic and then an atheist. Weaps's efforts to extend faith in Christ to me were not something that, at that time, I resonated to.
May you return to us one day, Don.
But I did recognize that having someone try to share faith with you isn't some sort of slight or insult.
That depends. I don't think msn has any bad motives, however, anyone who has had extensive interaction with born again Christians has been on the receiving end of insults under the guise of sharing faith, repeatedly.
One thing I have learned in recent years is that if I trust God to draw people to himself and not look to the creation to do so, but to the Creator to do this, I am able to love and accept a person regardless of where they are in their spiritual journey. Not negating that each person has a responsibility toward God. Anything else would be a breach in my faith/trust in God.
We are all on a spiritual journey, each at his or her own place, and will be until we take that last breath here on earth. The thing is, we don't know when that last breath will be. We are appointed once to die, then face judgement. There is a living hope anchored to the very throne of God; eternal life, or, there is spiritual death; separated eternally from God. At some point, we all have to make a choice to accept and embrace the one who is Life or reject and turn away. Hence the urgency of the message I bring.
Faith or trust is only as good as its foundation. When the foundation bruises that faith, I know it is difficult to trust again.
We are appointed once to die, then face judgement. There is a living hope anchored to the very throne of God; eternal life, or, there is spiritual death; separated eternally from God. At some point, we all have to make a choice to accept and embrace the one who is Life or reject and turn away.
Nope.
I do get the urge to knock on wood every time I tell someone I never get water in my basement, though. Just so I don’t jinx it, because of course knocking on wood will prevent that. Same thing, right?
Where does one draw the line with Christian faith-insanity? I don’t know if you know this, but this televangelist blew the wind of God on COVID-19 and it’s no more:
Go ahead. Click on the link and watch that absolutely BS, batshit insanity. How is this any different from someone urging one to turn to some imagination figure that will... do something... sometime... for some reason... because love or something... because heaven or whatever other vague and ambiguous terms believers throw around that basically allow you to fill in the meaning for yourself.
Kind of leave it be..I know the friend who is also my friend. This friend is probably aware of this thread. Time..maybe you will hear directly. But I do respect this friends interest in being relatively silent. Hugs to all. I just finally got into this board from the chaos ..so it is nice to see the threads again.
I have a sibling who blesses his religion for getting him through his hard days, and I will note it does personally seem to do him good, but his version of religion also requires him to righteously shun me and my family, because we don’t practice his exact religion. Whether we are good, decent, honest people is irrelevant to him. God bless religion? Sure, it helps him a lot. At the expense of those his religion asks him to hate. So, no. NOT god bless religion. In my opinion, go to ____ hell, “religion.”
Just because religion has been around and used for a long time doesn’t necessarily make it the best, better, or even good as a patch. Plenty of patches are available that don’t contain the hatred for fellow men that religion has the capacity to spawn.
That's one of the important points about evolution, that features don't have to be optimal to proliferate. They just have to be better than the competition. The fact that religion has some efficacy doesn't mean that it's as good as it should be. It just means that it's not something to underestimate. Religion might not be great but it's not idiotic, any more than sharp teeth and horns are idiotic.
Distinctions that can seem fine from one point of view can still be hugely important. The idea that the shunning of unbelievers must intrinsically be bundled with any hope for larger meaning in life is itself one of the stupid ideas that does not have to be part of the bundle.
Distinctions that can seem fine from one point of view can still be hugely important. The idea that the shunning of unbelievers must intrinsically be bundled with any hope for larger meaning in life is itself one of the stupid ideas that does not have to be part of the bundle.
One would think so. And yet, there that stupid idea is observed, over and over and over, in the lds religion. Recently an lds leader reminded his flock that in heaven, the good followers would certainly be separated from the bad non-followers, familial relationships notwithstanding. It would seem that the LDS God’s after-life threat strengthens the case for in-life lds shunning. At least for his believers.
Distinctions that can seem fine from one point of view can still be hugely important. The idea that the shunning of unbelievers must intrinsically be bundled with any hope for larger meaning in life is itself one of the stupid ideas that does not have to be part of the bundle.
One would think so. And yet, there that stupid idea is observed, over and over and over, in the LDS religion. Recently an LDS leader reminded his flock that in heaven, the good followers would certainly be separated from the bad non-followers, familial relationships notwithstanding. It would seem that the LDS God’s after-life threat strengthens the case for in-life LDS shunning. At least for his believers.
An LDS leader (I think it may have been Oaks) at a recent Conference explained to members that there may be periods when they should cut ties from family members who weren't righteously following the Mormon faith, to protect their own faith and to teach the rebellious family member(s) a lesson. Because God is good.
“Religion might not be great but it's not idiotic, any more than sharp teeth and horns are idiotic.”
Well. Hrm. I get what you’re saying, but idiocy in terms of god-belief seems a bit more... complicit... than horns and teeth when it comes to things like Jim Bakker selling his ‘silver solution’ to cure the virus:
Your quote above slightly confuses me because it almost feels like an evolutionary trait cum design flaw is something that can’t be fixed. And you might be right.
I always wonder when I read things like this. I enjoy this board as a source of ongoing friendship and interaction with people, many of whom seem to have similar backgrounds or a pretty solid understanding of the common, born and raised LDS background.
That is not true. Do you wonder why the board is not great? Out of curiosity what is your rate my professor score?