Tzaia

Jesus and Paul had very different ideas about what gets one into heaven. Jesus was of the "lose your salvation" camp. (reference the millstone around the neck verse). One can argue that it was said before the gift of holy spirit, and one can argue that Jesus did speak of everlasting life, but one can also argue that the gospels were written after Acts, so anyone writing them would have known what Paul was spouting - assuming anyone writing what became the gospels actually cared or knew what Paul was writing and teaching. That is not clear. What is clear if you bother to do a straightforward comparative analysis, is that Paul's notion of grace (and pretty much everything else) differs significantly from Jesus'. I have my theory as to why, but that's really beside the point.

Not Raf. I doubt if he cares enough to put the time into it. I Still find it achingly difficult to read.

Yet I did it happily and willingly until late 2002.

Starting (at the twig level of involvement) with the tithe...

If you or a family member became seriously ill, obviously it was due to a lack of adequate abundant sharing or lack of believing. There was no way one could simply be sick and not be disgraced in the process.

Maybe only 2 at a time...when it came to LCM. There was a bit of denial on my part concerning the "date and switch" until I actually witnessed it first hand and spent a fair amount of time telling the girl it happened to that no, it was not okay to be drawn into a Christian organization using those tactics. Then when I was told by the corp guy who did it that "anything was acceptable" to bring people to the class - well, that was the last class I ever had anything to do with. Tactics such as those do not inspire confidence in the truthfulness of what is being taught. Just sayin'

So the belief is if we all get with the program - religion dictating what that program looks like - then we, currying the favor of god, will establish the (peaceful) kingdom. No matter how much carnage it takes to do that. The thinking that believing or teaching that "wrong" doctrine causes the division and must be eradicated. Maybe that belief is what needs to be eradicated.

The horrible part was when things were done in the name of Christianity, but weren't actually in the book. What is in the book is the command to not eat food sacrificed to idols. Sacrificing food to idols was a big deal and to refrain from that was a big deal. But there are ways of refraining. I have, over the years, had dietary restrictions - some self imposed - some not. I never felt it necessary to announce why I wasn't eating something, or demand special treatment. If I knew I couldn't eat anything at an event, I either didn't go, or brought my own food. Most of the time I could find *something* to eat. However, my daughter's SIL makes a huge issue of her special largely self-diagnosed; self imposed diet. People get annoyed. I'm just saying, couldn't the early Christians found a less divisive way of avoiding idol food? Or better yet, not made it a big deal at all? Jesus didn't have a rule about it. It just seems to me to be unnecessarily antagonistic.

One of the things that pushed me away from religion was al Qada, more recently the IS, and reading history. One would believe from reading the bible that Christianity flourished due to peaceful revolution. Not even close. The first issue arose when people were told not to eat food that had been sacrificed to idols, or participate in religious festivals that honored "gods". This seems like a reasonable request, except when the supposed well-being of the entire culture depended on everyone eating food sacrificed to idols and partaking in religious festivals. This created an automatic division and subsequent persecution. And if that wasn't enough, christians persecuted and murdered each other for differences in doctrine. The only peace for christians within christianity was in compliance. The way compliance was achieved was by force and by keeping the masses ignorant.

I've never watched the Duggar show, but I could not help noticing that they all had a particular hairstyle. I then researched and found out their "leader" loved long curly hair. So all the women who don't have curly hair perm their long hair. I remember a couple of women growing their hair because of that long hair verse, and pretty much all of us who went to a particular stylist had the same modified short mullet (not much party in the back), but was there a particular hairstyle women wore because VPW or LCM liked it?

We used to be all about being a melting pot (theoretically - not actually), now we are all about multi-culturalism. However, most people get along best in a homogeneous setting. We just need to really enlarge our idea of what "we" looks like. EDIT: I cannot believe I got my too - to(s) mixed up in #4. I am so embarrassed.

One of my twig leader friends had huge problems staying pregnant. She finally had a baby. Hubby wants them to do family corp, so they do. Miraculously, she gets pregnant in corp. Seriously. She was underweight and looked under nourished. He (the husband) was furious about it. She was devastated as all she ever wanted was to be a mother. So she had the baby. He was ....ed most of the time as it kept him from climbing the ladder. The last time I saw her was at a ROA. Kids were dirty and ragged. She was ragged and under weight. He was king of the honey wagon. He quit a $30k a year job (a very good job back then) to do this to his family. He was an almoster until everyone else left or was kicked out. I hear they were dropped for the horrific mistake of wanting to buy a house. That made me happy.

Oh, well...

I guess it's safe to say you no longer have that christians only forum...

I didn't know the "Mike Wars" had a name. But Raf, wow! What a difference 11 years makes. Refiner could be you.

I read the syllabus and decided not to take the advanced class. Actually, I only took one other class - maybe christian family and sex? IDK. I think it was because I remember thinking how ironic it was that they tried to keep me from bringing my nursing baby.

Well how's this for irony, Tom: I have attended a mainstream church since 2001. I have never become a member for the same reasons you state, although I've never told anyone exactly why. For the first 5 years, the trinity was never mentioned. Then we left the denomination and the new denomination is REALLY trinitarian. Since I had been a Jesus is functionally god person for a number of years, the trinity didn't bother me that much - anymore. Now I'm struggling with believing any of it. However, since I'm a huge volunteer and we are well known even in our large congregation, here I am going almost every week. What happened is that I no longer care about doctrine. That started in 2002. I became very aware of how doctrine was basically a matter of opinion and very divisive when it comes to relationships. Since for me church is about relationships, I just don't let doctrine be a dealbreaker for me. I don't need to discuss it. I don't need to be in agreement to have a relationship. I found it to be very liberating. Not. to. care.

If you are a Christian, just show them what real Christian love and grace is supposed to look like. If you are an atheist, let them be. Removing someone forcefully doesn't really remove them. Just look at all the splinters...

Then again regular people, generally speaking, don't have entertainment value.

Even at the height of my fundamentalist stage, I did not have a serious issue with homosexuality. I don't know if it's a genetic thing, a character thing, or an environmental thing. What I do know is that most homosexuals do not feel they "chose" homosexuality over hetero. Nor did I have serious issues with marriage between homosexuals. Now I do not care about that, nor do I care about whether people decide to poly marry. Why? Because why we marry today is not the reason why people got married in the past, nor was it something ordained by god. It was around long before any of the monotheistic religions. Back in the day it was essentially a contract between 2 families. It was done to solidify power, or keep the peace. In early Christianity marriage was something one did when one was too earthly to be chaste. It did not achieve "sacrament" status until the 12th century, which IMO totally takes it out of the realm of being something that is religious in origin or nature, much less ordained by god. Whether homosexuals marry does not in any way interfere with my marriage. The quality of my marriage has not changed since homosexuals have been able to marry in my state. Whether or not homosexuals can have children should not interfere with marriage. Plenty of heterosexuals either can't or choose not to have children. No one's denying them marriage. If multiple people want to marry - let them. The problem is when someone is drug into that lifestyle who wants no part of it. OR when men are allowed to have more than one wife, yet women can't have more than one husband. The "who's the father" argument is a moot point and in plural marriage, support and raising of the children should have no bearing on parentage. Where I would draw the line is the age of consent. And that is because certain religions tend to marry off children way before they can consent - particularly the polygamist groups. Not that I noticed, but religious groups tend to be the ones who take advantage of the young and force people into lifestyles that they might not choose on their own. And religious people need to get off their high horse about providing services to non-hetero couples. Baking a cake is baking a cake. Flowers are flowers. Pictures are pictures. But, I can't imagine that someone would want to force a pastor into marrying them to someone. That would be downright unnatural and out of character in any context.

In order to justify the barbarity (immorality) of god, one would have to choose slavery over what is arguably the higher grace notion of forgiving debt.

The only place on the planet where almost nobody knows my name or cares, and I can totally be me.

Got some updated clothes, too!

As if that will stop the voices...

Amazing apologetic on slavery... slavery vs homosexuality It appears that Dan reads this website for views on slavery and perhaps the morality of god.