Raf

And that is why I had to make sure my avatar was showing what I thought it was showing. Your move, Lycanthrope.

I never said it would or should take a burning bush to get someone to check out God. I asked "by what means did God get you in..." and followed that up in the next post with "was it [something] remarkable, and that's how you knew it was God? (Like a burning bush or a talking donkey)." If a burning bush told me to check out a Bible fellowship, I would feel pretty strongly that "God got me in." I wasn't asking you to justify why you checked out God, see? I was asking you for the basis of your statement "God got me in," which you graciously provided. Your wife told you about it. My wife's word has that same "thus saith the Lord" authority, so I get it. I do. ;)

Really? Because I'm giving away the answer every time I post. I made sure of it.

Look at my post. All of it. I'm sure you recognize it.

I'm just saying how I got into it. You can judge for yourself whether it was God or man, but at least you know what happened. I can't tell you that God directed Word Wolf to me. I can tell you that was what I was told and I found the presentation of God's will and the approach to the Bible persuasive. But did God really tell Word Wolf where to find me? Not my story to tell. P.S. Allan, thank you. Snarkiness aside, you answered my question.

Close enough

Yes

No and no. Take everything about my post into consideration.

I don't understand "God got me in, God got me out." Did God tell you, "Hey, knock on that door. The person who answers it is going to help you in ways you never thought possible"? Or was it a more [seemingly] mundane set of developments you attribute to God because they impressed you so much? Or was it remarkable, and that's how you knew it was God? (Like a burning bush or a talking donkey). "God got me in" tells us what you concluded, but it doesn't tell us anything tangible. For me, Word Wolf endured a bitterly cold night witnessing to me after (he firmly believes) he heard God tell him he was needed and directed him to where I was. It wasn't the fact that he found me that impressed me so much. It was what he said. It was a LONG conversation. An impressive one. I was impressed. I wanted to learn more. Etc. Not, "God got me in." Maybe He did. Maybe He didn't. But saying He did doesn't convey the slightest bit of information. Which is FINE, if you don't want to answer to question. But if you do [want to answer the question], it doesn't [answer anything].

By what means did God get you in? By what means did God get you out?

"Ma chère mademoiselle. It is with deepest pride and greatest pleasure that we welcome you tonight. And now, we invite to relax, let us pull up a chair, as the dining room proudly presents... your dinner."

If you look at my WHOLE post, all of it, I give away the answer.

Starring Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, Greg Kinnear and Thomas Haden CHURCH.

Oh, I'm up. Time out. Be right there.

Ready, George....

Ruben Blades Once Upon a Time in Mexico Salma Hayek

You got it! Time to watch that one again. Admittedly, that was better for the Name that Flick thread, but clearly I gave you enough to get it in "one" line.

"So, when do I get out of here?" As soon as Mr. Stone pays the ransom. "What's the problem? What is the ransom?" Well, we asked for $500,000. "That should be no problem." He wouldn't pay. "He wouldn't pay?" Then we asked him for $50,000. "Yeah?" He still wouldn't pay. So now we're lowering our price to $10,000. "Do I understand this correctly? I'm being marked down? [starts crying] I've been kidnapped by K-Mart!"

There's Something About Mary

But Scientology got the cult label when he was still alive. John's point has merit. One quibble I have, John, is that you criticize the "cult" labelers inaccurately, IF my memory serves. They do not consider a religion a cult for rejecting the trinity. They would have no reason to label Jews and Muslims as cultists. Rather, they consider you a cult if you reject the trinity BUT STILL CALL YOURSELF CHRISTIAN. Thus, TWI, LDS, Jehovah's Witnesses and the Worldwide Church of God (back in the old days) were all labeled cults. It wasn't just because they rejected the trinity. It was because they rejected the trinity while still "pretending" to be Christian. The term they used, if I recall correctly, was "pseudoChristian" cults. Atheists put it another way: in a cult, there's someone at the top who knows it's all a scam. In a religion, that person died centuries ago.

From Steve L's thread on Speaking in Tongues (and not appropriate for the Questioning SIT thread), Steve wrote: This is not true. I want to be abundantly clear. THE ABOVE STATEMENT IS NOT TRUE. "You reject evidence of the supernatural, Raf, not because there isn't any..." Actually, yes, I reject evidence of the supernatural because there isn't any. Claims are not evidence. There are many claims. There is no evidence. If you'd like to produce evidence, or point me to where someone else has done so, I'd be more than happy to check it out. In fact, the JREF will pay $1 million for it. Not a joke. There isn't any. "...but because one of your presuppositions is that the supernatural does not exist." Actually, this is not a presupposition. It is a post-supposition, otherwise known as a conclusion (tentative, in this case, open to receiving more evidence). Dismissing someone's conclusion as a presupposition is a clever way of accusing someone of intellectual dishonesty without actually calling him a liar. I prefer the direct approach. If you think I'm being intellectually dishonest, just say so. I won't hit the report button. I pinky swear. MY presupposition, for 40 years, was that the supernatural DOES exist. You don't get to erase that because I changed my mind AFTER considering where the evidence leads. See, when you change your mind AFTER considering the evidence, that's not a "presupposition," by definition. "You automatically invalidate any evidence that goes against your presupposition." Let's test that theory. Show me evidence that is not merely a claim, and we'll see whether I invalidate it "automatically," as opposed to giving it due consideration, weighing the validity, checking out what can be checked out, and reaching a (tentative) conclusion.

Ok, fixed. Apparently your avatar and your photo are not the same thing. At least, I think it's fixed. I still see the old pic. Drat. Ah!

Raphael from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles should be my avi. Very peculiar.

I took it to mean Bolshevik wanted to know if he (she?) was interpreting our posts the same way Garth was.

Checks list. Applies to Paul. Results: 75 percent match. Applies to Moses. Results: 100 percent match.