I’ve been slacking….

176 Darrell Gilyard, Jerry Falwell protege, must really be some preacher, convicted of child molestation, on parole and back in the pulpit. So they ban children from the church

177 Conservative Baptist minister Matt Baker murdered his wife

178 Richmond County Republican Party official Brett Bennie Langham was indicted for child molestation.

179 FOX News Latino VP, Francisco Cortes - sexual harassment

180 Eric Bolling, formerly FOX News - sexual harassment

181 Kimberley Guilfoyle - FOX NEws - sexual harassment

182 David Garland, President of rightwing Baptist Baylor University, covered up rapes, said women willingly became victims.

183 Political hack and professional hypocrite Ken Starr covered up rapes while Chancellor at Baylor

184 Stephen Dalton Baril just got not jail time even though he took a plea for rape, perhaps because his grandfather was John Dalton, a former governor, and his father Steve Baril ran for Attorney General.

185 Greenville County Sheriff Will Lewis, Republican, indicted for rape, stalking, obstruction

186 While Oklahoma Republican representative George Faught did not commit rape and incest (as far as I know) he said it’s all part of God's will, so he joins the list of rape enablers.

187 Connecticut Republican politician Christopher von Keyserling was arrested and charged with sexual assault. Trump’s his role model. He said it, not me.

187 Bob Jones University Blamed Victims, not Abusers

189 Rhode Island state Sen. Nicholas Kettle, a 27-year-old Coventry Republican, of twice coercing a Senate student page to have sex with him

190 Milo Yiannopolous defended pedophilia, saying older men can show younger men who they are

191 Caleb Bailey, Trump delegate - child pornography

192 Paul Travis Williams, former Lumpkin Co GOP Chair, child pornography

193 Bishop Raymond Burke of Missouri said John Kerry should not get communion, excommunicated all sorts of people, but not pedophile priests

194 CJ Maheney covered up sexual abuse in his churches

195 Megachurch pastor Bob Coy raped and molested a girl from age 4 until she was 14 and his Republican pals helped cover it up, sealing his divorce file, not investigating the complaint

196 Baptist Megachurch Pastor Matt Chandler punished a woman for divorcing her pedophile husband. Did not punish the husband.

197 AZ GOP State Sen. Scott Bundegaard - domestic violence, not arrested at the time because cops believed him when he said he had immunity while House was in session

198 WA GOP state Rep. Matt Manweller is accused of sexual misconduct with students and legislative aides.

199 TX GOP state Sen. Charles Schwertner accused of sending sexting grad student, sending dick pic

200 Indiana Republican Attorney General Curtis Hill - groping

Party of debauchery. Waiting for you to post the list of Democrat politicians with similar convictions…it’s going to be short and a one time only thing…I’ve got at least 38 more pages to go listing high power conservative sex abusers just from this one list, and it’s not all inclusive. Who could be surprised? Your leader is a repeated publicly known pedophilic RAPIST and incestous creep.

Bonus’s E Jene Carrol already won her second defamation case against Trump the rapist…it’s going straight to the damages phase just like Giuliani and the poll workers. Wow your team sucks slimy donkey dicks in court, losing completely before you even start defending yourselves repeatedly!

76 Republican staffer and long-term director of financial operations for Seattle Republicans Larry Corrigan pleaded guilty for attempted rape of a 13-year-old girl

77 Republican talk show host Scott Eller Cortelyou plead guilty on charges of using the Internet to try and lure a child into a sexual relationship with him

78 Republican constable Joshua Dickens sentenced to five years in prison for torture-related activities against a young woman.

79 Republican spokesman Brian Doyle arrested for trying to seduce a 14-year-old girl over the Internet. He was later sentenced to 5 years in prison

80 Republican campaign official and former Romney staffer Matthew Joseph Elliott convicted of sexual exploitation of a child Got a great deal, but really went astray, ending up murdering a child.

81 Republican party chair Donald Fleischman was charged with two counts of child enticement and one count of exposing himself to a child

82 Republican Michael Flory, former head of the Michigan Young American Foundation, raped a colleague at convention

83 Richard Gardner, a Nevada State Representative (R), admitted to molesting his two daughters and 34% of voters still voted for him. That 7 over the Keyes Constant!

84 George Roche III resigned as president of conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan after accusations of a quasi-incestuous relationship with his daughter-in-law, Lissa. This is an exception to my no adultery rule because yuck, his daughter-in-law. How could he do that to his son?

85 Bishop Paprocki is not a sexual predator, but he protects them. He protected and enabled pedophile priests. He engages in partisanship to order Democratic politicians be denied communion by all priests in his diocese, including Dick Durbin

86 Republican high-level Bush appointee Dr. David Hager sodomized his wife while she slept. She divorced him for it.

87 Republican sheriff Don Haidl used his office to try to smear the victim that was gang raped. The main perpetrator was Haidl’s son, who poisoned the victim. Sheriff Haidl claims that the girl deserved it because she was a "slut." The original story I linked is now 404, but here is another one.

88 Republican activist Neal Horsley admits to having had sex with a mule. Horsley also wants all homosexuals arrested and solicited murders of abortion providers on his Nuremberg files site.

89 Conservative Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston covered up thousands of instances of sexual molestation by fellow conservative members of the clergy.

90 Republican congressman Joseph McDade charged with exposing his genitalia to two women on a public beach

91 Republican delegate Robert McKee resigns after police seized two computers and videotapes from his home pertaining to child pornography

92 Republican blowhard TV personality Bill O’Reilly paid several million dollars to settle a sexual harassment suit with Andrea Mackris.

93 Republican mega-preacher Marshal Seymour arrested on charges of having sex with underage boys. Seymour had been jailed almost a decade earlier for similar charges in a different state

94 White supremacist National Vanguard leader Kevin Alfred Strom arrested and charged with child pornography

95 Daniel Dean Thompson founded a family-values film company that removed all the "bad parts" from films to make them family-friendly front for child porn, arrested for having sex with 14-year-old

96 Wharton prof & conservative consultant on media effects on children Lawrence Scott Ward had video of himself having sex with children. Sex tourist

97 Spokane Republican homophobic mayor Jim West recalled after evidence surfaced that he molested little boys

98 Focus on the Family's Steve Wilsey - molesting an 8-year-old boy

99 Republican Southern Baptist megachurch pastor Paul Williams faces charges of molesting his son

100 Chairman of the Young Republican National Federation, Glenn Murphy Jr., from Indiana was busted for assaulting another man. Not the first time it's happened.

Also,

Matthew Reilly, Cranston City council member and chairman of the Cranston Republican Party caught passed out in the drivers seat of his car after smoking crack. He had cocaine, fentanyl, and crack all over the open car where anyone including children could grab it.

Let me guess, your answer will be some random person’s tweet having nothing to do with republicans smoking crack and fucking children.

This guy actually says they had communion,knowing they would get sick. Then this pos says,hey ,we don’t wanna get tested,because that would make the numbers go up and that would be bad for business… we may never know how many of these idiots got killed by the other idiots. But nobodies god protected them from covid. And neither did theirs. They knowingly and willfully spread a pandemic across their community and state. Fuck them.

I get where you're coming from.

But I'll tell you with this my feelings are more along the likes of

**Jealousy** : Wish I had that type of communion at my wedding or any type of gathering of friends : pure and raw expression of individual and shared emotions... which brings me to :

**Shame** : In a way I fell this shouldn't be shared with anyone else that wasn't there that day.

I've gone to church for a few years. And I see no women staying silent, nor any man telling them to. I really don't care about "tradition" and would voice serious concern if these type of crap happens in the modern church. Believe me, my church sisters takes no crap from the brothers. And I don't really see much old-school practices except communion, and that's not far-out unacceptable a tradition considering its purpose.

I (or at least hope to) continuously carry a critical eye & mind on these social-issue things as in many others at the church. Church "doctrine/tradition" is no excuse to justify bad social/inequality/bigotry behavior. For me, discussion on why the heck Paul wrote these words is fine, it's good to find faults how those people who lived 2000 years ago and evolve the modern church practices to align better with Jesus' intention.
Overall, in my church, I think most people are pretty grounded in real-life struggles... but hey, I fully understand these are subjective opinions... we all have our blindspots. I think we're all better man/woman if we can take in criticisms.

I can't for the life of me understand the U.S. "Christian Right" (but I'm Canadian, so I'm just a passive observer, as I can't vote on US politics) nor, from my understanding of Him, Jesus (as a preacher of love & peace) could be a far/alt-right-winger. But oh, sorry, I don't mean to talk politics... just hope to convey from which side of the discussion I come from.

It's foolish (and arrogant) to take the Bible literally... so much contradictions, inconsistencies, if read this way. And really, I keep thinking - WHY LITERALLY? - I don't dare listen to my pastors and think their words MUST be what God/Jesus meant. Martin Luther's movement freed us from those chains of mindlessness from the church preachers' power over us.

Akways look to the intention of Jesus, which for me, is honestly good, relevant and much in demand, and do those as the Christian mission. The Bible can be confusing, but the message is crystal clear. And that's love & compassion towards our neighbors, go a preach THAT! Not hate/fear-filled "damn this, damn that"/"End of the World is nigh"-type rhetorics.

Seriously man, looking from a distance (again, Canadian here) those loud-voice Christian Rights in the States scare the hell out of me and most of my brothers & sisters, the general thought around me is that they've move way far out from the Christian's way that Jesus want us to be (that I know of)... makes me so sad.

Everything virtual does not have to be this kind of choice, VoodooV-I'm no wimp, the process would work were it not continually hijacked by a mechanism that is both glaringly apparent and for a certain privileged few to tweak at their leisure while maintaining a simple yet elaborate ruse. 'Writing' someone in would not work and this cold-cut fact should also be glaringly apparent to anyone with the capacity for critical thought tinctured with a dash of common-sense. Elections are and have been simply an exercise in complacent self-approbation and self-deceit for some time now...going waaay back-The white-knights and villains are agreed, in every personality, every human breathing as all are capable of the worst atrocities and the infinite empathy and kindness. The checks-and-balances only work if everyone plays by the rule book and not the cheat-sheet.


Now, an intelligent breakdown of your reaction cloaked as some meaningful response:

'someones feeling attention deprived again, trolling and picking fights to overcompensate'

No-I'm not picking a fight, I'm picking at a soft-spot in a personality and calling attention to particular predictable rhetorical repetition in a manner which also predictably, causes these certain personalities to cry foul, troll (insert racist here, as those who cry racism are invariably the racists themselves) or any other convenient terms which halt the process of reason.

"If I thought there would be actual rational discourse, I would engage him." (here's your chance) 'But nope' (there's the cop-out and hasty retreat with the regular gang of supporters)

'It would just be noise' (perhaps to yourself, as this is yet another convenient dismissal of an alternative point of view or realization).

And bareboards, sorry if I cause you to la la la with fingers in your ears, I did nothing rather, your reaction as well connotes a predictable denial of the meat in my rant, as is Chaos calling out the mundane aspect of mistyped punctuation.

Haven't had a drop of alcohol when this was written earlier this morning, nor have I smoked the ganja for over 2 months...question mark, exclamation point.....and more than enough ....el;ipsis

As tired of the childish shit as y'all are of mine?? Yep-But I hold-out hope for communion and understanding, as we all play here together.

Yes in deed. After my First Communion I had jebus crackers every Sunday for brunch and chased them his blood.

Here's the skinny-It's a Church of Christ church in Debuque, Iowa. Church of Christ is an autonomous Christian sect in the U.S. and they set them apart from others with their particuar take on the bible.

There are probably a few other Church of Christ congregations in town, one's probably called, 1st COC and it's common to see CoC's named after the area of town or a major Street.
The sect splits often when a number of parishioners start interpreting shit differently to suit their needs.

For instance, most CoC's agree that the God forbids musical instruments in the house of worship-(Talk about your uptight, white motherfuckers!) It follows that there are very few minorities, persons of color or SOUL, in the congregations of these churches, not to mention a fundamental absence of common sense.

Yeah, y'know? Tell me how fucked-up your take on the Bible has to be to assume that God does not want accomp..accommm...accompaniment during the local communion of worship and praise??!

Who the FUCK, decided THAT is the real mystery!!??

Let's cut to the chase here Shinyblurry:

You say that there's a John Smith (let's use that as a synonym for your god) , who lives close by, and he has absolute knowledge of the universe, and nothing can be known with certainty without his direct contact with me.

Let's for argument's sake say that, through whatever means, I become convinced by you that there is indeed this guy John Smith who does indeed have all this knowledge...

So how can I get to meet this wonderful John Smith gent? Does he actually even exist? Is he entirely made up? Is his existence some form of delusion, like a folk legend about fairies at the end of the garden? Have you dreamed of him while high on drugs? How can I work this out?

You say proof has to come through personal revelation by sincerely inviting him into your life, but this is *entirely* false. I was brought up a catholic, went to religious schooling, was baptised, made my communion, and confirmed, I preyed to him regularly. I did more than just invite him into my life, I spoke to him, and sometimes even pleaded with him, but I have never, ever, received any indication of any kind, no matter how minuscule, that he actually existed.

Even Matt Dillahunty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Dillahunty) was raised a Baptist, and sought to become a minister, but now he is one of the world's most highly regarded proponents of secularism and atheism.

And what about all the existing ministers that leave religious orders and become atheists? There are currently organisations set up in the USA (such as The Clergy Project - http://clergyproject.org/) to help these people integrate back into society. I also personally know an ordained priest who left the priesthood on becoming an atheist.

Without you first proving that your god exists I can't entertain any notions that he may have any knowledge about anything. You've told me that this can be done by inviting him into your life, but this is entirely and demonstrably false.

In the absence of any proof / revelation that this omnipotent all knowing god of which you speak even exists, I'm afraid the knowledge you claim that he has must remain unproven too.

Jump the first hurdle of a god's existence, until then we're wasting our time debating what you claim he knows.

Baptists don't believe in communion. Are they less Christian? No.

Give me a fucking break with this bullshit video.

All religion is complete fictional bullshit anyway, so arguing which one is better is like arguing about which Star Trek, Star Wars or Harry Potter book is the best or that Unicorns poop rainbows.

>> ^ChaosEngine:

>> ^Fletch:
My last day ever in a church was the day I was confirmed. My mom made me a deal that if I completed the classes and shit I could decide on my own whether to go back. I didn't believe in magic then, and I don't believe in it now. Did it for mom.

Lol, for me, I never realised I had a choice to not be catholic. Growing up in Ireland, you had normal people (i.e. catholics), those dirty protestant kids and that was it. Oh I was vaguely aware that there were other weird "foreign" religions, but it had zero impact on my daily life.
When I made my first communion and confirmation, I felt bad for the protestant kids who didn't get heaps of money from relatives and friends for completing a solemn religious ritual.


I think she thought I would eventually come around if I stuck with it. Her father was a preacher (7 daughters!), and it was kind of important to her, so I at least finished the whole confirmation process for her. Church was always such a tortuous, boring, monotonous affair. I still hate Sundays because I can't shake the memory of blue-haired elderly women with suffocating amounts of cheap perfume on. The lutefisk and lefsa feeds were always awesome though.

>> ^Fletch:

My last day ever in a church was the day I was confirmed. My mom made me a deal that if I completed the classes and shit I could decide on my own whether to go back. I didn't believe in magic then, and I don't believe in it now. Did it for mom.


Lol, for me, I never realised I had a choice to not be catholic. Growing up in Ireland, you had normal people (i.e. catholics), those dirty protestant kids* and that was it. Oh I was vaguely aware that there were other weird "foreign" religions, but it had zero impact on my daily life.

*When I made my first communion and confirmation, I felt bad for the protestant kids who didn't get heaps of money from relatives and friends for completing a solemn religious ritual.

A girl I knew lucid dreamed her whole life, and was unaware that other people didnt dream that way. btw, if you have sleep paralysis and you see a demon, call upon the name of Jesus and it will flee. This isn't just innocent activity. This kind of activity is also linked to alien abduction experiences:

http://videosift.com/video/Unholy-Communion-Casualties-of-a-Cosmic-War

You tell me that you understand science, and were once very scientific, then you drop --excuse me-- a giant turd like this. I could as easily say, "If the Theory of Evolution is correct, then all living creatures are evidence of Theory of Evolution's correctness," and it would still be a meaningless statement because if we already know something is true (as in the premise), then evidence is redundant. It's precisely when we don't know something that evidence becomes useful. This is probably the hardest part about talking to you -- your weak grasp on how science and logic work. And don't take this as an internet ad hom. I'm being straight with you, really. It's not your strong suit. Own it.

Actually, I think that it is you who is demonstrating a weak grasp of logic here. It seems that what I was getting at went right over your head. What you've done here is rip my statement out of its context, and then claimed I was using it in a meaningless way that I never intended. It is a straw man argument, really, and yes you did use ad homs. A giant turd? Saying that its really hard to talk to me because of my weak grasp of science and logic? Come on. I had thought that our dialogue had transcended these kind of petty caricatures.

In context, the statement is designed to get you think outside the box you're in and weigh both sides of the issue equally. It's not an argument in itself. The statement that if God exists, everything that exists is empirical evidence for God is a logically valid statement. If God exists, everything you're looking at right now if proof that He exists. Obviously, this statement by itself doesn't help you determine whether God actually exists or not. You could just as easily say that if God doesn't exist, everything that does exist is proof that He doesn't exist. Therefore, the question is, how would you tell if you're in a Universe that God designed?

The real question is, why is either possibility more or less likely than the other? You haven't addressed this, but simply have taken a leap of faith in favor of your atheistic naturalism. You say, I don't see the Planner, and I didn't see the Planner make this Universe, therefore it is not designed until proven otherwise. The problem with this is that you can't even begin to justify this assumption until you can explain why either possibility is any more likely than the other. You can't say you don't see any empirical evidence because it might be staring you in the face everywhere you look. To analyze how either possibility is more likely than the other you have to discard your assumptions about what you have seen or haven't seen and think about this on a deeper level.

Taking it a step deeper, the fact is, you would only expect to see exactly what you do see, because you are in fact a created being. A created being should expect to find himself existing in an environment capable of creating him. The crux is though that this environment is also finely tuned. You should expect to see what you do, but you should also be surprised to find that it is finely tuned. It a bit like being taken out for execution in front of a firing squad of 100 expert marksmen 3 feet away, and finding yourself alive after all of them opened fire. You should not be surprised to find yourself alive, because obviously you would have to be alive to find yourself alive, but you should be surprised to find that 100 expert marksmen missed you from 3 feet away. In the same way, you should be surprised to find yourself to be a created being in a finely tuned Universe.

What you have on your hands is a Universe full of empirical evidence that it was or wasn't designed. There are only two possibilities; the Universe was either planned or unplanned. Again, how would you tell the difference? What would you expect to see which is different from what you do see? What would make either possibility more likely? That is the point. A finely tuned Universe should tip the scales of that evidence, if you are being honest about what you can really prove.

Supernatural creation is easier to understand, but just about any other explanation is as or more plausible. When you consider some of the extreme coincidences that are required for us to exist, it stretches the mind. But we've had billions of years to evolve, and if we're talking about the whole universe, it could be that 10^one trillion universes with different physical properties have formed and collapsed, and when a balanced one finally came out of the mix, it stuck around, and here we are.

It could be, except there is no evidence there is. Why is it you that can imagine an infinite number of hypothetical Universes with no evidence, but you object to supernatural creation as somehow being less plausible than that? There is no evidence that it is less plausible, you simply assume it is. Sure, if you use your magic genie of time and chance you could imagine just about anything could happen. Scientists agree:

Given so much time, the impossible becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait: time itself performs the miracles.

George Wald, Nobel Laureate, Harvard
Physics and Chemistry of Life p.12

The odds of any of this happening by itself far exceeds the number of atoms in the Universe, and there is no actual proof that it actually could happen by itself, but you still believe it to be more plausible. Why is that? In the end, why is it plausible that anything would exist at all? Why isn't everything equally unlikely in the end? Notice what George Wald said? He said time itself performs the *miracles*. He said that because the existence of life is nothing short of a miracle, but even knowing that, you would still say God is implausible. I think these arguments are what is implausible.

Look at how these scientists come to the same conclusions as you have:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/blog/2012/03/is-the-universe-fine-tuned-for-life/

They acknowledge there are only two possibilities, one being God, but since they hate that possibility more than they hate embracing the anthropic principle, they go with that instead, having absolutely no evidence to base that conclusion on. They simply don't want to acknowledge the obvious, which is that a finely tuned Universe is *much* stronger evidence for an omnipotent God than it is for multiple Universes.

I would take a declarative statement about him, and see what implications it had, what predictions it made, then see if they were testable, either theoretically or practically. Like theoretically if God is omniscient, it means he knows everything, and if I can find an example of something he absolutely cannot know, then I've proven he's not omniscient.

What God says is that as the Heavens are higher than the Earth, so are His ways above our ways, and His thoughts above our thoughts. He also calls the wisdom of this world, foolishness. So God has directly said that it is only by His revelation and not our understanding that we can come to know Him. A limited temporal creature, trying to disprove Gods existence with his own corrupt reasoning is kind of laughable, isn't it?

In any case, it's easy to think of things God doesn't know or can't do. God doesn't know what it feels like to not exist. God can't remember a time that He didn't exist. God can't make a square circle, or an acceptable sin. This doesn't prove anything. A better definition would be, omniscience is knowing everything that can be known, and omnipotence is being able to do everything that can be done.

Or practically, if God answers prayers, then I can test that statistically. Now, you say that God refuses to be tested, but that also means that if people are sincerely praying, but someone else is measuring the effects of those prayers, that God will choose not to answer those prayers, "Sorry! I'm being tested for, so I can't help you out today." This puts the power of denying God's prayers in the hands of scientists -- ridiculous. So there's two tests for God.

Or perhaps He had sovereignly arranged for only insincere prayers or prayers outside of His will to be prayed for at that time which would give the results of the test the appearance of randomness.

This is self-fulfilling prophecy. The only reason the Jewish people came back to form a country again is because their holy book said they were entitled to do so, divine providence. Like Macbeth likely never would have become king of Scotland if he hadn't been told so by the Weird Sisters.

The Jews are historically from Israel, and there is archaeological evidence to prove this. The reason they came back to Israel is because it is historically their homeland. Given the opportunity, they would have come back to Israel with or without the bible saying they were entitled to. The point is that they were predicted to come back, not only around the date that they did, but their migration pattern was in the exact order, their currency was predicted, their economic and agricultural condition was predicted, and many other things.

I'm no biblical scholar, but I found three places where the destruction of Jerusalem is predicted. The first is in Micah 3:11-12, where it simply states that it will happen at some point. It doesn't say when, nor describe any of the circumstances. The second one I found is Daniel 9:24-26, where there's some detail that sounds kinda like Jesus, except that it was supposed to happen within 70 weeks (16 months) of when God spoke to Daniel, roughly 530 years BC. Or if you understand that the signal to begin the 70 weeks hadn't been issued yet, then Jerusalem was to have been build a mere 16 months before it was destroyed by Titus, which clearly isn't the case either. It also predicts the end will be by flood, but it was by fire, and then manual labour of soldiers, if Josephus' account is to be believed (he wasn't impartial).

The 70 weeks are not concurrent, first of all. Second, Jesus is the one who predicted the fall of Jerusalem:

Luk 19:41 And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it,
Luk 19:42 saying, "Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.
Luk 19:43 For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side
Luk 19:44 and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation."

I would have to accept Jesus as messiah before I could accept this argument. And if I had already accepted him as messiah, then the argument would be meaningless, just like the one about the universe as evidence for God's existence.

I'll rephrase this by saying, that Jesus fulfilled dozens of prophecies about the coming of the Messiah. Clearly, the impact of that Jesus has had on the world matches His claims about who He is. Consider this quotation by Napoleon:

"What a conqueror!--a conqueror who controls humanity at will, and wins to himself not only one nation, but the whole human race. What a marvel! He attaches to himself the human soul with all its energies. And how? By a miracle which surpasses all others. He claims the love of men--that is to say, the most difficult thing in the world to obtain; that which the wisest of men cannot force from his truest friend, that which no father can compel from his children, no wife from her husband, no brother from his brother--the heart. He claims it ; he requires it absolutely and undividedly, and he obtains it instantly.

Alexander, Caesar, Hannibal, Louis XIV strove in vain to secure this. They conquered the world, yet they had not a single friend, or at all events, they have none any more. Christ speaks, however, and from that moment all generations belong to him; and they are joined to him much more closely than by any ties of blood and by a much more intimate, sacred and powerful communion. He kindles the flame of love which causes one's self-love to die, and triumphs over every other love. Why should we not recognize in this miracle of love the eternal Word which created the world? The other founders of religions had not the least conception of this mystic love which forms the essence of Christianity.

I have filled multitudes with such passionate devotion that they went to death for me. But God forbid that I should compare the enthusiasm of my soldiers with Christian love. They are as unlike as their causes. In my case, my presence was always necessary, the electric effect of my glance, my voice, my words, to kindle fire in their hearts. And I certainly posses personally the secret of that magic power of taking by storm the sentiments of men; but I was not able to communicate that power to anyone. None of my generals ever learned it from me or found it out. Moreover, I myself do not possess the secret of perpetuating my name and a love for me in their hearts for ever, and to work miracles in them without material means.

Now that I languish here at St Helena, chained upon this rock, who fights, who conquers empires for me? Who still even thinks of me? Who interests himself for me in Europe? Who has remained true to me? That is the fate of all great men. It was the fate of Alexander and Caesar, as it is my own. We are forgotten, and the names of the mightiest conquerors and most illustrious emperors are soon only the subject of a schoolboy's taks. Our exploits come under the rod of a pedantic schoolmaster, who praises or condemns us as he likes.

What an abyss exists between my profound misery and the eternal reign of Christ, who is preached, loved, and worshipped, and live on throughout the entire world. Is this to die? Is it not rather to live eternally? The death of Christ! It is the death of a God."

Nope. Eternal means within all time. It implies that such an entity wouldn't necessarily exist outside of time. Maybe you meant a different word, but "eternal" doesn't describe whoever created time, if words have meaning.

Words do have meaning. Check any dictionary; the definition I used is there:

e·ter·nal/i't?rnl/
Adjective:

Lasting or existing forever; without end or beginning.
(of truths, values, or questions) Valid for all time; essentially unchanging.

What is this (especially the bits in bold) based on? It this biblical? Your intuition?

Isaiah 29:13

The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men

1 Samuel 16:7

But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart

You can give God all of the lip service you want, but He is only interested in what is in your heart.

Yes, the Lord will test your sincerity:

1 Peter 1:6-7

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Also, if God knows everything, then what could he possibly be "testing" for? You only need to test things if you don't already know. And if he does know, the he's just messing with my head, in which case, it's not a test.

The metaphor that is used for testing is that of impurities being refined out of gold or silver. Tests are to prove your sincerity, not necessarily what God knows.

>> ^messenger

>> ^messenger:
Wow. I'm surprised to hear there are Christian churches that don't practice sacraments. Do you mean, none of them? No weddings, no communion, no confession, no confirmation, no last rites, no.... the other ones? Especially communion seems a strange omission since you were commanded by Jesus to do so. Or did you interpret, "Do this in memory of me" to only apply to the Apostles?


You won't find the word sacrament in the bible. Marriage, that is fine. Baptism too, although it isn't sprinkling like the catholic church teaches; it is full body immersion. Child baptism is not biblical. Christians should take communion, but not according to the pagan rituals of the catholic church, or regarding what they call the "trans-substantiation". The cracker does not literally become the flesh of Jesus, nor the wine His literal blood. It is simply something we do to symbolize our fellowship with Him, and the body of Christ.

The rest you have mentioned are nowhere to be found in the bible. They simply come from the traditions of the catholic church. It is not a Christian institution, and this is why neither you or your family has ever come to know Jesus Christ.

>> ^messenger:
With my question here, I was indirectly taking issue with your assertion that only if I pledge myself to Jesus can I truly commune with God. So in my question, my intent was to find out if you ever fully give yourself to any religion before Christianity, like become an active, fervent follower. I'm guessing the answer is no. If I'm right, then I don't see how you can say Christianity is the only way to commune with God. If I'm wrong, and you did fully dedicate your soul to some other religion first, then I'd simply like to hear about that experience.


My experience was, that after I became aware that God exists, He led me through the various religions and philosophies of the world over a number of years. He gave me clues along the way, leading me step by step, until He finally brought me to the bible. This was not a natural progression for me, because I had a big resistance to Christianity. It was actually one of the religions I thought was the least likely to be true. But He had given me signs beforehand about truth that was in the bible that I didn't understand at the time, so that when I started to read the bible, I could see it was His book. This gave me enough faith in it to give my life to Christ, and when I did, He supernaturally transformed my life. This isn't stated metaphorically; I mean it in a literal sense.

>> ^messenger:
I think you know what I believe and don't, and what I know and what I don't. At this stage, I think definitions are just semantics, and I'm not going to explain again what those words really mean. So, here's my official statement with all the contentious words taken out: I don't believe that any description of God I've ever heard is true, and I don't know if my belief is accurate.


What that means is that you don't know if there is a God or not. That makes you an agnostic and not an atheist.

>> ^messenger:
Seriously? You cannot claim to understand science, and then state that the burden for a non-claim lies with the person not making the claim. Scientist Anna says, "I believe the Higgs boson exists." Scientist Bob says, "I don't believe that the Higgs boson exists." Neither of them have any evidence. Anna is introducing a novel assertion about something. Bob isn't. Bob can ask Anne to prove it exists. Anne cannot ask Bob to prove it doesn't exist. Anne may, however, ask Bob why he doesn't believe it exists, since the Standard Model predicts its existence. If Bob shows why be believes the prediction is false, either by showing the SM has been used incorrectly, or stating he doesn't believe in SM at all, that's the end of his "burden" for that question. He does not have to scientifically prove the Higgs boson doesn't exist. He can't. It's logically impossible.


I understand I have my own burden of proof, but if someone wants to say that I am wrong, they are making a negative claim. It's up to them to provide reasons to substantiate their claim, and no, I don't think this need constitute absolute proof. If they're just saying "I don't know", then that is a different story. Most atheists don't want to concede that they don't know, because then they would have to admit that God could possibly exist, so they invent a new definition of atheism to obscure their true position.

>> ^messenger:
The theistic equivalent is you asking my why I don't believe in God. To this I tell you that to me, there's insufficient evidence, which is a position you should understand since it was exactly your own position until you got some direct evidence. That's the end of my "burden".


It depends on what you're trying to claim, about your own beliefs, or mine. Yes, I can relate to your position, having been there. That is why I describe atheism as religion for people who have no experience with God. I too was a true believer in naturalistic materialism until that veil was torn, and then I immediately realized that everything I knew, was in some way, wrong. Can you even conceive of such a thing, messenger? Do you care enough about the truth to be willing to let the tide take your sandcastle away from you?

>> ^messenger:
An equivalent for you might be if I asked you to prove to me that Thor and Ra don't exist. You couldn't. You could only give your reasons why you believe they don't exist. Same here. I'm in the same position as you, except I don't believe that Thor, Ra or Yahweh exist.


I wouldn't try to prove to you that Thor or Ra do not exist. I believe they do exist, but that they are not actually gods. They are fallen angels masquarading as gods, as with every other false idol.

>> ^messenger:
And my point is I wouldn't spend any effort trying to rule it out at all. I would just assume you're another false buried money promiser and move on. The reason I'm talking now isn't to rule anything out -- I never accepted the premise to begin with.


That's exactly the point; your conclusion is fallacious. You merely assume I am wrong because some people have made similar claims which were false. That is not a criterion for determining truth. If you had an incurable disease and only had a few days to live, and some people came to you promising a cure, and some of those claims turned out to be false, would you refuse to entertain any further claims and simply assume they are all false? I think not.

>> ^messenger:
Changing my whole perspective of the universe is an immense effort of mind. It's not "nothing". And why would I bother? Just to win an argument with you? Like I said above, I don't for a minute accept it's true, so I have no motivation for spending any energy proving it.


What effort does it take to entertain a possibility? You could simply pray something like this:

Jesus, I admit that I do not actually know if you are God or not. I would like to know whether it is true. Jesus, if it is true then I invite you into my life right now as Lord and Savior. I ask that you would forgive me for all of my sins, sins that you shed your blood on the cross for. I ask that you would give me the gift of faith, and help me turn from my sins. I ask that you send your Holy Spirit to me right now. I thank you Jesus for saving me.

If you pray that and sincerely mean what you say, then I have no doubt Jesus will answer it.

>> ^messenger:
1. No. If that's true, he gave me my life, and he can take it away if he wants to, but I have no respect for Indian givers.


It's appointed one for man to die, and then the judgment. He isn't going to take away your life, he is going to judge the one you have. Do you believe that you should be above His law?

>> ^messenger:
2. No. I don't serve anyone. He can do what he likes. He made me the way I am -- someone who relies on empirical evidence and sceptical about all superstition, and if he doesn't like it, it's his own fault. He should love me the way I am. And if he does, he should just let me come into heaven because he loves me, not because he needs me to worship him. I don't like egotists any more than Indian givers.


That isn't true; you serve yourself. If God has a better plan than you do, and your plan can only lead to a bad end, why wouldn't you serve God?

Yes, God made you the way you are, a person who knows right from wrong and has sufficient understanding to come to a knowledge of the truth. He loves you, but not your sin. He gave you a conscience to know right from wrong, and when you deliberately choose to do wrong, it isn't His fault. Yet He is patient with you, because He wants you to repent from your sin, so you can go to Heaven. As it stands now, you're a criminal in His eyes, and you are headed for His prison called hell, and He would be a corrupt judge if He just dismissed your case. But He is merciful and doesn't want to send you there. That is why He has given you an opportunity to be forgiven for your sins and avoid punishment. He sent His only Son to take your punishment, so that He can legally dismiss your case and forgive you, but also you must repent from your sins. If you refuse to stop doing evil, why do you think you should be allowed in?

>> ^messenger:
3. Yes and no. Yes, if Jesus turns out to be God, then there'll be no faith required. I'll know it. You can't disbelieve something you know is true. But no, I wouldn't trust him. A god isn't by definition benevolent or omni-anything. If he told me to accept that anal sex is a sin, he and I would get into a debate about what "sin" really is, why he defined sins to begin with, why he created the universe such that people would sin, why sin displeases him, and how those people can be faulted for following God's own design. And if the only way he could convince me he was right was by threatening me with eternal torment in a pit of fire, and promising to reward me with eternal happiness if I agreed with him, then I'd think he must have a pretty weak argument if he has to resort to carrot and stick tactics. I likewise don't like people who resort to violence or threats of violence to make people agree with them.


There'll be no faith required when you die and see Jesus at the judgment seat, but it will also be too late to receive forgiveness for your sins. Neither is God trying to convince you that He is right, because your conscience already tells you that you are wrong. You know that you are a sinner, and that you've broken Gods commandments hundreds, if not thousands of times. You're acting like I don't know you are a human being. What are you possibily going to have to say to a Holy God with your entire life laid bare before Him?