Geordon

People like that exist?!?!?!?!

Did you even visit any of the links that I offered?

I wonder about that, since my mother had me baptized Lutheran in my infancy, and there are so many Christians who have their infants Christened or Baptized soon after birth. Who says that the people outside of Christ are lost? What gives them the moral authority to determine that those of a different path are incorrect and fault? If the answer is anything along the lines of "Well, Christian rules give Christians the moral authority to say that anyone not of our people is wrong" that is, by definition, coercion: "persuading someone to do something by using force or threats." So, basically, you'd do the same thing that most atheists do... How do you react when you get screamed at by the "prayor" because you're going to their version of Hell? How about when they come and desecrate your holy spaces? It happens to Atheists and non-Christians ALL THE TIME. In the US, that's called a "hate crime" Which translation? Which interpretation? Which books? What about the books that a group of men decided were not acceptable for inclusion? The Holy Bible (all translations) is based off of a series of texts that were written by people and then basically voted on to either include or exclude various portions. Gospel of Thomas? Gospel of Mary? The Apocrypha? And, again, who decides what is The Truth© that applies to all humanity? Who determines what the Truth is? What about when man invariably gets the Message wrong and perverts the Truth to their own benefit? And how do you know that the Truth of other people is not also part of your god's Truth, just phrased differently? Now, for some questions from a place of ignorance, since your book is not my book: By what moral authority do Christians get to judge the Jews, the Buddhists, the Hindus, the Aborigines, etc? All of these were in existence long before your Jesus died on the cross, so what was up with their entry to your heaven before Jesus? What about people whose faith is orthogonal to your own? By what moral authority do you* force the application of your laws upon people who do not live in your community? Doing so is, by definition, coercive. If the Crucification removed the curse for breaking the law from believers, how is it morally defensible that someone who perpetrates crimes after they were originally forgiven? For example, how is it justifiable for a Christian to beat his wife and kids, cheat on his taxes (Render unto Cesar...), abuse people under his control, etc then to go to Church, ask forgiveness on Sunday, then commit the same crimes the next week and repeat the cycle? Where is the accountability in this world? Nonbelievers and disbelievers are two entirely different categories. How do you rationalize and justify the sentence to Hell for people who have never heard of the sacrifice of your savior? Plenty of Christians commit sin on a daily basis, in small and large ways. Plenty of nonChristians do good works day in and day out, and live a life for the benefit and uplift of others. According to what I understand, the Christian sinners get a free pass, while the nonChristians get tossed into the proverbial lake of fire. How do you rationalize and justify this? Moreover, how do you rationalize any Protestants going to heaven, since they broke away from The Church at one point or another? Before the Protestant Reformation there was ONLY one Church. I would be willing to foot the cost to buy you a copy of Universal Life In The 21st Century with the caveat that you would read the whole thing and be willing to discuss your thoughts, feelings, and impressions afterwards. I am honestly curious what you would think of Kriby Helmsley's words and the ULC as a whole after reading it.

Beautiful! I love it!

I didn't specify, because I'm not worried about trying to get you to believe or not. That's your cross/karma/etc to bear. I'm just trying my best to relieve suffering where and how I can. Which leads me to number 2... Not a damned bit, if you'll excuse the play on words. Oh, you owe me a... something... Mind bleach? ...for enticing me to search for that quote. That was a rabbit hole that was bizarre, at best. Anyway, the closest that I was either an oblique reference to Descartes (what a shock!) and a reference to the Ohio Educational Monthly from December, 1876. I was too traumatized to look further than that Be that as it may, the statement that you quote is perfect, and what would be called "skillful means" in Buddhism. It (whatever you define IT as) is as it is, nothing more. And worrying about it is like eating soup with a fork (my own addition to the vernacular). In my understanding (as imperfect as it is), Animism sees divinity in all things in the natural world... Trees, rocks, clearings, lakes, rivers... Polytheists, on the other hand, see multiple independent, separate, and distinct divine beings.

I know that I'm coming into this a little late, but DAMN the lawyers! Always making things more complicated than they should be! Hey! I know that guy! (anybody seen my Geritol?)

, I just sigh and walk away. Devil's Advocate: What would you consider to be a valid reason to believe? The thing is, though, that any supposed evidence presented by Christians to date (not just here, but everywhere they accost non-Christians) is not objective evidence that their God exists. By all accounts of Atheists that I've read, even a single piece of objective (def. 1 and 1.2) evidence (def. 1.2) would be adequate for them to reevaluate their worldview. To date, all evidence provided has been subjective (def. 1 and 1.1) in nature. This is the crux of the argument. Buddhists call this "dependent origination" and it is a cornerstone of the belief system. Ultimately, it's immaterial, isn't it? Belief in whether or not gods exist or not is not going to change the way we act while we walk the Earth. Once we shuffle off this mortal coil, it will be too late to do anything about it, anyway. IMO, what is more important is the actualization of compassion. THAT will go a long way to improving the world in every corner. I'm "hurt" that you neglected animists and polytheists in your hair splitting. Animist: The belief in a supernatural power that organizes and animates the material universe Polytheist: The belief in or worship of more than one god

FTFY This describes a lack of compassion. Oh, how I wish I had digital access to the OED! Anyway... There is a difference between a lack of acceptance (i.e. def 1.4 and 2) and a lack of respect (definition 2). I do not accept Christianity, Islam, Atheism, etc ad nauseam. I do, however, respect them. Citations and full context needed, starting with the definition of what makes for nonbelievers. A quick search for 9:5 resulted me in this page: Verse (9:5) - English Translation. Note the mention of Allah being forgiving and merciful, similar to what I understand about the Christian God. However, forgiveness (drill down to forgive, def 1, 1.1, 1.2) and mercy (def. 1) are not to be had by those that either Allah or God have deemed unworthy. See Romans 3:23 and Romans 3:24, and contrast Romans 1:18, as opposed to your reference to Quran 9:5 and contrast 17:25. With enough desire, time and effort, it is likely that I could find more passages from both The Bible and The Qur'an to support both sides of the same question within each text. Or, to put it another way, I could almost certainly find plenty of internal contradictions in both texts. The same with The Torah, but that's just the Old Testament written out long hand. I'll do you one more! Read what His Holiness, the Dalai Lama said about "Faith in Buddhism and Christianity." Out of curiosity, have you read any of the Pentatuch?

Alright, then help me understand infant baptism. Baptism after one is old enough to understand the significance, I can understand and encourage, with a few caveats, but that comes down to free will and freely accepting the responsibilities of being part of that religious community. So, who decides who the "lost" are? That smacks of coercion: "Dear Jesus, please show your love and violate this person's free will to not believe by making them believe in your love." Doing this is nothing more than a form of religious bullying. If you disagree, consider this: How would you feel if a Buddhist said that they would pray for you to open your eyes and see the truth that Buddha taught? Or, even more to the point, if a member of The Satanic Church were to tell you that they would pray to Satan that you would throw off the shackles of control that you are bound with and seek personal freedom? I'd put better than even money that you would not look kindly on these sorts of acts. And what happens to people who have never encountered your teachings of Jesus? Do they also burn in Hell? I just don't know enough about Christianity to know the doctrine. There is a difference between disbelievers, non-believers, and unbelievers. Whose law are they judged by? What makes that law applicable to them? What do you mean by "the curse of the law applies as the wages of sin is death"? As a side note, have you read Archbishop Kirby's writings by any chance? You might not be so accepting of the Founder's beliefs as far as that goes.

Ok, that much of the priest's role makes sense, similar to a subject matter expert lecturing about their field of expertise in an educational setting. Now, on another topic, given: why do so many Christians insist on praying for someone who does not either passively or actively request it? Especially when the Christian encounters a non-Christian and insists on praying that God will turn their hearts to the True Faith™? If God is infallible, God created Man, God gave him free will, AND is an all-forgiving deity, why is it assumed that those who are not of the Christian faith are going to burn in Christian Hell for exercising that free will?

I vaguely remember that from one of my high school history classes. Seeing as I graduated from high school almost 30 years ago, you can understand why that slipped my mind . Of course, now I have to go read the whole text of the Theses, since I am a history nerd. Thanks!

Evaluate definition 1b: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evidence

You are conflating fact (provable i.e. "This cake has cinnamon.") with an opinion (subjective, i.e. "This cake has too much/too little cinnamon.") To bring it back to the disagreement at hand, (the existence of Deity) there are a four basic camps: Deity exists (every member of any religion. Theist), Deity does not/cannot exist (anti-theist), there is no repeatable evidence that Deity exists (Atheist) and "I don't know/care whether deity exists or not" (agnostic). For this discussion, we are looking at the first and third elements: Theists and Atheists. One says that Deity exists. One says that there is no evidence that Deity exists.

In my view, trying to change the beliefs of someone else is coercive and offensive, no matter how steeped in proselytization the particular sect is. I feel that way specifically about Jehova's Witnesses, Mormons, Scientologits, and most "missionary" groups, though I am sure that there are other religious denominations that expect their followers to gin up additions to the ranks of the faithful. This is specifically different from someone who would put out a proverbial information table and welcome the opportunity from outsiders to discuss the faith. I personaly consider this to be something like passive proselytizing and hold it to a much different standard to active proselytizing... A lá the Crusades.

Why is this? Secondary question: Have you investigated the core beliefs of Islam? I'm sure that we can agree that extremists of all stripes (Christian, Jewish, and Islamic) are all bad and generally inaccurate measures of the moderate majority of their respective religions, so I wonder if you have excluded the extremist POV preached by the likes of DAESH and Boko Haram and considered more moderate divisions?

QFT! Now, what is the Hebrew Roots faith? I am always curious to learn about other peoples' faith systems, just out of a sense of self-enrichment even though I have no interest in taking up the faith of another.

This is something of a curiosity to me, being that I am not Christian of any stripe. Given the statement of 1Tim 2:5, what is the function of the interposition of clergy (priests, especially) between God and Man? It seems to me that, according to the scriptures given above, there should be no go-between from the penitent to the Divine. Yet (again, from the outside) it appears that the Christian clerics fill the role of interpreting God to Man. Am I missing something?

At the very least, those circumstances don't exactly embody "all-loving and all-forgiving" in the deity.

What you are describing is nothing short of religious bullying. I whole-heartedly agree with you here! In fact, several years ago, when Atwater (peace be upon him) was still around, there were often discussions on various topics. Discussions that were from different viewpoints, but not arguments. As my mother would say, "It is possible to disagree without being disagreeable." I have noticed that there is much less "without being disagreeable" than there used to be in the world, not just here. The thing that boggles my mind is that the ULC is founded on the concept of inclusion, yet some of the most vocal members of the forum are exclusionary and divisive.

QFT. If the Christian God is infallible, He doesn't make mistakes, and non-Christians are part of the Divine Plan. Furthermore, all versions of belief AND non-belief (in the Christian worldview) are correct and holy wars (The Crusades, for example) are anathema to God's intent.

Thou shall not commit logical fallacies: https://carm.org/logical-fallacies-or-fallacies-argumentation

Thou shall not commit logical fallacies: https://carm.org/logical-fallacies-or-fallacies-argumentation

To answer the second question, I would strongly recommend reading the work so that you can get a feel for Hensley's mindset and reasoning. But, I'll be happy to discuss what my interpretations of what I've read include. Now, to answer the first but unstated question: "What is a heretic?" I tend to forget that not everyone has the same background that I have, so let's first go to one of several dictionaries to find out what the word actually means: Merriam-Webster definition of heresy: a : adherence to a religious opinion contrary to church dogma (see dogma 2) They were accused of heresy. b : denial of a revealed truth by a baptized member of the Roman Catholic Church c : an opinion or doctrine contrary to church dogma 2a : dissent or deviation from a dominant theory, opinion, or practice To disagree with the party leadership was heresy. b : an opinion, doctrine, or practice contrary to the truth or to generally accepted beliefs or standards our democratic heresy which holds that … truth is to be found by majority vote —M. W. Straight Dictionary.com definition of heresy: noun, plural her·e·sies. opinion or doctrine at variance with the orthodox or accepted doctrine, especially of a church or religious system. the maintaining of such an opinion or doctrine. Roman Catholic Church. the willful and persistent rejection of any article of faith by a baptized member of the church. Oxford Living Dictionary of English definition of heresy: NOUN mass noun 1Belief or opinion contrary to orthodox religious (especially Christian) doctrine. ‘Huss was burned for heresy’ count noun ‘the doctrine was denounced as a heresy by the Pope’ 1.1 Opinion profoundly at odds with what is generally accepted. ‘the heresy of being uncommitted to the right political dogma’ Furthermore, all of the origins of the word are basically the same: Middle English: from Old French heresie, based on Latin haeresis, from Greek hairesis ‘choice’ (in ecclesiastical Greek ‘heretical sect’), from haireomai ‘choose’. So, to interpret all of these, "heresy" is the act of holding ides that are in conflict with accepted (Christine) doctrine. The holding of these sort of ideas makes someone a heretic. Rev. Kirby Helmsley grew up in the Baptist Church. He left school early in his youth and had very little in the way of formal education, though he went to various churches and Sunday Schools. As he learned the text of the KJV Bible, he concluded a couple of things that were in direct opposition to doctrinal Christian teachings. First, he concluded that God and The Devil of Christianity worked side by side and hand in hand. When God wanted something "bad" to happen, he had The Devil do it. Second, he concluded that many of the things taught in The Bible were, in fact, false and even outright lies sold to the faithful, including no small number of the words attributed to Jesus. Among the other things that I have interpreted from "Universal Live in the 21st Century" is that he grew into the belief that the Christian doctrine is based on a false premise and that God is not the creator of the universe. I would definitely call those heretical ideas!

Welcome!