Atheists are actually Christians....

reply to post by DelayedChristmas

I view Atheists in Western Cultures as Cold Christians. Likewise, an Atheist in Muslim culture is what I call a Cold Muslim.

Ha! I'm not any kind of Christian. I'm not a Christian at all.

wildtimes
OH, and also....
Indy...

I don't believe in the 'virgin birth', or the 'resurrection'/'ascension' of Jesus, nor that he was the "only begotten Son" - never have - and that is why I can't 'claim' to be Christian.

BUT, I DO believe his message that we are to Treat others as we would want to be treated. The thing is, that this is NOT an exclusive teaching, a new idea, of Jesus's. No - it had been around for a LLlloooonggg time.

Therefore, to my thinking, it is fine to acknowledge The Golden Rule, which I believe was Jesus's main message - and one can do so - or not - by following any other religious/philosophical 'belief' that promote the same thing.

The rest of it: virgin birth, resurrection, miracles, so forth.....no, I don't, and can't, believe it.

Do I think Jesus was a good guy and teaching a worthwhile message? Yes. But the part about ONLY HIM being "God" is where I diverge.

As for 'nutters' --
my sense of reason and logic, and my life experiences, preclude me from believing the myths and stories. Just can't buy into it.

Would I die for my neighbors? The crack dealers next door? No. My bad, I guess, but, NO, I WOULD NOT. (Although it could be that I will die BECAUSE OF my neighbors, or even AT THEIR HANDS.)

(Seriously.)

edit on 10/23/13 by wildtimes because: (no reason given)

Jesus being God is a hot point.

Cultural influences can really deter, but also help, in the search of Truth... How sad we place relative values for relative labels. But how beautiful it can be too.

reply to post by DelayedChristmas

Jesus being God is a hot point.

Yes. I believe he was telling his disciples that we are ALL children of God, that we ALL have the 'Divine Spark' within us.

Cultural influences can really deter, but also help, in the search of Truth...

Yes, if people live in a culture that welcomes exploration, study, critical and creative thinking, it can (and DOES) turn out much differently from a person living in a culture of "THIS IS THE TRUTH AND DON'T ASK ANY QUESTIONS!" does.

How sad we place relative values for relative labels. But how beautiful it can be too.

I'd like to hear more about your thoughts on this.

wildtimes
reply to post by DelayedChristmas

 

Jesus being God is a hot point.

Yes. I believe he was telling his disciples that we are ALL children of God, that we ALL have the 'Divine Spark' within us.

Cultural influences can really deter, but also help, in the search of Truth...

Yes, if people live in a culture that welcomes exploration, study, critical and creative thinking, it turns out much different from a culture of "THIS IS THE TRUTH AND DON'T ASK ANY QUESTIONS!" can.

How sad we place relative values for relative labels. But how beautiful it can be too.

I'd like to hear more about your thoughts on this.

Really depends on perspective.

Example, tripping on a rock. It can hurt and scrape your knee. But you rise with your strength and you fall again.

Example, the people who were crucified with Jesus. The people were called thieves. Why did the people steal? What drove them to steal? And thieves are "bad." But if all thieves are bad, why did one befriend Jesus?

reply to post by AfterInfinity

Uh, no. You believe in God, you follow his orders, you trust in him and only him to give you good things in life and eventually spare you from eternal damnation. And you hope that he does the same for others, that others ask for him to do for them what he does for you.

Don't act like you're confused when you know exactly what I meant.

I'm not acting like anything. It was a question.

I think an atheist would agree that there is no God to believe in, no orders to follow, and no trust to be given to something that doesn't exist. So if there is no God, and a Christian is talking about essentially nothing, what is the difference between the Atheist and Christian in this respect?

Both are talking about essentially nothing.

reply to post by Aphorism

I think an atheist would agree that there is no God to believe in, no orders to follow, and no trust to be given to something that doesn't exist. So if there is no God, and a Christian is talking about essentially nothing, what is the difference between the Atheist and Christian in this respect?

If you choose to believe in Santa Claus and I don't, what's the difference between us?

reply to post by adjensen

As I said, big corporations and the mass media. A "me first" society is obviously in their favour, and that's what's been pushed for the last 30 years.

Outside of religious channels, how are Christians portrayed on mainstream media? Almost always, they're conservative neanderthals who are obstinate, judgmental and rabid evangelists.

I absolutely agree with this. Media has a way of utilizing stereotypes.

I've seen absolutely nothing of the sort -- the past 20 years have brought about a more violent, more perverse and a morally ambivalent culture, and the general consensus that I've seen is that America is in a rapid state of decline. I don't blame that on the diminishment of religiosity in the country, but no one can deny that two have happened simultaneously.

I don't think there is any fact that shows a more violent, perverse and morally ambivalent culture. With the advent of easier access to information, we are certainly more aware of human nature. Correlation does not imply causation.

reply to post by AfterInfinity

Is this a rhetorical question, or are you having this hard of a time with the subject?

You can take it as a rhetorical question if you are having a difficult time answering it.

reply to post by Aphorism

You can take it as a rhetorical question if you are having a difficult time answering it.

I do have a difficult time answering difficult learners. And if it's taken you this long to pin down the difference between atheists and Christians, I'm afraid I don't have an answer you haven't already heard.

Aphorism
I don't think there is any fact that shows a more violent, perverse and morally ambivalent culture. With the advent of easier access to information, we are certainly more aware of human nature. Correlation does not imply causation.

There have been 13 school mass shootings in the United States this year. This week alone, two teachers have died at the hands of their students. How often did that happen in the 1950s?

And I'm listening to this podcast right now… can you imagine such a discussion taking place in the 1970s?

Generation Porn

Thirty years ago, a peek at a Playboy centrefold was a rite of passage for teenage boys. Today kids as young as ten can view pornography on smart phones. Hassan Ghedi Santur explores the long-term consequences of this burgeoning exposure to pornography. (CBC Podcast here (warning: explicit content))

I don't know… kids as mass murderers... watching rape videos at age 10 and thinking that's normal sex… that doesn't seem like something that's "always been there" and we just didn't know about.

reply to post by adjensen


Devolution. Reverting back to animal behavior because it makes us easier to manipulate and control. The smarter we are, the better we get at recognizing devices just as soon as we come across them. Not good, especially when we're a reckless rowdy mass of impulsive homo sapiens. We're intelligent, but our emotions have us by the gonads. We always feel before we think. So we still need to be controlled to an extent. So they encourage animalistic behavior in us because it teaches us to act according to instant rather than conscious thought. As long as they continuously program our instincts, we're eating out of their hand.

Is that a coherent enough explanation?

AfterInfinity
Is that a coherent enough explanation?

Probably.

Like I said, encouraging altruism, humility and selflessness is not in the best interests of those who control our view of the world.

reply to post by AfterInfinity


I'll answer it for you then. There is only a difference in opinion.

AfterInfinity
reply to post by Aphorism

 

I think an atheist would agree that there is no God to believe in, no orders to follow, and no trust to be given to something that doesn't exist. So if there is no God, and a Christian is talking about essentially nothing, what is the difference between the Atheist and Christian in this respect?

If you choose to believe in Santa Claus and I don't, what's the difference between us?

edit on 23-10-2013 by AfterInfinity because: (no reason given)

I suppose in whether or not you get coal in your stocking?

(I never believed in Santa, he was never taught to me as a child, neither was the Easter Bunny)...

It's funny, I watched those shows when I was young, you know, the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman cartoons, and even then it didn't make me believe in Santa. He was a foreign person who only came to houses of rich kids whose parents bought them presents.

Even Jehova's Witnesses don't believe in Santa Claus. But I suppose the difference would be if you actually got presents would it make you think Santa was real.

Did you believe in Santa as a child and was it because your parents taught you about Santa?

reply to post by WarminIndy

Did you believe in Santa as a child and was it because your parents taught you about Santa?

I don't think I ever really believed in Santa. I remember being 6 or 7 and we went to this party that gave out "reindeer feed". So we spread it out on the lawn that night and the next morning I went out to check. Partially because reindeer land on the ROOF, not the lawn, and partially because I wanted to see the prints. It would make a pretty awesome instagram moment and all that. So I actually looked for hoofprints, trying to be sure that my foster parents at the time hadn't just scraped it all over with their boots to make it look like Santa had visited.

Not long after that, the reality became apparent and I just stopped caring because I knew that regardless of who did it, I was being taken care of. And that's all that's really mattered to me.

reply to post by adjensen


This is from the wiki article on Crime in the United States:

Crime rates have varied over time in the United States. American crime rates generally rose after World War II, and peaked between the 1970s and early 1990s. Since the early 1990s, crime has declined in the United States,[5] and current crime rates are approximately the same as those of the 1960s.[2]

In the last 20 years, it appears crime has in fact dropped.

The five year trend shown here shows a steep decline in violent crime, with a tiny rise in 2012.

reply to post by Aphorism

I'll answer it for you then. There is only a difference in opinion.

All the difference in the world, then.

WarminIndy
reply to post by EnochWasRight

 

Then I guess we would have to ask ourselves how the ancient writers knew about protons and neutrons, to give a metaphysical lesson.

They must have known, or maybe it is that God inspired it so much that everything in the universe can be understood because God speaks to everything.

The latter is correct. Revelation 13

18 This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man.[e-or of mankind] That number is 666.

The early writers were reporting what God was showing. We now know that Carbon (mark of mankind) has 6 protons, 6 electrons and 6 neutrons. We know that the breath of God is Nitrogen 777 and Oxygen 888. We also know the significance of those three numbers in the Bible. We also know that the 'fruit of knowledge' is made by transmuting carbon (technology). We know that carbon chokes out the breath and that we will die because of our error. Genesis told us thousands of years ago. The beast is the one we must overcome, which is our selfish nature (animal nature).

2 Timothy 3

3 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.

Mark This! 18 identifiers of selfish (beast / animal nature). That's 6+6+6.

Additionally, Carbon trading is the new currency coming to the world from Europe. When our money system fails, we will see Carbon as the new monetary system. The UN has already laid the ground work through UNESCO and the biosphere reserves. Carbon free zones are our new backing for commerce. Even as it is now, you cannot purchase OIL (Carbon) without the petrol dollar. It's already in place. Do you really think the Federal Reserve does not already have a plan in place for the coming economic collapse?

Revelation 13

15 The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. 16 It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, 17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.

Deny if you like, but it is obvious if you know what you are reading. I have shown you clearly that it is coming. Do a few simple searches of UNESCO and biosphere reserves in relation to carbon tax and you will see that it is clearly coming. It starts in Germany and spreads throughout the entire world.

Give this thread two years, then come back. You will be singing a different tune.

reply to post by ExquisitExamplE

Very interesting. I always find your writings to be so. In this example, the neutron is represented by Christ, I imagine that humans, having free will, are electrons. The strong force is... God? What then are protons, and what is the house? Why is this the object? How can the electron borrow from the future if time is an illusion and only the present ever exists?

The 'House' is what the Bible refers to as the walled city. All that you read in the Bible is a parable of natural law, physics and quantum mechanics. The 'strong house' is defined by the mirrored structure of nature above and below. You can see it in the Atom and you can see it in the cell. It's a pattern that repeats in every system, even to the top where we life in cities, houses and transportation. We are a mirror of every living system that supports us.

The electron borrows from the future by a process of quantum tunneling. All things are entangled. Matthew 18 is your entanglement chapter, even telling us that our child of God here is an Angel in heaven. We are entangled with our true nature above. Below, we embody our natural body as a vehicle. The reason we can know the future in the past (Prophecy) is because of quantum tunneling. Your future self is already living in eternity. This is the residual image of what takes place before that point. You are riding the wave to the end. God is already there and so are you.

Matthew 18

10 “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.

You can change the future from the past. Now is the time to do this.

15 “If your brother or sister sins,[c] go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’[d] 17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

18 “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be[e] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[f] loosed in heaven.

19 “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

We are entangled to the end. Change yourself now and change your future.

reply to post by EnochWasRight


Will you not respond to my questions and posit(rons) as well?

Edit: Ah, I see you have. I only questioned because it seemed you were not answering questions in the order received. I must remember for future reference that you are not a spiritual call center. I haven't read your response yet, but I'll do so now. Thanks!

Any thoughts on the second part of what I'd posted?