The majority thinks Christians are judgemental and stupid

I also want to add to this thread, as a non christian I do not think
Christians are stupid, i think they lack the knowledge they need
to realize they have been mislead but i do not believe they lack
the intellectual capacity to understand it. This would however
require they question their god, something they aren't
suppose to really do.

Many of them are however judgmental, this is the religion
that has been behind the fight to keep women from being
equal, keep African Americans from being equal and more
recently the fight to keep homosexuals from being equal.

Somewhere in the ranks of Christianity there are a whole
lot of people who judged those 3 things so bad they had
to fight them in courts and via legislation. If it is simply
a minority of them doing it then the majority needs to
stop supporting those on the fringe financially.

I just don't understand the association to a religion that has
such a poor track record specifically on peoples rights. It
just seems oppressive to me.

reply to post by LoneGunMan


And what if Jesus decided to stay away from sinners and only seek his own? He would fail at his missions and so are christians. Already you are falling into that life of exclusiveness. No different from Muslims.

reply to post by MOMof3


Again . . . you are blathering as though "Christians" were a homogeneous group . . . even more than other 'religious' groups.

IF you fail to make the distinction between EXTRINSIC (dysfunctional, 'evil' "Christians" vs INTRINSIC authentic Christians, then your assertions are at best inaccurate and meaningless and at worst unnecessarily and innacurately off the wall destructive.

reply to post by sdcigarpig

The second comes from Gandhi: I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.

third time that was posted,
sorry couldn't resist.

akushla99
reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1

 

"I like the pearls and swine verse, it seems to be the typical get out of jail free card for Christians. " Quote 3NL1GHT3N3D1

We have some pretty accomplished jewellers here on ATS, that can spot a fake pearl when they see one...

The OP's story is a great one...why did it all go pear shaped...again...

Å99

I like the dust off the feet verse.

Stormdancer777
reply to post by sdcigarpig

 

The second comes from Gandhi: I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.

third time that was posted,
sorry couldn't resist.

Gandhi himself wasn't much like Christ really.

Be that as it may be, I have noticed folks that love to point out oh so human behavior in christians suffer from the same maladies and are hypocrites themselves.

reply to post by Logarock



The way I see it they expect us to be like Christ, although the whole point of the message is we are saved by grace and acknowledge we are miserable sinners,
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith,and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God,not by works, so that no one can boast.

Yet they like Christ.

I think not.

I think they would crucify him again.

MOMof3
reply to post by LoneGunMan

 

And what if Jesus decided to stay away from sinners and only seek his own? He would fail at his missions and so are christians. Already you are falling into that life of exclusiveness. No different from Muslims.

Yep, I'm so exclusionary that I hang around with people I like regardless of what their personal faith happens to be.

You can like someone even if they sin because we all sin. That's what acknowledging Christ's sacrifice is about. It's about having the humility to see and accept our fallen nature and realize that we all sin and will continue to sin and thus need to continue to seek forgiveness from God. But sinners can often be quite delightful people who are good at heart, and I like to surround myself with those people even if they can't quite accept God yet. Maybe they'll see my example and find their way. If not, well, we all have our path to walk in life.

And I tend to not hang around ugly people regardless of their personal faith. That means I've avoided some ugly Christians as well as some ugly atheists. Ugly people will simply drag you down with them and make your life worse for having been associated with them. Ugly people are exactly why we are allowed to certain extent to make judgments for ourselves. God doesn't expect us to let ourselves come to harm through our associations with others. For example, if I'm a recovering addict and one of my former associates cannot respect that I need to not see or be tempted by what I was addicted to and persists in using in my presence, then I am completely allowed to cut that association before it harms me. God understands that form of judgment and that form of exclusionism.

windword
reply to post by KellyPrettyBear

 

LOL! I bet that would make my hair so shiny!

When I was a kid our pastor was fond of pouring oil over my head and speaking in tongues. Been there. Done that.

What? No T-Shirt?

You simply must get the T-Shirt.

I'd wager that the 'Holy Spirit lives in you' ?

People think that the Holy Spirit is for Christians only...
but in my experience the Holy Spirit is not a snob.

KPB

I, for one, am glad these religions exist to hold certain folks in check.

When I hear people talking about their "hunger" for sin and things like that, it gives me the willies.

Are most people really quivering psychos ready to hurt those around them for the slightest perceived gain? Oh... yeah... never mind answering THAT rhetorical question.

KellyPrettyBear

windword
reply to post by KellyPrettyBear

 

LOL! I bet that would make my hair so shiny!

When I was a kid our pastor was fond of pouring oil over my head and speaking in tongues. Been there. Done that.

What? No T-Shirt?

You simply must get the T-Shirt.

I'd wager that the 'Holy Spirit lives in you' ?

People think that the Holy Spirit is for Christians only...
but in my experience the Holy Spirit is not a snob.

KPB

But apparently you are?

You want to criticize in others that which you seem to be displaying in yourself.

"How puffed up with pride those Christians are to think only they and they alone can receive the Holy Spirit, but look how puffed up with pride I am to show off my superiority and announce to all and sundry that they are just not correct."

Don't you know that pride is the worst? What is there to be proud of here? All you're doing is talking joy in a feeling of false moral superiority. When it comes right down to it, none of us knows for sure who's actually right or wrong because all of this is simply based off our personal feelings of faith. Are you trying to say that your faith is stronger than theirs? How do you know?

reply to post by LoneGunMan

Do not fall for the deceivers game. Open your eyes to the world at the end of our pointing fingers. For we are all the least of thieves.

I agree and have touched on this a lot recently. This world system
man has created sets men up in judgement of men when all men are
guilty. Since the Garden man has been a coward, pointing his finger
and blaming someone, anyone, even his own wife that God made
from his own body. And up to that point God was still speaking to
us wasn't he ?

SnF

reply to post by Logarock

Gandhi was a wise man. While he was a Hindu, but at the same time he did study and learn from different religions.

The problem here is the paradox that many main stream conservative Christians tend to present to the world in the USA. One hand you have the message of love and forgiveness. These are noble parts of human nature. On the other hand you have this and no one really can answer it. If God forgives for all sins, sending his only son to die for all Sins of mankind, then ultimately how can they justify that a serial killer can ask for forgiveness and get into heaven, yet if a person who is gay, has done nothing wrong, is a decent person is forever banned from entering into the kingdom of heaven?

sdcigarpig
reply to post by Logarock

 

Gandhi was a wise man. While he was a Hindu, but at the same time he did study and learn from different religions.

The problem here is the paradox that many main stream conservative Christians tend to present to the world in the USA. One hand you have the message of love and forgiveness. These are noble parts of human nature. On the other hand you have this and no one really can answer it. If God forgives for all sins, sending his only son to die for all Sins of mankind, then ultimately how can they justify that a serial killer can ask for forgiveness and get into heaven, yet if a person who is gay, has done nothing wrong, is a decent person is forever banned from entering into the kingdom of heaven?

No one can answer what ? I don't see what's so unanswerable. Do you think there are
serial killers in Heaven ? If you do that's just wrong. See Christ makes people out
of freaks and God knows the heart of everyman and therefore the difference.
No big stumbling block here at all.

ketsuko

KellyPrettyBear

windword
reply to post by KellyPrettyBear

 

LOL! I bet that would make my hair so shiny!

When I was a kid our pastor was fond of pouring oil over my head and speaking in tongues. Been there. Done that.

What? No T-Shirt?

You simply must get the T-Shirt.

I'd wager that the 'Holy Spirit lives in you' ?

People think that the Holy Spirit is for Christians only...
but in my experience the Holy Spirit is not a snob.

KPB

But apparently you are?

You want to criticize in others that which you seem to be displaying in yourself.

"How puffed up with pride those Christians are to think only they and they alone can receive the Holy Spirit, but look how puffed up with pride I am to show off my superiority and announce to all and sundry that they are just not correct."

Don't you know that pride is the worst? What is there to be proud of here? All you're doing is talking joy in a feeling of false moral superiority. When it comes right down to it, none of us knows for sure who's actually right or wrong because all of this is simply based off our personal feelings of faith. Are you trying to say that your faith is stronger than theirs? How do you know?

Ah good post. I seem to recall posting in detail
About the limits of human knowledge and the
Peril of pride... and my own error.

Yes I feel joy.

No false feeling of superiority...we are all
In this world together.

We tend to most dislike in others what troubles us about ourselves....

You may not know it, but I am a friend.

KPB

reply to post by sdcigarpig


It is about the act, and it is about being truly repentant. A repentant gay person is accepted as much as a repentant murderer. Homosexuality is a carnal sin like sex out of wedlock which IMO is somewhere lower down on the scale than murder, so if God will forgive the repentant murderer, he'll take the repentant gay, too.

IMO, actual love is never wrong, and God will never punish it. Where this argument goes off the rails is when people attempt to conflate love with sex, they are not the same thing.

reply to post by ketsuko


So, a gay person has to be repentant to God for being gay, even though that person was born Gay? I guess that you think that you can "pray the gay away"!

reply to post by windword


Except I don't think people are born gay. If you were, then if you had a genetic identical twin, that twin would be gay more than at most 13% of the time (major identical twin studies confirm this). That indicates that the major factors in a person's gender identity are nurture, not nature. Now, that doesn't mean I think a person makes a conscious choice just like no one chooses to be afraid of heights or develop post traumatic stress disorder or be right or left brain dominant, but it means there is no deep genetic signal that says gay, either.

reply to post by ketsuko


That doesn't make any sense. So it is ok for man to love another man or a woman to love another woman, but as soon as they try to act out their love physically, it becomes a sin. What a great message that is... It is ok to look longingly at the person you love, but God forbid you try to act on those impulses. Nice try, but homosexuality being a sin is one of the most abhorrent tenets of Christianity. Nothing like demonizing people based on something completely out of their control.

reply to post by ketsuko


Since many species in the animal kingdom display gay traits, I'd say that you're wrong. Parents, many times, know their children are gay before the children do. Kids often display gay tendencies as toddlers.

There is no choice to being gay, so how can there be genuine repentance for being the way one was born? There can't be. Certainly, people have been able to shame and alienate gays, making them second class citizens, but they weren't created shameful or guilty. That's a social/religious construct.