Religious T-shirts

[Kieran]

Time for me to clarify some points.

1. My belief says the only way to heaven is through Jesus.

2. My belief says that God will judge all; it is not me or anyone here on earth to do so.

3. My belief says that I must treat everyone as if Jesus exists in them- because He does.

4. I am not denying anything written in the Bible- neither am I attacking anyone who does.


I have noted some things you have stated, and they don't make sense in the Bible I know.

1. Where does it say people should wander the earth, depending soley on God to provide?

2. Where does it say believers are to always be confrontational?

3. You also stated you would follow John the Baptist- yet JtB himself stated he was "not fit to tie the sandles" of the one who would follow. So- would you follow him and do as he says? You realize JtB knew he must diminish so that he didn't become the religion, because it was God's plan that Jesus be the foundation?

More though... and this is the thing that troubles me... you keep attacking, attacking... saying you want discussion, or proof, or backing a viewpoint... yet you are totally adversarial in your approach. Even this doesn't bother me (though I feel the uselessness of my attempts), but assigning behavior or words to me that have no foundation is completely frustrating. Am I being condescending to you? Have I called you a bad person? Have I called you a danger to society? Honestly, I don't know where that stuff comes from, especially since I take pains NOT to say or do such things.

Maybe it is you are trying to drive all believers into a corner, to pound away with your reasoning- I really don't know. Maybe you really do perceive Christianity as a real threat to the world. Does it occur to you your postings in this thread pretty much justify my questions to texace at the top of this thread? Would it surprise you to hear you are not the first agnostic to... aggressively... attack my belief?

Maybe atheists and agnostics don't go door-to-door. I can tell you I never heard a Christian say "your beliefs are an affront by themselves." Say what you want, but pinning an intolerant tag on Christians by being intolerant is a bit odd.

[funkedup]

Fish I don't have a Bible here at work so I can't look it up.  And like I said I'm not an expert.  From what I've read here I would say Keiran knows his stuff a lot better than I do.  The part that I know for sure is that eternal life is guaranteed if you accept Jesus, and that is enough for me.

[mrfish]

kieran - most of what you are asking has already been answered in my posts but i'll try my best.

if you are asking for a strict rule saying do this or do that then you are abandoning the one thing the bible gives you - interpretability if it is interpretable for you then it is for me too -

And He instructed His disciples that they should take nothing for their journey, except a mere staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belt; but to wear sandals; and He added, "Do not put on two tunics." – Jesus quoted by Mark 6:8-9

his message to his disciples is his message to me in my opinion, i don't seperate their duties from mine...

The young man said to Him, "All these things I have kept; what am I still lacking?" Jesus said to him, "If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." – Jesus quoted by Matthew 19:20

sounds like capitol advice but again, i've never met a christian that did as this guy......

And as they were going along the road, someone said to Him, "I will follow You wherever You go." And Jesus said to him, "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." – Jesus quoted by Luke 9:57-58

i feel this is a perfect testimony of faith -  these versus formed my view mostly 0 i think there was another that said "don't even bother to get married, he's coming!" - lol roughly paraphrased of course, maybe someone can clue me in on that as i forget or was mistaken...andof course what i quoted before about the generation not passing away etc - that really drives home the urgency of jesus' mission by my interpretation.

as for your second question, it doesn't say anyone should be confrontational as far as i recall that's just how i'd be by my interpretation of what it asks of christians.

if you believe that the word saves souls then how should you proceed? meekly? cautiously? timidly? my interpretation is that- if you believe - you should beg borrow and steal your way into convincing people and never let up - if you love everyone then you will be hurting at the thought of losing their souls - personally, that would torture me.

and for your third question - john's humility only makes me love his style more - i'm basing my point of view on his actions to answer your question more directly.

thanks again funked - i'd love to hear that point expanded btw - religion requires seperation but you and others, kieren, airhead and others included want to justify their religious rules with their sense of justice, i think that is cool and shows where your heart is.

i still contend though that if you strictly follow the bible, you just can't have it both ways. that's my deepest point of contention.

[funkedup]

Fish I wouldn't justify any "religious rules" with anything but the Word itself.  If I'm mistaken as to what the Bible is saying about these things then I hope that somebody would point it out to me.

[funkedup]

PS Fish you seem to understand my responses to Texace about the motivation of the t-shirt wearers,

[mrfish]

back funked - and everyone else for that matter - it wasn't hatred of christians or some wacky event that caused me to abandon christianity.

i had a real problem being able to live up to the way i thought a christian should be. i can't imagine doing it half assed and i was doing it half assed like most everyone else i know.

i just can't believe that god would set us up to fall - one day maybe he'll come down and slap me. lol- i'll take a pic so you can all mock me, you know when the second coming happens you'll be like "ha-ha that fugger fish- i bet he is crapping his pants now!"

[Kieran]

Ok... now we get down to it.

And He instructed His disciples that they should take nothing for their journey, except a mere staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belt; but to wear sandals; and He added, "Do not put on two tunics." – Jesus quoted by Mark 6:8-9

Put into context, this as much expresses the urgency in which they were instructed to carry out their duties as it does assure the faithful their needs would be met. You recall the disciples had been pretty much holed up since the crucifixion of Christ. This was Christ saying "Whaddya doin' here? The needy are out THERE!" Jesus wanted them to go forth- that is the gist of the quote.

The young man said to Him, "All these things I have kept; what am I still lacking?" Jesus said to him, "If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." – Jesus quoted by Matthew 19:20

A couple of things on this one; first, the Law was never going to save man- else Jesus would have been unnecessary. Second, the problem wasn't that the man was wealthy- the problem was the man held his wealth in higher esteem than he did God. Jesus read his heart, and when he told the man to sell all he had it showed the man's true god. Jesus wasn't saying you can't have wealth... think about it, God made many religious leaders rich and powerful (Solomon?). Jesus was saying "You can have no other God before me"... the First Commandment.

And as they were going along the road, someone said to Him, "I will follow You wherever You go." And Jesus said to him, "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." – Jesus quoted by Luke 9:57-58

Of course this is a charge for all that follow Jesus. Does it mean those that follow are to have no home? Not necessarily. You notice He gave three  messages in that section. One person volunteered to follow, and Jesus warned it would not be easy to follow (the meaning of your scripture). The second Jesus asked to follow, and told to follow now- the exact reason for the urgency is unclear. The third man offered to follow, but asked to say good-bye to his family. Jesus said in effect "those that look back are not fit to follow". What this means is following is a commitment, and not to be taken lightly.

But I really believe it comes to this- if God calls you to do something, you need to be ready to do it. If this means traveling the earth, so be it. If it means teaching, being a doctor, a hamburger chef, whatever, you need to be ready to do it.

Check out Luke 19:11... there is a discussion of talents. I need to hunt up something more specific, but the point is there are many talents distributed to people, some more, some less, and we are charged to use them as best we can. Some people will be evangelists, but most won't.

[Kieran]

i had a real problem being able to live up to the way i thought a christian should be. i can't imagine doing it half assed and i was doing it half assed like most everyone else i know.

That is true of all of us, Mr. Fish. As much as I like to believe I am a good guy, I get to the end of the day and can mark multiple places I screwed up. And you know as well as I do God made it very clear no man could make himself perfect- no man. No less a warrior for God than David had multiple failures as a believer, yet he is always referred to as "a man after God's heart". I have to hand it over to God and ask for forgiveness, and ask Him to work through me to do His will.

Take this debate we are currently in... I personally didn't (at the outset) see any usefulness in pursuing it. Now I am not so sure. It isn't up to me to say when God opens a door or not, and the fact you seemed to want this discussion, and the fact I do feel the need to defend my religion when necessary brought it about anyway. Now it may be we made progress in considering one another's viewpoints, perhaps not, but if nothing else you challenged my thinking again.

[mrfish]

ah! those are good answers but they haven't really moved my interpretation.

"Whaddya doin' here? The needy are out THERE!"

exactly man! i feel there is no difference today....

nothing will change the fact that i feel the best christians are the ones getting into it fully. having a job and doing the routine keeps you from preaching and praising, i'd have to be out there all the time and i'd believe enough to have faith that god'd take care of me. can you imagine that faith? that freedom? if i couldn't live that life then i wouldn't believe - is that a fanatic? i couldn't be anything less if i decided to believe.

if you disagree with my interpretaion then so be it - i can deal with that, but isn't it odd that more christians don't just go and preach and spend day and night sweating over unsaved souls, maybe even with complex charts and tables and all kindsa soul-saving strategy and not worry about each day and just go out preaching and carrying on.

i'll always see his message that way i'm afraid, but you do make some clear points above to your credit.

i cheer christians in tee-shirts in one sense, because at least they are living it large  - i just can't get past the part that tells me their horse is a loser in the end and that faith would be better spent in the real world.

[funkedup]

Just FYI Fish, I know people who live the way you are talking about.  People who gave up very lucrative careers to spread the word here and in other countries, places where spreading the word can get you jailed or worse.  They ARE out there.

[mrfish]

Originally posted by Kieran

Take this debate we are currently in... I personally didn't (at the outset) see any usefulness in pursuing it. Now I am not so sure. It isn't up to me to say when God opens a door or not, and the fact you seemed to want this discussion, and the fact I do feel the need to defend my religion when necessary brought it about anyway. Now it may be we made progress in considering one another's viewpoints, perhaps not, but if nothing else you challenged my thinking again.

i didn't see this - you must have been posting whilst i was blabbing - i agree in a sense.

i pose this challenge (half seriously for a change;))- you christians figure out as a group what the bible means when it comes to us non-believers.

if you really think the rules say we can all be accommodated then we have a chance of losing our differences and getting things done- if you think we are doomed then you are setting up a rift, not us. you have to see how thinking a whole group of people are going to be tortured forever might bring on a little angst! sheesh

[Octavius]

man, i logged back on just now armed with some more material to post and I find yall ing eachother and actually agreeing!  

blargh, c'mon! fight!  

ah well.  

maybe i'll troll a little bit to get the party started...

[Kieran]

No, no, no...

I see it differently, and understand, I have the complete reverse upbringing you had. I come from an atheistic family. I am the sole openly religious person from that family. I know what happens when Mormons, Jehova Witnesses, etc. come knocking on an unwelcome door. I also know the mindset of the people after they leave. I watched my dad calmly tell my relatives who were religious to shut the hell up and leave if they were going to talk religion, because he didn't want to hear it in his house.

Now it took me a while to come to terms with the fact I was a believer, but I always knew I was. I constantly denied the constant feeling I was living wrong, and would quiet those feelings by telling myself someday... someday I would set it straight.

I met my wife, we were married, and I was finally in an environment where I could nurture a growth in understanding of God. I had this misconception that I needed to make myself "good" before I could become a Christian- which of course completely misses the point. It was because I could not make myself perfect I needed to become a Christian. Once I understood that point, I stepped out and was Baptized.

That took me 33 years to accomplish, and I do believe it was God's will it happened that way. I believe God prepares you individually for His Word, through your life experiences, through your acquaintences, through everything, but everyone will get their shot to come to Him. It doesn't matter if I am the one to reach you or not- someone or something will be there. Yes, I still should witness anytime and every time the opportunity presents itself, but trying to force a situation that clearly does not exist isn't necessarily the right thing to do, and in fact may be moving ahead of God's plan.

[texace]

I made the comment on the T-shirts after I was basically condemned for not "seeing the light" of the Christian faith. Later in the thread, I stated that it is usually Christians who are the ones who really try to get you to believe.

It's been that way for centuries...ever since Christianity became a "major" religion. Notice how a few wars years and years ago were over religion? On the same note, ever notice how Christian people will hate you or hurt you if you don't believe?

I had my car keyed at school over my beliefs. I had to get my entire car repainted, as the guy or guys went over it pretty good. Busted a window too. Know what? Upon reviewing the footage from the camera out school installed, the guys who did it (who have now been suspended) were all devout Christians.

Would someone who's Jewish do that? What about Muslim? Who knows...all I know is what I have seen. But did this change my faith? No, it hasn't. I refuse to be scared about my beliefs. What would you do? If you saw a Christain or a Jew or anyone keying your car over your beliefs?

BYW, funked...I have as much imagination as anyone....though sometimes I'm dumber than a box of rocks...but hey, who isn't?

[Octavius]

Texace, that might not always be the case.  The Christians that keyed your car are a few rotten apples.  Did you in any way provoke them?  I can't really see anyone doing that just because you choose not to believe.  My friends, even the 'fanatics' do not condemn me or anything for my beliefs.  Yes, they do say "I hope you find your way to the Right path" or "I'll pray for you" as if I've made some horrible decision.  This allows them to continue their hypocritical ways, and you know what?  It doesn't bother me a bit.  I'm happy just as long as they don't try preaching and/or forcing something on me.

This page properly demonstrates what it was that turned me off.  To me, this seems no different than Catholicism and jumping through a few hoops in order to have your "spot" in heaven reserved.  It totally contradicts.  Maybe if you "say the prayer with all your heart and you reeeeally mean it (as they say at that page), you'll have your spot saved... guaranteed.  

From the contradictions I have found, the fact that it cannot be proved and comes down to blind faith, the basic hypocrisy of the followers (not all!) and the church itself, I chose not to follow it any longer.  Like Fishy said, maybe we'll get whapped on the head by jebus himself, maybe the rapture will happen and we'll be left behind, who knows!  The fact is, you cannot prove it right, and conversely, you cannot prove it wrong.  I stay away and tend not to let this bother my daily actions.  I can still have a good time with my 'fanatic' friends along side my non-christian, agnostic friends.

whatever floats their boat.  I wont try to sink it as long as they dont sink mine.