CIVIL RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION: All things Christianity

[GodFearinGunTotin]

I'll take the position of fixed earther, just for the exercise.

I guess this means I can't be a true Christian since I believe the earth is not fixed and moves through space?

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Lee Strobel? Would you recommend his works to someone? My mom keeps pushing him on me but from everything else I've read he doesn't make a good apologetic case.

He's got a movie out. Case for Christ. (I think that's the guy's name). If it's who I'm thinking of, he was a newspaper reporter years back. Like SSGSAD said, as he set out to not only prove his wife wrong but to change her mind, the more he delved into it, he decided it was him that was wrong. He's got several books out (I haven't read them) and this movie is based on one of them, by the same title, I think.

 

[Jludo]

He's got a movie out. Case for Christ. (I think that's the guy's name). If it's who I'm thinking of, he was a newspaper reporter years back. Like SSGSAD said, as he set out to not only prove his wife wrong but to change her mind, the more he delved into it, he decided it was him that was wrong. He's got several books out (I haven't read them) and this movie is based on one of them, by the same title, I think.

Yea my mom wanted me to go watch that movie too, the hardcore atheist turned Christian is a hit in the Christian community I've found. From what I've seen though he writes more for Christians to reinforce their beliefs than to convince skeptics. I know most authors have an agenda, I'm curious how well a book that took an objective look at Christs life would do.

 

[ATM]

I guess this means I can't be a true Christian since I believe the earth is not fixed and moves through space?

Wait, Are we starting?

I'll go find some memes...

 

[2A_Tom]

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[foszoe]

How is Zoe?

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[ATM]

Yea my mom wanted me to go watch that movie too, the hardcore atheist turned Christian is a hit in the Christian community I've found. From what I've seen though he writes more for Christians to reinforce their beliefs than to convince skeptics. I know most authors have an agenda, I'm curious how well a book that took an objective look at Christs life would do.

You can't convince a skeptic against their will. I generally recommend that skeptics go ahead and try to make a case against what they don't want to believe if they have any genuine interest in the matter. If that's the path Strobel took and it resulted in a change of his beliefs, his beliefs are now the result of research and discovery rather than assumption and adoption. His current beliefs are stronger than those he started with.

Try it. What's the worst that could happen? You strengthen your beliefs either way, and weak beliefs that haven't been tested aren't worth holding on to.

 

[2A_Tom]

I haven't had any news on Zoe, I have contacted my sister and will send any news.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Yea my mom wanted me to go watch that movie too, the hardcore atheist turned Christian is a hit in the Christian community I've found. From what I've seen though he writes more for Christians to reinforce their beliefs than to convince skeptics. I know most authors have an agenda, I'm curious how well a book that took an objective look at Christs life would do.

If you think it's a big hit in the "Christian community", you ought to read the parable of the Prodigal Son. If you think Christians rejoice when a non-believer comes on board, imagine how God celebrates.

As I have said, I haven't read his books. (I'm a lazy reader). But I'd encourage you to check him out. I know where you stand but what I don't know is if you're asking to learn or asking to try to simply win. If you're asking to learn, answer this (to yourself): If Christianity were true, would you become a Christian? That's a test. If you answer 'no', then likely nothing on this earth or above it will ever be enough to change your mind and we're done here. Some people simply don't want it to be true. Some people don't want the moral accountability or be answerable to a moral authority. If you answer 'yes', then try to put aside your observations of "christians" acting like jerks, the televangelists and prosperity preachers making fools of them selves, and the other stuff that people do and keep looking. The answer's not in what "christians" do and in what Jesus said and did and the free gift He offers.

 

[2A_Tom]

Well said sir.

 

[T.Lex]

I generally recommend that skeptics go ahead and try to make a case against what they don't want to believe if they have any genuine interest in the matter.

Welcome to my world. Except I think you meant to make the case FOR what they don't want to believe? Or make the case against what they DO want to believe?

Either way, I find myself mulling over the merits of all sorts of things I don't believe.

 

[hog slayer]

If you think it's a big hit in the "Christian community", you ought to read the parable of the Prodigal Son. If you think Christians rejoice when a non-believer comes on board, imagine how God celebrates.

As I have said, I haven't read his books. (I'm a lazy reader). But I'd encourage you to check him out. I know where you stand but what I don't know is if you're asking to learn or asking to try to simply win. If you're asking to learn, answer this (to yourself): If Christianity were true, would you become a Christian? That's a test. If you answer 'no', then likely nothing on this earth or above it will ever be enough to change your mind and we're done here. Some people simply don't want it to be true. Some people don't want the moral accountability or be answerable to a moral authority. If you answer 'yes', then try to put aside your observations of "christians" acting like jerks, the televangelists and prosperity preachers making fools of them selves, and the other stuff that people do and keep looking. The answer's not in what "christians" do and in what Jesus said and did and the free gift He offers.

Bravo! It's not about following the followers. It's about Following the Leader.

 

[2A_Tom]

There has been a discussion of people being pleased when someone gets saved and someone pointed out the excitement when an atheist changes their mind.

I am re-posting this article from another thread, It has nothing to do with Christianity. I had tears in my eyes as I read it and I believe that those of you who love America will too.

I hope that those of you who are doubters may get a glimpse of what it is like for us seeing the LIGHT go on in another's eyes.

something to ponder
John Is My Heart

This is a well-written article about a father who put several of his kids through expensive colleges but one son wanted to be a Marine. Interesting observation by this dad. See below. A very interesting commentary that says a lot about our failing and fallen society.

By Frank Schaeffer of the Washington Post

"Before my son became a Marine, I never thought much about who was defending me. Now when I read of the war on terrorism or the coming conflict in Iraq, it cuts to my heart. When I see a picture of a member of our military who has been killed, I read his or her name very carefully Sometimes I cry.

In 1999, when the barrel-chested Marine recruiter showed up in dress blues and bedazzled my son John, I did not stand in the way. John was headstrong, and he seemed to understand these stern, clean men with straight backs and flawless uniforms. I did not. I live in the Volvo-driving, higher education-worshiping North Shore of Boston. I write novels for a living. I have never served in the military.

It had been hard enough sending my two older children off to Georgetown and New York University. John's enlisting was unexpected, so deeply unsettling. I did not relish the prospect of answering the question, "So where is John going to college?" from the parents who were itching to tell me all about how their son or daughter was going to Harvard. At the private high school John attended, no other students were going into the military.

"But aren't the Marines terribly Southern?" (Says a lot about open-mindedness in the Northeast) asked one perplexed mother while standing next to me at the brunch following graduation. "What a waste, he was such a good student," said another parent. One parent (a professor at a nearby and rather famous university) spoke up at a school meeting and suggested that the school should “carefully evaluate what went wrong."

When John graduated from three months of boot camp on Parris Island, 3000 parents and friends were on the parade deck stands. We parents and our Marines not only were of many races but also were representative of many economic classes. Many were poor. Some arrived crammed in the backs of pickups, others by bus. John told me that a lot of parents could not afford the trip.

We in the audience were white and Native American. We were Hispanic, Arab, and African American, and Asian. We were former Marines wearing the scars of battle, or at least baseball caps emblazoned with battles' names. We were Southern whites from Nashville and skinheads from New Jersey, black kids from Cleveland wearing ghetto rags and white ex-cons with ham-hock forearms defaced by jailhouse tattoos. We would not have been mistaken for the educated and well-heeled parents gathered on the lawns of John’s private school a half-year before.

After graduation one new Marine told John, "Before I was a Marine, if I had ever seen you on my block I would've probably killed you just because you were standing there." This was a serious statement from one of John’s good friends, a black ex-gang member from Detroit who, as John said, "would die for me now, just like I'd die for him."

My son has connected me to my country in a way that I was too selfish and insular to experience before. I feel closer to the waitress at our local diner than to some of my oldest friends. She has two sons in the Corps. They are facing the same dangers as my boy. When the guy who fixes my car asks me how John is doing, I know he means it. His younger brother is in the Navy.

Why were I and the other parents at my son's private school so surprised by his choice? During World War II, the sons and daughters of the most powerful and educated families did their bit If the idea of the immorality of the Vietnam War was the only reason those lucky enough to go to college dodged the draft, why did we not encourage our children to volunteer for military service once that war was done?

Have we wealthy and educated Americans all become pacifists? Is the world a safe place? Or have we just gotten used to having somebody else defend us? What is the future of our democracy when the sons and daughters of the janitors at our elite universities are far more likely to be put in harm’s way than are any of the students whose dorms their parents clean?

I feel shame because it took my son's joining the Marine Corps to make me take notice of who is defending me. I feel hope because perhaps my son is part of a future "greatest generation." As the storm clouds of war gather, at least I know that I can look the men and women in uniform in the eye. My son is one of them. He is the best I have to offer. John is my heart.

Faith is not about everything turning out OK; Faith is about being OK no matter how things turn out."

Oh, how I wish so many of our younger generations could read this article. It makes me so sad to hear the way they talk with no respect for what their fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers experienced so they can live in freedom. Freedom has been replaced with Free-Dumb. Please pass this on . . . .

Virus-free. www.avg.com

 

[foszoe]

The author of that piece, also has an interesting past. Comes from a crown jewel family in Evangelical circles, is now an Orthodox Christian and at one time, if not still, runs Regina Orthodox Press. He is controversial.

He has a book out there, Why I am an Athiest who Believes in God. If anyone has read that book, I would be interested in your take on it.

Jiudo, why don't you read that one? it would seem, by the title and what I know about the author, to be different from the run of the mill christian athiest book as he started out Christian but has moved towards atheism rather than the other way around.

 

[2A_Tom]

Sounds like you are discounting the content by tearing down the author. That may not be your intent, just what it sounds like.

 

[foszoe]

The Saints often remind us that one of the struggles of the Christian life is to be present where you are. The demons dwell in the past and bring remembrance of regrets and in the future they bring us worry and anxiety. Our God is a God of the present.

I often struggle with this in Church. One way I combat this is through the use of my prayer rope and saying "Lord have mercy" when my mind begins to leave the presence of the Lord.

I found this reflection to be a reminder of how important this struggle can be.

REFLECTION
[FONT=&amp]Nothing can be kept secret from our Omniscient God. At every moment, to Him is known all that is being done in the world; both in the external as well as in the internal, spiritual world. Not one intention, not one desire, not one thought of his can man conceal from God. How can you hide from God that which you cannot hide from men; from holy men! One day, Tsar Ivan the Terrible came to church to pray to God. In the church, Blessed Basil, "the fool for Christ," stood for prayer. It is true the Tsar was in church physically, but his thoughts were on the Hill of the Sparrow, a short distance from Moscow, upon which he had begun to construct a palace. Throughout the liturgical services the Tsar thought about how he could extend and complete his palace on that hill. After the services the Tsar noticed Basil and asked him: "Where have you been?" Basil replied: "In church." Basil then immediately asked the Tsar: "O Tsar and where were you?" "I, also, was in church, " answered the Tsar. To that the discerning saint replied: "You are not speaking the truth Ivanushka for I perceived how, in your thoughts, you were pacing about on the Hill of the Sparrow and building a palace."[/FONT]

 

[NKBJ]

Did a search to see if there were any meaningful comparisons of OT to the last book of the NT and all I got was...


OSTEEN

 

[NKBJ]

Was looking at Joel and comparing what he prophesied to what Jesus showed John.
I'd forgotten. Had one of those uh, oh yeah moments.

 

[2A_Tom]

Daniel covers a lot of it.

 

[NKBJ]

Yep, Daniel hits on a lot of it.

Recently book marked this site for perusal. Just passing it on.
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