Generational divide on Israel vs Hamas

[Oscar_Kipling]

I suppose it's just another reason to read Scripture for yourself and not blindly accept what the guy in the pulpit says. If you attend church for a while you'd hopefully get a feel for the pastor/preachers to figure if they are the kind of people you'd want to listen to. If you have a pastor who's about a power trip you might decide not to listen to him. If you have a pastor who is very humble and lives a life consistent with the teachings of Jesus you're more likely to accept what he says.

If I read your posts on here and went out into the world expressing how much Oscar_Kipling loves Mohammed would the problem be with you or me?

I suppose it is, but I think this is at odds with the idea that there is a wide open field for a person to find a church that they find is accepting of whatever, or I should say that the cases where you will actually find a church that meets some arbitrary criteria and that actually facilitates your salvation or whatever it is that is important about Christianity are the only ones we should actually be talking about. Eliminating the rest from the conversation i'd argue that there are far fewer degrees of freedom than you initially presented for a LGBT person, that is to say a church that is vaguely in line with scripture is of no value at all if it does not also meet other key salvation relevant criteria.

As far as misreading or misrepresenting me, well sure, but God has far more available avenues to make himself clear, but appearently chooses not to use them elsewise imo I think things would look very different.

I think sometimes we need to look at what is important to us. As a straight man the issue of whether or not I'm allowed to have sex with another man is a distraction, because it's something I have no desire to do. For a gay man it's obviously a more personal concern, at which point I'd refer back to what Jesus said about sending the Holy Spirit and how he (the Spirit) will convict people of their sins. The Spirit will never convict me of my desires towards other men because I have no such desires.

It's very easy to spend a lot of time focussing on this or that particular thing, as if it were the most important thing to us. Some people talk as if their sexuality is the core defining feature of who they are - their entire identity is wrapped up in the fact they are gay and nothing else matters. Others talk as if their political affiliation is first and foremost, for others it's something else. And a recurring theme throughout Scripture is to put God first. So whatever your sexuality, would you put God first and refrain from acting on your desires? Whatever your political affiliation, would you put God first and vote for the other guy if he called you to do that? If we put some aspect of ourselves first and foremost then we've made that into our god.

As an aside, that touches on something else we mentioned further up in the thread about why gay people would attend a church that believes the gay lifestyle is sinful, you might as well ask the same question about anyone else who attends church. Yes, there are people for whom church is little more than a back-slapping social club where they huddle together and affirm how good they all are. The people who seek to follow Christ more closely are well aware of their own failings, whatever their nature. Living according to Scripture is inconvenient in many ways, yet people choose to do it. There's no need to single out gay people as if their issue is unique.

I think singling out the gay issue is fine since that is what we are talking about. If we were to broaden it all the way out, then on some level I don't really understand why anyone takes any religions or supernatural anything as seriously as they do. I guess if in your view  churches and the culture do not make a big deal about LGBT folk then you are of course free to do that, but I actually think that you guys are pretty noisy about it and it leaks well past what you individually choose to do in your personal worship...to be clear not necessarily you personally, but the Church, or churches or individual Christiandomities when viewed collectively.

[tango]

I suppose it's just another reason to read Scripture for yourself and not blindly accept what the guy in the pulpit says. If you attend church for a while you'd hopefully get a feel for the pastor/preachers to figure if they are the kind of people you'd want to listen to. If you have a pastor who's about a power trip you might decide not to listen to him. If you have a pastor who is very humble and lives a life consistent with the teachings of Jesus you're more likely to accept what he says.

If I read your posts on here and went out into the world expressing how much Oscar_Kipling loves Mohammed would the problem be with you or me?

I suppose it is, but I think this is at odds with the idea that there is a wide open field for a person to find a church that they find is accepting of whatever, or I should say that the cases where you will actually find a church that meets some arbitrary criteria and that actually facilitates your salvation or whatever it is that is important about Christianity are the only ones we should actually be talking about. Eliminating the rest from the conversation i'd argue that there are far fewer degrees of freedom than you initially presented for a LGBT person, that is to say a church that is vaguely in line with scripture is of no value at all if it does not also meet other key salvation relevant criteria.

As far as misreading or misrepresenting me, well sure, but God has far more available avenues to make himself clear, but appearently chooses not to use them elsewise imo I think things would look very different.

The key question is whether you want a god that looks like you or whether you want to align yourself with what your god requires. Christianity isn't about insisting I'm fine the way I am, it's about becoming more and more like Jesus. The idea is that we try to avoid sinful things. Whether the sins we're tempted by relate to sexual activity, financial impropriety, anger and violence, idolatry or whatever else, if we follow a God that calls us to avoid them then we avoid them. Focusing on what other people are doing diverts attention from what I'm doing that I shouldn't be doing.

Arguing that a gay person can't find a church that accepts their desires and therefore can't accept them really makes no more sense than arguing that an ugly straight man who uses pornography to help satisfy his unfulfilled desires can't find a church that accepts what he is doing. Admittedly there are churches out there who turn a selective blind eye - the man who cheats on his wife is "just Bob being Bob" but you'd think that the devil himself had walked in as soon as the gay couple shows up. And that's a failing on the part of the church.

I think sometimes we need to look at what is important to us. As a straight man the issue of whether or not I'm allowed to have sex with another man is a distraction, because it's something I have no desire to do. For a gay man it's obviously a more personal concern, at which point I'd refer back to what Jesus said about sending the Holy Spirit and how he (the Spirit) will convict people of their sins. The Spirit will never convict me of my desires towards other men because I have no such desires.

It's very easy to spend a lot of time focussing on this or that particular thing, as if it were the most important thing to us. Some people talk as if their sexuality is the core defining feature of who they are - their entire identity is wrapped up in the fact they are gay and nothing else matters. Others talk as if their political affiliation is first and foremost, for others it's something else. And a recurring theme throughout Scripture is to put God first. So whatever your sexuality, would you put God first and refrain from acting on your desires? Whatever your political affiliation, would you put God first and vote for the other guy if he called you to do that? If we put some aspect of ourselves first and foremost then we've made that into our god.

As an aside, that touches on something else we mentioned further up in the thread about why gay people would attend a church that believes the gay lifestyle is sinful, you might as well ask the same question about anyone else who attends church. Yes, there are people for whom church is little more than a back-slapping social club where they huddle together and affirm how good they all are. The people who seek to follow Christ more closely are well aware of their own failings, whatever their nature. Living according to Scripture is inconvenient in many ways, yet people choose to do it. There's no need to single out gay people as if their issue is unique.

I think singling out the gay issue is fine since that is what we are talking about. If we were to broaden it all the way out, then on some level I don't really understand why anyone takes any religions or supernatural anything as seriously as they do. I guess if in your view  churches and the culture do not make a big deal about LGBT folk then you are of course free to do that, but I actually think that you guys are pretty noisy about it and it leaks well past what you individually choose to do in your personal worship...to be clear not necessarily you personally, but the Church, or churches or individual Christiandomities when viewed collectively.

We are talking about the gay issue in particular but the principle is the same. If you struggle with lust then you need to avoid the situations that prompt you to lust. If you struggle with anger you need to find a way to help calm it down. If you struggle with theft perhaps it's not a good idea to be in a position where you can steal things without anyone noticing until much later, at least until you can get the issue under control. Elevating homosexuality into some kind of "super-sin" category is unhelpful to gay people and unhelpful to everyone else who can get away with thinking that maybe they do sin but, you know, they don't do Those Icky Things that the nasty icky gay people do.

It is sad when churches act as if simply being gay is an abominable thing that can never be forgiven, and sad when churches act as if homosexual activity is some kind of super-sin that is so much more serious than anything else. If more of those Christians spent more time worrying about their own lives and less time worrying about what other people are doing that wouldn't be a bad thing.

[Oscar_Kipling]

The key question is whether you want a god that looks like you or whether you want to align yourself with what your god requires. Christianity isn't about insisting I'm fine the way I am, it's about becoming more and more like Jesus. The idea is that we try to avoid sinful things. Whether the sins we're tempted by relate to sexual activity, financial impropriety, anger and violence, idolatry or whatever else, if we follow a God that calls us to avoid them then we avoid them. Focusing on what other people are doing diverts attention from what I'm doing that I shouldn't be doing.

Arguing that a gay person can't find a church that accepts their desires and therefore can't accept them really makes no more sense than arguing that an ugly straight man who uses pornography to help satisfy his unfulfilled desires can't find a church that accepts what he is doing. Admittedly there are churches out there who turn a selective blind eye - the man who cheats on his wife is "just Bob being Bob" but you'd think that the devil himself had walked in as soon as the gay couple shows up. And that's a failing on the part of the church.

It didn't seem like the key question when you were going on about finding a church that vaguely seemed to line up with biblicality. As you are currently stating it, It seems to me that there are quite a few groups of people that might join the church or a church where their proclivities or lifestyle are absolutely not supported or dare I say are rejected outright. Some of those folks join the church, and they either change or are rejected or spend their time doing something irrelevant or contrary to their salvation in a thing that calls itself a "church", I think that this is obvious, but It seems we've spent an unreasonable amount of time with you trying to not flat out say that because I guess the Hamas comparison was uncomfortable for you.

We are talking about the gay issue in particular but the principle is the same. If you struggle with lust then you need to avoid the situations that prompt you to lust. If you struggle with anger you need to find a way to help calm it down. If you struggle with theft perhaps it's not a good idea to be in a position where you can steal things without anyone noticing until much later, at least until you can get the issue under control. Elevating homosexuality into some kind of "super-sin" category is unhelpful to gay people and unhelpful to everyone else who can get away with thinking that maybe they do sin but, you know, they don't do Those Icky Things that the nasty icky gay people do.

It is sad when churches act as if simply being gay is an abominable thing that can never be forgiven, and sad when churches act as if homosexual activity is some kind of super-sin that is so much more serious than anything else. If more of those Christians spent more time worrying about their own lives and less time worrying about what other people are doing that wouldn't be a bad thing.

Is that sad? I certainly don't hear an overwhelming din of Christians wailing and moaning about it...I suppose many are really broken up about it on the inside, and it is difficult to see into people's minds unless they say stuff about it...and the people most likely to say anything aloud about it are the sad minority of Christians that do believe that LGBT's are uniquely worthy of special attention...that or for some reason An overwhelming amount of Christians despite all the guidance of the bible and the spirit and Jesus and all of those things that Christians are constantly telling me I'm blind to or lack access to for some reason or another (mostly due to some personal failure on my part) are still under the misapprehension that LGBT's are uniquely worthy of special attention. For me, I'm not impressed with Christians in either case.
 

[tango]

The key question is whether you want a god that looks like you or whether you want to align yourself with what your god requires. Christianity isn't about insisting I'm fine the way I am, it's about becoming more and more like Jesus. The idea is that we try to avoid sinful things. Whether the sins we're tempted by relate to sexual activity, financial impropriety, anger and violence, idolatry or whatever else, if we follow a God that calls us to avoid them then we avoid them. Focusing on what other people are doing diverts attention from what I'm doing that I shouldn't be doing.

Arguing that a gay person can't find a church that accepts their desires and therefore can't accept them really makes no more sense than arguing that an ugly straight man who uses pornography to help satisfy his unfulfilled desires can't find a church that accepts what he is doing. Admittedly there are churches out there who turn a selective blind eye - the man who cheats on his wife is "just Bob being Bob" but you'd think that the devil himself had walked in as soon as the gay couple shows up. And that's a failing on the part of the church.

It didn't seem like the key question when you were going on about finding a church that vaguely seemed to line up with biblicality. As you are currently stating it, It seems to me that there are quite a few groups of people that might join the church or a church where their proclivities or lifestyle are absolutely not supported or dare I say are rejected outright. Some of those folks join the church, and they either change or are rejected or spend their time doing something irrelevant or contrary to their salvation in a thing that calls itself a "church", I think that this is obvious, but It seems we've spent an unreasonable amount of time with you trying to not flat out say that because I guess the Hamas comparison was uncomfortable for you.

One would hope that a church would teach something like aligns with Scripture. That means that all of us need to change. We can focus on what other people need to change in their lives (the "God, I thank you that I'm not like this man here" approach) or we can focus on what we need to change (the "God, have mercy on me, a sinner" approach). If people want to become more like Christ one would hope the church would accept them. If people want to know more about this Jesus dude one would hope the church would accept them.

A big difference between the church and Hamas is that the church isn't usually in the habit of beheading people who don't follow their precise interpretation of their holy text.

We are talking about the gay issue in particular but the principle is the same. If you struggle with lust then you need to avoid the situations that prompt you to lust. If you struggle with anger you need to find a way to help calm it down. If you struggle with theft perhaps it's not a good idea to be in a position where you can steal things without anyone noticing until much later, at least until you can get the issue under control. Elevating homosexuality into some kind of "super-sin" category is unhelpful to gay people and unhelpful to everyone else who can get away with thinking that maybe they do sin but, you know, they don't do Those Icky Things that the nasty icky gay people do.

It is sad when churches act as if simply being gay is an abominable thing that can never be forgiven, and sad when churches act as if homosexual activity is some kind of super-sin that is so much more serious than anything else. If more of those Christians spent more time worrying about their own lives and less time worrying about what other people are doing that wouldn't be a bad thing.

Is that sad? I certainly don't hear an overwhelming din of Christians wailing and moaning about it...I suppose many are really broken up about it on the inside, and it is difficult to see into people's minds unless they say stuff about it...and the people most likely to say anything aloud about it are the sad minority of Christians that do believe that LGBT's are uniquely worthy of special attention...that or for some reason An overwhelming amount of Christians despite all the guidance of the bible and the spirit and Jesus and all of those things that Christians are constantly telling me I'm blind to or lack access to for some reason or another (mostly due to some personal failure on my part) are still under the misapprehension that LGBT's are uniquely worthy of special attention. For me, I'm not impressed with Christians in either case.

It is sad, because one group gets unfairly ostracized while everyone else pretends they are OK because they don't do that Nasty Icky Stuff that the Nasty Icky Gay People do. So they carry on cheating on their spouses or fiddling their expense accounts or ignoring the plight of widows and orphans or whatever else they do, while patting themselves on the back because they don't do that Nasty Icky Stuff.

It's also sad when Christians focus such venom on a particular group of people they become less attractive to the world as a whole. I think it was Mahatma Ghandi who was quoted as saying "I like your Christ. I don't like your Christians, they are so unlike your Christ". Which kinda hurts, but it's not like he doesn't have at least some justification in saying it.

When someone like yourself looks at the church and doesn't particularly want what we have, that doesn't speak very highly of the job we are doing of resembling Christ. And it's sad that at least some of your being unimpressed is entirely deserved. We're not perfect, whatever some might like to think.

[Oscar_Kipling]

One would hope that a church would teach something like aligns with Scripture. That means that all of us need to change. We can focus on what other people need to change in their lives (the "God, I thank you that I'm not like this man here" approach) or we can focus on what we need to change (the "God, have mercy on me, a sinner" approach). If people want to become more like Christ one would hope the church would accept them. If people want to know more about this Jesus dude one would hope the church would accept them.

A big difference between the church and Hamas is that the church isn't usually in the habit of beheading people who don't follow their precise interpretation of their holy text.

I would think that one would hope that a church would teach everything that is crucial to salvation or holiness or whatever it is that is that is supposed to be important about Christianity in an exacting manner because anything short of that serves no purpose or is counterproductive to the business of being like christ ...or whatever thing it is that Christians are supposed to be working toward. I think that somewhere in your mind and in the minds of other Christians that might take the tact that you have, there is a rationale either active and explicit or implicit to the approach that has been engendered within you that offering the somewhat nebulous notion that one could find a Church that approximates scriptural alignment and find acceptance within the congregation and gainfully affect their salvific responsibilities is somehow more appealing and hence evangelically useful than what I would consider the more authentic or accurate notion that comes from considering the circumstances where such an approach would fail to accomplish the very thing that is supposed to be the central purpose of finding a church or seeking Christ in the first place....IOW it is a misleading set of criteria that superficially appears to provide options,yet ignoring that some significant portion of those options are fundamentally useless, while a better set of criteria i.e find a church that IS aligned with scripture is clearly a less fraught criteria even if determining what scriptural alignment is is itself fraugh. Perhaps it is a lack of imagination or generosity on my part, but I believe this is only ever asserted for the purpose of making a more palatable sales pitch. In this light, Hamas chops your head off, and some Christians play it fast and loose with the final destination of your immortal soul to superficially bolster their ranks...since I believe in beheadings but not hell I suppose you win, Christianity is better than Hamas.

It is sad, because one group gets unfairly ostracized while everyone else pretends they are OK because they don't do that Nasty Icky Stuff that the Nasty Icky Gay People do. So they carry on cheating on their spouses or fiddling their expense accounts or ignoring the plight of widows and orphans or whatever else they do, while patting themselves on the back because they don't do that Nasty Icky Stuff.

It's also sad when Christians focus such venom on a particular group of people they become less attractive to the world as a whole. I think it was Mahatma Ghandi who was quoted as saying "I like your Christ. I don't like your Christians, they are so unlike your Christ". Which kinda hurts, but it's not like he doesn't have at least some justification in saying it.

When someone like yourself looks at the church and doesn't particularly want what we have, that doesn't speak very highly of the job we are doing of resembling Christ. And it's sad that at least some of your being unimpressed is entirely deserved. We're not perfect, whatever some might like to think.

So what I do not get is why the burden of responsibility doesn't fall on the ultimate founder, chief marketing director, Ceo and chairman of the board of the church? If you see your subordinates consistently failing to grasp your training materials over millions or billions of training cycles in the same exact ways over and over again then I think it might be time to consider the idea that what you are doing is ineffective and blaming the trainees will continue to fail to produce positive results because it isn't them, its you.

[tango]

One would hope that a church would teach something like aligns with Scripture. That means that all of us need to change. We can focus on what other people need to change in their lives (the "God, I thank you that I'm not like this man here" approach) or we can focus on what we need to change (the "God, have mercy on me, a sinner" approach). If people want to become more like Christ one would hope the church would accept them. If people want to know more about this Jesus dude one would hope the church would accept them.

A big difference between the church and Hamas is that the church isn't usually in the habit of beheading people who don't follow their precise interpretation of their holy text.

I would think that one would hope that a church would teach everything that is crucial to salvation or holiness or whatever it is that is that is supposed to be important about Christianity in an exacting manner because anything short of that serves no purpose or is counterproductive to the business of being like christ ...or whatever thing it is that Christians are supposed to be working toward. I think that somewhere in your mind and in the minds of other Christians that might take the tact that you have, there is a rationale either active and explicit or implicit to the approach that has been engendered within you that offering the somewhat nebulous notion that one could find a Church that approximates scriptural alignment and find acceptance within the congregation and gainfully affect their salvific responsibilities is somehow more appealing and hence evangelically useful than what I would consider the more authentic or accurate notion that comes from considering the circumstances where such an approach would fail to accomplish the very thing that is supposed to be the central purpose of finding a church or seeking Christ in the first place....IOW it is a misleading set of criteria that superficially appears to provide options,yet ignoring that some significant portion of those options are fundamentally useless, while a better set of criteria i.e find a church that IS aligned with scripture is clearly a less fraught criteria even if determining what scriptural alignment is is itself fraugh. Perhaps it is a lack of imagination or generosity on my part, but I believe this is only ever asserted for the purpose of making a more palatable sales pitch. In this light, Hamas chops your head off, and some Christians play it fast and loose with the final destination of your immortal soul to superficially bolster their ranks...since I believe in beheadings but not hell I suppose you win, Christianity is better than Hamas.

I'm glad we agree on something at last

Seriously, we would hope that churches would teach Scripture. Sadly some people see religion as a means to gain control over people and enrich/empower themselves so it's hardly surprising that sometimes they go astray. Some people have their own agendas to push, so sometimes things go astray. And sometimes people just have differing opinions and prefer to form their own groups than thrash it out or even - horror - agree to disagree because the topic of disagreement isn't important enough to warrant division.

We caught on to the idea that people with ill intentions towards children will seek out roles where they have access to children. So we make sure that the youth leaders, nursery supervisors, choirmasters etc are screened for child abuse clearances and take additional steps to make child abuse more difficult. How effective these measures are is debatable but at least we try to keep such people away from our children. Sadly we still see adults falling for the charismatic charlatans who tickle their ears with what they want to hear, or who spin the li(n)e that blessings can be bought (with a generous donation to the minister, naturally), and we see people who figured out (not that it's a great mystery) that it's sometimes easier to find a leader who will tell you everything is fine than it is to find a leader who encourages you to constantly push forward.

Think about a running coach. A good coach will encourage you to train harder, push faster, improve your times, run through the days you don't feel like it, and keep on improving. If you listen to them and do what they say you'll find some days are really hard, some runs feel like you just want to walk away and quit running completely, but you'll get fitter and faster. You can probably find yourself a coach who assures you that everything is fine, you're doing fine, there's no need to push yourself because you're good the way you are. That coach won't create results.

For people interested in actually following Scripture it's good to see how the minister of a church presents himself. The person who gives the impression that they've got it all together, that they have all the answers etc is probably not someone worth following. The person who accepts they are imperfect, who doesn't pretend to be something they aren't (to be clear I don't expect a minister to publicly recount each and every one of his failings, merely to acknowledge they don't have all the answers and are on the same path as I am) is more likely to be someone worth following.

Add all those things together and it's hardly surprising that churches miss the mark with depressing frequency. For good measure it costs money to run a church so even if the minister hasn't decided to use it as his personal enrichment plan it's easy to see how a minister might seek to appease the wealthy donor, knowing that losing their financial support might mean having to cut back on some areas of ministry if others don't step up.

Curiously if you look at Scripture there are warnings that times will come when men seek to have their ears tickled. Hm. It's almost as if whoever wrote Scripture knew a thing or two about the future.

It is sad, because one group gets unfairly ostracized while everyone else pretends they are OK because they don't do that Nasty Icky Stuff that the Nasty Icky Gay People do. So they carry on cheating on their spouses or fiddling their expense accounts or ignoring the plight of widows and orphans or whatever else they do, while patting themselves on the back because they don't do that Nasty Icky Stuff.

It's also sad when Christians focus such venom on a particular group of people they become less attractive to the world as a whole. I think it was Mahatma Ghandi who was quoted as saying "I like your Christ. I don't like your Christians, they are so unlike your Christ". Which kinda hurts, but it's not like he doesn't have at least some justification in saying it.

When someone like yourself looks at the church and doesn't particularly want what we have, that doesn't speak very highly of the job we are doing of resembling Christ. And it's sad that at least some of your being unimpressed is entirely deserved. We're not perfect, whatever some might like to think.

So what I do not get is why the burden of responsibility doesn't fall on the ultimate founder, chief marketing director, Ceo and chairman of the board of the church? If you see your subordinates consistently failing to grasp your training materials over millions or billions of training cycles in the same exact ways over and over again then I think it might be time to consider the idea that what you are doing is ineffective and blaming the trainees will continue to fail to produce positive results because it isn't them, its you.

So what do you think God should do about it?

[RabbiKnife]

God should just kill us all and send us to hell

But, He loves us and gave His son as a sacrifice for us

So gladly, God doesn’t follow the BS corporate America model

[Oscar_Kipling]

I'm glad we agree on something at last

Seriously, we would hope that churches would teach Scripture. Sadly some people see religion as a means to gain control over people and enrich/empower themselves so it's hardly surprising that sometimes they go astray. Some people have their own agendas to push, so sometimes things go astray. And sometimes people just have differing opinions and prefer to form their own groups than thrash it out or even - horror - agree to disagree because the topic of disagreement isn't important enough to warrant division.

We caught on to the idea that people with ill intentions towards children will seek out roles where they have access to children. So we make sure that the youth leaders, nursery supervisors, choirmasters etc are screened for child abuse clearances and take additional steps to make child abuse more difficult. How effective these measures are is debatable but at least we try to keep such people away from our children. Sadly we still see adults falling for the charismatic charlatans who tickle their ears with what they want to hear, or who spin the li(n)e that blessings can be bought (with a generous donation to the minister, naturally), and we see people who figured out (not that it's a great mystery) that it's sometimes easier to find a leader who will tell you everything is fine than it is to find a leader who encourages you to constantly push forward.

Think about a running coach. A good coach will encourage you to train harder, push faster, improve your times, run through the days you don't feel like it, and keep on improving. If you listen to them and do what they say you'll find some days are really hard, some runs feel like you just want to walk away and quit running completely, but you'll get fitter and faster. You can probably find yourself a coach who assures you that everything is fine, you're doing fine, there's no need to push yourself because you're good the way you are. That coach won't create results.

For people interested in actually following Scripture it's good to see how the minister of a church presents himself. The person who gives the impression that they've got it all together, that they have all the answers etc is probably not someone worth following. The person who accepts they are imperfect, who doesn't pretend to be something they aren't (to be clear I don't expect a minister to publicly recount each and every one of his failings, merely to acknowledge they don't have all the answers and are on the same path as I am) is more likely to be someone worth following.

Add all those things together and it's hardly surprising that churches miss the mark with depressing frequency. For good measure it costs money to run a church so even if the minister hasn't decided to use it as his personal enrichment plan it's easy to see how a minister might seek to appease the wealthy donor, knowing that losing their financial support might mean having to cut back on some areas of ministry if others don't step up.

Curiously if you look at Scripture there are warnings that times will come when men seek to have their ears tickled. Hm. It's almost as if whoever wrote Scripture knew a thing or two about the future.

Oh idk how impressed I am with that prediction considering that men seeking to have their ears tickled could describe pretty much any time because people are like that and so far as I can tell they always have been. It would be sort of like me predicting that there will be wars and rumors of wars sometime in the future, like that would be a really goofy prediction right?

So what do you think God should do about it?

probably alot of things, but mostly just show up. So far as I can tell nothing is preventing God from having an individual rap session with every human that will ever exist whether they believe in him or not.

[Oscar_Kipling]

God should just kill us all and send us to hell

But, He loves us and gave His son as a sacrifice for us

So gladly, God doesn’t follow the BS corporate America model

ah yes, because there is something uniquely BS or American or corporate about changing your methodology when you see that it fails consistently. Though I have to give you credit for practicing what you preach because you consistently respond to me in the same asinine way and you get the same asinine results, and yet you persist. Don't go changing buttercup.

[RabbiKnife]

You have faith in yourself

I have faith in God

Apples and studebakers

[tango]

I'm glad we agree on something at last

Seriously, we would hope that churches would teach Scripture. Sadly some people see religion as a means to gain control over people and enrich/empower themselves so it's hardly surprising that sometimes they go astray. Some people have their own agendas to push, so sometimes things go astray. And sometimes people just have differing opinions and prefer to form their own groups than thrash it out or even - horror - agree to disagree because the topic of disagreement isn't important enough to warrant division.

We caught on to the idea that people with ill intentions towards children will seek out roles where they have access to children. So we make sure that the youth leaders, nursery supervisors, choirmasters etc are screened for child abuse clearances and take additional steps to make child abuse more difficult. How effective these measures are is debatable but at least we try to keep such people away from our children. Sadly we still see adults falling for the charismatic charlatans who tickle their ears with what they want to hear, or who spin the li(n)e that blessings can be bought (with a generous donation to the minister, naturally), and we see people who figured out (not that it's a great mystery) that it's sometimes easier to find a leader who will tell you everything is fine than it is to find a leader who encourages you to constantly push forward.

Think about a running coach. A good coach will encourage you to train harder, push faster, improve your times, run through the days you don't feel like it, and keep on improving. If you listen to them and do what they say you'll find some days are really hard, some runs feel like you just want to walk away and quit running completely, but you'll get fitter and faster. You can probably find yourself a coach who assures you that everything is fine, you're doing fine, there's no need to push yourself because you're good the way you are. That coach won't create results.

For people interested in actually following Scripture it's good to see how the minister of a church presents himself. The person who gives the impression that they've got it all together, that they have all the answers etc is probably not someone worth following. The person who accepts they are imperfect, who doesn't pretend to be something they aren't (to be clear I don't expect a minister to publicly recount each and every one of his failings, merely to acknowledge they don't have all the answers and are on the same path as I am) is more likely to be someone worth following.

Add all those things together and it's hardly surprising that churches miss the mark with depressing frequency. For good measure it costs money to run a church so even if the minister hasn't decided to use it as his personal enrichment plan it's easy to see how a minister might seek to appease the wealthy donor, knowing that losing their financial support might mean having to cut back on some areas of ministry if others don't step up.

Curiously if you look at Scripture there are warnings that times will come when men seek to have their ears tickled. Hm. It's almost as if whoever wrote Scripture knew a thing or two about the future.

Oh idk how impressed I am with that prediction considering that men seeking to have their ears tickled could describe pretty much any time because people are like that and so far as I can tell they always have been. It would be sort of like me predicting that there will be wars and rumors of wars sometime in the future, like that would be a really goofy prediction right?

Given how much time is spent discussing peace it is remarkable how many wars we still have going on, no?

I noticed you didn't address much of the rest of that section. Sure, people have wanted their ears tickled since there were ears to tickle. But in the early days of the church people were imprisoned for their faith. These days the church, in the west at least, likes to think it's something special and will never face persecution. Never mind the inconvenient bits that Jesus said about how the world hated him and will hate us. But, you know, we're good Americans with the good old First Amendment to protect us, because we're just too good to suffer for the sake of the gospel. And that's not necessarily what our future holds. But it's more comforting to hear how the Western church will be raptured and not have to face any of the nasty inconveniences of being beaten and martyred, like people in the more primitive parts of the world.

So what do you think God should do about it?

probably alot of things, but mostly just show up. So far as I can tell nothing is preventing God from having an individual rap session with every human that will ever exist whether they believe in him or not.

This is the bit where I find myself thinking about the discussions we've had about unicorns and what it would take for you to believe in unicorns. Can you be specific about exactly what it would take to convince you that God was real? Here you're kinda talking about some comical old guy coming down from the sky to chat with you over a coffee, assure you that he was God and he was real and it would be awfully nice of you to start believing in him, only to then float back up into the clouds while you debated with yourself whether it all really happened or if you'd eaten too much cheese right before bed or something.

[Oscar_Kipling]

Given how much time is spent discussing peace it is remarkable how many wars we still have going on, no?

again idk, it is one thing to discuss peace and something else entirely to invest the sort of time, effort and resources it takes to be about peace. I won't disrespect the folks that have suffered and died in wars by claiming that peace is easier than war because it is extremely costly and we pay for it sometimes for countless generations, but war is easier to understand in many ways and what we think it will cost is often immediate and visceral whereas peace I think has fuzzier edges and requires a kind of trust, unity and emotional depth/maturity that rarely whips masses of people up into action and never in perpetuity. To me it's not unusual that the rhetoric of peace has not translated into the discouragingly long, difficult and often thankless work of peace. TLDR i'm not surprised because actually doing peace is super hard.

I noticed you didn't address much of the rest of that section. Sure, people have wanted their ears tickled since there were ears to tickle. But in the early days of the church people were imprisoned for their faith. These days the church, in the west at least, likes to think it's something special and will never face persecution. Never mind the inconvenient bits that Jesus said about how the world hated him and will hate us. But, you know, we're good Americans with the good old First Amendment to protect us, because we're just too good to suffer for the sake of the gospel. And that's not necessarily what our future holds. But it's more comforting to hear how the Western church will be raptured and not have to face any of the nasty inconveniences of being beaten and martyred, like people in the more primitive parts of the world.

I really didn't have much to say on your other points, i'm actually more or less fine with them. To me you described a bunch of problems in the church and their root causes about as I would have, save a few that I would add because I do not believe in supernatural forces and you do. All in all its not that we disagree that humans are imperfect and therefore the church is imperfect, we disagree that there is some spiritual mechanism that will guide a genuine believer (or however you would describe it) along the righteous path (or whatever it is that is supposed to be good and useful about christianity). 

This is the bit where I find myself thinking about the discussions we've had about unicorns and what it would take for you to believe in unicorns. Can you be specific about exactly what it would take to convince you that God was real? Here you're kinda talking about some comical old guy coming down from the sky to chat with you over a coffee, assure you that he was God and he was real and it would be awfully nice of you to start believing in him, only to then float back up into the clouds while you debated with yourself whether it all really happened or if you'd eaten too much cheese right before bed or something.

I don't know why god would need to appear as a comically old guy, but yeah a cup of coffee with God imo isn't too much to ask. What I meant by showing up is that god could just be around and he's having billions of coffees or breakfast's or morning jogs or whatever with billions of people all of the time. I'm amused by the theatricality of parting clouds and moonbeams, but if God was just hanging out with everyone all of the time, was there to unambiguously answer questions and it was as common as pie to come to thanksgiving and see jesus playing with your nephew, then it would be like denying that your uncle Carl exists. I'm not saying that people don't deny that their uncles exist or lose touch with reality, but I feel like the idea of limiting contacts with God to special moments that are invariably internal makes them indistinguishable from supernatural contacts that we would likely both agree sound super fake and made up. It's not as if God doesn't have the time or ability to show up to everyone, everywhere all at once. Nothing actually prevents God from being a common fixture in everyone's life in as visceral and tangible a way as uncle Carl is. No one has to genuinely ask that uncle Carl reveal himself to you because you grew up with uncle Carl. Uncle Carl teased you when you had your first crush in the 4th grade. Uncle Carl taught you how to change a tire. You've looked through uncle Carl's old photos and laughed about how much hair he had in highschool. Why all the cloak and dagger with God? What purpose does the ambiguity serve? He may answer you, but you have to recognize the signs or whatever, like why? When I order an Uber I don't have to really believe that the uber app will send me a sign and perhaps through the giggle of a child or the way the sun filters through the leaves of an old oak tree will I then know that my Uber has arrived...nope I get a notification. Claiming that I or anyone would simply deny it if God was always bopping back and forth through the clouds all of the time for all to see is fine, but it hasn't happened so neither of us know how that would affect the faith of the human population. It's a safe way to claim that a thing that hasn't happened didn't happen for reasons that you just get to baselessly assert and then you get to claim that this whole thing that didn't happen is just more evidence for the thing you believe. I'm sure that you would be able to see the grift in that if the context were different, but not with God.

[RabbiKnife]

What is man to demand that God reveal Himself according to man’s desires?

God is only hard to see when one determines in advance that God must answer to man’s demands.

Again, even a hard science guy should acknowledge that trying to measure the metaphysical/supernatural through the scientific method is dishonest toward both science and the metaphysical

[Oscar_Kipling]

What is man to demand that God reveal Himself according to man’s desires?

God is only hard to see when one determines in advance that God must answer to man’s demands.

Again, even a hard science guy should acknowledge that trying to measure the metaphysical/supernatural through the scientific method is dishonest toward both science and the metaphysical

Yeah so I didn't demand anything of God because I do not believe there is one, Tango and I were discussing some hypotheticals. I didn't mention the scientific method at all, In fact that kind of misses my point, I have not empirically evaluated the evidence for the existence of my uncle Carl because my uncle Carl has always, unambiguously, viscerally and tangibly been a person that exists in my life. If you want to go around acting like God shows up at thanksgiving dinner and sat next to your aunt Martha then have at it, but I'm saying that in my life it has never even occurred to me to doubt Carl's existence, but God in my experience bears no resemblance to Carl in the existence department. Like, I get that many Christians must believe that I determined that God doesn't exist not through my honest expirience of the world, but through some dishonest or deceptive means...but it is truly one of the most obnoxious aspects of you guy's deal. The worst part is that I've never run across a Christian that wasn't able to see the grift in it when that same rationale is pointed out in other religions or contexts, but here yall cling onto it for dear life because if I can just be an honest guy who sees the world differently than you, and has just had an honest set of different experiences than you, and thereby drew an honest set of different conclusions than you then your religion has to be a lie...so of course, my expirience can't be entirely genuine. its fine, you've been painted into a corner, and you like the corner.

[RabbiKnife]

Please don't be obtuse.  One doesn't have to cite chapter and verse, (pardon the pun) to worship of man's intellect and reasoning to point out one's objective allegiance and reliance upon it.  Are you always that pompous an ass, or do you have to practice at it?  I for one, acknowledge that I am a pompous ass and yes, I work at it.


I could not care less as to how you have arrived at your presuppositions.  But grift?

What a ridiculous accusation.  You don't even see in yourself your demands made on God, even in your hypotheticals.

If you don't believe in the existence of the supernatural, then you are an idiot to waste your time in this forum trying to convince us of how brilliant you are and how stupid we are by comparison.

What is your point, really?  Does being contrarian bring you some strange pleasure?

I recognize that you see the world differently.  I have an opinion as to why you see it differently, as do you, and both are likely true expressions of our beliefs.

Sincerity is a lousy arbiter of reality.