I no longer consider myself a christian

[zinfamous]

The good news is once you are saved you are always saved. You may be a sheep that has been led astray but you will most likely still enter the kingdom of God.

Your file might be cached on St. Peter's computer system due to lack of activity though, so you may end up waiting longer at the gates. Their system is kinda slow since they moved it to the cloud.

I am well-saved.

Isn't that what ING is for?

 

[Dr. Zaus]

C.S. Lewis: "When a young man who has been going to church in a routine way honestly realises that he does not believe in Christianity and stops going—provided he does it for honesty’s sake and not just to annoy his parents—the spirit of Christ is probably nearer to him then than it ever was before. "

I love this quote.

 

[disappoint]

C.S. Lewis: "When a young man who has been going to church in a routine way honestly realises that he does not believe in Christianity and stops going—provided he does it for honesty’s sake and not just to annoy his parents—the spirit of Christ is probably nearer to him then than it ever was before. "

OP, I hope you can truly find Christ, I hope your declaration is a part of the road to Him.

I love this quote.

I doubt either of you even knows what that quote really means. I'll let you both make an attempt before I reveal the answer. You have 48 hours. Good luck. I hope you prove me wrong.

 

[SP33Demon]

I did, of course. However, for the master of tautology I turn to William Lane Craig. Listening to him makes my head spin.

There you go, worshipping man again. The narrow path is not for you unless you are willing to accept Christ.

 

[SP33Demon]

lmao! The sheeple are the non-believers? That is cute. Whatever you need to convince yourself, bro.

The majority are sheeple and atheist, such as yourself. This is why society is going to shit, lack of morals and thinking man is God (ego). You just moved to DC, you'll see sooner or later about this area.

I would suggest reading the Bible if you want to be different than the masses and better your life spiritually. While we're at it, it's also good to get off the keyboard and hit a gym instead of sitting behind a screen 8 hours a day straight. It stimulates the spirit (speaking personally here).

 

[zinfamous]

The majority are sheeple and atheist, such as yourself. This is why society is going to shit, lack of morals and thinking man is God (ego). You just moved to DC, you'll see sooner or later about this area.

I would suggest reading the Bible if you want to be different than the masses and better your life spiritually. While you're at it, get off the keyboard and hit a gym instead of sitting behind a screen 8 hours a day straight. It stimulates the spirit.

You believe that Christianity and religion has an exclusive hold on morality. This is both irrational and ignorant. This is also why society will leave you behind.

This firm and utter faith in your idea of truth blinds you, and closes your mind to the world around you. Your "narrow path" is exactly that: dark and confining. Open your eyes.

 

[Retro Rob]

OP, 5 years as an atheist, didn't god take one second out of his busy schedule of inventing new diseases and starving children who pray for food to appear to you and tell you to come back into the fold? No? Sounds like he doesn't care one way or the other, so I guess you made the right choice.

I think its beyond doubt that atheists are atheists for purely emotional reasons.

 

[SP33Demon]

You believe that Christianity and religion has an exclusive hold on morality. This is both irrational and ignorant. This is also why society will leave you behind.

This firm and utter faith in your idea of truth blinds you, and closes your mind to the world around you. Your "narrow path" is exactly that: dark and confining. Open your eyes.

Pray tell, what other institution teaches morality in our modern society? Answer: Nothing. Open your eyes, e.g. turn on the radio. Outside of Christian, where is there uplifting music? Rap, no way. Rock, no way. Pop? No way, it is advocating excessive sin. Country? Sometimes, but that is because the majority of its listeners are Christian.

Pop TV: What shows are uplifting? Nothing (outside of cartoons/children's programming), because a "good" story has to comprise of sin nowadays (e.g. murder, addiction, lying, greed, cheating, stealing). Conflict is what society deems a "critically acclaimed" show like Breaking Bad or The Wire. And in order to have conflict nowadays you have to have sin.

Open your eyes. Your kids (if you have any) are going to be brainwashed by sin which is pumped through every public channel available. It is inescapable. In order to balance it, Church is necessary and I'm not talking about exclusively Christian. Future generations of kids are becoming more and more negative and it's because their parents never balanced out negativity with wholesome spirituality in their own lives. When we are constantly bombarded with negativity, it will have a cumulative effect to self destruction. We as a society are becoming more addicted to [insert sin here] with no plan to mitigate it until self destruction and rock bottom are hit. For example, porn destroying a marriage until irreparable damage is done. Eating like shit and never exercising until your doctor tells you that you're lucky to survive a heart attack. Drug overdoses. Assaulting someone because it's ok to always "express how you feel".

Once you hit rock bottom, only then are you willing to change. For some of us, that is how God planned their lives. However, being vigilant of sin and avoiding it by balancing it with the pureness of Church is necessary. Notice how much better you feel after going to Church. That feeling isn't going to be found in other institutions in our society, it is the last bastion of morals in our crumbling nothing-is-immoral and everything-is-ok-if-you-feel-that-way society. We cannot even fully blame our kids for their destruction because we partly did it to them via apathy.

 

[child of wonder]

Pray tell, what other institution teaches morality in our modern society? Answer: Nothing. Open your eyes, e.g. turn on the radio. Outside of Christian, where is there uplifting music? Rap, no way. Rock, no way. Pop? No way, it is advocating excessive sin. Country? Sometimes, but that is because the majority of its listeners are Christian.

Pop TV: What shows are uplifting? Nothing (outside of cartoons/children's programming), because a "good" story has to comprise of sin nowadays (e.g. murder, addiction, lying, greed, cheating, stealing). Conflict is what society deems a "critically acclaimed" show like Breaking Bad or The Wire. And in order to have conflict nowadays you have to have sin.

Open your eyes. Your kids (if you have any) are going to be brainwashed by sin which is pumped through every public channel available. It is inescapable. In order to balance it, Church is necessary and I'm not talking about exclusively Christian. Future generations of kids are becoming more and more negative and it's because their parents never balanced out negativity with wholesome spirituality in their own lives. When we are constantly bombarded with negativity, it will have a cumulative effect to self destruction. We as a society are becoming more addicted to [insert sin here] with no plan to mitigate it until self destruction and rock bottom are hit. For example, porn destroying a marriage until irreparable damage is done. Eating like shit and never exercising until your doctor tells you that you're lucky to survive a heart attack. Drug overdoses. Assaulting someone because it's ok to always "express how you feel".

Once you hit rock bottom, only then are you willing to change. For some of us, that is how God planned their lives. However, being vigilant of sin and avoiding it by balancing it with the pureness of Church is necessary. Notice how much better you feel after going to Church. That feeling isn't going to be found in other institutions in our society, it is the last bastion of morals in our crumbling nothing-is-immoral and everything-is-ok-if-you-feel-that-way society. We cannot even fully blame our kids for their destruction because we partly did it to them via apathy.

Straw man nonsense. My wife and I have raised our two kids (13 and 11) without any religion and they're both phenomenally moral kids. We routinely get complimented on their manners, caring attitudes, and willingness to help.

When popular culture fills kids' heads with immoral trash, this is due to a lack of parenting, not a lack of religion.

 

[IronWing]

I would suggest reading the Bible if you want to be different than the masses and better your life spiritually. While we're at it, it's also good to get off the keyboard and hit a gym instead of sitting behind a screen 8 hours a day straight. It stimulates the spirit (speaking personally here).

Better living through SP33Demon's sock puppet! Don't forget to tip the preacher. :biggrin:

 

[Dr. Zaus]

This thread man...

I tried.

 

[IronWing]

This thread man...

I tried.

It's a no-win situation for the seeker of universal ground. One either has to step into a belief system to try to point out where that system's commonalities with other systems lay in which case the believers claim exclusivity and re-enforcement of their own view or one can try to engage from outside specific belief systems in which case one's motives are questioned out of hand. Then there's the peanut gallery of logicians and atheists trolling the believers.

Come to animism; the absence of universal attributes makes it so much simpler.

 

[Ruptga]

Pray tell, what other institution teaches morality in our modern society? Answer: Nothing. Open your eyes, e.g. turn on the radio. Outside of Christian, where is there uplifting music? Rap, no way. Rock, no way. Pop? No way, it is advocating excessive sin. Country? Sometimes, but that is because the majority of its listeners are Christian.

Pop TV: What shows are uplifting? Nothing (outside of cartoons/children's programming), because a "good" story has to comprise of sin nowadays (e.g. murder, addiction, lying, greed, cheating, stealing). Conflict is what society deems a "critically acclaimed" show like Breaking Bad or The Wire. And in order to have conflict nowadays you have to have sin.

Open your eyes. Your kids (if you have any) are going to be brainwashed by sin which is pumped through every public channel available. It is inescapable. In order to balance it, Church is necessary and I'm not talking about exclusively Christian. Future generations of kids are becoming more and more negative and it's because their parents never balanced out negativity with wholesome spirituality in their own lives. When we are constantly bombarded with negativity, it will have a cumulative effect to self destruction. We as a society are becoming more addicted to [insert sin here] with no plan to mitigate it until self destruction and rock bottom are hit. For example, porn destroying a marriage until irreparable damage is done. Eating like shit and never exercising until your doctor tells you that you're lucky to survive a heart attack. Drug overdoses. Assaulting someone because it's ok to always "express how you feel".

Once you hit rock bottom, only then are you willing to change. For some of us, that is how God planned their lives. However, being vigilant of sin and avoiding it by balancing it with the pureness of Church is necessary. Notice how much better you feel after going to Church. That feeling isn't going to be found in other institutions in our society, it is the last bastion of morals in our crumbling nothing-is-immoral and everything-is-ok-if-you-feel-that-way society. We cannot even fully blame our kids for their destruction because we partly did it to them via apathy.

Straw man nonsense. My wife and I have raised our two kids (13 and 11) without any religion and they're both phenomenally moral kids. We routinely get complimented on their manners, caring attitudes, and willingness to help.

When popular culture fills kids' heads with immoral trash, this is due to a lack of parenting, not a lack of religion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzgEi_u9-88&t=1m31s

Also lol at "uplifting". Christian soft rock is the worst thing since baby murder. Vapid, preening, and soulless are all adjectives that come to mind, and that's just for the music.

 

[JEDIYoda]

It feels like a 1000 bricks have been lifted off my shoulders. I don't have all the answers, nor am I foolish enough to think I ever will. But I feel so much better. Now lets see how family reacts to updated religious views on facebook. That is all

I am not a troll.

__________________

so?? You want a medal or some kind of recognition??

 

[IronWing]

so?? You want a medal or some kind of recognition??

You just gave it to him.

 

[Franz316]

Oh man... the "no religion, no morality" argument is so tired and meaningless. There is no direct correlation between the two. It takes someone who really lacks critical thinking skills to cling to that belief. It's not even worth expanding upon it because it has been beaten into the ground. Empathy, gratitude, generosity, and kindness stand alone, not with religion X.

The perceived degradation of society that you you're seeing is not caused by lack of faith. If anything, it's caused by bad parenting along with modern culture being more stressful. Yeah, mainstream entertainment is pretty shitty nowadays, but that's because it's catering to the dregs. Simple answer, don't watch it.

 

[nakedfrog]

Straw man nonsense. My wife and I have raised our two kids (13 and 11) without any religion and they're both phenomenally moral kids. We routinely get complimented on their manners, caring attitudes, and willingness to help.

When popular culture fills kids' heads with immoral trash, this is due to a lack of parenting, not a lack of religion.

Firmly concur.

 

[nakedfrog]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzgEi_u9-88&t=1m31s

Also lol at "uplifting". Christian soft rock is the worst thing since baby murder. Vapid, preening, and soulless are all adjectives that come to mind, and that's just for the music.

Ugh, I have to hear this terrible, terrible garbage any time I'm at the Salvation Army thrift store.
One can definitely find uplifting rock and rap if one is actually looking for it. You can't expect to be spoon-fed what you want by commercial radio, that's not the business they're in.

 

[soulcougher73]

Pray tell, what other institution teaches morality in our modern society? Answer: Nothing. Open your eyes, e.g. turn on the radio. Outside of Christian, where is there uplifting music? Rap, no way. Rock, no way. Pop? No way, it is advocating excessive sin. Country? Sometimes, but that is because the majority of its listeners are Christian.

Pop TV: What shows are uplifting? Nothing (outside of cartoons/children's programming), because a "good" story has to comprise of sin nowadays (e.g. murder, addiction, lying, greed, cheating, stealing). Conflict is what society deems a "critically acclaimed" show like Breaking Bad or The Wire. And in order to have conflict nowadays you have to have sin.

Open your eyes. Your kids (if you have any) are going to be brainwashed by sin which is pumped through every public channel available. It is inescapable. In order to balance it, Church is necessary and I'm not talking about exclusively Christian. Future generations of kids are becoming more and more negative and it's because their parents never balanced out negativity with wholesome spirituality in their own lives. When we are constantly bombarded with negativity, it will have a cumulative effect to self destruction. We as a society are becoming more addicted to [insert sin here] with no plan to mitigate it until self destruction and rock bottom are hit. For example, porn destroying a marriage until irreparable damage is done. Eating like shit and never exercising until your doctor tells you that you're lucky to survive a heart attack. Drug overdoses. Assaulting someone because it's ok to always "express how you feel".

Once you hit rock bottom, only then are you willing to change. For some of us, that is how God planned their lives. However, being vigilant of sin and avoiding it by balancing it with the pureness of Church is necessary. Notice how much better you feel after going to Church. That feeling isn't going to be found in other institutions in our society, it is the last bastion of morals in our crumbling nothing-is-immoral and everything-is-ok-if-you-feel-that-way society. We cannot even fully blame our kids for their destruction because we partly did it to them via apathy.

OMG the RBD is strong with this one.

"Religious Brain Defect"

 

[soulcougher73]

 

[IronWing]

Ugh, I have to hear this terrible, terrible garbage any time I'm at the Salvation Army thrift store.
One can definitely find uplifting rock and rap if one is actually looking for it. You can't expect to be spoon-fed what you want by commercial radio, that's not the business they're in.

We have a Mormon-run thrift store in town. It is a really good thrift store, clean and orderly. Anyway the CD section is all Contemporary Christian music, nothing else. Now, w/o out any evidence to back it up, I choose to believe that Mormons listen a lot more types of music than that, yet I see no death metal, no rap, no blues, etc. Which makes me wonder: do the folks donating stuff to the store not donate their Slayer CDs or does the store dispose of the donated CDs in a fashion other than selling them in their store? I suppose the music that doesn't suck as bad as Contemporary Christian might simply sell out, and the Contemporary Christian just gets Left Behind, get it?. But there is a lot of music that sucks that isn't Contemporary Christian so I'm guessing it gets screened before being put on the shelves.

 

[nakedfrog]

We have a Mormon-run thrift store in town. It is a really good thrift store, clean and orderly. Anyway the CD section is all Contemporary Christian music, nothing else. Now, w/o out any evidence to back it up, I choose to believe that Mormons listen a lot more types of music than that, yet I see no death metal, no rap, no blues, etc. Which makes me wonder: do the folks donating stuff to the store not donate their Slayer CDs or does the store dispose of the donated CDs in a fashion other than selling them in their store? I suppose the music that doesn't suck as bad as Contemporary Christian might simply sell out, and the Contemporary Christian just gets Left Behind, get it?. But there is a lot of music that sucks that isn't Contemporary Christian so I'm guessing it gets screened before being put on the shelves.

Pre-screening would be my supposition as well.

 

[Ricochet]

There you go, worshipping man again. The narrow path is not for you unless you are willing to accept Christ.

Where the hell did you get that idea? Worshiping man is the last thing I would do. I don't worship man or fictitious deity.

 

[JEDIYoda]

Can`t you just feel the love permeating throughout this thread???

 

[IronWing]

Can`t you just feel the love permeating throughout this thread???

What's love got to do with it?