Oh come on!?!?!......better off staying on a thread with my beliefs....
Was not the entire point of this thread to preach the christian message of salvation? So if that is true then logically you intended for non-believers to read it. Therefore one should be subject to their questions. If you can't answer them then don't post this stuff unless your prepared to deal with. People are going to ask these questions get use to it!

Why are non-believers always accused of "attacking" when we ask questions? Dont you ever ask questions in church?

I don't know what all this debate is about. If you want to be saved regardless if you believe in Jesus, Mohammed, Voodoo, Hindu, Buddha, Indian Spirituality, Taoist, Cookie Monster you will be saved under my method. Now I will try to explain again. I hope you take this seriously, because you all need to seriously get laid


How to be saved.....

Find yourself a woman/man and have a great time together covering everything from the most romantic days in Paris, France to eating out at a great restaurant spoiling yourself with the finest cuisine one can ask for.

Have great conversations and enjoy each others beauty immensily.

When you get home, pop open champagne and get some fresh strawberries with candles and a nice fire place if you live up north and enjoy the serenity, peace, and love one can give each other.

Repeat this everyday and I guarantee you that you will be saved.

If you can't afford to go to France and eat out everyday then go to the next best thing and make sure you have great topics to talk about each day that leads to the greatest romance in the world.

Presto! You are saved

How can they, most reason that it has to do with God so it must be right so why question anything in church?

Stay in thread where you can talk about what it is that you believe?

Isn't there already an entire Christian Forum?

Christians try to proselytize their religion onto non-believers and then accuse the people who question the validity of it to be 'fighting and carrying on'.

What kind of horrid hypocrisy is that?



Exactly.

What kind of arrogance is it for Christians to be constantly proselytizing their religion onto others, and then when their dogma is questioned they call it 'fighting and carrying on'.

That's absurd.

If they want to push their religion onto other people they have every responsibility to justify every word that they are claiming as 'truth'.

Feral,

If someone came to you and say, "God wants you do murder your next door neighbor".

Would you just arbitrarily believe them? Or would you demand proof that God actually told them to say that?

Well, it's the same way with proselytizing.

You come to me and tell me that God wants me to be prejudiced against all other and denounce them all as being "not of God".

You want me to support prejudice against same-sex love, because you claim that the Bible is the word of God?

You want me to support the idea that men and women are committing a sin if they have sex outside of marriage because you claim that the Bible is the word of God?

Well, excuse me but as long as you are going to be proselytizing this kind of bigotry in the name of God I think I have a right to question the book that you claim is the word of God.

So I point out why the book can't possibly be the word of any all-wise, all-loving, all-powerful God.

Then what do you do?

You accuse me of 'fighting and carrying on'.

What a JOKE!

You are asking me to be PREJUDICED against all other religions and against same-sex relationships, and against intimate relationships that are done outside of wedlock all because you claim that God is a bigot according to the Bible?

Well, hey, according to the Bible he's a lot more than just a bigot!

According to the Bible God asked people to murder sinners, heathens, and blasphemists.

According to the Bible God sent his own son to earth as a mortal man to claim blaspheme and to become a heretic against God's own previous commands!

Why should I believe such an obviously deranged story?

Why should I believe that God is as bigoted and screwed up as you claim?

But when I bring up all those concerns all you say is, "don't be fighting and carrying on".

That's a really good answer Feral.

That's supposed to answer my concerns?

Christian have a HUGE problem.

They want to SELL a bigoted religion to people and ask them to denounce all other religions in favor of proclaiming that Jesus Christ is God and Gays are Sinners!

Yet they become offended when people point out the flaws in the bigotry of their religion.

If you can't answer the questions aimed at your philosophy that you're trying to proselytize, that only suggests that you have no justification for it.

The only reason you call it 'fighting' is because you can't counter the facts.

Wow.

I guess I'll just go back to my corner since I'm too stupid to know what I believe and discuss these things in the General Religion forum.

Now lets be careful not to turn this into people screaming at each other becuase of different beliefs,words and numbers. There are many virtues and good aspects in christianity and i am not attacking or questioning them, but on the subject of belief and when it comes to christians "evangelizing" or ministering to non-believers they need to be able to actually answer those kind of questions otherwise they have no right to go around preaching these things becuase they are just wasting time. That is the point i am trying to make here and claiming that i am attacking or arguing is just another way of being dismissive of questions you can not answer or are unwilling to try. In the end by not answering in a format that is not a repeative quotation of verses or religious dogma. You have to be able to reason with people if you want them to believe what you believe. Problem is most christians can't do that.

I am not sure what the intention of the original post was, but if that was intended to provide a definition and/or process to become saved, and to discuss it, I think the original post did a good job.

As far as the discussions in this thread, I think people are missing a very important point. Religion is based upon faith and belief, not just logic. While logic does have an important role to play in faith, logic alone can not answer the questions of religion.

For those who are complaining that Christians can not definitively prove their beliefs, they are missing the point. Religion can not exist without faith and belief. It is not up to a person of faith to scientifically prove what they believe.

Personally I would have found this thread more enlightening if it had been a discussion about becoming saved, rather than a thread debating if Christianity is the one true religion.

I try to have faith in humans, but it is a hard road

If you want to discuss becoming saved it would be more productive to post that in the Christianity forum.

I still have faith that people are basically good or at least neutral or disinterested at worst. But the problem is, there are those few who are VERY BAD and you have to always be on guard.

24 hour guard patrol over here

It isnt the one true religion but the problem is that Christians tend to behave as if it is and that is quite irritating. .Your invisible man is no better than any other invisible man (or woman)

Thats what this is about silly, salvation. I am just stating when it comes to convincing people to believe in this you have to be willing to try and resovle their questions. If you are unwilling to do that then stop going around preaching until you get the knowledge, wisdom, and actual spiritual backbone to do so. It is not about the whole physical evidence arguement. I am saying that faith is not a reason to believe something. Emphasize the "reason" in the last sentence there. Non-believers need reason and logic in order to be able to conclude whether or not they should have faith in a religion. Just a thought...

I will be the first to agree with you on this point sir.

And in that light I would ask the following questions:

If Christianity is based on faith then why should I even want to place my faith in this picture?

This picture of God claims that I have fallen from grace from my creator.

Why would I want to believe that on pure faith?

This picture of God claims that God told people to judge others to be sinners and to stone them to death.

Why would I want to believe that on pure faith?

This picture of God claims that God has to send his son to be cruficied to pay for my rebellious attitude toward God.

Why would I want to believe that on pure faith?

I don't believe that I've ever been at odds with my creator.

So why would I want to believe that on pure faith?

If I were going to believe in something on pure faith there are a lot better pictures of God to be found!

The Christian picture is not a pretty picture of either God or man.

So why would I want to believe such a negative picture of God on pure faith?

I see absolutely no reason whatsoever to choose to believe this picture of God based on pure faith.

There is no reason why I should want to have faith in such a negative picture of God or mankind.

So as a faith-based religion it's totally undesirable, IMHO.

It only suggests that both God and man have major problems and flaws.

So based on pure faith no one should want to believe it.

In fact, if you discovered it were false wouldn't that be the greatest news you could possibly imagine?

Surely you would celebrate at such news!

It would mean that mankind never fell from grace from God.

It would mean that God never had to sacrifice his son to pay for your sins.

It would mean that God never asked anyone to stone anyone to death.

Surely you yourself would celebrate if you discovered that the Bible was false.

Surely you wouldn't be disapointed to discover that these things aren't true?

That brings us to your next point,...




I think a person does have a responsiblity to justify asking others to believe in their faith-based beliefs.

Especially when they are so obviously negative.

Not only are they asking me to believe that I'm at odds with my creator, but they are also asking me to believe that the Bible is the word of God!

That's goes with it.

And they also claim that the Bible says that same-sex love is a sin. And that having intimate sexual relationships out of wedlock is a sin, and that to denounce this God is a sin!

That last part actually implies that once I buy into this religion to denounce the very religion is a sin!

So they are asking me to become bigoted toward all otehr religions!

I'm supposed to do this on pure faith?

No questions asked?

That's on hell of a lot of faith I'm being asked to put into such a negative bigoted philosophy.



But it has to be the 'one true religion' if being 'saved' has anything to do with accepting Jesus Crhist as your LORD and savior to the exclusion of all other philosophies?

The whole salavation thing DEMANDS a belief in the entire biblical story.

1. You must believe that you're at odds with your creator.

2. You must believe that God lusts for blood sacrifice as atonmements.

3. You must believe that God is prejudiced against unmarried people, gays, and he's even a male-chuavinists although most modern Christians typically ignore that last one anyway.

4. You must believe that Jesus was the Son of the God of Abraham even though he didn't agree with his decrees.

5. You must believe that Jesus died for your rebellious attitude toward God.

That just brings us full-circle to the need to believe that you're at odds with your creator in the first place.

Again, why should anyone believe that on pure faith?

Unless of course they actually feel like the are at odds with their creator.

This is just proselytizing propaganda for an organized religion that is trying to convert people to backing it's bigoted agenda.

It has little or nothing to do with spirituality.

Truly.

Christians are the one's who feel that they are at odds with God.

What are we supposed to be saved from exactly? I dont understand that at all. I cant be a Christian. Its too complex.

Well, that's my whole point.

Who says we need to be 'saved'?

Well, The Bible Says we need to be Saved

Ok, then it truly comes down to whether or not it makes any sense at all that the Bible is the word of any all-wise surpreme being.

So any arguments (or evidence) that the Bible does not make sense as being the word of an all-wise God are open game.

If the Bible can be shown to be absurd.

Then the whole idea that we are at odds with God and need to be saved goes right out the window.

It truly does come down to the idea of whether or not the Bible can be trusted to be the word of God.

I say that it can't possibly be the word of God.

Therefore my conclusion has to be that it's absurd to beleive that we are at odds with our creator in the first place.

Thus the idea of being 'saved' is moot.

It all depends on the Bible being the infalliable word of God.

That is the premise.

Like Ruth said, posts on how to be 'saved' should be restricted to the Christian forums because they are the ones who believe that the Bible is the word of God.

Many of us simply do not believe that it is.

If we believed that, we'd already be Christains.

How simple is that to understand?

pass the mashed potatoes and you will be saved

Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.--Zechariah 14:12

Thats sounds pretty scary. I think we need to be saved from the bible.