And here I thought you were taking the stance that Christians do not demand anything?

Now you're demanding that if a person doesn't spread the Gospel then they aren't even a "Good" Christian.



All that you proselytizing Christian extremists ever do, is make demands of everyone even of other Christians, lest you judge them to not be "good" Christians.

I can see where you aren't going to be much different from Cowboy in your constant demands of what constitutes a "Good" Christian.

We get sick of hearing all these demands from radical Christian extremists.

Truly we do.

I can only thank "God" that when I was a Christian I happened to have been born into a fairly SANE Christian denomination that saw things half-way realistically.

Besides, there's a HUGE difference between merely explaining the story of Jesus to someone who doesn't know about it, or who is requesting to know more about it, versus, trying to ram it down the throats of people have have clearly studied it in depth and have come to different conclusions about it than you have.

I see that as a demand.

They are demanding that if you don't believe in the name of Jesus as the begotten son of God, you will be condemned.

They aren't demanding that you actually believe them.

What they are demanding that if you refuse to believe them you will be condemned.

That's what they are demanding Freaky.

So, yes, I see this as being a demand.

Just like you "demand" that "Good" Christians must spread the word of Jesus.

You're not "demanding" that they do it.

But you are "demanding" that if they don't do it then they should not to be considered to be "good" Christians.

That's still a demand.

You're basically demanding what is required to be considered to be a "Good" Christian.

That's a demand on your part as far as I'm concerned.

Not only are you demanding that people must accept Jesus as the son of God, but now you're even demanding the details of how they must behave after they've accepted this.

Where are your "demands" going to end?

all proselytizing aside,,lol

those types of absolute statements about 'true christianity' 'true christians' 'real christians' 'the real message'

seem to be something believers and non believers have in common

I allow everyone to have their own personal beliefs and interpretations.

I don't ask anyone to believe like me.

All I ask is that they give my own personal views and interpretations the very same respect.

If Freakyshiki wants to believe that he is being a "Good" Christian by spreading the word of Jesus then more power to him.

But he crosses the line when he suggests that Christians who don't do this are not 'Good' Christians, he's passing judgments on other people's views and beliefs at that point.

Nobody is demanding anything. But, if you are a Christian, you are CALLED to spread the gospel. I'm not demanding that you do this. However, you cannot say you are a good Christian if you are not spreading the gospel.

But, I'm not demanding anything.

And you have me as an extremist? I am a gentle desert flower.

But, let me ask you this.

I can quote where we are called to spread the gospel. Show me where you see in the Bible that we are not called to do so.

As seekers of truth we are CALLED to expose bull $hit.

Then you are called to expose yourself.

I would only expose myself if I were out to expose the truth.

How can you expose truth? You don't expose what is, only what isn't.

You have a lot to learn.

Of course I have a lot to learn. We all have a lot to learn. When we stop learning, we stop living.

Why does Jeanniebean want to stop living? Is it because she does not read the Bible?

No you can't.

Jesus asked his disciples to spread the word. Not you.

There's no reason why every Christian needs to feel that they are a 'disciple' of Jesus. In fact, that would be impossible because you've never even heard Jesus' words directly. All you have ever heard is hearsay rumors about Jesus.

So it can only be your assumption based on your own view of things that you are being called to spread the "word" of Jesus.

This is, in fact, why the many denominations of Christianity can never be anything more than the personal opinions of the actual people who have created those particular views.

I see Jesus as a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva. So I see Jesus as asking his "disciples" (his immediate students) to also become Bodhisattvas. In fact, if you knew of Mahayana Buddhism you'd know that they typically made their disciples vow to become Bodhisattvas before they would even take them in as a student.

Moreover, I'll gladly teach you the message of Jesus if you like, but I seriously doubt that you'll understand it. If you already have this preconceived notion that Jesus was the only begotten son of a God who is appeased by blood sacrifices to pay for sins, then there really isn't much reason to attempt to convince you otherwise.

Besides, in today's day and age with all the books and other media that is available, I wouldn't even need to personally teach you the message of Jesus. I could simply suggest that you read books or watch DVDs that Deepak Chopra created. He does a far better job that I could do anyway.

You you speaking about 'context' a little bit ago. Well, don't just thing in the context of the Bible, think in the context of today's modern age.

There's absolutely no reason for any individual Christian to attempt to teach the message of Jesus. Most likely they would botch it all up big time anyway. They would be far better off to just point to some author of books or video presentations who can do a far better job of it.

So my advice along those lines would probably simply point to Deepak Chopra. He wrote a book called "The Third Jesus" which I hear is very good. I confess that I haven't read the book myself. Instead I watched his video lecture along those same lines and found that to be quite sufficient. I imagine he just goes into the very same points in his book in greater detail.

I completely agree with his views of Jesus.

And I doubt that I could teach it any better than him. He has a very well-organized style of teaching.

So now as a modern day "believer in Jesus" I can simply point to Deepak Chopra if anyone wants to have a better understanding of what Jesus truly stood for, IMHO.

Thanks to people like Deepak, and the modern technology of printed books and DVD videos, spreading the teachings of Jesus as become quite easy.

Of course I'm sure other people have done similar things, but I personally like Deepak's style and I think he does a truly beautiful job, so pointing to his works should be sufficient to getting anyone on the right track who might be interested.

That very LAST place I would point people to for an understanding of Jesus would be toward orthodox Christian evangelists. As far as I'm concerned they have it all wrong.

Jeanniebean never said nor implied any such thing.

Why are Christian proselytizers so caustic toward people who refuse to swallow their religious bigotry?

Spreading hate for Jesus' sake is such an oxymoron.

Abracadabra writes:

Jesus asked his disciples to spread the word.

But, we are disciples of Christ. It is quoted in the Bible.

Glad we can agree on this.

Thank you Abra.

Freakyshiki's remarks are obviously misdirections full of obvious assumptive implications that were never said and don't exist.

Propaganda, slander, lies, etc.

But he only does that because he thinks he knows how to play this game. He thinks he's clever.

He has no clue.

But we don't agree that we are disciples of Christ.

Quoted in the Bible by whom?

Post the verse you're referring to and I'll explain why I personally don't accept it.

Truly.

They come and they go, but they are rarely any different.

For the sake of the sincere decent Christians out there, I don't view these dastardly proselytizers as truly speaking for Christianity or Jesus.

I personally see them more as simply misguided extremists not unlike Jim Jones, David Koresh and others.

In fact, one of my concerns with Protestantism and the "Paper Pope" concept is indeed the concern of how easily it can be abused for negative purposes, even by people who have convinced themselves that they are doing the "right thing".

I personally believe that people like Jim Jones, David Koresh, and others believed themselves to be totally righteous and godly. I don't view them as "evil" people. They were simply confused and got carried away with "Paper Pope Euphoria".

That's an extremely easy concept to become addicted to.

When people start using the Bible and Proselyting the name of Jesus as an excuse to insult other people it's a clear sign they are on the wrong path.

Even the Bible itself warns of wolves in sheep's clothing and tells us that we can tell them by the fruit of their words. The gospels have Jesus himself saying that many false prophets will come in his name.

So just because someone claims to be preaching the word of Jesus doesn't make it so.

how is his interpreting what a 'good' christian is any different than your interpreting what 'true' christianity is?

One is a judgment on the follower of a religion, ("good" Christian)

The other is an observation of what a particular doctrine actually states, ("true" Christianity)

It is obviously TRUE that at least one of the authors of the Christian Biblical scriptures demands that a person is already condemned if they do not believe in Jesus as the only begotten son of God.


John 3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

It's TRUE that this is what the doctrine explicitly states.

It's neither my judgment nor my opinion. It's right there print.

To deny it we must deny the words of John directly.

In other words, we must question the verbatim value of the doctrine itself.

Of course, I certainly do. I don't accept these words of John.

Jesus is the light, he is the path to God our father who art in heaven. Faith without works is dead though. And works without faith is in vein. So yes, the start is believing on the son of God. Then comes obedience.