Protestantism

» pink101 - Confused?

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I'd like to think that some of the people who think they know absolute truth are confused.
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Maybe they can also learn?
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How about that?
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I just remembered that when I was a child some seventy years or so ago, my mother used to call me an Imp.
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heh heh heh.
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And, you're a Nut, Migisi.
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-- posted by pink101

» Migisi - Indicative or Subjunctive

In response to Indicative or Subjunctive posted by pink101:
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I learned a new word today from the song -- 'weal'. Thanks, Pink.
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So, I make believe that reality is unfolding itself to me on a moment by moment basis.
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Frankly, I don't see how reality can happen any other way - except moment by moment.
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And, you're a Nut, Migisi.
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Hee hee. And happy to be.

-- posted by Migisi

» redback - The New Media

In response to The New Media posted by Migisi:

An interesting point for me to review:

If I had to define my belief ~today~ with one word, I'd use 'deist'

Deist may have it over theist, for me...but both descriptors I've read...are brief. But that's today.

-- posted by redback

» Migisi - Natural vs Revealed

In response to Evil posted by Migisi:
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"...I scrutinize and challenge their legends/myths - ..."
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"...The Calvinist, who damns children of a span long to hell to burn forever for the glory of God (and this is called Christianity), and the Universalist who preaches that all shall be saved and none shall be damned (and this also is called Christianity), boasts alike of their holy [revealed] religion and their Christian faith.
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"Something more therefore is necessary than mere cry and wholesale assertion, and that something is TRUTH; and as inquiry is the road to truth, he that is opposed to inquiry is not a friend to truth. "The God of truth is not the God of fable; when, therefore, any book is introduced into the world as the Word of God, and made a groundwork for religion, it ought to be scrutinized more than other books to see if it bear evidence of being what it is called. Our reverence to God demands that we do this, lest we ascribe to God what is not His, and our duty to ourselves demands it lest we take fable for fact, and rest our hope of salvation on a false foundation.
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"It is not our calling a book holy that makes it so, any more than our calling a religion holy that entitles it to the name. Inquiry therefore is necessary in order to arrive at truth. But inquiry must have some principle to proceed on, some standard to judge by, superior to human authority.
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"When we survey the works of creation, the revolutions of the planetary system, and the whole economy of what is called nature, which is no other than the laws the Creator has prescribed to matter, we see unerring order and universal harmony reigning throughout the whole. No one part contradicts another. The sun does not run against the moon, nor the moon against the sun, nor the planets against each other. Everything keeps its appointed time and place.
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"This harmony in the works of God is so obvious, that the farmer of the field, though he cannot calculate eclipses, is as sensible of it as the philosophical astronomer. He sees the God of order in every part of the visible universe."
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"Here, then, is the standard to which everything must be brought that pretends to be the work or Word of God, and by this standard it must be judged, independently of anything and everything that man can say or do. His opinion is like a feather in the scale compared with the standard that God Himself has set up."...
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SOURCE: LIFE AND WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE, edited by Daniel Edwin Wheeler, 1908, Vincent Parke & Co., New York.
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"...The sun and the seasons return at their appointed time, and everything in the creation claims that God is unchangeable. Now, which am I to believe, a book that any impostor might make and call the Word of God, or the creation itself which none but an Almighty Power could make? For the Bible says one thing, and the creation says the contrary. The Bible represents God with all the passions of a mortal, and the creation proclaims him with all the attributes of a God."...
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SOURCE: Thomas Paine's written reply to a Christian friend who was trying to convert him. (May 12, 1797)

-- posted by Migisi

» pink101 - Natural vs Revealed

In response to Natural vs Revealed posted by Migisi:
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Thomas Paine was a great man; but, he is maligned by Christians today and has been ever since the Founding.
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If I recall, his body was dug up and his bones thrown in a hole and covered up with a marker that said something like, "Here lie his bones--who cares?"
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I have come to be sick of what passes for Christianity today.
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-- posted by pink101

» Migisi - Natural vs Revealed

In response to Natural vs Revealed posted by pink101:
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...he is maligned by Christians today and has been ever since the Founding.
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As I'd expect. From my observations, Christians yesterday and today malign everyone who doesn't mirror and parrot their particular theology.
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...his body was dug up and his bones thrown in a hole and covered up with a marker that said something like, "Here lie his bones--who cares?"
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Hee hee. I bet Paine didn't care what they did with his old bones. And I won't care either. Mine will be cremated. Dust to dust.
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I have come to be sick of what passes for Christianity today.
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What passes for Christianity these days doesn't bother me a bit, because I've no personal investment in it.

-- posted by Migisi

» pink101 - Ya Think?

In response to Natural vs Revealed posted by Migisi:
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What passes for Christianity these days doesn't bother me a bit, because I've no personal investment in it.
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Ya think?
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That would be nice.
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Just stick my head in the sand and what passes for Christianity these days will just go away?
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I don't think so. It is all over the place. Let's see; stem cell research, war, Israel, abortion, politics, just to name five things.
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-- posted by pink101

» Brian Tubbs - Paine

In response to Natural vs Revealed posted by pink101:

Thomas Paine made two key mistakes (in terms of his image). He attacked religion and he attacked (savagely, I might add) George Washington. Going against God and George Washington in the founding era was...errr...unwise.

» Brian Tubbs - Christians, Israel, war, etc.

In response to Ya Think? posted by pink101:

It is all over the place. Let's see; stem cell research, war, Israel, abortion, politics, just to name five things.

Christians have as much right to speak out and be involved on those issues as anyone else.

» pink101 - Christians, Israel, war, etc.

In response to Christians, Israel, war, etc. posted by BrianTubbs:

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Christianity is coming very close to demanding a test of religious belief for our political candidates for governmental office.
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Individuals have every bit as much right as any other person to promote their interests in public; but, when it comes to legal standings they don't have a hundredth of a smidgen more than anyone the most fanatical of Atheists.
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Today, Christianity is pushing for legal status in government. It is going to stop!
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-- posted by pink101