I've been avoiding this thread because I knew it would take more time to respond than I want to put into it.
We (christians) feel the same way as far as knowing something others don't, but in my experience that knowledge has a different affect on us. I don't feel superior for knowing the secret, but I do want to tell others so they can know it too. You mention humility, but that is not reflected in your post. I also know there are some (read: 0.001%) militant believers that are used as a crutch to give the rest of us a bad name. That's a pretty weak argument against Christianity when the amount of good the church does for humanity is so great. Show me any other group that has come anywhere close to doing things for mankind that Christianity has. Noone else even comes close. Feeding the hungry, cheering the sad, housing the homeless, healing the sick, etc. is not done to show our superiority, but simply to help and directly due to our faith. Another major difference between us is the affect our "secrets" can have on peoples lives. Yours opens eyes to a cynical, aimless life that tends to being bound by vices, things, happenings and ends in literal nothingness (by your own admission). Mine can give life a purpose, hope in a number of ways, help for the weary, encouragement for the downtrodden, feed the hungry, love for your neighbor, strength for the weak, peace in death and so much more. I don't say that to imply your not a good person (even though you're admitting in this thread to several issues) or that you may do good things, but to point out that there are so many things you miss out on by not knowing God. Some would say I miss out on so much because of my relationship with God. The rules and restrictions placed on me are a blessing and show me that God loves and cares for me. We all need boundaries. A child without boundaries will turn into a useless adult. A dog without boundaries turns into road kill. A human without boundaries is capable of immense, terrible evil. Again, not saying you guys are evil, but you have to admit without God and rules, that is where your line of thought leads. Yes, people that call themselves christians have done much evil, but when they do it is done in direct contradiction to our guidebook and I do not condone it. I'm sure I've ticked you off even more, but that was not my intention.
It is not possible to get all of my thoughts into a post short enough that anyone wants to take time to read. That said, this is a pitifully short response that should be a couple more thousand words long, but I gots engineerin to do.
Ok, so you guys know I can't resist. Please accept my apology. Crap, here goes my lunch hour...... :wacko:
goodal, you and I have probably already covered most of what you wrote and most of what I am about to reply in PM but here goes anyway.
You talk about the amount of good the Christian church has done. There is absolutely no doubt about that. Christian charities should be commended for all of the aid and charity they provide.
But two things. 1.) Good works is not exclusive to Christianity. There are countless secular organizations providing very commendable charitable and philanthropic efforts (Doctors Without Borders, Goodwill, The Nature Conservancy, Wheelchair Foundation, PlanUSA / Plan International, Foundation Beyond Belief, The American Red Cross, etc., etc.). Likewise, there are also countless charities of other, non-Christian, religions (Mercy-USA - Islam, LIFE - Islam, Hindu Charities for America - Hinduism, The Tzu Chi Foundation - Buddhism, Buddhist Global Relief - Buddhism, Lotus Outreach International - Buddhism, Da Chong Confucianism And Taoism Association Inc - Confucianism, American Joint Jewish Distribution Committee - Judaism, etc.). My point is, all these secular and non-Christian charities manage to do just as much giving as Christian organizations, if not more, without the need of the Christian bible. It seems to me, Christianity is not needed for good works. And if someone was doing good works only because their holy book instructed them to do so, I would seriously question the merits of that person's good deeds.
2.) But, let's say, for a minute, that only Christians did good works. That still does not prove that the extraordinary claims of the Christian bible are true. The fact that good Christians do good things speaks nothing to the truth claims of the bible. Just as a Muslim doing a good deed doesn't speak to the truth of the Quran, right?
I'll skip some of the other stuff, though I would love to refute some of it.
Here's the part that I would like to address please:
" Again, not saying you guys are evil, but you have to admit without God and rules, that is where your line of thought leads. Yes, people that call themselves christians have done much evil, but when they do it is done in direct contradiction to our guidebook and I do not condone it." With all due respect goodal, I unequivocally, undeniably disagree with you here. I'd love for you to show me where in your "guidebook" (assuming you mean the OT and NT, ie The Bible) are instructions for good morals, values, and behaviors; that we wouldn't otherwise know outside of the bible. We can all decide for ourselves what is good and what is bad, independent of the bible. The fact that we can all look at the bible and point to the good things like love thy neighbor, don't steal, don't murder, help the helpless, etc. and say to ourselves those are good things to do...... and we can look at all the awful disgusting (and silly) directions in the bible like when you beat your slave make sure they live a day or two before dying, if you rape a woman you must marry her, stone a bride on her wedding night if it turns out she is not a virgin, women can't talk in church, women may not teach and may only learn from their husbands, women shall be submissive to their husbands as slaves to their masters, on and on and on,..... and say to ourselves those are bad terrible things that we should never do - means we have a moral compass outside and separate from the bible. We do not need the bible to know right from wrong. The best moral nugget of the bible is the golden rule. But the golden rule basically exists in some form or another in almost every major religion and predates the Old Testament by hundreds of years.
I thank Buddha we don't get our morals from the bible! If we did, we'd be stoning our children for misbehaving, treating women like chattel, have a maddening obsession with foreskin and an extreme disgust for menstruation, kill gays, own other people, eat our children when we disobey god, etc., etc., etc.
Again, sorry. I can't help myself. Forgive me. :mellow:
