I am becoming a Christian

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A valid point, friend.

One question to the OP - why?

I'm not going to get into the flamewar that the others here are contributing to, but I really think it's important you address why you want to be a christian. If your reasons don't make sense, I would hope that the flamers here would have the courage to stand up and tell you that rather than continuing to berate others whose opinions don't match.

Good on you. If you're having trouble understanding the Bible, you might want to buy a version with more recent language and commentary explaining the passages.

The first thing you should know about Christianity is that a genuine believer accepts that (s)he is sinful and falls a long way short of the glory of God. You will never be 'sin free'. Gaining justification with God rests on genuinely recognising one's own sinfulness (read Luke 18:9-14) and not on being sinless. If we develop a view of ourselves that we are good people, that we haven't done anything that horribly bad etc, then this will cause God to deny us justification. God's glory is so far in excess of our own that there is no way we can gain justification from him by our own personal qualities (except humility), no matter how many sinful pastimes we abstain from or how many good works (e.g. going to church, giving money to charity etc) can be attributed to our name.

This does not mean to say that Christians should not flee from everything they know to be sinful, so I am delighted that you are considering abandoning the things you mentioned. If you see chapter 2 of the biblical book of James, you will see that faith is useless unless it actually results in changes in your life. Similarly, if Christians claim they have given their life to God, but make no effort to abstain from things they know to be sinful or do good works, then the obvious question a non-Christian would ask is whether or not there is any point in being a Christian if Christians are just as badly behaved as before their conversion.

Jesus frequently asks us what favour we will gain from God if we only do things that non-believers already do anyway. For instance, he explains that even non-believers love those who love them. However, as Christians, we are called to do more than non-believers do and we are commanded to love everyone, even those who hate us.

Does it matter why?

Belladonna has her reasons.

my sympathies.

Thought you were smarter and more enlightened that that.

Panspermia. It's the theory that everything the Earth has came from elsewhere in the cosmos like water, amino acids and such.

take any given meteorite. It will contain upwards of 10% water. Back 4 BILLION years ago, the earth was being pummeled by thousands of them every day. We still are to an extent but our atmosphere burns up the small ones. Anyway, the water laden ones land, release the water, the water evaporates, it eventually pools and eventually there's a torrent of rain for thousands and thousands of years creating the oceans. Eventually, something triggered amino acids to combine and multiply creating complex life dependent on light to survive - taking in carbon dioxide and giving off oxygen paving the way for others like it to thrive and multiply.

Over several million more years, the creatures become more and more adapted to their environment. Some begin to become mobile, some stay where they are but exhibit greater height, more branches or even toxins. The ones that become mobile eventually become fish and later amphibians and later land lizards and later dinosaurs and later mammals and later primates (yes, also mammals) and later humans.

No god involved. We did it on our own, thank you very much.

Last edited by digger1 on 12 Feb 2009, 7:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Would you be so good as to explain why opposing Christianity (and indeed holding left-wing views in general) is a criterion for being considered intellectual? I get slightly tired of people thinking they are smarter than me because they take a liberal position on an issue that I don't agree with. Religious views and intelligence are two very different topics that should be decoupled and I am tired of liberals juxtaposing them as a way of applying pressure to dissenters to conform to their ways.

Because there is no 'logical' reason for anyone to be a Christian. So say the 'intellectuals' who have not thoroughly studied the facts.

But evolution is clearly very logical.








-edit- since this is an AS forum, I should mention that the above is sarcasm.

jesus touched me inappropriately and swallowed

Think for yourself. Don't rely on some book supposedly written 2,000 years ago to tell you what to do and what not to do.

Did you know that according to doctrine, the Earth was the center of the universe?

Did you know that according to doctrine, the Earth was only 6,000 years old? Heh, try 4.5 BILLION years old.

Did you know that only 300 years ago, doctrine dictated that someone suffering from a mental illness had to go through trepanation (holes through the head and skull)?

And don't get me started on women, druids, pagans, Jews, blacks and homosexuals.

Various people in my very strongly pro-creationist church would disapprove of me saying this, but I am sitting on the fence about evolution still. In my view, neither the creationist nor the evolutionary position could be considered to be empirical science, because nobody saw them happening and they can't be reproduced by experimentation: - creationists claim man wasn't created until God was already done with creating everything else and pro-evolution people claim that people were created several billion years after the earth came into existence. But anyway, I'll stop here, because I think the creationism-evolution issue is a minor doctrinal one and it is certainly not worth the attention that my church gives it.

Actually the bible doesn't say when the earth was created. It starts narrating at the creation of things on the earth.

coccyx - we used to have tails, people!

appendix - useless!

tonsils - completely vestigial!

We lose our hair why? Because our distant ancestors were...what? Beuller? Hominids! That's right! Darwin would be proud!

know your bible for 200, Alex

the first words are...

"What is First God made heaven & earth?"

correct

Wow! Proof! Astonishing

(more sarcasm)

Your point?