spdjeanne wrote:
Ragtime wrote:
spdjeanne wrote:
Ragtime wrote:
spdjeanne wrote:
All I'm saying is that actions speak louder than words. I believe you're behavior towards me doesn't support the statement that you do what to get along, therefore I don't believe you. I don't believe that you don't want to get along because I want to believe that, I don't believe it because that is what your actions have suggested.
...And yet, you're wrong. I hear some smug satisfaction in your refusing my friendship.
I don't think that I can refuse your friendship if it hasn't actually been offered to me. I don't feel like it has been offered to me because of how you've treated me in this thread. You can't just belittle someone and then tell them that you really want to be friends and expect them to take you seriously.
As for Christians turning against one another, I think that that should be expected in a thread meant to point out that not all Christians are the same.
But your point also was, I think, that Christians are united in their core beliefs. I don't feel I belittled you. We can disagree on things without it being personal.
My point was that our core beliefs are all that people can assume about us when we imply or say outrightly that we are Christian. If they assume more than that, it is probable that they will be mistaken.
I don't like people assuming things about me and it makes me very frustrated. I feel that you've assumed some things about me because of a stereotype within the Christian community and I think that is why I said I felt belittled, but I can also see that I have assumed things about you because of a stereotype and that your frustration with me comes from that. I'm sorry if I assumed things about you that were not true like that you were being personal in disagreeing with me. I do feel that your style is somewhat off putting in that you sometimes quote texts at people instead of just saying what you are thinking and in that you sometimes resort to name calling.
Well, I sometimes use Scriptures to show how I arrive at my point of view, but I also explain that point of view in my own words within the same post. I don't consider that to be quoting Scripture "at" someone -- that's a matter of perception. Besides, Scripture shouldn't offend Christians, and non-Christians don't feel bound by it anyway, so it's just another document to discuss as far as they're concerned. This is an open forum, and I'm writing to everyone when I make posts.
This whole dialogue reminds me of a Seinfeld episode where George couldn't break up with his girlfriend "beyond a reasonable doubt", so he had to keep going out with her. Will I befriend you at
all costs? No, certainly not. Not to quote Scripture again, but, after all, it's my Bible, so I turn to it frequently; but James wrote in chapter 4, verse 4 that a friend of the world is no friend of God. ("You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.") Now that I reflect, that Scripture isn't exactly what I mean, because you're not part of "the world". But it is
approximately what I mean, in that, we are not supposed to make friends at all costs, for instance, the cost of denying parts of the Bible.
And, I would appreciate you responding to the content of this discussion rather than making personal statements about me. In the end, the world is not interested in what Ragtime is like, they're interested in real issues.
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Christianity is different than Judaism only in people's minds -- not in the Bible.
