I know what you mean-been there-done that-biblical apologetics etc.

I can't have faith in something that's not solid

If my husband is wonderful to me but I "suspect" he may be a pedophile-possibly too many "hints" -then I will divorce him-see what I mean ? Can't live like this

I don't ignore all the good-but the whole thing has to be right if I'm going to dedicate my life to it not alone believe it
A good marriage is not perfect but it better be 80% great but if murder,rape,beastiality are part of that equation I'm OUT and we are talking about a perfect GOD for KFC's sake !

Mind has to be able to digest it-if I force it-it's mental rape to me
How can I live a lie and force myself to believe ?

There is no difference between magic and religion.

Understood, but then again, nothing is perfect, and we all have secrets or a "dark side". I would bet that there are things that if you knew them about your husband (things he thinks, or dreams, or whatever) that you would run screaming. I think that's true of nearly all people to some degree.

Look at Mother Theresa. She was an icon before she passed away, to millions! Now we discover that in her deepest heart, she felt there was no God at times (most of the time it seems). Yet she still held to the basic IDEALS of Christianity, and helped thousands, and inspired so many people.

No religion, or any organization, is without flaw, as are humans. There is no true utopia. Someone HAS to clean out the crapper, and sometimes you may get the shovel.

Are you dedicated to anything? Because I have yet to find anything that is completely (or wholly) right. Sometimes you NEED to overlook the bad. Hell, America was founded by murderers and rapists. Europe is chock full of villains that were leaders. Ireland is a hotbed of terrorists and religious zealots. The man that WROTE the Declaration of Independence owned slaves, and had affairs with them!

This isn't to derail the thread, just to point out that nothing is perfect.
How the hell did I get here on an analysis of magic thread?

I wonder how some of our church members would react when evangelizing

What a creepy story. This is scarier than Hostel or Cabin Fever or 28 Days Later! It is scarier because it is true! There actually are TENS OF MILLIONS of otherwise intelligent people in America that go to sermons to be preached at by morons like this nutjob that thinks video games are "EVIL" and they willingly follow a god that slaughters ahumanity on a somewhat regular basis and they want to CONVERT the rest of the people.

THIS IS SCARY SH*T!!!

At least they are supposed to be peaceful....

I wouldn't go that far, repoman. I would not call my assistant pastor a "nutjob" at all. He's probably one of the most intelligent men I've ever met. His knowledge of the Bible is parallel to none. I don't agree with his interpretation of magic as it relates to modern-day video games and movies, but he is quite within his right to hold that belief and it doesn't make him a "nutjob" or a "moron" for doing so. I respect my pastor greatly, even though we don't always agree with each other, which means I guess I'm giving respect to a moronic nutjob.

I got rid of my "dark side"- it took lots of work. What is considered dark is defined differently to different people.

Life is not perfect BUT GOD IS

I am fond of anyone who is not fearful of doing "dark side" work. In my view much of what we consdider dark is a matter of perception. The human is biased towards good experiences. The other kind are never seen as blessed and the energies we create around "bad" experiences go unloved and unappreciated.

The more a person realized that all is perfect, the more they can understand the mind of God.

John

I tend to sling labels - but I sling them in a context that comes off the wrong way to other people.
In my mind, I assign a label (like "moron") to a person but only in the context of a specific behaviour.
In regards to your assigned indocrination engineer, I was using the moron label in reference to his actions of cutting up the CD-ROM in front of the assembled group of indoctrination subjects.

I usually write train of thought and in my mind, I attach the moron label to a previous event and I understand my internal context. I recognize this context may not be the default context when my train of thought post is read later.
What I was actually trying to convey was that the act of cutting up a CD-ROM while squealing about how it is EVIL is moronic.
I do not believe that your indoctrination engineer is a moron.

Things like this always give me the creeps. I mean a deep-down, cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. To think there are millions of people in America that worship a god they believe slaughtered every baby on the planet by drowning them in a flood and it is just a normal figure of speech to them to talk about "evangelizing". It honestly makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
What a creepy story. This is scarier than Hostel or Cabin Fever or 28 Days Later! It is scarier because it is true! There actually are TENS OF MILLIONS of otherwise intelligent people in America that go to sermons to be preached at by morons like this nutjob that thinks video games are "EVIL" and they willingly follow a god that slaughters ahumanity on a somewhat regular basis and they want to CONVERT the rest of the people.

THIS IS SCARY SH*T!!!

At least they are supposed to be peaceful....

What's REALLY scary, is that people get this paranoid and panicked over religion.

My "assigned indoctrination engineer"???? That would be funny, if I didn't think you were so serious. You don't have a high opinion of churches, do you.

Toting the party line I see.
What's REALLY scary, is that people get this paranoid and panicked over religion. A little education goes a long way, as does being calm and methodical rather than panicky and reactionary. This, by the way, is true of both sides of this coin. That's right. The goobers that burn the Harry Potter books are just as scary as the dingbats that scream and panic when a religous group preaches morality. "How dare you try to legislate away my right to be a pedophile!", is as scary as "Harry Potter is in league with the Devil!"

Try some reason folks. It's yummy!

Are you saying that there aren't millions of people in America that worship a god they believe slaughtered every baby on the planet by drowning them in a flood and talk about "evangelizing"?

I can understand why you don't find that frightening - you are one of the worshippers of that particular god out of many gods.

What I can't understand is how you fail to understand why some of us get disgusted and creeped out by this.

And there are probably a million christian "soldiers" for every pedophile that publicly screams for his right to be a pedophile as you used in your counter-example.

You want to bash religion, bash molesting Priests and the hierarchy that protects them, or the "Reverends" with the shiney gold watches and Mercedes Benz limos. That's who you need to poke at.

If a person willingly worships the god that supposedly drowned every baby on earth then they are a morally bankrupt jackal.

If a person claims to worship that god but really doesn't believe in all the bible crap then they are a miserable hypocrite.

If it weren't for the miserable hypocrites that claim to follow whatever god happened to be popular at the time and place they were born then there would be no place for molesting priests and millionaire preachers.

Faith to me is like putting all your eggs into one basket.

And I NEVER do that.

I have 100% faith in NOTHING. Not even in myself for I am always changing (my clothes).
ANYTHING CAN AND DOES HAPPEN.

If a person claims to worship that god but really doesn't believe in all the bible crap then they are a miserable hypocrite.

What is truly mind-blowing is that almost every intelligent and well-informed christian out there KNOWS that the old testament was a re-telling of ancient egyption, sumerian and perisan astrological mythology and the new testament wasn't even written during the time the events were said to have taken place. Furthermore, the church has rewritten several sections of it and threw out some books entirely. They know all this yet they still claim it to be the the word of god.

Yea and YOU would know a lot about that wouldn't you?

I mean you must know something we don't? Like...ohh I dunno...a law that states - You MUST only follow a God that is linked to a bible...you cannot separate the 2, its not right..if you do this, you are a miserable hypocrite!!

Ironically at the same time of you calling people names...you have the idea that God don't exist at all...so where does it leave you?? a leg to stand on to judge others, calling them names for how they WISH to follow God?? for if they don't believe in the bible crap (as you so like to put it)...then ohh noo it so can't be done..that makes them miserable and hypocrites...

It's like going to a fast food joint, and asking for a burger with no dressing...goodness me ..it's unheard of...or a cake without the icing..lol

It's 4am, do you know where your wit is?

You seriously have no idea what faith is...but you act as though there are rules to how someone should worship God....BRAVO..you just made yourself look ever so..........bright! LOL

I thought we were talking about magic on this thread? As usual it turns into a debate about Abrahamic religions.

What people don't understand about magic and spells is they are for the most part ritualized prayer to the Universe, whatever deities you follow or even yourself in the case of ceremonial magic. Druidic magic is done with words for the most part. Druid spells are set up like a poem with dance. Magic is manipulating the fundamental forces in the Universe to effect an outcome for your's or someone else's benefit. Prayer is a request for your god to do it for you.

You MUST only follow a God that is linked to a bible...you cannot separate the 2, its not right..if you do this, you are a miserable hypocrite!!

Ironically at the same time of you calling people names...you have the idea that God don't exist at all...so where does it leave you??

It's 4am, do you know where your wit is?

You seriously have no idea what faith is...but you act as though there are rules to how someone should worship God....

BRAVO..you just made yourself look ever so..........bright! LOL

That's an unnecessary personal attack on anyone that worships a God who's holy book includes a global flood.

Also unnecessary as this is an attack on "Deists", as well as anyone that believes in God but is not a "literalist" when it comes to interpreting the bible (and that is darn near EVERYONE that claims Christianity as their faith).

It's actually an unnecessary insult to jackals and I retract it. But the morally bankrupt part I do not retract. Morals are subjective. There is no unit of conversion from one person's interpretation of another person's morals to another. When I call someone morally bankrupt - that is just how I interpret them. It is certainly not worse than a christian telling me I am going to hell if I don't repent. And I do honestly believe that a person that would willingly follow such a murdering god is morally bankrupt. That is not an insult - that is my interpretation of an unquantifiable trait.

You are right by pointing this out. I actually alluded to this on another post. I said I was wrong there and I'll say it again here. What I meant to say was that people who claimed to follow a "religion" but didn't believe their own "scripture" were hypocrites. I sincerely apologize to the deists.

No, I don't believe this is possible. But then again, nobody else does, either. It's fiction. Not even witches or warlocks or druids believe you can throw a fireball from thin air. I know what point you are trying to make, but my discussion is concerned with beliefs that people actually hold, as opposed to those Eddings fans who happen to like a good novel (btw, I love David Eddings, among other fantasy-writers).

It was months ago, so unfortunately I can't give you a detailed synopsis. In general though, we spoke at length on the matter - there were 4 main issues that i think we discussed, but I couldn't say what the overall response of it was:

~ The nature of magic. It was my contention that "magic" was subtle, not as obvious as Diablo demons and firebolts and lighting strikes. My pastor disagreed and said that in the Bible that's exactly what magic was like - pointing to the priests advising Pharaoh as an example (these priests were able to do many of the same magic tricks that Moses was able to do with the power of God, except that God proved his power by doing it better and more decisively (eg, both turned their staffs into snakes, but Aaron's staff ate the other snakes). It is true that the Bible doesn't give us detail as to whether Pharaoh's advisers were really magicians, or just illusionists, so I'll give him the points for this one.

But then I countered by saying that Simon Magus could do many of the miracles that the apostles (and Jesus, while he was alive) could perform. But there were some things he couldn't do, and Simon attempted to "buy" this information from Peter, as if it was a trick to be peddled. Many consider Simon Magus to be a simple illusionist, but like the priests of Pharaoh, there is no biblical indication either way. But the fact that Simon tried to buy the trick as if it were an illusion is a big give-away. Points to me.

So far we're even.

For the rest, we discussed matters of how magic is portrayed in the popular media. He argued that according to the Bible magic is wrong. According to the Bible rape is wrong. But we are happy to watch a movie that extols the virtues of magic, yet we would recoil at the concept of a movie which revolved around rape. I spoke about the nature of theatre and how "entertainment" wasn't the sole purpose of any movie (though often times it is). That then led to what circumstances would be acceptable to see a piece of theatre involving magic.

Really, it seemed to be a stalemate. i believe I "won" the debate. He believes he "won". In the end, we both agreed to disagree, and agreed that whatever our points of view, they were not part of "essential doctrine" (that is, they did not impact on our eternal salvation). We thus agreed to leave it at that, and moved on our separate ways. As long as we both agreed that practicing it was wrong, and that we should be careful when exposing children to ideas of magic, even if it was in the context of a cartoon or a children's program. But I never disagreed with that - heck, when I was young, my parents sat me down and made sure taht I knew Road-Runner wasn't real, and that what happened to Wyle E. Coyote wasn't real and couldn't happen to us in real life. that's just common sense, if you ask me. If you don't teach kids that a cartoon is only a cartoon and not real, then who knows what ideas can slip into their heads.

As I said...... a stalemate.

~ regards, PA

I still think the folks that ramble and whine about a "murdering God" are just sheep that run to evilbible.com so they can feel trendy and anti-establishment, maybe in an attempt to piss off their parents. I don't feel any real conviction there, just an "emo" kind of anime trash-talk. Sorry.

Or if he ever looked at a medieval bible that illustrates at least two chapters with God riding on the back of a dragon, because it says so in Pslams and II Samual, just like all of the fantasy stories and games he seems to be condemning. You ought to give him my book when its out, and he can see that even Yahweh Himself is a fire breathing, flood causing, child (and virgin) devouring, Cannanite storm dragon as the archaeological record conclusively proves.

There is more magic and dragons, and fireballs in the Holy Bible than in all the works of Tolkien. In fact it is the most detailed and complete biography of one of the true Creators's "dragon" assistants ever put to paper.

I was referring to people that claimed to follow a religion but failed to follow that religion's scripture. In my haste I said "follow a god" rather than "follow a religion" and "bible" instead of "holy texts". OK?

Secondly, if the name fits then you are stuck with it.

If you claim to be a Southern Baptist but don't believe the bible is true then you are a hypocrite.

If you willingly follow a god that murdered millions of babies because he didn't like their parent's behavior then you are exactly the type of person that allowed the Nazis to take over Germany - a religious fascist - willing to smile at the most horrific of acts as long as your god said it was cool. Those sorts of people make me sick

I'm sorry that you seem to support such people. I cannot. Thirdly, I believe in a creator. Where does that leave me?

These are some of the things they all know but pretend to not know. They simply ignore it

They are so ridiculous that they are cute. Wow - a warm, happy feeling just came over me. It must be all the folks praying for my soul after reading this. Thanks guys!

Snaps and props!

I just offered a burnt offering of a he-ram and some burnt grain in your name. I'll be splashing some bull blood on the alter later and popping a few beers too. Got ya covered Bro' !

Listen up..I only quoted your post, for one simple reason...you said ANYONE that FOLLOWS God <-- that includes me...so I figured....for if you had of put up religion and gave your example of the baptist...I would have skipped over the entire post.....for i do follow God..I just dont stick a christian label on and follow a book that tells me how to!!...LOL No...I was given a brain to USE IT...so I make up my own mind how I feel better in following God in my own way....a number of christian used to sit and b*tch at me for claiming to follow God...but Not believe in the bible....it's like them saying - Ohh BM you can't follow God UNLESS you pick up a bible and repent <---I say get out of my face and bugger off...bunch of dictators the lot of them

Much appreciated! It's dangerous to be an infidel without some believer homies to cover my backside.
mmmmmmmmmmm, heeeeeeee raaaaaaammmmmmmmmmmm grrgaggrllllllllllllllll.........

I have explained my error twice previously on this thread and apologized completely and openly to deists.

If you want to keep pulling on me you should feel free.
Eventually I will need a cigarette.

So it's ok for you to explain your side but not ok for anyone else

Next time you wanna post up stupid assumptions...alllow yourself to think 1st...and at least pay attention

Thank you sir, may I have another!

Well miss sunshine...I would offer you another, but it would go way over your little head...

Well miss sunshine...I would offer you another, but it would go way over your little head...

Is that you in your avatar? You sort of look like a girl. LOL!

Is that you in your avatar? You sort of look like a girl. LOL!

I take it you aren't a fan of the BLADE movies?? lmao...the chick in my avatar is Jessica Biel from - Blade Trinity..and a lot of guys thinks she is a hottie...but you are different..you cant tell if she is a male or female LMAO thanks I needed a laugh

Please stay on topic or I will snap my fingers and this thread will be LOCKED.

Quite condescending, aren't you, Repo? But that's already been proven by nearly every word you've posted. I'll look forward to the day you're banned!