How has being a Christian made you a better person?

You believe that without Jesus you "deserve" to go to Hell right? And that anyone who isn't "saved" "deserves" to go to Hell, right?

Case closed!

"There is no debate anymore. There is no debate. The matter is settled. This is a matter of scientific fact. Not a matter of opinion."
- Richard Dawkins

 

always worth a repeat.

 

You are the one making assumptions. I owe you no apologies.

When you start making sense maybe we will have something to talk about.

Everything I've read in the Bible confirms the veracity of it's claims to divine inspiration. This exchange has provided me with only one more example of that.


Matthew 7:6

This fits the Jews to a tee.

 

You don't know what you're talking about.

Psalm 14:1

 

I believe what Christ had to say about it. You don't.

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Are you still here?
Whatever for?

 

If you are here confirming the veracity of scripture then you must acknowledge that you are not indwelt by the Holy Spirit as you don't display the Fruits of the Spirit.
Agreed?
Based on the verse you quoted, why don't you go elsewhere to cast your pearls?
I find you both dishonest and inconsistent.
If you don't think my argument "makes sense" I have to add you aren't very bright, either.
You made wild assumptions in your post and don't have the integrity to admit it.
Why has the Holy Spirit rejected you?

 

Reason enough to ignore someone.

As for the "holy spirit", posts like his are enough to make one think-if they were the superstitious sort-that it is the "unholy spirit" animating him.

Im not a Christian as is obvious, but I'd feel contaminated if I kept reading some of the ugly and sick things that many of the self-described "Christians" here write.

 

The purpose of this thread was not to inquire how a person can benefit from following the teachings of Christ.

It's intent was to draw those people here to pick and tear at them in order to elicit the kind of response that could be used by the scoffers present to attack the character of anyone who did.

They've made their intentions clear enough. They've also made it plain that they never intended to give any consideration to the challenges they made which in their minds is supposed to invalidate the scriptures.

At the same time they have presented no evidence which refutes any passage in the Bible which indicates the deity of Christ.

What they have done is to demonstrate the capacity of any moron to be obstinate and provocative.


Luke

Such people find it easy to point to the faults of others while they admit to none of their own.

Either they think that they have no sin of their own or that if they do they have no intention of repenting of it.

To those who do this because of their unyielding insistence that they are "Jews", whether they actually are or not is of lesser importance than realizing the significance of the following passage because there is a lesson in it for either.

Romans

 

If you really wanted to ignore me you wouldn't keep coming back here to tell me so.

Eat your broccoli. It's good for you.




Godzilla does. And see how jacked he is!

 

Why should I? You seem fruity enough for all of us.

But here, will some broccoli do?



I guess not.

You can't say I didn't try.

Talk about "the Holy Spirit" sounds funny coming from an atheist.
Smart pants, no. Just tacky.







Matthew 26

Looky here!

 

The man with the fingers in his ears would be an excellent avatar for you.
Though the unbelievers on here may find themselves without sin as that is a theological term, they are not without regret or disappointment in their past or current behavior. They are not claiming to be holier than thou. They just don't imagine there is a magic erasure that cleans the slate. They remain the burdens and failures that they are, the scars of a life fallibly lived.

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The man with the fingers in his ears would be an excellent avatar for you.
Though the unbelievers on here may find themselves without sin as that is a theological term, they are not without regret or disappointment in their past or current behavior. They are not claiming to be holier than thou. They just don't imagine there is a magic erasure that cleans the slate. They remain the burdens and failures that they are, the scars of a life fallibly lived.

 

Sorry to disappoint you.
I'm not an atheist.
More ignorant assumptions.
How long will you spit on Scripture by ignoring the Fruits? Why has the Holy Spirit rejected you?

 

There's no need to apologize. Why should I be disappointed?

Not an atheist? You certainly sound like one. My mistake. Why don't you just tell us what you are then?

Then you can explain to all us "ignorant" folk about the "Fruits".

That shouldn't be too difficult for a magnanimous man with an "I.Q. of 150" such as yourself to condescend for the sake of us little people.
Do you think you can stoop that low?

Sure you can. The evidence is right there.

 

I'm not the 150 IQ guy. Fail.
You're right. I shouldn't apologize. You should for making another ignorant assumption.
What does what I believe have to do with the argument I am making. If the same argument came from a Christian, a Buddhist, a Hindu or an atheist, would it change the argument?
Of course not.
The Fruits of the Spirit are what we should expect to see in the man who walks in the Spirit.
Peace, love, joy, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.
You choose not to exhibit these, even mock them.
You can avoid this for as long as you like but it won't go away. You can attempt to avoid the question but it will still be there.
The question the thread poses is how has your Christianity made you a better person. Paul emphatically states in Galatians what your answer SHOULD be.
To you that answer is a punch line and an unfair standard to be judged by.

 

So you admit that atheists make mistakes.
If so, then do you believe that in order for justice to be served there is a price which should be paid for them or a penalty which must be exacted?

One of the prime arguments which atheists use to refute the notion is the idea that if God existed and were "good" then he would not allow all the "evil" which is in the world to exist.

In order to make this argument you have to admit that evil DOES exist. Call it what you will, it forms the basis for your objections to believing in a benevolent creator.
One of you quoted Christopher Hitchens earlier. I've heard him use the argument. You've quoted him so I think I am justified in doing the same and pointing out that he has served as one of your primary spokesmen.

The admission that evil does exist then is the equivalent of saying that justice has not been served. This admits of the concept of justice. Otherwise how could it "not be served". Remember, you need the concept of justice in order to make the argument that the lack of it proves the impossibility of a benevolent God.

But how then do you explain the existence of concepts such as these in a universe which admits of no moral absolutes?

And if you admit that moral absolutes in order to permit the use of concepts such as evil and justice then you are left with having to explain the foundation upon which any moral absolutes are built.
For if you try to explain them in terms of moral relativism then you are contradicting the assertion that there are any absolutes.

If you have no moral absolutes upon which to base any of those which may be considered relative, then all you have left are relatives which is the same thing as saying there are no absolutes.

If this be the case then you can not argue against the existence of benevolence (as in "God" that which is also worthy of worship) because all you have left with which to form the concepts of evil and justice are those ideas which you have developed yourself. In which case you are claiming yourself to be your own moral authority. As such you would have no right therefore to judge anyone else even for their lack of morality. To do so would be the same as placing yourself in the position of being "God" since you can only believe that the origin of "morality", "evil", and "justice" are from yourself.

I am saying that you can no more claim that power than you can claim to be the power which caused the universe to come into existence to begin with.

If your own sense of "morality" demands justice for any crime or moral infraction, which you have tacitly conceded by your admission of having made "mistakes", then you are then stuck with the task of having to justify your own demand for it.
You cannot deny that you have made this demand for justice because you have already used the argument for it as the basis for objecting to the possibility of a benevolent creator.

The dilemma the atheist is left with is that he must deny any absolute basis for his argument against the existence of a benevolent God or position himself as the authority from which it is rooted.
For the principle to hold, then everyone who makes a similar argument would also be forced into the same position. This would leave as many moral authorities in the world as there are people to take credit for it. Unless all their estimations of moral right and wrong were precisely the same, then moral "relativism" could no longer stand since there is no way in which multiple contradictory absolutes can exist in a world were there are no absolutes.


According to Christianity, everyone does indeed make mistakes.

I'm not referring to the sort which have no moral ramifications such as accidentally spilling your milk or failure to yield at an intersection due to a momentary lapse of consciousness. I am speaking of the kind of violations which commonly cause raise the ire of ordinary people. In other words, the kind of insults which cause people to become indignant and wish for retribution because the lack of it would not be "just".

So Christianity says that ALL men, including non-believers, have committed such violations at one time or another. The mere concept of a JUST God would itself imply that he MUST punish such violations with an exact recompense.
The concept of moral PERFECTION does not permit a single such instance to stand where an act of evil has been performed which has not been duly punished, otherwise there would be no PERFECT JUSTICE.

Since the perfect justice of a perfect God would admit NO IMPERFECTION whatsoever, that would leave no room for violators to remain.
So how could fallible man then be allowed to live eternally if the law of perfect justice demand that he be ERASED permanently ie to die?

The law of perfect justice which you would demand of a perfect God would also demand that anyone who was not morally perfect be permanently removed from the presence of perfect benevolence.

For there is no perfect benevolence which is without perfect justice.

What an atheist envisions is a world in which only benevolence exists without justice. For this to be so then man would have to be constrained from making any decisions to do evil. Then where would his freedom be?
Is the PERFECT universe one which exists WITHOUT FREEDOM to CHOSE?

The fact that evil DOES exist remains. But so does the innate sense of what is moral within every man but those who are sociopathic or psychotic. You are back to square one. How do you explain evil and how do you explain your own sense of moral indignation? How can you justify anything on the grounds of morality where each person has elected himself the absolute authority on the matter?
All you are left with in this case is the uncertainty of where these things originate and something like the "law of the jungle" as the only means of coping with them.
Is this what you call a moral principle upon which to live? To wit, you have something I want. I am stronger than you. I take it. Therefore I am "right" because "I win".

Be honest without yourself. Whose sense of propriety isn't offended by that idea? Even the people who profess they believe in nothing other than "might makes right" are angered whenever they feel that someone else has "transgressed" against themselves.

Look at Ol' Brucy here. He's a perfect example of that. I remember pecking on a glass case that housed a lizard who would turn and hiss at me. Trying to talk to him in a sensible manner is like trying to get that lizards attention. Worse than lizards are humans who have somehow or another have become completely devoid of a conscience or a sense of right and wrong or those who have become so consumed by this world that they cannot operate on any terms other than to attempt to destroy anyone or anything who stands in the way of their pleasure principle.

Now you tell me, is this more like a man with an intact sense of moral propriety which enables him to make sacrifices for the sake of "good" or is it more like an animal who reacts to nothing but his feeding and reproductive instincts?

I submit to you that practically everyone is endowed with some sense of morality because it naturally exists of it's own accord. It exists because it was here from the beginning. It was here from the beginning because it emanated from God himself.
The Bible defines God as "love". This is not to be confused with the common usage of the term for it implies much more than that. It is not "love" in the sense of "hearts and flowers" alone. It is love in the sense of the living spirit which created all things.
An explanation for how evil entered the world is given in Genesis. Men may reject that.
The remedy for it is given in the New Testament. They may reject that also.

No atheist can dare ask me why an atheistic outlook on life must necessarily be bleak when the argument upon which his atheism is based rests on the idea that "No benevolent God" would create "such an evil world".

If you then say that the world is such a rosy place for atheists, then I have to say that it is they who are not facing reality, not me. For if such were the case, the atheists could no longer make the argument that the evil in the world serves as any evidence that God does not exist. Because then the atheists view of the world as a place free of evil would only serve as evidence that if a God did exist he would have to be benevolent.

Christianity states that God DOES exist. That God IS benevolent. And that the PROOF of his benevolence is the OPPORTUNITY which he has presented SINFUL man to have eternal life.

The story goes that Satan is one who ACCUSES man and DEMANDS that JUSTICE be done to him.
One should not attempt to make a righteous rebel of him by omitting the fact that Satan was instrumental in leading man to this condition in the first place.

In the New Testament, JUSTICE is not violated. It is COMPLETED by the introduction of MERCY. You tell me how "benevolent" a JUST God would be without the capacity for it.
Or you can make the argument like Satan did, or as someone like Brucy probably would, that man DESERVES to die and that mercy has no place in their "perfect" world.

 

This masturbation session puts lots of words in my mouth that were never spoken.
My post simply addressed that the unbeliever in your Christian view does not share your idea of salvation, that someone outside themselves can make them "clean" again.
You have posted a long missive about justice and the origins and absolutes of good and evil and these are worth discussing, but I was responding to your repeatedly stated notions that unbelievers thought they were better than others, that they had done nothing to regret and so on.
That is nonsense, and your very long strawman does nothing to dispel it. We weren't discussing the nature of evil and how it reflects on god.
We were talking about you making a dishonest accusation. You compound it with an irrelevant argument.

 

Of course. That should have been obvious.
But then, I'm always willing to give a guy the benefit of a doubt.

You'll have to clarify exactly what argument it is that you are making.

There are some marked differences between Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity which can hardly be ignored.
Christianity makes some remarkable claims that the other two do not.

We are not talking about this person or that persons personality here. We are talking about the belief systems or teachings that are associated with each of those religions.
You can continue to trash me all day long. It doesn't really bother me because what I am personally has nothing really to do with the validity of the Christian faith however much my own short comings reflect upon myself.

I believe that my efforts to adhere to the principles of Christ have made a marked improvement on my behavior and a positive impact on my life. I never claimed to be perfect. But I do feel that I am capable of moving in that direction. That's a long a arduous process but I see no other viable alternative.

All of the changes which have improved the quality of my life may be attributed by my willingness to accept those things which Christ spoke of himself. Otherwise my heart wouldn't really be in it and that disbelief would betray me. Temptations abound.

I'm glad to hear you say that. There may be hope for you after all.

Now. What was that question again?
Remember who it is you are talking to.

No, no. By all means feel free to examine me for these qualities. I expect that everyone else does whether they consciously do so or not. Even the atheists recognize those attributes as being worthy of development.
I don't know how many of them would say that they have succeeded in mastering them all. What disturbs me about them is that they would deny the source of them.

You see. As destitute as I described to you earlier that I was, I had reached a point where those things were so far removed from me that I do not know to this day how I could have possibly have emerged from a state of total depravity had some guiding spirit been accompanying me on my journey into my own private hell and then escorted me out of it with the utmost patience and understanding of my condition.

What I am trying to tell you is that I cannot honestly take personal credit for having delivered myself from that nightmarish web which I had spun for myself. That would make me something of a braggart wouldn't it?

So as reluctant as I am to insinuate that there was a loving God concealed somewhere amidst all those shadows, I don't know how else to explain my recovery.

 

You are simply not very bright or deliberately dishonest. You pick.
No one said there weren't differences between various faith traditions. That is in no way remotely relevant to my post.
I said that my beliefs would not impact the accuracy of my arguments. They don't impact the truth of them.
The OP is about how you have personally changed due to your faith.
It seems god has led you to a place where you forgive yourself, and the standards that are described in scripture are simply the list of things you forgive yourself for, not aspire to.
"Remember who it is you are talking to"? What is that supposed to mean? Are you somehow different from anyone else I might talk to?

 

I wasn't trying to put anything into your mouth. That must have been in your imagination.

Am I correct then in saying that you do not believe that the blood of Christ has the power to remove the stains of sin?
If that is true, then I can only think that you would concur with Satan himself who is demanding that justice be served on all those people who weren't "perfect".
I suppose that would include an awful lot of people according to the way some "liberals", leftists, and Neo-Bolsheviks think. I suspect that there would even be a great many Gay Rights Activists who would be ready with their bayonets and bullets to quash any opposition to their Secular Humanist Marxist Utopian dream.

It amuses me that so many of the same people who so ardently oppose the death penalty would relish the opportunity to pull the switch on all these "Right Wing Conservative Fundamentalist Christians", as though that were the worst sin anybody could commit.

Where did I say that "believers think they are better than everybody". That seems to be more the way YOU think.

On the contrary, no one can be a "believer" without first admitting the fact that he "has sinned and come short of the glory of God."
How could a person be at once confessing the fact that he was a sinner in need of redemption and at the same time pretend to be "better than every else"?

If anyone believed they "were better than everyone else" I would think it would be the person who didn't thing they had any sin. How could an atheist admit to any "sin" when he can't admit to any being to "sin against".

You just said that you do not believe there is any remedy for this sin even if you can somehow reconcile the idea that one can "sin" when there is no God to sin against.
So if you admit to moral mistakes, you are at the same time saying that nothing can exculpate you from them.

This concurs precisely with what Christ said about them to wit, that unless you repent of those sins you will die in them.

For you to say that I have said that I have nothing to regret is a simple lie.
I'm sorry to put it that bluntly. But that's exactly what it is and you know it.
The record speaks for itself.

What I did say in effect however ,is that having recognized my errors, and having sorrowed because of them, I looked to God for a cure for that grief. The difference between us is that you are saying that there is no hope of redemption which in turn means that there is no remedy for grief.

What you insist that others confess, if they are to agree with you, is that there is no hope of ever being cleansed of sin and hence that a person ought rightly have to suffer with it for as long as he lives.
The only up side to that which I see is that you would not permit anyone to live beyond a normal lifespan and that all grief or consciousness of sin will be dispelled only when one is annihilated.

It's hard for me to see the "kindness" or the "charity' in this way of thinking, much less how one could be cheery about the prospects it has to offer.

No thanks. I'll keep my faith, thank you while you and your atheist friends continue to inch closer non-existence.

 

Translated, it appears to be "Realize, you are talking to a minion of the Dark One."

 

You are just an argumentative basket case.
You see that bold part up there? I DIDN'T SAY THAT!
Shall I repost the several times you have said that the unbelievers consider themselves better and more upright than their believing counterparts, and the posts where I have stated that not to be the case?
Do we have to go through that exercise simply because you can't simply have the integrity of either standing by your words or recanting them, rather than denying them?
I have said the unbeliever does not sin because it is a theological term. All this crap you are posting has already been addressed.
This is a massive avoidance and waste of time.

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I honestly don't know what he means.

 

Everyone who doesn't agree with some said christian exactly the way man made dogma of christianity is taught is told they must be atheist. But most reject the dogma of religion and concentrate on what the bible is saying and not what religions are saying. The ole sheep in wolves clothes.

 

Brucy Baby. YOU are the one calling me an idiot and so forth. So the least you can do is try to break it down to where it makes some sense.

It is youskys who have been repeatedly challenging the grounds for my faith. How can I answer you then without you accusing me of going off topic.

You still are not saying what your "arguments" are.

Rather than get your panties in a wad because I am not jumping through the particular hoops you are commanding at the time, why not try to share a little of your brilliant insight on the subject.

You can begin by telling US how Christianity has made YOU a better person.

There's no need for you to mention the patience and self control it has taught you. Tell us about all the ways in which you have improved because of your belief in Christ and about your future aspirations.

Do it in such a way that any Jews who might be reading this might be inspired to take a second look at Christ and stop fretting so much about "hypocrites" and people who can't imagine the earth having existed for billions of years. Anyone might be able to sympathize with the conceptual difficulty they experience with those numbers if they ever tried to fathom how deep a 17 TRILLION dollar debt would be.
Every time I bring that subject up they call me an "anti-Semite" for suggesting that Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve could have had anything to do with it.

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Are you still here? I thought you weren't reading anything of mine.
That's what you said.
If you don't, then I don't see how you can make an informed opinion of what it means.

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Yes. You do that.

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Not true.

Tell us what the bible is saying.

 

Why are you assuming I am a Christian?
My question to you has been repeated over and over again, consistently, and been run from by you just as consistently.
Why don't the Fruits of the Spirit impact you? Have you rejected them or has the Holy Spirit rejected you?
I may in fact question the grounds of your faith, but not here. Here I am questioning your apparent disinterest in a very basic principle of it and how a faith that is genuine should impact you. It provides no guidance for you, at least in the persona you choose to adopt here.

 

This is the gist of the NT.

The Fruits of the Spirit are what we should expect to see in the man who walks in the Spirit.
Peace, love, joy, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.

The OT has a much different story. Death, killing, destruction. At the command of God of the OT. God/Jesus of the NT has done a 180 from the OT.