Chels's comments (member since Nov 25, 2008)

Chels's comments from the Debate Religion group.

Where the heck is Eric anyways?

Dan-

That makes sense. Thanks.

"He didn't ignore it. He answered it by pointing out a number of instances where God himself commands his followers to violate the commandment."

He ignored it all right, until I kept bringing it up to get him to answer.

"You really are showing your lack of ability to use your brain...as usual."

Now you are turning to childish insults that really don't make anyone "see sense," it just pisses them off and turns them away from you.

"You persisted because, as usual, you are a broken record with nothing new or thoughtful to add to the conversation."

I could leave, and then you and all your athiest pals could have a great debate.

The original statement was:
"there are many Christians who would be very happy to speed this process up with nuclear war."

You said that tone had nothing to do with it. But since the meaing of the statement changes - you of all people should know that. Otherwise, sarcasm wouldn't work.

With that in mind, your statement is extremely presumptuous and rude. It's equivalent to me telling you "there are many angry athiests who would love to go bomb places of worship."

Why? Because many Christians wouldn't want to start a nuclear war. You ask me to think, but can't you see how illogical your statement is?

Your entire reply was completely directed towards how, with radicals, they wouldn't mind disobeying a fundamental of their religion to end the world and end humanity so that they could get sent to Hell.
That's your logic? I really don't understand how you cannot grasp this simple concept.

"If all you are going to respond with is "that does not mesh with thou shalt not kill," think up something new."

I persisted with that argument because you ignored it.

Thanks for answering my questions so thoroughly Rick. About the sun - I was just wondering how science figured all that out. Because that's A LOT of information.

"The fate of the Universe is also addressed by The Last Three Minutes, a very accessible book by Paul Davies (a physicist who incidentally, is also a Christian.)"

Hey look, a religious scientist! :)

And Abortion:
Since I believe that abortion ends a life, I can't agree to your arguments. Because seeing as I equate abortion to murder, agreeing with the logic you provided me would be wrong. To me, it would say "Abortion is murder, but it would be too costly and hard to stop it."
If you saw abortion as murder, I'm pretty sure you would agree to that.

"I have been debating these issues a long time in discussion groups and face to face in church, and I can assure though they do not leave because of being annoyed or overwhelmed. They withdraw because they do not have the ability to back up their assertions."

Oh, I can assure you that many Chrstians would leave this forum because they're annoyed, seeing as I'm almost at that point myself. R.C., I think you need to argue with someone better at this than myself, because you won't accept any of my answers. Obviously they can't answer your questions well enough. Of course, it could just be the fact that nothing I will say will ever get anywhere in here...

"By the way, to be clear, I never ask anyone to deny their God, but I do ask them to justify the expressions of their faith that intersect with my fundamental rights as a human."

I've tried.

Nathan-

Obviously I didn't understand what you were saying. We are getting no where as you continue to reapeat that I am wrong, without telling me exactly where I went wrong, other than I am wrong. Maybe it would be helpful of you to restate.

"There are christians who would rejoice at the destruction of the Temple Mount as it is a sign of the second coming. I have no doubt that many of them would not care how the destruction came to be."

Oh yes, I'm sure, because that completely goes along with Thou shalt not kill.

Good idea. I'm just going to come out and say it: the tone a lot of Christians get here may be why they leave, because it can get annoying and overwhelming. I am agressive enough and like to argue enough and curious enough that I'm still here. But I just thought you should know. Now please don't everyone attack me for saying that.

Your questions:
1. No, it's not in the Gospels. But it is in the Book of Revelations.
2. Jesus taught about it. Do you know the parable of Lazarus, the poor diseased beggar? It's mentioned there, and Jesus' life was in the Gospels, therefore it is in the Gospels. It's all over the Bible, in fact, because of judgement day. And I suppose we could go into Satan and that whole deal.
3. How many times do I have to say that I don't deny science? I know that humans were responsible for it too - but since I believe that God has a hand in daily life, it's not all humans. So with that question, you're asking when I'm going to deny God, which isn't happening.
And I never said it was good, just that Jesus said it would happen.
4. First of all, I'm not going to claim to know when the end of time is. I just think that we should try to be ready in case. And by ready, I don't mean safety shelters or 72 hour kits, I mean spiritually ready. I don't know if that answers your question...

I thought that athiests believe that there could be an end time too, what with nuclear war or the sun exploding. So why do you claim it to be myth? I'm a little confused on this.

Nathan-

First of all, when I debate, I don't dissect the sentence structure - I go by the tone of the conversation. Your tone implies that Christians are all for nuking each other, which implies that you know nothing about the basis of Chrstianity. Fifth commandment: Thou shalt not kill. How does that fit in with your theory?
In addition, you didn't answer my question about why Christians would speed up the process just to get sent to Hell for mass murder.

I said-
"You are categorizing all Christians into a radical or extremist position."
You took that sentence out of context. My entire post coincides, so to simply take a random sentence out and reply to only that sentence is to strip it of its entire meaning. Basically you are trying to use wit to confuse what I am saying, because if you read the whole post, you would not be so confused as to what I meant.

Look at the differences in these two sentences:
"There are SOME RADICAL Christians who agree..."
"There are MANY CHRISTIANS who agree..."
The meaning of the sentence changed. So no, I didn't agree with exactly what you've been saying.
You could argue that I contradict myself because I don't like arguing over semantics, but the entire feeling of the statement changed.
You hate it when I assume.... I didn't really appreciate you implied that Christians would love to kill everyone for God. And at least when I assume, I admit my mistake instead of saying that I know more about athiesm than an avid athiest.

Basically your reply took my entire post out of context for the purpose of making me seem stupid, which is what you do best. Try to actually make good points. You'll get farther that way.

I agree with what Eric and Adam and Kristen have been saying. I also want to add that
I pray to thank God.
I pray to recognize Him.
And I also pray to get closer to Him.

And to answer Tom.... I think I stopped praying for material stuff when I was six. If you expect God to drop down a Benz in your front yard, you are a little confused. Material items.... there are a lot more important things. My church teaches to try to stay away from that.

"Christians look forward to the second coming of christ. In order for this to happen, according to scripture, the world will need to be in utter chaos and will come to an end. there are many Christians who would be very happy to speed this process up with nuclear war."

You are not understanding. I said that we look forward to eternal paradise, but I never said we look forward to what comes before it. You can be excited for the result of something, but not the process. That is demonstrated all over the place in life. One of the most common examples could be money. You might hate work, but everyone loves going on vacations (or spending the money). In that fashion, they enjoy the benefits but perhaps not the method of earning it. That illustrates my point.

I can't speak for every Christian, but seeing as I am a Christian... You say that "many Christians" would like to speed up the process, but maybe that's only because there's a billion Christians. So yes, there could be many radical Christians. But most people, Christians included, don't look forward to pain. Christians are human, and we don't like to suffer any more than you do. You are categorizing all Christians into a radical or extremist position.

"Is this simply another case where I know more about Christianity than you do?"

Is this simply another case where Nathan didn't think through what he was saying and went straight for the insult?

"Your's I am sure, because you are level-headed, but Nathan's point about only the religious finding value about the end of humanity is still valid. It seems reasonable to assume that an individual who believes in existence after death will have a fundamentally different approach to the value of human life than someone who believe existence ends at death."

Now that is a very good point. I can understand that. But my guess is that most Christians would agree that nuking the world to destroy it for the second coming would be wrong. I am pretty sure of that. Think. If you destroyed that much human life.... with the second coming, comes judgement day. Good luck with that.

So, Nathan, all in all, some radicals may have wishful thinking. But how logical would it be for a Christian to "speed up the process," and destroy the world, so that they could get sent to Hell faster? Where is the reason behind that? Maybe a religious fanatic isn't that reasonable, but even and idiot can see that. All it takes is a little thinking.

I'm religious, and I don't look forward to the world coming to an end.

"If the world does come to and end, it will only be because too many religious people got their hands on nuclear weapons and used them in an attempr to please their particular notion of god."

That is a ridiculous statement. Unless you're referring to Al-Qaeda getting a hold of nukes to destroy the US (which would be religious, in their eyes).... we look forward to paradise with our Lord, but there's no way any Christian is going to intentionally end the world. That would be a little outside our moral values, now wouldn't it?

America has a secular government, and during the Cold War, Cuba, the Soviet Union and the USA came pretty close to a nuclear war - over world power. Go figure.

"I don't like to mock the beliefs of others, and when I get carried away and to so, I always try to apologize (I might need to be reminded). This stance has ironically, earned me some scornful comments from the atheist/skeptic group I belong to."

I appreciate that. I try to do it too, because it's politically correct. And at this point, I would be shunned if I couldn't apologize to my friends, since I only have two non-Mormon friends.
Oh, and the missionaries? It won't sink in for about another 10 years. That's how long it took them to stop coming here.

"I feel that you may not be being honest that you live in a part of the world where only 2% is christian. Where is this you supposedly live?"

I'm not lying to you. I don't really think that question is appropriate, I almost got banned from this site by my parents. (Sigh) Lets just say that I live with lots of Mormons. Ha ha, I even know the percentages, because they're very proud of that 98% here. They've given up on my house, though.

"Sorry, I thought from your post you were doing just that."

Yeah, I could see that coming when I posted, but I was defending it because Rick stated that Mormons deserved to be mocked and scorned because they harm others by their beliefs. I thought he went a little far with that statement.

:D

Most athiests I've spoken with share that view. I just wanted to clear that one up also.

Another question:
Abortion? Yes or no?

"So did God create the world "scientifically correct" or didn't he?"

Yes, he did. I'm sorry, I can't figure out how to explain it any more. No, God didn't make the world like Jesus did miracles. I'm sorry I'm not making sense to you, I'm not doing a very good job. I believe that God made this world so that everything would work - and not miraculously, so to speak. He made it so that everything fit. Also so that humans could learn about it and progress. All this kind of comes down to my belief that I don't have to deny religion or science.

"Yes, there is a difference. However, "I disagree" is not always the appropriate response. Not everything in the world is a matter of opinion. Some things are right or wrong, true or false, logical or illogical. To take an extreme example, if I believe that to cure myself of HIV I should have sex with a virgin, you should not just say to me, "Well, I disagree, but you have your beliefs and I have mine."

That is very extreme, but I understand what you mean now. However, that would bodily harm the other person; in this case, the virgin. And then, yes, I should do something about it. But my belief in God isn't going to transmit any deadly, incurrable disease that I know of.

"On a side note, if you don't mind my asking, where do you live that only 2% of the population is Christian? Is the other 98% atheist, and are there any houses for sale?"

Ha ha, no. Definitly no athiests here. That's why I rely on you to tell me exactly what you believe.

"It was also the word of God, as given to the prophet Joseph Smith. It is nice to have an admission by a believer that the word of God is amenable relative to constitutional law and present day culture.
In a few years, the Mormons will say about Prop 8 "Yes, and that was the past"

I'm not going to defend the LDS Church's actions. Lea should come back for that.

Yes.

That's what I figured, but I wasn't sure. I do have a tendancy to assume. :) Thanks.

I was just wondering....
Christians believe that there will be the end of the world and then a second coming. What do Athiests believe on that subject? Do you believe that there will be an "end of the world" at all? What does science say about this?