Anonymous wrote:I TOLD ALL OF YOU THAT ATHEISM WAS A RELIGION!!!!!!

SEE???????

Anonymous wrote:I TOLD ALL OF YOU THAT ATHEISM WAS A RELIGION!!!!!!

SEE???????

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was always agnostic. One day I was watching Law and Order SVU and I turned atheist. Nobody care about my beliefs, my grandmother is praying for me, she wishes I was baptized, but it doesn't have any impact on our relationship.

If you read the Bible, you'll read where God tells us not to have sex outside marriage. I've seen SVU. It's about people committing sex crimes, which God not only doesn't condone but commands against. So you decided there's no God because you watched a TV show that shows the ugly consequences that occur when people disobey Him?

If you DID believe in God, would you appreciate it if He made you always do the right thing, or always kept you from doing the wrong thing? I doubt it. Much of what you think is no big deal, He does think is a big deal. Jesus said to even lust after someone is to sin. But you have free will, which includes the will to harm yourself and others. I don't know why the bad things happen, but they don't happen because it's God's idea, and the fact of them happening doesn't mean there's no God, or that He can't sort out justice in due time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in a pretty non religious place and no one I knew really took religion or god seriously, in fact it was weird if you did, and it still a functioning society with laws and justice etc. I find all the current religious ideas of god very lacking. I used to want to be religious, but now I'm very much at peace as an atheist. like the PP I find the universe/nature awe-inspiring.

This is pretty much me. I had a close friend in middle school who was mildly religious and I joined her at church a few times out of curiosity and also went on a youth group trip. I liked the sense of community but never bought into the "faith" side. Around that same time I had some extended family members join a "born again" church and to me it they seemed like they went mad. Even now I really don't understand some of their actions. And they've been very hateful to me and other members of my family.

PP here - I can relate to that. Praying in tongues the whole bit, raving on about sin and how god will punish us all for our sins and how every natural event is because god is angry...yeah. it seems very odd to me too.

that said, I've known some religious people in my life who are fantastic people.

Well...

1. The speaking in tongues thing as it's practiced in pentecostal churches is not modeled on anything biblically. You can see the references to it in Acts as speaking a known language. This is not what is practiced in this strain of Christianity.
2. God will indeed punish unforgiven sin, but He gave us a way to be forgiven through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, Christians are told to judge fellow believers, because believers are both a living temple of God and because they are a testimony of their belief. But we are not told to judge unbelievers. You can see this in 1 Corinthians 5:11-12. We are all sinners, and Christians are told to offer the good news of Christ's forgiveness, not condemnation.
3. Jesus said bad things will happen in this world, but he cautioned people against thinking that everything is a judgment, as in Luke 13:1-5.

The problem is that many believers haven't learned Christian theology enough to represent it at all points. We are supposed to learn and know this so we can be good witnesses for the faith. But the solution is not to not believe but to learn what Christianity truly teaches.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in a pretty non religious place and no one I knew really took religion or god seriously, in fact it was weird if you did, and it still a functioning society with laws and justice etc. I find all the current religious ideas of god very lacking. I used to want to be religious, but now I'm very much at peace as an atheist. like the PP I find the universe/nature awe-inspiring.

This is pretty much me. I had a close friend in middle school who was mildly religious and I joined her at church a few times out of curiosity and also went on a youth group trip. I liked the sense of community but never bought into the "faith" side. Around that same time I had some extended family members join a "born again" church and to me it they seemed like they went mad. Even now I really don't understand some of their actions. And they've been very hateful to me and other members of my family.

PP here - I can relate to that. Praying in tongues the whole bit, raving on about sin and how god will punish us all for our sins and how every natural event is because god is angry...yeah. it seems very odd to me too.

that said, I've known some religious people in my life who are fantastic people.

Well...

1. The speaking in tongues thing as it's practiced in pentecostal churches is not modeled on anything biblically. You can see the references to it in Acts as speaking a known language. This is not what is practiced in this strain of Christianity.
2. God will indeed punish unforgiven sin, but He gave us a way to be forgiven through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, Christians are told to judge fellow believers, because believers are both a living temple of God and because they are a testimony of their belief. But we are not told to judge unbelievers. You can see this in 1 Corinthians 5:11-12. We are all sinners, and Christians are told to offer the good news of Christ's forgiveness, not condemnation.
3. Jesus said bad things will happen in this world, but he cautioned people against thinking that everything is a judgment, as in Luke 13:1-5.

The problem is that many believers haven't learned Christian theology enough to represent it at all points. We are supposed to learn and know this so we can be good witnesses for the faith. But the solution is not to not believe but to learn what Christianity truly teaches.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in a pretty non religious place and no one I knew really took religion or god seriously, in fact it was weird if you did, and it still a functioning society with laws and justice etc. I find all the current religious ideas of god very lacking. I used to want to be religious, but now I'm very much at peace as an atheist. like the PP I find the universe/nature awe-inspiring.

This is pretty much me. I had a close friend in middle school who was mildly religious and I joined her at church a few times out of curiosity and also went on a youth group trip. I liked the sense of community but never bought into the "faith" side. Around that same time I had some extended family members join a "born again" church and to me it they seemed like they went mad. Even now I really don't understand some of their actions. And they've been very hateful to me and other members of my family.

PP here - I can relate to that. Praying in tongues the whole bit, raving on about sin and how god will punish us all for our sins and how every natural event is because god is angry...yeah. it seems very odd to me too.

that said, I've known some religious people in my life who are fantastic people.

Well...

1. The speaking in tongues thing as it's practiced in pentecostal churches is not modeled on anything biblically. You can see the references to it in Acts as speaking a known language. This is not what is practiced in this strain of Christianity.
2. God will indeed punish unforgiven sin, but He gave us a way to be forgiven through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, Christians are told to judge fellow believers, because believers are both a living temple of God and because they are a testimony of their belief. But we are not told to judge unbelievers. You can see this in 1 Corinthians 5:11-12. We are all sinners, and Christians are told to offer the good news of Christ's forgiveness, not condemnation.
3. Jesus said bad things will happen in this world, but he cautioned people against thinking that everything is a judgment, as in Luke 13:1-5.

The problem is that many believers haven't learned Christian theology enough to represent it at all points. We are supposed to learn and know this so we can be good witnesses for the faith. But the solution is not to not believe but to learn what Christianity truly teaches.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was always agnostic. One day I was watching Law and Order SVU and I turned atheist. Nobody care about my beliefs, my grandmother is praying for me, she wishes I was baptized, but it doesn't have any impact on our relationship.

If you read the Bible, you'll read where God tells us not to have sex outside marriage. I've seen SVU. It's about people committing sex crimes, which God not only doesn't condone but commands against. So you decided there's no God because you watched a TV show that shows the ugly consequences that occur when people disobey Him?

If you DID believe in God, would you appreciate it if He made you always do the right thing, or always kept you from doing the wrong thing? I doubt it. Much of what you think is no big deal, He does think is a big deal. Jesus said to even lust after someone is to sin. But you have free will, which includes the will to harm yourself and others. I don't know why the bad things happen, but they don't happen because it's God's idea, and the fact of them happening doesn't mean there's no God, or that He can't sort out justice in due time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in a pretty non religious place and no one I knew really took religion or god seriously, in fact it was weird if you did, and it still a functioning society with laws and justice etc. I find all the current religious ideas of god very lacking. I used to want to be religious, but now I'm very much at peace as an atheist. like the PP I find the universe/nature awe-inspiring.

This is pretty much me. I had a close friend in middle school who was mildly religious and I joined her at church a few times out of curiosity and also went on a youth group trip. I liked the sense of community but never bought into the "faith" side. Around that same time I had some extended family members join a "born again" church and to me it they seemed like they went mad. Even now I really don't understand some of their actions. And they've been very hateful to me and other members of my family.

PP here - I can relate to that. Praying in tongues the whole bit, raving on about sin and how god will punish us all for our sins and how every natural event is because god is angry...yeah. it seems very odd to me too.

that said, I've known some religious people in my life who are fantastic people.

Anonymous wrote:I was always agnostic. One day I was watching Law and Order SVU and I turned atheist. Nobody care about my beliefs, my grandmother is praying for me, she wishes I was baptized, but it doesn't have any impact on our relationship.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in a pretty non religious place and no one I knew really took religion or god seriously, in fact it was weird if you did, and it still a functioning society with laws and justice etc. I find all the current religious ideas of god very lacking. I used to want to be religious, but now I'm very much at peace as an atheist. like the PP I find the universe/nature awe-inspiring.

This is pretty much me. I had a close friend in middle school who was mildly religious and I joined her at church a few times out of curiosity and also went on a youth group trip. I liked the sense of community but never bought into the "faith" side. Around that same time I had some extended family members join a "born again" church and to me it they seemed like they went mad. Even now I really don't understand some of their actions. And they've been very hateful to me and other members of my family.

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in a pretty non religious place and no one I knew really took religion or god seriously, in fact it was weird if you did, and it still a functioning society with laws and justice etc. I find all the current religious ideas of god very lacking. I used to want to be religious, but now I'm very much at peace as an atheist. like the PP I find the universe/nature awe-inspiring.

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in a pretty non religious place and no one I knew really took religion or god seriously, in fact it was weird if you did, and it still a functioning society with laws and justice etc. I find all the current religious ideas of god very lacking. I used to want to be religious, but now I'm very much at peace as an atheist. like the PP I find the universe/nature awe-inspiring.