Re: What do people believe when it comes to religion and or spirituality?
Themadviolinist, could you point out some specific examples of how the belief that Nocturnis and I hold is harming people directly? As far as I know, I have not killed any homosexuals or even advocated for doing so. I have not condemned any homosexuals to hell, Jesus Christ did that through the apostle Paul and it has nothing to do with them being specifically homosexual. It has to do with the fact that they are willfully practicing sin while trying to claim a relationship with the sinless one, or not having a relationship with him as the case may be, so that their soul is not saved. You can not claim that our personal beliefs are harming people because other members of the church have abused those beliefs in the past. We are not creating an idol, we are following God's divinely inspired word, the primary method he uses to communicate with his believers. Whether or not you believe it's God's word is entirely up to you, but without knowing the original Hebrew and gre ek, I don't hold to the opinion that this is simply my interpretation of the bible. People have been trying that line of logic since we were created, and it's one way that cults are formed. Yet Christianity, as Jesus intended it, is still alive and thriving 2000 years later, despite the world's attempts to put a stop to it. So many other religions and idols have come and gone, yet Jesus Christ, the son of God, remains.
At the end of the day, what I personally believe harms no one. The one place I find intolerance in the world is in Christianity's intolerance of sin. As long as you aren't professing to be a follower of Jesus Christ and the bible, everyone in the country I live in is expected to be tolerant of your beliefs and practices. I personally have no problem being told I'm wrong or that I shouldn't be doing something, I count it as joy to be percicuted, just as Jesus said I should. I should not be forced to advocate for practices that I know to be wrong, just as a homosexual man should not be forced to be straight. That is not at all what we're trying to do. I believe I can speak for Nocturnis and I both when I say that we believe in true free will. We believe that something is wrong because we were told it is wrong, but we do not believe that practice should be forcefully eradicated from the world. People always have a choice to make, at least in the country I live in. If someone wants to be homosexual, that's fine. If they don't want to believe that it's wrong, that's fine too. Just don't tell me that I have to believe that it's right, as that infringes upon my freedom. I should not be forced to marry a gay couple if I were a pastor, when there are plenty of other churches out there, or even secular justices of the peace, that will do it for them. If, some day, I decide to throw aside the teachings of the bible and, against Christ's will, start marrying homosexuals, that&# 039;s my choice to make, as unlikely as it is. People have the right, at least in the country I live in, to believe whatever they want, whether they know what the consequences are or not. In a lot of cases, you can do whatever you want as well, but there will be consequences. If you want to kill someone, you can do so, you'll just be willingly accepting that if you get caught, you will almost assuredly go to jail and be killed yourself. I'm sorry that some homosexual people need acceptance to the point of becoming suicidal, but again, that's their choice to make. What that tells me is that somewhere in their soul, they know that it's wrong, and so they seek approval so that they don't have to deal with that and can't handle it when they don't get said approval from someone. There are homosexuals that have become Christians, married wives and fought with that attraction for the rest of their life because they knew it was wrong. There are homos exuals who Jesus has taken the attraction away from, just as he did for me when I became a Christian and stopped drinking alcohol. Whether or not science has proven that homosexuality is genetic, which I don't think it has, the fact is that it can be overcome, just as can alcoholism, bipolar disorder or any other mental genetic disorder or addiction.
Tward, I'm sorry, but I don't buy that definition of a theory. Just because someone throws science in front of a word does not make it fact. Yes, scientists think they have some evidence toward evolution, but they can not observe evolution happening. We can't observe it in the past other than through perceived fossils, and we can't observe it in the world today. My father says that he can't believe anyone doesn't believe in evolution, that it simply means to change, and that we're always changing. That is not true, however. The definition of evolution is to unfold. Generally when you unfold something, it changes for the better, and I doubt anyone will honestly tell me that the species in the world at large are constantly changing for the better. Mostly what I see from the evolutionary crowd is unobservable, hypothetical data being taught as absolute fact. Since science, by definition, is the systematic study and testing of observable data, and evolution can not be directly observed, I would say that it can not be defined as a science. I think the distinction is pretty clear: we don't have the theory of physics, or the theory of gravity, or the theory of mathematics, or chemistry, or medical practice. Those are considered fields of study, exact sciences for the most part, though some of them contain theories within them. What we do have, is the theory of evolution, the big bang theory, and the theory of relativity, which is probably the most well substantiated of the three. Since I am not a scientist of any kind, only having read a few books either by scienti sts or by someone who has talked with them, I can not personally go out into the field and substantiate any of the evidence backing those theories for myself, so I have to take someone's word for said evidence. Before I was a believer in Christ, I just plain didn't care how we got here or why, whatever scientific evidence was out there. Sure, I knew they had dinosaur skeletons and fossils and things, and that was basically good enough for me. After I started following Jesus I began doing more research and found that it is not nearly as valid a claim, even by many scientists' own admission, as science in general would have us believe. There are even scientists out there that, at least privately, would tell you that it shouldn't be being taught in schools because there isn't enough evidence to ccall it scientific fact. What I think is that, since there is evidence, or at least claimed evidence, for both sides, that both theories, evolution and creation, should be taught in school and children should be allowed to make their own choice. I, personally, think it takes far more faith to believe in evolution than it does design. I understand now that there is a theory of co-evolution, that is, species somehow evolving alongside each other to support each other. I find this to be ridiculous. The odds of one species randomly forming and evolving alone are impossible enough. Add to that the idea that another species randomly started evolving alongside it as a support system, and you're getting well into the hundreds of zero's for odds here, and that's just for two species.
There are things I don't understand about following Jesus Christ, so saying that religious people think we know it all and scientists are willing to admit they don't know is a bit far afield, I think. There's always something new to learn from the bible, practically every time I open it I discover something I didn't know. There ar e things we do know, like a basic version of how the world was created or that Jesus died for our sins. But the details are always in flux and anyone who says they know everything there is to know about God or his creation is either very ignorant, or a flat out liar.
I realize that I am not citing any sources here. Since I don't make a practice of reading academic papers or books, I can't really give you those, though I'm sure I could dig up some websites. I got most of the information I have from my wife, who does read said papers and books. You haven't exactly cited any sources either, but most of what I've read for myself certainly paints evolution in a light that makes it impossible to believe in without a lot of faith in randomness and impossible mathematical odds, at the very least. I am starting some bible classes that are taught by a scientist with degrees in statistics, mathematics and engineering and who does dozens of hours of research a wee k, so soon I will probably be better equipped to answer questions of this nature and cite sources.
As for evangelizing, well, that is our duty, as given to us by Christ himself. You can't expect every Christian to know that you've sworn off all belief in God and that you'd rather be left alone by the church at large, unless you meant that these are generally people you know that are trying to talk to you again. But I have to say, for not wanting anything to do with our beliefs anymore, you have a funny way of showing it. I've seen you post in most of the religious threads that have been started on here. If you truly wanted nothing to do with Christianity at all, why not simply avoid us instead of trying to make us see that we're believing in what you think of as myths and fairy tales? Jesus wants you to come back to him, and so that is why he keeps specifically sending people to talk to you. I hope that one day, you will let him back into your heart so that I'll see you in heaven.
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