Flicka.
The unfortunate thing about stoushing with a christian is they can always trump you with the old, "I’m going to heaven and you . . . "
Hurts like, well, hell, I suppose.
HG
[quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]Flicka.
The unfortunate thing about stoushing with a christian is they can always trump you with the old, "I’m going to heaven and you . . . "
Hurts like, well, hell, I suppose.
HG[/quote]
I’ve never used that one. Never would.
Most important thing is that you live up to your own convictions, I haven’t, but I will.
[quote=“Bassman”][quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]Flicka.
The unfortunate thing about stoushing with a christian is they can always trump you with the old, "I’m going to heaven and you . . . "
Hurts like, well, hell, I suppose.
HG[/quote]
I’ve never used that one. Never would.
Most important thing is that you live up to your own convictions, I haven’t, but I will.[/quote]
I agree with you on that one, in part, what if your convictions are all screwed up, from what I have read of your posts it seems to me that they are. One minute you proclaim to be a Christian and the next you’re tapping away profanity on your keyboard. Something just doesn’t add up, at least try to be consistant. 
If not for yourself, try it for all those who’d like to be open about what they believe.
I say the “it’s takes more guts bit…” specifically in response to Formosa suggesting that Christianity is a crutch, it’s not.
I fully respect your rights not to believe, that’s your business. However, Formosa has totally lost the plot with his whacky opinions. I respect his right to have those, somewhat whacky, opinions though.
It’s not easy being an atheist either. It’s not easy being human.
To quote Maoman “Whatever”
That’s a little harsh, don’t you think? I’m a walking contradiction myself, even on this forum. It’s one thing to think this of Bassman, but another thing to actually tell him this on a public forum.
Just another struggling Christian.
Many people don’t need to be “forced” to face their issues like a man (or woman, I presume), nor do they feel the need to hide behind excuses. You are talking about moral conviction, and that is in no way exclusive to being christian, or to following any other set of superstitions.
Reinhold Wolf writes: “He remarried within three weeks of the divorce to a nice Mormon gal he had met two weeks before. These people are sick.”
Quite right, Jack! These people are sick. Brainwashed is the correct word.
By the way, I am not urging or pushing my Jesuit friend to do anything. It is he who is asking me to give him the little teen tiny push he wants to experience sex. Once. Is that a sin on my part?
As usual Maoman misreads me. He reads what he wants to see, but the truth shall set him free. One day.
And I resent being called the Village Idiot. I am the Village Chariot!
Formosa said:
You could let him blow you. 
Once.
Not the village bike? Or is that why the Jesuit’s seeking you out? Perhaps you’re younger than I presumed. 
HG
Quite right, Jack! These people are sick. Brainwashed is the correct word.[/quote]
Oh, bullshit. It’s their lives, let them do whatever they want with them.
ex-Soddom’s criticism of Christians just reflects his own intolerance, too.
[quote=“Closet Queen, nee Soddom”]When was the last time you had atheists,
Hindus or Muslims banging on your door to save you.[/quote]
Well, it seems to me that your ridicule is at least partly directed at getting Christians to “kick the habit” (at least for the nuns, ha ha).
As for Muslims doing so, they most assuredly do engage in proselytizing, although perhaps not so much in Taiwan as, say, in prison ministries in the U.S. or in other “vulnerable” communities. Go to any predominantly Muslim country and you cannot escape the calls to prayer, five times a day. In the moderate ones, you’ll simply be annoyed at the loudspeakers blasting it at you; in the more extreme countries, you’ll be whipped into the mosque by the religious police if you don’t hurry it up and get inside of your own free will.
I happen to have a necklace that a friend, a coin dealer, gave me. It has some Arabic writing on it instructing faithful Muslims not to kill the wearer, because the wearer has agreed to convert to Islam. It was apparently a frequent practice in Africa to give these to those who had accepted the faith, as opposed to those who didn’t accept it who were killed on sight. Talk about incentives and “hard sells”. . . .
Ke di er,
I think most of us here, as have most people in North America and down under (dunno about those secular Europeans, though) went to plenty of Sunday school when we were kids. You can’t get away from it when you’re born in the Bible Belt. So we have “tried it your way”, in my case for over half my life. Then when I was in my late teens I started reading books and that led to me thinking for myself a little bit and voila - I lost my faith. How many kids are actually raised atheist or agnostic? Most kids are raised in some sort of religious faith by their parents, to give them a moral foundation if nothing else. I think religion and church are good for building character in young tykes, teaching them right and wrong. But sooner or later your mind expands and you discover a little bit about the world & universe beyond your little Sunday school and you grow up. Religion is necessary because children and people with IQs below 100 need some sort of moral compass, and sweet fairy tales of gods in the sky are the only things they can understand. They can’t understand quantum physics and existentialism, their minds aren’t equipped to deal with such complex matters. Without the simple moral truths and comforting salvation legends of religion, the Common Man would have nothing to stop him from thinking, “Life is shit and then you die, there’s nothing to believe in so I might as well do anything I want,” and let loose moral anarchy upon society.
That’s a little harsh, don’t you think? I’m a walking contradiction myself, even on this forum. It’s one thing to think this of Bassman, but another thing to actually tell him this on a public forum.
Just another struggling Christian.[/quote]
Yes, a little harsh, but I have been watching for quite some time and I remember Bassman posting, when he changed back from being Boss Hogg, that he wished to be accountable for how he was posting and he felt that he was lacking in integrity and was failing himself on this forum. Well, from what I have read, things have gotten worse, not better. He has not made the transformation that he so heartwarmingly promised to make in an all out confession to all the members of Forumosa.
I understand that Bassman is a more popular poster than I am, but I can’t just sit back and say nothing. But, you are right, I should have done it in a private message, or perhaps I’ll tell Bassman the next time I meet him shopping in Taichung. Yes, we have met. Not a bad dude either. 
[quote=“mod lang”]Ke di er,
I think most of us here, as have most people in North America and down under (dunno about those secular Europeans, though) went to plenty of Sunday school when we were kids. You can’t get away from it when you’re born in the Bible Belt. So we have “tried it your way”, in my case for over half my life. [/quote]
That, is not trying it my way, a heart felt, relationship with God is what I mean by trying it for yourself. I wasn’t talking about growing up in a Church, that is a sad thing, the Church is a building, the Bible, when living like that, is just a book, and you learn a way to live. That is not being a Christian. If you had ever been a Christian, in the true sense of the word, it would be impossible to make a statement like you made, unless of course you were hurt and have become bitter towards all things to do with God. It’s not about the buildings or the people, it’s just not.
So, unless you have a testimony to tell about how you had a living personal relationship with God and have seen his power at work, then I don’t think I will change my opinion. When you see people get out of wheel chairs, cancer cured and the blind seeing, then you really know what it’s all about.
Yeah, anyone going to mention that Steve Martin movie now? 
“While God waits for his house to be built of love, men bring stones”
- Rabindranath Tagore
Ohmmmmmmmmm…
I have been a Christian. I believed. I have been saved and sincerely opened my heart to Jesus. I sweated and had nightmares about going to hell and woke up in the middle of the night and prayed. I apologized to God whenever I let a cuss word or impure thought enter my mind. But my heartfelt relationship with God broke down once I realized that I was talking to him and never feeling his spirit or presence. I accepted Jesus Christ into my heart and he did not come. I tried, I sincerely tried, but I felt nothing of His presence. Because he wasn’t there - I was talking and talking and getting no replys because I was talking to empty sky.
My experience was not unique. Millions have had the same experience of losing their faith. A great book on the subject that I recommend is James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which tells of his painful experience growing up in the oppressive Irish Catholic Church and his eventual rejection of such dogma.
That’s a little harsh, don’t you think? I’m a walking contradiction myself, even on this forum. It’s one thing to think this of Bassman, but another thing to actually tell him this on a public forum.
Just another struggling Christian.[/quote]
Yes, a little harsh, but I have been watching for quite some time and I remember Bassman posting, when he changed back from being Boss Hogg, that he wished to be accountable for how he was posting and he felt that he was lacking in integrity and was failing himself on this forum. Well, from what I have read, things have gotten worse, not better. He has not made the transformation that he so heartwarmingly promised to make in an all out confession to all the members of Forumosa.
I understand that Bassman is a more popular poster than I am, but I can’t just sit back and say nothing. But, you are right, I should have done it in a private message, or perhaps I’ll tell Bassman the next time I meet him shopping in Taichung (Taizhong). Yes, we have met. Not a bad dude either. [/quote]
Ke di er,
You have a point. Things have become worse since my transformation back to Bassman, Boss Hogg was obviously a better man.
Hey, Hakkasonic, how’s about a Boss Hogg comeback, whatcha reckon?
Nah, he is gone for good and I am sure that Maoman wouldn’t want me to mess up the boards with another name change.
Well, if we’re considering it strictly from the Christian angle, Boss Hogg did come from the Bible belt. But if you don’t like that, why not change your name to Gilligan? I always saw him as a Christ figure…
[quote=“mod lang”]I have been a Christian. I believed. I have been saved and sincerely opened my heart to Jesus. … But my heartfelt relationship with God broke down once I realized that I was talking to him and never feeling his spirit or presence. I accepted Jesus Christ into my heart and he did not come. I tried, I sincerely tried, but I felt nothing of His presence. Because he wasn’t there - I was talking and talking and getting no replys because I was talking to empty sky.
[/quote]
Sorry. It didn’t sound like it, but then that’s not uncommon.
I myself felt his spirit and his presence. I saw his power and moved in his power. He is there.
What happened to me. I got hurt, really hurt. Not by the Church, but by a matter of the heart. I did blame God for what happened though. The girl I was to marry, who knew me better than I knew myself, and I broke up. I took it hard. Then along comes another guy, they fall in love and plan to marry. I then found myself living in two worlds, one with non-Christian girls, no sex, but it was enough, Taiwanese friends, and another with the Church. Then one day I made a decision to come to Taiwan, originally for 1 year, to make some money, but then I got further and further away. Slipped more and more. Tried everything that I had never tried before, drink, sex, and the rest of it.
Now, I find myself on a forum, a Christian that is trying to make his way back. Lost my way in a strange land.
I’m sorry if some of you find my statements a little too much, I think I need to see the words more than you do. I am doing this for my own benefit.
[quote]I saw his power and moved in his power. He is there.
[/quote]
You saw your own power. There’s no such thing as god. Its just superstition.
[quote=“sandman”][quote]I saw his power and moved in his power. He is there.
[/quote]
You saw your own power. There’s no such thing as god. Its just superstition.[/quote]
Nice. I’d have a wager on that but I don’t gamble anymore.
Any proof?
Nah, I’ll leave it, everyone can have their own opinion.
I have irrefutable proof. I asked Santa Claus, the tooth fairy and the troll that lives under the bridge, all three of whom stated irrevocably that there’s no such thing as god.