: : : Really? God told me to shag anything that moved. I guess he must have something against you, dude.: : How did he tell you that? Did he appear to you in a dream? Did you dial a wrong number once and called God by mistake and strike up a conversation with Him?
: How do YOU tell what God wants you to do?
Everything he wants us to know is in the Bible
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: : : (Seriously, though; do you have any evidence that yours is the One True God? (_other_ than the Bible, of course...))
: : Archaeologists to this day find remains and evidence that the stuff in the Bible talks about, so the bible must be right. Besides, the reason why its in the bible is because it was written by people who witnessed what was going on.
: Archaeologists find evidence that most of the myths of pre-industrial peoples were based vaguely on real events. Very few myths are made up out of whole cloth, so it's not surprising that some events described in the Bible may be loosely based on historical occurrences. When the Bible talks about so many different things it wpould be unlikely if SOME of them weren't true. It's quite possible that some of the men who wrote the Bible were divinely inspired, and that many of the things they say stem from divine revelation. But i think it's unsupportable to say the everything in the Bible is true or divinely inspired. The Bible also says things that are blatantly false and physically impossible, such as the six-day creation,
It says God created everything in 6 days and I believe it. How do you know that those 6 days were 24 hours? The fact that we call a day 24 hours is man made. For all we know, one of those days in creation could have been a billion years. Perhaps God created the earth, a billion years later the animals a billion years later people etc... Isn't the Earth 6 billion years old or something?
: the business about Joshua stopping the earth in its orbit, Noah rescuing a pair of ef each animal from the great flood (seeing that there are about 10 million species, a boat big enough to hold 20 million individuals would have to be....well, you can figure out the dimensions.) A literal reading of Genesis clearly contradicts what we know about the mechanisms of evolution, cosmology and astronomy.
I understand what you are saying. Whe ever said we can understand how God does everything?He performs miracles that are impossible for us to do.
: To me it's evidnet that some of what the Bible says is true, and some of what it says is false- some things are moral, other things immoral, etc. To say that some things described in the Bible are true, therefore everything is true, is illogical- first of all, you can't reason inductively like taht, and second of all, what do you do about all the places where the Bible vcontradicts what we know of the universe? To say that one thing is true, therefgore the Bible is infallible is as silly as saying, like some atheists, that since some things the Bible says are obviously false, we should junk the whole book.
: Finally, I haven't veen gotten into teh question of what makes you think teh Bible is any more valid than any of the other myriad religious texts- although you could, like Gandhi, simply accept taht ALLL of them are based on divine truth mixed in with a heavy dose of human corruption and mistranslation.
The main reason I believe the Bible is true is because it has already proven itself! Isaiah recieved a vision from God and he preached it. He told us details about the coming of Jesus, and a few hundred years later, it came about! Everything that prophet told the people, all the details, actually happened. Jesus himself even made references to theOld Testament people.
: : : : Why? Because he loves us and he knows what will happen to us if we do wrong. He knows that if we give in to temptation and sin sexually, we are going to hurt ourselves.
: You haven't demonstrated that hmosexuality is a sexual sin. What basis do you have for saying this?
Again, the Bible says so.
: : : Ooo! You screwed! You're going straight to Hell...
: : : Well, if Heaven involves eternity in the company of bigots, masochists, windbags and crusaders, give me horns and a tail, I'm on my way.
: : When I said "hut ourselves" I wasn't talking about the afterlife, I was talking about this life. By participating in those activities you could hurt yourself by getting a disease, breaking up your family etc...
: By engaging in heterosexual married sex you contribute to the population explosion. Everything has tradeoffs. Homosexuality has a positive function, else it would not have evolved.
: :It happens all the time when people sin sexually.
: You are continuing to offer your opinion on what is a sexual sin without giving us any basis for it.
But it is a sin. God has never lied before so I believe him when he says we should not do certain things.
: : None of those people in heaven.
: How do you know? Unless you can defend your arguemnt based on some other source in addition to the Bible, don't be surprised if I remain skeptical.
How do I know what? What people are in heaven? I don't know who is or who isn't in heaven. I just know that in order for you to get there you must believe in Jesus as Savior, otherwise you won't go there. God said so himself
: :The people in heaven are regular people like you and me (we aer sinners too)who have asked Jesus for forgiveness of sins and who believe in him as Lord.
: Live a good life and you will be rewarded after death.
Nope. It doesn't matter how "good" you are, no person is good enough for heaven. Heaven is where God lives and he is holy, we are sinners. The only way to get into Heaven is to get rid of our sin. Jesus will do that for you free of charge, all you have to do is ask.
:It doesn't matter if you even believe there is a God. You can be an atheist and still reach union with God, according to my Hindu religion.
Your right, God don't care who you are. Athiest or whatever. All he asks is for you to believe. After all, he created you. But then once you believe in him you aren't an athiest anymore
:his makes a lot more logical sense to me than the doctrine about accepting Jesus as your personal savior, etc.
I don't understand, how can that Hindu doctrine make sense? Once you reach union with God, as you put it, you are no longer an athiest because now you believe in God, if you are reaching a union with him.
: :Hell, however, is full of murderers, drug addicts, child molesters, racists, hateful people etc... all of whom were never forgiven because they never asked for forgiveness! They all could have went to heaven but chose not to. It is so simple. Jesus don't care who you are or what you did.
: I beg top differ, I can't conceive of a God who judghes your beliefs as mroe important then your actions.
OK. Once you accept Jesus as your savior, everything you have ever done in the past is completely erased and forgotton about by God, no matter what it is. Of course, since that person is now born again they wont be living that lifestyle anymore, what ever it may be.
: : He wants to give you eternal life in paradise, all you have to do is confess your sins to him and believe in Him as Lord and God of the universe! Then you will have the desire to quit living in sin.
: : : : Do you want to contract any STD such as aids? Of course you don't.
: : : Well, that rules out blood tranfusions, organ transplants, going anywhere near a hospital, well, exposure to non-sterile environments of any sort really. Contamination happens. Deal with it, rather than just walling yourself up and trying to pretend that the problems the rest of the world suffers aren't yours; because you're far too holy to ever catch a cold.
: : Blood transfusions and organ transplants are almost 100% safe.
: Not true. They are a major vector for AIDS transmission, particularly in Africa.
: :There is only a small chance of getting a disease in that process, compared to sleeping with people you aren't married to (or hardly know, or both).
: Disease doesn't recognize marriage; marriage is a human construction. the definition of marriage, incidentally, varies a lot form culture to culture. AIDS is spread from husband to wife very commonly.
Yes, so if a person spreads a disease to thier spouse, and if they remain faithful from that day on and do not sin sexually they will not infect anyone else. For example, I know that I will never get any STD because I will marry a girl who has the same Christian values I have, so I know she is safe. Then I will not have sex with anyone but her and she will do the same so there will be no chance of getting any kind of sickness for either of us. That is the only way you know for sure you are OK. In our godless schools they tought us that abstinence is the best cure and they were right about that.
: : Besides, with organ transplants and blood transfusions, you have a chance of living (because you are dying anyway if you need a transplant)So the small risk of getting sick during such operations pales when compared to the possibility of getting a new chance of life. Sexual sin, on the other hand, you have nothing to gain by,
: I beg to differ. Love is the greatest thing in the world, and is worth any number of deaths.
You agree that love is the greatest thing in the world, and there is no greater love than this: that somebody lay down thier life for thier friends (I believe that that is John 15:13)
: :so why risk getting sick or dying?
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: :
: : : : After all, HIV started in the gay community.
: : : Absolute bollocks. It started in monkeys in Africa, mutated into a number of different strains one of which is usually passed via lesions caused by homosexual contact.
: : OK sorry-The virus that monkeys carried for years was passed on to gay humans, who then passed it to straight humans.
: Nonsense. AIDS originated in East African societies where homosexuality is almsot unheard of. The homosexually transimtted form of AIDS only came about in the 80s in the West, long afyer AIDS had staretd spreading in Africa. The vast majority of AIDS cases are heterosexually transmitted.
: : It is still much more rampant in th gay community.
: False. See above.
: :It is also all too common in poor African and Asian cities where the majority of the women are hookers(more sexual sin)
: You are evidently not too well acquainted with Africa or Asia. First of all, prostitution is far more common in the west than it is in many African countries; prostitution in Africa is concentrated in a few countries and cities. Second of all, prostitution carries less of a social stigma there; African societies are less sexually repressive, which accounts for the low incidence of rape and sexual abuse. thirdly, you need only ahandfiul of prostitutes to spread teh disease. The reason why Africa has a high incidence of sexually transmitted AIDS is partly due to the fact that birth control and condoms aren't widely used. If the US Congress would get their act together and tstart supporting international efforts to spread birth conrtol, we wouldn't be in this mess.
I was talking about those towns where almost all the women are hookers and where almost all the men solicit them. A group of churches in the US (mine included) supports a ministry that goes into one of the poorest, most prostitute infested neighborhoods in India or Bangladesh I forget and spreads the word of God to those women and thier children. These poor women think that prostitution is the answer to all thier problems. They are beaten regularly by thier clients.Now so many of them have been saved they even set up thier own church and thier main focus is to tell those other prostitutes how they, too can be set free from thier disgusting lifestyle.
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: : : : If you ignore God's word and decide you like having extra-marital affairs, or you like being gay, then don't come crying to me when the doctor tells you you have some kind of disease.
: This is ridiculous. Do you drive a car? Then don't come crying to me when you get into a car accident.
Driving a car has a purpose, to get from one place to another. Having extra marital affairs has no benefits whatsoever, unless you call breaking up a family or contracting a disease good.
: : : "some kind of disease"? Thrush? Chlamydia? Herpes? Syphilis? NSU? Scabies?
: : : (hint: you can get all of the above without any kind of sexual contact at all; yet they are commonly labelled as "sexually transmitted diseases" in the popular parlance.)
: : : : You know the consequences of your actions and you are taking a big risk and your life is at stake.
: : : That's perfectly true. Three quarters of gay men are likely to suffer from homophobic violence at some point in their life; beaten up by all those nice "normal" guys who are so screwed up themselves that they can't just live and let live. Heck, given the near-certainty of broken bones, AIDS isn't an everyday problem.
: : I don't support any violence at all, so yes, the straight people who beat up the gay people are sinning even more than the gay people themselves
: : : : Finally, and I've said this 100 times before, I don't care if your gay or not, I wouldn't treat you any differently. After all its your life, however homosexuality is not the norm nor is it right
: : : In your opinion.
: : : A challenge; give me three reasons the homosexuality is wrong.
: : : Here's the catch; they have to be reasons that have nothing to do with Christianity.
: :
: : 1) Homosexuality increases your chances by a million of getting a deadly disease.
: It also decreases your chance of getting someone pregnant.
: : 2)Nature made men born with certain parts and women born with certain parts so they work together,thats why there are men and women, and not just one sex
: Sex has other natural purposes besides procreation, for example social cohesion and teh release of tension. Thsi is why homosexuality is commonly found in nature. Our closeset evolutionary relatives, the bonobos, are commonly bisexual. If homosexuality is unnatural, then why did it evolve? It must ahve soem beneficial function.
That's all fine and dandy if you believe in evolution, which I dont. (That is another matter entirely, and a ridiculous one at that)
: : 3)Those are the main reasons that have nothing to do with Christianity
: She asked for 3 reasons, ypou only gave two.
