treetreeseven wrote:

BobPatterson wrote:

seahawk wrote:

Be proud of your granddaughter, she is doing the work of the Lord.

I don't know whether you are being sincere or perhaps making a joke.

What she is doing is targeting for "conversion" some of the many Israelis who visit New Zealand to hike in the mountains and along the coasts.

I happen to think of that "work" as an abomination, and not "of the Lord".

Wait... targeting Israelis for conversion? Wow.

Oh yes. Don't you understand, as a Christian you're right and have the truth and it's your job to make sure everyone else knows it. My mother for years has told a story about one of her friends (roommates?) in college who was Jewish. This is how she tells it: "she had an argument for everything I told her. They tell them what to say." To this day my mother cannot process that the Jewish girl wasn't swayed by her arguments--or that the girl's faith might be as strong or even better-informed than her own. She has even used it as a talking point in a rather heated discussion: "you're just like that Jewish girl! You've got an argument for everything."

luckyone wrote:

Oh yes. Don't you understand, as a Christian you're right and have the truth and it's your job to make sure everyone else knows it. My mother for years has told a story about one of her friends (roommates?) in college who was Jewish. This is how she tells it: "she had an argument for everything I told her. They tell them what to say." To this day my mother cannot process that the Jewish girl wasn't swayed by her arguments--or that the girl's faith might be as strong or even better-informed than her own. She has even used it as a talking point in a rather heated discussion: "you're just like that Jewish girl! You've got an argument for everything."

I doubt that I know your mother, but her college roommate sounds just like my cousin Barbara.

MY Jewish mother used to accuse me of having answers for everything. But when I once responded: "well Mom, I came by the talent honestly" she just smiled sweetly and dropped the subject. Same thing happened with her claim: "Oy, you are such a perfectionist!"

BobPatterson wrote:

Aaaah, Thank you. I can sleep now

I assure you that ensuring that you have a good night's rest is my highest priority.

BobPatterson wrote:

DocLightning wrote:

I'm too dense to comprehend how that fallacy (informal according to Wikipedia) might apply to the situation I discussed.

You claim that Liberty University does not represent the Church (i.e. Christianity) when they most certainly do.

DocLightning wrote:

when they most certainly do.

Same with "Evangelicals don´t support Trump", when they overwhelmingly voted for him...

best regards
Thomas

DocLightning wrote:

BobPatterson wrote:

Aaaah, Thank you. I can sleep now

I assure you that ensuring that you have a good night's rest is my highest priority.

BobPatterson wrote:

DocLightning wrote:

I'm too dense to comprehend how that fallacy (informal according to Wikipedia) might apply to the situation I discussed.

You claim that Liberty University does not represent the Church (i.e. Christianity) when they most certainly do.

I think it is true that evangelicals are naturally the loudest and therefore skew perceptions. They aren't a small lot, though - about 27% of Americans vs about 23% being Catholics and about 15% mainline Protestants. Why don't the Catholics or mainline Protestants get loud? Come on, Lutherans!

BobPatterson wrote:

luckyone wrote:

Oh yes. Don't you understand, as a Christian you're right and have the truth and it's your job to make sure everyone else knows it. My mother for years has told a story about one of her friends (roommates?) in college who was Jewish. This is how she tells it: "she had an argument for everything I told her. They tell them what to say." To this day my mother cannot process that the Jewish girl wasn't swayed by her arguments--or that the girl's faith might be as strong or even better-informed than her own. She has even used it as a talking point in a rather heated discussion: "you're just like that Jewish girl! You've got an argument for everything."

I doubt that I know your mother, but her college roommate sounds just like my cousin Barbara.

MY Jewish mother used to accuse me of having answers for everything. But when I once responded: "well Mom, I came by the talent honestly" she just smiled sweetly and dropped the subject. Same thing happened with her claim: "Oy, you are such a perfectionist!"

For my mother it's more the fact that the woman didn't agree with her, which in her mind means someone thinks she's "wrong," and as such didn't validate her (yes, my mother has issues...). So instead of acknowledging that the woman's faith was likely as sound as her own, it became "she was told what to say to resist being converted." Further exacerbating that is the fact that is likely the only time she's ever tried to "convert" someone, and it didn't go well for her, which loops back up to lack of validation. That insecurity is solidly intertwined her extremely conservative Southern Baptist upbringing--basically if you leave church feeling good or happy you weren't listening.. This upbringing teaches you that you're a lousy sinner, and her particular church was very big on testimony, small town tongue wagging, and emphasized being a good girl that nobody could ever say anything bad about.

luckyone wrote:

So instead of acknowledging that the woman's faith was likely as sound as her own,

Religion is a parasitic disease, and as all parasites it remove's the ability to see just that. Just like my favorite parasite, toxoplasma gondii, takes his hosts, a cat or mouse, fear of cats away. Selectively.
So, she maybe really just can't acknowledge that, if she contracted the right strain.
She was tought "how to resist conversion" is also nothing else but "dang, she got as good or better arguments than me, but I am just ignoring that."

Best regards
Thomas

luckyone wrote:

I've no idea what anyone else's experiences have been, but places like Liberty terrify me. They're religious in name only, and serve as thinly veiled political organizations and personality cults, and they have very low graduation rates. I went to a small, private Christian school that operated on many of the same dogmatic foundations as Liberty.

Was it at least accredited? Some of them are not which means a diploma from it is not worth the paper it's printed on in the real world.

tommy1808 wrote:

Religion is a parasitic disease, and as all parasites it remove's the ability to see just that. Just like my favorite parasite, toxoplasma gondii, takes his hosts, a cat or mouse, fear of cats away. Selectively.

You should stop this Atheist hate speech. You are simply taking actions of a small minority and generalizing them on a large minority to bash entire ideologies and all their followers.

LMP737 wrote:

luckyone wrote:

I've no idea what anyone else's experiences have been, but places like Liberty terrify me. They're religious in name only, and serve as thinly veiled political organizations and personality cults, and they have very low graduation rates. I went to a small, private Christian school that operated on many of the same dogmatic foundations as Liberty.

Was it at least accredited? Some of them are not which means a diploma from it is not worth the paper it's printed on in the real world.

Mine was, yes. But all the rest of that crap was still there.

DocLightning wrote:

You claim that Liberty University does not represent the Church (i.e. Christianity) when they most certainly do.

Doc, for clarity I have reposted my original statement here:

"It might be difficult to understand that Liberty University, activist evangelicals, or the religious right (reich?) do not represent "The Church" and that it is inappropriate to tar all of religion or a large portion of any faith with a broad brush.

Liberty University along with a very few others such as Oral Roberts, are an aberration in the United States."

An aberration is not representative of a whole. Even if an entity such as Liberty University is representative of a segment of a larger body, it is nevertheless not representative of the whole body.

"The Church" is the entire body of believers who claim to follow the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth (probably Yeshua or Joshua). That church is not monolithic. It has split and fractured many times. There is no single part of "The Church" that contains even a simple majority of all Christians.

Consider my Toyota minivan. It contains lots of nuts and bolts. No single nut (pun intended) is representative of Toyota.

Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the last Lubavitcher Rebbe, was certainly a Jew. He did not represent all of "Judaism".

Imam Sheikh Mohamed Elbar of the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge (also in Brooklyn, NY) who called for the beheading of the President of Egypt, is not representative of all of Islam.

From the course catalog at Liberty University:

"APOL 325 - Christianity and the Cults

"This course examines the history and beliefs of those systems that claim to be Christian yet deny fundamental Christian doctrines such as the sole sufficiency of the Bible, the Trinity, the deity of Christ, salvation by faith in Christ alone without works, the eternal punishment of the wicked, and other pertinent doctrines. Groups discussed include Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism, Seventh-day Adventism, Christian Science and others."

Even though "Mormonism" refers to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they are considered to be outside the Christian communion by groups such as Liberty U. and their ilk. Likewise for Catholics and many nominally Protestant denominations.

It is simply inconceivable to suggest that Liberty University in any way represents what they reject.

pvjin wrote:

tommy1808 wrote:

Religion is a parasitic disease, and as all parasites it remove's the ability to see just that. Just like my favorite parasite, toxoplasma gondii, takes his hosts, a cat or mouse, fear of cats away. Selectively.

You should stop this Atheist hate speech. You are simply taking actions of a small minority and generalizing them on a large minority to bash entire ideologies and all their followers.

Well said. One might add that Rabid Atheism is itself a form of religion.

BobPatterson wrote:

Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the last Lubavitcher Rebbe, was certainly a Jew. He did not represent all of "Judaism".

Except he did. Every Jew, from the Haredi to the Reconstructionists, represents Judaism. Everyone who calls themselves a Muslim represents all of Islam. Everyone who calls themselves Christian represents all of Christianity. Some represent worse or better. It seems like the worst ones are almost always the loudest.

But if you choose to be a member of a religion, and remember that all religion is a choice, you had better be prepared to own it.

pvjin wrote:

tommy1808 wrote:

Religion is a parasitic disease, and as all parasites it remove's the ability to see just that. Just like my favorite parasite, toxoplasma gondii, takes his hosts, a cat or mouse, fear of cats away. Selectively.

You should stop this Atheist hate speech. You are simply taking actions of a small minority and generalizing them on a large minority to bash entire ideologies and all their followers.

I just had some deja vu...

DocLightning wrote:

BobPatterson wrote:

Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the last Lubavitcher Rebbe, was certainly a Jew. He did not represent all of "Judaism".

Except he did. Every Jew, from the Haredi to the Reconstructionists, represents Judaism. Everyone who calls themselves a Muslim represents all of Islam. Everyone who calls themselves Christian represents all of Christianity. Some represent worse or better. It seems like the worst ones are almost always the loudest.

But if you choose to be a member of a religion, and remember that all religion is a choice, you had better be prepared to own it.

As a (admittedly bad) Catholic, I own up to my religion, but I do not own up to nor condone any legal, ethical, moral, or violent wrong-doing done in the name of my religion.

TWA772LR wrote:

As a (admittedly bad) Catholic, I own up to my religion, but I do not own up to nor condone any legal, ethical, moral, or violent wrong-doing done in the name of my religion.

If you support your church, then it is your responsibility to do what you can to work to stop it from behaving that way. If you aren't willing to accept responsibility for your religion, you shouldn't participate.

DocLightning wrote:

BobPatterson wrote:

Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the last Lubavitcher Rebbe, was certainly a Jew. He did not represent all of "Judaism".

Except he did. Every Jew, from the Haredi to the Reconstructionists, represents Judaism. Everyone who calls themselves a Muslim represents all of Islam. Everyone who calls themselves Christian represents all of Christianity. Some represent worse or better. It seems like the worst ones are almost always the loudest.

But if you choose to be a member of a religion, and remember that all religion is a choice, you had better be prepared to own it.

What religion does a secular or non-practicing Jew represent? What if he adopts a different religion. Does he stop being a Jew?

A member of one sect that rejects all other sects cannot be said to represent the "umbrella faith".

Do you seriously think that a Sunni Muslim represents a Shia or Wahhabi?

Try a thought experiment. Try viewing religion as spiritual politics. Is there but one party?

BobPatterson wrote:

What religion does a secular or non-practicing Jew represent? What if he adopts a different religion. Does he stop being a Jew?

Judaism is
1) One of at least three ethnicities (Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Ethiopian)
2) One of at least three cultures (as above).
3) A religion.

One cannot pick their ethnicity or their culture. One can pick their religion or choose no religion at all.

DocLightning wrote:

TWA772LR wrote:

As a (admittedly bad) Catholic, I own up to my religion, but I do not own up to nor condone any legal, ethical, moral, or violent wrong-doing done in the name of my religion.

If you support your church, then it is your responsibility to do what you can to work to stop it from behaving that way. If you aren't willing to accept responsibility for your religion, you shouldn't participate.

I don't want to get into theology, but people who commit atrocities in the name of religion are past the point of no return in terms of reasoning and logic. There simply is no stopping them once they get to that level. It is up to the Almighty to choose their fate.

I'm done with this conversation. (Nothing against you, Doc. I hold you in high regard on this site and I really do enjoy your posts as you are one of the few remaining members that contribute quality information to a.net; I'm just choosing to stop because I don't like having religious conversations.)

pvjin wrote:

tommy1808 wrote:

Religion is a parasitic disease, and as all parasites it remove's the ability to see just that. Just like my favorite parasite, toxoplasma gondii, takes his hosts, a cat or mouse, fear of cats away. Selectively.

You should stop this Atheist hate speech. You are simply taking actions of a small minority and generalizing them on a large minority to bash entire ideologies and all their followers.

I am on record in this forum saying that Religion shows itself only with harmless symptoms in most victims, but is occasionally lethal ... like when you fly planes into building, or hack your neighbor into pieces because he stooped giving money to the catholic church. No hate involved.
I am not advocating prison, mandatory treatment, deportation, refusing infected refugees or having travel bans for them, so ... if that is "hate speech" about Religion, what are your ramblings about Muslims? The notion is also ridiculous flat from the starting line, since no one in the history of ever, as far as i know, has ever hated people for being sick (well, there are those people that voted for Trump...). Or do you hate people for having cancer, HIV or Hepatitis?

Seeing religion as parasitic or an unintended side effect of otherwise useful behavior mechanisms is no fringe position in science.

best regards
Thomas

BobPatterson wrote:

Liberty University along with a very few others such as Oral Roberts, are an aberration in the United States."

An aberration is not representative of a whole. Even if an entity such as Liberty University is representative of a segment of a larger body, it is nevertheless not representative of the whole body.

An aberration? Liberty University is bog standard GOP Christianity, as it represents the President and nearly the entire cabinet, as well as most GOP politicians across the country. At this point any Christian that is a decent human being is the aberration.

MaverickM11 wrote:

BobPatterson wrote:

Liberty University along with a very few others such as Oral Roberts, are an aberration in the United States."

An aberration is not representative of a whole. Even if an entity such as Liberty University is representative of a segment of a larger body, it is nevertheless not representative of the whole body.

An aberration? Liberty University is bog standard GOP Christianity, as it represents the President and nearly the entire cabinet, as well as most GOP politicians across the country. At this point any Christian that is a decent human being is the aberration.

You can add that bog to the swamp that needs draining.