re accepting jeesus in your heart disclaimer throughout this post there are statements and questions which could easily be interpreted as being sarcastic they are not i have written this reply in the most even handed manner that i can with no emotions boiling to the surface as it was written please accept this as a serious attempt to foster dialog and rest assurred that i make every attempt to make fun of no one except myself gsu uxa ecn bgu edu eric molas writes firstly i am an atheist i am not posting here as an immature flame start but rather to express an opinion to my intended audience the human being is an animal who has due to his her advanced mental facilities developed religious as a satisfiable solution to explain the unexplainable hmmm there are other animals on this planet with advanced mental facilities which have not developed religion as a satisfactory explaination for the unexplained why is this so further it appears that only humans have a need to explain the unexplained why is this so the other animals on this planet including those with advanced mental facilities seem perfectly content in their ignorance i d like to point out that your presuppositions scream out at me from your unsupported statement they are humans are animal only religion exists as a crutch so that the unexplained need not be researched religion was made up by humans to address a perceived need the biological aspect of humans is deified that is all aspects of human life can be categorized in a hierarchical structure with biology at the apex needless to say i disagree with your strong opinion and the underlying presuppositions christianity is an infectious cult the reasons it flourishes are because it gives people without hope or driven purpose in life a safety blanked to hide behind oh wow all i have to do is follow this christian moral standard and i get eternal happiness for all of you found jeezus how many of you were on the brink i disagree that christianity is an infectious cult it has certainly shown itself to be persistent as a belief system in spite of various persecutions throughout the past two millenia that it continues to persevere does not demonstrate that it is infectious in a derrogatory sense it may be that it provides a workable system for its adherents and i would argue that this is the case i disagree that christianity is a safety blanket which supplants hope and purpose rather it points an individual to the one source of hope and purpose there is nothing hidden about a christian s source for hope and purpose of what usefulness to you is the distinction between internally motivated hope and purpose and externally given hope and purpose is the apparent loss of control over one s own life the problem or is it something else finally one does not appropriate eternal happiness by following christian moral standards indeed the sole reason for the existance of christianity is because standards are inadequate to save people from their imperfections moral standards are merely guides to the christian the real power to moral living is given to the christian in the person of god s spirit heaven is one of two final states that christian doctrine postulates however christians are generally not motivated to live according to christian moral standards by this promised future reward rather they are motivated by the perceived benefits to them in the here and now but i digress the other reason christianity flourishes is its infectious nature a best friend of mine breifly entered a christian group and within months they set ministry guidelines for him which basicaly said this priority spread the word many christian organizations are concerned with evangelism as a priority and rightly so for it was jesus himself who gave this as a priority for his followers however it is not the penultimate priority as evangelism is normally understood i e preach the word convert at nearly any cost repeat with new convert ad infinitum rather such evangelism is generally best done through respecting the opinions of others while demonstrating the very real benefits of a christian lifestyle this demonstration should be so powerful that it compels the non christian to seek out the christian to ask why needless to say such a demonstration is not easily accom plished it takes a radical committment to the person of jesus it does not happen quickly so perseverance on the part of the christian is required and it cannot occur where no personal bonds of friendship exist it is ineffective with strangers who cannot evaluate the demonstration over time and it is easy to alienate or harm others if the sole purpose of being a friend is to gain a conversion as a long time christian nearly years i view with some skep ticism all evangelism programs which incorporate a hurry up attitude pressured conversions may ultimately be worse than no conversion at all because the pressured convert realizes s he was coerced and disavows christianity when they would have been open to it in the future had they not been taken advantage of now the bible states that it is the very spirit of god which brings conviction of wrong doing to people i am content to do my part witness and let the spirit do the rest we are just animals we need sleep food and we reproduce and we die we are far more than animals we sleep eat reproduce and die just as other animals do true but we are also capable of more than this if your personal vision of humanity or of yourself is so limited i can only hope and pray that you will someday find a more expansive view for reflection what animals have the wide variety of performing arts that humans do how is it that humans can learn the language of other humans or animals but that other animals cannot do so how is it that humans can organize themselves in various social structures whereas other animals have only one structure religion especially christianity is nothing more than a drug blatant assertion christianity is not physically addictive christianity is not psychologically addictive christianity is not a thing which one snorts ingests shoots up it is a relationship with a living being you might as validly characterize any close knit relationship with this appelation some people use drugs as an escape from reality christians inject themselves with jeezus and live with that high there are jesus freaks who let the emotional aspects of worship and christian living gain and retain the upper hand even so this does not by itself invalidate the foundation from which these things flow it pities me how many millions of lives have been lost in religious wars of which christianity has had no small part guilty by association that christianity which forces itself upon another is not christianity at all when christians see a non believer they say that person is blind to the truth but they cannot realize that it is they who live with this mask of fakeness each day jesus was just prophet who happened to have a large influence because at that time the romans were circa ad dispersing the jewish population and communities needed some sort of cohesive element to keep them strong in that time of dire need you appear to have an amazing certainty about what really happened years ago how did you come by it i cannot accept your conclusion that jesus influence was a sole result of the roman sack of jerusalem in ad he was years gone by this time it strains the bounds of credulity to assert that nothing about jesus life was noteworthy until the sack i must go these are but a few of my thoughts on christianity christianity is having a relationship with jesus christ himself what do you know of him we read the world wrong phil buckland and say that it deceives us psb eece ksu edu tagore from stray birds psb matt ksu ksu edu
