They need to hide that enticing ass. It's nuttin' but bait put there by the Debbil hisownself! Maybe the Muslims have the right idea!
41wsKv6EXXL._UL1500_.jpg
They need to hide that enticing ass. It's nuttin' but bait put there by the Debbil hisownself! Maybe the Muslims have the right idea!
41wsKv6EXXL._UL1500_.jpg
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness" - Mark Twain
Way back when I had an apartment in L.A. ... I had a buddy who lived two doors down ... an ex-Marine. He played football in college and married the head cheerleader. I will admit ... I DEFINITELY coveted my neighbor's wife ... so I'm already toast!
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness" - Mark Twain
Party-pooper!
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness" - Mark Twain
Sunny, Christians are saved through grace since Jesus and there is no accounting of sins at the seat of judgement like everyone talks about. There is only one simple thing to do to earn salvation per Jesus' teachings.
He didn't say don't bake cakes for gays, he didn't say don't wear rubbers, he didn't say any of the stuff that we hear today being discussed in the 'freedom of religion' discussions going on. In fact he said the OPPOSITE of what we're hearing from so-called christians.
and sitting in judgement is one of the most unchristian acts of all.
I'm about sick of hearing about persecuted christians.
But its a free country. Carry on.
BKB
I think the problem most Christians have is being sick and tired of having to be tolerant and understanding of other people's beliefs .... And having their beliefs pooped on, even made fun of.
A typical example would be not being allowed to say "merry Christmas", but by God you better not dis Hanukkah or kwanza. You'll get skinned for that.
That's how I see it anyway. And I'm not saying it's right to judge, even in those situations. But I'm not sure Jesus would sit back and take it either.
That's my problem anyway. I'm a Christian. And if you wanna ban this or that then fine. But don't tell me a Christian is cra-cra for not making a lesbian couple a wedding cake, but the rival bakery down the street is completely OK to refuse service to the same two carpet munchers ... because they are Arab and it's against their religion.
And that's exactly what's going on in a lot of cases. Not every case. But a lot of them.
And I have no clue if Jesus would make a gay wedding cake. Actually, now that I think about it, he probably would. And I bet it would taste awesome.
Arty, being tolerant and recognizing someone else's freedom to live and believe what they want are two entirely different things. And those terms are mingled pretty liberally by those folks making your points.
BKB
Well, its only the basis of the entire protestant religion.
BKB
YIKES!!! I almost quoted Sunny! My bad.
Anyway, Happy Festivis for the rest of us!
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness" - Mark Twain
So you say. I ain't a Protestant. And that is NOT biblical, period.
But whatever.
WARNING - Due to the rising costs of ammunition, warning shots will no longer be given.
That's what Posthole says. This is what the Bible says:
Hebrews 9:27New American Standard Bible (NASB)
27 And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment
Romans 14:12New American Standard Bible (NASB)
12 So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God.
Matthew 12:36New American Standard Bible (NASB)
36 But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment.
John 5: 28 Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice,
29 and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.
John 16:8New American Standard Bible (NASB)
8 And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment;
Acts 24:25New American Standard Bible (NASB)
25 But as he was discussing righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix became frightened and said, “Go away for the present, and when I find time I will summon you.”
Romans 14:10New American Standard Bible (NASB)
10 But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.
and best:
2 Corinthians 5:10New American Standard Bible (NASB)
10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
WARNING - Due to the rising costs of ammunition, warning shots will no longer be given.
Bucky if you're gonna make a adamant salvation statement, shouldn't it be only from the King James version ?
I guess John 3:16 is irrelevant then, eh?
Sorry, I wouldn't want to villify anybody.
BKB
Oh Lordy... the bible verses are coming out
To Arty's point. I think there's some more subtle (maybe not subtle) things at play where Christians get mocked and chastised much more these days than they used to. My generation, in my part of the world, Christian beliefs ruled the day. The religious rules were applied daily and in every instance where discipline was administered in one form or another.
Fast forward to today and somewhere along the way the "authority" of Christianity got pulled back a little bit for whatever reason. People felt empowered to speak about it in ways that would have gotten them shooshed and punished when they were younger.
The old lady admonishing with a bible and a tsk tsk has far less power these days. The community priest is just a man, no more no less and has no say. Stuff like that. to me, Christianity has lost it's grip on the country and Christians don't like it one bit. Quite naturally they feel slighted, ignored and lost some control as people have marched to their own drummer if they feel the need to do so.
Just something I've noticed in my wiser years. Not saying it's all day every day, but there's some of that going on, in my opinion. And we've already discussed opinions
If we all threw our problems in a pile, and you saw everyone else's problems-- you'd take yours back.
As has been said many times before, I came from a very religious family. I was a good little boy and attended Sunday School and Church every Sunday (my grandfather was the preacher and even performed my baptism). Heck, we even did the Wednesday night supper thing. But, even as a kid, I was fascinated by science ... wanted to grow up to be a scientist. At a young age, religion simply started not to make sense to me. I had too many questions that could only be answered with, "Because the Good Book says so, that's why!" I would always look at ALL the information available to me and analyze it. (My SEAL buddy tells me I try to "brain-fuck" everything to death) Anyway, as a kid, my mind and devotion started drifting and before long, I became a "heathen".
Anyway, I made straight A's in school and when I got to highschool, I took all advanced classes (well, as advanced as they could be in h/s). I had all the math and science courses available at the time up through Physics and Trigonometry/Calculus. I was chosen as one of only 10 top science students from the state to attend a summer seminar at a local university one summer. (Laser's were a new thing in the 60's, we played with them and I was fascinated by them) Obviously I didn't persue a higher education other than a year in college as an Engineering major, then did my thing during 'Nam ... but never went back to school. Contrary to popular belief here, I still (and always have had) an open mind regarding religion ... I'm always open to answers ... but they HAVE to make sense to me and not be just words that somebody says are true ... but they actually don't know themselves. KNOWING and BELIEVING (Fact and Faith) are two different things in my eye.
Why did I start this post with my love of science? Just the other day I ran across a study on analytical thinking and religion. I think it pretty well matches the religious road my life and way of thinking have gone. Maybe I now know why I never really accepted what was being fed to me as a kid. It's a long read and I don't expect many here to bother, but it IS very interesting ... to ME anyway ... and does answer some of the questions I've had for years, as to why I think the way I do.
I know many of us hate to follow links, and probably even hate reading looooong posts, but I'll post it here anyway just in case. To ME ... it explains a few things. (Note: I'm not insinuating I'm a freaking genius, I just have this sort of basic mindset) If nothing else, it's at least an interesting view.
(From the Scientific American)
Losing Your Religion: Analytic Thinking Can Undermine Belief
A series of new experiments shows that analytic thinking can override intuitive assumptions, including those that underlie religious belief
April 26, 2012 |By Marina Krakovsky
People who are intuitive thinkers are more likely to be religious, but getting them to think analytically even in subtle ways decreases the strength of their belief, according to a new study in Science.
The research, conducted by University of British Columbia psychologists Will Gervais and Ara Norenzayan, does not take sides in the debate between religion and atheism, but aims instead to illuminate one of the origins of belief and disbelief. "To understand religion in humans," Gervais says, "you need to accommodate for the fact that there are many millions of believers and nonbelievers."
One of their studies correlated measures of religious belief with people's scores on a popular test of analytic thinking. The test poses three deceptively simple math problems. One asks: "If it takes five machines five minutes to make five widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?" The first answer that comes to mind—100 minutes—turns out to be wrong. People who take the time to reason out the correct answer (five minutes) are, by definition, more analytical—and these analytical types tend to score lower on the researchers' tests of religious belief.
But the researchers went beyond this interesting link, running four experiments showing that analytic thinking actually causes disbelief. In one experiment, they randomly assigned participants to either the analytic or control condition. They then showed them photos of either Rodin's The Thinker or, in the control condition, of the ancient Greek sculpture Discobolus, which depicts an athlete poised to throw a discus. (The Thinker was used because it is such an iconic image of deep reflection that, in a separate test with different participants, seeing the statue improved how well subjects reasoned through logical syllogisms.) After seeing the images, participants took a test measuring their belief in God on a scale of 0 to 100. Their scores on the test varied widely, with a standard deviation of about 35 in the control group. But it is the difference in the averages that tells the real story: In the control group, the average score for belief in God was 61.55, or somewhat above the scale's midpoint. On the other hand, for the group who had just seen The Thinker, the resulting average was only 41.42. Such a gap is large enough to indicate a mild believer is responding as a mild nonbeliever—all from being visually reminded of the human capacity to think.
Another experiment used a different method to show a similar effect. It exploited the tendency, previously identified by psychologists, of people to override their intuition when faced with the demands of reading a text in a hard-to-read typeface. Gervais and Norenzayan did this by giving two groups a test of participants' belief in supernatural agents like God and angels, varying only the font in which the test was printed. People who took the belief test in the unclear font (a typewriterlike font set in italics) expressed less belief than those who took it in a more common, easy-to-read typeface. "It's such a subtle manipulation," Norenzayan says. "Yet something that seemingly trivial can lead to a change that people consider important in their religious belief system." On a belief scale of 3 to 21, participants in the analytic condition scored an average of almost two points lower than those in the control group.
Analytic thinking undermines belief because, as cognitive psychologists have shown, it can override intuition. And we know from past research that religious beliefs—such as the idea that objects and events don't simply exist but have a purpose—are rooted in intuition. "Analytic processing inhibits these intuitions, which in turn discourages religious belief," Norenzayan explains.
Harvard University psychologist Joshua Greene, who last year published a paper on the same subject with colleagues Amitai Shenhav and David Rand, praises this work for its rigorous methodology. "Any one of their experiments can be reinterpreted, but when you've got [multiple] different kinds of evidence pointing in the same direction, it's very impressive."
The study also gets high marks from University of California, Irvine, evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala, the only former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science to have once been ordained as a Catholic priest, and who continues to assert that science and religion are compatible. Ayala calls the studies ingenious, and is surprised only that the effects are not even stronger. "You would expect that the people who challenge the general assumptions of their culture—in this case, their culture's religious beliefs—are obviously the people who are more analytical," he says.
The researchers, for their part, point out that both reason and intuition have their place. "Our intuitions can be phenomenally useful," Gervais says, "and analytic thinking isn't some oracle of the truth."
Greene concurs, while also raising a provocative question implicit in the findings: "Obviously, there are millions of very smart and generally rational people who believe in God," he says. "Obviously, this study doesn't prove the nonexistence of God. But it poses a challenge to believers: If God exists, and if believing in God is perfectly rational, then why does increasing rational thinking tend to decrease belief in God?"
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness" - Mark Twain
You kinda got it right.
My point was more towards why Christian beliefs are bashed, but eerbody' is scared to take a jab at Muslims, Hindu, etc etc.
Their all religious beliefs, why is Christianity "picked" on... While others aren't equally picked on?
The "they" I speak of is mostly talking heads, news media, both print and television.
Picked on by whom, Arty? I worked in business for 35 years. At no time has anyone ever told me not to say Merry Christmas. F course, I always thought telling Jewish people That was kind of crass, but hey if that's your badge of christianity, go for it. Have you ever been asked not to use that greeting? Its talked about today like its verboten. Well no it isn't. That's bullshit. The problem is, the people who choose to exercise their own rights to just say Happy
Holidays are the ones being villifies by so-called christians.
No, this persecution stuff is all a bunch of bullshit.
BKB
OK, I've got a question for all you religious scholars: can I still consider myself a Christian if I believe in the teachings of Christ but do not believe in his divinity?
I get where you're coming from Johnboy. I've always wondered if I'm honest, lead a good life, am good to people, etc. etc. etc. ... IF there is a Hell, will I be sent there anydamnway? If so, why? Just because I didn't accept Christ into my life? Seems kinda harsh to me. Personally, I think I'll just rot and the worms will eat me ... but what the heck? It's still a valid question.
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness" - Mark Twain
Same here P-hole ... I've told people Merry Christmas all my life ... NEVER once has anybody protested. I, like you, believe it's all media hype.
When I had my business, I sent Christmas cards to all my customers unless I knew they were Jewish, then I sent Hanukkah cards. I'm sure I screwed up a time or two not knowing, but to my knowledge, I never lost a customer ... and never had a complaint.
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness" - Mark Twain
How about Merry F'in Christmas? I've heard that more than once in my life
If we all threw our problems in a pile, and you saw everyone else's problems-- you'd take yours back.
That's reserved for close friends.
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness" - Mark Twain
John 3:16 is relevant, but not "in toto". There's more than one verse to the bible. Got to take all of them........all or none.
NTB, why would I want to speak like they did in 1611???? For what? Bible was written in Greek and Hebrew.........for me and you to read it, it has to be translated. I prefer to read more like I talk, not all the 'thou' and such.
WARNING - Due to the rising costs of ammunition, warning shots will no longer be given.
Headed out the door. But thought of this, Posty.
John 3:16 is a part of our Law. But it isn't the only part, no more than the law that says you have to pay income tax is the sole law on taxation. There's other taxes. You have to take the whole of the law, all parts.
And that verse says how much God loved US. But how much do we love Him? Jesus himself said twice......in John 14:15 and again in John 15:14 that if you love Him, you will keep his commandments. That requires you to believe there are commandments, that you have to figure out what they are, and that you have to follow them.........
Later!
WARNING - Due to the rising costs of ammunition, warning shots will no longer be given.
I see. So deathbed confessions are non-existent because at the seat of judgement you'd always come up short on the scale.
I always thought the blood of the lamb washed away all sins and belief was the only requirement. You tend to take a more old testament view I reckon. Probably cause you was a boy during those times yuh?
Have a great trip! Don't wreck that new hoopie!
BKB
Nope, Bucky has always said he's a "New Testament guy" all the way. I keep wondering when the 3rd Edition is going to be released.
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness" - Mark Twain
The English Standard version is one of the most accurate translations not to be confused with a transliteration. The King James in the old english is virtually unreadable. The New International version is pretty accurately translated and very easy reading.
The thing is the new testament was written primarily in greek which does not translate into english very well. Greek is a pretty complex language and many times a good greek lexicon is needed to grasp the true meaning behind a word. Most people are not willing to go to that much trouble and just listen to the preacher which is not always a good thing.....see Creflo Dollar.
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones"
Albert Einstein