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If anyone could stop sinning on their own, then Christ would not have come to sacrifice Himself for our sins. You can play the wise guy if it makes you feel better. Neither your opinion nor mine will influence what God says. As I said before, people take issue because they don't want to face up to their sin. You can dislike me you can dislike Gods message, but our opinions and emotions don't change truth. Before I believed, I too made fun of believers and what they said- especially when it conflicted with my behavior or beliefs! That was MUCH easier than looking in the mirror.
So we should all sit outside your house and REMIND you 24/7 you are a sinner? Didn't Jesus say GO AND SIN NO MORE...why would one continue to sin after being told by Jesus to stop sinning?
I'm here to hold a mirror to fundies' bullying, bigotry, idiocy and lies.
And it pleases me that you don't like it.
Because maybe you're starting to recognize yourself in that mirror.
You forget, Trout, they have the Fundashield in front of the mirror.
You forget, Trout, they have the Fundashield in front of the mirror.
I understand it's an uphill battle all the way.
But then I hear testimonies like thrill's, mordant's, No Capo's, Freak's et al and take hope that one never knows when just the right words might open a crack - one wide enough to allow a ray of light - if not in the person we're addressing, one of the lurkers.
Once that happens, they can never again embrace the darkness of fundamentalism.
That is victory enough for me, if I should ever play a part in creating such a crack.
Jeff, I suspect that you feel overwhelmed by what you perceive to be negativity toward you as a person. This, in turn, has you (quite naturally) responding in kind and so it becomes a game of tit-for-tat and creates even more animosity. What IS being addressed negatively, of course, is your unshakable belief that you and you alone are right and that everyone else is wrong. You are the good guy, they the enemy. In actuality, it's your closed mindedness on this particular topic that is under attack more so than you personally. Unfortunately, it's impossible to disconnect 'the belief' from 'the believer' for obvious reasons. This is why the typical Christian catch-cry of "Hate the sin but love the sinner" is no more than meaningless rhetoric. One cannot separate the 'sin' from the one doing the alleged 'sinning'. Similarly so in your case and you're seeing the obvious results from this.
Is there some way we can discuss this topic in a more reasonable manner? I commended you previously for an act of forgiveness (without any knowledge of the specific back story) because it's 'the Christian thing' to forgive. It surprised me that, given the rather harsh 'fundamentalism' contained in your previous posts, that you would actually show some human compassion for others by 'forgiving' them. I was impressed! See what I mean about the picture of yourself that you've created here? That said, you have the ability to forgive others but yet you remain absolutely unrelenting with regard to homosexuality, even though the scriptures that are usually used to condemn gay people have been presented to you and refuted as such in both a sensible and a theological manner. Why do you persist in using the Bible to support your stance on the topic when you've been shown that it doesn't do any such thing? You must know this or, at least, this must surely have you questioning your beliefs on the matter. Is it pride that is getting in the way? To hell with pride! Afraid of 'losing face'? So what? You're no different to the rest of us. None of us want to lose face and be shown to be wrong ...but sometimes we ARE wrong and sometimes we might have to temporarily lose face. It's not permanent.
So, how do we continue this discussion? It IS an important one TO discuss as more and more churches are opening their doors both to homosexual people and to gay married people. So, what do you say? How do we reconcile our differences on this matter? Or, is that - do you think - impossible?
excellent post,Romulus. Perhaps a sort of cease fire from this side would help. I think jeffbase is only repeating what he has learned and may not be as hardened into that stance as it might seem.
excellent post,Romulus. Perhaps a sort of cease fire from this side would help. I think jeffbase is only repeating what he has learned and may not be as hardened into that stance as it might seem.
With the first line of his last paragraph in post #1051, jeff came a very, very long way for a fundamentalist. And if he ever repeated that to one of his fellow fundamentalists they would be all over him to pound him back into the mold.
That's why I reverted to trying to teach in post# 1064. What may seem a baby step to us, is, for him, in his world, a giant leap forward.
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