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Post by Brother. Ross on Feb 14, 2010 20:38:15 GMT -5
Tuesday January 19th 2010, University of North Carolina at Greensboro: Greensboro, NCI was almost in a bad accident on the interstate while driving to campus this morning. As traffic suddenly slowed, a vehicle was flying behind me, we swerved in opposite directions and he barely missed t-boning me. Thank God! When I arrived on campus at noon someone was already preaching on a step stool to about 10 -15 students. I politely introduced myself to his partner who was recording him, and was informed that they were from a local church and had been preaching since 9am. With no intent to heckle him I leaned on a tree and listened to the preacher for about 10 minutes, and when I heard him state; “I sin, we all sin, everybody has sin, sin is not what makes you and I different,” I raised my hand and began asking him questions concerning this lie. (1 John 3:6,9; Romans 6:1,6,22). He quoted the same passage that the students quote in failing to justify their sinning lifestyle. As he attempted to ignore me and my questions I walked towards him and slightly lifted my voice asking him more questions about repentance and sin. He soon began pointing at me blurting "this man is a false Prophet," and claimed I teach and preach sinless perfection and that a person can lose their salvation. He came down off his step and as it appeared he was preparing to leave, I stood next to him and began preaching to the students that were already there. Just before he left he stated a Christian can rape a female and not lose their salvation. In about 5 minutes a man who was a bit angry began pushing me, screaming in my face and following me. This professing Christian demanded I leave the campus immediately, claimed my message and buttons were offensive, and that I was being intolerant and rude. Then he ripped of two of my no “sin” buttons and went and talked to the Calvinist preachers on the side line. Beside this incident there were not any major hecklers, or brawlers to deal with. There were sodomites in the crowd throughout the day, but they were calmer and not as loud as usual. The crowd later grew near 100 then quickly closed in on me, and eventually dwindled. I preached hard and loud and touched on several different topics, and mentioned several different sins. I had some good and civil debate with a bald head, red bearded “Muslim” convert. The then present small crowd listened attentively. There also were sincere questions asked from Catholics and atheists towards the end of the day. Many were humble and quietly listening as I answered questions and taught. I was very pleased with today’s meeting overall and was thankful that many students welcomed the grace of God. I left the campus at 4pm before hearing several supportive and encouraging remarks from different students.
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Post by Kerrigan on Feb 16, 2010 12:21:21 GMT -5
Sounds like a good day at the office! That's good that they seem to be getting calmer for you. Glad you are still there brother, otherwise all UNCG would have to listen to is a man who will dull their conscience, strengthen their hands in their sin and walk right off into Hell with him! Keep it up...
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Post by Jesse Morrell on Feb 16, 2010 20:03:39 GMT -5
1 John clearly states the difference between the children of God and the children of the devil is that the former are righteous and the latter are unrighteous, that the former keep God's commandments and the latter break God's commandments.
I've heard worse. These preachers are of the devil. They don't attack sin, they attack holiness. Pathetic.
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Post by Brother. Ross on Mar 12, 2010 11:21:06 GMT -5
Absolutely right!!
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Post by mollyohio on Apr 19, 2010 0:15:18 GMT -5
Tuesday January 19th 2010, University of North Carolina at Greensboro: Greensboro, NCJust before he left he stated a Christian can rape a female and not lose their salvation. I suppose it's that school of thought that leads me to be confused with moral agnostics being considered less likely to be saved than less moral "Christians". Please note-- this isn't in reference to your beliefs, just in general. I do "sin" in the view of the Ten Commandments, however I do not do anything that hurts anyone else (which I know the most of you disagree with because my sin is contributing to the sin of others however, I do not see it that way). I suppose you see both myself and the rapist "Christian" as hellbound, though I do hope that you find me closer to an ideal lifestyle.
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Post by benjoseph on Apr 19, 2010 13:59:32 GMT -5
I do "sin" in the view of the Ten Commandments, however I do not do anything that hurts anyone else I thought agnostics fail to acknowledge God. Based on that, "moral agnostics" seems like an oxymoron. By suppressing gratitude toward God you hurt God, you hurt the Lord Jesus, you hurt the Holy Spirit, you hurt any of God's creatures that are aware of your disregard for God, on judgment day everyone will be hurt to hear you confess to God about your ingratitude, and you hurt yourself both in this life and after the judgment. If a loving and intelligent creator did not design your mind then how can you trust it when it tells you that you are an agnostic? Maybe it's just a glitch that you should ignore. What does it matter if you don't love Jesus? If someone died for me and I disregarded them, refusing to honor them with my whole life, but flattered myself by saying I lived a good lifestyle, how could I have any respect for myself?
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Post by mollyohio on Apr 19, 2010 14:21:49 GMT -5
I thought agnostics fail to acknowledge God. Based on that, "moral agnostics" seems like an oxymoron. By suppressing gratitude toward God you hurt God, you hurt the Lord Jesus, you hurt the Holy Spirit, you hurt any of God's creatures that are aware of your disregard for God, on judgment day everyone will be hurt to hear you confess to God about your ingratitude, and you hurt yourself both in this life and after the judgment. If a loving and intelligent creator did not design your mind then how can you trust it when it tells you that you are an agnostic? Maybe it's just a glitch that you should ignore. What does it matter if you don't love Jesus? If someone died for me and I disregarded them, refusing to honor them with my whole life, but flattered myself by saying I lived a good lifestyle, how could I have any respect for myself? To answer your first idea, seeing as I do not necessarily believe in God, or see Jesus as necessarily the son of God, I do not believe I am hurting anyone. Moreover, I think that if God created me solely for me to express him gratitude and obey him at all times, that God is a bigger narcissist than myself, or the archangel Satan. Secondly, "If a loving and intelligent creator did not design your mind then how can you trust it when it tells you that you are an agnostic? " Well, if a loving and intelligent creator did not design my loving and intelligent creator, how can I believe he who created me to be loving and intelligent? No one can completely trust their own mind. Otherwise, I apologize for making this a theological discussion when it was meant to be a response to a particular circumstance.
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Post by benjoseph on Apr 19, 2010 22:22:29 GMT -5
..if God created me solely for me to express him gratitude and obey him at all times, that God is a bigger narcissist than myself, or the archangel Satan. God created you to love him and be loved by him. Since he is extremely generous and extremely wise the only sane expression of your love for him would naturally include gratitude and obedience. You would have to hate yourself in order to disobey someone who always knows what is best for you and you'd have to be all rotten in your heart to not be forever grateful for being given life. So if by "bigger narcissist" you mean "more reasonable person" then your sentence "makes sense" (not that you necessarily believe in making sense). None of this makes a difference if you have evolved to such a level of intelligence that you see through ideas like "reasonableness". wow.....are you a marijuana smoker? Says your mind. I was thinking about how people compare themselves to others to make themselves seem better. Maybe you've heard the story that Jesus told about that. You comparing yourself to a rapist and perhaps a christian hypocrite as well brought this to mind. “Two men went up to the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, 'God, I thank You that I am not like other men—swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I tithe on all things, as many as I acquire.' And the tax collector, standing far away, would not so much as lift his eyes towards heaven, but beat on his chest, saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner.' I say to you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted."
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Post by mollyohio on Apr 19, 2010 23:35:48 GMT -5
Asking if I smoke marijuana because I expressed your circular reasoning is insulting and irrelevant. I absolutely do not smoke marijuana, and that was completely out of place and rude.
Beyond that, if you would like to continue this discussion, I invite you to personal message me or begin a discussion on an appropriate section of the forums because we are debating in an area that is to be used for witnessing and preaching.
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Post by benjoseph on Apr 21, 2010 14:19:39 GMT -5
Asking if I smoke marijuana because I expressed your circular reasoning is insulting and irrelevant. I absolutely do not smoke marijuana, and that was completely out of place and rude. Beyond that, if you would like to continue this discussion, I invite you to personal message me or begin a discussion on an appropriate section of the forums because we are debating in an area that is to be used for witnessing and preaching. Well... I don't necessarily believe that witnessing and preaching exist so I don't see how I could be breaking any rules. I don't understand why you show concern for your own honor (not a rapist, not a drug user) considering the one who made you doesn't deserve any concern for his.
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Post by mollyohio on Apr 21, 2010 16:41:19 GMT -5
The ones who made me are my mother and my father, and I honor them just fine, thanks.
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Post by Kureji on Apr 23, 2010 11:30:08 GMT -5
This is the kind of conversation that should be taking place in World Debating View, right? I wish it would, I so love these types of conversations and I'm not supposed to be posting like this out of there within reason. Though how can I pass up one of my favorite topics? First to Brother Ross, that preacher sounded like a fool teaching Jesus light and just couldn't take your preaching and stormed off like a toddler. I thought agnostics fail to acknowledge God. Based on that, "moral agnostics" seems like an oxymoron. Agnostics do not deny the possibility of God, but are not convinced that he exists either. Failing to acknowledge God seems a little strong of a statement. Moral Agnostic would be someone who is unsure of morals, which is not an oxymoron. I believe she ment an Agnostic with Morals though, which would be an Agnostic who still has a strong moral foundation of what they believe to be right and wrong. This is not an oxymoron, it just means that they may not be sure of the basis of their moral standing. By suppressing gratitude toward God you hurt God, you hurt the Lord Jesus, you hurt the Holy Spirit, you hurt any of God's creatures that are aware of your disregard for God, on judgment day everyone will be hurt to hear you confess to God about your ingratitude, and you hurt yourself both in this life and after the judgment. I suppose you meant ingratitude in the first sentence. You know showing my ingratitude towards William Hanna and Joseph Barbera hurts them, hurts Tom the cat, and hurts Jerry the mouse. It hurts all of his other imaginary cartoons, and hurts all of the children who enjoy those cartoons. Whenever you visit toontown and confess your ingratitude, you will really hurt after being put through a Rube Goldberg machine which involves a bowling ball rolling down a track and one of those birds that pecks like a metronome. When someone doesn't really believe in your faith, trying to scare them in to believing it kind of sounds the same as whats above. What does it matter if you don't love Jesus? If someone died for me and I disregarded them, refusing to honor them with my whole life, but flattered myself by saying I lived a good lifestyle, how could I have any respect for myself? Yeah again with the your faith part, you're assuming that Jesus dying for our sins thing from your religion. I'm not really buying that, see I'm finding it more likely the Romans just wanted to try and shut down the newest and coolest cult. I am grateful for his death as about as much as I am remorseful for stealing land from the Native Americans, I didn't do it, it didn't involve me. Same with Molly, she didn't have anything to do with Jesus being nailed to the cross, though you and your book claim she should worship and devote her life to it. Please. God created you to love him and be loved by him. and worship him and follow all of his rules in a book. Though never be around. Remember though, faith lets you hear and feel God. Also only idiots can't see the king's new suit. Since he is extremely generous and extremely wise the only sane expression of your love for him would naturally include gratitude and obedience. You would have to hate yourself in order to disobey someone who always knows what is best for you and you'd have to be all rotten in your heart to not be forever grateful for being given life.. Lets make a deal, God shows himself and proves that he's the real deal and I'll start thanking God for giving me life. Until then, none of the other possible Deities will be getting my love and devotion either. No one can completely trust their own mind. Says your mind. Am I the only Agnostic around here that trusts my own mind? ..if a loving and intelligent creator did not design my loving and intelligent creator, how can I believe he who created me to be loving and intelligent? wow.....are you a marijuana smoker? Yeah I'm not really getting where that was going either... perhaps shes saying something along the lines of who created the creator? Though if we take it at face value, that she can only believe she is smart if her parents were smart, and their parents were smart and forward down the line recursively, eventually we might find someone not smart and deduce everyone to be not smart which is a strange argument to make. Though claiming she smokes marijuana because of it is just silly. No one is perfect after all, and I'm sure she just miswrote a word or so, such as you did in your first post.
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Post by mollyohio on Apr 23, 2010 21:46:45 GMT -5
"If a loving and intelligent creator did not design your mind then how can you trust it when it tells you that you are an agnostic? Maybe it's just a glitch that you should ignore."" Secondly, "If a loving and intelligent creator did not design your mind then how can you trust it when it tells you that you are an agnostic? " Well, if a loving and intelligent creator did not design my loving and intelligent creator, how can I believe he who created me to be loving and intelligent? What I meant by that is that his argument suggests that you can't trust anything that was not created by a loving and intelligent creator, which means that I cannot trust God because he has "always existed" and was not created by a loving and intelligent creator--- basically that benjoseph's entire argument there is bogus.
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Post by Jessicker on Apr 24, 2010 16:04:25 GMT -5
I don't understand the part where agnostics think they can be moral. How can you consider anything "right" or "wrong" if you don't believe in God (or at least a god)? What is absolute truth for an agnostic? Where does it come from? I understand (even if I believe them to be wrong) where people from other religions can think that they're moral because they believe in a god or gods that have defined absolute truth, but I don't understand where agnostics or atheists can think they're moral or where their sense of absolute truth comes from. By the way, I am not trying to be rude. It's hard to write a message like this over the Internet and not seem rude or condescending. I really just don't understand.
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Post by mollyohio on Apr 25, 2010 19:40:49 GMT -5
I'm using the world moral here to basically describe what most societies would consider moral, acceptable behavior. I understand that its impossible to have a moral absolute if you're approaching morality from this standpoint. I generally do right as I see right by me. Now, when I ask you all if you find me moral in relation to a "Christian" rapist, you may use your viewpoint of moral or not, that's fine.
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Post by Kureji on Apr 27, 2010 15:10:34 GMT -5
I don't understand the part where agnostics think they can be moral. How can you consider anything "right" or "wrong" if you don't believe in God (or at least a god)? What is absolute truth for an agnostic? Where does it come from? I understand (even if I believe them to be wrong) where people from other religions can think that they're moral because they believe in a god or gods that have defined absolute truth, but I don't understand where agnostics or atheists can think they're moral or where their sense of absolute truth comes from. By the way, I am not trying to be rude. It's hard to write a message like this over the Internet and not seem rude or condescending. I really just don't understand. I'm a moral relativist personally, which means that morals are relative to everyone and what is moral to one person may be immoral to others but neither is wrong. A lot of people don't like this point of view because then you can argue that no one has a right to hold anything against anyone, but honestly those people are either people who are looking to abuse such a system, or those who are afraid of such a system. Now while I said morals are relative towards individuals, they are also relative towards society. Society comes together and agrees on a set of morals that they will all abide and this is how law and order is formed. Now everyone might not agree with the morals of society but it will be widely accepted. Now what are these morals formed from? Well it depends on the person, some peoples morals are formed from religious teaching, or perhaps even scholastic teaching such as from a college. Others simply define their set of morals as a rules that they wouldn't want to be commited against themselves, or to their loved ones. As a moral relativist I don't believe there is some divine meaning for right and wrong and that there is a magic rulebook somewhere that was created at the beginning of time which shows which is which. I personally would say that murder is wrong under most cases, bar self defense for instance. Though some might say murder is wrong under any circumstances even self defense, and some might say murder is never wrong. Though I think most societies wouldn't adopt the last philosophy on murder, lest they not last for long. Societies accept morals for stability, that is the basis for most moral standings. Without agreed upon moral standards within a society, it would most likely crumble. Now perhaps you are asking where I get my backings for my morals as an agnostic? I don't have the solid backing of a diety or anything as such, I simply can only trust what I feel from my experiences on what I would be okay with. I don't believe in hurting others whether that means physically, financially, or emotionally (severe emotional abuse of course, not like calling someone a silly name). by the way, haven't you ever been told by someone that what you were doing was wrong? Why did they say it? Did you agree that what you were doing was wrong? Your moral basis for the situation was different than theres but was it because they were immoral? Were you immoral? Or did you both just have different sets of morals which dictated your actions? I'm sure as a deeply religious person you would claim that as you were following the bible that you would have the high ground and be morally right, but that just might not be right. Also if you have any further questions for us silly agnostics feel free to make a thread in the worlds view debate section and I will answer them to the best of my ability. I've already muttled up this thread far too much.
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