Original Sin?

Quote: FrGamble

This is evidence for just how much about Christianity you don't understand. If you can tell me your empty or bland bowl of atheism speaks to you some deeper truth that fills you up can you not understand that the cross for Christians is the sign of the greatest act of love and indeed a true victory over death. Maybe you should focus more on the man on the cross than the cross itself. This one special act of Jesus transforms for those who believe, an instrument of death into a life giving tree of hope and love.

I know you don't understand that or see it, but believe me I do. I guarantee you will understand it more if you listen to this song:

Padre, once again you are ascribing a belief system to atheism that does not exist.

Sorry about that. I'm so used to people on this thread ascribing a strange and mistaken belief system to Christianity that I must have just followed suit.

Quote: FrGamble

empty or bland bowl of atheism speaks to you some deeper truth that fills you up can you not understand that the cross for Christians is the sign of the greatest act of love and indeed a true victory over death. Maybe you should focus more on the man on the cross than the cross itself.

Atheism isn't speaking to us, because it's not
a belief, it's lack of belief. It doesn't have deep
truths, it's not a thing. It's no-thing, nothing,
we don't wrestle with it, we don't think about
it. It's like this. People used to spend an entire
day every week doing laundry. With the invention
of washers and dryers, the time was cut down to
almost nothing. Do you think people spend a
lot of time thinking about laundry now? I can
guarantee they do not. That's how being an atheist
works. God is not an issue for us, it's a moot argument.
We never think about it. And please don't rip my
analogy apart, that's always your defense. That's
not the point of analogies, they're meant to carry
a meaning, not to be chopped to pieces.

And the Christians are the ones who keep Jesus nailed
to the cross for all eternity, not us. We think it's
vulgar and insensitive and idol-istic. And scary and
macabre and meant to scare children and uneducated
peasants, which it did for 1500 years.

I'm probably misunderstanding you but I think you would have to be a fool not to wrestle with such an important idea that there is nothing, especially when there is so obviously something, like existence itself.

Anyway, maybe you didn't listen to the song but He got off the cross and because he did that he speaks to those peasants who find their life like a cross, full of suffering and pain. How do you in your twisted idea of religion come up with the idea that the cross scares people? Do you think the Church threatened people with crucifixion? Do you think the idea is that if you sin or make mistakes you will end up like Jesus on the cross? Of course not. The idea is that because Jesus died for us on the cross and conquered sin and death through His resurrection that the same hope is held out for us. Seriously why would you think it was meant to scare people?

joke time: Once there was this kid who was struggling with math so his parents sent him to Catholic school. All the sudden his math scores went way up and he was studying hard every night. His parents were happy and they asked the little boy what changed. He told them on the first day he saw what happened if you didn't do well at math, they nail you to a plus sign.

Quote: FrGamble

I think you would have to be a fool not to wrestle with such an important idea .

But

it's

not

Important

to

us.

Sorry for the drama, but you get excited when you
believe in something. When you don't believe, it
has no emotion attached to it at all. I don't know
why you can't understand this, you keep acting like
we have this big struggle going on. I worry just as
much about god as I do all the other things I don't
believe, that is, not at all. Your a god salesman, you
can't believe that, just like the aluminum siding salesman
can't believe a home owner doesn't want his siding.
He can't comprehend it.

The Church has 153 reasons to keep Jesus nailed to that
disgusting cross. That filthy disgusting symbol of mass
execution. To us on the outside it's idol worship, death
worship. But it's a free country, I would never say you
can't do it. That's why we have religious freedom here,
so even the Church can't put heretical atheists on trial
for their lives anymore.

It remains as inconceivable to me that these things are not important to you as it remains inconceivable to you that the cross of Jesus Christ is the most beautiful thing in my life. I think we both don't understand why the other person doesn't get it. However, do you notice I try not to be too aggressively disparaging and disgusting towards what I find inconceivable about your ideas? You painfully do not understand my perspective yet you so brutally attack it. While I echo what Christ said on that cross, "Forgive them for they know not what they do." Could I ask for a little more decorum and respect when speaking about the cross?

Quote: FrGamble

I think we both don't understand why the other person doesn't get it. ?

No, I understand you. Like I said, you're a god
salesman, and atheists are a hard sale. You're
selling rainbows and wishful thinking, you
use twisted logic and circular reasoning to
bamboozle the wide eyed carnival crowd.

I totally understand why you don't get it.
You have doubts of your own beliefs, and
if you can turn a hardcore unbeliever into
a believer, that bolsters your confidence
in your chosen vocation. A story as old
as the Bible. I used to see it in my young
trying to be a Christian days. They would
'turn' somebody to Jesus and it was a feather
in their cap, they even said things like "it
must really be true, then.'

The only reason you don't understand where I'm
coming from is you have no desire to. Because
it's a legitimate position, and you would never
acknowledge that.

Okay Bob let's throw respect out the window and just go at it huh? Lord knows a long time ago you jettisoned reason and logic in your arguments. Let's be clear the only twisted logic has been from you. In fact you not only twist logic with faulty premises and conclusions that don't follow you also like to twist and distort history to your own liking. You are the only one I've seen so far use circular reasoning. I'm still waiting for an example of when I have done that. You've said repeatedly that the universal is eternal, when asked why, or for evidence or proof, you say that I should just look around you and it just makes sense that way, "it answers all my questions before I ask them." Such hypocritical silliness.

I don't have doubts of my own beliefs but I think you must. You have to see that some of the things I've posted have shown that you are wrong. I know it because those are the points you never address or bring up again. You just move on to some other crazy thought and you usually get meaner, like in your most recent posts. That I understand it is human nature. We don't like to be shown we are wrong or challenged in our beliefs, I get it and I'm sorry but in the long run it will be good for you to think more deeply about this stuff.

You want to be told that your position is legitimate. Well rest assured I do think there are legitimate reasons to be an atheist. Here are some of those reasons:
I grant that people are uncomfortable with the idea that their actions have [edit: eternal] consequences (your board game analogy),
that they don't want to believe that anything or anyone is more important than them and their own self-actualization (pride),
that they have experienced awful examples of religion through others that have turned them off,
that the tragedies and struggles of life seem so unfair that the idea of a loving personal God is inconceivable,
a positivistic attitude that believes the only things to be trusted or truly known are scientific truths discoverable through experimentation and the senses.
These are all reasons not to believe in God. Maybe there are others and often a couple of them combine. So there you go I acknowledge that your position may be legitimate.

Finally Bob, lets be careful at this point in our discussion. It feels like we are getting a little close to the line Face and I'm sure others do not want us to cross. We shouldn't get personal or overly dramatic here. I do respect you. I should have probable prayed or taken a deep breath before writing this, but I'm late for Mass.

Quote: FrGamble

This is such a sad misunderstanding of Christianity. You have no idea. Let it suffice to quote St. Paul, "If there is no resurrection of the dead, then neither has Christ been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then empty too is our preaching; empty too, your faith.

I knew it was all hollow ;)

Quote: FrGamble

It's probably an irreverent analogy [..]

Very much so.

If a god existed, she'd be pissed to be compared to the Cleveland Browns.

You may repress that memory with all your might, and you may change the team's name and the city they call home. You may even set up a worse team to be known as the Browns, but that changes nothing:

The Baltimore Ravens are the Cleveland Browns.