Pope Francis garners a substantial amount of press. How has this impacted your view of the Church? Would this cause you to be open to exploring the claims of the Catholic Church further and/or move closer to the Church? I extensively examined the claims of the Catholic church to the point of actual...

Pope Francis garners a substantial amount of press. How has this impacted your view of the Church? Would this cause you to be open to exploring the claims of the Catholic Church further and/or move closer to the Church? I extensively examined the claims of the Catholic church to the point of actual...

murphy_p_t wrote: Question 2. The existence of God

Is the proposition "God exists" self-evident?
Is it demonstrable?
Does God exist?

Having attained the only state of mind where I think one can truly be at peace with God, this question does not interest me.

This testimony is interesting on multiple levels.  The economist is Eric Falkenstein whose background is that hybrid Wall Street Master of the Universe-B-school academic, top flight academic credentials and social network combined with real world application.  http://falkenblog.blogspot.kr/2016/02/...

jafs wrote: When did you choose to be straight, if you believe sexual orientation is a choice?

It's my opinion that the male of the species was not genetically programmed to be monogamous and yet this is a choice that many make for moral reasons.

I think it is biological, but if homosexuality exists in nature all the time, why do you think the trait hasn't the trait died out? I was just reading an article about this.... http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2008/06/sexual_antagonism.html The bottom line according to ...

Homophobia isn't an aversion to being homosexual, which might be natural. It's a dislike of or prejudice against people who are homosexual. Actually, I think it's like the word "racist". It's a word used to paint someone you disagree with as a bad person who's opinions shouldn't be listen...

I'm not religious and therefore don't think homosexuality is a sin but I'm not a supporter of "gay rights" when what it actually means is taking away other people's freedom. Like in the case of the poor Oregon couple who had their lives destroyed because they refused to bake a cake for a ...

Yeah it would be pretty ridiculous to only permit marriage amongst fertile people.  So discriminating based on homosexuality's inability to procreate wouldn't stand at all.  My impression is indeed that the only problem people have with gay rights in general are based on religious views. I'm not re...

I think you also are thinking outside the box, just in a different direction than I.  It is those who pick and choose the parts of Scripture that fit their personal agendas that I wonder about - the lukewarm types described in Revelation 3:16.  "So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot no...

I think you also are thinking outside the box, just in a different direction than I.  It is those who pick and choose the parts of Scripture that fit their personal agendas that I wonder about - the lukewarm types described in Revelation 3:16.  "So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot no...

In my opinion, there is nothing (using the hermeneutics I use to interpret Scripture discussed previously) to suggest it is anything other that a report of the events that happened at Christ's death on the cross.  It seems the writers of the TLSB notes agree with me.  See below for the meaning. Tha...

I think this is a great debate that recently took place between Bart Ehrman and Michael Bird on Ehrman's book "How Jesus became God". Michael Bird co-authored the book published on the same day to counteract it called "How God became Jesus". He was put in a bad position from the ...

Gee, I am shocked to learn that you think the Bible has a made up story in it. I have a hard time believing that even fundamentalist Christians believe every part of the bible.  The wording and stories can be interpreted in so many different ways as well.  It seems like most people pick and choose ...

Even more disturbing, the search-ranking business is entirely unregulated, so Google could favour any candidate it likes without violating any laws. What a laughable sentence. So lets set up a new government agency to regulate search-ranking to show no favoritism. And Obama can appoint Lois Lerner ...

Sorry guys.  I guess Matthew made up the earthquake story.  :) Gee, I am shocked to learn that you think the Bible has a made up story in it. I have a hard time believing that even fundamentalist Christians believe every part of the bible.  The wording and stories can be interpreted in so many diff...

MediumTex wrote: Sorry guys.  I guess Matthew made up the earthquake story. 

Gee, I am shocked to learn that you think the Bible has a made up story in it.

John is where the huge earthquake happens when Jesus dies and the saints' bodies pop up out of their graves like they did at the end of Poltergeist .  I always wondered why none of the other gospels bothered to mention these seemingly VERY important events.  Answer: because they didn't actually hap...

I haven't seen any evidence from the Gospels that Jesus claimed to be God. Or the only son of God, for that matter. He speaks of God as a loving father, but as "our" father, not "his" father.  And, in one sermon, he says in essence "Do this, and this and this so that you wi...

That's a very loaded way to word it, from my perspective. It implies somehow that the "deity of Christ" is a fact, and some people deny that fact. A better way to phrase it would be perhaps that they don't believe that Christ was God. Sounds like the same thing to me. In any case, the wor...

To me that is all fine.  If you have experienced no evidence in your life that there is a God, then your beliefs are rational and justified.  My father and husband are like you.  Since I experienced something that made me think there may indeed be a very loving God and read books and stories about ...

Wow, that was surprising.  The message was far more religious than I would have guessed.  I think I hit the jackpot with this message; she covered some historical information regarding the Universalist church, constrasted with Calvinism, etc.  Overall though, I was surprised by how much theology sh...

Nowadays I try to live my life so I can be thankful for the good and hope for the best.  I believe that showing love and compassion will be the best avenues toward being closer to God, and I try not to worry about it too much if I fall short of my ideal self.  I don't pray everyday but do on occasi...

"Limited Government". An oxymoron if ever there was one.

One of the points Hitchens made when I saw him was that Christianity is a lot like living in North Korea.  It is ultimately the fear of the horrible things that might happen to you that keeps you in line, even though the propaganda talks endlessly about the Dear Leader's generosity and righteousnes...