I just read this article on the "Quiverfull" movement where the idea is to have as many kids as possible and that "God is the only one who can open or close the womb". Some of these idiots have 12, 18 and 20 kids.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

I'll just assume that everyone on this forum is intelligent enough to know the reasons why this is a really bad idea, such as our severely dwindling environmental resources, for one.

On a more mundane level, every time someone complains about a new development going up behind their house, or long lines at the supermarket, or horrible traffic, I feel like screaming "that's because people are having too many *bleeping* kids!

It makes me so mad that people are so dumb.

I haven't gone back specifically to look at what you've said, but very clearly in this and other threads there are some who have either stated or implied that Christians are people who haven't examined their beliefs and/or adhere to a document which is outdated, inconsistent, and inaccurate. With my link I was addressing the latter claim.

I have no quarrel with the notion that each person has a right to choose how to live his life.

I think I get what Gadget Lady is talking about. There have been individuals, I will put myself in that category, who have expressed concern on this site over the fundamentalists' drift towards the emotional and, along side with this, the agressively anti-intellectual form that their faith has taken. I like to call this rabble-rousing rhetoric 'sloganeering' and I believe that one must always be wary of this, whether it be a manifestation of pop culture mania, political spin, or certain big box televangelists' spin. This is emotion without substance. This is like a drug-induced high. There is nothing of substance behind it. This kind of spin is what carried Hitler into power.... Benny Hinn is shilling for bucks for his personal aircraft. He's gonna call it the Dove.

Indeed, I must admit that one of the reasons that I am an atheist is because I am deeply mistrustful of the purely emotional experience, whether this be individual or mass; I am suspicious of religions that are not backed up by any sort of historicity for these carry the stink of cult. (This is why I, if I were to shift from disbelief to belief, would likely land up in the lap of Catholicism, either Anglo or Roman.)

Truth be told, there are other things that concern me about the most recent version of the Christian God. Protestant folks are fond of talking about a personal God. This seems to be a relatively new development, God wise. This new God rewards those folks whom He has deemed to be acceptable by giving 'em lots o cash, temporal power, and glory.

God used to be much more of a communal kinda guy. His concern may not have been in awarding you a healthy investment portfolio and children who are a) straight and not troubled by unwanted pregnancies until they are married. You might not have the right to judge those to whom shit has happened. (Your turn may be next.) But this God was played fair and square.

I think I get what Gadget Lady is talking about. There have been individuals, I will put myself in that category, who have expressed concern on this site over the fundamentalists' drift towards the emotional and, along side with this, the agressively anti-intellectual form that their faith has taken. I like to call this rabble-rousing rhetoric 'sloganeering' and I believe that one must always be wary of this, whether it be a manifestation of pop culture mania, political spin, or certain big box televangelists' spin. This is emotion without substance. This is like a drug-induced high. There is nothing of substance behind it. This kind of spin is what carried Hitler into power.... Benny Hinn is shilling for bucks for his personal aircraft. He's gonna call it the Dove.

Indeed, I must admit that one of the reasons that I am an atheist is because I am deeply mistrustful of the purely emotional experience, whether this be individual or mass; I am suspicious of religions that are not backed up by any sort of historicity for these carry the stink of cult. (This is why I, if I were to shift from disbelief to belief, would likely land up in the lap of Catholicism, either Anglo or Roman.)

Truth be told, there are other things that concern me about the most recent version of the Christian God. Protestant folks are fond of talking about a personal God. This seems to be a relatively new development, God wise. This new God rewards those folks whom He has deemed to be acceptable by giving 'em lots o cash, temporal power, and glory.

God used to be much more of a communal kinda guy. His concern may not have been in awarding you a healthy investment portfolio and children who are a) straight and not troubled by unwanted pregnancies until they are married. You might not have the right to judge those to whom shit has happened. (Your turn may be next.) But this God was played fair and square.

Ohhhh, so much to say here!

I understand the concern people have with televangelists, people who preach wealth and prosperity, and people who overall distort the Gospel. I share your concerns. We live relatively close to the headquarters of TBN here in CA, and whenever we drive by it we jokingly refer to it as "Mecca". It's all perfectly lit up with way too many Christmas lights ('year-round), like a shining beacon off of the 405 freeway.

Please know that not all Christians subscribe to what you call "rabble-rousing rhetoric". At the church my husband and I used to attend (where we met), our pastor was fond of saying that as Christians we don't check our brains at the door. And indeed we didn't. His sermons challenged us intellectually and encouraged us to research and study. At our current church, the sermons are educational and historically-based. They don't always leave you feeling "warm and fuzzy", as indeed they shouldn't. That's not the real Gospel.

I am a very well educated individual, and all of my research and investigating into Christianity has led me to my faith. I do not believe that God is interested in awarding me with a healthy investment portfolio, nor do I believe that my family and my children are immune to having bad things happen to us. In fact, I believe God uses the bad things to draw us closer to him. I am not a follower of Christ because he has blessed me and because life is (currently) good (although it was not always and I am well aware that at any moment things could change).

I don't know if it was in this thread or another that someone said there are inconsistencies all over the Bible. Wherever it was, I replied that I hear that all the time and I always ask, "Where?", yet I have never had anyone point any out to me. It is common for people who haven't studied the Bible to level such claims, along with the ones about the Bible being changed over time. Yet Christianity is full of well-educated people who set out to study and disprove the Bible and ended up believers. Josh McDowell wrote a great book, "Evidence that Demands a Verdict", that is precisely the result of his mission to debunk Christianity. I believe C.S. Lewis is another of this ilk.

If you or anyone truly wants to investigate Christianity, I would encourage you to turn off the TV and stay away from the charismatic personalities that dominate that medium. And please, please don't lump us all in the box with them, because many of us don't much like them either. My suspicion, though, is those that criticize Christianity by focusing on those personalities are simply looking for an easy target. I'd be happy to provide some good sources for an investigation, if anyone is interested.

Not all of the cult leaders have television shows; some are still just on the radio:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Koukl

Not all of the cult leaders have television shows; some are still just on the radio:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Koukl

Are you seriously calling Greg Koukl a cult leader? On what basis?

Perhaps I should word that better. Is there any Christian leader who you would not call a cult leader?

Perhaps I should word that better. Is there any Christian leader who you would not call a cult leader?

Christ comes to mind. LOL! After him, can't think of any...

Christ comes to mind. LOL After him, can't think of any...

So Christ is the only one who is not a cult leader. Every other person who claims to follow Christ and is a leader of a church or other organization is the leader of a cult?

Are Christians cult members?

So Christ is the only one who is not a cult leader. Every other person who claims to follow Christ and is a leader of a church or other organization is the leader of a cult?

Are Christians cult members?

First, you have yet again misquoted/misinterpreted what I have written.

Then, I am not going to engage in a debate with you over what I consider to be your fantasies.

But address the point I was trying to make...Christ had himself a bit of a "gang" if you will...a core of a dozen relative unemployed characters who hung with him on a regular basis. I don't recall his building a physical church...and, what with carpenter skills and all...that seems like it might have been possible. No Building Fund was mentioned in any scripture I recall reading. Christ spoke for himself.

Your guy Greg, the anti-evolutionist, has his own detractors. (I haven't read much, but generally, NONE of the parties in these debates cause me to want to engage.) He doesn't need me:

http://www.gregiswrong.com/site-gregiswrong/

Believe what you want to believe. Do whatever it takes to get you through the night. But if anyone has the right to claim that if I don't believe as they do then I am an anti-Christ or a spawn of Satan or I am a tool of some imaginary demon and doomed to eternal damnation...then I pretty much reserve the right to say that THEY might as well open the Church of the Tooth Fairy, as reasonable as they are IMO. They are, when you think sbout it, all just words...

Well, as usual, life interferes with my response to your post. I'm headed out to a family dinner, for which we will pray before we eat. Enjoy your evening!

Well, as usual, life interferes with my response to your post. I'm headed out to a family dinner, for which we will pray before we eat. Enjoy your evening!

I hope you have a small family...or they have a large closet...Matthew 6:5-6 and all. Oh, or should we go with Timothy 2:8?

Well, they're both in the bible and so they must both be right.

I hope you have a small family...or they have a large closet...Matthew 6:5-6 and all. Oh, or should we go with Timothy 2:8?

Well, they're both in the bible and so they must both be right.

I find no conflict between these two passages. Matthew 6:5-6 is discussing righteousness before God and not praying for the sole purpose of others seeing you doing it (BTW, we didn't invite the entire restaurant to pray, nor did we pray with the waiters and waitresses standing there; it was a private family prayer, led by my 6 year old).

1 Timothy 2:8 is discussing the behavior of worshippers in church, and that they shouldn't be disrupting the service and the prayers with their disagreements.

As with any subject matter, it is important to take Bible verses in context, to determine what is being referenced, and to take into consideration the culture of the time and the topic of the discussion. If you don't do that, verses can seem to conflict. But with further inspection, there's really no conflict at all.

First, you have yet again misquoted/misinterpreted what I have written.

Not sure how I did that. I asked if there were any Christian leader you would not consider a cult leader. You answered that Christ comes to mind, and that after Him you couldn't think of any. I then clarified what I understood you to say, that Christ is the only one who is not a cult leader and all others who profess to follow Him and are leaders are cult leaders. What did I get wrong there? I then asked a question as to whether all Christians are cult members, which you didn't answer.

But address the point I was trying to make...Christ had himself a bit of a "gang" if you will...a core of a dozen relative unemployed characters who hung with him on a regular basis. I don't recall his building a physical church...and, what with carpenter skills and all...that seems like it might have been possible. No Building Fund was mentioned in any scripture I recall reading. Christ spoke for himself.

OK, so following along here, if Christ wasn't a cult leader but He asked His followers to preach His word (any number of verses will demonstrate this) and they did so, in doing so they became cult leaders? I'm confused.

Believe what you want to believe. Do whatever it takes to get you through the night. But if anyone has the right to claim that if I don't believe as they do then I am an anti-Christ or a spawn of Satan or I am a tool of some imaginary demon and doomed to eternal damnation...then I pretty much reserve the right to say that THEY might as well open the Church of the Tooth Fairy, as reasonable as they are IMO. They are, when you think sbout it, all just words...

I never said you were an anti-Christ, a spawn of Satan, a tool of a demon, or doomed to eternal damnation. I don't know anyone on this board who did. Furthermore, I don't believe those things and I also apologize on behalf of anyone who might have said such hateful things to you. You are right, they are just words, but words can be hurtful.

http://throwawayyourtv.com/2006/06/bible-is-bullshit.html

That article about recontructing Aunt Sally's recipe was laughable. That example is supposed to prove that the bible could be accurately reconstructed/constructed over 2,000 years? Absurd. I bet if you did a study on the Aunt Sally recipe, you would find that it would not be accurately reconstructed, especially after 2,000 years of tinkering, different authors, and political agendas. Absolutley rediculous and it's comparing apples and oranges, don't you think?

That's exactly the sport of unscientific, unstudied, mumbo jumbo I'm talking about.

And, the article does nothing to address the fact that everything in the bible was borrowed from earlier Pagan stories...

If y'all can handle any more...here's a Mithra-Christianity discussion. You have GOT to hear the comment she makes about what she's never heard a bloke say...

http://throwawayyourtv.com/2006/12/jesus-as-reincarnation-of-mithra.html