Religion?

cool, very interesting site. i saw your age, avatar, home state, & religion & i was just trying to find out how serious you were. it wasn't my intent to make light of your faith. cheers.

mc666 wrote:

cool, very interesting site. i saw your age, avatar, home state, & religion & i was just trying to find out how serious you were. it wasn't my intent to make light of your faith. cheers.

No hard feelings. I can see how my age would cause doubt because most things kids my age do are some sort of rebellion, but I really am serious about this. Also you don't necessarily have to be from a Nordic or Germanic country to be involved, it is aimed more towards people whose heritage is that, which is another common misconception.

exact33 wrote:

DallasBlack wrote:

I am a Christian. I go to a Baptist church but I am pretty much non-denominational, i.e. I believe only in what is Bibically sound (for instance I don't believe drinking alcohol is a sin, only getting drunk is). Also I am a Conservative Republican and I am proud of it (I am what is known as a Regan Republican), though I'm not proud of the Republican party right now who can't even put up a descent Coservative candidate (Thomson would fit the bill but he hasn't been doing too hot).

Do you listen by any chance to Sean Hannity? I love his show on the radio (as well as Glen Beck)

Alex

I listen to smatherings of Rush (mostly), Michael Medved, Mark Davis, Mike Gallagher, and Dennis Miller but not much anymore. Because both parties get on my nerves I have as little to do with politics as my conservative leanings allow.

I was raised as a Catholic for my very early up bringing than around
12, my mother would send me to a Baptist church where I was involved
off and on til I was 18, than not so much. I did accept Christ as my
personal saviour in my early teens, but I have fallen away from church,
I am still a believer but I do not being labeled a Christian, since I
do not aways walk the walk. I do at times struggle with my faith, and
just life in general, I have not always made the wisest of choices.

Christian.

Born again Christian

Spud

The kind of Christian that other Chrisitan look at funny...

Shawn Of Fire wrote:

The kind of Christian that other Chrisitan look at funny...

...the kind that don't wear pants because they believe trousers to be a instrument of the devil?

spectrefate wrote:

Shawn Of Fire wrote:

The kind of Christian that other Chrisitans look at funny...

...the kind that don't wear pants because they believe trousers to be a instrument of the devil?

Might as well be...

Are you saying pants are not instruments of the devil?

why is heavy metal not on the list?

That's my religion

I am a follower of Christ, it is a relationship moreso than a religion for me. As of late however, my part of the relationship has been greatly hindered (one reason is lack of fellowship with other believers-I have no close friends and haven't been to church in over a month-by Sunday morning, I am feeling the effects of a 60 hour work week and pass out shortly before it's time to leave for church). The only thing that comforts me is that while I am not always faithful, God is and things will change in time.

manny wrote:

I am still a believer but I do not being labeled a Christian, since I
do not aways walk the walk. I do at times struggle with my faith, and
just life in general, I have not always made the wisest of choices.

If you find someone who says they always walk the walk, then they are liars of the highest order. Not even Paul, considered to be the best follower of Christ ever, ever made that claim. As a matter of fact, he claimed to be the worst of sinners (wonder what that makes me ). As believers we have the spirit of God in us, but we are still in our fleshy bodies. It is a constant struggle that will continue until God takes us home. There is no such thing as a good Christian so even though I struggle constantly, I don't mind being called a Christian. Believers aren't supposed to be perfect, otherwise Christ wouldn't have had to die.

DallasBlack wrote:

Mglaffas81 wrote:

I believe in absolutely nothing. I am very non-religious. No
offence to anyone, and with all due respect, but I find a lot of religion to be
sort of silly. I mean, Christianity...cool, no problem. It has a lot of valid
points, but a lot that is sort of...meh. ...I just can't help but think that it
actually goes against, and makes you feel bad about the brain's natural
function. All men get sexually aroused around women, and everyone envy's
something. I just do not see the point in having to feel bad about things that
are perfectly normal. That being said, I have no problem with it. I am follow
in what can be scientifically proved. If it is physically not possible, or
simply does not have a logical/scientifically explanation, I don't believe it.
Sure, there could be more to this world than what we know of, but I don't
believe things, until they are proven.

- With all that said, I think it is really cool how this board had members from
a lot of different backgrounds. May Heavy Metal take its toll on all the
world's gods!

We Christians are of the belief that what comes naturally to us (lust, hate, greed, jelousy, etc.) is due to a sinful nature which is normal in everyone. It is not easy for us to go against human nature, but the Christian life is not meant to be easy. We are not perfect, if we we're then there would be no need for Christ. It is very understandable you feel the way that you feel, only by accepting what Christianity believes to be true can anyone fully understand us. You believe only in what science can prove so you will never except creationism, science can neither prove nor disprove it. On the same token I hope you don't believe in the Big Bang theory because that is not scientifically proven either, it is a theory with as much plausablity. Acually for me it is much harder to believe that everything in the Universe (the order of the planets, the laws of nature, the stucture of matter, etc.) happened just by accident than to believe in an intelligent, all powerful being who created it. However, I agree with you that it is nice that we all get along despite our differing beliefs.

I am a Christian. I go to a Baptist church but I am pretty much non-denominational, i.e. I believe only in what is Bibically sound (for instance I don't believe drinking alcohol is a sin, only getting drunk is). Also I am a Conservative Republican and I am proud of it (I am what is known as a Regan Republican), though I'm not proud of the Republican party right now who can't even put up a descent Coservative candidate (Thomson would fit the bill but he hasn't been doing too hot).

The only problem I have with creationism is with those who support the theory that the earth is only 6,000 years old! I think it's a silly notion to think that thousands of scientists all around the world have gotten together to stir the sh!ts to the Christian community and their timeline. I have no problem with the thought that a higher being is responsible for the existance of man, and all that encompases what is our existance.

All that being said, when you have scientific experiments like carbon dating, which can date things back some 60,000 years, there is obviously a problem with the earth being only 6,000 years old theory that creationists stand behind. I think this type of stubborness itself by the Christian community creates a huge wedge between both groups. Not only that, it tends to create more non-believers, which is sad.

I watched a show around Christmas time last year on CNN where a group of scientists showed how there were some strange celestial things going on 2,000 years ago that coincided with the birth of the Messiah. These are the things that I can appreciate about the scientific community...the fact that there is some leeway on their part, and the fact that they can fully accept supreme beings, even though they do not agree with the time scale that staunch religious followers of Christianity want everyone to accept.

By the way, I'm a non-practicing Catholic. I was never a practicing Catholic, based on the fact that I don't feel that I need to feel guillty because I'm man, which = that of a sinner. After the Priest scandal, I can say that I was steaming mad at the Catholic church. The fact that the Catholic church has gone out of their way to make Catholics live their lives through guilt, but then the links the church went to covering up the guilt of so many priests, and the hypocrisy/double standard...... Absolutely shameful! Not to mention the stance the Catholic church took during the holocaust, or the lack of one should I say.

Sadly for myself, when hard times arise, I don't have that spirtual outlet, because I don't have a relationship with Christ....mainly due to my mistrust of not only the Catholic church, but many of the denominations that pit one against the other. I think organized religion has screwed over many of us, and instead of pulling us closer to God, they've pushed many of us much farther away....

technically i am a christian but i am not a practising christian nor have i ever been. i might change my religion to Jedi next time there is a sensus in the UK

Christian, unashamedly so!

There was discussion earlier in the thread about Christians listening to metal. I realize that many metal bands explore the darker side of humanity, but often, at least in the music I enjoy, any occultic imagery is not necessarily reflected in the lyric content. Even Number of the Beast with its 666 refrain is, as most of you know, not about being a Satanist. It is a fantasy narrative. So is Black Sabbath the song for that matter. Even the metal bands that are critical of organized religion, like Nevermore, one of my favorites, do not necessarily deny the existence of God, they just point out that most of humanity has Him pigeonholed into inconsistent boxes. Some early Iced Earth tunes are the same way. I find some of those lyrics instructional in a backwards sort of way.

metalinmyveins wrote:

All that being said, when you have scientific experiments like carbon dating, which can date things back some 60,000 years, there is obviously a problem with the earth being only 6,000 years old theory that creationists stand behind. I think this type of stubborness itself by the Christian community creates a huge wedge between both groups. Not only that, it tends to create more non-believers, which is sad.

Radio carbon dating is a tool, nothing more. It does not provide an absolute date, it only measures the amount of radioactive carbon in a sample and compares it with current levels of radioactive carbon. You measure the rate of decay from the parent to daughter isotope and it gives you a date.

The method works fine for recent samples, especially when there is a way of cross checking the date, but what you start to go further back you must rely on assumptions that may or may not be correct. Has the ratio of C14 to C12 always been the same? Has anything happened to affect the decay rate? How much of the daughter isotope was already present in the sample? Has there been any contamination of the sample? All of these must be addressed before we can come to a conclusion about the reliability of the date obtained by any form of radiometric dating.

What is really interesting to me is that many samples that are assumed to be many millions of years old still have C14 in them. Coal is a good example. The youngest coal is supposed to be millions of years old, and most of it is assumed to be tens or hundreds of millions of years old. Such old coal should be completely lacking in C14. It isn't. In fact, there is no source of coal that I am aware of that completely lacks C14. This is good evidence that coal deposits are less than 50k to 70k years old, as that is the point at which all radioactive decay would have taken place.

There are other examples of this as well, wood found in the Permian and upper Triassic layers also have been found to contain C14. The accompanying checks showed that the C14 date was not due to contamination and that the "date" was valid, within the standard (long ages) understanding of this dating system.

Im not really trying to argue with you or convince anyone, but I just wanted to point out that questioning the standard time scale is not nearly as mindless as most people believe it to be. There is a solid scientific basis for doing so.

Quote :

Sadly for myself, when hard times arise, I don't have that spirtual outlet, because I don't have a relationship with Christ....mainly due to my mistrust of not only the Catholic church, but many of the denominations that pit one against the other. I think organized religion has screwed over many of us, and instead of pulling us closer to God, they've pushed many of us much farther away....

Sadly, that is the case, and an all too common story.

The bible is a metaphorical writing...maybe a "day" to God actually lasts a million years?

People who take every single word as exact truth really need to study up on how many things have been screwed up in translation from language to language over the centuries. Also take into account how scientifically naive we were at the time these books were originally written...we still didn't know how the sun worked, we thought the world was flat, etc.

Creationism is just too narrow of a view for me to support...but if it floats somebody's boat that's okay too...just don't try to convert me.

detuned wrote:

The bible is a metaphorical writing...maybe a "day" to God actually lasts a million years?

People who take every single word as exact truth really need to study up on how many things have been screwed up in translation from language to language over the centuries. Also take into account how scientifically naive we were at the time these books were originally written...we still didn't know how the sun worked, we thought the world was flat, etc.

Creationism is just too narrow of a view for me to support...but if it floats somebody's boat that's okay too...just don't try to convert me.

I agree with you 100 % detuned.
I was trying to respond to this earlier, but my english is not all that good, so thanks for helping detuned,

I do have a deep distrust of organzied religion and religious organzations that get involved in politics. I was raised a Catholic and than later was sent to a Baptist Church during my formative years overall was a postive experience. But as a see religious leaders and organzations involving themselves in the politic process, and trying to shove their viewpoints down our throats it has turned me off to the idea of religion in general.

manny wrote:

I do have a deep distrust of organzied religion and religious organzations that get involved in politics. I was raised a Catholic and than later was sent to a Baptist Church during my formative years overall was a postive experience. But as a see religious leaders and organzations involving themselves in the politic process, and trying to shove their viewpoints down our throats it has turned me off to the idea of religion in general.

Right there with ya brother! I have absolutely no issues with "Faith"...it's "Religion" that people have been killing themselves over for centuries...and it's "Religion" that continues to try and divide, control and otherwise interfere with our lives AND our personal beliefs and relationship with whatever creator we personally believe in (or don't).

detuned wrote:

The bible is a metaphorical writing...maybe a "day" to God actually lasts a million years?

People who take every single word as exact truth really need to study up on how many things have been screwed up in translation from language to language over the centuries. Also take into account how scientifically naive we were at the time these books were originally written...we still didn't know how the sun worked, we thought the world was flat, etc.

But you are forgetting that the Bible didn't teach these things. In fact, it taught the opposite! The Bible tells us that the Earth is round, not flat. And it also points towards many scientific facts, some that wasn't even discovered 'til the late 19th century.

There is also the possibility that it was edited after the fact in one of the million revisions. The book was penned and published and edited by humans, humans are flawed creatures...that's why there's no way I could ever believe that it's a "mistake free" text that hasn't been re-interpreted many times over to fit the cultural/political climate of the time the revisions were made.

Anyway, I'm not meaning to offend anyone, but to me it's just a historical text and loaded with metaphor and ambiguity.

Tall Tyrion, I'm impressed with your overall knowledge regarding carbon dating, but the facts are that 6,000 years that the earth has supposedly been around is just routinely laughed at. Scientist could be off 10,000 years here or there, but when we're talking about things that are nearly 100,000 years old...who cares. It still puts to rest the 6,000 years old number, which has nothing to stand on.

detuned wrote:

There is also the possibility that it was edited after the fact in one of the million revisions. The book was penned and published and edited by humans, humans are flawed creatures...that's why there's no way I could ever believe that it's a "mistake free" text that hasn't been re-interpreted many times over to fit the cultural/political climate of the time the revisions were made.

Anyway, I'm not meaning to offend anyone, but to me it's just a historical text and loaded with metaphor and ambiguity.

You are also fact that there still exists many of the original text from 1-200 years AC. And those cannot be edited, now can they?