Pope: Gayness as dangerous as the rainforest being destroyed.

[Comrade Tovya]

appolose said:

Comrade Tovya said:

 

I understand your stance, my friend.  But like I said prior to this, quoting Revelations from the Christian New Testament is no more "proof" than a Muslim trying to convince you to believe in Mohammed by using the Quran as reference.  It just doesn't work that way.

My point is that God doesn't require that someone be "saved".  He never has, and never will.  And by quoting a Bible that came after my own is not proof at all... it's replacement theology, which I cannot and will never agree with.

And I would certainly never say that because someone is raised "in the truth" that they will automatically follow that "truth".  Charles Manson was raised a Christian and he murdered countless people... so it goes both ways.

What I was trying to say was, it's hard to explain to a Christian why the New Testament is irrelevant because they are not raised with the same scripture as a Jew.  The Christian has one Bible, and the Jew another.  Just the same way that I will never understand your blind faith in a man who claims to be God, you will never understand why I consider the worship of that man to be idolatry.  We come from different backgrounds. 

With that being said, I can jump into the ring with just about any Christian minister and dispell his Bible because I studied it from front-to-back, but there are very few Christians who can do the same to mine.... they don't speak Hebrew, and weren't raised Jewish.  So they'll never understand this world.  I on the other hand understand Christianity quite well, and speak and read the same language they do.  I speak and read theirs, but they do not speak or read mine.  That's the difference.

As for your final comment, don't take what I said personally.  I don't care if you are a Christian or not... that's your business, not mine.  Just like a gay man who wants to remain gay, it's none of my business, so I'll never tell him otherwise.  I was simply making the point that while a Christian may very well condemn me to hell, I could just as easily condemn that same person for idolatry according to my belief.

The point is, you believe what you want to believe, and I will do the same on my part.

My Bible does not command me to go and spread "the truth" so your soul is between you and God, and it's none of my business, and I certainly will never be guilty of condemning you for anything.. that's God's job, not mine.  I just want Christians to show me the same respect.  As long as a Christian agrees to disagree with me and leaves it at that, we can get along just fine.  But as soon as a Christian tells me that my kids and I are going to burn in a fiery pit of brimstone, I take a lot of offense to that... it's no different than me telling my neighbor that I'm going to burn him alive in his house unless he comes to my way of thinkinh.  It's just not right...

If people spent half as much time worrying about themselves as they do about everyone else, this world would be a much better place.

I understand that (your first paragraph), but my point was not to prove the truthfulness of the New Testament, but to explain it's positions; whether they are actually right or wrong was besides my point.

I certainly grant you that you are knowledgable in Hebrew, but suppose you came across a Christian who had extensively studied Greek and Arabic, the language of the New Testament; you would have to extend your own position to him.  Not that I have, but there are others who, having studied those languages, agree with me.

You say you would not condemn a Christian for spreading the truth, yet you say you take offense when they speak to you of Hell; the truth of the matter for Christians is that the unsaved are going to Hell, and our Bible commands us to tell others this, which I imagine you yourself would do if the Old Testament commanded it (and you believe it, of course).  So you're going to have to have it one way or the other: condemn them for doing what the do entirely, or let them witness without condemnation.

 

 

No, I would not have to extend my position to such a man, because his whole system of belief is founded upon my own (what Christians call the old Testament).  He cannot have a religion without both his new Testament, and my so-called, old Testament.  His Bible is his own and my own combined.

However my own Bible is simply my own Bible.  My "religion" is only dependent upon the so-called "old Testament" and has nothing to do with the "new Testament".  In retrospect, a Christian's Bible is half-his and half-mine.

Henceforth, a Christian cannot be a Christian without my Bible, but a Jew can be a Jew without ever seeing a New Testament. 

As for your last point, I do not take offense to a Christian telling me how he or she believes, as I am quite respectful to all faiths... and I do not have to agree with someone to respect their opinion.  I believe in free will and democracy.  I do however take offense to someone telling me that me and my 3 boys are going to be put in fiery furnace and be tortured for all eternity... I hope my reasons for being upset at such a notion would be obvious.  I love my kids, and the very thought that someone would tell my kids that they will be burned and tortured forever is quite disturbing.

I respect the opinion of all men, but I will never respect someone's right to beat me over the head with their idea of the truth, nor will I ever accept someone telling my children that they are doomed to be thrown into a fiery furnace to burn for all eternity and never to have rest from such torture. 

I actually find such things to be quite disturbing.

I do not expect people to believe that I am destined to be God's right hand man... nor do I care if they hope that I get hit by speeding truck.  I just don't care.  But if that same person tells me day in and day out that they want to see me and my children get run over by a car, over and over again for the rest of eternity, that's actually pretty spooky. 

What I am trying to say is, I don't expect people to believe as I do... I just don't care what people believe...

I do, however, want to be left in peace and to live my life as I feel God wishes me to live.  If you or any other Christian doesn't agree, that's okay, I respect that.  You have the right to disagree with me, 100%.  But as soon as your right to disagree infringes upon my right to choose my own salvation, then that's when your freedoms have trampled upon my own... and that's not freedom at all.

I hope we understand each other.   I respect your right to be a Christian, and I respect someone elses to be an athiest.  It doesn't matter if I agree or not with either of you... each person will face death in his own time, and that person will face their own after life... therefore, I won't waste my life bringing them hell on Earth by trying to force my beliefs upon them.