Sell me on this christianity thing.

Why should i worship god and jesus?

 

because its the decision you ahve come to by developing a relationship you see to be real.
No other reason.
Roly.xxx

 

Thats pretty reasonable. You should only turn to God if you're own experience etc. tells you thats the right thing. But really, the first step is to be open minded about it all.

 

Because you can have a personal relationship with god. Ask him to do stuff for you, do stuff for him.Be great friends. You can't do that in other religions. He likes to get attention by humans and be noticed.
Also, All of the prophecies were fullfilled (it was said:Israel will be one nation, Russia will be one nation,and all sorts of things that I'm to lazy to list)
except the anti-christ and Judgment. Which will be really,REALLY soon .[ it said there will be one curancy,one nation,one language, one religion. The Anti christ will set all that up.Saying that there will be peace. Of coarse this is false peace because he's satan who takes control of a person.After 3 years jesus will save the ones who DONT take the Anti-christ's symbol, and who'll still have faith,everything else will be destroyed. Than we will have a new heaven and a new earth)]

I've seen people get HEALED by Jesus and angels, including AIDS,Diabetes,deformation,etc.

Also, I'd like to go the safe way...

 

What about the people who dont take the anit-christ but also reject jesus?

 

People like me you mean?

According to them, there is no one else... everyone is either for jesus, or against him.. they don't have the scope to see outside their own little religion to the world that's full of diffrent paths.

Personally, I don't think you should join a "religion"at all, they are nothing more than ways to control people and make people think what they want them to think. However, if you're serious about finding a path (which I don't think you are, but anyway..) look for something that fits you... don't try and fit yourself to something else... You should not have to change who you or what you believe..

 

Since you so animately dispute that prophecies are not true, let's pose this question. What if do end up a witness to these things? Say you are around when the antichrist is revealed. When you refuse to accept his mark, what are you going to do when you are refused basic things you need to survive? How will you explain to your children that they have no food? What are you going to do when (just like Hitler and the Jewish people) they come for you? Sure, you may not believe in Christ, but upon failure to take the mark, you will be assumed as a Christian. You take the mark, they let you live. You refuse the mark, they torture/kill you.

 

we are all created to worship!
weather it be a rock band or a football game!
the thing is humans love to worship,it is inside of us all to be pationate about something!
in my experience god is te only one worth getting excited about!
worship is a desicion nand na act of love!
not something in which we can box into a ceromony or a tradition

 

I am not sure people will beleive Jesus is Jesus if he comes back to earth, according to the bible. People would think he is crazy, regardless of marks and such. Alot of strange things happen in the world today, people are quick to call others crazy.

Arlia, I was not created to worship. Why would God need a small being such as myself to worship to him? Is God that petty and insecure? Surely God is beyond caring for worshipping by us?
If you think God is the only thing worth getting excited about, then you are missing out on life. Surely you can find something in life to get excited about? Why would your god create you, in a world full of experiences and such, for the sole purpose of worshipping him?

Sometimes I wonder if this god of yours is truly a god or not. God seems to be this petty, insecure, powerless, discriminative, responsibility pushing, emotional, joke of a god the way you people, and the bible, describe him. You portray him as this human with god powers.

I want a god who is uber ass-kicking no bullshit fairy tales. I don't want no rules to what I may/may not do/eat/think. Why can't he keep the shit simple and let people get on with their lives, instead of making them do all this crap to make him feel more godly.

I bow to no one!

 

That's a very interesting question, but let me ask you this.. what if it's all bullshit? What if you've spent your whole life worshiping your imagination? I have enough confidence in myself that there is no such thing as god and the devil to live my without fear...

(puddin, do you see what I mean? to these people there is no third option.. you're ever with them, or against them, and when all else fails in their quest to convert you, they bring out their trump card - the devil - their own boogie man, and say "do as well tell you, or we'll let him loose on you - it's quite pathetic if you ask me)

 

we know its not our imagination because we FEEL with our own body the spirit of god when we worship

 

Cuz God will get really mad if you don't.

 

*rolls eyes*

 

We just want to help. For we are concerned about you.We don't want you to go to hell...
And if it's our imagination? Well, I've seen people healed from aids, cancer, mutations, and much more through the power of christ...meaning right before my eyes in a church with the preacher doing some prayer. So yeah...I'm pretty sure it's my imagination....And I'm talking about people I know.
another reason is that I just want to go the safe way, k?

 

Care to explain?

 

I see exactly.

I have no problem with christians but evangelists piss me off.

 

And why is this necessarily indicative of 'Christ's' power?

These apparently miraculous occurences are certainly supernatural to some degree. How else could someone be healed from aids, cancer, mutations[?], and much more (aside from medicine)? Given this situation: spontaneous divine channeling of His healing force through the preacher, it simply must be supernatural, indeed.

However, the question is what is inherently Christ-like about this occurence? Surely you do not think Jesus Christ is the sole mystic throughout history with such capabilities. I postulate that it was in fact a particular native american spirit deity that healed these people with such terrible ailments and mutations[?].

You yourself fill in the gaps, take a leap of faith, as it were, BECAUSE you WANT to believe. You filter what you 'see' and through conscious or unconscious primed religious conceptions verily conclude that is was indeed the power of Christ, erroneously.

INDEED, this is what the Church is relying on: FEAR. The safe way; why not abide by this dogma for the supposed consequence of defiance is eternal suffering.

 

I promised myself that I was not going to post anymore, that I was going to just leave and forget all about you... I guess I just broke that promise... but that’s OK, because I feel I’m here for a good reason, to give you this message before I go...

Truth is subjective: what is truth for you might not be truth for everyone else. We all follow different paths: but ultimately they end in the same place. If you live a good life, you will be rewarded. I personally don’t believe in an afterlife, but I’m not talking about that type of reward - there is no external reward nor punishment for your actions, only your own (there is no heaven, there is no hell, just the life you are living now). You will be rewarded for your life in this lifetime, even if the reward is just the memories you have. You are responsible for your own salvation, no one else.

I has been fun chatting with a few of you, others of you have just jarred my head, but all in all, it’s been fun, but now I must go, I’ve got bigger fish to fry. I don’t know if I’m leaving the forum or not, I might poke my nose in from time to time but Amanda N will not be posting anymore.

(PS, ryupower, it's sweet that you want to help me, and I think that's a very special quality in a person, but please remember, Christianity is not the only path to salvation... I think that you're maybe too young to understand that now, and I've no doubt that you've spent your whole life in a religious family, which is why you have the views you do, but as you get older you should start to see the world in another light, and that just because someone does not accept Jesus, it does not make them a bad person.)

 

As for needing to be open minded, well maybe not. I am now and always have been a fairly open minded person. However one of the very few things that I was not open minded about was the whole "Believing in Jesus" thing. One Saturday I was sitting around in a Church (why? I don't know) thinking as hard as I could that it was all a load of shit, I had hear all of the "miraculous" witnessing and claims of divine healing and angels sightings and all of that crap and I was still no closer to thinking that Jesus was anything more that a phoney con-man and then WHAMO!! all of the sudden Jesus zapps my mind, my brain is now free it all makes sense where it seemed like crap just a moment before. There is no good way to explain it. Of course that does not matter much as in no way will it make sense to people who have not experiienced it; and people who have experienced it will know what I mean and so for them no futher explanation is needed.

Anyhow, no amount of open minded intellectualism would have brought be any closer to that experience or to Christ, in fact I think that it is my former closed mindedness on that topic that was necessary.

You can't really "sell" somebody on Jesus, no matter how many stories you make up about angels coming down and curing AIDS and deformitys and raising the dead. Sure you'll get one now and again for the wrong reasons, but generally it isn't something that can be done like that. People have stories about seeing leprechauns and dragons and space aliens, some folks have seen big foot and the loch ness monster; but such stories are no reason at all to believe in any of those things. In the past threats of hell worked sort of, but then when you do that you are not "selling" belief in Jesus, you are "selling" belief in the Devil. But if you are going to try and "sell" Jesus, or Christianity, the best way is to teach and follow the teachings of Christ. Be kind and peaceful to everyone you meet (there is the exception of the money changers in the temple, closest parallel today is T.V. evangelists), be generous always. If you have something that you do not need then give it to someone who does need it. Help folks out if they need it on a no questions asked basis. Sure they may be the most evil horrible nasty person in the whole world, but that is something that God will sort out at somepoint. Oh yes, don't go hurting people, or helping others to hurt people. "38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: 39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. 41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. 42 Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away." Matthew 5:39-42 KJV

 

Hmm... still, I think christianity is way too self-dependant. I read the bible, I read about eastern mystacism, I liked eastern mystacism (specifically, my own breed of Zen) better. Some overruling master just doesn't make sense. I belive in spiritual healings and bodily energies, so you can't use that as an arguement for christianity. Cultures all over the world use spiritual healings and purifications. I have nothing against christians, because I believe strongly that everyone has the choice to believe whatever the hell they want. But the more physical, actual support behind the idea really increases respect for it. Anyway, the only thing I dislike (and this thing I dislike I REALLY hate) is christians need to make everyone around the globe christian. It's just wrong. There is no more support behind christian beliefs than there is for Chilian Indian beliefs. But overruling all religion: sience. If sience proves something, I'm not gonna let some book get in it's way. If the christians had had their way, we would all be living, sad, poor lives controlled by one church no matter what you thought.