Why eyewitness testimony isn't reliable ....

Originally posted by Suzianne
Yes, that's what we do.

And by word of mouth we have gathered together more people who understand the real message of the Word of God than any other religion on Earth.




Over 2.2 billion saved. One person, one heart, at a time.

Originally posted by googlefudge
That must be why there are so many different Christian sects who almost all
claim the others are wrong and have tried to kill or persecute each other for
most of your history.

Originally posted by Suzianne
I don't know how many times I have to say this: It's not the rank and file who are the ones killing others or urging others to kill them. That is evil men. And what a shock, there are evil men in every organization known to man. These things are their fault, not the fault of the religion. As you have said (on second thought, maybe it wasn't you, you think we're "dangerous" ), it is a religion of peace.

Originally posted by OdBod
I wonder how many of those billions have had access to to modern scientific literature and education in order to arrive at an informed opinion?

Originally posted by OdBod
Problem is, that religious nutters claim divine right. At least non- religious nutters know at some level they may well have to answer to HUMAN society.

Originally posted by Suzianne
I don't know how many times I have to say this: It's not the rank and file who are the ones killing others or urging others to kill them. That is evil men. And what a shock, there are evil men in every organization known to man. These things are their fault, not the fault of the religion. As you have said (on second thought, maybe it wasn't you, you think we're "dangerous" ), it is a religion of peace.

.... For his victims, “Judge Lynch”—journalist Ida B. Wells’ name for the lynch mob—was capricious, merciless, and barbaric. C.J. Miller, falsely accused of killing two teenaged white sisters in western Kentucky, was “dragged through the streets to a crude platform of old barrel staves and other kindling,” writes historian Philip Dray in At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America. His assailants hanged him from a telephone pole, and while “the first fall broke his neck … the body was repeatedly raised and lowered while the crowd peppered it with small-arms fire.” For two hours his corpse hung above the street, during which he was photographed and mutilated by onlookers. Finally, he was cut down and burned.

More savage was the lynching of Mary Turner and her unborn child, killed for protesting her husband’s murder. “[B]efore a crowd that included women and children,” writes Dray, “Mary was stripped, hung upside down by the ankles, soaked with gasoline, and roasted to death. In the midst of this torment, a white man opened her swollen belly with a hunting knife and her infant fell to the ground, gave a cry, and was stomped to death.”

These lynchings weren’t just vigilante punishments or, as the Equal Justice Initiative notes, “celebratory acts of racial control and domination.” They were rituals. And specifically, they were rituals of Southern evangelicalism and its then-dogma of purity, literalism, and white supremacy. “Christianity was the primary lens through which most southerners conceptualized and made sense of suffering and death of any sort,” writes historian Amy Louise Wood in Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890–1940. “It would be inconceivable that they could inflict pain and torment on the bodies of black men without imagining that violence as a religious act, laden with Christian symbolism and significance.” ....

Originally posted by Suzianne
What they should be wary of is someday answering to their Creator.

Originally posted by Suzianne
Believe me, if it were up to me, every single last one of them.

But facts only help you to understand the world. They don't help you to understand faith. This thread is proof of that.

You gotta turn the "knowledge coin" over to see that. But so few even acknowledge the "other side". This thread is proof of that.

Your "informed opinion" requires both sides. Unless you're only looking to "stack the deck". This thread is proof of that.

Originally posted by googlefudge

Your religion has a history of over 1000 years of persecuting and killing anyone who stepped out of line.

The Church and Civilization

In the midst of this collapse there was one institution that did not collapse: the church. The church had an organization; therefore, there could be communication between places distant from each other. The church had a history; therefore, its past provided lessons for the present and directions for the future. It preached a message that was the same everywhere; therefore, men could have a common religion, a common hope, and a common moral law by which to live. In the midst of confusion the church provided stability and order; amid all the hatreds it worked for reconciliation; in all sorrow it offered comfort.
In rendering these services the church did far more than perform purely spiritual duties. It fed the hungry, released prisoners, resisted corruption, preserved books and made new ones; it taught farming, carpentry, and animal husbandry, and it conducted schools. In a time when many had lost all things, the church became all things to all men. It was a strong center around which a world that had losts its direction could gather and find a new purpose for living. The church prepared men for the life that is to come and preserved civilization for the life that now is.
The chief means in the hands of the church for performing these great services were the monasteries. We shall conclude this chapter by considering the early history of monasticism in the western church.

[ The Short History of the Early Church , Harry R. Boer, Eardmans, 1976, pg 128 ]

Overview
For readers who want a brief yet reliable introduction to the history of the early church as well as for those who are looking for a quick review of the period, this volume furnishes a concise overview of the key events, figures, controversies, and councils essential for a proper understanding of the first seven centuries of the Christian church.Harry R. Boer provides background on the world into which the church was born, surveys the life of the church from the ministry of Jesus until 600 A.D

Originally posted by sonship

Your religion has a history of over 1000 years of persecuting and killing anyone who stepped out of line.

For 3,000 years music has been used in the accompaniment of wars, battles, immoral gatherings, vice, drunken gatherings, etc. History shows clearly the evil influence of music on mankind.

Have you taken all your CDs and music ...[text shortened]... igerent and ignorant stuff like this and sell lots of books so you figure you can do the same.

I should also note, given that this is my thread, that we have wandered far off topic.

Nobody as yet has addressed in any meaningful way the point raised in the OP.

Originally posted by Suzianne
And sometimes the message is only for the one receiving it.

"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you." -- Matthew 7:6, KJV

Originally posted by googlefudge
Self reinforcing delusion.

You're the special chosen one that gets to receive the special message that tells you
how to avoid eternal punishment [or just being strait up executed in your version].

Unless you can prove it happened then even YOU cannot be sure it happened.

That was the whole point of the OP.

Memories are not even remotely infallible.


Also you should know better than to quote scripture at me.

"Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour."

Originally posted by googlefudge
Self reinforcing delusion.

You're the special chosen one that gets to receive the special message that tells you
how to avoid eternal punishment [or just being strait up executed in your version].

Unless you can prove it happened then even YOU cannot be sure it happened.

That was the whole point of the OP.

Memories are not even remotely infallible.


Also you should know better than to quote scripture at me.

Originally posted by Suzianne
Yes, that's what we do.

And by word of mouth we have gathered together more people who understand the real message of the Word of God than any other religion on Earth.

Over 2.2 billion saved. One person, one heart, at a time.