Caught in the crossfire...

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This thread is specifically about mainstream christianity, people that actually live by the whole of the moral system set down by Jesus... things like "Love thy neighbor", the Golden Rule (the Bible being only one of many places that is found), "Turn the other cheek", etc... I like to live by these types of teachings for many reasons. Personally, I believe in the existence of God and all that associated stuff. However, if religion is nothing but a figment of the imagination, at least from a humanist perspective I am leading a good and honest life. Under normal conditions, I don't try to force my own beliefs on other people (except in cases like this where I feel like I'm being choked).

At times I feel besieged on all sides, especially here on this forum. On one hand you have people like Ragtime and JW who go forth proclaiming that unless you believe in the exact same way that they do, you are obviously going straight to hell, and would like nothing better than to shove that bit of information down your throat.

On the other hand, you have... well... damn near everyone else on this forum except for myself, orwell, and a couple other people, who are just as zealous as the people I mentioned above, but instead see christianity as the greatest abomination to ever exist, and, like the above people mentioned, would like nothing better than to shove that bit of information down your throat.

All I want is there to be some understanding between the all zealots here, regardless of the banner they carry. Granted, that's a lofty expectation, so failing that, I want those who may not be fully on a particular side to know that not all christians are like the stereotype...

It does sometimes suck to take a "moderate" level-headed path rather than being an extremist. I get crap from "Christians" who think I'm an atheist or heretic because of one thing or another (I actually have had Christians tell me they thought I was an atheist because of my intelligence) and also get ragged on by fervent anti-theists who insist that I am a delusional moron for my beliefs.

I think one of my biggest annoyances from either extreme, though, is the multitude of flimsy (and plagiarized) arguments that are presented as irrefutable fact. The chess coach at my school presented me with the "atheist test" whereby he "proved" that atheists do not exist (:roll: and ) and debated me on evolution by (I hate to use this term) sheepishly repeating the same comment about firemen while ignoring what I tried to tell him about the evolution of altrusim. Then atheists will often quote some nonsense "Christian Science" interpretation of Genesis, or any other theological view held by an extremist fringe group, and claim that those people are wrong, therefore God does not exist. No, refuting one particular religious doctrine held by one fringe group does not disprove all theism.

I formally request not to be lumped in with the zealots of either side.

I consider myself an agnostic. Who am I to know such things to be truth? Although I do not adhere to any religion, I still know the story. I know 90% of the world believes there is something out there greater than them. I feel this too. I find the ideals and pholosophy of all religions to be very interesting, but I have never been able to find one I can fully accept as my own. My views, or lack of views, may go against the grain of mainstream Christianity, but they are my views and I do not push them on others.

I do not consider my views of Christians to be stereotypical. I was raised with a Christian based faith and have no harsh feelings toward their beliefs. However, due to being raised with a Bible and now having my current uncommital belief system, the hypocrisies of some Christians seem quite more noticible.

I like the fact that you have stated that regardless of whatever is there at the end, you are a good person. This is where I also stand. I sometimes personally struggle with my own self esteem and thoughts of how good of a person I am, but I know I do not do bad things and have to try to hold on to that.

p.s. I really like your avatar.

I am not one of the zealots am I, I find most of what I am doing is presenting others sides to people, I belive in a higher power but am not sure if any religion incompases it. It is crazy how some people seem so ridged, I hate that some will use some facts and make you look like an idiot for not being christian, and the ones who make you look like an idiot for beliving in go. Though I think that I enjoy a lot of the conservations I am having on here, some of the things I have liked is seeing how others will tell me there view and then we have respect with each others. Most of the things I say on here are just things that I think like my person philosophies and then presenting people with what ifs.

I'm not the authority with the power to group the zealots and the non-zealots; I was only making an observation of posts on the PPR forum. Only you can decide whether you want to be a zealot or not (regardless of my observations... if Ragtime started professing extreme atheism, obviously I would have to re-evaluate my observations). I'd say that request pretty much in and of itself means you are not...


Even the teachings of Jesus state that those that are in power tend to not follow their own teachings... pretty much any usage of the word "pharisee" (which was a religious leader in Jesus' time) in the new testament is intended almost always as a perjorative in and of itself, since that "upper class" of religious leaders were the ones that did not follow the laws that they were supposed to enforce.


Well I don't necessarily think that you are automatically good by default. Everyone is born good by default, but if you don't lead a good and honest life, it can become corrupted. Leading a "good and honest" life doesn't necessarily mean being tied to a particular religion. For example, I would think that Gandhi led such a life.


Thanks. Made it myself in GIMP... PM me if you want me to make you one...







PS: because of this thread, I'm changing my member title to "extremist moderate"...

LOL!! ! A friend of mine, whenever he is asked about his political views, replies that he is an "extreme moderate" and, if asked to elaborate, explains that he is "so far in the center you can't see him."

BTW, he's a Mormon.

Oh, sorry... I'm presbyterian...

I say that Christians should be burned at the stake for insufferable evil! How dare they hold their views!! Reason dictates that Christianity is false, therefore the false should be destroyed!! !

I think I have anoyed some people though, you say one thing about contacting dark forces and they are all like oo your being controled by the devil. . Or even still the thought that witches are satan worshipers, or the other thought that allreligion is a waste of time. I say stir both pots, you can only help each side with a couple spices of Bradleigh.

Yeah I know that I am not really allowed in here cos I might be a little bit one sided, but this is a peacefull thread and I wanted to take the oppotunity to ask you Orwell what exactly do you believe. Forgive me if I am wrong, but you seem to believe in some sort of evolution, you decry intellignet design. I am curious to know what you believe. If you dont want to put this onto a public forum, PM me.

Personally I dont really care what people believe as long as those beliefs do not negatively affect others.

@DentArthurDent(nice name btw):I am a fairly mainstream Calvinist Presbyterian. In terms of Biblical interpretation, I put the most emphasis on the four Gospels, as they detail the ministry of Jesus and thus, to me at least, form the core of the Christian faith. The Old Testament books I regard as more allegorical; that is, I don't take stories in Genesis literally. And, just to point this out, there is a long tradition of theological scholarship affirming such "liberal" interpretations of the Old Testament. Both Saint Augustine in the 5th century as well as John Calvin, who made many important contributions to Reformed theology, affirmed that it was better to take Genesis metaphorically rather than literally. Because I don't view the Bible as a science textbook, or even necessarily a purely historical account, I am free to entertain possibilities on those subjects outside of the normal fundamentalist claims. I am a biology student, I have studied evolution, it seems a pretty good explanation for a lot of the things we see around us.

If you're interested in the Calvinist side of my theological views, I could elaborate more, but probably the most defining feature is the belief in predestination, or theistic determinism. This contrasts with Arminian and Open Theist schools of thought that have more of a tendency to affirm human free will than Calvinism does.

Just a joke on my part. I often find zealots quite exciting. Even if I do not agree with them, they speak with such conviction I get the giggles.


I would have to agree with Jesus on this point. I would hope I am pretty good at keeping my mouth shut when people are at least civil.


I do my best to lead a good and honest life. I appreciate the fact you did not point out, my good and honest life will not get me into your heaven due to my lack of faith in your savior. You currently have stereotype protection from me.

Re: Salvation/Heaven. Protestantism (and especially Presbyterianism) strongly emphasize a faith-based salvation through the grace of God and forgiveness through Jesus Christ. However, the official position of the Presbyterian church (and one I agree with) is that humans are not qualified to judge who will or will not go to heaven. That's God's responsibility, and it is arrogant to claim that one knows the future in such a manner.

Religion is a waste of time, effort, and money.

Even under the assumption that religion is false, this would be debatable. But anyways, even if I choose to accept your comment at face value, not questioning the underlying assumption that religion is false, or debating whether it is wasteful even if false, I can still say that most of what humans do is a waste of time, effort, and money.

To answer that common misconception, I'm going to pull out my Bible (Matt. 25:34-40):


The point I hear from that passage basically says nothing about explicitly saying that you have to believe in Him in order to be admitted into the Kingdom. And indeed, the righteous don't even realize that by helping fellow humans that are in need like that, they are actually performing acts in the name of Jesus, and therefore implicitly believe in Him (or at the very least His teachings).

I'm sure the fundies are going to muster everything they have against what I just said, since zealots always need to have an "Us and Them" mentality, since what I just said basically is only one interpretation of many, but I can hardly believe that otherwise righteous people like Gandhi would be damned to hell merely on a technicality. God loves humanity too much to just cast off people like that... otherwise, he would have let all of humanity die back during the Great Flood...