"A free thinker is Satan's slave"

[Marie888]

Or afterthought - perhaps I should ask - what do you mean by "traditional" Christianity?

Those who believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, such as myself are called Christians. First called "Christians" in Antioch.

Acts 11:26
and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. And for an entire year they met with the church and taught considerable numbers; and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.

 

[Dragon]

Or afterthought - perhaps I should ask - what do you mean by "traditional" Christianity?

Ah, a good and pertinent question. Traditional Christians share the following beliefs, which may not be an exclusive list:

1) Christianity is the only true religion.
2) The Bible is God's word and is true in every passage. (In most cases, I could add the word "literally" before "true.")
3) There is a very narrow list of beliefs, attitudes and behaviors which can be considered morally acceptable; everything outside that list is sinful and wrong.
4) Everyone who sins (i.e., thinks, feels, or behaves at any time in his/her life outside that narrow band of acceptable thought, feeling, and behavior, which of course means everyone) will be condemned by God to Hell, unless forgiven by God; but:
5) God is willing to forgive any Christians who sincerely repent of their sins. (Non-Christians need not apply unless they become Christians first.)

One may of course follow the teachings of Christ without being a traditional Christian in the above sense, and there are many non-traditional Christians around, of whom you may be one yourself.

 

[Marie888]

Love is 100% relevant to your topic because love is basis of choice.

Love IS our FREEDOM that no man can take from us. Love also rejoices in the truth. We wake in the morning having daily to make choices in everything we do; whether to love, or not to love.

When we love, we yield to God or others, but many times everything in our flesh wants to scream out against it. That is a specific choice and freedom we have.

In other words, I'm presenting to you that God is love. And that love is a choice. If you agree, how can your OP be correct?

.

It can be correct because, as I said, love is not dogma. In fact, absolutely nothing you have presented in this post is unique in any way to Christianity, any form of Christianity, let alone the dogmatic form. I can say the exact same thing as a Pagan, except maybe I would say Goddess or the Gods rather than God -- same concept, though.

To surrender one's heart to love is NOT the same as surrendering one's critical thought to a belief system. And love of God does NOT imply adherence to the rigid behavioral, belief, and feeling codes of traditional Christianity.

Simply put, traditional Christians do not own God, as much as they seem to think they do. Nor do they own love.

Perhaps I'll come to better understanding of where you are coming from if I may please ask these questions?

Who do you believe Jesus Christ is?

What do you believe the Bible is? (Made for us by God/His Word; or man made "dogma")?

Or, what do you consider "dogma"?


.

 

[Dragon]

Perhaps I'll come to better understanding of where you are coming from if I may please ask these questions?

Who do you believe Jesus Christ is?

If you had asked that question in the past tense, I would have answered that he WAS a Jewish spiritual teacher who was executed by the Romans at the behest of Jewish religious authorities sometime around 30-35 AD, whose followers continued to follow his teachings as part of their Jewish practices for some time after his death, and upon whose teachings a new religion was very loosely based after the mission of Paul of Tarsus.

Since you asked in the present tense, however, I will say that Jesus IS the main God-form of the Christian religion. There is an association between this God Jesus and the man Jesus referred to above; Christians believe them to be one and the same; I do not.

What do you believe the Bible is? (Made for us by God/His Word; or man made "dogma")?

The Bible is a collection of writings written over a period of several thousand years in three different languages (Hebrew, Biblical Aramaic, ancient Greek), containing the oral history and religious teachings of the ancient Hebrew peoples and a careful selection of early Christian writings. I do not regard either the Bible or any other book as "God's word" in the sense Christians mean that term.

Or, what do you consider "dogma"?

Dogma is any intellectual belief held on the strength of authority rather than reason or evidence, especially if one feels bound by a duty to hold that belief immune from question.

 

[Marie888]

Perhaps I'll come to better understanding of where you are coming from if I may please ask these questions?

Who do you believe Jesus Christ is?

If you had asked that question in the past tense, I would have answered that he WAS a Jewish spiritual teacher who was executed by the Romans at the behest of Jewish religious authorities sometime around 30-35 AD, whose followers continued to follow his teachings as part of their Jewish practices for some time after his death, and upon whose teachings a new religion was very loosely based after the mission of Paul of Tarsus.

Since you asked in the present tense, however, I will say that Jesus IS the main God-form of the Christian religion. There is an association between this God Jesus and the man Jesus referred to above; Christians believe them to be one and the same; I do not.

What do you believe the Bible is? (Made for us by God/His Word; or man made "dogma")?

The Bible is a collection of writings written over a period of several thousand years in three different languages (Hebrew, Biblical Aramaic, ancient Greek), containing the oral history and religious teachings of the ancient Hebrew peoples and a careful selection of early Christian writings. I do not regard either the Bible or any other book as "God's word" in the sense Christians mean that term.

Or, what do you consider "dogma"?

Dogma is any intellectual belief held on the strength of authority rather than reason or evidence, especially if one feels bound by a duty to hold that belief immune from question.

Ok, thank you. However, I think you would call me a "traditional" Christian, for the most part, based upon your answers.


If you do not believe that Jesus Christ God in the flesh - who do you say that God is then?


.

 

[ABikerSailor]

Si Modo, look up the term. The TERM "free thinker" means atheist..someone who challenges religion.

And of course they don't have a monopoly on the ACT of free thinking, they are a mess. But they hide behind that term.

My objection was the fact that Dragon pretended that the term "free thinker" when used by the CHURCH meant something else.

Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds opinions should be formed on the basis of science, logic, and reason, and should not be influenced by authority, tradition, or other dogmas.[1][2][3] The cognitive application of freethought is known as "freethinking," and practitioners of freethought are known as "freethinkers."[4][5]

Oh, the HORROR!

(Please tell me that you are not serious.....)

Si, the way the church used it and the way it has been used for the most part is as a description of ATHEISTS...

Here is a cut and paste of the first three hits on a search of "freethinker definition"...

freethinker (n) - Bing Dictionary


free·think·er [ free thíngkər ]

1. somebody who does not accept dogma: an independent thinker who refuses to accept established views or teachings, especially on religion

Synonyms: individualist, free spirit, nonbeliever, skeptic, nonconformist, rationalist


Bing Dictionary

• Freethinker - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster ...
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Definition of FREETHINKER: one who forms opinions on the basis of reason independently of authority; especially: one who doubts or denies religious dogma
  www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/freethinker
  
• Freethinker | Define Freethinker at Dictionary.com
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  noun a person who forms opinions on the basis of reason , independent of authority or tradition, especially a person whose religious opinions differ from established
  

My ONLY point is that the term, contrary to what militant atheists like Dragon and a few others would have us believe, has a specific meaning particular to ATHEISTS.

So holding up the church for ridicule on the basis that they are attacking LOGICAL thinkers is disengenuous...they are not attacking logical thinkers, they are making a point about atheists, and about the term that atheists use to describe themselves when they want to lend themselves credibility...."freethinkers".

I know people use it incorrectly and to mean something else. But in THIS instance, it has a specific meaning. And that meaning is not "any logical thinker".

Hey Kosher Twit..........by the very definitions of what you've posted here, if you're not a Catholic but rather another denomination, you can thank a free thinker who challenged the dogma of the Catholic church (indulgences for one)............................

His name was Martin Luther. You know, the guy that founded the Protestant Church (which is where most Christian denominations originated from).

Try again ya freaking idiot.

 

[Big Fitz]

The TERM "free thinker" means atheist..someone who challenges religion.

Wrong again.

As already correctly noted: one can be a ‘free thinker’ and a theist.

You can go back to pretending you are ignoring me, Dragon, you stupid piece of shit.

That’s not very ‘Christian’ of you.

1. You are correct, Christians can be free thinkers. The catch is that the vast majority of self titled free thinkers think and act in ways that are "anti-Christ". Hence Si is correct in the common Vulgate of the word.

2. Never accept the definition a non-Christian uses for what they call Christian behavior, apply a litmus test for a faith they do not prescribe to OR understand what a rebuke is.

 

[Dragon]

Ok, thank you. However, I think you would call me a "traditional" Christian, for the most part, based upon your answers.

Actually, the only thing you should conclude from those answers is that I'm not a Christian at all, which I'm not. If you take a look at my post #82, I answered your question about what I meant by that term. To repeat what I said there, a "traditional" Christian is one who believes the following (not necessarily as an exclusive list):

1) Christianity is the only true religion.
2) The Bible is God's word and is true in every passage. (In most cases, I could add the word "literally" before "true.")
3) There is a very narrow list of beliefs, attitudes and behaviors which can be considered morally acceptable; everything outside that list is sinful and wrong.
4) Everyone who sins (i.e., thinks, feels, or behaves at any time in his/her life outside that narrow band of acceptable thought, feeling, and behavior, which of course means everyone) will be condemned by God to Hell, unless forgiven by God; but:
5) God is willing to forgive any Christians who sincerely repent of their sins. (Non-Christians need not apply unless they become Christians first.)

So the question is whether you agree with the above five ideas.

If you do not believe that Jesus Christ God in the flesh - who do you say that God is then?

Well, I do believe that Jesus was God in the flesh, but I have the same belief about everyone else, too. God/Goddess is (on one level) the cosmos in its entirety, or the intelligence and will thereof, and (on another level) the attempts of our own imagination and spiritual perception to interact with same. That latter takes many different forms.

 

[koshergrl]

Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds opinions should be formed on the basis of science, logic, and reason, and should not be influenced by authority, tradition, or other dogmas.[1][2][3] The cognitive application of freethought is known as "freethinking," and practitioners of freethought are known as "freethinkers."[4][5]

Oh, the HORROR!

(Please tell me that you are not serious.....)

Si, the way the church used it and the way it has been used for the most part is as a description of ATHEISTS...

Here is a cut and paste of the first three hits on a search of "freethinker definition"...

freethinker (n) - Bing Dictionary



free·think·er [ free thíngkər ]

1. somebody who does not accept dogma: an independent thinker who refuses to accept established views or teachings, especially on religion

Synonyms: individualist, free spirit, nonbeliever, skeptic, nonconformist, rationalist


Bing Dictionary

• Freethinker - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster ...
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Definition of FREETHINKER: one who forms opinions on the basis of reason independently of authority; especially: one who doubts or denies religious dogma
  www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/freethinker
  
• Freethinker | Define Freethinker at Dictionary.com
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  noun a person who forms opinions on the basis of reason , independent of authority or tradition, especially a person whose religious opinions differ from established
  

My ONLY point is that the term, contrary to what militant atheists like Dragon and a few others would have us believe, has a specific meaning particular to ATHEISTS.

So holding up the church for ridicule on the basis that they are attacking LOGICAL thinkers is disengenuous...they are not attacking logical thinkers, they are making a point about atheists, and about the term that atheists use to describe themselves when they want to lend themselves credibility...."freethinkers".

I know people use it incorrectly and to mean something else. But in THIS instance, it has a specific meaning. And that meaning is not "any logical thinker".

Hey Kosher Twit..........by the very definitions of what you've posted here, if you're not a Catholic but rather another denomination, you can thank a free thinker who challenged the dogma of the Catholic church (indulgences for one)............................

His name was Martin Luther. You know, the guy that founded the Protestant Church (which is where most Christian denominations originated from).

Try again ya freaking idiot.

Yeah, right.
You remain one of the more ignorant Christian bashers on the board. Which is sort of amazing, you'd think by now you would have at least accidentally absorbed some understanding of the things you like to moronically opine on....

 

[Dragon]

One really good question is just how Christianity (and some other religions, as noted above) got to the point where so many of its sects and denominations are anti-freedom. It wasn't always like this. Going by the Gospel accounts, Jesus himself was just the opposite: he was a liberator, and his chief opponents were the dogmatists of his own day. Or, as some have noted, he was a freethinker.

How does a religion founded by someone like that devolve to the point where it puts the mind in shackles? How does it go from a founder who says (correctly) "the Kingdom of God is within you," to a situation in which those who see visions and hear the voice of God are condemned and exiled, or even (not so very long ago) burned at the stake?

We can point to the joining of church and state which was the rule for so long, but that only reinforced the authoritarian tendencies that were already part of some versions of the religion, and armed them with the power to suppress all the more liberal and freedom-loving versions. So it was an important step, that co-opting of Christianity by the Roman Empire in 325, but the disease pre-existed it. Not only that, but I've even seen the makings among Pagans. We generally don't tolerate that sort of foolishness, but that doesn't stop would-be religious authorities from trying every now and then.

The urge to control the thoughts of others must be an ingrained part of certain kinds of people. It may be a desire to make things safe and predictable, and so squelch free thought, which has the unsettling tendency to come up with ideas that are new and potentially dangerous. Or it may be something darker, a desire to utterly dominate and spiritually devour another. Something like what C.S. Lewis talked about in The Screwtape Letters as the dominant impulse of Hell: a desire of one person to (metaphorically) eat someone else, reducing the victim to a totally-submerged extension of his will.

This impulse, which I agree with Lewis is hellish, seems to prevail in dogmatic and authoritarian religions, in which it transcends the personal wicked ambition of an individual (we see that more often in tiny cults with charismatic leaders), and becomes a collective desire of the organization itself.

In that sense, a free thinker is simply someone who refuses to be devoured and digested.

 

[koshergrl]

How odd that you don't specifically name any of the freedoms Christians are trampling.

In other words, you're lying.

 

[koshergrl]

And this is fairly ironic...the poster who prides himself on bopping around to Christian sites to attack Christians online thinks we're the ones who are trying to force others to think like US.

Please provide evidence of us attempting to force people to believe.

 

[HUGGY]

The free thinking man that discovered fire and learnt to cook food, the free thinking hunter that used his magnificent brain the create tools, the free thinker that decided to settle down and farm crops and keep live stock, thus creating civilisation, ALL SATAN'S SLAVES,

Man did not "discover fire". There was lots of fire around before humans. Man noticed that fire cause animals to run..man notice that animals burned in fires were tasty and the meat lasted a bit longer.

 

[Dragon]

Another item for thought concerns the concept of "Satan" himself. This is a very interesting figure, and I submit an integral part of the whole system of control and mind-devouring.

The first Biblical reference to Satan is in the Book of Job, where he is a kind of prosecuting attorney calling on God to put Job to the test -- not a figure of evil at all, even if from Job's point of view he was not very nice. But it's clear that he and God were on the same side in that account. (Calling the Serpent from Genesis Satan is a later interpretation; that is certainly not evident from the Garden of Eden story itself.)

By the time of the Apostolic letters, though, Satan had morphed into something not unlike the way dogmatic Christians think of him today: the great boogie-man, the rebel against God, the monster that would victimize the souls of those who do not submit to the authority of the church, to those who allow their thinking to be free.

In fact, I would say this is the whole point of the myth of Satan: to scare people away from asserting their freedom, and especially from free-thinking. The image is of a monstrous, incredibly powerful hostile force out there, roaming about and ready to grab you as your mind roams free. The only way to be safe from Satan's clutches is to be a good little mind-slave of the church's dogma. Note that in this conception there is no real concept of freedom at all; either you are a slave of the church, or you risk becoming a slave of Satan.

It's a brilliant ploy, in a sick, despicable way.

 

[Marie888]

One really good question is just how Christianity (and some other religions, as noted above) got to the point where so many of its sects and denominations are anti-freedom. It wasn't always like this. Going by the Gospel accounts, Jesus himself was just the opposite: he was a liberator, and his chief opponents were the dogmatists of his own day. Or, as some have noted, he was a freethinker.

How does a religion founded by someone like that devolve to the point where it puts the mind in shackles? How does it go from a founder who says (correctly) "the Kingdom of God is within you," to a situation in which those who see visions and hear the voice of God are condemned and exiled, or even (not so very long ago) burned at the stake?

We can point to the joining of church and state which was the rule for so long, but that only reinforced the authoritarian tendencies that were already part of some versions of the religion, and armed them with the power to suppress all the more liberal and freedom-loving versions. So it was an important step, that co-opting of Christianity by the Roman Empire in 325, but the disease pre-existed it. Not only that, but I've even seen the makings among Pagans. We generally don't tolerate that sort of foolishness, but that doesn't stop would-be religious authorities from trying every now and then.

The urge to control the thoughts of others must be an ingrained part of certain kinds of people. It may be a desire to make things safe and predictable, and so squelch free thought, which has the unsettling tendency to come up with ideas that are new and potentially dangerous. Or it may be something darker, a desire to utterly dominate and spiritually devour another. Something like what C.S. Lewis talked about in The Screwtape Letters as the dominant impulse of Hell: a desire of one person to (metaphorically) eat someone else, reducing the victim to a totally-submerged extension of his will.

This impulse, which I agree with Lewis is hellish, seems to prevail in dogmatic and authoritarian religions, in which it transcends the personal wicked ambition of an individual (we see that more often in tiny cults with charismatic leaders), and becomes a collective desire of the organization itself.

In that sense, a free thinker is simply someone who refuses to be devoured and digested.

Kinda responding to both your replies here, but just quoting this one.

I had meant above that you would probably think I'M the traditional Christian, not yourself. Because...

I believe Gods Word is infallable.
I believe most of what you've said above in your list.
I believe Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. I believe there is a God, but we are not - we fall short, we mess up. God is God and we are NOT, as we were created by Him, and Jesus Christ has always been. I believe Jesus Christ entirley when he said (and written in the Gospels) the following:

John 14:6
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

John 3:3
Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Matthew 24:9
“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. 10 And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. 11 Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. 12 And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. 13 But he who endures to the end shall be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.

We either believe 100% those verses above (what Jesus said), or try to pick it apart. We have the freedom to do either. But what is the truth? Do you believe what Jesus said above to be the truth? If not, how do you know what to believe?

So regarding the "freedom" aspect of what you are saying ---- Does believing Him and what He says to be true in any way, shape or form, take away from our freedom?

Or rather, as for anti-freedom and/or free thought - what is true? Do we as individuals in the human race decide who the one true God is? Do we all get to "make up" our own little god's and every one of them are "true"? Or does the True God tell us and/or show us Who He is? I believe the latter. And I believe that yielding to Him still doesn't take away our FREEDOM.

Regarding this freedom - knowing something to be true doesn't negate our free will. For example - we all need oxygen to live. No one argues against that. It is a truth. Yes, some people will try to take away our freedom, and some succeed. But that doesn't take away from the truth.

Believing God's Word to be true 100%, (or what you perhaps would call dogma if I understand correctly) and Him revealing Himself to us, does not take away from our freedom either. Of which, we share the Gospel, etc.

Just going to share one more verse and gotta run. Most "traditional" Christians believe Jesus Christ to be the Word of God and that is why we hold the Bible to be true. (not the physical pages of course). But that His Word is 100% truth and also that one of His Names IS the Word of God.

Revelation 19:13
He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.

John 1:1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Sorry for typos, etc..started rushing...
.

 

[Dragon]

All right, Marie, yes, I guess you would fit the description. Nothing more to say except, as I noted above, God doesn't belong to you, and one does not have to subscribe to all that mind-shackling stuff in order to experience divine love.

 

[ABikerSailor]

God is too big to be shoehorned into just one religion or belief system.

 

[koshergrl]

All right, Marie, yes, I guess you would fit the description. Nothing more to say except, as I noted above, God doesn't belong to you, and one does not have to subscribe to all that mind-shackling stuff in order to experience divine love.

That's your opinion, and as such, dismissed as irrelevant.

 

[Big Fitz]

God is too big to be shoehorned into just one religion or belief system.

If God is who He says He is in the Bible, and it is His word to us... that excludes every other path to Him save his chosen people, the Jews.

But if the Bible is a lie and the work of man, all other works of divine being must also be just works of man and fantasy, myth and legend, for none could be trusted to be defended.

That's the essential question of faith. Do you take God at His word, or not?

Oh, and before you go there, another question.

If God IS who He says He is in the Bible, do you think that He would be either so weak, ignorant, uncaring or callous towards those He loves as to not defend His Word to us from the wicked so they may know His truth?

Think deep at the meaning of your answer if you choose to answer. It's not a simple one.

 

[ABikerSailor]

God is too big to be shoehorned into just one religion or belief system.

If God is who He says He is in the Bible, and it is His word to us... that excludes every other path to Him save his chosen people, the Jews.

But if the Bible is a lie and the work of man, all other works of divine being must also be just works of man and fantasy, myth and legend, for none could be trusted to be defended.

That's the essential question of faith. Do you take God at His word, or not?

Oh, and before you go there, another question.

If God IS who He says He is in the Bible, do you think that He would be either so weak, ignorant, uncaring or callous towards those He loves as to not defend His Word to us from the wicked so they may know His truth?

Think deep at the meaning of your answer if you choose to answer. It's not a simple one.

Wrong, because Yeshua (Jesus), who was a good Jewish man didn't come for the Jews, He came for the Gentiles, which is everyone BUT the Jews.

Why else do you think Yeshua was in Jerusalem? He was there to celebrate Passover, which He would do as an observant Jewish man.

Do I believe that God is who He says He is? Yes, I just don't believe the spin that many others try to put on Him.