Christianity VS White Magic (Only for Spiritualist/WhiteMagicians & Christians)

[SSH]

They're still evil after they repent, just forgiven ...

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

According to your eyes David Copperfield cuts a woman in half. But we know that he really didn't but it LOOKS just like it! "Are you telling me that I'm lying when I say he cut a woman in half?" obviously not. Your eyes and brain decieved you. You can very easily fool your eyes with simple optical illusions.

You're the one who's been had!  In ten years time, Geraldo will find a stack of neatly carved female corpses in Copperfield's basement.  THEN YOU'LL BELIEVE!

[Helm]

You'd have to apologize first.

Is that the limit of your god-endorsed forgiveness? Did christ when he was once upon the cross say to the lord  'forgive them for they do not know what they are doing' or did he say 'dad, they're being a bit assholeish but forgive them 'cause they apologized'.

Come on, put some faith in your faith. Let me spit on your cross and the forgive me wholeheartedly, you can do it.

[Nikolas]

I'm not god and I would certainly not forgive you

It seems though that this is a retorical question coming from your post, so being a silly silly person I would like to know the answer please. Otherwise I would have to assume that you, Helm (as I didn't quote you I had to name you, sorry), do not know the answer yourself, and thus your ignorance dictates you to accept the answer given to you by others.

But right now the ball is on your grounds.

PS. My post derives from my belief that indeed faith is not to be mocked up. And maybe my confusion as to Helms posts (and Erenans), if is a joke or not. If indeed it is one then I do wholeheartidly appoligse and will erase this post. If not, awaiting for an answer please.

[Nacho]

There was a time when people believed that Zeus was the deity, and they had faith, and there was people who could give dozens of evidences of its deity, and evidences of its existence (the toys found in the cave in Crete, where Zeus was supposed to be hidden while prosecuted by Cronos) and people who was so sure about the existence of Zeus that could sacrifice their lifes for it.

So... Believers... Now, when everybody agrees Zeus does not exist... The question is:

What does make you believe you are right now? The previous gods were pagan superstitions... but yours is the good one? Are you better than the romans, or the greeks? Are you better than the Sintoists, or the muslims?

There is no metaphysical differences between the different Gods in history. Yeah, you can use a magnifier to look at the different divinities and say "Well, the greeks were politheits..." or "The Aztec's God was cruel!", but basically, what you can't really say is "My God is real, and their wasn't". The Christian God is just one more of the million of deities invented by the mankind.

I am open to discuss that religion can be a good tool. I have faith, because faith is good, and faith can work as a lighthouse which brings light... But believing the supernatural stuff is... totally unnecessary.

[CaptainBinky]

I'm a Christian, and I reckon that not beleiving in anything raises mor questions than beleiving in something, eg.
"If there is no God or anything, how was the universe created?"

Well, for sure. That's my biggest problem with those kinds of beliefs.

- "How was the Universe created? Seems a bit mystifying to me!"
o "Hmmm... yeah. It's a tricky one. Uhhh.... erm.... God made it"
- "But the complexities... it's fascinating! Let's discuss it! All the possibilities!"
o "I told you, God made it. The end."

It's our openess to questioning the world around us that leads to progress. Firm belief to me doesn't seem very open to change.

Raising more questions is a good thing, but you talk of it as if it's a bad thing and we should just accept "God made it" regardless of it's accuracy.

[Babar]

There was a time when people believed that Zeus was the deity, and they had faith, and there was people who could give dozens of evidences of its deity, and evidences of its existence (the toys found in the cave in Crete, where Zeus was supposed to be hidden while prosecuted by Cronos) and people who was so sure about the existence of Zeus that could sacrifice their lifes for it.

So... Believers... Now, when everybody agrees Zeus does not exist... The question is:

Zeus does not exist? Who told you so? Who agrees? Where is the proof?

[Nacho]

Just ask any priest or you local Imam if Zeus exist or there is just one God/Allah...

The official doctrine of any major religion nowadays is that its deity is the only. Do you mean that any believer who deffends the existance of Zeus is automatically denying the offical doctrine of its religion? Yes, it's implicit in your stalement. Therefore there must be only two kind of religion believers. The ones who believe in the offical doctrine (therefore they are asuming Zeus did not exist, therefore, they are assuming they are better than the rest of religions in different parts of the world or along the history...) Or the ones who do believe that Zeus existed, therefore, they are not following the official learnings of its church.

Therefore, worshippers a) and b) are both falling into a fatal inconsistency.

[MrColossal]

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof."

The people who are making the extraordinary claim of god or gods existing are the ones that need to provide the proof. Someone who does not believe does not have to offer proof that they don't exist.

"I believe there is a million year old space station deep inside one of Saturn's moons... Now prove me wrong!" No, you prove the existance of a space station and then we will check your data and see if it holds up.

The burden of proof is on the claimant. Always remember that.

[CaptainBinky]

The burden of proof is on the claimant. Always remember that.

Prove it.   

[Babar]

There being only 1 God/Allah does not add to or subtract from the existence of Zeus. The genitive for Zeus is Díos, which pretty much means God. Allah means God. Gott means God. Throughout the history of the world, people worshipped reasonably large groups of gods. There was invariably one of them 'higher' than the others. The Big Guy. Sometimes they worshipped The Big Guy without any other gods. I did not say that there is not one God/Allah.

You with your local Imam's and agendas.....

About white magic...isn't that what Moses did with his staff? Perhaps the Christian term for white magic is "The Power of God" or "The Gift of God". White magic generally involves healing and such, no? At least that is what I get from the magic categories in the RPGs I play. Didn't the Disciples have healing powers?


MrColossal: I agree with you about the space station. It's from a Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away.

[MrColossal]

There being only 1 God/Allah does not add to or subtract from the existence of Zeus.

Yes it does, because then you have to also believe in Thor and Athena and Hermes and all the hundereds of gods they had.

[Erenan]

You'd have to apologize first.

Is that the limit of your god-endorsed forgiveness? Did christ when he was once upon the cross say to the lord Ã, 'forgive them for they do not know what they are doing' or did he say 'dad, they're being a bit assholeish but forgive them 'cause they apologized'.

Come on, put some faith in your faith. Let me spit on your cross and the forgive me wholeheartedly, you can do it.

First of all, I don't see how forgiving someone who does not repent constitutes greater faith. And second, doing so directly contradicts the biblical model of forgiveness. There are many, many passages that clearly state to forgive anyone who repents of their sin. It does not say, "Yes, that guy murdered your wife and kids, and no, he doesn't care one bit, nor does he feel any remorse or guilt. But what the heck! Forgive him anyway!" In the Christian faith, that is not how God forgives mankind, and that is not how God endorses forgiveness, as you put it.

That having been said, I suppose I should mention that I'm not even entirely sure I want to be a Christian any longer, but the details of that are entirely a personal issue between me and God. It was Creator who asked if you were teasing him, so if you really want his forgiveness, then maybe ask him again?

Also, I don't care if you spit on any cross. And if you should find Christ's body and spit on that, then I'd certainly not be a Christian.

Note: This post was written without anger.

[Babar]

I assume Thor IS Zeus/Jupiter. At least that is what the Greeks believed (for some reason they did not identify him with Odin?). Like I said, there is always The Big Guy god who's better than all the other gods. The Sky God, The Head God, The Father. Athena and Hermes and the rest may very well exist also. Angels may exist also. Demons may exist also. Peoples' perceptions of everything change along in history. Some things get confused. Some new things pop up. I don't know why I'm having such an odd argument.


PS: Forgiving someone who wants to be forgiven is not worth much. Forgive someone who absolutely does not care. Love your enemy.

[Erenan]

Why isn't it worth much? It's forgiveness. It's inherently worth much. In fact, I'd say that if you don't want forgiveness, then to you it's basically worthless. How is it worth more if you don't want it? That makes no sense.

[Nacho]

Saying that Zeus and God are the same is a nice dialectical tactic, but it's actually a torpedo to your floating point.

You claim that the Real metafisical God is the same during all the times and in different cultures. If that was true, the image of God should have been basically unalterated during all the process, with small modifications, but the same, an unique BIG GUY.

But what happens then with the Titanomaquia and Gigantomaquia? The greek myth is seen now as something unalterated, because we see the final result, but it was not allways like that. At the beginning Chronos was the Big Guy, and it was not clear if Zeus was going to success or not. If we see in the books that Zeus was the deity who defeated Chronos, it's because Chronos was the historical divinity workshipped originally. Therefore Chronos was the Big Guy... and it changed into something different... How can this be explained if the source of the sacred beliefs is the unique and only BIG GOD? How can be explained that Amon was defeated by Aton, and then by Ra?

As seen, it seems more sensible to see the mankind as te source of deities, and not the opposite.

Anyway, if God, a divinity attempting to create a race with its own shape, really exist, he must be really dumb, because it has been here for 4650,000,000 years, and he only succedded creating us since, how... 1,000,000 years? of this, from how many years has it been able to illuminate us with the idea of his presence? 20,000 years? This God is really slow... 

That counting that God was born with the earth... If he is really the creator of all, he has been 20,000,000,000 years lurking doing nothing... That means that for each year that an intellgent civilization has had the idea of "Jesus", there happened 10,000,000 years without him. Actually... Actually I think that the Universe doesn't really need this skinny hairy carpenter, or this analphabet (Ummi) from the desert, no?!?

[Erenan]

You're assuming that God endures the same constraints that we do. His perceptions of time are in all likelihood not like ours. He probably doesn't have to wait around for anything. He can probably act upon the world at any place and time in the world's history.

[Nacho]

No... You are assuming that it exist...

[Erenan]

No, I'm not. I'm speaking hypothetically in an attempt to point out that your argument doesn't cover all the bases in terms of weakening the idea of God's existence.

[Nacho]

But my ideas of the age of the Universe and the Earth are widely spread. No matter if I piss it off by some millions of years, the main idea is that from the beginning of the times till now has happened a lot of friggin' time...

So it is dare from you saying that the one who "assumes" it's me, while you invented a time-traveler God...

If it' s an hipotethical theory, mention it. Say that there' s no rational idea to understand the idea of God, and assume that it' s you who assumes.

EDIT: Forget all my argument... You are right, deities can travel along the time...