"Del" <jfacts@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:1120402968.904533.194480@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

DianaC wrote:

"Greywolf" <greywolf@cybrzn.com> wrote in message
news:11ce29qg00l0d65@corp.supernews.com...
<snip to>

At some point the Christian community is going to have to sit down a=

make out some sort of universal guidelines by which "all" Christians
would
have to abide by or else get drummed out of chuch on one's ear.

You're kidding, right?

At this point in time, the word Christian is meaningless. It stands
for
nothing! All sorts of vile people (includin g members of the KKK) s=

under it's umbrella. Till then, I'l l just keep treating Christians=

way I have in recent times: with contempt. (Oh, before some other
forum
member goes goofy with it, there *are* no guidelines by which Athei=

must abide. I, for one, am just trying to b e a "good" person in the
best
sense possible sense of the word. I am a "moral" atheist.

Greywolf

Greywolf, I am a Christian, I say to you that there is no specific and
identifiable moral code by which Christia ns must abide that is not ar=

about by other Christians.

I have seen, right here in AA, atheists who claim that simply BEING
atheist
confers upon the non-believer some sort of magical logical faculties,
some
superio r moral code, that would, if all people would just join this
non-belief, solve all the world's ills.

I don't believe you have seen any such thing. I challenge
you to produce a single example of this. Just one. You
know you can't do i t. You are blatantly false witnessing
and doing so on the Sabbath. Never mind that it is in
the service of you changing the subject to atheists.

Are you doing this to demonstrate your contempt
for your religion?

(sigh) How many do you want? Will one do?

Would you prefer four or more?

I produce ONE, would you accept it or would you pick it apart to somehow
prove that the writer didn't REALLY say what he did say?

However, just for you, I gave myself a three minute time limit to find on=

just one, quote from an atheist saying that atheists are superior,

better moral or ethical code, or something similar. So I entered a couple=

search words (atheist, superior) into google, and voila', the first thing=

find is a whole thread with the title "Why True atheists are far superior=

any theist". .

...oh, and a quote by someone named 'funboy' who described an incident in
which he was shot at in a convenience store: "btw, what really amazed me =

how quickly i realized the situation, how
quickly i reacted & how clear & purposeful my thoughts were throughout
the whole ordeal
looking back on it, i feel that if i was a xtian, i would have frozen & b=

shot dead " As in, being an atheist was what kept him alive, whereas bei=

a theist would have killed him. (shrug)

As for "contempt for my religion"...far from it. I admire Christians who
honestly work at BEING Christian...who strive to be better people. I'm ju=

quite aware that being Christian doesn't automatically elevate one to the
level of alien being, or saint....a Christian is a person JUST LIKE YOU.

With all the same worries, the same problems, the same situations to deal
with, and exactly the same temptations. JUST like you.

Now, you, an atheist, may say to me that 'atheism' means only a lack of
belief in god, and thus atheists are not bound by a specific moral
code...and that I, a theist, have no right to expect atheists to abide=

any set of ethical codes, no matter who tells me that there is such a
code.

Yet you do not see the irony in your own expectations here; the ONLY =

that all Christians have in common is that they identify with the tea=

of one Jesus Christ in some form or another,

So a Christian is someone who identifies with the teachings
of Jesus in some form or another...

I think that all Christians would agree with that. They couldn't exactly
call themselves CHRISTians if they didn't identify one way or another with
the teachings of Jesus CHRIST, now, would they?

Whatever it is they think
they are.

and do so strongly enough to
think of themselves AS Christian.

...and call themselves Christian? And you get this
definition...where?

From the dictionary, actually.
Chris=B7tian (krschn)
1. One who professes belief in Jesus as Christ or follows the religion ba=

on the life and teachings of Jesus.
2. One who lives according to the teachings of Jesus.

When you get down to what exactly those

teachings ARE, though....that's a matter for intense debate.

And I thought "God" was not the author of confussion.

Odd.

It seem s like a simple enough definition to me.

And people do

not agree.


So I, a theist, may say to you that you have no right to expect
Christians
to abide by a specific set of ethical and moral codes that YOU have s=

up
for them.

No right? On the contrary, I think he has every right
to do that if it suits him.

OK....he has no right to figure that anybody would agree with him,
especially the Christian he may be talking to at the moment. ;-)

The most you can do, for anybody (atheist OR theist) is attempt to

figure out what the specific ethical code is that that person is suppo=

abide by, and then watch to see if their actions reflect the code THEY
claim. Not the one you claim for them.

So Hitler was perfectly acceptable to you huh.

Oh, goodie, the Hitler card.....

Look. "Christian" is a classification of belief, not a moral judgment.

are a whole BUNCH of Christians that are not good people, and whose actio=

are 'not acceptable' to any person of sanity. There are a whole bunch of
atheists one can say the same thing about. Calling someone a Christian is
not confering sainthood upon him; it's simply giving a hint as to what he
SAYS he believes.

So you treat Christians with contempt....and you have a real problem, I
suppose, when Christians lump all atheists together and call them all
immoral and unethical....and I'll bet the irony of that just whoo shes
right
over you.

Attacking others won't make your argument look any
better. Neither will changing the subject to atheists
whenever you don't wish an issue be discussed.

I wasn't doing any attacking here.

You were.

Notice; you called ME a liar,

not vice versa, you used argumentum ad Nazium fallacy,

I didn't, and you are
raising the strawman here, I didn't.

Get a grip.=20

"Greywolf" <greywolf@cybrzn.com> wrote in message
news:11cadgk7g1cv9a6@corp.supernews.com...

It's all right here in this forum. You have people arguing over whether
Hitler was a Christian or not. You have Christians declaring that
Atheists are "evil." You have Christians exhibiting disgust and disdain -
even towards agnostics! You have at least one Christian warning teenagers
to stay away from this forum and insinuating that this place is a hotbed
of violence and murder. (I *do* understand that the dude is a little off
in his thinking, but the same basic sentiment is expressed, albeit in
other forms, by other Christian visitors to the forum as well.) This has
led some forum members to openly wonder: "Just what in the Hell *is* a
Christian? I've often told belligerent Christians, "If you're going to
call yourself a Christian, act like one!" Being a bit of a belligerent
myself, I find it astonishing to see how hostile, hateful, and
mean-spirited Christians can be. Isn't such behavior the very antithesis
of Christian thinking?

Greywolf

Good question.

However, it's a question you should answer, too. What is a Christian
supposed to act like?

"Greywolf" <greywolf@cybrzn.com> wrote in message
news:11cadgk7g1cv9a6@corp.supernews.com...

It's all right here in this forum. You have people arguing over whether
Hitler was a Christian or not. You have Christians declaring that Atheists
are "evil." You have Christians exhibiting disgust and disdain - even
towards agnostics! You have at least one Christian warning teenagers to
stay away from this forum and insinuating that this place is a hotbed of
violence and murder. (I *do* understand that the dude is a little off in
his thinking, but the same basic sentiment is expressed, albeit in other
forms, by other Christian visitors to the forum as well.) This has led
some forum members to openly wonder: "Just what in the Hell *is* a
Christian? I've often told belligerent Christians, "If you're going to
call yourself a Christian, act like one!" Being a bit of a belligerent
myself, I find it astonishing to see how hostile, hateful, and
mean-spirited Christians can be. Isn't such behavior the very antithesis
of Christian thinking?

Greywolf

Good question.

However, it's a question you should answer, too. What is a Christian
supposed to act like?