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Curious about Christianity?

Upstart

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If you have any questions about Christianity, or want to know how to become a Christian, ask me and I will do my best to answer your question.

Note that I am not debating Christianity here, and if you are a die-hard athiest who just wants to harase a Christian, please don't do it here.
 
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what is gods gender?


I already have me answer and evidence around this, but i want to hear some other voices. Care to answer?
 
God does not have a gender like we do, but He always refers to Himself in the masculine gender. This is more of stating what He is like. He is like a father figure in that he is the Supreme head, like how the man is the head over the family. It is also refering of how He punishes His children, like how it is a father's place to spank the children in a family.
 
Upstart said:
If you have any questions about Christianity, or want to know how to become a Christian, ask me and I will do my best to answer your question.

Note that I am not debating Christianity here, and if you are a die-hard athiest who just wants to harase a Christian, please don't do it here.
Christianity has everything except Kata. We need the Christian version of Kung-fu. We need the Christian version of Tia-Che. That is, we need a martial art which is focused on spirituality and self improvement, like Asian martial arts.

Where can I find it?
 
akidio. The "art of peace". Read the hand book by Morihei Ueshiba (its founder). Its very similar to the teachings of Yesus Christos. But remeber in christianity, violence is a "no no", thats where aikido comes in. Study its main principles like "run away" to avoid violence, or to hurt someone else is to hurt yourself. It methods consist of ways not to hurt both people, using the force of the agreesor. It was said that the founder encountered someone who hated his art. The oppenent had sword, and Morihei had no weapons. Morihei defeated his oppenent without hurting him or himself. He mentally predicted when the oppenent would strike, and phycically moved away from the violence. The agreesor more him self out till he passed out.
 
I googled "Christian Martial Art" and came upon this:
From the Arizona Wing Chun Association

"You might be asking yourself, "Why is this section here? What's it have to do with Wing Chun?" Look on any martial arts site and more than likely you'll find a reference somewhere to zen, Buddhism, Taoism or another eastern religious following. For Christians, though, the subject can become confusing since many questions are rarely answered.

"The one question I always get asked more often than any other is "how can you, a Christian, justify your training in a martial art? Martial arts are violent and aggressive, and Christianity is passive and peaceful." A valid question, most certainly. And that's exactly why you see this section here, to help answer these questions for both the Christian martial artist and the non-Christian who's curious about the topic.

"In reality, there's no such thing as a "Christian" martial art. The term "Christian martial arts" simply denotes a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ, who trains in a martial art. Is it acceptable for a Christian to train a martial art? Yes, it is, provided that a few areas are first addressed.

"*It is not acceptable for a Christian to engage in non-Christian religious training or practices. There should be no shrines in the corner paying homage to Buddha or anything else that suggests worship of any kind outside of Jesus Christ.

"*It is not acceptable for a Christian to train in "death arts" or methods designed exclusively for taking the life of your opponent. Many arts have one or more techniques for delivering these types of attacks, yet a Christian should carefully examine their chosen art for this. Under no circumstances would killing your opponent be acceptable to a Christian.

"*It is not acceptable for a Christian to "chant" or learn meditation as it relates to martial training. By "martial training," this indicates meditation to "calm the body and allow the environment around you to assist your enlightenment." There is no enlightenment for man outside of Jesus Christ. Those that believe there is have been persuaded to think this from forces contrary to Jesus' teachings.

"*It is acceptable to bow to your teacher, your training family, or even to photos of deceased grandmasters, founders, etc. This is not a form of worship; rather, it is a form of respect, similar to shaking hands in the west. Do not confuse a simple show of respect as being the same thing as worship.

"*It is acceptable to call your teacher Sifu, Sensei, or even "master" if that is his/her respective title. All Christians acknowledge Jesus as our one and only true Master, yet "master" in this sense is not a form of worship and it is perfectly acceptable. The terms "master," "teacher" and "instructor" are interchangeable on many levels, so calling your teacher "master" is not a form of worship unless you intend it to be. In the martial arts, it is simply refers to one who is highly skilled and proficient in their chose art."
 
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i believe in tranquility said:
akidio. The "art of peace". Read the hand book by Morihei Ueshiba (its founder). Its very similar to the teachings of Yesus Christos. But remeber in christianity, violence is a "no no", thats where aikido comes in. Study its main principles like "run away" to avoid violence, or to hurt someone else is to hurt yourself. It methods consist of ways not to hurt both people, using the force of the agreesor. It was said that the founder encountered someone who hated his art. The oppenent had sword, and Morihei had no weapons. Morihei defeated his oppenent without hurting him or himself. He mentally predicted when the oppenent would strike, and phycically moved away from the violence. The agreesor more him self out till he passed out.
You know, I have always felt a push toward Akido......
 
then go for it! its great, interactive, and you learn more than just teachniques, but new ways to treat one another, that in my humble opinion, Jesus WOULD approve.
------------

all this about the statue of Buddha and how christains shouldnt go near that stuff.....WHATEVER.....Jesus wouldnt have a problem with us learning ways of peace and how to learn to treat one anotehr with respect, love, honestly, stability, and most of all tranquility.
 
what is good and bad? and why does god allow the absence of good.
 
nkgupta80 said:
....and why does god allow the absence of good.
Evil is the price that God had to pay in order to give Man free will; because if a man is not free to choose evil, then choice means nothing.

Any absence of good on this planet is the result of Man's choices.
 
Jerry said:
Evil is the price that God had to pay in order to give Man free will; because if a man is not free to choose evil, then choice means nothing.

Any absence of good on this planet is the result of Man's choices.


then why do we need evil to make good good?

does that mean that good and evil are relative?



secondly, why couldn't god create a world in which free will only applied to good choices. In that universe, a concept of evil would be as foreign to us as being able to defy gravity in this universe.
 
Upstart said:
If you have any questions about Christianity, or want to know how to become a Christian, ask me and I will do my best to answer your question.

Note that I am not debating Christianity here, and if you are a die-hard athiest who just wants to harase a Christian, please don't do it here.

Where is the first reference to marriage in the bible ,I can't find it ?
 
nkgupta80 said:
then why do we need evil to make good good?
We don't. Evil doesn't make "good" good. "Good" makes "good" good.
We need evil in order to make our choices good.

does that mean that good and evil are relative?
There is perfect good, and then there is everything less than perfect good. Less than perfect goodness possesses a degree of evil. Within the realm of less than perfect things, good and evil can be seen as relative, because those who do see things as relative have lost sight of perfect goodness.

In context to Judeo-Christian law, you either are perfect, or you are something less than perfect. You either brake the law, or you do not. Which law you brake is irrelevant because you are either a law breaker or you are not.

That is not to disregard the fact that God rewards one's efforts toward goodness and struggles toward not braking any laws, however.

secondly, why couldn't god create a world in which free will only applied to good choices.

That would not have been *free* will, but *restricted* will. If we were in a position where we could only make good choices, then of what value would our goodness be? If we can not choose evil, then neither can we choose good. We would choose good only because we would have no other choice.....which is not really a choice at all.
 
iron butterfly said:
Where is the first reference to marriage in the bible ,I can't find it ?
Genesis 2:23-24;
23 Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." 24 Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.

"Marriage", as a ceremony, is the product of institutionalized religious practices. Such institutionalized religious practices did not exist in Adam and Eve's time, because there were not even institutionalized religions.

The committed lifelong relationship of man and woman is what a "marriage" is. One can call this union a "marriage", or as referenced in Genesis, one could call it "cleaves to his wife" or "one flesh".

No matter the name, the holy union of man and wife remains the same.
"A rose by anyother name...", as it were.
 
it is a father's place to spank the children in a family.

Is it "Christian" to spank a child?
With decent parenting skills, one would never ever have to HIT a child.
Just curious...

Also, if Adam and Eve had two sons...Cain and Able (or three sons including Seth if you so believe), how was the human race populated?
 
BodiSatva said:
Is it "Christian" to spank a child?
With decent parenting skills, one would never ever have to HIT a child.
Just curious...
To guard against abuse is certainly a just and good thing.
Spanking is a tool to be used sparingly, only when necessary and appropriate. Spanking a child for balk-talk, being slow, touching something of no consequence which you would rather they not touch, and similar, are not justifyable occasions for spanking.

When my 5 year old does something dangerous like trying to put his fork in the electrical outlet, running away from me when we are in public (particularly in crowded malls or near traffic), hits his brother, performs an earth-splitting temper-tantrum, or similar, I will issue him one swift sting to his tush.

The point of spanking should be to sharply acquire the child's attention. This lets them know that they have don something very wrong. The most important part of spanking is what you say to your child immediately after the spank. It should be firm and instructive.....even comanding.

You should never spank your child out of anger or as corporal punishment. This will only lend your child toward an attitude of spite and aggression.

This use of spanking has led to a dramatic reduction in those activities. Spanking, used appropriately, is one such decent parenting skill.
Also, if Adam and Eve had two sons...Cain and Able (or three sons including Seth if you so believe), how was the human race populated?
Adam and Eve also had daughters.
Genesis 5:3-4;
3 When Adam had lived a hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. 4 The days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were eight hundred years; and he had other sons and daughters.

Here in lays one of the many controversies of Genesis: How was the Earth populated from only 2 people?

Briefly:
1. The story of Adam and Eve is symbolic. More than 2 people were created at the same time;

2. Man was created with a "perfect" genetic code. This "perfect" genetic code did not produce errors through generations of inbreeding, and is why Adam and Eve were never issued a law forbidding sexual relations with daughters, sisters, etc. Only after the first wave of Nefilim came into the story did insest become an issue. This suggests that the Nefilim's breeding with the daughters of Man corrupted the original human genetic code, resulting in the OT lavit. laws forbidding insestial relations;

3. If you will notice, the afore referenced passage of Genesis 5:3-4 goes out of it's way to tell us that Seth was in Adam's image and likeness. The bible does not do this for Cain, Able, or anyone ells for that matter. This suggests that there was something different about Cain and Able then of the rest of Man. Something different from even Adam. Though what exactly this could be I do not know.
 
That would not have been *free* will, but *restricted* will. If we were in a position where we could only make good choices, then of what value would our goodness be? If we can not choose evil, then neither can we choose good. We would choose good only because we would have no other choice.....which is not really a choice at all.

not true, free will is relative.

for example. We have this concept of evil and good. However, we are don't have total free will. e.g. death, the physical laws of the universe etc. If god could create a uiniverse where the physical laws directly prevented this idea of evil, then we humans wouldn't even begin to understand the concept of evil. Just like in this universe, the concept of time is so hard for us to define, or the idea of multiple dimensions, etc.

Therefore, in that universe, we'd feel like we have free will. we'd feel that the only imaginable choice is the choice that leads us to all that is good.

Also, he could create humans in such a way that we'd feel all our choices for good are as genuine and loving as otherwise.

The possibilities are endless.
 
nkgupta80 said:
not true, free will is relative.

for example. We have this concept of evil and good. However, we are don't have total free will. e.g. death, the physical laws of the universe etc.
Matthew 17:20;
20 He said to them, "Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you."
If god could create a universe where the physical laws directly prevented this idea of evil, then we humans wouldn't even begin to understand the concept of evil. Just like in this universe, the concept of time is so hard for us to define, or the idea of multiple dimensions, etc.

Therefore, in that universe, we'd feel like we have free will. we'd feel that the only imaginable choice is the choice that leads us to all that is good.

Also, he could create humans in such a way that we'd feel all our choices for good are as genuine and loving as otherwise.

The possibilities are endless.
Feeling like you have free will is not having free will. If you feel like you have free will, but you actually do not, then your feeling is a lie.
How we feel is relative. Absolute truth is not.
 
In the bible, how does jesus go from the age of 13 to the age of 30 instantly? Or, how does the church say it happened?
 
goligoth said:
In the bible, how does jesus go from the age of 13 to the age of 30 instantly? Or, how does the church say it happened?
Since Jesus did not go from age 13 to 30 instantly, the bible dos not say that He did, nor does the church.

Jesus left home at age 13 because if He had stayed, He, as a Jew, would've been expected to start taking over the family business and take a wife.

Jesus had other plans.

In order to determin what Jesus did during this missing time, one must review "unauthorized" and "heretical" texts. A couple good books on this topic are Hidden Stories of the Childhood of Jesus (Hidden Treasure) by Glenn Kimball and The Lost Years of Jesus: The Life of Saint Issa, Translation by Notovitch

One popular history is that Jesus went to Tibet and studied Budhist teachings: Becoming the greatest Buddha ever seen.

As a Christian, I don't have a problem with that possibility, because according to Satanist-turned-Luciferian Aaron Donahue, in his Feb. 26th. interview on Coast to Coast AM, the only pathes which are entirely incompatible and contrary to Luciferianism are Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Hinduism.

Those 4 just happen to be the 4 major religions of the world. Those 4 sher the same origin and the same main all-creator God. Those 4 compose "the people of the book".
 
Feeling like you have free will is not having free will. If you feel like you have free will, but you actually do not, then your feeling is a lie.
How we feel is relative. Absolute truth is not.[/QUOTE]


we all feel like we have free will when in reality we don't have free will. We're bound by physical laws, bound by the resources of this world, bound by random circumstances. I don't have the free will to stop an earthquake, I don't have the free-will to stop the death of a family member, I don't have the free will to stop a bullet in mid-air. Our choices are restricted in this universe too. We feel like we have total free-will but we don't. A person living in a some abstract universe where all the things I describe were possible, would call our state of being "restricted free-will." Again it is all relative.

So what I am saying, why not just making physically impossible to have an absence of good, just like we find it physically impossible in this universe to escape the notion of time. on the contrary, If god wanted to give us free will, then why couldn't he give us a universe where we have even more choices and freedom (both evil and good). God isn't bound by physical laws, so he could techinically create this theoretical world. Also, Why couldn't he make a good choice EVEN more meaningful, by making the world a total hell, (thus the acts of truly selfless humans would be even more meaningful).

Theres just too many discrepancies in the notion of an all-powerful caring god having built the world the way it is.
 
nkgupta80 said:
we all feel like we have free will when in reality we don't have free will. We're bound by physical laws, bound by the resources of this world, bound by random circumstances. I don't have the free will to stop an earthquake, I don't have the free-will to stop the death of a family member, I don't have the free will to stop a bullet in mid-air. Our choices are restricted in this universe too. We feel like we have total free-will but we don't. A person living in a some abstract universe where all the things I describe were possible, would call our state of being "restricted free-will." Again it is all relative.

Matthew 17:14-20;
14 And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and kneeling before him said, 15 "Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly; for often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. 16 And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him." 17 And Jesus answered, "O faithless and perverse generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me." 18 And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly. 19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?"
Jerry said:
Matthew 17:20;
20 He said to them, "Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you."

In that example: through faith we can heal epilepsy in the blink of an eye.

Lack of faith is all the restricts us. How much faith we have is up to each individual. It is our choice.

So what I am saying, why not just making physically impossible to have an absence of good,.....
That would defeat the purpose. We are not here to experience a utopia. We are here to overcome the inherent weakness of the flesh.

.....just like we find it physically impossible in this universe to escape the notion of time.
Quantum Phisics has already escaped the notion of time by proving time travel's possibility through photons.

on the contrary, If god wanted to give us free will, then why couldn't he give us a universe where we have even more choices and freedom (both evil and good).
Because there is no greater quantity than ALL, and we currently have ALL choices at our disposal.

God isn't bound by physical laws, so he could technically create this theoretical world.
1st. God must follow His oun law. This is why God lets bad thing happen to good people: If God interferes without invitation, then He is infringing on the very free will which He gave us. That would defeat free will's operation, and thus nullify it.
2nd. Given Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, (see also Many-worlds interpretation) such a world does exist, and we are in it.

Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we CAN suppose”.
biochemist JBS Haldane

Haldane was suggesting that perhaps the Universe is not only stranger and more complex than we think, but possibly stranger than it is within the grasp of human mentality to comprehend.


Also, Why couldn't he make a good choice EVEN more meaningful, by making the world a total hell, (thus the acts of truly selfless humans would be even more meaningful).
He did. You're in that hell.

Theres just too many discrepancies in the notion of an all-powerful caring god having built the world the way it is.

We disagree on to many premises in order to sher that conclusion.
 
Jerry said:
Since Jesus did not go from age 13 to 30 instantly, the bible dos not say that He did, nor does the church.

Jesus left home at age 13 because if He had stayed, He, as a Jew, would've been expected to start taking over the family business and take a wife.

Jesus had other plans.

so when people ask the church what happened the church just says.....what exactly.....

the reason I asked is to get the churches view......I know about the heretical texts, and they are nice but the church has to have some reason for this 17 year gap....
 
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