Religions on Education committee

[pool]

If they really wanted to do a Christian act, then drop all bible classes and any mention of God/Jesus/Holy Spirit, etc., during the camp and simply concentrate on providing a service/doing a good deed to the community by having somewhere kids can go to meet others and enjoy the activities - now would that be so bad or wouldn't the Lord approve?

 

Think about it... CHRISTian.

It's not Christian is Christ is not involved.

 

A nice thing to do of course, and something Christians wouldnt disagree with but it wouldnt be a Christian event now would it.

 

Why not? Is it not possible to live according to the (alleged) principles taught by "Christ" and pass them on to others, without also having to feel the need to be compelled to "convert" others in to believing the associated belief system where they (allegedly) came from. Surely behaving as "Christ" (allegedly) taught people to behave, is as "Christian" as preaching about believing in the complete belief system they originate from. Why on earth must the name "Christ" be envoked to make the difference between a "Christian" event and a "non-Christain" event when the event itself remains identical in both scenarios.

 

Point in hand, the blurb put forth ahead of these camps occuring this year appears to have conveyed the impression that they would be held following christian behaviour principles, but without overt "preaching" or "conversion" techniques employed. The reality of the situation however is that at least some attendees have come away feeling very much "preached" at and having been "scared" in to being tempted to convert.

 

Bottom line, either the advertising was inaccurate in its description of what was planned by the organisers to be offered, or the goods delivered failed to achieve the standard the organisers planned they would. That, as I read it, is the basis of the criticisms levelled.

 

The camp advertised a certain level of service, some clients who attended left with the distinct impression the level of service provided did not comply with that advertised. Perhaps it might be the "Christian" thing to do for the organisers to establish whether their standard of advertising was at fault, or one or more of the individuals they had entrusted to provide said services failed to perform as expected, and apologise to those clients affected accordingly. Rather than either attempt to ignore the issue, or try and justify why it was "okay" based on the mindset of a "believer", as quite frankly that mindset is wholly incomprehensible to the vast majority of us "unbelievers", to the point of it coming over very akin to two different languages.

 

Was only making the point that if something is called Christian, let it be Christian...

If there were Hindu, Muslim or Jewish camps here, would people expect their children to go and get only good moral messages that mention nothing of their deity.

 

And I fully agree with you about advertising. To lure people in without them knowing what they are in for is wholly wrong. Christian advertising should have Jesus at the centre.

[pool]

And from a "faithful", Christians gain much encouragement from the witness and testimony of others,.....

 

Which has us "unbelievers" questioning what level of self-serving if not selfishness is afoot in the going forth and "spreading the word" and "saving" us who are pretty damn happy sinning our way from womb to wherever the corpse finally falls.

 

.....but the basis of thier faith is the life and works of Jesus Christ, no other..

 

Considering that the only material evidence that any such person may have ever existed, never mind what they may have done or said, is wholly circumstantial and without the slightest provenance, it is only a smoke and mirrors deal at very best. You either believe the blurb speaks the truth, or dismiss it as a fairy story, an individual choice.

 

If "christians" respect all humans as equals, as a matter of respect IMHO "spreading the word" should be restricted to putting forth promotional material, then responding to those adults who make further enquiries of their own free will. What parents teach their children is their business, but having strangers "teach" children is a whole other ball game, and needs careful monitoring. IMHO no child should be exposed to the "preaching" of religion from an outside source, as I'd argue they in general are too impressionable and too immature and inexperienced to make a safe judgement call based on wholly circumstantial evidence.

 

Preferably children should be accompanied by a parent/guardian to any and all "preaching" events, at the very least a parent/guardian should be in full possession of all relevant facts before allowing a child to any such event unaccompanied. The fact that none of these appear to have occured in some cases who have attended these camps this year is the crux of the matter.

 

What makes the whole episode potentially so unacceptable and reprehensible, is that an adult attending any event who finds themselves being preached at, or preached at in a style and manner they find unacceptable (eg. fire and brimstone, dancing around in the pulpit til exhausted preachers) can simply walk out, and/or remove any children in their care as and when they see fit. The children attending these camps did not have that choice as far as I am aware, some probably felt they had no choice at all but sit through whatever was thrown their way.

 

These camps are held less than a mile from my front door, and it also concerns me that folk in general, and perhaps those of us local to it in particular, know so very little about it. To be honest since this thread started I've been feeling a little like I would imagine someone living close to some covert wartime facility does, when its finally revealed what has been going on unknowingly literally under their nose. Yes, I have always been aware that the "Christian Youth Camp" existed in the old Social Club now for 15+ years or so, however the impression I have always been given of it, was that it was a place where children of church attending parents, who had decided to teach their children in to the ways thier church of choice, could send their kids to have a break with other kids who were also of like mind, which I'm prefectly fine with. The revelation that that is not the case, and that all Shetland children, regardless of location or pre-existing belief, are being encouraged to attend, I fine somewhat less comfortable about.

 

It's quite simple, Christians should not preach the Good News for any self serving reason at all. It is done firstly because it is commanded. But not only that, it is because of the love they have for one another.

 

You ask why they wont just leave you alone. If you saw a toddler helpless to save it self walking toward a cliff, would you not turn it around or even pick it up and run from the cliff!

 

For Christians, the situation is far more real than this for its about the eternity of the soul. This life is a mere breath of our existence.

 

The real question is, why are they not doing so much more!

 

 

 

Again I agree, the parents should be in know of what is actually going on and if unsure, should most definitely be encouraged to be present.

 

I'm quite sure no Christian camp organizer has the intention of luring children in to scare and indoctrinate them away from their parents. To whatever degree it happens is irresponsible of the Christian. This seems to be the fear of many and the best way to deal with it is to speak to the organizers themselves who will be more than willing to explain everything that goes on. Christian teaching also says that the responsibility of the children and what they are exposed to is first and foremost down to the parents themselves.

[scoots]

"You ask why they wont just leave you alone. If you saw a toddler helpless to save it self walking toward a cliff, would you not turn it around or even pick it up and run from the cliff!

 

For Christians, the situation is far more real than this for its about the eternity of the soul. This life is a mere breath of our existence.

 

The real question is, why are they not doing so much more!"

 

Am I alone in thinking that the level of smugness and arrogance here is quite shocking?

 

"I must save you from your ignorant self, because you believe something different to me and are therefore stupid, childish and doomed to "Hell" (another fairytale invented by the Pauline Christians to dominate and

subjugate through fear and superstition!) but I'm going to Heaven because I believe the truth.".

 

That's YOUR message and that of all other evangelical proselytizing Christians, boiled down into its purest form.

 

The morals of Christianity are NOW, on the whole, good, as they are with any other major world religion. The MESSAGE of Christianity, the story that is told in such a confused manner in only four out of dozens of Gospels submitted to the Council at Nicea, is a tissue of lies and borrowed superstitions and traditions, built around the life of an otherwise (historically) only minorly significant figure.

 

Keep with the moral side of thing for kids, as ANY decent parent does, but stop with the lies.

 

You fail to address my points of incongruity, paulb. Why is that?

 

Or to address Paul/Saul, and that all of Christianity stems from the teachings of this maniac, who fell out with every disciple he ever had in his entire life, and was run out of Antioch for life, for attempting a power-play with Simon Peter that even his own supporters backed out on, saying he was wrong.

 

There is much recorded accredited history dating from this time. Then there is a collection of accounts, written third, fourth, fifth hand and selected from dozens of others by those in power. Then they edited and REWROTE them, basing this on the ramblings of at least a borderline psychotic, who had never met or heard Jesus speak, but who founded a new messianic religion out of

his interpretation of events. Then they used the Roman Empire to wipe out and expunge all other accounts of pre-Pauline and Nicean Christianity,

throughout the Roman Empire.

 

So which do YOU choose to believe? The facts, or the almost entirely man-made and corrupted fairytale? Answer is obviously (A) for you, same as for all those in history who have followed blindly, feeling themselves special and above others who choose any other way. Only difference is, historically, all of us who DO disagree with you would have been silenced and expunged, ourselves, in the name of your God, as were the literally countless millions throughout history. The Christian church is, categorically, the greatest and most effective mass murderer in history.

 

THAT is some message, huh? Should we tell the kids THAT at these camps?

[the pursuit of oblivion]

Pool wrote:

 

It's quite simple, Christians should not preach the Good News for any self serving reason at all. It is done firstly because it is commanded. But not only that, it is because of the love they have for one another.

 

You ask why they won’t just leave you alone. If you saw a toddler helpless to save itself walking toward a cliff, would you not turn it around or even pick it up and run from the cliff!

 

For Christians, the situation is far more real than this for it’s about the eternity of the soul. This life is a mere breath of our existence.

 

The real question is, why are they not doing so much more!

 

I don't know whether you are on the wind up mate or whether you actually really believe this.

 

If you do believe I guess it's the best riposte ever for those who go on about militant atheists etc.

 

You really believe you are commanded to go around trying to get as many people as possible to follow your belief system and all that goes with it? And you've reached the position that your belief system is superior to very other viewpoint on the planet and therefore you will do anything you can to persuade people to join it. I guess that's what behind the camp. Perhaps I have been naive. This thread is opening my eyes more and more to what you guys are about! And some say atheists are arrogant!

 

And eternal life? Have you ever really thought that through? The reason life has a point is because it has an end. Without any end then there's no point to anything. Eternal life seems torturous. Like groundhog day over and over and over.

[pool]

Far from the wind up. But the way you describe it is also so far from reality.

 

Getting as many to follow ones belief system an all that goes with it...

 

Is very different from sharing what one believes to be the truth in hope that another might see the same truth. It has nothing to do with manipulation or blatant lies to do it.

And yes, absolutely, every genuine Christian believes Jesus is the ONLY way. To the non-Christian I agree there is nothing more arrogant. But as I said the truth is they really believe it... Its not a belief system they follow in hope to see some light at the end!

 

Yes, I've thought about eternal life. Probably almost every day and each time it's great!

 

The life as we know it which is what it sounds you're alluding to.. definitely has an end, of course that would only lea to misery. But life with God is outside of time, forever, beautiful, without sin an the point is to glorify and be with him forever.

[paulb]

Well now were on the subject....

 

Paul B.

 

Answer me this.

 

If I am a good person, bring up my kids well, care about society, give to charity, care and love my parents, despair about the injustice in the world, despair about the plight and poverty of the third world , speak out against injustice, support amnesty international and abhor violence. If I do all these things and more and live my life on the principal of do unto others what you would have done to yourself, is your God going to send me and my family to some unimaginable place called hell that he has created for those that do not believe in him?

 

Also take into account that if we take your premise that your god exists then he has given me and all other humans powers of reason, deduction, enquiry and intelligence. If your god then exists he has also given us the most flimsy, unbelievable, unrecorded, inconsistent version of his existence or his reason for being and the same goes for the record of his alleged son’s supposed time on earth.

 

Therefore if we use the skills he has allegedly given us to dismiss the flimsiest of evidence for his and his alleged son’s existence, as we must do if we are to use them correctly, and he still sends us to hell for not believing in him, he must be the cruellest god humans could ever imagine. What would St Peter say when we arrived at the gates, - “Ah yes, you used all the gifts god gave you to correctly deduct that his existence was entirely illogical, well done, now off to hell to burn forever in excruciating pain, oh and take those smart ass kids of yours with you as wellâ€.

 

On the other hand if we don't get sent to hell for not believing then everything christianity is built on especially the book it uses for its rules, falls down and there is absolutely no point believing in a god or gods.

 

Either scenario the argument for god falls down. It is just not logical on any level you can imagine.

my god would never condem you. its mans narrow minded view of what god is that causes hate. you will not burn. scriture states that there are diffrent degrees of glory you are rewarded with what you will comfatable with after your dead. god is just so you will get what you deserve.

[KOYAANISQATSI]

debating scripture is a waste of time. even more so with a raging athist that studies something they don't believe in.

Did christ not teach the children. why worry athists your sure its not true so why worry.

 

I'm a natural worrier me...

 

if we take your premise that your god exists then he has given me and all other humans powers of reason, deduction, enquiry and intelligence. If your god then exists he has also given us the most flimsy, unbelievable, unrecorded, inconsistent version of his existence or his reason for being and the same goes for the record of his alleged son’s supposed time on earth.

 

^This is the clincher!

 

You ask why they wont just leave you alone. If you saw a toddler helpless to save it self walking toward a cliff, would you not turn it around or even pick it up and run from the cliff!

For Christians, the situation is far more real than this for its about the eternity of the soul. This life is a mere breath of our existence.

 

The real question is, why are they not doing so much more!

 

I don't want to be left alone; I would very much like to know how to get past my brain obstacles, to join you in this eternal light but I feal that cliff edge getting ever closer with every passing second that the point about leaving an unbelievable story behind as a guiding light, is not addressed.

By using my god given reason I wouldn't accept without question, if someone told me they knew someone who could walk on water, feed thousands with a loaf of bread, heal any illness, raise the dead and rise from his own grave without feeling some creeping doubts about the story related to me. This is what christians do; is it not? Then there's that threat as well... believe in this as the only important truth or burn forever.

 

Take fairies for instance... If I don't believe in them one dies and this seems fair to me. If they drop like flies, then it is down to them using such an unreliable foundation for their own existence and they don't aid their own cause by staying invisible and not interacting with humans in any way whatsoever.

 

If I come across an old book that tells me the fairies are out for my blood for not believing; should I start to take them seriously?

 

If your going be the catcher in the rye, then please explain to us lost children why god gave us the of power reason then left his mark on such an unreasonable tale and threatens us to accept it, despite it going against so much we ourselves have learnt about the way the world and nature operates, in our experience of reality.

 

I don't have much of a grasp on human belief systems really and I have never been able to understand just what is trying to be conveyed to me when the term god is brought up but lets just say that if there is some underlying creative force or forces at work. Knowing or unknowing, why would it reveal itself by taking human form then using its god power all over the place. Did it not understand that people of reason would at some point in the future find the whole Jesus thing sound a bit beyond their reason and if it did understand this then just why god why?

[pool]

On the contrary, its man narrow minded view of God that makes him unjust.

Scripture teaches that God is perfect, and all who fall short of his perfection cannot be saved.

 

When men compare themselves by themselves then they dont seem too bad. But scripture compares man to God. The difference between the perfection of God and even the kindest man with the best intentions is infinite. Because we have sinned against an infinate God.

When that judegment day comes, it wont be the law of God on the other side of the scales, not even a mans thought of what is really good. It will be Jesus Christ who was fully God and fully man in sinless perfection.

 

Because God is so loving he must also hate that which is not, i.e. God loves children therefore he hates abortion.

 

If you come home one day and find a mad man has killed most of your family and is strangling the last embers of life out of your last child as you walk in the door, and he is arrested and goes to court.

Then at the end of the trial the Judge says I am a loving judge, you can go free. Would there not be outrage? Nobody will call this love...

 

It is alike with God who is perfectly pure and holy. The smallest sin against God is a sin against his infinite nature which is punishable by death.

 

The greatest problem obviously then is how can any man be with God.

This is why the son Jesus was sent and died as a sacrifice for our sins. The scripture says Jesus became sin on our behalf. Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice for the sins of the world and all who believe and trust in him alone will be seen as perfected in the eyes of God.

 

This is because when God who is just indeed, demands blood shed for sin, he will look to the sacrifice of his Son as atonement for mans.

[EM]

my god would never condem you.

How on earth can you square that with all the smiting and genocide He gets up to in the OT then?

 

Discussions like those above increasingly lead me to the idea that just about the only people who have any knowledge about what the Bible (especially the OT) actually contains are atheist. Christians seem to live on a diet of abridged excerpts rather than the murkier stuff, of which there is, frankly, a very great deal.

[pool]

If your going be the catcher in the rye, then please explain to us lost children why god gave us the of power reason then left his mark on such an unreasonable tale and threatens us to accept it, despite it going against so much we ourselves have learnt about the way the world and nature operates, in our experience of reality.

 

This is the beauty and the difference that seperates Christianity as a way and meaning of life from any other Religion or belief system.

 

Every Religion with some kind of afterlife is built on mans ability to follow the laws of a God and do good works (Religion). Which seems understandable.

 

It is not doing good works or deeds, following laws and being a 'good person' no matter how well it is done, that saves you in Christianity. It is ones trust in Jesus.

 

If you ask a Christian how they will get to heaven, the answer wont be, "because I have been good enuogh". Rather it is is because Jesus paid the price for thier sins and only then can they be pure in the eyes of God the father. Not because of anything they have achieved in themselves.

[pool]

my god would never condem you.

How on earth can you square that with all the smiting and genocide He gets up to in the OT then?

 

Discussions like those above increasingly lead me to the idea that just about the only people who have any knowledge about what the Bible (especially the OT) actually contains are atheist. Christians seem to live on a diet of abridged excerpts rather than the murkier stuff, of which there is, frankly, a very great deal.

 

This Christian (who eagerly serches the depths of the Old Testament) disagrees. God absolutely would condem every man if not for the love he showed by sending his Son to die for all who would believe.

[EM]

It is not doing good works or deeds, following laws and being a 'good person' no matter how well it is done, that saves you in Christianity. It is ones trust in Jesus.

Which is, I would posit, a relatively selfish and sociopathic philosophy to be evangelising. Give me good deeds over blind submission any day.

[khitajrah]

Ok! Can we get the topic back on track please?

[pool]

Of course, apologies.

[unlinkedstudent]

Ok! Can we get the topic back on track please?

 

Couldn't we change the title of the thread or move some of it instead (please)?