If I've been conned, why do you tell me to believe what I want to believe?
Because in the USA, you are free to believe what you want to believe.
As, and does the fact that this is the American way automatically mean it is G-d's will? In Biblical Israel, which was the world's only true Theocracy, people did not have the freedom to believe what they wanted to believe. Nor did they in chr*stendom until post-renassance rationalism.
I have no interest in trying to convince you to believe what I believe,
That and the fact that I'd hand your tush to you gift-wrapped. I have debated people over this. When I say I believe there is an objectively true religion that all are obligated to submit to, I'm not kidding.
and I resent you trying to convince me to believe what you believe.
Does this mean you're opposed to chr*stian missionary activity, as this is what ever missionary does?
It’s just my opinion that you’ve been “conned”, but I’m not going to waste a lot of time trying to convince you of that.
Then you're wasting of time to tell me I've been conned (when you won't prove that to me) is an even bigger waste of bandwidth.
Because you have no reason whatsoever for your beliefs except that that's what you've always believed?
No, what I believe is not what I’ve always believed.
Did you resent it when whoever converted you tried to convince you (successfully) of something you originally didn't believe in?
You are doing the same thing Ben is doing. You are jumping to conclusions, you are trying to categorize a lot of people and put them into one preconceived category, and you are trying to label all people who disagree with you as being just alike. But life and the world are not that simple.
Perhaps you'd be surprised how the enemies of Israel, from across the religious and political spectrum, join hands on FreeRepublic. One minute an atheist is laughing at me for believing in "bronze age mythology" and the next an anti-Jewish chr*stian is congratulating him because the Jews have been superceded.
What do you think of ultrarightwing Catholics
You mean the kind that want to go back to using Latin in their church services?
Are you that naive? I mean rightwing Catholics who hold that the Founding Fathers were rationalist freemasons and that we should never have left the monarchy . . . who hold that it is the responsibility of each and every State on earth to make Catholicism the official state religion and to see to it that its people practice it . . . who assert that freedom of religion is a plot of a Satanic "Judaeo-masonic conspiracy" . . . . If you've never heard of these people, just surf the Net a bit. You'll find them. (NB: Not all rightwing Traditionalist Catholics are anti-Jewish. There is a splendid gentleman here on FR whose name I am never able to spell, but who is both a steadfast Catholic traditionalist and pro-Jewish. He is one of my favorite people.)
BTW, you do know, don't you, that Thomas Jefferson went through his Bible with a razor blade and cut out all the miraculous and supernatural stuff? And that Thomas Paine wrote a book called The Age of Reason that was called "The Atheist's Bible?" And if you want to know George Washington's religious beliefs, just read Douglas Southall Freeman's excellent biography.
Meanwhile FR is full of anti-chr*stian atheists and rationalists who attack Israel (like Seti1 or whatever his name is) who attack the Bible as primitive mythology and you give them a free pass.
I don’t give them a “free pass”. I’ve argued with a lot of atheists on this and other message boards.
I apologize for misjudging you. I have read your response to one of the "rationalists" on this thread. On that issue you and I are allies. Like you, I simply don't understand why anti-religious types latch onto the conservative movement in the first place, as the whole conservative cause is to fight for G-d and His Will. But you'll find plenty of Randians and such like here. Maybe on that issue we can help each other out.
BTW, thank you for taking the position you do.
I don’t “attack” Israel. I just like to promote the USA over other countries, and I like to defend against anti-USA attacks by whoever attacks the USA.
Many people who attack Israel do so because its founders were socialists. Yet they hypocritically ignore the fact that the United States of America is a product of the "age of reason" and all its philosophies. The American founders were mostly deists and freemasons who were nominal chr*stians. The American Revolution was in fact the very first project of the International Left and it attracted all the atheists and anti-traditionalists of the day (all those famous foreigners who came over here to fight for us were not religious, and even the socialist Saint-Simon was among the French who fought at our side). In France Benjamin Franklin (deist, freemason, and a member of the satanist "hell fire club") was the darling of the "new left" intellectuals of the day, who made big whoop over him the same way ours do de indigenous pipples. Maybe the Left's whole anger at America is that we were their first big disappointment.
While the American Revolution was not a social revolution like the French one that followed it, it most assuredly was a testing ground and was supported by the same international forces. Perhaps this is why the Federalists later created a government that their Jeffersonian opponents accused of being as bad as (or worse than) the British one we had defeated. Maybe they realized with horror just how they had been used and how close was their escape???
You are getting all bent out of shape of perceived conspiracies. Take it easy. Try to relax.
Thank you, and I will.
and I resent you trying to convince me to believe what you believe.
ZC counters:
Does this mean you're opposed to chr*stian missionary activity, as this is what ever missionary does?
Oh, nonsense. I’ve been on many Christian medical mission trips to Latin American countries, and preaching was a fairly minor part of most of the trips. It was important, but it wasn’t “overdone”, and we provided much more medical care to the locals than we provided preaching.
Interestingly, one time four of our preachers had to sleep on the floor of a stable when we went to San Blas, Nicaragua. They said it was a humbling experience. And also interestingly, many of us learn more “religious stuff” from the local people than we do from our own preachers, since most of the locals are already Christians and are very family-oriented.
Some of our volunteers go down to be “missioned to” by the natives. It’s a very interesting phenomenon. Down in the villages, they don’t have any media, no abortion clinics, no punkers, no dopers, no cursing, etc. Their kids and teenagers are mature, while our teenagers (from the USA) tend to be somewhat immature and goofy. We probably learn more from them than they learn from us. A remote Latin American village is nothing at all like a Mexico “border town” or a large Latin American city.
Our preachers are very nice and present their points of view in mild 30-minute sermons, and that’s it. They hold night services if locals want to attend them. One particular mission group I went with doesn’t have many “converts” for a variety of reasons. One, the preachers aren’t pushy. Two, most of the people they preach to in Honduras and Nicaragua are already Christians. Three, local people who are secular prefer to remain secular, but they are not rude about it.
As I said, I think you’ve been the victim of too much anti-Christian propaganda. You’ve probably seen “Rain”, “Miss Sadie Thompson”, “The African Queen”, “The Mosquito Coast”, “Elmer Gantry”, “Inherit the Wind”, and lots of other anti-missionary/anti-Christian films. Have you actually ever gone on a missionary trip? I’ve been to Mexico with Catholics and to Central America with mixed groups of very nice and kind people. These are types of people you won’t see on network TV or in the movies, because they are literally blacklisted by the non-Christian media. Too many people in the national media today are atheists, agnostics, and other types of non-Christians.
Some other kinds of medical missionaries in Central America don’t even preach. One guy I met at the airport at San Pedro Sula (Honduras) told me that his group generally doesn’t say anything about their religious beliefs to the locals, unless the locals asked them.
Then you're wasting of time to tell me I've been conned....
Sometimes I think maybe I’m wasting my time telling you anything. You seem to know everything already. However, I’m interested in some of your historical background info about our “founding fathers”. I think you’ve researched that subject more than I have.
Perhaps you'd be surprised how the enemies of Israel, from across the religious and political spectrum, join hands on FreeRepublic.
I don’t see a whole lot of “enemies of Israel” here. I see some guys like you nagging, complaining, griping, fussing, and antagonizing many people, and sometimes that causes people to react in a rude way that might be perceived to be “anti Israel”. When they react, then you accuse them of being “an enemy of Israel”. The truth is, probably a lot of people here don’t think about Israel every day. We’ve got other things to think about.
You are making a big issue out of your own personal obsession by calling yourself “Zionist Conspirator”, and you are going around looking for an argument. You are purposely trying to antagonize people, so you can get mad at them and chew them out when they get antagonized.
One minute an atheist is laughing at me for believing in "bronze age mythology" and the next an anti-Jewish chr*stian is congratulating him because the Jews have been superceded.
Oh, heck, life is tough.
Say, why not calm down a while and not be so paranoid. I don’t think the Jews have been “superceded”. And I don’t think they are all alike. In America, I’ve found them to be just about as diverse as we Gentiles are.
Are you that naive? I mean rightwing Catholics who hold that the Founding Fathers were rationalist freemasons and that we should never have left the monarchy
What do you mean “we should never have left the monarchy”?? The British monarchy was Protestant.
Are you talking about descendants of French (Louisiana Territory) Catholics? Or descendants of Spanish/Mexican Territory Catholics? Or the few Catholics who lived in the original “British America”, the original 13 states? Out where I live, most of the Catholics are Hispanic. Their ancestors were never subjects of the British monarchy in the first place. Many of them think that Pope Juan Pablo II is Hispanic.
who hold that it is the responsibility of each and every State on earth to make Catholicism the official state religion and to see to it that its people practice it
Hmmm.... sounds like you are talking of “Vaticanites”. Some of the old time Italian Catholics in New Orleans are sort of like that. I think maybe Father Gunter is like that. But the Hispanic Catholics out here where I live tend to not be like that. My mission groups have found that the Catholics in Latin America accept us as “fellow Christians”.
"Judaeo-masonic conspiracy"
LOL! I’ve never hear of that one. Say, are you a disillusioned ex-Catholic?
....Jefferson.... Paine..... Washington....
Well, a lot of compromises were made in the old days so that the thirteen original colonies would all sign the Declaration of Independence and all accept the Constitution as one nation, filled with states of people who had a lot of diverse points of view. A lot of people had to make more compromises when we added Catholic Louisiana and Catholic Hispanic America. The state I live in, New Mexico, goes by the name given to this territory by the government of Mexico, in Mexico City, after Mexico became independent of Spain.
On that issue you and I are allies
OH NO! Then I must be wrong! (LOL, just joking.)