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Thread: Religion

  1. #921
    Corvette Enthusiast Kchrpm's Avatar
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    You can find plenty of do-nothing countries with high Christian populations, too. The point is that a country's percentage of Christians has little to do with its current influence on the world, positive or negative.

    Edit:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religions_by_country
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...us_populations
    Last edited by Kchrpm; February 5th, 2016 at 11:09 AM.
    Get that weak shit off my track

  2. #922
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    I'm not historian, surely a LOT of factors come to play with regard to current formation of world powers. I do confess that I'm only looking at what I'm most interested in... so there may be confirmation biased at work. Clearly there are a lot of successful Christian nations... and there are also a lot of poor Christian nations. Likewise there are lots of other successful and sorry non-Christian nations. What I'm personally interested in is that does Jesus Christ's influence on a group of folks make any real difference or not? You can draw your own conclusions. We don't really have any conclusive analytical data. But at least we can agree that Jesus and the Bible don't cause the Dark Ages or financial problems. We're the problem. On the flip side, perhaps God has nothing to do with our successes either, we are in control of our own achievements... the universe is also in control of giving birth to life and banging itself into existence... I understand that it is possible that there's really no need for God to exist. But at the moment, I still believe in God!

    I want to believe that in Christ, I can do all things! Nothing can limit me. Yet at the same time, I also want to stay humble and not do anything that God doesn't want me to do.

    Children, good people, all of us could be blindsided by cancer. Yes, it's horrible. And if you believe after you're dead and that would be it... then that'd be even more horrible. According to the bible, humanity wasn't even suppose to die, let alone to die of cancer. But anyway, that was before. Now, we all will eventually face death with no way to get around it... except... God does offer us eternal life though. It's ours if we want to live forever with Him. Of course if you don't want to then you don't have to. I'm sure little children will have no problem with living with Jesus.

    As for rape, whether by your own father or church father or some random stranger, they're all horrible. But God can still use such evils for good. Here's an example:
    http://www.todayschristianwoman.com/...-defeated.html

    Christine Caine was sexually abused by several men when she was young... interestingly her article might also explain to you why Christianity didn't help Greece.

    Anyway, believe it or not. Jesus Christ is taking care of our problems. Even today. Just that he's not doing it in a way you want to do it. He has a much better way. His way has been working for more than 2000 years and is still working.
    Last edited by Crazed_Insanity; February 5th, 2016 at 11:36 AM.

  3. #923
    Corvette Enthusiast Kchrpm's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Crazed_Insanity View Post
    I want to believe that in Christ, I can do all things! Nothing can limit me. Yet at the same time, I also want to stay humble and not do anything that God doesn't want me to do.
    That makes sense, and is mostly what I love about Christianity. It's the vain attempts to make everything else fit into God's plan, or to force others to not do what God doesn't want them to do, that has always grated on me and caused problems on a greater scale.
    Get that weak shit off my track

  4. #924
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kchrpm View Post
    You can find plenty of do-nothing countries with high Christian populations, too. The point is that a country's percentage of Christians has little to do with its current influence on the world, positive or negative.

    Edit:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religions_by_country
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...us_populations
    I think you proved yourself wrong. See US, UK, France and Russia. There's 4 permanent UN members right there. And Germany... Sweden... Norway... Denmark... Iceland... Finland. Brazil, up and coming too. South Africa - most prosperous country in Africa. Australia, Canada. etc. More of an influence than you would like to think.

  5. #925
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    K, Once again I want to stress... preaching the Gospel doesn't mean shoving anything down people's throats. Perhaps some Christians have done it in a way that 's inappropriately, but at least according to the Bible, God wants people to make their own choices... whether good or bad. Even after Adam and Eve made a bad choice... even after humanity made series of bad choices, God still doesn't give up on us and continued to try to remedy the situation. Even God's salvation is up for us to choose. We don't have to have eternal life if we don't want to.

    Besides being too preachy, yes, some conservative, fundamentalist, extremist Christians think that it's a good idea to try to ban sins away. Little do they realize if banning sins work, it would've worked out long ago with the Jews during the OT era. There'd be no need for Jesus Christ to come save us. Of all people, we Christians should be the ones to realize that laws cannot set us fully free. Rather than laying down more laws, Christians ought to learn to be as gracious as their Lord Jesus. We Christians are all saved by God's grace too and by faith, not by how good we are!

    Anyway, you are absolutely right that conversions shouldn't be forced. God's way of living also shouldn't be forced. During the OT days, things were definitely a bit more forceful, but if you read the bible from beginning (Adam) to end (Jesus), God respects our freewill.

    I think God's respect for our freewill is also one of the main reasons for evils in this world. If you want to choose to rape or murder or whatever, God's not going to play his forceful hand upon you to stop you. However, God can still take the messes you made and turn it around for good. That's the meaning of an omnipotent God. Doesn't matter what you do, God can still turn that around and use it for good. God not only can make something out of nothing, but can also make good things out of bad things.
    Last edited by Crazed_Insanity; February 5th, 2016 at 01:59 PM.

  6. #926
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    Quote Originally Posted by LHutton View Post
    I think you proved yourself wrong. See US, UK, France and Russia. There's 4 permanent UN members right there. And Germany... Sweden... Norway... Denmark... Iceland... Finland. Brazil, up and coming too. South Africa - most prosperous country in Africa. Australia, Canada. etc. More of an influence than you would like to think.
    To me, there are basically 2 factors. Either White people are really just superior or it's Jesus doing it.

    The 3rd factor would simply be that white folks simply lucked out. Someday, maybe the Africans, Arabs and the Asians will get lucky too.

  7. #927
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    Quote Originally Posted by Crazed_Insanity View Post
    To me, there are basically 2 factors. Either White people are really just superior or it's Jesus doing it.

    The 3rd factor would simply be that white folks simply lucked out. Someday, maybe the Africans, Arabs and the Asians will get lucky too.
    Arabs are too busy chopping off each others heads for Allah and unfortunately the practice seems to have spread to Africa. Asians, maybe, who knows.

  8. #928
    Relaxing and enjoying life MR2 Fan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Crazed_Insanity View Post
    To me, there are basically 2 factors. Either White people are really just superior or it's Jesus doing it.

    The 3rd factor would simply be that white folks simply lucked out. Someday, maybe the Africans, Arabs and the Asians will get lucky too.
    China had a more advanced civilization for thousands of years without Jesus

  9. #929
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    At least based on modern day prophets, the prediction is the Gospel will continue to move west in the northern hemisphere. From Israel to Europe then to America then to Asia then to middle east and then back to Israel. By then, it'll probably be time for Jesus to come back.

  10. #930
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    Quote Originally Posted by MR2 Fan View Post
    China had a more advanced civilization for thousands of years without Jesus
    Not talking about the past here. Don't forget Egypt, Babylonians... Yes, for sure we don't need God to become powerful. History has also shown us that.

    However, I'm talking within the time from of the past 2000 years. Does faith in Jesus make any difference?

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