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Have you thought about what a “non-Evangelical Fundamentalist” is saying to you by being “non-Evangelical”?…

a) they don’t care about what they have, and
b) they don’t care about you.

i know a few christians, and can describe their stance thus –
a) they may believe in their choice of religion so strongly that they think people will come round to it by themselves (which suggests a stronger faith than that of evangelicals). they may believe it is up to god to convert, not them (a position which smacks strongly of arrogance). they may believe in my intelligence, ability to reason and right to disagree with them, whilst also valueing our relationship enough to not have it based on continuous conversion attempts by either/both sides. which leads nicely onto…

b) they care about me far more than some arsehole who will spend the entire time they know me blatantly disrespecting my opinions by calling me damned/ignorant/stupid until such point where i feel compelled to walk away. please tell me again how one can regard the evangelical as the more compassionate?!

i would also add that you seem to have confused ‘evangelical’ with ‘fundamentalist’, the two do not necessarily have any bearing on each other. as such, a non-fundie may not even hold a hell concept as you understand it*, which reduces the need for evangelicism even further.

*i’ve heard hell being described as ‘seperation from god’, which, as another commentator rightly pointed out, i would fully expect as an atheist, and would therefore find it no more disturbing than discovering the chicken i ordered for dinner actually turned out to be turkey. obviously, if said turkey had been roasted to charcoal by eternal hellfire, i would be slightly peeved.

That is why I stumbled across this site to begin with, why I posted my first comment, and why I have continued to interact with you guys, even at the risk of opening myself and my beliefs up to people who oppose them.

And I suppose you believe God sent you here?

My greatest hope is that you all will avoid hell. My second greatest hope is that you realize about me what I realized about my brother. That any offense you take or any discussions/arguments/disagreements/whatever that we have here are not intended to offend anybody.

1. Once again, Hell is a human concept. But Ok I’m going to be nice and warm because I’m going to be cremated. Now, I guess that means I’m going to be burning in the fires of hell. Cool! Then my ashes can be buried in a rose garden and I’ll come back as a beautiful rose.

2. No, I’m not offended. I get a good laugh from you though.

One of the great things about the Bible is its honesty, especially with things that you really wouldn’t expect it to be honest about.

I think you should dust that old Bible off and read 1st and 2nd Samuel.
You will see one of the greatest figures in the Bible, King David, commit adultery that leads to murder. You will see his firstborn son rape one of his daugters, and another of David’s sons murder David’s firstborn out of revenge. You will see the son that murdered David’s firstborn attempt to usurp David’s throne. You will see several lies from all parties.

Does that sound like your expectations of the Bible?

My brother is preaching through 2nd Samuel right now, and it is amazing! They have several of the sermons online at http://www.bcredeemer.org that you can listen to or download for free. Today’s was awesome, and I definitely would recommend that as soon as they have it on the site.

I don’t know if any of you clicked on the link after my last comment, but that was a blog I did on “James the Just”.

Also, I was thinking about the comments that a couple of you made about looking into “non-Evangelical Fundamentalist” resources, and bouncing some things around in my head.
Have you thought about what a “non-Evangelical Fundamentalist” is saying to you by being “non-Evangelical”? I believe that they say a lot of things in that, but there are two big things they are saying that hopefully will show you guys that their stance is as foolish as I find it.

The two big things are:
a) they don’t care about what they have, and
b) they don’t care about you.

a) If they really felt that their beliefs have value, then they would want to spread the good news. So by being “non-Evangelical”, they imply that their beliefs are good enough for them, but wouldn’t do anybody else any good. The problem is that we praise everything we value. If we are a big fan of a sports team, people who know us know that. If we enjoy a meal, we praise the meal and or the chef. If we enjoy a person’s physical appearance or personal traits, we praise those.
b) If they truly believe that unbelievers are going to hell, then what are they saying by being “non-Evangelical”? By not wanting to share their pardon with you, they are implying that they don’t care enough about you to give you the opportunity to avoid the hell that they believe you are headed to.

So, although you might rather that I be “non-Evangelical” so that I would keep my beliefs to myself and leave you alone with yours, I can do neither.
That is why I stumbled across this site to begin with, why I posted my first comment, and why I have continued to interact with you guys, even at the risk of opening myself and my beliefs up to people who oppose them.

Because I value what I have, and want to share it. And because I believe that you are all going to hell if you do not acknowledge that there is a God who created this universe, and submit to His authority, and accept the pardon that is only availabe through Jesus Christ. And because I care enough about your soul that I do not want you to suffer eternal damnation because you chose to live a life that you incorrectly thought was better than the one Christianity offers.

A few years ago, my brother bought me a Bible for my birthday. I was an atheist at the time, and I was offended at first by the gift. “He doesn’t know anything about me. If he did, he would not have bought me that,” I thought. After thinking it over, however, I realized that he believed that was what I needed. And to him, that was the greatest gift that he could have given me, because it was an eternal gift from his perspective.

So, even though I thought he was “misled” at the time, I realized that his gift was a gift a great love. And although it didn’t have much value to me at the time, I knew that to him it was the most valuable gift that he could have given me.

My greatest hope is that you all will avoid hell. My second greatest hope is that you realize about me what I realized about my brother. That any offense you take or any discussions/arguments/disagreements/whatever that we have here are not intended to offend anybody.

My intention is to give you the most valuable gift that I have to offer.

Of course, I’m with you, roughly 50% in this area who profess to be a Christian maybe using it as a mask because they are afraid of those who are the Religious Reich.

However, I didn’t learn what I’ve learned about the Bible to change their beliefs about God- part of it was no choice, the other part was to be able to show them a non-theist isn’t totally ignorant and could probably out do them concerning it all. Of course, learning Hinduism is out of curiousity.

I’m just wondering how you manage when attacked by Evangelical Fundamentalists.

Well you and I have different specialties, so that doesn’t really happen very often to me. Maybe it’s because of the kind of comments that I respond to and the kind I ignore. I usually respond to people’s misunderstanding or stereotyping of us, trying to build a bridge of respect where a wall of prejudice used to be. I have no interest in changing their beliefs about God and all that, only their beliefs about us. Once they realize that they relax. The bible babble is just that to me, babble. I don’t respond to it so they stop using it. It’s like when somebody sneezes during a conversation. I don’t say, “I disagree with that” because it has no meaning for me.

I like to interact with the unique person and often, though not always the bible stuff seems like a mask or a disguise they’re holding up in front of them. It often has a mechanical or automatic quality. So I ignore it and ask about them. Maybe that disguise is up because they feel at risk or insecure so I try to make the tone amiable and non-disapproving. Once in a while I meet someone who is so fortified behind their quoting chapters and verses that after a few attempts to appeal to the person way back in there somewhere I finally give up.

but what is so laughable about my lack of biblical knowledge?

Nothing, but it was how you said it that was funny, yet I tried to refrain from laughing because it’s not really funny. I’m just wondering how you manage when attacked by Evangelical Fundamentalists. I find having the knowledge I have is a means of fighting fire with fire.

I think I may have said this before but while my non-religious background is kind of rare among us here, isn’t that what we would expect will be more the norm in a couple of generations?

Sadly, given that I live in the Belt Buckle of the Bible Belt, I think it will take more than a couple generations. I don’t expect to see it in my lifetime unless I manage to move out of dodge.

I expect that my reaction may seem glib to some who have devoted much time and love (or time and frustration) to biblical study, but that’s the natural way I reacted, and I don’t see any reason to force that stuff down my throat.

I think I may have said this before but while my non-religious background is kind of rare among us here, isn’t that what we would expect will be more the norm in a couple of generations?