Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

No

Only Judeism

Only Islam

Yes to both Judeism and Islam

[TD1]

Yea, no. One does not try to change a believer's mind

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

Yea, no. One does not try to change a believer's mind

Not the easiest of feats

[Rolan7]

I guess I don't see much point in changing a casual or tolerant believer's mind, is what I was trying to say.

It's the evangelicals who do so much harm, but they're the hardest to convince of course...

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

I guess I don't see much point in changing a casual or tolerant believer's mind, is what I was trying to say.

It's the evangelicals who do so much harm, but they're the hardest to convince of course...

I will say I actually have a lot of respect for evangelical people, I just can't see myself being like that
I mean I want everyone to get saved 'cause yaknow, you don't wish hell on someone
on the other hand people are so set in their ways that evangelical aproach can get pretty ummm lets see umm how to word this one......personal? when trying to get people to believe

[timferius]

If you want the world to respect your religious beliefs and choices, you have to do the same. Instead they try to force their will on everyone, both aggressively converting and attempting to influence law to make it reflect their personal views. I can't respect that type of person.

EDIT:
Misunderstanding between Evangelical and the other more extreme branches of the Baptist church (eg. Westboro Baptist). So just assume the above statement refers to those extremes.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

If you want the world to respect your religious beliefs and choices, you have to do the same. Instead they try to force their will on everyone, both aggressively converting and attempting to influence law to make it reflect their personal views. I can't respect that type of person.

.-.
Evangelical people are a bit different around here then
my youth pastor is a bit evangelical and he doesn't try to shove it down peoples throats, he's willing to sit down and talk/discuss about it
same with the others I admire, they don't generaly shove it down people throats

I don't respect the people you described there but the ones that are around me I do

[timferius]

Ah, when I think Evangelical I think Westboro Baptist bad. But doing some preliminary research shows that not to necessarily be the case. Sorry for the misunderstanding/generalization.

Edit:
Edited above post so people don't read it and try to correct me when I've already corrected myself.

[Orange Wizard]

Yea, no. One does not try to change someone's mind

FTFY

[Gnorm]

I wonder if i'm the only baptist here
probably on my own when it comes to my views

I frequent the local Baptist church, mostly because its one of the few churches within walking distance. It's not particularly evangelical, despite that being a part of the Baptist faith if my knowledge is correct. I wish there were more evangelical groups in my area, but the only other I can think of is an Evangelical Lutheran church, which seems to be one in name only.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the Baptist religion pretty autonomous as far as the individual churches go?

[Frumple]

Yeah, pretty much, at least insofar as I've been able to tell from my relatively limited exposure to the workings of southern baptist churches. I think there may be some regional get-together type things (or a few different ones. The southern baptist convention is (the big) one, I think?), but they're generally pretty disconnected (and often contentious) from (/with) each other, from what I've seen. And affiliation with the larger coalition-type stuff is far from necessary.

We've got... well, multiple, though how multiple I couldn't say, baptist churches around my area. As I've noted, I try to avoid them, but some of the family doesn't and I occasionally get to hear tales of the local inter-church conflicts and whatnot.

[penguinofhonor]

My mom's family is Baptist. She wasn't though, so I wasn't raised religiously.

I think non-Southern Baptists are relatively boring. A long time ago my grandma's old church had a big embezzlement scandal with the pastor, but she's been through a few churches since then pretty uneventfully.

[lemon10]

If you want the world to respect your religious beliefs and choices, you have to do the same. Instead they try to force their will on everyone, both aggressively converting and attempting to influence law to make it reflect their personal views. I can't respect that type of person.

EDIT:
Misunderstanding between Evangelical and the other more extreme branches of the Baptist church (eg. Westboro Baptist). So just assume the above statement refers to those extremes.

Personally I feel that saving people an eternity of damnation is far more important then being polite or freedom of religion. Not that i'm religious, but if I was it seems that any other course of action besides trying to convert as many people as you can is almost immoral. Logically, even murdering someone if it let you save their soul would be the moral course of action.

[Lord Shonus]

Once a religion accepts that the sword cannot make one faithful, the obvious means of proselytizing is to lead by example and then, when asked why you do something, or how you handle harships, explain your beliefs.  Not everyone accepts this, but it's generally a far more effective means, and is the reason why the missions my grandmother's church supports are organized the way they do (they show up in some problem-stricken area, help out, and are forbidden by the organizers to mention God unless asked one of a set of questions), because it is the best way they've found to spread the Word.

[Bohandas]

If you want the world to respect your religious beliefs and choices, you have to do the same. Instead they try to force their will on everyone, both aggressively converting and attempting to influence law to make it reflect their personal views. I can't respect that type of person.

EDIT:
Misunderstanding between Evangelical and the other more extreme branches of the Baptist church (eg. Westboro Baptist). So just assume the above statement refers to those extremes.

Personally I feel that saving people an eternity of damnation is far more important then being polite or freedom of religion. Not that i'm religious, but if I was it seems that any other course of action besides trying to convert as many people as you can is almost immoral. Logically, even murdering someone if it let you save their soul would be the moral course of action.

An additional issue to consider is that if the kind of sanctimoniousness and repressed lifestyle usually associated woth this type of behavior is emblematic of the people who get into heaven and/or what heaven is like, then that kind of puts a damper on the idea of heaven being a reward. The reward isn't so much going to heaven in that case as it is simply not going to hell. Heaven in that case isn't particularly appealing except in the sense that at least it isn't hell; the people are boring and obnoxious and there's nothing interesting to do, but at least you're still in one piece and not constantly on fire.

[Orange Wizard]

Most people I've spoken to seem to think heaven will be pretty much like earth, just without all of the sickness, hunger, sadness, pain, death/aging, [insert bad thing here], etc.

Also of note is the verse in Revelation (so you might want to take it with a grain of salt, but it seems fairly clear) that describes "a great multitude" of people in heaven. In other words, there's a lot of people there, so you shouldn't have any trouble finding someone for your D&D games on Saturdays, or whatever.