Posted on 12/11/2009 5:57:16 PM PST by Jim Robinson
Free Republic is a fringe right-wing Christian fundamentalist site... or so they say... and they might even be right.
We don't go for any of that godless left-wing big government socialist malarkey. And we do put our faith and trust in God, not government. We are pro-God, pro-Life, pro-Family, pro-Country and pro-Liberty.
We do not believe that government or science knows what's best for us or our children. We will make our own decisions thank you very much.
Every once in a while some group of posters get together and try to bend Free Republic to their will. Now, we tend to be pretty free-wheeling around here and will take a lot of guff and a lot of obnoxious insults from a lot of people, but eventually a breaking point is reached.
For example, when a group of RINO lovers recently banded together to try to force FR to accept an abortionist/gay rights RINO as our presidential candidate, they soon found themselves on the outs.
And a few years ago a group of evolutionists tried to force FR over to their way of thinking and they soon found themselves on the outs.
FR is a pro-God, pro-Creator, pro-Life, pro-Liberty site.
And now we have yet another group of Darwinists trying to have their Darwinist way with us. Well, as I've said before what doesn't kill us will only make us stronger.
Darwin Central has again declared war on FR. They have ping lists and email lists and will try to pull away as many FReepers as they possibly can. So be it. Those who would rather go with Darwin, please go. I sure as hell won't try to stop you.
FR will remain a pro-God, pro-Life, pro-Liberty, pro-Creator conservative site.
We wholeheartedly believe that our unalienable rights are a gift from God our Creator not from man or government. And no man, no government will ever deprive us of same.
Keep your powder dry.
To me, those are words of encouragement. You make us wannabe’s believe there’s a reason to keep on trying.
God bless.
Gordon
82% Protestant
10.8% Agnostic/No Religion
4.7% Catholic
2% Other Religions
0.5% LDS
Note that the two largest denominations of Christianity in the world, Catholic and Orthodox, although they number 1.5 billion Christians worldwide, make up less than 5% of the population in that state. Perhaps that explains why they seem so alien in portions of the bible belt. No one who has even the basic understanding of Catholicism would claim Catholics never read the bible in church or that the mass is in Latin so the laypeople won't understand it. The only way someone could possibly argue that honestly (and I've seen it argued repeatedly on FR) is that they've never been inside a Catholic church or had a close relationship with a practicing Catholic their entire lives.
Furthermore, Orthodox Christianity is seen as "unusual" to both Catholics and Protestants since our nation is overwhelmingly western-style Christianity (again around 90%). Orthodoxy is an eastern tradition, and the first encounter with eastern Christianity is very startling to other Christians, since eastern Christianity has a very different worldview and empathizes things very differently, including a heavy use of mysthesism, chanting, and artwork to communicate with Jesus personally. Many American Christians would be really shocked at the type of Christianity prevailent in nations like Romania (87% orthodox), because the services and worship style is completely different from what we expect to see in a Christian church.
For example, my new congregation is an eastern Catholic church (Byzantine Catholic) that many Roman Catholics are shocked to discover is a Catholic church, even though the Pope's picture is prominently on display there. The entire building and its congregation do things quite differently than you'd find in a stereotypical Roman Catholic congregation that's mostly irish or italian-Americans. Even when people drive by, they assume it's a mosque because of the design of the building.
Catholicism and Orthodoxy are older forms of Christianity than Protestantism, and if you look at the historical record you will notice that the bible in its present form wasn't complied until 393 A.D. at the earliest. Christianity for the first 400 years certainly couldn't rely on the same bible for what "Christianity" teaches. Took them a while to decide what books were canon and how to translate them.
Bigotry against forms of Christianity people aren't used to are nothing new. It's a culture shock. I honestly believe alot of bible-thumping "sola scripture" protestants think only their form of Christianity is valid, and is the major "mainstream" Christian ideal in the world, when it reality about 2/3rds of major Christian denominations in the world don't follow their beliefs.
BTW, the Byzantine Catholic congregation I believe in a very conservative, strict (right now they're abstaining form all meat 3 days a week in preparation for Christmas) bible-centered church with a terrific colorful pastor who speaks out against the Obama worshippers on a regular basis. They are extremely active in the pro-life community as well. I get really tired of hearing how those of us who believe in evolution are all God-hating atheists who support abortion and gay "marriage"
As opposed to that one trouble maker, I could probably find about a dozen different freepers on crevo threads, beating up anyone who believes in evolution as "non Christians"
So then who's being more of a bully and coming on those threads to tear down other Christians?
Have two already! - Say hello to your cuz. (then turn off his teleprompter)
Go for it.
Pardon . . . your ignorance is showing.
Why do you keep pinging xcamel to this conversation that she has not been part of?
Mormon isn’t Protestant Christian, so Utah isn’t in the mix, you still have a long way to answering my post 1078 to you.
I challenged this statement of yours.
“There seem to be a lot of fundamentalist protestants on FR who have a very narrow world view. They live in regions that are 90% protestant, and probably haven’t encountered many non-protestants in their everyday lives. When they encounter non-protestants on the Internet they don’t see them as real Christians, but probably weird cults.”
You are of course welcome to your opinion, but the extensive writings that Eric Harris left behind leave no doubt that he viewed Natural Selection as all the justification he needed to do what he did. In fact, he chose to wear a shirt that said "Natural Selection" on April 20. In many cases, those words, "Natural Selection" were probably the last thing that some of the murdered kids saw.
Um, yeah, I also met some of the people involved personally but I didn’t use that emotional crap as evidence like you did.
Nope, my point was not trusting the media but you failed to notice that. Cassie Bernall was the supposed person murdered because she was a Christian, and her parents wrote a book about it, and it was proved false. All the media exposure about how she was killed because she said she was a Christian, and then when that was proven false, it was just a blip in the news.
Her parents weren’t eye witnesses. None of the parents were eye witnesses. So yeah, I don’t believe they can give an accurate report of what happened that day.
I know a family who lost a kid at Columbine too. So don’t freakin preach to me about knowing anyone personally. It means nothing to me when it comes to facts.
These kids, who were basically adults, murdered 13 innocent people. They didn’t murder anyone because they were Christian, or an athlete, or popular or because they were taught about evolution. They didn’t murder because they were depressed, or lovelorn or angry or outcasts at school, or because their parents didn’t give them enough attention or too much attention, or because they listened to “bad” music or wore tshirts with messages on them, or because society failed them.
There were signs these two were messed up and those signs were ignored. Maybe if someone noticed, the murders could have been prevented. Coulda shoulda woulda. But with these two and others like them, probably not. Sometimes evil just happens.
So I’m saying, in case you missed it again, is that the media played up the “sensational” stories as they tend to do without any factual information. All the emotional hooks worked well...they killed the black kid cos he was black, they targeted the athletes, they were bullied, outcasts, and we’re still dealing with the legislation and zero tolerance policies because of the so called bullying, cos ya know, bullied kids will shoot up a school, and of course the anti gun legislation. Cos you know, if citizens didn’t have these awful guns then these school shootings wouldn’t happen. Do you recall the anti gun legislation, all the protests about guns, because of this incident? All because emotions were played upon.
And, I’m saying that these two are responsible for their actions (not the tshirts they wore, music they listened to, science they were taught).
I’m saying read all the transcripts, watch the videos, read about the history of these two. Maybe you have. I know I have. Maybe we will still disagree but at least we’d have all the facts and not just emotional crap.
I’m with you.
I took 10 months off work to study the Bible with a group
- - - - - - -
10 months of Bible study with a group (AoG or otherwise) does not a Bible Scholar make.
The Bible may not have presented specific information to lead to the discovery of anti-biotics or chemotherapy, but that does not invalidate the Bible.
Before antibiotics were discovered (by accident, not through scientific research to find them), all those hygiene rules from the Creator Himself, would have saved a lot of lives and untold misery had they been followed.
There were a lot of regulations concerning health for the Israelites to follow that make a lot more sense now that we know some of the *why* for why they are effective, but modern science still hasn't invalidated any of them.
Ahhh! . . . so you're that well regulated militia I keep hearing about.
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