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Re:The closure of a Methodist chapel on Tyneside by nickpsecurity on Wednesday March 27, 2024 @05:36PM (#39844883)
I didn’t say for the media to discard secularism. I asked for the media that reports or goes into depth on so many topics to treat Christ and Christians the same way. Instead, they systematically suppress the Gospel, mock it, misrepresent Christians’ claims, and do negative stories every chance they get. Doing this to any group liberals favor would create an outcry about discrimination but it’s tolerated for Christians. It’s both inaccurate for media reporting and unjust toward people.

Re treating other groups the same

I think the group should carry the weight it’s earned in terms of evidence and outcomes. Here’s some evidence of the Gospel that far outweighs the vast majority of what U.S. media reports as facts:

https://www.gethisword.com/evidence.html

Now, compare the Muslim faith. They recognize the Bible as Scripture, the authtor’s writings heavily contradict it, and therefore he is a false prophet. He worked no miracles per earliest writings and didn’t come back from the dead. His influence largely spread by money and the sword whereas Christ told us to peacefully share His message. The Christian-like nations had much better outcomes for most individuals than Muslim nations, too.

So, evidence-based reporting would favor Christianity over Islam. It would also report any good or bad things people in those faiths were doing. They’d just report the news.

Re my background, “ego,” and “illusion”

I was a hardcore, liberal, scientific atheist who destroyed religious people for ego and fun. Most of the world around me were arrogant, selfish people chasing ego, money, knowledge, and pleasure. We opposed Christian values to push the opposite. My country got worse and worse the more we did stuff like that, too, but we blamed everyone else. Especially right-wingers and Bible thumpers.

One day, I was forced to believe after witnessing an actual miracle on top of highly-improbable events. The God who works miracles deserves more belief than my prior icons who had no such power. After believing in Him, the Spirit of God dwells in us and delivers on His promises. We saw the results in our family, workplace, etc. He gradually humbled me into a different person, too, who acts for His name and others’ future. In fact, God requires each act be done in love or He won’t reward it at all. No showmanship.

Now, I was in a community that shared all the history, news, and analyses that was hidden from me as a liberal. It was like leaving Plato’s Cave. After a while, I had seen everything from lives changing in the hood (eg Memphis TN) to studies showing positive outcomes on a national level to doctors confirming miracles granted in Jesus’ name. What I had before were my personal beliefs with no such evidence or power.

One of the other lessons from God’s Word is how He blesses or disciplines nations. The nations that followed Christ or kept laws similar to God’s design were very prosperous in many ways. In the Bible, they’d turn to idolatry (or atheism), sexual immorality, oppression of workers, and kill their children for financial success. Each time, God’s wrath eventually came down on them with economic problems, random violence going up, chronic illness going up, birth rates going down, bad weather, and so on. They were destroyed. As predicted, America started doing all those things after turning away from God with all the same responses beginning to happen.

So, we’re not taking out of ego or speculation or hatred of people. We’ve seen objective, personal, and historical proof that the Bible is true with positive outcomes for individuals and nations. We see our nation turning to huge sin and paying the same price in the Bible. That’s sad.

We want all of you to live eternally, purposefully, and with deep peace in hard times. The media systematically suppresses or makes negative reports about Christ and His positive results while promoting tons of unproven or sinful practices even when they do damage. If they do the opposite, or even just more righteousness, it will help many people.

Re:The closure of a Methodist chapel on Tyneside by talldayo on Wednesday March 27, 2024 @09:57PM (#39846963)
Perhaps God will make his next miracle something more generally observable. The context of your lived experience is useless to me. Unfortunately, I have seen schizophrenic people maim their bodies over perceived threats that a security camera proves isn't real. I'm not very good at the whole "trust me" thing anymore, at least without seeing the boogeyman myself.

Maybe both of us will be proven wrong, someday. It's the nature of unknowing.

Re:The closure of a Methodist chapel on Tyneside by nickpsecurity on Thursday March 28, 2024 @10:30AM (#39852014)
You don’t need a miracle. God’s Word says the Father draws us to Him, that faith is a gift, and He opens our heart to receive it. The God who created and sustains your brain has the ability to let you know His message is true. All He requires is we humbly seek Him and the truth.

Read John and Romans 1-3 asking who Jesus is, what our problem is, and what He does about it. You will know the truth. Then, choose life.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+1&version=...

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+1-3&vers...

Re:The closure of a Methodist chapel on Tyneside by talldayo on Thursday March 28, 2024 @11:10AM (#39852558)
Speak for yourself, I grew up in churches and feel stronger in my life than ever now that Christianity is a yoke of mental slavery. My ignorance of God has brought no ill tidings upon myself, and freed my soul to seek righteousness through my own person.

Maybe you don't need a miracle, having received whatever visions you claim to have seen. The rest of us remain mentally-sound skeptics that need better evidence than circular reasoning around the Bible.

Re:The closure of a Methodist chapel on Tyneside by tsegratis on Thursday March 28, 2024 @10:57AM (#39852404)
> In fact, God requires each act be done in love or He won’t reward it at all. No showmanship

I think that is key. Too often we try to appear loving, to earn God's favor. We grabbed hold of the pulpit, to prove our ministry value, and in so doing, we quenched the Holy Spirit; to attempt to say it was us who did the work, not He -- since we worked to be loved, rather than accepted the free offer of salvation, and accepted that God loves us not based on our works. Only then will it be no showmanship, and enacted from love

If we don't get that key, (and sometimes we dont), then @talldayo's perspective would be right in saying religion is an empty shell of ideology, grasping to appear loveable, rather than knowning it is loved, and living from that perfect security

I think this was the key to the revival you talked about in Wales, where crime stopped, and on duty police would form choirs to sing carols -- they sang "Here is love, vast as an ocean"

Re:The closure of a Methodist chapel on Tyneside by talldayo on Thursday March 28, 2024 @11:22AM (#39852688)
I partially agree - the core of what you're saying doesn't need Christianity or faith to reinforce. People can find salvation, lifelong happiness and spiritual fulfillment from something as simple as visiting their hometown. There are hundreds of mechanisms to ground people in their communities without using faith as a corollary for commitment. Lions Club, Boy Scouts, food shelter volunteers and firefighters all roughly serve the same purpose in serving the community while enriching the individual.

Without trying to make anyone angry, I legitimately believe religion as a concept is obsolete. My impression is that Christianity is blatantly manmade, and adapted to each society in accordance with how servile the audience is. That's not to say it's an ineffective tool, but propaganda and torture can also be effective tools that we consider irrational and unhealthy under a liberal democracy. I think that any state that respects the individual sovereignty of it's citizens would not turn around and spend their tax-dollars on non-secular investments.

Re:The closure of a Methodist chapel on Tyneside by tsegratis on Thursday March 28, 2024 @12:50PM (#39854171)
> Without trying to make anyone ...

Thanks for engaging, and have no fear of that :^)

> I legitimately believe religion as a concept is obsolete

I think this is correct, from your world viewpoint. But the key to our difference is in two viewpoints:

A ship is sinking. Do you dispise the weakness, and strengthen the ship? Or do you say the sinking is inevitable, we must abandon ship?

The first group must dispise the second for giving up. The second is Christian -- this world will end, we cannot hope in our own strength, we must hope in Christ

The first group is Nietzschien. We must throw out the weak and become masters

These two viewpoints are deeply opposed

I have two notes here: One is, I think Nietzschien thought leads to a society you don't want to live in. The second is that science says the universe is a sinking ship: we began in nothing, we end in meaningless heat death. Nietzsche hoped to escape this by becoming the overman, a strong enough master to create his own meaning

A third note, against Christianity, is that the second group must become slaves to Christ, and this is a hard route to take. I believe this is the reason most people choose to join that first group

But anyway, I appreciate your time. For me this has been my second most positive and enlightening conversation on HN, so even if you step away, know that I appreciate you and your forthrightness

Re:The closure of a Methodist chapel on Tyneside by tsegratis on Friday March 29, 2024 @09:46AM (#39864059)
As resurrection day is coming, I realize the sinking ship analogy inverts

Nietzsche aimed to save his life. Jesus aimed to give his life

Jesus saves the weak. Nietzsche does not

Apologies for pushing you hard. I think if I had found this foundation of life giving love, I would of treated you better, and found truth -- the one who freely gives his life, freely places truth first; and this is love