The Truth of Christianity vs. All Other Belief Systems

Ethnikos said:
I did not think God was going to allow anything to happen that I was not able to get over.
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Why in the world would you think that? Terrible things are "allowed" to happen all the time. I'm not criticizing your good deed, it's nice that you helped her out, it's just that this belief that God will protect you is irrational.
 
If ethnikos wouldn't have helped a sick non-christian, then ethnikos isn't at all emulating christ.

I think there's a story in the bible about helping people who don't share your viewpoint...something about Samaritans....
 
This little story would have to come off as exhibiting smugness, even if I don't really feel like that, because it has to be that way to support my original point, which had to do with prayer.
Was my praying to God actually inspired by God, and for some good reason? In order to show whether it was or was not, may depend on how things worked out in the long run.
I could have refused to take her back after the ransacking incident, and left her on the street to have possibly died with her best street buddy.
As it happened, I was given a Christian spirit of forgiveness, and even though that resulted in some more of my stuff disappearing, she eventually got over that and was able to go on to a normal sort of life.
It has to sound like bragging, but I am bragging for Jesus. I feel pretty safe about it since no one reading this knows who I am, so I don't get credit, and I would not expect any, anyway.
We should give God credit, and that is what I am attempting to do. In times of need there may be someone who will answer the call. In order to be able to actually do it, rather than just talk about it, may take a lot of prayer.
As for this woman's belief, it did help out in this particular situation. I will admit that. I'm not perfect and I would not want anyone to think I was presenting myself as being so super good. There was a lead up to this where I had this serious feeling that there was someone out there I was supposed to do something about. This went on for some time. When she said, apparently out of the blue, "Can I live with you?" it just may have been something she had been praying about the whole time I was having this feeling. I feel like God brought us together, and so, it might just have something to do with us both believing in Jesus. Any big surprise? It shouldn't be.
 
I think you're being a little hard on the guy, I wouldn't have taken her home regardless of her beliefs. A good deed is still a good deed, even if the motivations are not perfect.
 
I see you posted while I was writing this, Ethnikos. I completely disagree that God should get the credit for your good deed, you should get the credit. Good deeds and moral actions don't require the intervention of a magical Sky Daddy, if you believe this, it would mean that people who don't share your religion are incapable of good deeds and moral actions.
 
Ethnikos said:
This little story would have to come off as exhibiting smugness, even if I don't really feel like that, because it has to be that way to support my original point, which had to do with prayer.
Was my praying to God actually inspired by God, and for some good reason? In order to show whether it was or was not, may depend on how things worked out in the long run.
I could have refused to take her back after the ransacking incident, and left her on the street to have possibly died with her best street buddy.
As it happened, I was given a Christian spirit of forgiveness, and even though that resulted in some more of my stuff disappearing, she eventually got over that and was able to go on to a normal sort of life.
It has to sound like bragging, but I am bragging for Jesus. I feel pretty safe about it since no one reading this knows who I am, so I don't get credit, and I would not expect any, anyway.
We should give God credit, and that is what I am attempting to do. In times of need there may be someone who will answer the call. In order to be able to actually do it, rather than just talk about it, may take a lot of prayer.
As for this woman's belief, it did help out in this particular situation. I will admit that. I'm not perfect and I would not want anyone to think I was presenting myself as being so super good. There was a lead up to this where I had this serious feeling that there was someone out there I was supposed to do something about. This went on for some time. When she said, apparently out of the blue, "Can I live with you?" it just may have been something she had been praying about the whole time I was having this feeling. I feel like God brought us together, and so, it might just have something to do with us both believing in Jesus. Any big surprise? It shouldn't be.
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Whatever your motivations, it was you who took this person in, not Jesus, not God. Any credit belongs to you. That you found the strength to do so does not speak for the existence of any deity; all it shows is that your belief in your deity guides your actions. It seems to me, however, that attributing a choice you made to being guided by some thing outside yourself is just grasping for straws. This scenario plays out often, and often faith or lack thereof never enters into it. Some people have to use God to justify the trust they place in others (even when it is misplaced); others will use any number of reasons--The Universal Spirit, voices, premonition, the great bumblebee in the sky, what have you. This does not make any of those more real, just as it does not make your God real. That you took her back in after she betrayed you and stole everything is also not a religious thing (no matter how much you try to claim it is). I've seen people take back those who have torn their lives apart without any cries that "God made it so I could". It's just human nature to try to help others; no need for a deity to be involved.

Also, how can you be sure that your "feeling" that caused you to pray for guidance happened at the same time as she was ransacking your house? It's possible that she left hours earlier, or even minutes. I've had any number of feelings that something horrible was going to happen and nothing came of it; pointing to this one instance as the evidence of God telling you something bad was going on ignores the likely dozens of times you've had similar feelings, but don't recall them because nothing did happen.
 
Ethnikos said:
She was obviously sick. Why do you think I brought her home?Look, the cops had just gotten done harassing her. They would have known she was sick, and they did not take her to the hospital. I guess if they found her lying in the street unable to get up, they would have been obligated to pick her up.
I kept track of her temperature and gave her the proper doses of analgesics and kept her in bed and gave her chicken soup and whatever you are supposed to do with sick people. I told her several times that she should let me take her to the hospital, so it was not like I was preventing her from getting proper care. The point I was trying to make is that if she had been exposed to the weather for another day, instead of being home, I do not think she would have survived. If you asked her now, she would say that is true, so it's not just my opinion.
I do not think I was a serious contributing factor to her thievery. She had done plenty of that on her own. Her best friend did end up dead (God rest her soul) from a form of stealing, which is owing the wrong sort of people money. The point is, that, very easily, could have been her. (meaning my room mate) What happened to me is minor in terms of what these people were capable of.
A position in life is exactly what she got. A swarmy street person at the point of starvation and about out of her mind is not very attractive. She was able to have a degree of status where she could look nice and was able to attract a boyfriend and get married. I don't have to worry about her, wondering if she is dead in an alley or something.
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Meh.
The fact that details in your stories are added to answer critics, the weird attitude of the cops (that she was about to die was obvious for you to notice, yet they did not care?), the weird fact that you knew she was a Christian and the funny Soprano-like interlude (owning the wrong people money...)... it makes me think that it is a made-up story.
 
It's far too easy to point out the fallacies in this story. Far more difficult to get Ethnikos to recognize that he alone is responsible for his own compassion or its lack. Sadly, part of the lie of "faith" is that you're taught that any mercy you share with another is due to God's influence on your life, and not out of any sense of moral obligation you might have yourself.

And that's unfortunate, because clearly, while I disagree with Ethikos's actions, (or at least some of them), I have a hard time criticizing the heart which bore these out.
 
Simon39759 said:
Meh.
The fact that details in your stories are added to answer critics, the weird attitude of the cops (that she was about to die was obvious for you to notice, yet they did not care?), the weird fact that you knew she was a Christian and the funny Soprano-like interlude (owning the wrong people money...)... it makes me think that it is a made-up story.
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Sadly it is all too real. I looked up what I could find on the case by way of google (today) and I do not see anywhere that would indicate the murder was solved. (I found an entry dated 2006 that listed it as an unsolved crime) I was very persuasively instructed by the local authorities to not discuss the case with anyone but the detectives assigned to the case. I was told by my former room mate (about two and a half years ago) that someone was charged with it, but I would not know how to access that information.
This woman had come by my house looking for my room mate and I told her what her real name was and where and when she was born. (I had gotten it from the Sheriff's dept. website) She was shocked because it seemed no one else cared enough to ever find out who she was. She started telling me about how she was a cheerleader in high school and other stuff about herself. I did not have too much time to chat and I told her I would give her a ride to wherever she wanted to go, since I was about to leave anyway.
Three weeks later the police were knocking on my door and looking for my room mate because they had been told that she was this woman's best friend. I told them she was not home. Then they asked me if I knew anything. I said yes and I wrote it down in my diary. I pulled it out and showed them the entry. They looked very disturbed when they say the date. They said we have some bad news because she is deceased and this is interesting because this is the date they had determined she had died.
Her body had been found floating in a body of water and it took a couple weeks to identify her. She was obviously murdered and had evidence of severe trauma.
I was able to dig up some useful bits of info from my diary to where I could put specific dates to certain events, as I heard about them. So I was feeding the detectives little leads that supposedly allowed them to track down the killer. (I hope this is not a popular site in prison) Whatever happened after that, I can not say for sure. I could not find an article that says there was ever a conviction and I was not later contacted by the police to give any statements. (it was my former room mate that told me about the arrest of the suspect, who the guy was and how it happened and why)
The sickening thing, to me right now, is what I learned doing these searches, in light of one of the things brought up in the discussion of my story. This woman who is now dead had a degree in theology. What a shock. And she was also a registered nurse. Hmm. Apparently she had only gone into the street life about two years before it killed her. Before that she was like a pillar of her community. It makes me feel like I should have been nicer to her. That last time I saw her was the first time I had ever seen her where she was straight and not puking or something. If I had realized how great she might have been, maybe I would have let her hang out more than I had in the past.
Anyway, these are sad thoughts and why I normally don't think about it. But here was, unbeknownst to me, someone who was most likely more of a Christian (at some point, I would assume) than the one I had taken in, and I had never bothered trying to evangelize her. I probably would have found out really fast that she knew more about religion than I did.
Maybe there is something to the saying that to those who have much, much is expected. Here was this woman who could have been preaching to her jail mates or whoever, and did not. On the other hand might be my room mate who did not know much about religion but acted like she had it in her, though you would not know it from my story. She did all kinds of stuff to help people, to the point that it annoyed me, partly because I turned out to be a major resource for her being able to help people.
 
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Ethnikos said:
Sadly it is all too real. I looked up what I could find on the case by way of google (today) and I do not see anywhere that would indicate the murder was solved. (I found an entry dated 2006 that listed it as an unsolved crime) I was very persuasively instructed by the local authorities to not discuss the case with anyone but the detectives assigned to the case. I was told by my former room mate that someone was charged with it, but I would not know how to access that information.
This woman had come by my house looking for my room mate and I told her what her real name was and where and when she was born. She was shocked because it seemed no one else cared enough to ever find out who she was. She started telling me about how she was a cheerleader in high school and other stuff about herself. I did not have too much time to chat and I told her I would give her a ride to wherever she wanted to go, since I was about to leave anyway.
Three weeks later the police were knocking on my door and looking for my room mate because they had been told that she was this woman's best friend. I told them she was not home. Then they asked me if I knew anything. I said yes and I wrote it down in my diary. I pulled it out and showed them the entry. They looked very disturbed when they say the date. They said we have some bad news because she is deceased and this is interesting because this is the date they had determined she had died.
Her body had been found floating in a body of water and it took a couple weeks to identify her. She was obviously murdered and had evidence of severe trauma.
I was able to dig up some useful bits of info from my diary to where I could put specific dates to certain events, as I heard about them. So I was feeding the detectives little leads that supposedly allowed them to track down the killer. Whatever happened after that, I can not say for sure. I could not find an article that says there was ever a conviction and I was not later contacted by the police to give any statements. (it was my former room mate that told me about the arrest of the suspect, who the guy was and how it happened and why)
The sickening thing, to me right now, is what I learned doing these searches, in light of one of the things brought up in the discussion of my story. This woman who is now dead had a degree in theology. What a shock. And she was also a registered nurse. Hmm. Apparently she had only gone into the street life about two years before it killed her. Before that she was like a pillar of her community. It makes me feel like I should have been nicer to her. That last time I saw her was the first time I had ever seen her where she was straight and not puking or something. If I had realized how great she might have been, maybe I would have let her hang out more than I had.
Anyway, these are sad thoughts and why I normally don't think about it. But here was, unbeknownst to me, someone who was most likely more of a Christian (at some point, I would assume) than the one I had taken in, and I had never bothered trying to evangelize her. I probably would have found out really fast that she knew more about religion than I did.
Maybe there is something to the saying that to those who have much, much is expected. Here was this woman who could have been preaching to her jail mates or whoever, and did not. On the other hand might be my room mate who did not know much about religion but acted like she had it in her, though you would not know it from my story. She did all kinds of stuff to help people, to the point that it annoyed me, partly because I turned out to be a major resource for her being able to help people.
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More off-topic waffle!

Please, stop
 
six7s said:
More off-topic waffle!

Please, stop
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Sorry about all the waffle. I felt like I needed to explain why I would not want to go into detail about how my room mate's friend died. It is not a made up story but there might be a good reason why I do not want to go into the specifics any more than I have. This whole thing made me sick for a long time and I think for good reasons I do not want to get into right now.
 
Ethnikos said:
Sorry about all the waffle. I felt like I needed to explain why...
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That's cool... only this ain't the place to indulge such needs... some of us are here to discuss the topic launched in the OP

Of course, you are perfectly free to start a thread if you really do need to :)
 
Ethnikos, it was decent of you to help the sick homeless person. However, in light of having dealt with another homeless person, one who ransacked your home and stole from you, and in light of what I told you about the homeless friend my wife and I took in, whose presence disrupted our lives, perhaps in the future your charitable response should be to take the peron to a hospital and offer to pay for his or her care. Bear in mind also that a person running a high fever may well have a contagious disease. Thus, by harboring this person, you may be unwittingly exposing your family and neighbors to it.

Now, more to the point of this thread, if the generosity of spirit you've shown is a sign of the superiority of Christian belief, how do you explain the fact that the Qur'an also stresses generosity, partucularly toward orphans? In fact, giving alms is one of the five pillars of Islam. I might also point out that atheists often show generosity and compassion.

So, again, what makes Christian belief superior to all other systems?
 
TimCallahan said:
Thus, by harboring this person, you may be unwittingly exposing your family and neighbors to it.
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Her immune system was compromised and it may have been something pretty ordinary to a healthy person. She also had bronchitis which was the longer term thing she had to get over.
I am too old and poor now to be much help too any one, so you do not have to worry about me ever getting involved like that again.
Now, more to the point of this thread, if the generosity of spirit you've shown is a sign of the superiority of Christian belief, how do you explain the fact that the Qur'an also stresses generosity, partucularly toward orphans? In fact, giving alms is one of the five pillars of Islam. I might also point out that atheists often show generosity and compassion.
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I think there are a lot of good people, and it may be that the original Muslims were Bedouins with a tradition of hospitality to strangers. It would be nice to think the concept got incorporated into their religion. It could be that as Islam spread out to other peoples, the natural inclination to be so friendly could have been lost somewhat.
So, again, what makes Christian belief superior to all other systems?
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Christianity could be thought of as a reformation of an older existing religion. The idea would have been to bring the religion from being so much a keeping of the written law, to being more something that is inside a person. It can be summed up by the discussion between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. He pointed to the Temple in Jerusalem, which signified the old authentic beliefs, and said this is right. Then he goes on to say that soon, God will be worshipped in spirit and in truth.
I'm not sure but it could be that the Islamic religion would be similar to what Judaism was at the time of Jesus, obeying the letter more than the spirit.
Jesus at least says that we should really be good and not to just act in a way that looks good. He makes it known that God will give him the ability to give the Spirit to who he wishes, that will bring about a transformation in us that will make us able to do good things.
Like I said, there are probably a lot of people who are naturally pretty decent. But there could be a lot of people who could use a boost in their goodness factor. Understanding you are not so good, by having Jesus to compare yourself to, is the first step to getting better. My argument, and the reason for what ended up being a dragged out story, is that praying for the gift of the Spirit can bring you to a point of being capable of carrying out good woks, when you may not have been naturally.
 
kurious_kathy said:
Oh please, you guys just like to harass Christians when they show concern and try to help someone in need, Pride has nothing to do with it.

Tell me would you badger someone if they shared this story with you of a good deed they tried to do for someone if they weren't a Christian?
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Don't judge us Kathy. Also, your post reveals an error in judgement made by you.
 
gambling_cruiser said:
I find it really funny that some member of one of the about 34000 christian sects thinks catholics are not christians.
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I guess you are referring to me? I do have concerns about Catholics for a good reason,
the Eucharist Christ is not the same Jesus I know.
And they believe their religious sacraments save them, not grace.
And then most Catholics do not even read their Bibles.
Also they pray and worship Mary. She is not co redeemer with Christ that would make her equal to God and she's just a sinner like we are.
Then they pray to saints when Jesus says we only pray to the Father in his name.
And their Bible is different and they have added some false teachings like from the apocrypha.
There is no such thing as purgatory.
And they tell everyone to call the Pope the holy father, he's a sinner like everyone else and Jesus forbid people to call anyone Father but God.
And I could go on and on but those are just a few of the lies Catholics believe that are un Biblical. If they were born again like I am they would see those teachings are VERY BAD and they would repent of following them. We all must repent of false beliefs that go against the true teachings of Christ.

Everyone needs to get Jesus right, and I see most Catholics don't. I know some may come to a saving faith, I just do not think they would go back to that church anymore as they would not be able to tolerate the lies like I can't tolerate them anymore. Once Jesus fills you with his Holy Spirit you will discern the truth of scripture verses all the lies that are not Jesus's teachings is all I can say about the matter. The elect will not be deceived!
 
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