Okay, I'm a solid evangelical Christian, in fact, I'm a full-time missionary. It seems most of the FSU women I correspond with say they are "Christians" or that they "have God in their heart," but few, if any, go to church regularly or attend Bible studies, or even read a Bible. Not that one need do any of these things to have a relationship with God, mind you.
What's up with this? Is it cultural? Are there special sites where I might increase my chances of finding like-minded FSU women?
I know you vets have got plenty to say and I know you'll refrain from sarcasm...NOT! (lol)
Many years ago when I had to do religous studies at school. I read in the bible that if you pray god will listen to your prayers. Basically all of us have their own hotline to God and presumably if he wants to get in touch with us he can. Whats the point in listening to some idiot spew aload of bollocks from the pulpit. Do something useful and wait for the call!
In my opinion, America is the galapagos island. It is a vast land, with major oceans on two sides. In it's isolation, it has evolved and retained many unique ways of things: Old English system of units, English Common Law, Christians, death penalty, etc., while the rest of the world has moved on to more practical and peaceful things. I don't think even Iran and Saudi Arabia is as religious as America, but that's just my opinion.
This doesn't answer your question, of course, but I've always wanted to ask a Christian about this:
Did Jesus know the earth was round? Did he know of the existence of the other planets? Did he know that matter was composed of atoms? What about quarks? And if so...
...why the f**k didn't he mention these things? Wouldn't *that* have put a little punch behind his claim of being the Almighty?
Why didn't he mention how his "Father" created DNA, (and explain along the way that, for example, the four bases are adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine?) He could have said something like, "I realize that you, my brethren, aren't going to understand this, but I am explaining these things to prove to future generations of my Godliness."
He could've drawn a chart of the elements...that would've been nice. Talked about dinosaurs. Explained that the refraction of light through raindrops creates rainbows. *Anything* to prove Who He Was.
I'm going to guess that the response will be: Of course he knew all this, but he choose to keep it a secret because the people were not ready to hear such things. (To which I'd respond: I see. But raising somebody from the dead, turning water into wine, walking on water, raising himself from the dead...this his people would have no problem with?)
I'm a 'vet' of some 8 years and not being a church goer myself it is not a subject that can be expected to be raised during, what is meant to be, a romantic date.
I had one girlfriend in Tashkent and she got on my nerves, she was a bible basher and kept referring to god and, in my opinion, overly so and it seemed that she couldn't pass a begger on the street, and they are everywhere, without giving them some coins.
Needless to say the relationship didn't last, she was driving me mad trying to preach god unto me, I wanted to date a lady, not god.
Someone started the topic, and someone approved it, but if it's not your cup of tea, simply avoid it.
Christianity, as we know it in Europe, isn't the religion of Jesus. It is the religion of Paul and the Vatican. For example, Paul forego circumcission, among other things, because it hindered grown men from accepting Christianity.
It's possible of course that Jesus waxed lyrical about all that stuff day after day, but when the gospels were being written approximately a hundred years after his death, by people who had obviously never met him, they may have overlooked the whole guanine and cytosine crap because they thought (with some justification) that it was completely and utterly irrelevant to the topic they were writing about.
Of course, he never claimed to be divine either, that idea sprouted from Rome, so you could probably forgive him for not having read New Scientist.
Opinions are like body odor.Unique to each person.Some opinions stink.Paul was circumsized.He was a jew.He led the fight against of Christians.Orthodoxy is a religion of Christ.What do you think the cross is about?The bible talks of Christ weeping.Common thought was he wept because even with the miracles people would not believe.I was not a christian most of my life.Rather spit on them than talk.A miracle happened.Belief in Jesus is through faith not sight.The vatican is totally Christ based.Shoes of the fisherman..Mary mother of Christ.I also am friends with people who smuggled bibles into Russia when religion was outlawed.America allows all religions.I read a sign that said'I may hate what you say.I will still fight; to the death for, your right to say it.Fishinmission the are Baptist churches in Russia.Some other friends went to a youth conference outside Moscow in June.Try Big Church site or list your church on advanced search engines.
Jesus never claimed to be divine? You mean, he didn't consider himself God (or the Son of God)? That's news to me. In any case, lots of people seem to think he was God, and that makes him by definition divine. Thus, he should have known All Things, including DNA, earth going around the sun, et al. And come to think of it, why let others write it down 100 years in the future? Why didn't he just grab quill and papyrus and jot the stuff down himself? Again, with a preface: "I realize my contemporaries won't get this, but here's proof for future generations that I'm God, (a chart of the elements)." He could've written it in English, too. Being an all-knowing God, writing in an (at the time) non-existant language shouldn't have been a burden.
Yep, bash the Christians,but harbor the radical Islamists that will end up killing some of you and then describe them as misunderstood. Well I'm glad I live on that Island, because if being enlightened is living with your head in the sand as most of Europe does, well I'm glad I'm not enlightened. Europe has far from advanced itself to far more practical things.
Lets see the rest of the world has moved on to better. Try this on for size and not one of these incidents involves the christians of USA.
Bosnia-Herzegovina: 1992-1995 - 200,000 Deaths
Rwanda: 1994 - 800,000 Deaths
Pol Pot in Cambodia: 1975-1979 - 2,000,000 Deaths
Nazi Holocaust: 1938-1945 - 6,000,000 Deaths
Rape of Nanking: 1937-1938 - 300,000 Deaths
Stalin's Forced Famine: 1932-1933 - 7,000,000 Deaths
Armenians in Turkey: 1915-1918 - 1,500,000 Deaths
Yep the enlightened Europeans. Please don't make me laugh so hard!!!!!!!!
Paul was circumsized. What I meant was that it was Paul who left out circumcission and prohibition of eating of pig meat parts of Jesus' preachings in order to promote Christianity in Europe.
Between 500 and 1,500 AD Vatican exercised absolute power over Bible and Europe. Today, what in Bible, if anything, really comes from Jesus?
Jews didn't believe Jesus was a messiah (savior) because he didn't save them from Rome, as Moses had saved them from the Pharos and Egyptians. If anything, they saw him as a man, who couldn't even save himself from Rome.
all regilions say pretty much the same thing, ie the 10 commandments and whether you beleive in a religion or not the general prinicals of each religion most people would agree with. There are many who use religion for their own good mind you. You can't look back 2000 years and talk about DNA as if you know it all, i doubt many christians take the bible word for word, but understand the general message it tells them.
Not too concerned myself if Paul or any of his mates where circumsized 1000 years ago its doesn't really affect my life now.
fishnmission, I assume they say they are christian as opposed to mulsim as I suspect they get mail from arabs also and their are a lot of musliums in Russian esp the south.
I wonder what this subjet has to do with meeting women, not only russian ...
For your infomation, I am Muslim but I don't consider my self religeous. I believe in God and pray in my own way ... I also believe n Christianism and Judaism ... the religion will never be part of my criterias o love a woman and to marry her ... For me, the religeon is personal and it should stay between ad god ... I do like to discuss about religeon but never convince/push someone to believe in God.
Bible was edited or published by Council of Carthage in 397 AD, who excluded many gospels which presented Jesus as human and married, not divine and single. So, the very divinity of Jesus was created by the Church, and exclusively on his "single" status. So, Jesus was divine only if he didn't marry and reproduced, not in that he appeared, lived and died as human.
True nasfan6, but that was the past. Since World War II, however, for most, it hasn't been about border expansion, but about economic development. Now, it's 2000, and US wants an empire, more controlled than any in history. Don't disagree, until you read the PNAC, one author of which is known as Prince of Darkness due to his essay "Total War" in the 1980's on how US can win an all out nuke war with the Soviets. You'll see domestic Air CIA and Guantanamo as soon as they get their "star wars" or a missile defense shield.
I think your argument is falling apart a little. You can make a philosophical point about the nature of divinity and perception versus reality, but to say that Jesus should have known things that wouldn't be discovered for two millenia after his death, simply because some people BELIEVED he was divine, is a tad facile. I don't think you can really point the blame at him for failing to live up to a Roman invention. As LadyJane said, and I mentioned earlier, it ws later decided that he would be divine.
The Buddhists believe that there is a divinity to every living creature. There's quite a lot of Buddhists around, so by your definition then everything IS divine. Maybe you want to go and shout at a 'divine' gerbil for being so stupid that it can't explain string theory.
As for his son of god comment, well, yes, that comment has been ascribed to him. But the trouble is, some people read the soundbites, and miss the context. When read in context, he was not claiming special privileges unavailable to anyone else. It is perfectly clear, in context, that we are all considered the children of god. It's very easy to lift someone's words out of context and misrepresent them. For instance, in an earlier post, when talking about Jesus, you said "that makes him by definition divine" - Wow, looks like you ARE a believer.
Back to the original question - what does "Christian" mean on this site? Or "Orthodox"?
As a faithful Catholic, well versed in Christian history (can you say "Ignatius of Antioch"? - Google it) I'm very interested in what the term "Christian" means in a woman's profile.
To be clear, I do not believe Jesus was God, or God's son. The question I was posing was to those Christians who believe he IS God/Son of God. (And honestly, please excuse my ignorance. I assumed all Chrisitans believe Jesus is literally God, and that he rose from the dead, etc, and now resides in a location called Heaven). To *those* believers I ask, Why Jesus did not show any of his all-knowing powers in an incontrovertible, wow-this-guy-is-GOD kind of way?