Has religion served its purpose?

@kellyjay said
Agree

That’s surprising, Kelly Jay. You don’t enjoy spending time with God in prayer and reading His Word? You don’t enjoy listening to sermons? You don’t enjoy memorizing and reciting Scripture?

You view all of that as a “checklist?”

Are you serious?

@fmf said
There are interesting things to discuss here.

I don’t buy it.

@pb1022 said
The fact you think praying to God, reading the Holy Bible and listening to sermons is a “checklist” and not enjoyable tells me you were not a Christian.

Good for you.

Being a Christian, to me, was about believing I had a relationship with God and believing that Jesus had died on the cross to forgive my sins and save me.

It wasn't about counting how many times I went to church.

Each to their own.

@fmf said
Good for you.

Being a Christian, to me, was about believing I had a relationship with God and believing that Jesus had died on the cross to forgive my sins and save me.

It wasn't about counting how many times I went to church.

Each to their own.

And how did that relationship manifest itself?

How did you communicate with God and spend time with Him?

@fmf said
Good for you.

Being a Christian, to me, was about believing I had a relationship with God and believing that Jesus had died on the cross to forgive my sins and save me.

It wasn't about counting how many times I went to church.

Each to their own.

<<It wasn't about counting how many times I went to church.>>

Church wasn’t on the activities I cited.

@pb1022 said
And how did that relationship manifest itself?

How did you communicate with God and spend time with Him?

Have you really just returned here to rehash old questions?

How disappointing.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Have you really just returned here to rehash old questions?

How disappointing.

These aren’t old questions, and I’d be curious to hear FMF answer them, but I doubt he will.

@pb1022 said
<<It wasn't about counting how many times I went to church.>>

Church wasn’t on the activities I cited.

Fair enough. But still. How often did you pray? How often did you read the Bible? Were you interested in hearing sermons? Your "checklist" seemed almost tawdry in the context of what KellyJay and I were talking about.

@pb1022 said
These aren’t old questions, and I’d be curious to hear FMF answer them, but I doubt he will.

Come on. As Romans, you challenged him repeatedly about his claim to have previously been a Christian. As a theist, it is curious your starting point is always disbelief when people share things about themselves.

@fmf said
Let's say you have done all this, and are doing it all, and it is part of what makes you a believer in Christ. If, say, between 2024 and 2028 you gradually lost your faith, would that then apply retrospectively and mean you were not a believer in Christ in 2022?

Listen, I have had struggles in faith; I walked away once with my eyes wide open to what I was doing. I went through a divorce I was shattered. I felt unworthy; I didn't want to be reminded that something in my life was off. I didn't go back to the world I lived in before; I started playing board games with some friends. Personal computers just started hitting the market; we started programming some of the calculations of a game we were playing into the computer to speed things up. It was fun, a nice distraction. Then as we were playing, the TV was on MTV, and Micheal Jackson's Thriller started playing; God came up in conversation. Everyone at the table playing was all atheist or agnostics; I wanted to keep my mouth shut; the last thing I wanted to do was talk about God while I wasn't following Him.

A verse came to mind if I didn't warn them that he would require their blood at my hands. So I spoke up, the game stopped, and the rest of the night till morning, we talked about God. I went home and prayed; I could not talk about Him and not serve Him.

After that every time, we went together, which was very regular, it was all about God, and one by one, they all got saved. Some are now gone, but others are still walking with the Lord, which I believe was over 30 years ago.

Struggles with faith occur; this whole world and everything in it is temporary; nothing about it is everlasting except with God. When I walked away, it wasn't because I didn't think God was real, I did, but I still walked away. My only redeeming hope isn't in my abilities but Christ's faithfulness.

@pb1022 said
That’s surprising, Kelly Jay. You don’t enjoy spending time with God in prayer and reading His Word? You don’t enjoy listening to sermons? You don’t enjoy memorizing and reciting Scripture?

You view all of that as a “checklist?”

Are you serious?

Have you read my response to you about this?

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Come on. As Romans, you challenged him repeatedly about his claim to have previously been a Christian.

And when I answered him, when he was Romans1009, he'd deflect by blurting "You're just pissing in the pool!" and then repeat that over and over and over and over again across regardless of thread and regardless of topic and even stalked me on the General Forum and blurted it out there as well. "You're just pissing in the pool!" "You're just pissing in the pool!" "You're just pissing in the pool!"

@fmf said
Fair enough. But still. How often did you pray? How often did you read the Bible? Were you interested in hearing sermons? Your "checklist" seemed almost tawdry in the context of what KellyJay and I were talking about.

How did you communicate with God?

How did the relationship you had with God manifest itself?

Prayer and reading God’s Word is tawdry to you? Was it tawdry to you back when you believed in God?

@pb1022 said
Prayer and reading God’s Word is tawdry to you? Was it tawdry to you back when you believed in God?

Whoosh

There is nothing tawdry about prayer or about reading the Bible and there's nothing tawdry about being interested in listening to sermons.

@fmf said
And when I answered him, when he was Romans1009, he'd deflect by blurting "You're just pissing in the pool!" and then repeat that over and over and over and over again across regardless of thread and regardless of topic and even stalked me on the General Forum and blurted it out there as well. "You're just pissing in the pool!" "You're just pissing in the pool!" "You're just pissing in the pool!"

Sounds like you don’t want to answer the question of how you communicated with God when you believed you were in a relationship with Him and how that relationship manifested itself.

You’re in full-on troll mode.

Dodge noted, as you would say.