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Interactions with unbelievers

Interactions with unbelievers

Spirituality

divegeester
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@mchill said seems fruitless, since it's unlikely to alter anyone's views. So, what to do? 1. Be respectful and polite.
Sure, being pleasant usually wins over a sceptic?

divegeester
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@mchill said
2. Try to convey the idea that faith is a gift.
So those without faith are to just wait to be given some?

divegeester
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@mchill said
3. Tell an occasional short story of my path to faith.
Hold on, you just said faith was a gift!

divegeester
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@mchill said
4. Above all, let the unbelievers here decide the matter for themselves, being mindful of the fact that faith is not something that can be forced, and is usually not arrived at through debate or argument.
If faith is a gift then how can debate or argument win them over?

R
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@mchill

I just participated in a great three day specialized multinational exploration into Bible and themes related to God's move and operation.

Here are the languages into which the messages given in English were translated.

Amharic, Bulgarian, Burmese, Cebuano, Chinese, English, Farsi, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kachin, Korean, Malaysian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese.


Thank God spiritually hungry seekers all over the world still are opened to receive more from the Holy Spirit.

divegeester
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@sonship said
@mchill
I just participated in a great three day specialized multinational exploration into Bible and themes related to God's move and operation.
Ut-oh!

BigDogg
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@moonbus said
I don't believe that !
You, sir, just fell into my trap! Bwa ha ha!

KellyJay
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@moonbus said
I recommend to everyone, theist and non-theist alike, two books on the spiritual quest:

Th. Merton, The Seven Story Mountain
and
Karl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Recollections

Two profoundly spiritual men who sought, and came to radically different conclusions about organized religion, neither of whom ever lost the sense of the spiritual quest.
I don't worry too much about organized religion; it is either authentic faith in Christ or not, and you find both in and out of organized religion.

Suzianne
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@moonbus said
I recommend to everyone, theist and non-theist alike, two books on the spiritual quest:

Th. Merton, The Seven Story Mountain
and
Karl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Recollections

Two profoundly spiritual men who sought, and came to radically different conclusions about organized religion, neither of whom ever lost the sense of the spiritual quest.
I have the Jung book on Kindle. Very good.

In my psychology studies, I lean toward Jung over most others. This definitely places me in a certain 'school'. The psychologist who helped me the most with my own problems also followed Jung.

Suzianne
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@kellyjay said
No one can prove God to another, God has to do that.
But humans are certainly capable of making introductions.

Suzianne
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@kellyjay said
I don't worry too much about organized religion; it is either authentic faith in Christ or not, and you find both in and out of organized religion.
It is my position that faith without direction, as found in a church, results in a faith turned and twisted by their own ignorance and vanity.

This doesn't mean that your choice of church is not important. Some are little more than cults.

mchill
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@divegeester said
If faith is a gift then how can debate or argument win them over?
Please go back and read what I wrote. I said "and is usually NOT arrived at through debate or argument" πŸ™‚

Suzianne
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@divegeester said
Pure Galveston75! πŸ˜€
One of the few things he was right about.

moonbus
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@suzianne said
It is my position that faith without direction, as found in a church, results in a faith turned and twisted by their own ignorance and vanity.

This doesn't mean that your choice of church is not important. Some are little more than cults.
What a church provides, when it is doing what it ought to do, is guidance around spiritual pitfalls. But of course, a church can do this only insofar as its ministry has itself avoided those same pitfalls.

Suzianne
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@moonbus said
What a church provides, when it is doing what it ought to do, is guidance around spiritual pitfalls. But of course, a church can do this only insofar as its ministry has itself avoided those same pitfalls.
I believe a church is much more than this. I believe a church's attention should be on Jesus, and charitable works, and outreach. Too many consider "spiritual pitfalls" just an opportunity to judge people. I get tired of the church "message" becoming almost corporate in nature, and promoting a "brand". The sermons I appreciate the most aren't the preachy "do as I say, not as I do" type of taking the congregation to task, but the ones that do a deep dive into what a certain passage means, what it meant to others in that time and now, and how we all can apply it to our lives in the here and now.

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