At home, alone at night, you can call yourself whatever you want. I call myself a linebacker and on wednesdays a tugboat captain.
Outside your home, such self-labeling conveys nothing, community usage determines the meaning of words.

???? I am confused. What was that link about? None of the passage links worked for me, and I am not seeing what that has to do with what I said.

thought u said taht everything in the bible existed. Not sure if I was taking it out of context because I was confused by what you said, but just saying I don't think that's true considering the bible references Dragons numerous times. They don't exist afaik

also all links worked for me.

No, I was referring to the necessity of the bible for there to be christians ( definition ..those that practice christianity). There were many followers of jesus long before there was a bible, were they not christians?

what is unfortunate about priests and preachers is that not all of them should be teaching. many of them preach what is not correct. i think catholicism is not very christian. they make up a bunch a rules to force people to follow when none of their rules can guarantee salvation. kind of like the laws of moses. salvation can only be obtained by the person, no matter what some pope says.

billnye, many priests and preachers believe that after doing what they've been doing for so long, and after all of their hard work in studying, that people should accept what they say as truth because they worked so hard. and when you question them about what they have said they treat it as an insult. it is a human flaw. be happy that you are intelligent enough to discern. your intelligence can be very useful to help understand the spirit.

But you keep stating that not all Christians follow the bible. For two words to be synonymous, they must mean the same thing (ldo).

So are some (most?) Christians not real Christians? Many of them follow the teachings of their church, and these teachings may or may not have biblical support, based on your interpretation of certain bible passages.

Do you consider Roman Catholics to be Christians? They have certain beliefs that you strongly disagree with (birth control, for one), that you believe are not rooted in the bible.

What about the snake handling Christians in the Pentecostal Church of God? They handle snakes due to their interpretation of two bible verses:

And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
Mark 16:17-18

Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
Luke 10:19

Are they real Christians?

the "dragons" that you are referring to I believe are Leviathan, Golgotha, and there is one other, but I cannot remember. Did you know that those two characters actually appear in many other texts? I believe that Leviathan controlled the sea, and I cannot remember Golgotha did.

They are used in the bible as basically a reference for the people that God was talking to. Most people of that time believed that these monsters existed.

Now this is also where I feel Boyd "Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy" comes into play. But that is another thread. Point is, the bible is not saying that dragons existed,imo

Young Earth Creationists believe that the dragons that are mentioned in the bible are actually dinosaurs. Really.

Yeah, I have heard that before. Not quite sure why they believe that.

Yes, many roman catholics are christians, but I would not call many of their believes christian.

I am not saying that as a Christian you cannot have beliefs or thoughts out side of the bible. But just do not call them Christian beliefs. I am sure that I believe things that are not in the bible but that just feel right to me. But I would not tell people that they are "christian" beliefs, nor would I say that as a Christian you have to agree with me. If you want to believe that God does not want you to use birth control, that is fine. But do not tell me that God says I am not allowed to, just because you like the idea.

I do not want to get into who is or is not a Christian. That has to do with ones heart. I know nothing of what anyone else is like in their heart.

But what I can do is look at actions and beliefs and asses if they are consistent with Jesus's teachings or not.

When it's in the bible and not popular then it is not christian, and when it is christian and not popular then it is not in the bible. And if it is in both and is not popular then it is a misunderstanding or a poor translation.

I'm getting the hang of this.

You forgot about when an atheists finds a contradictory doctrine (one that is not in the bible but believed by some christians) and a Christian points out to the atheist that it is not biblical, that christian is automatically accused of making excuses.

And you forgot atheist 101, Christianity is not allowed to make sense, so if a Christian points out how it does make sense, the atheist must point to crazier christians and tell them that is what you must believe to be a christian.

examples? or is this just your persecution complex speaking out?

FWIW, there is no "leader of the Muslims."

Even though the discussion has been way off track, I think this thread has proven OP's original point.

It was pretty much you who latched on the OP and missed the point.

It's a fairly easy scenario. Either the priest who held the sermon was overdoing it or he didn't overdo it and you pretty much stretched this out to mean that the bible/christianity was under attack. Which is er....far beyond the scope of the OP.

So in response I simply made a post which I felt was suitably sarcastic.

Yeah, it's good to keep in mind that different priests have differing opinions on Christianity, how the church should act, and how Catholics should act.

If you look at the first post, I made no such assumption, but inquired as to what the post was about. He then directly brought in Christianity. So look at the posts again.

I took your post as sarcastic to an extent, just like I would expect that you took mine that way as well.

I think we need an "argue about anything" thread, because the OP doesn't matter after the first 10posts which is unfortunate because I was hoping people could share similar experiences, or there thoughts on the priest's disagreement, or the priest just wildly being wrong. Instead it got into bible = Christianity, and the like

Meanwhile back on topic....

The first problem in all this is that the two priests don't agree. Anybody wanna take a stab as to why this is an issue?

For clarification, who are "a bunch of people from totally different backgrounds and religious views" supposed to be?

ppl posting in this forum

Since most of the posters here are either atheists or "ex-religious" people who are not interested in civil conversation only spewing hatefulness...what do you expect?