arghh.. work mate keeps trying to convert me

[Teslahed]

I don't have a religious text, I have a scientific education that was sufficiently deep to teach about the limitations of the process and methods. If the best defense you have is the one you've posted, then that doesn't bode well.

How so?

 

[Vampire]

Might be worth speaking to your HR dept at work, IIRC companies have to make sure that there's no harrassment (sexual, religious, political etc.) in the workplace. You don't need to make it official, but you could check then just tell the guy you're going to make a complaint if he doesn't respect your wishes and drop it.

I'm kinda the other way round, I'm not religious but I was curious about it all. So I rang the local church one day and signed up for a free course they run called 'Journey in Faith'. Basically an hour every sunday night for 6 months or so.

I actually find it really interesting, though my mates think I'm going to be brainwashed/kidnapped there. I just go along and have a chat each week with a Priest, a couple of nuns, and 4 or 5 other interested folks. Sadly the nuns are not the kind I've seen on DVD's, but are like kindly old grannys, however they do make a mean cup of tea and always have decent biscuits.

I think even the Priest and the nuns would would agree it's not right to harass someone about this sort of thing, especially at work. It's only the small minority that do this, and they're mocked a little at church anyway as being 'a bit overexcitable'.

 

[Snakedoctor]

"I am a creationist and an evolutionist. Evolution is God's, or Nature's method of creation. Creation is not an event that happened in 4004 BC; it is a process that began some 10 billion years ago and is still under way." – Theodosius Dobzhansky

Not on this planet. It only ecreated into a globe about 4,500,000,000 years ago. The earliest form of life is about 3.5 (US)billion years old. Nearly all life (97%) was wiped out about 450,000,000 years ago and man has been about for about 3-5 million years, yet only the last 7-10 thousand years has man been "Intelligent". Interesting and possibly due to there being no ice ages for the last 9-10,000 years.

Nail your mate to a cross, how much more "Christian" can you get?

 

[scorza]

So then go back to them with this…. The central idea / concept of Christianity is the idea of “original sin” (when Adam and Eve left the garden of Eden)

No it isn't, whatever gave you that idea?

 

[Pneumonic]

No it isn't, whatever gave you that idea?

Baptisum, Confession, the fact that the son of God was sent to this Earth

 

[snowdog]

Says it all tbh:





The bible was written down about a thousand years from when the last event in it happened, do you really think 10 generations wouldn't change the sotry's, imo the bible is written WAY too late to have thruth in it.
Theory of evolution is MUCH more likely to be true than the bible imo.
What proof do you have the monks that wrote the bible weren't just fantasizing and writing their fantasy down or that they were a bunch of propogandaists?

 

[howdydoody]

Might be worth speaking to your HR dept at work, IIRC companies have to make sure that there's no harrassment (sexual, religious, political etc.) in the workplace. You don't need to make it official, but you could check then just tell the guy you're going to make a complaint if he doesn't respect your wishes and drop it.

The first piece of decent advice ive read in this thread, far too many people going off topic and trying to prove they know more than everyone else, as usual!

I was going to suggest the same as the above or just speak to your team leader/manager about it and ask them to have a friendly word. Firstly though, tell the work mate that you are not interested, you never will be and if he carries on you will be making a complaint about religious harassment.

Either of those should do the trick!

 

[scorza]

Baptisum, Confession, the fact that the son of God was sent to this Earth

Not all Christians are baptised, even fewer Christians go to confession. You admit it is a fact that the Son of God was sent to this Earth now? But what has that got to do with the concept of original sin?

 

[howdydoody]

i thought the whole baptised/confessions part was purely catholics anyway?

My understanding of christianity is that there is one book, but then several takes on what the book is trying to say. Which just goes to show that you are never really following the teachings of god, but the what some long since dead guy thought god was trying to say!

not religious, never have been, never will be! I just do not understand how people can put their faith in a 'for all we know' made up book. not to mention that the amount of discrepencies in the bible. Christians are taught about forgivness and kindness, yet if you do something wrong you will go to hell to pay for your crimes. Not very forgiving is it?

 

[Tefal]

"I am a creationist and an evolutionist. Evolution is God's, or Nature's method of creation. Creation is not an event that happened in 4004 BC; it is a process that began some 10 billion years ago and is still under way." – Theodosius Dobzhansky

May, I ask who created god?

 

[coolpunkskater]

ok i work with a god fearing christian, who has tried and failed to make me see the light. He knows that I dont believe in any of that, and the only thing i believe in is evolution, due to the evidence all around us.

So today he had another try, why ohh why, can't these people just respect other peoples beliefs ? Its bad enough my wifes family are christian, but even they have given up.

So before i goto hell, i'd just like to say to any christians, please.. by all means try once, but if the answer is no, let it drop and respect other peoples beliefs.

Ok the way i see it make him run a mile from you tell him your a MASIVE ozzy fan into black metal and at the weekends your a gof

 

[Slinky1989]

I have two hilarious pictures that would be relevant to this....I'm not sure whether to post them or not. Someone advise.

link to one: http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j297/justinwilkin/1193702366561.jpg

 

[Vampire]

i thought the whole baptised/confessions part was purely catholics anyway?

My understanding of christianity is that there is one book, but then several takes on what the book is trying to say. Which just goes to show that you are never really following the teachings of god, but the what some long since dead guy thought god was trying to say!

not religious, never have been, never will be! I just do not understand how people can put their faith in a 'for all we know' made up book. not to mention that the amount of discrepencies in the bible. Christians are taught about forgivness and kindness, yet if you do something wrong you will go to hell to pay for your crimes. Not very forgiving is it?

Most christians get baptised, but AFAIK it's just Catholics who go to confession and do the eucharist (bread & wine) at mass.

And yes as you said above, all the different christian religions basically stem from different interpretations of the same book(s). Most of them are pretty similar in their beliefs and actually have very much in common with each other, they usually just have a few small things they disagree on.

Regarding the last bit, the Catholic standpoint is you'd go to hell if you were a sinner and hadn't confessed/repented before you die. As long as you confess and truly mean it, you'll be forgiven, whatever the sin. Of course that doesn't mean you can do what you like and then confess all before you die, you're supposed to follow the rules.

 

[vincent1989]

Ask Him Bill Hicks's 1 word Question "Dinosaur." "If the world is twelve thousand years old and dinosaurs existed in that time you'd have to think it would be mentioned in the ******* bible at some point!"

they are, they just aren't refered to as dinosaurs, as that word was fairly recently added to the dictionary

 

[Kristoph]

they are, they just aren't refered to as dinosaurs, as that word was fairly recently added to the dictionary

What were they called then?

 

[vincent1989]

What were they called then?

dragons, massive beasts etc etc, i'd have to look it up (which i cba to do ) but they are in there, and i have come across references

 

[Azagoth]

Just tell him to bugger off, and if he get's offended ask him to forgive you.

 

[Raikiri]

dragons,

Large lizards, i.e. komodo dragon

massive beasts etc etc, i'd have to look it up

Ah yes, I seem to remember the description sounding remarkably like an elephant.

 

[vincent1989]

Large lizards, i.e. komodo dragon

or dragons meaning lage lizards...ie 'dinosaurs'

Ah yes, I seem to remember the description sounding remarkably like an elephant.

could this be a discription of the one you are refering to?

The most detailed description of dinosaurs in the Bible appears in Job 40:15-41:34. The first creature mentioned here, Behemoth, is a huge, herbivorous, four-footed beast with bones as strong as bronze (40:15,18). The obvious clue that this is not a hippo or an elephant (as often interpreted) is the description of its tail, which “he bends…like a cedar tree” (40:17). The cedars of the Middle East, such as the famous cedars of Lebanon, were very large trees.

The primary word for dinosaurs or dragons in the Hebrew Scriptures (the Hebrew Old Testament, known as the Masoretic text or MT) is tannin or in the plural tanninim.* The Hebrew root of this word (tanan) may indicate that these animals made a howling sound (that they were “howlers”). Tannin is often translated in the Old Greek (the Septuagint or LXX)** with the Greek word drakon (drakontes in the plural; the source of our English word “dragon”), or when it is an aquatic reptile with the Greek word keetos (keetee in the plural), indicating a large sea monster. Artistic representations of the keetos that swallowed Jonah made by early Greek-speaking Christians show it as a large, dragon-like aquatic reptile.

 

[Mike UK]

Sounds familiar my college tutor is taking most of my class in one by one for tutorials asking them how the course is going and apparently spending 30 mins talking about god.

My tutorials coming up info off this thread may come in useful