Christian Perspectives on Peak Oil

CarlinsDarlin · Moderator Joined: Jul 02, 2004 Posts: 1422

Yes he did. To those much is given, much is expected. I do not blame all Muslims for the actions of terrorists. Likewise, nor do I blame all Christians for the actions of those who are Christian in name but not in action. We will all be held accountable individually for our deeds.

I'm not offering excuses, dohboi. I'm actually in agreement with you. The vast majority of those claiming to be Christian worldwide hardly fit as examples of the faith, and give everyone else a bad name to boot. That is neither my fault, nor the fault of Christianity. It is their own fault. Jesus addressed this (not like he didn't know it was coming).

dohboi · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Dec 05, 2005 Posts: 1476

OK, but even here, your example is way off. Very few of the billion or so Muslims in the world are involved in any way with terrorism. The vast majority of American Christians, on the other hand, are deeply entrenched in the gluttonous orgy of materialist consumerism.

The term Christianity can be use in at least two ways, and the slippage between is part of our problem in communication here, it seems. You seem to always mean by Christianity the doctrines of the faith.

As I tried (and obviously failed) to make clear is that the vast majority of Christians have failed. In an old usage, the word Christianity (or even older "Chritendom") means "Christians as a group." It is this meaning that I was using when criticizing "Christianity."

This does bring up another deep problem--the tendency of groups that base their value on texts to end up acting out the opposite value from those texts. The US was founded on the notion that all are created equal, yet no greater inequality of income has ever existed than what we see in America today.

The word Islam is related to the Hebrew shalom or "peace," but this is not the dominant impression we in the West get of this religion.

Love is central to Jesus's teachings, yet many hate groups declare themselves Christian.

A fundamental contradiction between stated ideology and practice seems almost to be the rule.

By the way, I don't know if your moniker refers to him, but I was sad to see that George Carlin just passed away. His biology wasn't always particularly accurate, but he spoke many uncomfortable truths in ways that made us laugh even while making us uncomfortable.

And thanks for the "by their fruits" quote from Matthews--more eloquent than anything I could ever come up with.

POAlex

These two videos are timely, given the discussion about the state of Christianity.

What so many people, including me at times, fail to remember is the awesome and fearful holiness of God. His holiness and our wicked rebellion are so misunderstood but that is where the problem lies. If people only knew how unrighteous we all are before God's holiness, it would drive people to their knees and to the only hope we have - God's Son and the Saviour of the world, Jesus Christ. There is no other way for us to be saved.

Sobering. Thank you Lord.

Alex
_________________
Have you heard the Good News?

AlwaysThere · Heavy Crude Joined: May 05, 2008 Posts: 215

CarlinsDarlin · Moderator Joined: Jul 02, 2004 Posts: 1422

dohboi,
Perhaps we are splitting hairs. I would agree with you that Christendom has failed to keep the faith as directed. That does not mean to me that Christianity has failed. It means Christendom has failed to keep what God intended. The religion is what it is. Many of those who profess to believe in it are another story and will not even be recognized by Christ himself, as He said.

mystiek

We need to quit looking at people-people will fail you everytime. Keep your eyes on Jesus-He will never fail nor forsake you.

Bman4k1

Hey I got a question. I haven't bothered to look through the 117 pages for this because to be honest Im lazy.

My mom (whos VERY catholic) and I had an interesting conversation and wouldn't mind somebody's else opinion.

I personally lost faith a few years ago. I have been constantly beat down in my life and saw no end in sight. And I asked myself how could a god screw so many people over including myself. I got to a point that I had absolutly no faith. It seems to me once you rationalize the idea that there is no such thing as a god its really hard to get any type of faith back. So Im at the point I really don't care god hasn't helped me or hurt me so if there is one great. If not that kinda sucks, wouldn't want to die anytime soon, but that doesn't really affect me now. Thats where Im coming from. But I digres way off topic......

Anyways we were talking about the so called "judgement day". And I aired the theory that maybe this whole PO thing is infact judgement day and we will have to choose to live a sustainable peaceful life or consume and destroy ourselves. I theorized that maybe so called judgement isn't if we follow the teachings whatever they are or be a bunch of nice people or believe in god or anything. But what if judgement day is if we choose to finnaly be at (sounds stupid) peace with the living world. If we decided to treat the world properly and live simple sustainable lives we will live. Those that cling to consumerism and excess will die because well, they didn't care about anything.

My mom said that she didn't agree because god didn't do PO we did. She doesn't think god is vengefull or overly nice. Just a neutral thing. Personally I don't care either way. But if god gave us free will you'd think he'd have the foresight to predict that we wanted more and more and more, that has been in our genetics since day one. Maybe he knew one day we would have to make a choice from either wanting more to the point of our destruction or realizing that the "more" isn't everything. Maybe that is judgement day, seperate the men from the boys in a snese. People that are PO aware live sustainable peacefull lives somewhere and try to find a balance between humans and nature.

Hope I make some sense. And I apologize if this point has already been made.

btu2012

vision-master

mystiek

Here's a new subject of interest. Our local First Assembly of God was handing out information on a food ministry, called Angel Food Ministries. It is a non-profit, non-denominational organization dedicated to providing grocery relief and financial support to communities throughout the United States. There is no income requirements, everyone qualifies. The program began in 1994 and has grown to serve hundreds of thousands of families every month across 35 states. For $30 you get quite a bit of food which assists in feeding a family of four for about one week. As things become tighter for folks, refer them to these ministries. The food choice looked really decent, I think I'm going to put an order in for my own family in July. If anybody is interested, I would contact your local First Assembly of God church and check on the internet.

POAlex

mystiek

Cool Alex, where do you find all this neat stuff?

POAlex

Lots of great treasures here.

http://www.biblebelievers.com

Alex

CarlinsDarlin · Moderator Joined: Jul 02, 2004 Posts: 1422

mystie,
Angelfood Ministries is a non-denominational ministry. There are churches of many different denominations that are participating. The two closest to us (15 miles one way, 13 miles another way) are a Nazarene church and a Methodist church. Our family has participated many times. The food is pretty good, and is a good value. I recommend it. The reason they can sell it so cheap is that they get their products directly from the producers, cutting out the middle man - and of course everyone who works with the program is volunteer. A good program.
Kathy

mystiek

Kathy,
That's great to know. I had never heard of this ministry until I received the literature from the assembly of God church here in town, their information was geared around just AOG. I am going to probably post the information in my office. For some of you folks out there that might have an extra $30, it would serve as a good outreach to a family in need that you know, or an elderly person who can't get out. I live in a rural agricultural town, but some of you guys in less agricultural areas might want to approach your churches or civic organizations about starting a food pantry. Youth groups can do can drives, etc. Some people feel that its hard to think there would be a "food shortage" in this country when you walk through places like Sams, etc., but its not necessarily about shortage of food-its the shortage of income to buy food. Oil went up to 142/barrel ("they" are determined to jack the prices up as high as possible for the 4th of July weekend), as I explain to some doubters-families are going to have less income to spend on things. Choices are going to have to be made-put gas in my car in order to go to work and buy less at the grocery store.