re: Virgin Mary painting shows 'tears' at Chicago church

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So...is that a direct deflection of his suggestion that heretics be killed? Any thoughts on Tommy's viewpoint there?

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I think this could be one of those "if I agree with what was said, then THAT EXACTLY. But if I don't agree with it, you can't take it at face value because they meant something else" type of moments.

That being said, he did say that condemning to death is never ok, but if these saints are supposedly delivering the word of God, who are we to decide what is "true and right"? They should be evangelizing it in its entirety.

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The church property is currently facing foreclosure. Obviously, attendance is way up now. 

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If ghost can pull The Myrtles Plantation out of bankruptcy, maybe this church can survive it.

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So are you more comforted by the thought that tragedy is random? That your life can be humming along just fine, then by random chance it is snuffed out and that's the end of the line for eternity? Does that thought bring you peace?

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I’ve never understood this logic.

So what if it does or doesn’t give you peace? What does that have to do with reality?

What if believing that the moon were made of green cheese gave you peace? Does that make it so?

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I'm not a big advocate of paying a lot of attention to weeping Madonnas or bleeding Crucifixes. Ultimately they're distractions and do little or nothing to add to the essential facts of Christianity expressed in the Apostles, Nicean, and Athanasian Creeds.

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a thinking Catholic?!

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I don't even know what you mean by worshiping self.

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It’s our nature to do so by default.

Calvin said that humans are an idol factory.
Luther talked about the “inward curve of the soul.”
The Bible in Romans 1 talks about suppressing the truth of God and worshipping creation rather than creator. E.g., yourself.

Christians struggle with this too. Trying to put others before yourself is a lifelong pursuit that we’ll never complete.

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Sounds like that applies to nearly every atheist post in this thread.

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Not really.

Atheists don’t generally lack a belief in God in order to make it so.

Atheists lack a belief in God because there is no tangible proof of any of the thousands of Gods that have ever been worshipped.

It would be incredibly comforting to know that you’ll be taken care of for eternity if you live a good life, but that doesn’t make it so.

Seems like it’s 4 atheist posters who have hijacked this thread. It’s fricking insane to think that there’s not a creator.... insane. Believe what you want to, but don’t mock Christians for believing. Seems like you’re just miserable people who want to make everyone as miserable as you are. Pretty pathetic imo. Atheism is like 3-4% of the population? There’s a reason for that. Do you understand how many things that have to work in harmony for earth to sustain life? For the universe to exist? It’s incomprehensible. We shouldn’t be here, the universe shouldn’t exist. But it does. Is God an old white dude sitting in a throne up in heaven? Probably not. But there is no doubt that something is behind all of this.

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No, they argue that God does things they don't like so they don't believe in Him.

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Atheists don’t believe that a God exists to do things. They say this to mock people who ONLY associate good things with “the work of God”, despite the fact that if God is supposedly all-powerful, he is equally responsible for things they don’t like.

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That's a logical fallacy called Argument from Silence.

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What’s the fallacy that’s analogous to believing in something with no tangible proof?

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Likewise, no matter how many times you argue God isn't fair, is cruel, won't show,Himself, etc. does nothing to lend credence to your claims He doesn't exist.

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Likewise, you can’t prove that the universal strings aren’t being pulled by a Flying Spaghetti Monster.

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Seems like it’s 4 atheist posters who have hijacked this thread. It’s fricking insane to think that there’s not a creator.... insane. Believe what you want to, but don’t mock Christians for believing. Seems like you’re just miserable people who want to make everyone as miserable as you are. Pretty pathetic imo. Atheism is like 3-4% of the population? There’s a reason for that. Do you understand how many things that have to work in harmony for earth to sustain life? For the universe to exist? It’s incomprehensible. We shouldn’t be here, the universe shouldn’t exist. But it does. Is God an old white dude sitting in a throne up in heaven? Probably not. But there is no doubt something behind all of this. That is something I absolutely believe.

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1. "Non believers" are between 25%-30% of the population (atheism is just one type)
2. I grew up in a catholic family so I'm in no way mocking you but... Do you actually believe the stories of the bible happened? Legitimate question.
3. Over 90% of the scientific community are non believers.
4. There are thousands of religions, which one is right?

I'm a non believer, but I don't condemn christians or any other affiliation. I think if someone needs a security blanket in the shape of a "white" middle eastern guy, (he would certainly be very tan, but ego... I digress.) then that is a beautiful thing. Live your life the best way possible, but having the ego to call non believers insane is pretty ridiculous...

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You're right. I just choose not to believe in it. Difference is I don't get condescending about it and don't feel the urge to interject my non belief at every opportunity. I see UFO threads here. Know how many times I've rushed in to tell everyone how dumb they are and how smart I am for not believing they exist?

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An atheist interjecting their (non)belief is no more or less condescending than a believer interjecting their belief. While you’re playing the victim here, let’s not forget that this thread only exists because a church in Chicago trying to scam people for money because they’re broke.