And your choice of what reading material you post at GS also speaks to the nature of your beliefs as well. Here's a little snippet you posted earlier from some evangelism article:
"Preaching the gospel and defending the Christian faith is a duty and glorious privilege. While it can be intimidating at times, it is also easy. We minister in the full assurance of the absolute truthfulness of the Gospel and the bankruptcy of every other position, knowing that in Christ "are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col 2:3)."
If you disagree with the assertion that you know the Gospel is absolutely true and that every other position is bankrupt, say so now. If you do not, it will provide yet another piece of evidence that you have no interest in discussion, only in forcing your belief system into the spotlight. In other words, advertising.
As for the union itself, one need look no further than here or here to see with absolute certainty that your union's primary intent is to evangelize. Even the very name of your union implies evangelism is the goal. The Christian WITNESS Union. Evangelism is purposeful religious advertising, with the primary goal being presentation of ideas, not the discussion of them. Further evidence for this simple fact can be found in the posting styIe of your members. Bible verses can be found in the majority of your posts, and they are not presented with the goal of discussion or interpretation, but rather as forceful validation of the claim that you are right and everyone else is wrong. Similarly, you very often post articles from such organizations as icr.org with no discussion or explanation. You don't have to say it directly, and I don't need to "know your heart" to understand exactly how you feel and why you are posting in OT. I also don't need to be especially astute to understand that you have no intention of engaging in meaningful discussion or consideration of any viewpoint but your own. Rather, your intention is to present your message as undebatable truth.
Answering questions and planting the seeds of faith would be perfectly fine if people came to your union of their own volition and asked those questions themselves. But you don't operate that way. You aggressively promote your religion by posting these evangelism threads (clearly defined as such by the disclaimer Crushmaster posts in his original posts) that masquerade as discussion topics to deviously avoid the anti-advertising guidelines presented by this site. And if you want to know why people find that irritating, you need look no further than the contempt you so very frequently demonstrate in your CWU posts towards those who oppose you and your beliefs.
So I'd really like to know, BR... how is it not PAINFULLY clear that your mission and your union's mission is to advertise Christianity, in contradiction to the TOS which forbids such advertising, and in contradiction to the new religious discussion guidelines which forbid the creation of topics which have a sole purpose of telling everyone who does not agree with you that they are wrong? Disguised as they may be, that is the intent. If it is not, then I challenge you to say, right here and now, that you acknowledge you may be wrong with respect to your understanding of Christianity or your interpretation of scripture. If you will not do that, then you are a liar when you claim you are interested in open discussion, which is what this forum is supposed to be about. You and your members creating threads that state "What God do you believe in? I know the God of the Bible is the one true God and know that the Bible is absolute truth" is akin to me creating a thread stating "What music do you think is the best? I know cIassical music is the best." There is no discussion to be found in topics such as these.
Now, onto the next little bit of business - the fact that you do not respect the new religious discussion guidelines. In addition to several threads that have been posted in the CWU since they were introduced, which all do nothing more than complain about the fact that GS finally decided to crack down on your union's blatant proselytizing, we have quotes like this:
[QUOTE="blackregiment"]
If we are forced into silence, unless we accept and express in our discussions that all beliefs are equally valid, then we are being forced to disobey our Lord and Savior. I can tell you, this is something I will not do. blackregiment
Problem is... if you don't accept that you may be wrong and create threads to bluntly state you are right, you are willfully breaking the religious discussion guidlelines. Elsewhere, you state that you have no intention of breaking the TOS and will attempt to adhere to the new discussion guidelines. So which is it? Let me take a wild stab and say you are more concerned about the Lord and Savior than you are about the new religious discussion guidelines, which you oppose at every turn in the discussion threads regarding them in your union. You are correct that you are being "forced" to stop presenting your personal beliefs as fact through the repeated creation of these sorts of topics. The real problem lies in the very nature of what your union does, and the fact that its very purpose is in contradiction to the TOS's no-advertising rules. You can't avoid that.
And finally, with respect to the negative attention your union receives:
We should, in all areas, follow Christ. Be it in how we talk, how we look, how we dress, what we think about, what we do - all things we do should be done in a Christ-like manner; a holy manner. And that, of course, includes suffering patiently and in silence. After all, we will be rewarded for it, if we do it for the right reasons. Crushmaster
(John 15:19) - "If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you."
A lot of Christian seems surprised when we face persecution for living like we should. But the Bible tells us to expect it! Crushmaster
I have no doubt that you, too, agree with this, because there's a Bible quote involved. Now, if you felt ashamed of your behaviour, you would stop doing it. So it stands to reason that you are not ashamed of your behaviour, but rather revel in and anticipate negative attention. In your discussion with SkylinePigeon, you subtly and repeatedly attacked her (as you are so want to do), finishing up by stating that you believe that you would be "convicted of believing in Christianity" but implying she would not be. And again, I don't have to be especially astute to realize that a big part of the reason you believe that is because you evangelize and "face persecution" while she does not.
So, do you not revel in the negative attention you receive? Do you not see it as 'proof' that you are right and your detractors are wrong, based on the Biblical verses that declare Christians should expect persecution?
As you have said time and time again, our beliefs do not determine reality. You're right. And so I don't care if you don't accept my premises. A simple examination of the evidence tells a person all he needs to know about you and the CWU. It's ironic that you so often cry foul and "PERSECUTION!" whenever your union is confronted for its disregard of the TOS no-advertising rules, because truth be told, if the CWU were peddling anything BUT religious beliefs, it would have been closed down almost immediately. Political correctness - the same political correctness that you so often malign - is why your union is still in business.
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