Christian tropers, join together!

Don't worry about it. Just try to change your views in the future.

I guess it's partially a result of the abundance of Men Are Generic, Women Are Special tropes in media. Stories are constantly told from the point of view of The Everyman male hero that you're supposed to root for, while the female is this special being on a separate plane that the dorky everydudes can only dream of getting. Women aren't all that different from you. We want the same things, we have the same nuances and depth, and we're just regular people trying to make it in this world

Question: why are people so adamant on separating God and evolution?

I'd say the process of creation as... something not involving with evolution, whether it happens in literally seven days or not.

And for scientific facts, by taking a look at the diversity of creatures, especially those being deemed "Living Fossils", it is hard to find any evidence of evolution, especially between apes and mankind. Also, in some environments, it wouldn't even have time for you to evolve just to survive. Imagine Polar Bears having to grow feet allowing them to stand still without slipping around, or penguins having to drop out feathery wings in exchange for being a swimmer by evolving for god knows how many years, they wouldn't last long.

edited 6th Mar '17 2:36:21 AM by Mhazard

@Hazard Don't be so sure about most.

@Mhazard: That's a load of BS. The vast majority of people, including Christians, aren't creationists. Creationism is a recent movement, and only really has strong roots in certain areas. Science has explicitly disproven it, and I personally find it more beautiful to think that God intentionally began things in a way that would eventually lead to us, billions of years later.

Maybe it's because people like to think of themselves as separate from and "better" than animals? A lot of people don't want to think of themselves as a "mere ape" or as being not fundamentally a superior creature to their dog.

Personally, I have no problem with the idea of "the risen ape finding God" or being a "risen ape" - I like the idea of being a "cousin to cats" and recognize a lot of "instinct" within myself and observe the many ways that humans, are, indeed, animal-like.

I think a lot of the Creationist mentality has to do with really wanting Humanity to be a "special" creation... the whole Humanity Is Special thing and a feeling that evolution (even God-guided) lessens that.

Hey, I've been a Christian for over 20 years and a strong believer in science (though my major is a liberal art).

Don't you DARE lump me together with this myopic and arbitrary definition you call "most people."

For my wordings, if I said "some people", I'm likely to be accused for not believing in creation and uniqueness of humanity (It literally happened in Flickr a year ago), and if I said "most people" like above, I'm still likely to be called out by evolutionists, there's no middle ground, and I've learnt my hard lesson when I questioned someone about whether things are created or evolved.

edited 6th Mar '17 2:33:05 AM by Mhazard

And the lesson you should've gotten was the using just "I" or "the creationists".

I mean, for God's sake - and I'm not using that phrase as just a figure of speech here - the Bible explicitly tells us to give thoughts into our steps and test everything (Proverbs and Thessalonians, fyi).

Scientific methods are not blasphemous.

edited 6th Mar '17 2:36:25 AM by dRoy

Loving Perfectly.

In a less heated topic, I once again forgot about the existence of Lent until it started. How typical of me. At least this time it's been less than a week.

Things I shall be giving up:

- Overeating - Pornography - Electronic games

Should be reasonable enough. Right?

For overeating, I suggest you to switch your foods of choice from fast foods to salads and fruits, or perhaps a balanced meal. After all, there's no such thing as eating too much vegetables and fruits, they wouldn't get you fat, I suppose?

For porns, it depends on whether you view it as an art or temptation, for the former, don't push yourself too hard on getting rid of it, nude arts and sex itself aren't evil, it's how you use it determines whether it's good or evil (there's also Song of Solomon, and it isn't shy about mentioning a consummate relationship). But for the latter (especially if you already have a relationship with someone, or if the contexts of the said porn promotes messages leading you to sin), throw them away as soon as possible.

And last but not least, I wouldn't say you should give up gaming. After all, to me, gaming is a form of narrative format and art, just like TV, literatures and movies, except you can interact with them. You can even record your gaming videos and edit them as if you're a great director.

Personally, I prefer not to push myself too hard on anything if it doesn't do harm to anyone or if God doesn't specifically forbid. But, everyone has his own way to live so don't take my words too seriously.

Speaking of gaming, I've mentioned TRPG a few days ago (they're also the basis of almost every single medieval fantasy game), anyone here played D&D or any other classic TRPG before?

edited 6th Mar '17 6:20:06 AM by Mhazard

I play occasionally with a few other tropers. I kinda wondered about this when I read your post a few pages ago. Would it be considered sinful to participate or willingly read/watch a fictional work with paganistic or at least non-christian ideas of gods and religion, sometimes even when said ideas are also fictional?

I don't see why it would be. The only denominations I've known to hold such beliefs about such works tended to be the cultish sorts like the demon casters or serpent churches.

edit- Ooh, on that note, I've heard the feds are finally busting up the exorcist shitheads that I had the displeasure of sharing a tiny portion of my childhood with. With the allegations out against them now I thank Christ that my parents left the little branch of it when they did and never became formal members.

edited 6th Mar '17 9:58:31 AM by carbon-mantis

I don't do Lent. Maybe it's the fact that my church - experiences came in Baptist-flavor, so the ceremony around it is a bit alien to me. Moreover, the idea of "giving up something for a month" is an inevitable fail for me. It will be all I think about if I have something on the forefront of my mind. I don't have good self-control. I stopped making New Year's resolutions for the same reason. For me, I think it's better "not to make vows at all" rather than try to make them and not keep them.

So, my mentality during this time of year is "Shamrock Shakes and those little fish sandwiches I like at Mc Donald's are back!"

Even one Jane Whaley, Warren Jeffs or Tony Alamo - or Jim Jones or David Koresh - is too much in the world.

Oh I see. Wow that must have been a troublesome upbringing.

The claim that there's little proof of evolution by natural selection is preposterous. There are mountains and mountains and mountains of evidence, to the point that it's no longer reasonable to doubt it. And, personally speaking, my acceptance of the theory of evolution has never been in conflict with my belief in God (well, not since I converted, at any rate). I'm not sure the Book of Genesis was ever meant to be read as a history, anyway.

I think the majority of people who take great umbrage with evolution are taking it too personally, in a "You sayin' I'm a monkey?!" kind of way.

@ Corvus Atrox: Thanks for the tip. My girlfriend and I are open about our kinks and neither one of us minds, but I've never told her I look at videos. The problem is that we met online and only get to see each other in person a few weeks out of the year. It can get... lonely in the interim.

@ Korodzik: How's your father doing?

Ruler of the Waves.

I've also played Dn D, but I've never had any sort of trouble with it from other people.

Carbon-mantis, Phantom, well everyone:

Here's an article I think is along the similar lines with what Mantis linked to. A friend of mine once linked to this in one of our GoogleHangout discussions. Seems it would be appropriate to share it here, even though I don't identify as Christian myself.

edited 7th Mar '17 4:37:59 PM by MerryMikael

Oh interesting.

That's definitely an important distinction.

Now I'm not actually all that religious myself. I hang out here because I was Raised Catholic and Catholicism still is and always will be a defining part of my culture in the Italian-American Roman Catholic tradition. The most frequent criticism I hear about faith from both believers and non-believers alike is that a lot of people use it as an excuse to be hateful and bigoted. The second most frequent criticism is that people use it as an excuse to be passive. The "God will work everything out for me so I can just sit here and not work towards my goal." That, of course, is never going to work. I believe faith can be used as an excellent motivator. A secular example would be a person who has faith that things can always change for the better. That person will be motivated to work towards better things and won't give up easily, while a person who lacks a faith that things get better won't be motivated to work, thus a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is a great outlet for faith in God. You should work as hard as you can to be your best self, and your faith could be your driving force. That's good religion, IMHO

Oh and about the cult thing. Abuse under the name of religion has a name. It's called ritual abuse and is very well documented. It's unfortunately very hard getting people to come forward, because they're gaslit so intensely

edited 7th Mar '17 7:19:08 PM by Cailleach

Painting a Portrait.

Looks like another link worth studying.

Speaking of ritual abuse and dangerous groups...