I agree, that kind of preaching never wins any people over.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Exactly, he doesn't get it though. Hopefully some Christians will agree as well, it helps Christians to win people over by not being forceful or complete dicks about it.
as of the 2nd of Nov. has 6 weeks for a broken collar bone to heal and types 1 handed and slowly
Irrespective of the point you're trying to make, I find it very distasteful that you would call your father an idiot publicly, behind his back.
And better than thy stroke; why swellest thou then?
I agree, tbh.
Princess Ymir's knightess
Oh Christianity... why're you not making any sense? I don't have anything against all those who're like: "I believe in a God who created us but then leaved us alone and stuff..." but all that: "You're not believing that Jesus is your savior and that God loves you? You'll burn in hell!" makes me sick...
Well yeah... but isn't it bad to call anyone dumb? Why should the own father be an exception? 
And I'd find it far more insulting if anybody told me I would be burning in hell because I'm not believing in what he believes...
edited 27th Oct '11 5:39:41 PM by kay4today
Sure, but it is doubly poor form when they had raised you.
On topic, you're criticizing an approach of proselytizing for being disrespectful and ineffective... But guess what this thread is? You're preaching to the choir. If you were really concerned with addressing inept proselytizing, you'd put a little more effort into not sounding like you think the opposing viewpoint is the biggest imbecility you've ever encountered.
edited 27th Oct '11 5:44:25 PM by kashchei
And better than thy stroke; why swellest thou then?
Princess Ymir's knightess
You don't know if that guy's a good father... he could be the Anti Christ for all we know...
You might not like it, but it makes sense—Christianity believes in the immortality of the soul, and that God is love/goodness. To reject love and goodness means to live in its absence, which is misery. Personally, I don't think the rejection of God occurs in the same way as OP's dad, but the overall idea "makes sense".
Also I think that talking shit about your father just shows disloyalty, immaturity and a lack of appreciation. Talking shit about someone off the street is annoying, but a parent almost always sacrifices a lot for their kids.
And honestly, if the OP was a dad talking about what an idiot and stupid his son was, I'd say the same thing to the dad, even if I agreed with his position in the argument. The parent-child obligations go both ways.
edited 27th Oct '11 5:47:46 PM by Tiph
One problem with your criticism against my approach. My father didn't raise me. He divorced my mom for some chick or another.
He's tried to make a relationship there, but has always failed miserably. I kind of wonder if he was worse or better before he found Jesus, but that's too far back and I was too young to notice whenever he did visit.
Though I was not sure if I was preaching to the choir or not in terms of Christians on here; my experience has many Christians that I am exposed to more or less doing what he does. (most of my exposure is to fundamentalism, Pentecostal, and independent Christians/no specific domination in my area, but mainline churches are around here, i just have no exposure to them)
edit:
Also I think that talking shit about your father just shows disloyalty, immaturity and a lack of appreciation. Talking shit about someone off the street is annoying, but a parent almost always sacrifices a lot for their kids.
I was raised by an alcoholic step father who left my mom for a bottle and whore. oddly enough before my step dad got bad, he used to be a great dad. he was my only father figure. my real dad, quoted here, has never had a son father relationship. kind of throws that all out the window. but we cant finnally connect when he pulls this shit. i try and try but he doesnt see where he is wrong.
edited 27th Oct '11 5:52:50 PM by jasonwill2
as of the 2nd of Nov. has 6 weeks for a broken collar bone to heal and types 1 handed and slowly
Princess Ymir's knightess
It doesn't make any sense, because the loving/caring God watches us being raped, murdered etc. and does nothing about it... and sending people to hell because they're not believing in something for no reason? Makes perfect sense.
edited 27th Oct '11 5:51:33 PM by kay4today
Well, I try to live by example, instead of going around evangelizing.
But, uh...this is kind of mean to your dad.
"You fail to grasp the basic principles of mad science. Common sense would be cheating." - Narbonic
Christmas Sheep
I agree with Kaschei, honestly every time you said something derogatory about your father I agreed with you less and less. It's always a benefit to your argument if you remain civil to all sides, and it never helps to call anyone stupid.
However, I agree with you as well, to an extent. Believing in almost all sects of Christianity, especially those that proselytize, by definition means you believe that the people who don't believe will burn in hell (or be otherwise eternally punished, Hell's existence and description is debated, even among Christians). There is no reason that you should hide this from people you preach to. At a certain point, you'll have to tell the preachee that their beliefs are dangerous.
However, it is not a good idea to open with this point, not because it's morally wrong to tell people what you believe, but because you just won't win over many believers that way.
Oh, and Kay: The Problem of Evil has been so thoroughly discussed and theorized about by theologians that by now it's kind of silly to use it as 'proof' that Christianity is untrue.
edited 27th Oct '11 5:54:25 PM by TheEarthSheep
Still Sheepin'
Also, you sound sort of hypocritical. You want to preach to your mom and your dad about the "real Satanism", forcing your opinion of Satan on them, forcing your ideas about proselytization on them, and calling their reactions "unreasonable" which can easily be said of your opinion toward their beliefs, which I find remarkably shallow in itself.
There is no reason that you should hide this from people you preach to. At a certain point, you'll have to tell the preachee that their beliefs are dangerous.
The problem is that when he is asked to not preach, he says he has to because god wants him to. And he won't listen to my beliefs but thinks its okay to force them on me at inappropriate times. how is that fair that he can go on about Jesus but I can't about my god?
edit:
Also, you sound sort of hypocritical. You want to preach to your mom and your dad about the "real Satanism", forcing your opinion of Satan on them, forcing your ideas about proselytization on them, and calling their reactions "unreasonable" which can easily be said of your opinion toward their beliefs, which I find remarkably shallow in itself.
No, I just want her to stop thinking im killing puppies. she asked me today if i killed my pet dog yet or not. she thinks satanists are murderous people. shes stuck in the Satanic Ritual Abuse of teh 80's
edited 27th Oct '11 5:56:54 PM by jasonwill2
as of the 2nd of Nov. has 6 weeks for a broken collar bone to heal and types 1 handed and slowly
Oh My
Personally I am of the belief that being a parent doesn't give you a free pass to not being called an idiot by your child. It varies on the parent and child in particular whether or not it is justified however. My own father sadly, for all my want to love and respect him, is a horrible moron and an asshole...I feel rather bad about that because I'd love for him to be the awesome dude I was convinced he was. This is a situational thing however and may not apply to his own father. There's also a right and wrong way to display such feelings.
Moving on to the actual topic at hand...No that is not a good way to win people over. I have found that apparently just talking about it in a friendly and funny manner while leading by example works at gaining respect for your religion at the least and maybe some converts at the most. So apparently just be Aondeug and you get people.
edited 27th Oct '11 5:56:23 PM by Aondeug
If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah
Princess Ymir's knightess
@The Earth Sheep
It was just a response to Tiph if you look closer... and not a proof for anything...
edited 27th Oct '11 5:59:19 PM by kay4today
not wanting my mom to think that Satanists are killers isn't hitting her over the head with my beliefs is it?
the FBI debunked the SRA scare after all.
edit: i mean when she says "because satan is evil and will do anything to take you down!" as her reasoning for why she thinks we kill people and animals in ritual... is more than hard to deal with when she literally asked with a straight face that i wont kill her for a ritual
edited 27th Oct '11 6:01:56 PM by jasonwill2
as of the 2nd of Nov. has 6 weeks for a broken collar bone to heal and types 1 handed and slowly
No, I just want her to stop thinking im killing puppies. she asked me today if i killed my pet dog yet or not. she thinks satanists are murderous people. shes stuck in the Satanic Ritual Abuse of teh 80's
And so how are you changing her perceptions? It sounds like instead of living by example or whatever you were on about in the OP, you instead are openly confrontational, the same way you insist that Christians shouldn't be. You exhibit ignorance of Christianity even as you decry them for not understanding your own.
Just feels off to me, imho.
Christmas Sheep
Jason, 15: Christianity is a missionary religion. It does believe that God wants you to preach your religion, even to the Gentiles (especially to the Gentiles). It also believes that a good Christian has to do what God says. There is nothing wrong with that.
Religious differences with your parents can be hard. Sometimes either or both sides are completely unwilling to listen to the other. Sometimes either or both can be incessant about trying to make the other listen to them. This is an impasse, and can only be harmful to your relationship. Honestly, my advice would be to just politely evade him when he tries, and just try to get along with the guy.
Still Sheepin'
I was a Christian for about 7 years, went to a christian highschool for 3 years, and went to a fundie church for 2-4 years. i am not ignorant about them. i just do not like the hardcore kinds at all
edit:
I tried that, he said that he can't. he explicitly said that our relationship cant be "a-religious" as I asked it to be because "my faith is such an integral part of me" he promised that there would be "some kind of conflict"
he is utterly and completely rigid and unwilling to stop pushing it on me.
edited 27th Oct '11 6:05:37 PM by jasonwill2
as of the 2nd of Nov. has 6 weeks for a broken collar bone to heal and types 1 handed and slowly
It doesn't make any sense, because the loving/caring God watches us being raped, murdered etc. and does nothing about it... and sending people to hell because they're not believing in something for no reason? Makes perfect sense.
God is love, and part of Christianity assumes that the love allows for free will. However, if you use the free will to reject love and goodness, what is left? The eternal absence of love or goodness, known as Hell.
Sadly, this doesn't say much, especially if those 7 years of Christianity were just going to church with your mom or something. Some of the things you say in your text messages show a lot of ignorance about how the Bible and how the Christian Satan are understood.
edited 27th Oct '11 6:06:13 PM by Tiph
Princess Ymir's knightess
Still don't get it... if "God is love" why does he allow bad things to happen?
God gives us free will... do as you're told or you'll burn in hell. trolololo
edited 27th Oct '11 6:07:04 PM by kay4today
God isn't the only source of love in this world. Plenty of atheists are loving people. what is shown in this post isnt love
edited 27th Oct '11 6:07:24 PM by jasonwill2
as of the 2nd of Nov. has 6 weeks for a broken collar bone to heal and types 1 handed and slowly
God gives you free will, either embrace love/goodness or reject love/goodness.
Hell is simply the absence of love/goodness.
edited 27th Oct '11 6:07:15 PM by Tiph
Disclaimer: This has humor against my dad and the type of proselytizing he uses, not against Christians. It is not intended to come off as contempt towards Christians, but sarcastic/sardonic humor at a particular method of witnessing. After I completely deconstruct all of this, I give a piece of honest advice on what does work near the end
Oh! This is priceless. Today I was talking to my dad, and a certain problem we have in our relationship. It seems that he thinks God wants him to be a Bible-thumper. For some reason, he thinks that there is “spiritual warfare” and that “I [dad] can’t see how it won’t cause… some form of conflict [in terms of a son-father relationship.]”.
Such a funny person. So I gave this man an example of why what he is doing is not socially acceptable.
My example, word for word:
The moron’s response, word for word:
Congratulations dad! You will never win a Muslim to Christ!
My disgusted response:
My dad’s cheap cop-out:
Your right! Your freedom to speech completely trumps their right to freedom to be Islamic, and not have their boundaries violated like that! Good job Dad, you make your God proud!
It is when people cower behind the first amendment like this that I realize the hypocrisy of such kinds of Proselytizing, especially since the first amendment is also the one that gives us freedom of religion and not be messed with. The freedom of speech is no longer in effect once it violates someone else’s right. That’s a basic American principle right there.
Luckily, I saved one such conversation we had over text messaging that reveals how he does what God wants him to do. The conversation is here in the entirety so you can judge for yourself. Successive texts without a response from the other party in-between are combined.
Me:
My dad:
God alone is worthy of honor and power and honor. Jesus Christ has prevailed, and crushed the serpent's head. Christ was wounded for our iniquities, and by Christ's stripes we are healed. I am Christ's and Christ is mine, forever and ever. This is utterly incompatible with evil, thus you will face such reactions.”
Me:
Ya... I don't think you understand the first thing about Satanism. She has been very irrational about it. And just calling Satan a lair isn't justification for her. I understand her position, she thinks it will blow up her house or something. If Satan was so destructive then it would be awfully hard to lead people away from God.
Satan only killed less than 10 people in the Bible, God killed two million. =(
Also, I am more of a pantheist that has Satan in my pantheon.”
I should clarify: Josh wont associate with me and my mom freaks. She even freaked, but slightly less so, when I almost went apostate (atheist specifically) for a while last fall. Her reactions are erractic and anxiety filled put downs and stereo types, for a lack of a better word. It is a logical outcome based on what I know me [I mean of] her, but it is not logical or rational behavior. It is unreasonable.
As they say, "reason is the enemy of faith
Also I was asking for advice because I wanted to rationally sit down talk to them. I have given the courtesy of not saying bad things about your deity, I had hoped that would of done as you had wished others to do onto you, for I have with you.”
Hey In planning on celebrate my birthday on the 26th at my house. I want to talk to you about it later, also going to talk to mom. I an inviting 3 friends i knew them from school as well. good hearted guys
Dad:
Regarding the words I wrote. They were not my own. Every phrase straight from the Bible. God's Word. I'm just a messenger, an ambassador.
Me:
You do not get it, do you? Are you saying that god wanted you to tell me off and not help me? Dont hide behind that, the point is that it was uncalled for. It hurts me that you would be as callous as to take a shot at me when I sought your help. To think that I stood up for you to my mom.
Dad:
Remember it's very difficult with text to know the nonverbal cues of the other speaker. There was no malice towards you =)
In my reference to that conversation, he said: “Well that’s help to me.” Then there was the time I asked who all he told at his Church that I was a Satanist and he slammed this on me:
More of my idiot dad texts:
…I’ve only told handful of people and I specifically felt lead to ask them to pray about the situation… Although I would assume you gad nothing to hide anyway. I would never think for instance to hide from anybody that I’m a christian I’ll do it is interesting to consider that most of the sins that satan would entice people to do would be committed in secret or in darkness and this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. John 3:19
And every time I try to confront him about this behavior, he ‘’always’’ uses the excuse that God wants him to, and never takes responsibility for his actions.
Now I’m not a La Veyan, but when La Vey said “responsibility to the responsible”, I agree; people need to stop using God and religion as an excuse.
Then, it all came full circle to the real reason. I asked him how he thought it would help his witness to do that to anyone, he said over the phone:
my dad:
Wait, you were converted because people scarred you into their religion with threats of eternal damnation? That’s the way to go about it!
Then, it gets worse. He later says that he never “tried to convert you”, but given that the verses he gave in the above text message, which was transcripted to my computer WORD FOR WORD that really isn’t so. He never actually tired to say “come to Christ!” or anything like that, but the actual verses are ones saying that my God is the most evil and vile thing in the world.
Now don’t call me crazy, but isn’t that more or less trying to scare me out of Satanism? He doesn’t even realize that he’s trying to convert me the way he was converted.
So I come to an end here; If you are a Christian, and you Proselytize, for the love of everything that is our world, DO NOT go about it this way. It WON’T make you popular, it WON’T win over anyone other than the fearful, and it’s just plain wrong and a violation of someone’s space.
You should witness by being an example. By being a good, trustworthy, and honest person. You should completely exude love, forgiveness and good work ethic. When people come to you and ask how you remain so happy in the face of hardship and remain patient in spite of people spitting in your face, you can tell them that the reason is Jesus.
This is the best advice that a disciple of your “arch-nemesis” can give you. Not only will it help your witness, it will stop annoying the hell out of non-believers. I see it as a win-win.
Surely there are a number of people out there that agree with me on these points.
edited 27th Oct '11 5:24:26 PM by jasonwill2
as of the 2nd of Nov. has 6 weeks for a broken collar bone to heal and types 1 handed and slowly