Or whether or not you agree with any of those beliefs, and perhaps why? I can never get a straight answer out of him, and I am thoroughly confused.

You have my condolences.

Yes, I'd agree that the ideas you have put forth are extreme imo. I do believe in God and I am a Christian. I hold none of those beliefs. I've had friends of differing faiths and believe that God must allow different paths to him (not a widely agreed upon supposition, but none of us knows so I'll stick with it).

The thing to do in my opinion is to disect the beliefs that are self serving from those that serve others. There are two commandments in Christianity. "Love thy neighbor as thyself" and "Love one another as I have loved you". Notice the first word in both. Unfortunately there are people who use religion as a way to propagate hatred. People do the same with politics. Anything that allows one to gain the ear of a large number of people is likely to be used in that way. I'd certainly like to believe that those are not the norm. They are not the beliefs I've seen practiced by most Christians, but that's just my little corner of reality.

So in your experience those beliefs are complete crap? I'm 16, so I don't know much about religion, and I'm not exactly eager to learn firsthand considering what I've seen it do to my father, but I'd like to at least try and understand whether or not his beliefs are common or accepted or complete shit or whatever they happen to be.

What state are you in?
I have come to the belief that Christians come in many forms some more radical than others. There are the extreme convervatives, the extreme radicalist that come in 4 forms ( kills Jews, kill muslims, kill Muslims and Jews, kill all non Christians ) all of which are upsurd, then there are the Christians who go to church because they don't know any other way, and then there are the people who drop in everyonce in a while.

I'm in PA, specifically the Lehigh valley, my dad has lived here his entire life, and hes now 50 something, 54 if my memory serves. He used to tell people they would go to hell for not being Roman Catholic, a religion that he was part of for 40 years or so, and now he tells people they will go to hell for not being Baptist, and he calls Catholicism a false religion. I can't talk to him about it because he's far too riddled with hypocrisy and anger to have a conversation like this, so I'm trying to get some information from some other religious people.

WOW! Talk about an extremist. I guess my "liberal" Lutheran views would seriously offend him. I suppose he thinks homosexuals are sinners and should be stoned if they won't repent and be atoned.

I used to attaned a Southern Baptist church and they never had those views. Were they more conservative than mine? Yes, but not to that extreme. Crazy Anglican has it right. Christ came to replace al the law and the prophets with those two commandments. Anything that propogates hate is not of Christ and all you can do is try to show them the love the refuse to show others, praying that they will come around. I'd rather deal with an unapologetic atheist than a hate monger like your father. At least the atheist and I can agree to disagree...

I used to *attend

Yea he hates gays the way he hates just about anything else he disagrees with.

He can get pissed off by anything, but my question is still how someone can draw so much hatred from a religion that, in my limited experience, is rooted in love and charity.

I'm one of those people that, as Denis says, drop in every once in a while and while I might not be an avid church goer or anything I do firmly believe in god and jesus as his son sent down to save us and forgive our sins and other essential Christian beliefs.You definitely have a extremist father. My simple advice is that if you want to find out what to believe about the Christian religion then go pick up a bible and read the whole thing. That's where any beliefs your father has SHOULD come from and where all the other Christian religions get their beliefs from.

The same way that the crusades happened. One man gets in power and believes himself to be the mouthpiece of God. He then convinces anyone who will listen that he is the voice of God and that disobeying his word is sin. Then he goes insane with all the power (if he wasn't already) and decides that anything that is different from him must be an affront to God. After all, it offends him, therefore it must offend God because God speaks through him. After that, it's just a matter of twisting scripture to meet his point of view rather than reading and praying for guidance. It ceases to be "thy will be done" and becomes "my will be done."

Can I say that his beliefs are crap? No not really. I haven't heard them from him, so I'm in no position to judge. There are some common problems that I see from the things that you've mentioned.

1) The father should have absolute authority in the household. That's an interpretation of scripture that is taking things farther than I'm familiar with. Yes, the father is the spiritual leader of the household, but that's a far cry from absolute authority. Also I'm not really sure what you mean by that, so my interpretation is that he's being tyrannincal while I have not basis for that other than those two words.

2) All other religions are false (even other Christian denominations). As I've said I personally do not believe that one religious sect is right and all others wrong. It seems a bit narcissistic. How do you know which is right? I've heard the "That's a lie straight from the pit of Hell" line of reasoning from time to time and I'm personally not too impressed by it. If God truly wants everyone to have a chance to get to know him, then I think it's perfectly reasonable to think that Muslims are just as much his children as you or me.

3) Alcohol consumption. I just had a beer an hour ago. Some of the best alcoholic beverages have been made in monasteries & wine was quite a popular drink around the time that Jesus was walking among us (literally safer to drink than water was). Yes, it's a damaging drug that can ruin people if they are not careful with it. Have I seen any scriptural evidence that it is sinful to have a drink once in a while? No, but it is sinful to let it become a god to you (ie alcoholism). Some people should not drink, but that does not mean that all people should not drink.

4) Condemns long hair on men. He has seen artist renderings of Jesus? Right?

5) Duty to attack Muslims and protect Israel. That actually sounds more like a political stance than a religious one.

Oh, and if your father ever questioned his preacher, he would be labeled a blasphemer and cast out of the congregation, but he is so brainwashed that will never happen. Of course, if it did, he might actually return to being a decent human being (if he ever was one). But it sounds like he has an addictive personality and a weak will that is fed upon by those who would rule over him.

According to him, the wine that Jesus drank was not alcohol, it was just grape juice. As for the long hair, he believes it to be improper for men to have long hair, I have absolutely no idea why, so I just decide to poke fun at him because he's been balding for as long as I can remember:]

He says it is our duty as a "christian nation" to stand up to and defeat evil, which to him, is basically anything from the middle east.

Acts 2 (New International Version)

Acts 2
The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost
1When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues[a] as the Spirit enabled them.
5Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. 7Utterly amazed, they asked: "Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? 8Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? 9Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs-we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!" 12Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, "What does this mean?"

13Some, however, made fun of them and said, "They have had too much wine.[b]"

Peter Addresses the Crowd
14Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: "Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. 15These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning!




This is clear proof that the wine of the New Testament was alcoholic in nature. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is full of it.

I bet he also only believes the King James Version is the word of God and all others are false interpretations created by Satan to deceive, even thought it is clear the KJV was tweaked to meet King James I and the Church of England's approval.

Man Draug you're good, I wasn't even going to mention the KJV, but yea, it's the only one he reads, and it's what his church uses.

THat's kind of funny, my church doesn't use the KJV and we're Anglican (related to the Church of England).

So do any of those beliefs have any validity to the rest of you religious people? I'm particularly concerned by his belief that his attending church is more important than his family, especially because his family is falling to pieces all around him, except he's never around to attempt to make it better.

Do you have another member of the family to whom you could talk about this - say your uncle, his brother, if he has one. Someone with some potential influence upon him. Someone who can see how your family is being destroyed from within. Someone who might just get through to him.
It's a really sad situation. One thing for sure is that you'll get through it in time. Just hope you don't end up with permanent scars in these areas.

While God is first, a church, minister, or congregation is not God. His family should be first amongst the people of this earth. And not attending a church service is not ignoring God or putting him second. He should try bringing God into the home and pray and worship with his family instead of this extreme right-wing church he attends.

And by bringing God into his home, I don't mean the extreme totalitarian/authoritarian views presented by that church. I mean the love of Christ and the meek spirit of the teacher and the blessed healer.

He has three brothers, but two live quite far away, and the other one wants nothing to do with him on anything beyond a polite family level. His mother died back in May, after many close brushes with death, during one of which he attempted to convert her to being a baptist. THAT was certainly a site to see, because I hadn't seen her look that alert in months, and his 80 something year old fragile as hell father almost strangled him right there. When he is around he tries to mend things, but he is far too quick to anger to really resolve any issues, and his condemning nature of anything he doesn't agree with makes him really a shitty candidate for a person, let alone a husband and father.

god doesnt exist and anyone who thinks he exists is retarted... how about i write a book about how to live and in two thousand years have a religion started based on my book. if any one of you can give me any proof of god i will agree to never visit this site again

retarded*

That's a good point Draug, how he equates his church with god. Unfortunately, his unbending devotion to his pastor makes him unable to really see anything.

http://lvbaptist.org/

That's his church, in case anybody is interested in looking into where his beliefs came from. I've been there a few times, and some of the people seemed cool enough, some seemed fake as could be, and there were, in my opinion anyway, propaganda leaflets all over the place. He takes them with him when he goes around knocking on people's doors trying to convert them.

Aside from intimating that a large percentage of otherwise intelligent people are retarded, why would anyone want you to leave the site?

@CA, henry is just a teenage would be athiest acting out. Ignore him and let him have his rant.

Well seems like your screwed man. I'm of your age an m forced to go to church every Sunday because my father is similar to yours, I bit less radical..., anyway I can't do anything about it and I have to live with it. Do you live with your dad?