Maybe First Baptist Church is not so powerful...

[PeeJayEss]

Well if they dont exist then they cause no harm whatsoever.

Which would remove the underpinning of his argument.

Why? His argument was about religion, not deities.

oh,  so you were just deliberately sidetracking when you conflated the two?

lol.

Know thyself:

thats not the tune you were singing earlier about religion.

More folks are miserable because of money than any of the gods, goddesses or deities combined.

[Cheshire Cat]

Perhaps we spend too much time worrying about FBC agenda than pushing our own agendas for downtown.

The attention to FCB I believe is largely due to it's location, it's members in local politics and to some degree their pastor.

I have many friends who attend FCB church.  I never discuss religion with them and with good reason.  I enjoy their friendship.  For many of them it is not just about the religious teaching but is also about their church community which is quite active.  FCB is no different than many other church communities in that way except perhaps in membership, which is substantial .  I should say that none of my FCB friends have ever invited me to their church.  They knew it was not in any way a fit for me.   I respect that and my personal beliefs have not been a barrier to friendship in their view either. 

The problem in my view comes when some in politics locally allow their personal religious beliefs, largely driven home by pastor Mac Brunson to flow over into our local politics.  Make no mistake that Brunson is brutal in his views of Muslims and Gays and quite restricted in his views of evolution.  I have watched him a couple of times in his television broadcasts and the vigor with which he supports his interpretation of biblical text leaves no room for doubt that he thinks his way is the right way and he is determined, as are most pastors, to win his followers over to his interpretation.  The reality is that many of his followers don't buy all that he says, but have learned as did the fellow who blogged about him once, that to cross the pastor is to create sizable backlash.  Many followers do not want to give up their social church community and accept the words of Brunson without "openly" questioning what he professes.  It is the safe thing to do.  lol

FCB church "does" have influence in local politics and being part of their church helps "some" politically. FCB has and does lobby for and against certain issues downtown and when determined, like in the case of Ahmed or the GLBT community will not back down from pushing their beliefs upon the entire community.

If a politician want's to show how conservative they are, an alliance with FCB will do that for them and is a good choice simply because of it's size, location and vast membership.  I remember a conversation I heard Ray Holt have with another council person who was asking Ray why he left his old church to join First Baptist.  His answer was "for political reasons".  Am I suggesting that all the politicians who go there do so because of politics?  Not at all, though most recognize the allegiance as a positive in conservative Republican circles. 

In some ways we now see greater influence on the office of Mayor under Alvin Brown who is best friends with his pastor Rhim and makes no bones about that fact.  Brown is also known to open a speech or two with "God is Good" and the quoting of psalms. 

Religion does have a visible influence on public politics locally and that is not a good thing in my opinion.  I have no argument with anyone's personal beliefs or religion unless they try to force their belief systems upon others.  They, like me are free to believe as they like personally but cannot and in many cases do not represent their entire community through their personal secular views.

[If_I_Loved_you]

http://www.fbcjax.com/

[Cheshire Cat]

I don't think it's about conversion and I can hardly imagine you being anti gay Stephen.  lol  Don't know much about the pastor before Brunson, save the commercials he aired with his wife talking about sex.  Those were something to be beheld.  As I said, each to their own with regard to personal beliefs.  Now about that political help Stephen, I think you may have to ask for it.     

[andyfk]

This appears to have turned into a discussion about religion rather than abuse of power and the concentration thereof in FBC. I'll just mention FBCJaxWatchdog as the most recent egregious example.

what would you mention about that, andy?

http://fbcjaxwatchdog.blogspot.com/2009/03/readers-in-this-post-im-simply-going-to.html

^Oh yeah - I remember that. What ever happened?

invasion of privacy etc.

The thing about it though is that the first baptist blogger is a Jerry Vines (who announced nationally that "Muhammed was a demon posessed pedophile") partisan, and thinks that the current pastorship is too liberal.

Im not sure most here would like to see the church becoming more far right wing and xenophobic.  But whatever floats your boat.

i could care less about what he believes. the whole lot are loons. fbc isn't going to become the open-arm love machine they claim to be, anonymous criticism or not.
my point in bringing up the blogger is the means by which they found out who he was. they had a member of the pastor's security detail (a police officer) subpoena google (as a police officer) as part of a bogus investigation, discover his identity, close the investigation, and trespass him from the church. even worse is the lightness with which it was treated.

[spuwho]

i could care less about what he believes. the whole lot are loons. fbc isn't going to become the open-arm love machine they claim to be, anonymous criticism or not.
my point in bringing up the blogger is the means by which they found out who he was. they had a member of the pastor's security detail (a police officer) subpoena google (as a police officer) as part of a bogus investigation, discover his identity, close the investigation, and trespass him from the church. even worse is the lightness with which it was treated.

I agree with you Andy, FBC overreached on the blogger issue. But what wasn't reported very explicitly was that someone was harassing the pastors wife at the same time and stealing mail out of their box. So the paranoia about a critical blogger was high.  Didn't justify the subpoena to Google IMHO.

There are some nice people I know there, but I have also met some not so nice people. Bad or odd behavior is not exclusive to a church I am afraid.

[ronchamblin]

And furthermore... Nothing happens outside of the laws of nature.  The idea of there being a god somewhere is interesting, and somewhat fun to entertain, as is done in the science fiction novel.  However, there is no god anywhere in the universe, but only the laws of nature, which allow or cause all that we see in the universe, including man. 

The theologians and lay persons alike take hold of beliefs held yesterday, and the day before, beliefs which began at the beginning of mankind millions of years ago, and manipulate thought and conversation so as to encourage belief in some kind of a god.  They are so set in patterns of belief, so dependent upon ignorance, that they perpetuate belief in a god, in spite of there being no real reason or evidence to do so.  They believe in the existence of a god because their parents or babysitter caused them to believe, and because they receive some comfort by it, and for no substantial reason. 

Why should one care what the god-believers believe?  The safe and proper existence of humanity, with all its problems, must have the best possible sober thinking, which is outside of the realm of believing in gods, so that problems can be solved, so that suffering can be eliminated as much as possible, so that progress in mankind's existence can proceed via true wisdom.  The belief in gods skirts the truths of nature, and therefore skirts also, the real solutions to the problems faced in the human experience, which exists only in the world of nature.

[fsujax]

The Passion Play is coming soon. Truly an amazing performance, hundreds of actors, choir and full orchestra. It is free to attend. I would encourage you to go if you have never seen it.

http://www.fbcjax.com/passionplay

[Cheshire Cat]

Ron Chamblim: 
Why should one care what the god-believers believe?  The safe and proper existence of humanity, with all its problems, must have the best possible sober thinking, which is outside of the realm of believing in gods, so that problems can be solved, so that suffering can be eliminated as much as possible, so that progress in mankind's existence can proceed via true wisdom.  The belief in gods skirts the truths of nature, and therefore skirts also, the real solutions to the problems faced in the human experience, which exists only in the world of nature

Ron, I have a question for you if you will.  Let's just take "religion and spiritual views" out of the discussion for one moment and answer this regarding your last statement in quotes above.  In your world, you alone have accessed the values, views and intellects of all persons beliefs and decided that your own is the only one that is valid, so much so that you declare that the safe and proper existence of humanity is predicated on your personal view as expressed above.  I would like to know when and how you decided that your view was supreme to all others, including many in the scientific disciplines?  This discipline you speak of and imagined future existence of humanity is devoid of what makes humanity the dynamic, challenging and diverse species it is. Personally I would not want to live in that world. lol  I guess I am just wondering at how a person decides their intellectual point of view is above all others.  Please share with us how one deduces that? 

[Cheshire Cat]

What I don't think Ron realizes is that these posts and declarations put him right up there with a religious zealot.  All that is needed is to insert the word science in place of that of any other religious discipline and you have the same attitude which screams I have it right and you the uneducated underlings of the world must agree.   

Having said all of that, I respect Ron's views.  I just don't care for the tone of superiority expressed in those views. That tone is in fact indicative of a closed mind and that does not grow intellect in a way that leads to the safe and proper existence of humanity.

[If_I_Loved_you]

“The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God.”

Euclid quotes (Greek mathematician, 300bc)

[ronchamblin]

One objective I have in engaging this conversation is simply to offer options to much of our local thinking, other than what seems to be the most common, which is the belief in a system of gods and churches and religious teachings, which has little basis for belief, other than hearsay and habit.  I do this to perhaps encourage a better overall quality of thought, having more to do with reality.  To avoid excessively the realm of reality, is to avoid confronting the real problems confronting us today, and thus the best solutions for them, even as related to the problems we have in our urban core.

The ideas about gods, and afterlife, sin, and guilt is somewhat interesting, but it belongs in myth and fantasy fiction.  Nature and its immutable laws is the only thing that approaches the concept of a god.  The Native Americans were closer to the truth than we Europeans.  The laws of nature are fair, are constant, are honest, are firm, are dependable, and are unchangeable.  Long before the gods were invented by man, early man aligned his hopes and fears around nature, which, in the end, will be found to be the only god-like force to which we should give attention, as nature ultimately controls our very existence.  Nature does not favor certain peoples, nor does it offer conflicting, confusing, and ambiguous teachings to confuse the intellect, and mentally dwarf the child.  Nature does not support guilt or sin, nor does it give power to priests and preachers so that they can control and extract money, time, and intellectual independence from followers.

[Debbie Thompson]

I'm with Cheshire.  I'm fine with Ron believing what he believes. As long as it doesn't interfere with me, it's his life and soul.    But also not fond of the implication we believers are poor, deluded souls who will one day see it his way.  If his argument is solely that he needs scientific proof of God's existence, I'd say hogwash.  But that's just me.  Edited after I read Ron's post above.  Ron believes man invented God, while I believe God invented man and everything else.  The crux of the issue in our differences.   :-)

Turn the clock back a few hundred years.  All the rules of the universe are the same as they have been from the beginning, but there is little "scientific proof." Modern science seeks to explain what is.  Faith just accepts what is without explanation.

Sorry we drifted off and hijacked the thread about FBC and it's power or lack thereof.  I tend to think it's not so much FBC as an entity as the fact that Jacksonville is a pretty conservative town, at least lately, and elects conservatives.  As MJ has pointed out on older threads, it was not always thus.  Jacksonville used to be a very progressive town.  Maybe we should blame it on Ronald Reagan and not FBC.  :-)

[Cheshire Cat]

Ron, how did you determine "our local thinking"?  My point is how exactly do you know what is in the hearts and minds of others beyond a self decided interpretation of what others believe, even when it comes to how they interpret this universe or a divinity?

You did not answer the question I posed to you originally, which is how did you come to the realization that you above all other people have the correct interpretation of this universe and all experiences of humanity?  In reading your posts I have a hard time imagining that you ever step outside of a very closed box of personal thinking.  It has been my experience that doing that leads to myopic views.  Your first line says it all when you use the words "My objective".  You come to the conversation with an objective which is in fact to sway folks over to your views and to open their minds to other possibilities while yours is apparently closed.  lol

[If_I_Loved_you]

Ron, how did you determine "our local thinking"?  My point is how exactly do you know what is in the hearts and minds of others beyond a self decided interpretation of what others believe, even when it comes to how they interpret this universe or a divinity?

You did not answer the question I posed to you originally, which is how did you come to the realization that you above all other people have the correct interpretation of this universe and all experiences of humanity?  In reading your posts I have a hard time imagining that you ever step outside of a very closed box of personal thinking.  It has been my experience that doing that leads to myopic views.  Your first line says it all when you use the words "My objective".  You come to the conversation with an objective which is in fact to sway folks over to your views and to open their minds to other possibilities while yours is apparently closed.  lol

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The hallmark of narcissistic personality disorder is an apparent absorption with yourself (narcissism). Because this is a personality disorder, the symptoms are always present to some degree.

Symptoms include:

    Love of self/great self-interest
    Preoccupation with success and power
    Attention seeking
    Boasting or bragging about one’s own achievements often
    Exaggeration of abilities and achievements
    Having unrealistic goals
    Fantasies of success beyond what is likely or possible
    Hypersensitivity to possible slights and insults from others (coupled with what could be an aggressive or angry response)
    Arrogant behavior
    Belief in one’s own uniqueness/entitlement to special treatment
    Difficulty understanding another’s emotions or perspective