User talk:Homestarmy

I am sorry for destroying your hard work. I might hate religion, but it was not right what I did and for that I am sorry. You worked hard and I ruined it. Aquinas666 18:41, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

unDELETED!!
Welcome back ;)

If you spot any more vandalism please drop me a line on my talk page and I will try to fix it. It was a person running a vandalbot, so the changes were very rapid and very unpleasant to undo :(

nsandwich 18:41, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Was there no ability to roll back the database, it seems you deleted my talk page and I was trying to talk to the vandal about important stuff :/. Homestarmy 18:43, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry HA. There's no rollback function that I know of. In the administrator's guide, it says to contact the developers directly if something like this happens. That is what I am about to do, because I don't think anything legitimate was added after a particular time. So hopefully we can just roll it back. Please don't add anything for the moment as I am going to try to contact the developers right now. nsandwich 18:45, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Very well :/. Homestarmy 18:46, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Don't worry. You wouldn't have gotten through to me anyway. I am not a believer and never will be. Just focus on fixing what I ruined. Sorry again. Aquinas666 18:47, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Your pastor may of messed up your life, but the reason that we have faith is because Jesus gives us new lives, there is no amount of pain He cannot fix..... Homestarmy 18:51, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I hate all religion. I spend all my free time fighting to stop it. I protest at churches, vandalise Wikipedia and today your Wiki (I am almost always banned from all Christian Wikis) and spit on clergy members. Aquinas666 18:54, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * This might sound mean, but you might be making them more happy and strong in faith than sad and reluctant to continue, Jesus said to rejoice when people persecute you after all. And one reason for that is so that there is always a chance we can reach people no matter what they do, even yourself, the real Christian objective is not to hurt people, but to help save them by showing them the way, no matter who they are or what they have done. Homestarmy 18:58, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * You know what Aquinas, no matter what you choose to believe, and it is your choice, we're here for you. Personally, I can be tolerant of your choice, I hope that you can be tolerant of ours as well. Tolerance of course doesn't mean you have to go out of your way to be nice to us, it just means mutual respect, at the very least. Wishing you all the best. nsandwich 19:06, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Homestarmy, I have been granted the power of the Holy Adminship! Which means that I can ressurect your old talk page. You can find it at /Oldpage. Archola 08:02, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I think the person is gone now :(. Homestarmy 17:21, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism
I got one of the devs to help out. They're very friendly. Still a couple more reverts to do but shouldn't take long. Feel free to make changes and additions again HA.

nsandwich 19:09, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I didn't see anything happen, are you sure they fixed things? the recent changes log looks the same.... Homestarmy 19:12, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * It's ok he said that almost everything was back to normal so to go ahead. He personally didn't have the access to do the SQL statement to revert the DB. He could contact someone but he said at this point there was very little left to fix, and I agreed. nsandwich 19:17, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Well there's all those nonsense pages now in the browse list to remove :/ Homestarmy 19:20, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Adsense
To the administrator, could you please use the Google AdSense tools to ban the showing of the following website: www.Godwithoutreligion.com. It appears to be quite non-Christian and might be very confusing if anyone clicks on it. Homestarmy 13:38, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

and www.EveryStudent.com, which appears to be a comparative religion site attempting to lump Christianity in with all other religions, which I would guess would present it in a highly biased, negative manner. Homestarmy 13:38, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

And www.bookbind.net, a Jehovah's witness site. Homestarmy 13:42, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry HA, actually I have no control over the adsense stuff. It is put there by Wikia which runs wikicities. As part of their Terms of Service, I am not allowed to remove the ads since the ads are what actually pay for hosting here.


 * As a side matter, we are not anti-Jehovah's witness. You or I may not agree, but we welcome their contributions and their views. It is a large, legitimate denomination with many followers.


 * -- nsandwich 19:31, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Doh. Well then there might be a problem because a very central tenant of Jehovah's witness belief is that all trinitarians are, quite literally, possesed by Satan as I understand it, are very adament against the idea that Jesus is anything other than Michael the Archangel, and from what I hear their church teaches members that only 144,000 people in the world ever go to heaven. I just don't see how it's compatible with Christianity..... Homestarmy 19:34, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * JWs believe that all Christians who are not JW's are part of a Great Apostasy (read:Trinity), and that they have the real true form of Christianity as it existed in the first century. Saying all that, we should be fair. I had some interesting conversations with them once; but they couldn't convert me, and I couldn't convert them. Perhaps I should have nailed some theses to their Kingdom Hall! Eh, God knows which one of us is right. Archola 20:51, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I have a strong feeling we're both right ;). I think that no matter what your particular day-to-day beliefs, so long as you believe in God and heaven and try to live a moral life (meaning, truly believing in your heart that what you are doing is a good deed), then you will end up in heaven. Hopefully we'll see everyone there, and we'll all throw up our hands and say "wow, wasn't all that bickering silly? turns out God loves all of us!" Well... here's hoping anyway! -- nsandwich 21:48, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Ephesians 2:8-9 my friend..... The problem is if a side isn't chosen our beliefs are far too diametrically opposed to make an encyclopedia. I personally know that Jehovah's witnesses are not simply non-Christian, but because they do not seek to be born again or have faith in the real Jesus, then if any of them die without the savior, they will go to hell like anyone else would. That is, of course, bad to simply let happen, so if this knowladge base tries to fuse the two systems then anyone else who follows the great commission will (and should) feel obligated to over-right any pro-Jehovah's witness POV regardless of whether they call it Christian or not. And likewise, Jehovah's witnesses who also often have a good deal of zeal may feel that, likewise, they should censor the "Satanic" doctrine of the trinity and any mention of Jesus as God to put forth their own POV. The POVs are strikingly different between Jehovah's witnesses and the Bible, they cannot both be correct. Homestarmy 22:15, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Heh, religous wars are no fun. Like Avery said, it's still kind of up in the air how we should deal with those who are neither Nicenean nor Chalcedonian. Then we can re-enact the Great Schism, Crusades, and Protestant Reformation. And then...


 * Best, I think, to leave it up to God. Best not to boast (Ephesians 2:9). Archola 22:52, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry to butt in again :) But can we stop arguing which side is right and get on with our work? It seems to me that now we put opinions of denominations into different sections, everyone can say what they think. Simple. Easy. No "I am right, you are wrong" ever again (I hope!) --inky 10:10, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. (AOL?) Archola 10:21, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


 * That is pretty much the NPOV policy......which is where the issue comes in, there's a big difference between a CPOV and an NPOV. Homestarmy 16:31, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately I can add little to the debate because I don't know enough about JWs. I would like to learn though... I don't think that stuff about non-JW Christians being possessed by Satan is actually true. Nor is the part about a cap on the number of spots in heaven. I read somewhere that those were actually common misconceptions.


 * I would like to direct everyone's attention to CKB:What is a Christian. I could have kept the debate on the CPOV talk page but I have a feeling this discussion will be massive enough to warrant its own page, at least for now. So far this same discussion has been scattered all over the place, mostly on user talk pages and it's becoming hard to keep track :)

-- nsandwich 17:47, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Very well. Homestarmy 17:48, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

It's not exactly NPOV, I mean we are less concerned about Jewish or Muslim or Atheist POV's, although we should still be respectful. Perhaps a NCPOV (Neutral Christian Point of View) or ECPOV (Ecumenical Christian Point of View)? Archola 22:54, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Well if its neutral like that it won't feel all nice and Christian-y, it'll just feel all sterile like its hiding some argument and is putting diametrically opposed beliefs on an equal pedistal and might get confusing if it happens. Homestarmy 03:16, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * We can still be ecumenical. Just agree to disagree and let God sort out who's right ;) Also cite different interpretations to the proper denominations. Archola 03:20, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * But without the ability to assert to users who is right and who is wrong this just becomes a Wikipedia where everyone who has a remotely christian-sounding opinion gets their own soapbox section, that doesn't seem useful to me. Homestarmy 03:21, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

CKB's Most Wanted
And the Most Wanted Article on CKB is....((drum roll))...Prophet! Considering all the fun you've had listing false prophets on Wikipedia, I thought you might like to write about the real prophets.

Also, I didn't want to import the Wikipedia article because of all the stuff about Greek oracles and L. Ron Hubbard. Archola 05:49, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * A perfect example of where we can differ from Wikipedia :) -- nsandwich 05:53, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * This one shouldn't be difficult, I mean, it's pretty much a dictionary definition Biblically speaking as far as I know. I haven't really helped much on the false prophet article though because we're still debating over the title :(. Homestarmy

Bible Verses
You know, we do have an online bible so you can look up the appropriate verses. Also it was Peter who saw the sheet lowered from Heaven, not Paul. Archola 23:17, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

28th most wanted article
It's down the list a bit, but I think you might have fun with Fundamentalist Christianity. Archola 00:00, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

oh yes, oh very yes :D. Homestarmy 01:46, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Pentecostalism
Re: your edit summary: "Just what is a Pentecostal, and why do they matter in this article?"

Pentecostals are Christians in the Pentecostalism movement. Basically, they emphasize the Holy Spirit a little more than other Christians do. They named themselves after Pentecost (when the Apostles recieved the Holy Spirit as little tongues of fire over their heads). Archola 17:08, 29 March 2006 (UTC)


 * So what does that have to do with Fundamentalism? I mean, from what I understand of pentecostals, if you don't speak in tongues at some point in your life, you go to Hell. That's.....not fundamentalist. At all. As in, such an idea is not in the Bible. Homestarmy 19:44, 29 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure that all Pentacostals say that you must speak in tongues to be saved. I think most say that speaking in tongues is one sign that you are saved, but is not the only sign. In other words, you can be saved without speaking in tongues, but you cannot speak in tongues without being saved.


 * Personally, I prefer love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). Good fruit. But then again, I am not a Pentacostal. Archola 21:15, 29 March 2006 (UTC)


 * The thing of it is, I can't tell what it has to do with Fundamentalism, did the Pentecostals get influenced from it or something? Homestarmy 22:16, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Because they also "adhere to the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy." Archola 22:21, 29 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Many non-fundamentalists also believe the Bible to be inerrant, why are Pentecostals singled out? :/. Homestarmy 02:45, 30 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Because some people are both Fundamentalist and Pentecostal (I've heard Pat Robertson described in this way). It's just there to clarify that Fundamentalism and Pentecostlism are not necessarily the same thing, just as Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism are not necessarily the same thing. They do overlap, though, so the terms may be confusing to an outsider. Archola 08:12, 30 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Very well then.....Homestarmy 13:21, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Law and Gospel
Thank you for the Charles Spurgeon quote. I'm also working on updating the article at Wikipedia, so I thought I'd ask if the Evidence Bible states where they got the quote from. Archola 03:00, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Books of the Bible from Theopedia
"How could a list be more CPOV?" Easy--add content! The Robosandwich bot automatically adds the CPOV tag to articles imported from AnglicanWiki, OrthodoxWiki and Theopedia. Unfortunately, a lot of the Theopedia articles on the books of the Bible are just lists of chapters ;( Archola 03:34, 8 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I think my suggestion about adding in evangelistic easter eggs might be good for CPOVing though.... :D Homestarmy 19:28, 8 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Especially with Easter only 8 days away! Archola 22:28, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Hello there
I like your username. Bit of a Homestar Runner fan myself.

We seem to have gotten into a bit of an argument over Latter Day Saint issues on the Talk:Christian Knowledge Base:What is a Christian page. I would like to make my position a bit more clear since I seem to have confused you somewhat.


 * 1) I do not claim to know whether or not the LDS Utah Mormon church should be considered a Christian denomination.
 * 2) But, I feel that by any reasonable definition of what a Christian is, the RLDS, or at least the Restoration Branches should be acknowledged as a Christian denomination.

This page, "Wikia:c:rlds" exists to document my church's beliefs. My church and I may believe things you and yours may consider to be untrue, which is to be expected since we have a completely different history, point of view and cannon of scripture. But we are Christians. We believe in the Christ of the New Testament. If you find anything that our church (the RLDS, not the LDS) believes to be something that would disqualify us from being called "Christians" I would be very interested to hear your views on that question. --BenMcLean 17:13, 24 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I'll check it out. I was under the impression that all there was was the LDS and the FLDS, you know, its very hard to know group's beliefs when they won't stop splitting apart. Is why I like not being denominational. Homestarmy 19:39, 24 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I see several very odd things here, but I think i'd rather ask you first to explain them, in my experience, the adherants of people to their various religios beliefs can vary a great deal, even with the most fundamental of matters. Could you give me any elaboration on the following bits from your statement of faith thing:

We believe that through atonement of Christ all mankind may be saved by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel.

We believe that these ordinances are, first, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, repentance; third, baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.

We believe that a man must be called of God by "prophecy, and by laying on of hands" by those who are in authority to preach the gospel and administer the ordinances thereof.

We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.

We claim privilege of worshipping Almighty God according to the dictates of our consciences, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

These were the ones which looked like the weirdest ones in my mind, so I figured i'd ask about them first. What do you think about them? In particular, i'd like to know what that part about what you need to do to be saved means, and what that last one means. Homestarmy 19:50, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Thoughts on the Epitome of Faith
Ah, that is the "Epitome of Faith" - it is not "scripture" - it's more sort of an overview. (nobody claims it is divinely inspired unless I am greatly mistaken) As such if anything in our actual scriptures contradicts the wording in the "Epitome of Faith" then they would take priority over it.

Now, understand that what I think about them might be different from what other people think about them, and furthermore, my thoughts might be wrong. So I wouldn't want you to just accept anything I am going to say as either the truth or the gospel according to my church at face value becuse I, being mortal, am prone to error like everbody else. I want people to study things out for themselves. And if you want to know what the scriptural backing of any points I bring up is, I can get references. (I find the King James Version to be a good neutral standard for this purpose)

The general statements about salvation here are, in my (and my church's) opinion, quite simply what the Bible teaches.

"mankind may be saved"

 * We believe that through atonement of Christ all mankind may be saved by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel.

The great debate in the Christian world seems to me to be over "Faith vs Works". The Catholics seem to think (and I hope no one misunderstands what I'm saying here) that it is the good one does for others, and the obedience to the laws of righteousness that "earns" salvation. The Protestants seem to think that salvation is a free gift - all you have to do is say some magic words and presto - you're saved.

Neither aproach makes much sense to me. First of all, the Works view is simply not scriptural. The Protestants have pointed this out so often that I think repeating why would be beating a dead horse.

The Magic Words view is not logical - imagine someone being "saved" at a prayer meeting one night and then the next morning robbing a bank and raping and killing several people before committing suicide. Would such a person be "saved"? I don't think so. The moral, spiritual and eternal choice that person has made seems to be rather obvious to me, though of course God is the judge.

I have a completely different view. If a person truly is "saved" by grace, having faith then the good works and obediance will of course begin to happen. The slogan "Faith is an action word" might not be gramatically correct but fits rather well with this idea.

If someone is truly saved, there will be an evident change in their life. This doesn't mean they will be without sin of course, but the point is that I don't see a seperation between faith and works. The two go together.

I hope I explained that first one adequately ... let me post this much and then type some more in a bit - I want to make sure this much gets posted before I try going on. --BenMcLean 20:09, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Six Fundamental Principles
Now, the second one you brought up refers to the Wikia:c:rlds:Six Fundamental Principles:
 * We believe that these ordinances are, first, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, repentance; third, baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.

That basically just rephrases the opening verses of Hebrews chapter 6. Kind of puts the points brought up there it in a sort of chronological order.

Priesthood

 * We believe that a man must be called of God by "prophecy, and by laying on of hands" by those who are in authority to preach the gospel and administer the ordinances thereof.

That is talking specifically about the restored (Latter Day Saint) priesthood. RLDS beliefs about priesthood are unique, but could not be said to stray outside the boundaries of what could be called Christian. (LDS beliefs, on the other hand, I am not in a position to say for sure.)

I won't go into how RLDS priesthood calls work unless you really want to know but I think the best thing to tell you right now without going on too long about it would be an illistration of the role of RLDS priesthood. In the Catholic church, a priest is like a sort of filter - being between the individual believer and God. The traditional RLDS view, on the other hand, puts the priesthood not between God and the individual but instead behind the individual, pushing him towards God. The Community of Christ's views on priesthood seem to change periodically, but the Restoration Branches believe that at this time, only priesthood who can trace their line of authority back to Joseph Smith Jr. have tha ability to perform legitimate ordinances. (like communion, baptisms and priesthood ordinations) --BenMcLean 20:32, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

The Bible and also the Book of Mormon

 * We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.

Actually we have three books of scripture. My copy is bound together as one volume. Our members are so used to refering out of all three of them interchangably as to blur the boundaries between the different books - the way the New and Old Testaments compliment each other.

I believe very strongly in an open (ever-expanding) cannon of scripture. Scripture is the divinely inspired record of God's dealings with mankind - and I don't think He is anywhere near done dealing with mankind - not by a long shot. I believe that God speaks today as surely as He did to Moses.

Living with other religions

 * We claim privilege of worshipping Almighty God according to the dictates of our consciences, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

That could be seen as more of a sort of political statement than a doctrinal one. At the time, anti-Mormons were very concerned that the Latter Day Saints were planning to take over the country and outlaw all other religions. This was not true (at least, not until Brigham Young started claiming to be the new prophet) and I think Joseph Smith Jr. was trying there to emphasize that in the minds of church members and non-members alike. This principle still applies today - or anyway I believe it does - freedom of religion for everyone is something to be defended not torn down. --BenMcLean 20:50, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, your right, the RLDS is a whole lot different than the Mormonism i've read about :/. The weird thing of it is, what your saying about salvation and the "Magic word" thing among protestantism is pretty much exibitive of the Prosperity Gospel and Emergent Gospel movement, which admittedly is sort of in the limelight right now, but its not representative of all protestantism, just alot of televangelism :). I asked about that part of the thing because it sounded like it was saying "Salvation comes from fulfilling all of Jesus's commands" which sounds very LDS-esque, (As in, i've heard they say that we must fulfill Jesus's command to "be perfect, as your father in heaven is perfect" to be saved or something.) as opposed to "Salvation comes through faith in the savior and being born again", and to tell you the truth, my motive for asking these questions was, well, primarily to see whether you were saved or not :/. I mean I kinda concern myself with that sort of thing all the time, its all part of this thing, plus I don't think that talking to somebody about their individual doctrines or beliefs is very effective unless you try to see whether they are probably saved or not :/. But just to make sure, in alot of the things i've read about groups like Mormonism, sometimes the definitions of words is covertly changed around so neither side makes much sense of the other, could you tell me your definition of what being born again is?

The preisthood thing I only asked about because it made it sound like a man must be called by God to lay hands and heal people, as in, it is mandatory for all Christians to lay on hands :/. When it said "Preach the gospel", i'm thinking, well, that sort of means everyone, I mean, the command to go out and spread the gospel to the world doesn't mean just hang in the church all the time and wait for the world to come to you, you know? It doesn't sound like anything's amazingly wrong with it the way you think of it however :/.

The Bible thing I asked about mostly because that's the basis of our dispute and its generally a red flag that makes me question whether somebody understands salvation, I mean really, when somebody simply tells you that they don't think certain parts of the Bible are accurate, sometimes you just don't know which parts, and if its the salvation parts...well....it sometimes concerns me. I think i've seen some instances where the BoM, Pearl of Great Price, and Doctrines and Covenants directly contradict things in the Bible, and many times I think this is what ultimately leads to people assuming that Mormons are not Christian, but I can outline this later.

The first thing I wanted to ask about because it seemed to concern salvation, and made it sound like there were extra steps to salvation besides faith in Christ, and that made me suspicious, but if you say its re-quoting the Bible somehow, then I dunno what to tell ya heh.

The last thing was what made me the most suspicious, because it sounded like it was saying that the RLDS didn't care what you believed, as long as it was from your conscience and concerned God, and that the RLDS would consider all ways of worshipping God as equal. But hey, if you think its political, then I guess that's your take on it heh.

I think the main difference between your beliefs and mine really just centers around the Bible and the extra canon of the RLDS, as opposed to the worrying things I had heard apparently about the LDS, which would include stuff like God marrying some spirit mother and making spirit babies, an infinite line of God's each causing each other (a logical impossiblity), 3 different kingdoms of heaven, basically no real Hell in a more universal Christian sense, (by that I mean what I would consider Hell would be, in an LDS's eyes, I think what they refer to as the "outer darkness" as opposed to whatever else they consider Hell to generally be.) and basically other things which, if what you think about the RLDS is true, seem to simply not apply heh. As for the original question you asked about whether the RLDS church should be considered Christian or not, the thing of it is, if you say that those questions in summary of your beliefs aren't really taken as RLDS official policy, then what is? :/ Because at face value, many of those statements appear decidedly non-Christian, though it seems your take on them seems primarily Christian besides the BoM thing. Homestarmy 00:17, 27 May 2006 (UTC)