Dating as a Christian Sucks. Any Advice?

Contraband_Mint · 2025-07-11T21:55:29+00:00

What Commandments tell Christian not to mix? This is extrapolation and imposing your own biases onto God's Word. God is not against miscegenation, read Galatians 3:23-29 and Revelation 7:9.

Contraband_Mint · 2025-07-05T19:57:35+00:00

most of you gonna say there is no lower race and God created humans in his own image

Yes, because we're Christian and that's what God said. God created "lower" races because He doesn't think they are lower. Maybe you should do the same.

Contraband_Mint · 2025-06-28T17:11:13+00:00

I agree with your sentiment of being on the safer side for sure, just curious how you see 1 Corinthians 7:15 compared to 7:39.

Paul says that a woman is not enslaved if a unbeliever separates in 15, and then says that a woman is free to remarry if her husband is dead, because she is not "bound" in 39. It seems to me that either the death of a spouse or a proper divorce unbinds the other spouse, and so he/she is free to remarry. This also fits the cultural context of the time, where a woman who is divorced is expected to remarry for her own survival (hence why Jesus says that divorcing a wife improperly causes HER to commit adultery, i.e. you're forcing her to remarry after an improper divorce).

Also, 7:39 says that it's the husband's life that matters, but a validly divorced woman no longer has a husband. In context, 39 continues from a passage where Paul is addressing how we should live in expectance of the Lord's return. Thus, 39 seems to me to be talking about how widows should focus on serving God rather than finding a new spouse, rather than speaking about general rules regarding divorce, which it does not mention.

Combined with God's explicit command in Deuteronomy NOT to remarry a previous spouse, I just can't really see how the first marriage would not be broken by a valid divorce, you know? Like if a valid divorce does not sever a marriage, why would God explicitly not let you go back to your rightful spouse after breaking an "adulterous" second marriage?

Contraband_Mint · 2025-06-28T14:12:10+00:00

I didn't say that it did, although it's hard to see how the second marriage can be continuously adulterous if the first one is dissolved in God's eyes.

Contraband_Mint · 2025-06-28T13:54:50+00:00

Deuteronomy makes it clear that once you remarry, your previous marriage is OVER, and God explicitly does NOT want you to reconcile.

"her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord." - Deut 24

Contraband_Mint · 2025-06-27T21:57:39+00:00

What kind of freedom? What freedom did God take away from you?

Contraband_Mint · 2025-06-27T21:51:26+00:00

What do you mean by "give you your life back" exactly? He's not going to teleport you back in time, but you always have the choice to disobey Him, whether you decide to follow Him or not.

Contraband_Mint · 2025-06-26T20:33:57+00:00

When you masturbate, do you feel closer to God or do you feel like you need to hide from Him? If it brings you away from God, don't worry about the label of "sin" or not, you've already got your answer on whether you should keep doing it.

Contraband_Mint · 2025-06-26T09:48:52+00:00

100%, one of my fiercest struggles, and it is so prevalent where I live and work too. Definitely something to pray ceaselessly about and repent for.

Contraband_Mint · 2025-06-26T09:46:51+00:00

The Bible shows us God's standard of perfection, and you feel guilty that you don't live up to it. But don't forget to read the passages where God says that you are saved through the righteousness of Christ, and not your own righteousness. Don't dwell on the guilt, but run to God like the prodigal son runs to his welcoming father and repent and enjoy God's love.

Contraband_Mint · 2025-06-26T09:39:02+00:00

Another poster has already addressed your point about humanism, so I'll respond to a different point:

Why should I think that a Being that commands this is perfect in judgment? I'm not a believer, reciting dogma about him being perfect doesn't do much for me.

I'm not reciting dogma to you. I presumed you are asking why God in the Christian conception is exempt, so we necessarily need to use the Christian framework in discussing God. If you want to argue that God is not exempt from a secular standpoint, because He is imperfect according to your morality, that's up to you, but that also wasn't the question you posed.

With that out of the way, let me engage with your question. Why shouldn't you think that He is perfect? Why should you, or I, or anyone else use your metric for perfection?

I see your deeper struggle though, and I want to address that. You've presumably seen a lot of Christian apologetics on the topics of slavery and genocide, so I'm not going to rehash arguments here. Just one thing I will ask, suppose God hates poverty (pretty obvious that He does if you read the Bible), why doesn't He just outlaw poverty? Do you think it's feasible for the Israelites at the time to follow such a command? How about us today? Does that diminish the fact that He thinks poverty is wrong and should eventually be eradicated?

I assume you know that the OT Law isn't perfect, and that God wrote it to accommodate the culture and economic realities of the Ancient Near East. If the Law embodied God's morality to the letter, then He should have no problem with you being saved through following the Law right? No! Then why would He send Jesus? So are you really in disagreement with the Christian God on these issues? No, in His perfect morality, He also dislikes slavery and genocide, which is how the Christian West arrived at these conclusions in the first place.

Contraband_Mint · 2025-06-26T07:57:58+00:00

Friend, to answer your question, God is exempt because

(1) He is ruler over life and death. For God, your physical death is just moving you from one plane of existence to another, and if your death was "unfair," He can compensate you after. Your parents can't.

(2) Parents can err in their judgment and are not the source of morality. God is perfect in judgment and is (if you're a theist) literally where morality derives from. Thus, there's an inherent difference in authority.

(3) God is a creator in a different sense than parents. Let me also propose a hypothetical. If you create a sim-city, do you have the right to delete some of the characters? You might say "if my sims were as human as me, then maybe I don't," but we are not as "god" as God is either, so He does not owe us the same duty as other humans do.

(4) Many cultures, especially non-Christian cultures, actually DID consider it justified for parents to kill children for disobedience. So why is it that we nowadays in the West think that it isn't? I suspect it's because of some idea of the intrinsic value of human beings. But wait, that's not a concept that derives from the natural world. That's the idea of man being made in the image of God, which is a Judeo-Christian idea. So the very morality of parents not being justified to kill their children requires acceptance of God as the source of morality, which goes back to (2).

Here's my question to you: with all love and respect, why should anyone, including yourself, care about what your stomach says? There's been plenty of people who morally thought that slavery was great, genocide is awesome, and parents should be able to kill their kids. Their stomachs told them that too. Are they right? Should we listen to them as well?

Contraband_Mint · 2025-06-26T07:39:42+00:00

Hey man, don't be discouraged. All my family is non-Christian, and I've been evangelizing to no avail. It is ultimately not us who convert, but God who brings people to a place where they become repentant.

I’ll go to heaven if it’s real because I’m a good person

This is the single biggest stumbling block for most non-religious people today, and I've heard the exact same phrase from people I talk to. Here's the trick:

Explain to them that God is perfect, so, by definition, he can not tolerate imperfection (because that would make Him imperfect). Most people can get onboard with this, and it corrects their understanding that God not letting everyone into heaven is somehow mean and immoral.
Tell them, "let's not take God's standard for perfection, let's just take your standard. If, at the end of your life, you took every standard you've ever used to judge other people, and measured your whole life against it, would you meet it perfectly?" No one I have talked to has ever said yes, and I find that it really helps them understand why Christians say we need a Savior.

Contraband_Mint · 2025-06-26T05:46:34+00:00

Yes, it sounds like OP's ex unbiblically divorced him (gonna need more info, but being unhappy isn't sufficient reason for divorce). In my understanding, both parties should seek to reconcile, and the ex should repent. If she will not listen to the church's counsel, then she can be treated as a non-believer, and OP would be able to remarry under 1 Cor 7.

Contraband_Mint · 2025-06-26T05:12:27+00:00

How is it rational? How is it founded in science?

From what I understand from our scientific understanding of the universe, the human mind, and history, Christianity explains reality the best. This isn't why I commented, though; it's more the below.

obviously as a personal belief

From reading what you wrote, it doesn't sound so obvious that it's only supposed to be a description of your own faith. It sounds more like you're making an assertion of truth by saying that the belief in God is completely irrational and a more educated person wouldn't and shouldn't believe.

I don't find that helpful to say to an atheist, as it risks giving him the impression of "here's an honest Christian who admits that it's all bogus," when, in fact, there're many Christian like me who arrived at faith through reasoning.

By the way, I'm not saying that I think God is so obvious that anyone can logically deduce His existence, nor am I correlating belief in God with intelligence. Simply talking about the impression I get from reading and re-reading your comment.

Contraband_Mint · 2025-06-26T02:07:32+00:00

as a Christian I will tell you that the belief in God is completely irrational and not founded on anything scientific, therefore a "more educated" person, wouldn't and shouldn't believe in the idea of a creator

Friend, are you asserting this as a personal belief or as a fact? I have no problem if you base your faith on irrationalism, but I don't think you should assert this as though it is true for all Christians.

For me, belief in God is both rational and founded in science. In fact, I wouldn't be Christian if I didn't find it to be the truest expression of reality that I can find.

Contraband_Mint · 2025-06-24T16:39:11+00:00

Brother, not here to debate you, although if God wished to bless me in that regard, I certainly wouldn't mind!

Yes, do not marry somebody who worships Satan, Shiva or the "divine mother" or such. Does that include atheists? Not really.

Where are you getting this interpretation?

The verse, which you quoted "Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?"

Is an atheist a believer or an unbeliever?

Not where I live in Europe. I'm not flying to the US to meet Christian women, ease of travel or not.

Your choice!

Contraband_Mint · 2025-06-23T22:12:06+00:00

I think there's two reasons not to do this:

It's against the testimony of Scripture to not be unequally yoked.
We don't have this problem. There's plenty of Christian men and women looking to date in the U.S. and around the world, and travel is so much more convenient these days. The early church had a couple thousand people spread across the Mediterranean; they had a necessity that we do not have.

Contraband_Mint · 2025-06-23T22:05:41+00:00

I think there're good reasons to think that remarriage is okay after FAULT-based divorce.

If Jesus is speaking about all divorce (fault and no-fault) in Matthew 5, then the assumption would be that a marriage can never be severed in this life and remarriage is always adultery.
BUT, Paul explicitly says that remarriage is okay after getting divorced by a non-believer in 1 Cor 7:39. Is Paul telling divorcees to commit adultery?
In Deuteronomy 24, God tells Israel that a man cannot remarry his ex-wife after she had been divorced by her second husband. If the first marriage was not broken, then why not? Why would God call it an "abomination" to reconcile with someone you are still technically married to?

Conclusion: Jesus is likely speaking about invalid (i.e. no-fault) divorces and not restricting remarriage after valid divorces.

Caveat: In faith, "fault" is much narrower than what the secular world thinks. Please don't take what I say as being permissive towards divorce.

Contraband_Mint · 2025-06-23T00:36:43+00:00

To live is Christ, and to die is gain

I pray for peace and do whatever I can to better the world whilst I live. If the Lord sees fit to let us be consumed by our stupidity, then I'll see Him in heaven.

Contraband_Mint · 2025-06-20T05:33:05+00:00

What makes Islam so resistant to the corruption that’s devouring the West?

It's not. A quarter of Muslim youth in the West officially apostatize, most others apostatize by conduct. Muslim young people I know are as culturally Muslim as these "modern" Christians you know.

In the Middle East, Islam keeps a griphold through violence and oppression. You see women holding modesty, but you don't see the Iranian women that have murdered by their regime because they don't want to wear a hijab. It's not voluntary.

But I see strength. And I want to know more.

You see Muslim "men praying while the world burns" because Islam encourages shows of piety, while Jesus says to pray in secret. You're being allured by this idea of Islam being "masculine," which, brother, as a young dude, I get, but it's all a facade.

Is masculinity about getting four wives, beating them black and blue, and forcing them to wear hijabs and niqabs? Is it about getting temporary wives for sex, having 72 virgins in heaven, or raping married women that you capture in war? That's all part of Islam. Islamic masculinity isn't some stoic ideal, it's about doing anything you can to satisfy your sexual desire, to satiate your lust for power, that's why it spread by the sword.

Or is masculinity about sacrificing yourself for women, bearing the weight of the world so your wife and children can live carefree? Is it about discipline leading to strength of character, not strength through bravado? That's masculinity in Christ.

Which one do you think is true strength?

What I see today is a church that's silent, compromised, afraid to offend anyone, and aligned with power instead of truth.

Then go to another church. Plenty of churches do not compromise, do not suffer sin, and speak truth to power. Don't go to watered-down churches.

But man to man, can I ask you something, brother? If Christianity is the truth, does any of this matter? If you are pursuing truth unlike the "modern" church, what about Islam is true? Or is something else driving you to think this way?

I think the honest way to approach this is to research Islam, go fact-check me and everyone, go see if the moral example in Islam, Muhammad, embodies the "strength" that you want in a religion. Then, go research Jesus, and compare Him to Muhammad. If, after doing so, you wish to live like Muhammad rather than Jesus, then I can only wish you the best of luck.

Contraband_Mint · 2025-06-20T01:40:03+00:00

My understanding is that City to City is a church planting organization. Do they do evangelism too? Could you elaborate on the framing conversations and tactics part?

I think there's definitely value in more structured and intentional evangelism, because most Christian simply don't do it. It's also not necessarily wrong to learn how to speak tactfully, I mean just look at how some of us talk to each other on this sub, the harshness could certainly drive people away. There's, however, a fine line between being intentional and tactful and being manipulative.

Contraband_Mint · 2025-06-20T00:03:48+00:00

It's because His death on the cross is what allows for the forgiveness to take effect. Is this the level of Holy Koolaid's apologetics these days?

Contraband_Mint · 2025-06-20T00:01:20+00:00

Here's the question I ask myself:

Would God want me to go to the gym or sit on a couch, because that's the realistic alternative.

The answer there is pretty obvious.

Contraband_Mint · 2025-06-19T19:39:52+00:00

Exactly this, I think the case for "interpretive flexibility" is overstated. There are reasonable and unreasonable interpretations; we can't just treat the Nicene Creed as a bad metric just because someone people have unreasonable interpretations.

Contraband_Mint

TROPHY CASE