Was your church a Cumberland Presbyterian Church? Rejection of predestination was one of the factors behind its formation. I should note that one of the things Presbyterians are best at is schisming.

Not that I'm aware of, though I suppose it could have been among the ones that rejoined PCUSA back at the turn of the 20th century. Note that I don't ever recall hearing anything about specifically rejecting predestination either, but I first encountered the concept when learning about Scottish history in college.

I'm assuming this is true, and it's made me the happiest I've been all day.

[link]

I grew up in a family that went to church (southern Baptist) and I remember on a trip talking with my youth group leader about how I just wasn't feeling it, that faith thing. She said she was worried for me, and that was that. I had decided then that you can't fake faith to yourself, so what was the point, and then later on logic kicked in and I was "if you're real, you are such a jerk".

Growing up in a church of car salesman didn't help. I'm pretty sure they got commissions on how many people they baptised. I kept refusing because I didn't mean it, and wasn't a baptism more about declaring publicly that you believed, beyond that other stuff? I refused to be a lying liar because my dad's friend was pressuring me.

Kind of like how later, in the army, I refused to get married to a fellow soldier for the benefits because it offended my idea of the institution of marriage, that it should be real, with love, and to mean "until death do us part" and not "I want extra cash for off-base housing".

My flavor of hippie agnostic Judaism is pretty much "make the world better than you found it" and "that golden rule thing? that was us" and "make real, tangible amends for your shit to real, tangible people" and "try to do better this year than you did last year"; but also "G-d? Completely optional, but I'm still vaguely uncomfortable spelling the whole word out even so."

And then I married a lapsed fundie who has thoroughly researched and annotated arguments both for and against (and hilarious stories about) the craziness he grew up with. Fascinating stuff, but the whole Jesus-and-salvation business is outside my reality.

I got to swim at my Y! And the water was cold! I wouldn't mind if it stayed 79 all the time, but I know it won't. The babies and the arthritis aquatherapy folk can't cope with it.

Good luck in decisioning, shrift!

...all I got. So braindead.

My belief system is cobbled together from Little Women, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Godspell, Virginia Woolf, Peter Brook's idea of Holy Theatre, and Angel

I like the quote from Angel- "If nothing matters but what you do, than all that matters is what you do." I never understood people who thought atheists/agnostics were immoral-- all they have is morality and basic human kindness.

I also like “Behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern; that we—I mean all human beings—are connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work of art. Hamlet or a Beethoven quartet is the truth about this vast mass that we call the world. But there is no Shakespeare, there is no Beethoven; certainly and emphatically there is no God; we are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself.”

if nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.

Because, if there's no bigger meaning, then the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world.

Those quotes always resonated with me so strongly. Sums up much more eloquently than I ever managed. Strive to foster better, just because it's nicer that way.

My belief system is cobbled together from Little Women, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Godspell, Virginia Woolf, Peter Brook's idea of Holy Theatre, and Angel

I want to hug you.

Who is it that believes only 166,000 people will get into heaven?

OK, this makes me the theology equivalent of a Grammar Nazi, but it's 144,000, and it comes from this passage in Revelation:

[link]

Like most of Revelation, it's subject to multiple interpretations, ranging from the Jehovah's Witnesses saying it's the 144,000 who make it into heaven to the subset of dispensationalist evangelical/fundamentalist Christians who think it's 144,000 literal Jews, 12,000 each from the literal 12 Tribes, who become Christians after the current Christians are all raptured prior to the great tribulation. (Dispensationalism is complex and IMHO wacky, but think the Left Behind series.)

Oh, and I've met many a hardcore, predestination-embracing Calvinist in my personal journey through a good chunk of Protestantism. (I was raised Southern Baptist and am now Episcopalian, with several stops in between.) Neo-Calvinism is something of a trend in conservative evangelicalism these days. Mark Driscoll is Calvinist, as are quite a few of the prominent Quiverfull types.

As for me, these days I think of myself as an agnostic who practices Christianity. I hope there's a God and an afterlife, but I certainly don't KNOW those things. I don't go to church week in and week out the way I used to, but the Episcopalian liturgy is soul-restoring for me. Unlike my evangelical days, I don't have to try to manufacture the right beliefs and feelings. The liturgy is there to catch me, wherever I am that Sunday--the Word and the prayers, the bread and the wine that somehow tie together the mortal and the eternal. I try to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly (though I've always sucked at the humility part), and to use my abilities and enthusiasms to their fullest extent.

OK, this makes me the theology equivalent of a Grammar Nazi, but it's 144,000, and it comes from this passage in Revelation:

My FAC believed they would be the 144,000, but also that it was just kind of the advance guard. Also, they wouldn't be going to heaven; they would be assisting Christ after he established a 1,000 year kingdom on earth. During this time, just about everyone else who'd ever lived would be resurrected and given their opportunity to be saved. (In quite favourbale circumstances, as there really wouldn't be any question as to God's existence, and the FAC was of the opinion that a benevolent government headed by God himself would prove to be a decent selling point.)