A group of York students has won the opportunity to have their very own I-phone application developed after winning The App Challenge final, held at the Ron Cooke Hub on Wednesday, January 18.
YUSU Welfare officer Bob Hughes has warned students to be vigilant after a student loans phishing scam has been revealed.
Her Majesty the Queen will be visiting York on Maundy Thursday, 5th April, as part of the 800th anniversary of York’s Charter for the traditional “Royal Maundy” ceremony.
A flood caused by a heating system “failure” forced the university IT services to shut down many essential systems on Sunday night, causing problems for many students on the eve of their exams and assignment due-dates.
One source familiar with the Children of God told the yorker that he suspects that the cult is setting up a base in the city. He said: "I haven't met any of the members here in York, but my experience of them elsewhere is that when they're recruiting in an area they are normally attempting to set up a base in the city."
The yorker has so far ascertained that the second group, the International Church of Christ, is using only three or four members to recruit on campus. The recruiters commute from London.
Another of our sources had a two hour meeting with one of the York recruiters. Our source said: "For a group that places such emphasis on the Bible, the recruiter's knowledge of it was overall fairly poor. The people I spoke to had no knowledge of Greek or Hebrew, they had had no formal training on exegesis and appeared as though they hadn't come across some of the biblical passages I drew their attention to."
He added: "One person I spoke to appeared as though they weren't even sure of what they believed in themselves."
The York recruiters target York students by quoting specific verses from the Bible which the source says can be "persuasive in themselves".
Concerns have been raised after one of the sources admitted that the groups' conversion methods were specifically made to recruit Christians. The CU could not be contacted before publication, but will release a statement tomorrow afternoon on the yorker.
Is this really that much more obnoxious than being accosted by an evangelical member of a more established branch of Christianity?
It bothers me less than the CU having access enter into student halls and stick their propaganda all over the place.
Adam,
I'm curious, have you been accosted by an "evangelical member of a more established branch of Christianity" in the past? Did/would you engage them in conversation to find out what they had to say, or did/would you dismiss them quickly?
Unless both are engaged to find out whether what they have to say is important, we can not compare. Perhaps what one of them had to say could save your life and it was out of love that they accosted you.
Mitch
if propaganda is about influencing people's opinions using questionable statements and without valid evidence, then your own post is propaganda. You directly labelled the CU's materials as propaganda without even quoting from those materials to demonstrate, presumably in order to influence people into thinking that the CU is full of propaganda and lies.
When you think about it, I guess to the outsider there are many similarities between the way these 'cults' and the other branches of Christianity approach people: being pushy, asking them about the meaning of life, etc.
However, I think the issue of 'accosting' people is largely irrelevant (although being accosted by people, whatever they're selling, is quite often irritating).
In my opinion, we should be careful when making comparisons between 'cults' and Christianity on the sole basis of their methods of reaching potential converts.
I would hope that people genuinely interested in engaging in religious debate would investigate themselves the difference between Christianity and these 'cults' before lumping both together in the same bag.
James- as Bob Dylan put it: "it doesn't take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."
Nowadays I avoid (or attempt to avoid) talking to evangelical Christians about Jesus/God/Christianity (delete as appropriate). As a born-again atheist with a very religious background and schooling I know a fair amount about the theology of Christianity. Enough, at least, to understand that the last thing I need is to be told by a stranger how much Jesus loves me blah blah blah. In your opinion they are trying to save my life, in mine they are simply wasting my time.
Propaganda was the wrong word. Despite the choice of word, I still think the access they are granted is unreasonable and more annoying than people trying to stop you in the street or on campus.
BTW James, your definition of propaganda: "influencing people's opinions using questionable statements and without valid evidence" pretty much accounts for the whole of the Bible.
DEBATE! :p
Adam:
fair enough, its your choice how you respond to the christian message especially if you are running out of time, I was just trying to make the point that there probably are differences in the intentions behind the cult vs mainstream christian groups when they approach you (but yes, as the anonymous poster pointed out, such methods of starting conversation with people may well be annoying).
Mitch:
fair enough, although i don't see why the CU should get any less access than any other group (do other groups similarly advertise?).
as for your statement about the bible, i shall take it as flamebait, but also make clear that i find absolutely nothing in the bible to contradict reality, or to contradict itself. As for evidence there is massive evidence to support the bible's version of history.
I challenge you to provide a valid example of how the bible contradicts reality or itself for us to discuss, as a single contradiction with itself or reality would make the whole bible untrustworthy and force me to abandon it as absolute truth.
if you cannot find a valid example, then i ask you to consider that there may well be truth in it after all.
cheers
James
Top 3: Yorker Sources
1.Tomato
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Mal. 3:6. For I am the Lord; I change not. Num. 23:19 God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent. (Ezek. 24:14; James 1:17)
Ex. 32:14. And the Lord repented of the evil which he had thought to do unto his people. (Gen. 6:6; Jonah 3:10; Sam. 2:30-31; II Kings 20:1-6; Num. 16:20-35)
Looks like a change to me.
anonymous: thanks for bringing that up. I assume you're refering to the "should not repent" and "the lord repented". i'm not sure which translation you are quoting but you appear to have got the vital word wrong, the NIV which i checked words Exodus 32:14 as:
"Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened"
"to relent": "To become more lenient, compassionate, or forgiving" (thefreedictionary.com)
this is distinctly different from "to repent".
doesn't look like a change to me
"love is kind, it is not jealous" - 1 Corinthians 13:4
"God is love" - 1 John 4:8
"I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God" - Exodus 20:5
Don't all four gospels contradict each other on the simple details of Jesus' last moments and resurrection? Doesn't sound reliable to me. James, you seem so determined to prove that the bible is a foolproof guide to christianity - is your faith entirely dependent on the accuracy of that book? I believe that it is normal and healthy to challenge and question your own beliefs sometimes - it is the best way to make them stronger. You say that you find no example in the bible where reality is contradicted. Yet even in my harsh catholic schooling, we were told that the genesis account of creation-in-a-week wasn't to be taken literally, but was merely a way of explaining the creation. Your posts appear to display fundamentalist beliefs, which, in my view, may have well been acquired through indoctrination as they clearly offer no room for critical or personal thought.
James, as far as I am aware, NO other society has such unprecedented access to student accommodation. What have they done to earn this right over all other societies?
As for the bible, it's not my place to preach to you and try and convince you that something that (obviously) brings you so much joy and zeal is not false.
Nor did I insinuate that it contradicts itself. For every contradiction pulled up by amateur atheists, many Christians have a well practised counter-argument which will usually win because of their superior knowledge of the scriptures and zeal.
My point was, that by your definition of propaganda, as unprovable things designed to sway belief, the Bible could be seen as propaganda. Saying that it can't be proved something didn't happen, is not the same as proving that it did happen.
Besides, it's much more fun to toy with liberal Christians who bend the bible for their convenience - to the point where the scripture really does contradict their dogma - rather than conservative ones.
It is my personal belief that the Bible is simply The Greatest Story Ever Told.
And why can't I write, (hash-symbol) 10? That's kinda annoying. html_special_chars is all you need!
Anyway, back to the subject, if different translations can say different things then surely the Book can't be an unquestionable truth unless you read it in Hebrew.
SHIT! It didn't work! I take my condescending hash comment back entirely, Mitch, I am sorry for being so presumptuous.
mitch: yeh that hash thing is coz the comments are based on wikitext in which a line beginning with a hash makes an ordered list. your comment has been noticed and we're gonna make it a bit clearer e.g. each of the following lines starts with a hash:
you can get around it by putting <nowiki > </ nowiki> (Without spaces) around it:
#mitch
Mitch:
i agree, it does not make sense to cut/paste bits in/out of the bible. I can never understand how people think they can cut out genesis and insert big bang/evolution and still have the whole thing make sense. The anonymous poster is correct there, if we say genesis isn't true, then none of the bible can be trusted.
Its true you can't prove 100% that something did happen in the past. I was not trying to prove the bible, only to put forward that if it was not true, its incredible how consistent it is considering it was written by many people over several thousand years.
When compared with theories such as evolution which have too many inconsistencies with itself and reality to count (which incredibly is taught as fact despite this), the bible is rock solid.
anonymous #14:
no, the four gospels in no way contradict one another, if you look you'll find that they focus on different aspects of what happened, but they do not contradict. have a read and see.
I do indeed believe that the bible is absolutely true. I agree it is healthy to challenge and question your own beliefs, i have done so, and found nothing invalid about them. The bible encourages questioning of our beliefs, but not doubting.
my beliefs were NOT aquired through indoctrination, and they do offer room for critical or personal thought. Its simply that since the bible is already consistent with itself and reality, there is no need to try and change it. As i said before there is much physical evidence for the bible's version of history.
Please do not assume that just because i do not believe the same as you believe that my beliefs are unfounded / delusional and that you can insult my intelligence so rudely!
anonymous #17:
the bible isn't all written in hebrew, but anyway, you are correct that it is the original that should be considered authoritive. Modern translations such as the NIV are translated carefully by experts directly from the original texts in order to keep the same meaning. its always a good idea to read different translations when considering this stuff.
Often people try and bend the translated versions, without realising that the original language did not have the same ambiguities as e.g. english has. For example in genesis, the word used for day in the original language is only ever used for a single period of 24 hours, there are other words for longer periods of time (quite aside from the fact it says evening passed and morning came which doesn't work with longer periods of time).
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