Any Christians here?

[jon.a]

So now I'm wondering if the OP has received any PM's from like minded people too bond with?

 

[Mattie]

Really labels divide people and limit us from growing and developing and accomplishing things. I believe there is a time and place for everything, but some how I don't think a business forum, unless it's directly a Christian Entrepreneur forum is really relevant. Just like when I went to college I had an atheist teacher teaching me social psychology, statistics, and other stuff who was best friends with my professor that was a Christian Minister.

They listened to each other's point of view, joked about each other in classes, and we just learned the subjects. Some people put an emphasis on the label atheist or christian. Their personal beliefs was irrelevant to how they taught Social classes or psychology classes. Totally different subject. Those that needed the labels quit the class, where the rest of us wanted to get the class done and graduate. Whatever your focused on limits your progress and delays learning. We just paid attention to what we were learning to graduate.

 

[jon.a]

I hope that we all recognize that "Christian" could easily be replaced with any religions name within this conversation.

 

[Mike Kavanagh]

Christian is such a broad spectrum.
A quick Google search provided me this link.

Just a TL;DR from that link
2.184 billion people are estimated to be Christian of some denomination.

I know of some people from my area who teach entrepreneurship and the bible.
Seek and thou shall find, comes to mind.

 

[ericj]

With me being from and currently living in a rural Georgia community I can relate to what you are saying. I consider myself a Christian, but I do not visit the church for my own reasons.
Most other entrepreneurs in my area are Christians as well, so it might be due to the location Im in. I do not know any fastlaners personally though, but I wish I did and plan to attend some various meetups soon to hopefully meet like minded people.
If they were atheist or whatever it would not change my mind about befriending them based just on that, and hopefully they would feel the same about me.
Like someone mentioned earlier, in my opinion it would be best to have friends from all walks of different beliefs as you always learn from others in one way or another.

 

[Vigilante]

lol

 

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[sle3pyguii]

Man...i feel hella dumb. Hahahaha.

*PSA* IF YOU BUY DOMAINS, MAKE SURE TO SPELL-CHECK.

 

[Bananas]

Man...i feel hella dumb. Hahahaha.

*PSA* IF YOU BUY DOMAINS, MAKE SURE TO SPELL-CHECK.

YOU feel dumb? What about me?!

I was so amazed it was available and it was so late I pasted it into to Word which didn't flag me as misspelling it. Apparently I should have added a space between the two words to get the spellcheck to work properly. Or gone to sleep earlier.

 

[ericj]

Man...i feel hella dumb. Hahahaha.

*PSA* IF YOU BUY DOMAINS, MAKE SURE TO SPELL-CHECK.

Its still a good idea though, just might need to brainstorm a good domain.

 

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[needchaser]

Yes, there are Christian Entrepreneurs on this forum and elsewhere. Maybe creating a Skype or Facebook group for that specific community can help you meet and share ideas.

 

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[seamles]

I'd be interested in joining, I had a thread that was pulled earlier too but met some nice people on the forums!

It's been a fun journey, meeting everyone here regardless of backgrounds, so I agree a lot with people have said on this thread. And if you ever see the preachers from mega churches... I hear they do really well..

 

[Lakeview]

Realize people view what is righteous, or not, based on there own interpretations or impressions. Realize the bible was written in a different language and translated and reinterpreted many times. Some words don't translate well or have the same meaning today as they did in the culture over 2000 years ago. Those who dwell on the details often miss the big picture.

I view the big picture of life as what you make it out to be. You can contribute great things in life and enjoy the rewards in abundance or think and fear the worst and live in misery. The rewards of providing value to many is a motivator for so many on this forum.

Persue your dreams, become a philanthropist if you so desire, and make a bigger impact on this world. Success and money is not evil but a tool for changing lives. Walk the walk to live the legacy to wish to remembered for years to come.

 

[Mattie]

I hope that we all recognize that "Christian" could easily be replaced with any religions name within this conversation.

Think this is the illusion. We believe because someone has a certain label or group they are a certain way. Phil Zimbardo discussed the Lucifer Effect. We make someone the enemy, and he's got this photo of light and darkness and your perception. And also talks about the villain and the hero. It just depends on what way someone sees us through their perception, belief system, and projects their experience on to us. It was a very fascinating learning tool, to read his works, and the Standford Prison Experiments.

This is what gets me into trouble with people, because I go in different groups, and get along with them just fine. I shed a lot prejudice, discrimination, and became non-judgmental. Outside people just think that's the worst thing on earth. Such as living in the Netherlands and those people are so liberal instead of conservative back home. Personally, the way I've been treated in the Netherlands is far better than I have at home.

The illusion always comes in from ignorance, fear, and not knowing the truth. I've just accepted the fact I look beyond the labels and categories and learn from everyone, versus thinking they're terrible people. Even if I mention the word Entrepreneur. "Omg...why you hanging out with those kinds of people?"
It's a common response for me these days with any group, "Omg...Why you talking to those people?" They're different. They're strange! They're going to turn you into some scary monster, and you'll lose your teeth. Not really, but we have creative imaginations.

 

[RHL]

I hope that we all recognize that "Christian" could easily be replaced with any religions name within this conversation.

I see what you're getting at-Any religion can inspire, any religion can limit, any religion can lead to feelings of conflict between your faith and your life.

However as a Christian, I'm not sure that's universally true where problems finding other people of your faith in the fastlane are concerned.

Not all religions have core teachings that are derived or related to the philosophical school of Stoicism, like the early Christian movement was. Stoicism is a school of thought that valued freedom (as fastlaners do), but achieved it through radical self-denial rather than radical expansion of CENTS factors in business or life. Rather than exploding your control of the world around you to prevent being controlled, you pared down your locus of satisfaction, contentment, and fulfillment to be entirely internal (Greek atheist stoics) or entirely beyond the physical world (Christian ascetics), and thus through sheer willpower you made yourself uncontrolable. Although any number of Jesus and his follower's teachings could illustrate this principle, I'll stick to the "no religious discussion theme" and use a secular example from another member of this philosophical movement:

Aristippus [A court attendee and beneficiary of the king]: "O, Diogenes, if you would only learn to flatter the king, you would not have to dine on lentils."

Diogenes [A radical stoic known for his self denial]: "O, Aristippus, if you would only learn to dine on lentils, you would not have to flatter the king."

Religions that are not rooted in stoicism (Hinduism, Judaism, and Islam, for example) may not have OP's specific problem, because they may have a vastly less tense relationship between businesses, wealth, and holiness than Christianity, just like not all cultures will view a child forsaking education for business to be as bad as some Asian cultures do, and thus people wanting to go Fastlane from those cultures may be in a uniquely unsupported position. This doesn't make Christianity or any other religion (or no religion) the proper way to go, but it does make this problem with relation to the fastlane different than, for example, certain kinds of Islam, where entering business might be seen positively, and as long as the Quranic charity quotas for a tithe from your net worth are met each year, becoming rich isn't considered an inherent moral problem, like it is in some strains of Christianity (being a conservative Mennonite, for example), where retaining any wealth for yourself beyond the bare essentials is seen to be potentially dangerous or sinful.

 

[Mattie]

Hmm...think that is the part of the problem. There are 41,000 Christian Sects in America. None of them seem to agree with each other and have their branch off of in different directions because of their disagreements. I'll use myself and Mr. J from back home. I was raised Catholic/Christian, and went to Social work at the time. He was Catholic that went Evangelism. What I didn't become aware of back than is when you say "I am a Christian." Well that can mean 41,000 different ways. Do you want to come to my church? I was about forgiveness, unconditional, mercy, and he was about judgment and sin. lol And I'm a woman. That always gets in me trouble whether I'm talking about religion or not. All we can do is hope we find like minded individuals and be happy to find them when we do.

Now you can learn about business from the Trappist Monks. I took a tour of their establishment here in the Netherlands. I suppose you can find any business model if you're really looking for it. I've just been enough debate forums in 2011 that I burned myself out discussing Religion with people. I got out of it what I needed too, and laughed more than anything because sometimes trolls and than the different characters just were passionate about their religion, and I had to have a sense of humor about it, because they're all serious and they're out to convince you why you need to conform to their stance.

I supposed in a sense they're good businessmen for advertising for their particular God. Really you can't convince anyone or change their position. And it goes on for days and days and even two years later if I went back to those forums the same people would be going around about it. I go back sometimes just say that, nothing new here. lol I could tell you some stories. I just say stick with the bible and your experience of God, because otherwise you just have a lot of opinions, biases, and debates.

 

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