First of all, should this really be a surprise? We are not born good but sinful with a selfish nature. Any good that any of us ever do is because of God, not because of us. God gets all the credit - always. - so that he who boasts, boasts in the Lord. (1 Cor 1:31). Even after receiving Christ, it is a continual process of cleansing that is never perfected in this body. So, do not be surprised by selfishness.
Second, a lot of what you say has to do with American culture. In my experience, I do not see the same lack of respect to family members in Asian cultures. We do not have a particularly good culture when it comes to family in America because of the unbalanced emphasis on individuality and if you observe our entertainment over the last 30 years it has increasingly become more and more depraved and demonstrates an unabashed irreverance to any concept of family, love, and God - and all of this is affecting us continually even if we do no watch.
Third, I think the main reason that you see a discrepancy is that we are able to let our guard down when we are with people we feel comfortable. In other words, we are truly more ourselves around family and friends and thus you are seeing more selfishness because that is our inherent nature, apart from Christ. That is our fallen Adamic nature that must be crucificed and replaced but this is a process and it is painful and it is actually a good thing when it revealed to us so that we can further deal with it by God's good grace and power.
I think this has happened to us all and there are several reasons for it.
1). The person is no longer active on the site and so does not even see your messages. Unfortunately, there is no "Last Logged In" indicator here like other sites.
2). The person is afraid of hurting your feelings so just avoids answering altogether.
3). The person is unsure what to say and is waffling between liking you and not liking you, so they do not make a definitive move just yet.
4). The person is testing you to see just how serious you are about them.
5). The person is really a scammer and realizes that you will not fall prey.
6). The person feels that no answer IS a NO answer and thus feels that the communication has effectively ended.
Just want to say something about the "be fruitful and increase in number".
Um - this was said to Adam and Eve when there were two people on Earth. There are now close to 7 billion and I think we are long past the point of being frutiful.
So far there have been a lot of great comments and I have enjoyed reading them all.
Some thoughts to ponder regarding this very important question.
Paul says in 1 Cor 7:1: "It is good for a man not to marry. But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband."
Now if there was some predestined perfect mate for us, how in the world could Paul then say "it is good for a man not to marry"?
Then in 1 Cor 7:8 Paul again says, "Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion."
SO - it seems clear that marriage is not the best option for any of us. It is not a bad option but it is a concession to us because a). there is so much immorality and b). sexual desire is more easily controlled in marriage than outside.
This very clear teaching of scripture does not seem to point in any way to a concept of a perfect mate that God has predestined for us from the foundations of the earth.
Instead, we have Paul essentially saying - look if you really feel you have to marry - then find a woman that is single in the church and marry her. Simple.
None of this "oh God send me the perfect one for me" nonsense because the reality is that the perfect plan for all of us is to be unmarried so the moment we say to ourselves - no I really need a wife - then we are already out of God's perfect plan, though still very much in God's grace and protection.
The time is short and we are to be fully dedicated to God's work, which marriage can distract us from, as Paul also says in the same chapter.
I know the truth hurts and I am certainly not one of those with the gift of celibacy but let's not make things more complicated then they are. Any possible believer woman that is single and attractive to you is a potential mate. Full stop.
Also, God does direct but it is us that decides. To say that it is all predestined is a major can of worms I don't think you want to open. We have free will and it is because we have free will that any morality even makes an ounce of sense. If it is all fated then we are nothing but robots living out a computer program.
I know I just said something very controversial - especially for a dating site - LOL. I would welcome any comments and responses.
I have used paid dating sites in the past and - yes - they are also full of spammers and scammers. In fact, they are worse because they do not hold to the same strict standards as a religious-oriented site can.
Unfortunately, dealing with online dating is having to deal with the possiblity of such people but the telltale signs are always the same, as follows:
1). They do not really pay attention to the details of your profile and seem to have not read it
2). They immediately fall in love with you.
3). They right away want to communicate offline and give you their contact details in the first message.
4). Their English is poor and sub-par.
5). They currently live or work overseas.
I have to say that this site does a remarkable job of very quickly eliminating spammers and scammers. I have gotten three of them and they were eliminated within 12 hours. Great job guys!
She calls herself a Christian but has no "conviction." Big whoopy doo! Calling yourself a Christian is meaningless without "conviction." All you have said about her is that she "calls herself a Christian."
Now I don't know what you mean exactly by conviction but I assume there is a lack of excitement, passion, and depth of faith; that she rarely, if ever, even reads scripture or anything spiritual. That she probably attends some boring church somewhere, if at all.
Why should such a woman NOT be a turn-off, whether she is Christian or not? Only passionate and spiritual women are attractive to me.
As for the second woman, I have never heard of the term "emergent preaching" and I am not a fan of prosperity teaching but the woman is on the right track and that is good enough for me. She is positive, full of faith, passionate, and - let's hope - willing to continually learn and understand. She has conviction and is probably a dynamic woman. She may be misled about some things but who isn't? We are all learning and imperfect.
I also happen to know from previous discussions that you are an anti-charismatic so I know there is a strong bias in you when you describe the second woman.
So - hands down - the first woman is a turn off. The second woman is not.
