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11/02/2004 02:54:58 PM · #101 |
I guess if there is a tenet of Christianity (and I'm not sure there is "one" basic tenet) it would be the reconciliation of God and Humankind. As Abraham offered his son, God also offered God's Son... It is not just about our devotion to God, but also God's devotion to us. That respect for all life (except the occasional lamb or dove) is a side benefit of that mutual devotion is clear. I just don't feel it is the root...
This discussion, of course, will be strictly theoretical with no one able to prove their belief until we meet God. At that time the atheists may have the last laugh, but since we'll all just be dust, who will hear them laughing? :) At least I'll have a chance to say "I told you so" :)
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11/02/2004 03:07:23 PM · #102 |
...careful, that sounds like the beginning of Pascal's wager (which I abhor)!
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11/03/2004 08:11:36 PM · #103 |
Originally posted by dsmboostaholic:
Originally posted by myqyl:
A little knowledge of science will prove conclusively that God does not exist... An in-depth understanding of science will prove conclusively that God does exist... |
there is an offer online, I think $250,000 now, to anyone who can give one shred of scientific proof of evolution. macro not micro that is. |
Too bad I won't live to the age of 10 million; if I did I could pocket that quarter million. |
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11/03/2004 08:15:18 PM · #104 |
Originally posted by cpanaioti:
Originally posted by garrywhite2:
I am repulsed by any religion that promotes violence. |
Which religion promotes violence? I don't believe any of them do. The radicals try and relate their actions to something in the Koran or the Torah(?) or the bible for that matter but it's not the religion that promotes violence it's the person's involved using religion as an excuse for violence. Big difference. |
I consider unsolicited prostheletyzing (sp?) as violence, even though it may not be physical. It is intrusive, disrespectful, and very annoying.
Message edited by author 2004-11-03 21:17:44. |
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11/03/2004 09:05:04 PM · #105 |
Originally posted by frychikn:
I continue unsolicited prostheletyzing (sp?) as violence, even though it may not be physical. It is intrusive, disrespectful, and very annoying. |
That's an interesting observation, and I can understand where your coming from. But just to maybe help you understand the flip side of that coin, consider this:
To many (most?) Christians, much of our lives are spent facing the unsolicited prostheletyzing thrown our way by a secular humanist society. Billboards, bus advertisements, bumper stickers, music, people clothed (or underclothed) in a fashion designed to inflame one thing or another, public schools pushing every tennant of that religion, and the list goes on and on.
Then imagine trying to raise a child to share your faith in that environment, where practically everything they see and hear is inflicting, as you describe it, that violence on your child.
You view prostheletyzing as violence. Now imagine that instead of the occasional street preacher or tele-evangelist, you had an entire society prostheletyzing its religious view to you constantly, day after day. Then maybe you'll understand why Christians can get so passionate about the invasion of that religion on our lives. Believe me, it gets to be far beyond "intrusive, disrespectful, and very annoying."
(I hope the tone of this doesn't come across the wrong way. I don't mean it to be angry or inflamitory. I'm simply trying to honestly let some of you see a view of life today from another perspective.)
Message edited by author 2004-11-03 21:05:28. |
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11/03/2004 09:05:37 PM · #106 |
> frychikn
"Proselytizing". Also, I think, you mean 'consider' when you say 'continue'. (?)
Message edited by author 2004-11-03 21:07:55.
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11/03/2004 09:19:11 PM · #107 |
Originally posted by zeuszen:
> frychikn
"Proselytizing". Also, I think, you mean 'consider' when you say 'continue'. (?) |
You're right. Why fool around with just missspelng when you can use the wrong word :) |
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11/03/2004 09:27:42 PM · #108 |
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11/03/2004 09:31:04 PM · #109 |
Originally posted by frychikn:
Originally posted by zeuszen:
> frychikn
"Proselytizing". Also, I think, you mean 'consider' when you say 'continue'. (?) |
You're right. Why fool around with just missspelng when you can use the wrong word :) |
And I took the lazy route and copy/pasted your spelling rather than look it up. So your mistake lives on... ;) |
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11/03/2004 10:57:49 PM · #110 |
Originally posted by thatcloudthere:
I've always understood the Torah to be all about God, his promises, and the salvation of God's people.
Sure, life is given high value in the Scriptures, but greater than that is the worship of God...placing him above all else, was it not? |
You can't praise God if you're dead. If the sole purpose of man's existence is to praise God (a species of sycophants specifically created for boosting the Almighty's ego?) then we'd damned well better take care to preserve that life in a condition capable of continuous flattery. |
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11/03/2004 11:02:05 PM · #111 |
Originally posted by thatcloudthere:
Originally posted by Olyuzi:
To me, the most spiritual people on this earth are those that preserve god's creation, whether human or nature.
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Interesting...I tend to think that the most spiritual people on this earth are those that search desperately for truth. |
I find truth and faith to be contradictory in both fact and theory.
Supposedly God (J-C version) is "unknowable" and therefore any "search" would be ultimately futile.
Message edited by author 2004-11-03 23:03:23. |
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11/04/2004 09:33:49 AM · #112 |
Originally posted by myqyl:
I guess if there is a tenet of Christianity (and I'm not sure there is "one" basic tenet) |
This is the "basic tenet" straight from the source: (from Matthew Ch 22)
34Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
36"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'[2] 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'[3] 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
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11/04/2004 10:19:47 AM · #113 |
I find it interesting that religion is blamed for so many atrocities, and if we could just get rid of it we would be better off.
The problem is, that everyone has a philosophy of life. Some people's philosophies involve a god, other̢۪s do not.
Religion essentially boils down to your worldview. Not believing in a god/s becomes a "religion" as well. So to separate yourself from religion is not possible.
That̢۪s why the whole separation of church and state issue in government is such an interesting issue. What an elected official decides to do is directly dependent on his worldview, which may or may not include a god/s.
Essentially both sides believe in a god/s. The belief in no god becomes a god in which all decisions are based upon.
Who is correct is another issue all together.
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11/04/2004 10:30:35 AM · #114 |
| But one group generally insists its world-view is the only correct one, and demands that everyone live according to their tenets. The other group is willing to acknowledge the (possible) validity of other views, and allow each to live according to their value system so long as it does not infringe upon their neighbor. |
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11/04/2004 10:53:23 AM · #115 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
But one group generally insists its world-view is the only correct one, and demands that everyone live according to their tenets. The other group is willing to acknowledge the (possible) validity of other views, and allow each to live according to their value system so long as it does not infringe upon their neighbor. |
both sides see each other as infringing the other in one way or another. (what a nice rhyming sentence) saying everything related to a god has to be taken out of government, is seen as pushing a non-god worldview by those who believe in a god.
and the flip side is, the non-god people see god in government as infringing on the non-god worldview.
the problem is, no one can interact with society without infringing upon others in some fashion. knowingly or unknowingly. |
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11/04/2004 11:27:16 AM · #116 |
You may find this article of interest, from today, the New York Times:
---------------------------------------------------
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
The Day the Enlightenment Went Out
By GARRY WILLS
Published: November 4, 2004
Evanston, Ill.
This election confirms the brilliance of Karl Rove as a political strategist. He calculated that the religious conservatives, if they could be turned out, would be the deciding factor. The success of the plan was registered not only in the presidential results but also in all 11 of the state votes to ban same-sex marriage. Mr. Rove understands what surveys have shown, that many more Americans believe in the Virgin Birth than in Darwin's theory of evolution.
This might be called Bryan's revenge for the Scopes trial of 1925, in which William Jennings Bryan's fundamentalist assault on the concept of evolution was discredited. Disillusionment with that decision led many evangelicals to withdraw from direct engagement in politics. But they came roaring back into the arena out of anger at other court decisions - on prayer in school, abortion, protection of the flag and, now, gay marriage. Mr. Rove felt that the appeal to this large bloc was worth getting President Bush to endorse a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage (though he had opposed it earlier).
The results bring to mind a visit the Dalai Lama made to Chicago not long ago. I was one of the people deputized to ask him questions on the stage at the Field Museum. He met with the interrogators beforehand and asked us to give him challenging questions, since he is too often greeted with deference or flattery.
The only one I could think of was: "If you could return to your country, what would you do to change it?" He said that he would disestablish his religion, since "America is the proper model." I later asked him if a pluralist society were possible without the Enlightenment. "Ah," he said. "That's the problem." He seemed to envy America its Enlightenment heritage.
Which raises the question: Can a people that believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened nation?
America, the first real democracy in history, was a product of Enlightenment values - critical intelligence, tolerance, respect for evidence, a regard for the secular sciences. Though the founders differed on many things, they shared these values of what was then modernity. They addressed "a candid world," as they wrote in the Declaration of Independence, out of "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind." Respect for evidence seems not to pertain any more, when a poll taken just before the elections showed that 75 percent of Mr. Bush's supporters believe Iraq either worked closely with Al Qaeda or was directly involved in the attacks of 9/11.
The secular states of modern Europe do not understand the fundamentalism of the American electorate. It is not what they had experienced from this country in the past. In fact, we now resemble those nations less than we do our putative enemies.
Where else do we find fundamentalist zeal, a rage at secularity, religious intolerance, fear of and hatred for modernity? Not in France or Britain or Germany or Italy or Spain. We find it in the Muslim world, in Al Qaeda, in Saddam Hussein's Sunni loyalists. Americans wonder that the rest of the world thinks us so dangerous, so single-minded, so impervious to international appeals. They fear jihad, no matter whose zeal is being expressed.
It is often observed that enemies come to resemble each other. We torture the torturers, we call our God better than theirs - as one American general put it, in words that the president has not repudiated.
President Bush promised in 2000 that he would lead a humble country, be a uniter not a divider, that he would make conservatism compassionate. He did not need to make such false promises this time. He was re-elected precisely by being a divider, pitting the reddest aspects of the red states against the blue nearly half of the nation. In this, he is very far from Ronald Reagan, who was amiably and ecumenically pious. He could address more secular audiences, here and abroad, with real respect.
In his victory speech yesterday, President Bush indicated that he would "reach out to the whole nation," including those who voted for John Kerry. But even if he wanted to be more conciliatory now, the constituency to which he owes his victory is not a yielding one. He must give them what they want on things like judicial appointments. His helpers are also his keepers.
The moral zealots will, I predict, give some cause for dismay even to nonfundamentalist Republicans. Jihads are scary things. It is not too early to start yearning back toward the Enlightenment.
Garry Wills, an adjunct professor of history at Northwestern University, is the author of "St. Augustine's Conversion."
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11/04/2004 12:35:08 PM · #117 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
But one group generally insists its world-view is the only correct one |
Don't both do that? And why shouldn't they? If somebody has a worldview, it's because they believe it is the correct one. If another one contradicts it, of course they would believe that one is not correct. Perhaps this is more so with Christians because of their strong belief in absolute objective truth, which demands that two contradictory beliefs can't both be right.
Originally posted by GeneralE:
and demands that everyone live according to their tenets. |
This is equally true about both sides, but a bit of an exaggeration. I've never met a Christian or an Atheist who demanded that I live by their tenets. But I suppose the group trying to remove all references to God from public life could be considered as doing this to some degree. If Christians passed laws to prohibit public expressions of atheism, I suppose this could be said about them as well, but I don't see that happening.
Originally posted by GeneralE:
The other group is willing to acknowledge the (possible) validity of other views, and allow each to live according to their value system so long as it does not infringe upon their neighbor. |
Believing in and expressing an absolute objective standard of morality (as Christianity does) is far different from forcing people to live by that standard. Forcing people to live according to their value system is contradictory to a biblical Christian worldview. But there is room for it in a system where morality is relativistic (such as atheism or secular humanism), which unfortunately has been adopted by some Christians. |
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11/04/2004 12:58:46 PM · #118 |
Originally posted by ChrisW123:
Originally posted by myqyl:
Most real Christians don't have television shows :) Jimmy S is to Christianity what Osama BL is to Islam... |
I wouldn't go that far... I doubt Jimmy Swaggart has ever orgainized a terrorist plot to kill 3000 Muslims. These kinds of comparisons are ridiculous. Osama Bin Ladin is a murderer. Swaggart is just a zealot.
It's crap comparision, not a good one. |
where's your evidence for Bin Laden organising this "terrorist plot"?
because your govennment told you so?
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11/04/2004 01:21:40 PM · #119 |
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11/04/2004 02:17:08 PM · #120 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
I find truth and faith to be contradictory in both fact and theory. Supposedly God (J-C version) is "unknowable" and therefore any "search" would be ultimately futile. |
Why are faith and truth contradictory?
Why do you say Jesus Christ is unknowable?
Both my 'search' and my experience disagree with both of these statements you made, so I'm wondering how you came to those conclusions...
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11/04/2004 02:26:38 PM · #121 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
You can't praise God if you're dead. If the sole purpose of man's existence is to praise God (a species of sycophants specifically created for boosting the Almighty's ego?) then we'd damned well better take care to preserve that life in a condition capable of continuous flattery. |
If you've read up on Jesus' claims, the truest worship happens when this life ends...those whackos, eh!
Also, 'boosting the Almighty's ego' is not what I meant for you to understand when I spoke about worship. Perhaps Bobby Dylan said it best: "Gotta serve somebody"...
So whether you respond with "Serve yourself" as the famous Beatle did, or you respond with "Serve another", someone/something is being worshipped. Don't be afraid of the word "worship", I certainly didn't mean singing "Amazing Grace" in acappella...I simply meant that thing/person/ideal which we value above all else.
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11/04/2004 02:29:54 PM · #122 |
Originally posted by thatcloudthere:
.. worship. Perhaps Bobby Dylan said it best: "Gotta serve somebody"... |
"It don't matter who you worship, as long as you're down on your knees" is not bad either (Leonard Cohen).
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11/04/2004 02:37:18 PM · #123 |
Originally posted by zeuszen:
Originally posted by thatcloudthere:
.. worship. Perhaps Bobby Dylan said it best: "Gotta serve somebody"... |
"It don't matter who you worship, as long as you're down on your knees" is not bad either (Leonard Cohen). |
That scares me...what if you're worshiping a terrorist? A rapist? Child-molester?
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11/04/2004 02:44:14 PM · #124 |
Yeah, Leonard Cohen has interesting thoughts and they look good on paper but there are not many that I would adopt...particularily that one.
Message edited by author 2004-11-04 14:44:33.
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11/04/2004 02:48:29 PM · #125 |
Originally posted by dahved:
Originally posted by zeuszen:
Originally posted by thatcloudthere:
.. worship. Perhaps Bobby Dylan said it best: "Gotta serve somebody"... |
"It don't matter who you worship, as long as you're down on your knees" is not bad either (Leonard Cohen). |
That scares me...what if you're worshiping a terrorist? A rapist? Child-molester? |
You're never relieved of conscience or responsibility. The more you are aware of this, the more critical (and better) your choices.
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