Blackwood wrote:but when someone pleads persecution and turns around and becomes the persecutor that I feel the need to put my foot down
Who has done that here? How? You seem to be expressing a lot of anger without providing any specifics on the who and how?
Where any of the questions/points I raised incorrect? If so please point out the errors.
Calling someone esle's belief's nonesense...that their beliefs are not reasonable... lumping all people of one faith into the same group to be held forth for judgement by you...judging all people of one faith and their motivations without naming a single decent reason for doing so except for "they think they're all gonig to heaven"...
Your arguments have been with the single intention to tear down or disprove another's beliefs, not discuss.
obviously found some very good reasons for believing what they believe, and those reasons are open to judgement from no one!
Why not? Since there are clear efforts by a large portion of believers to influence the political process (i.e stem cell research, ie Jerry Falwell calling on people to "vote Christian")
If Jerry Falwell wants to believe that way, he can, but manipulation of anothers belief system is neither correct nor what I was talking about.
If it were not for the level of intolerance on both sides of the belief line, the stem cell debate wouldn't even be an issue.
You say you want to discuss, yet you make some very clear judgements based on your opinion that other people's religions are false.
Who gave you authority to judge anothers belief system?
People's belief's are sacred to them...
What beliefs do you hold sacred? How would you feel if someone trampled all over them, called them irrational, unreasonable, fake, false, unprovable?
I think it is very fair to engage in a discussion of what people believe and why they believe it.
discussion is one thing, putting people and their faith down is entirely another.
Tom Cruise for example is a Scientologist who now crusades against psychiatry which is fine but people also should know that as a Scientologist he believes that aliens invaded the planet 75 million years ago and they now inhabit our souls. Uncontestable truth according to Scientologists. Yes we may laugh it off, but we do because they are a small fringe group for now,,, but if enough believe it then we can't use our brains and reason, and critizise and evaluate? Come on, that's ridiculous and very counter to the concept of an open society where people are free to express their opinion.
I suppose the Scientologists are going to
force you to believe, eh?
I suppose the Mormons knocked on your door and forced you to convert?
Why do you want to contest the Scientologists on the field of theology?
Why even bring that into this, except for your need to disprove religion in general?
Come on, that's ridiculous and very counter to the concept of an open society where people are free to express their opinion.
When someones opinion is hurtful or harmful to others, you're telling me you would not at least try to stand up for the offended? I know you'll stand up for yourself when your judgements are called onto the carpet.
Islamic fundamentalists have good reasons for believing for what they believe
which are? where do these 'good reasons' fall on the spectrum of good and bad? Are they doing harm to people? Yes. Are those who would tear down anothers beliefs doing harm to people? Yes.
What is it exactly that they are doing....Hurting people, trying to tear down another's system of belief.
and you are telling me that those reasons are open to judgment from no one?
exsqueezeme? You just got done telling me that you want an open society where people are absolutely free to express their opinion...
These terrorists are expressing their distain for our way of life and the majority belief system, but you just said that you want to defend that right to express...
I dont think you read my post, you just skimmed it to extract what you felt was inflammatory towards you.
If you apply what i was trying to say to islamic extremist behavior, then what I said still holds true.
Well I make a stand and say these people are seriously disturbed ...
Show me where I said they weren't.
Lumping terrorists and murderers into this argument is yet another attempt to try to disprove religion in general, isn't it?
That certainly seems to be your effort.
Why do you feel the need to pull other's beliefs down?
My post never named you, and if it struck a nerve I'm sorry, but when you express your opinion about another's belilef system maybe you should refrain from using put-downs.
Quite frankly you sould like someone who has had one too many bad experiences with unfortunatly intolerant "Christians". Does that give you license to try to tear the rest of them down?
from the ID thread wrote:
Refer to my previous post in this thread...in the course referred to we explored the possibility that all religion/myth eventually came, at one point in time or other, from a similar source...what that 'source' may be is unknown, but from a study of comparative religion and myth I know that there are enough principal similarities in enough religion/myth to safely assume that there may indeed be one source; though modern interpritations may differ wildly from eachother, their histories have suprising and sometimes frightening similarities.
If all the 'paths' originate from the same source why would one of those paths alone be correct? If there is only one true 'path', why would one wish to paint it with such a broad brush as Christianity? Christianity is not, in of itself, a religion but a category of religions. The list of religions and religious paths that fall under the term Christianity would be far too big to even fit into this post. Under the banner of Christianity, various religions differ so greatly from one another that they can hardly even be categorized together. The only common denominator in these faiths is the factor that they all believe in Jesus Christ as Deity in one form or another. Some faiths under the heading of Christianity resemble faiths of other regions of the world, some even resemble Budhism, Islam, Taoism, and even Paganism (using the term loosely, albeit probably falsely, to refer to small religions no longer existant). Why these religions are not categorized with others that they more closely resemble is beyond me, but I feel it safe to assume that, even in the microcosm of "Christianity", there is enough similarity, however distant, to assume that there was a common source for these religions. Since these Christian religions often differ so greatly from each other, (by the logic that if one path is right, the others are wrong) there must be one Christian path that is the correct one, making the others false. (By this logic, the most unusual path may be the correct one; the "one true religion" would not be a conformist religion, i.e. it would not go along with what the "world" would consider to be right. They would probably be seen as going against the grain, they would not conform to what the "world of man" says is right...hmm, where does that put Mr. Bushy?)
Now we come to the really fun part...
The ancient civilizations of Central and South America had religions that by today's standards would be considered bizzare...however, in many of these there are disticnt similarities in their deities with the "God/Christ" archetype...there is even a Christ-like one, whom they named Quetzalcotle (<sp>, depending on your source, the spelling changes, see the writings of Fernando de Alba Ixtlilxochitl.) Mr. Ixtlilxochitl in his analysis of the similarities of the native religions of the time to Christianity postulates that Christianity and the religions of Central and South America may have had a similar origin.
If this is true, why would one branch of belief be the correct one among many other branches of the same origin?
If one branch or path is true, who is to decide that?
One may only make that dicision for one's self and for none other.
The path that is right for one is not right for another; imposition of one's path onto another is wrong, also wrong is the condemnation of another's path. If all paths come from the same origin, condemnation of another's path invalidates one's own.
If there is indeed only one "true" religion/path/theology etc, then ALL others are wrong, including those that fall under the same type or category.
If there is no absolute one and true religion/path/theology, then all are equally true and should be regarded as such with respect to the beliefs of another, bearing in mind that labeling one faith false is invalidating one's own and that imposition of one's faith upon another, either in theory or in pratice, invalidates one's own faith.
TerryB wrote:
No person or group possesses exhaustive knowledge or a lock on the truth.
This is quite true, so we can safely assume that, since no one faith or path can claim absolutely without a shodow of doubt to have the one and only true path/religion/theology, that all are equally valid.
TerryB wrote:
It would be intellectually dishonest to both accept Christianity as true and imply that all other religious (or non-religious) options are true as well.
Quite the opposite; if to embrace one form of Christianity as truth (absolute)is to invalidate all other faiths (including other Christian faiths), then one claims to have this truth directly from the source, i.e. God (as opposed to having been given this truth by the Bible, a minister, a college, other earthly institution of man, etc.). That source must be irrefutable. If one cannot claim to have recieved "truth" directly from Deity, person to person so to speak, one cannot even compete in the arena of being the one true faith, never mind being able to provide evidence, theoretic or otherwise, to support one's case.
If, by accepting the category of Christianity as having even a smackerel of truth, one must, by association, see the resemblance their faith has to non-Christian religions (providing one reads and is open minded) and eventually admit that resemblance indicates relationship. Relationship would indicate the impossibility being absolutely unique in the truths espoused.
Because all paths/religions/theologies are essentially unique in a few minor aspects does not preclude the larger similarities. This is the reason for the neccesity of "Heavenly" comunion directly with man to establish only "one true religion". Without that communication directly from a deity, it is safer to assume, given the evidence available if one choses to dig deep, that there is a common source for all faith. One can believe to one's self that one's own path is the right one, or one true one, but one cannot rightly assume that one's own path is correct while all others are absolutely false while there are others believing the same in their own path or faith. That would be the truly dishonest (and socially irresponsible) behavior.
Jesus loves you, Buddha loves you, Allah loves you, God loves you, (Cthulhu might love you) and they're all off somewhere playing cards together .
“First lesson: money is not wealth; Second lesson: experiences are more valuable than possessions; Third lesson: by the time you arrive at your goal it’s never what you imagined it would be so learn to enjoy the process” - unknown
That kind of behavior is simply childish. 
