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About LinkBacksI was thinking...
If I'll accept all the religions that we have todays and had in the past,
And on top of this be a pretty good matey...
When my time comes, will I have a sure ticket to h4v3n? :?
June 25th, 2008, 07:29 PM
I was thinking...
If I'll accept all the religions that we have todays and had in the past,
And on top of this be a pretty good matey...
When my time comes, will I have a sure ticket to h4v3n? :?
Unfortunately, most religions don't want to have peers. If you accept one you automatically reject the others.
Not so, observe Ghandi for example.
I've seen a movie about him; the only thing I remember is him getting shot... :?
Can ya enlighten me about what he stood for?? plz??
Look yourself and you'll see more easily.
Gotcha`Originally Posted by 425 Chaotic Requisition
El Oh El.
June 26th, 2008, 05:57 PM
Since most religions have a rule that you aren't supposed to believe in any other gods or religions, it would be impossible to follow them all at the same time - simply accepting one would automatically break the rules of many others.
I wrote:425 wrote:Unfortunately, most religions don't want to have peers. If you accept one you automatically reject the others.Please note that I said MOST, not ALL.Not so, observe Ghandi for example.
Oh yeah, sorry about that. Well theres an example there anyway for not the most.
Not so, observe Ghandi for example.[quote]
Ghandi was a Hindu, through and through, he knew alot about other religions but was a hindu
He was a Hindu. But he was also a Christian, and a Muslim and a Buddhist and Jew.
What does it mean to "accept" a religion?
You either believe in something or you don't.
Are you telling me that, on a whim, you can simply snap your fingers and change what you truly believe?
I can tell people I believe in Santa Claus all I want but that won't change the fact that I really don't.
Welcome back Neutrino :wink:
I don't really understand how one can belong to so many different religions as you say Ghandi did 425CR? I mean they aren't exactly compatible with each other.
Yes and no.
My answer is yes (they are compatable) because the problem is exactly what do you mean when you say that someone is one is a Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or Jew, though this last is particularly hard to swallow. Again there is the question of how any one of these reacts to other religious beliefs, and so without the anti-theistic elements of these religions, there can be some degree of truth to this claim of Ghandi. Hinduism, in particular, is such an umbrella over a diversity of religious thought with no exclusivity, that besides the purely cultural elements of Hinduism, being Hindu presents nearly no contradiction to being any of these others as well. This therefore suggests that Ghandi's claim was a claim that was quite Hindu in character, though I would tend to call it being pluralistic with the Hindu cultural elements removed.
Now excluding both Hindu and Jewish as too cultural (as opposed to doctrinal) in their identification, my answer is also no (they are not compatable) because embracing a pluralistic viewpoint certainly means that there is some basis to suggesting that the person is to some degree not a Christian, Muslim or Buddhist. For this reason, my pluralistic ideas along with my rejection of many traditional ideas of Christianity provides ample reasons for many to question whether I should be called a Christian, even though I solidly identify myself as Christian and not the least bit muslim or buddhist, let alone hindu or jewish. I have often said that religion is 90-99% language, with many of the aribitrary characteristics of language but requiring one to stick to the rules of one language in particular in order to communicate (or even think) coherently.
At the recent Vinyard conference I even suggested that I should be considered my church's resident secular humanist, and even said that I might be considered half atheist. That may be partly tongue in cheek, but not completely, because regardless of what position on something I may take I do prefer to maintain the ability to see thinks from other perspectives.
What other perspectives? Your perspective is that of a theist, same as them. You all believe in sky daddies. How is that "thinking from other perspectives?"
Yer killing me here, Mitchell.
The thinking of a moron and a child is not even that great a challenge let alone inaccessible to the intellegent person. It is only the moron and the two year old child that cannot comprehend the viewpoints of other people.
When the invisible and undetectable are considered reality, when fairy tales are raised to the level of fact, when the imaginative rules under a myriad of cults mired in mystery and magic, how is the moron any different from the intelligent person in attempting to comprehend those viewpoints?The thinking of a moron and a child is not even that great a challenge let alone inaccessible to the intellegent person. It is only the moron and the two year old child that cannot comprehend the viewpoints of other people.
No different Q, no different. Thats something you don't ever be able to seem to comprehend. Even if you think you understand it. But theres always hope.
Yes I am most definitely a theist and I do love my "sky daddy". But people often hear me defending secular humanism and atheism (but not anti-theism), both in this forum and at my church. I have even defended you Q on the very rare occasions that you actually made sense.
Why? Because we can learn from everyone and thus when someone says something sensible, it should be defended no matter who it is that said it.
Now enough of that mushy sentimental crap and back to all out warfare! LOL
Sensible? Sorry Mitchell, you, along with every other theist, begin from the position that gods exist, specifically, if I might add, YOUR god, while I begin from the position of trying to comprehend theists claims, which are all that there is to comprehend as no gods have ever made themselves available to codify those claims.
So, with the hundreds/thousands of gods that have been purported to exist throughout history, including yours, we find ourselves at a crossroads as to what could possibly be considered sensible, considering the specific doctrines and tenets each religion proclaims, many that contradict the religion itself not to mention the other religions.
If we were to organize the main characteristics of the various religions, we would find these similarities:
1. You will survive your own death.
2. If you die a martyr, you will go to an especially wonderful part of paradise where you will enjoy seventy-two virgins (spare a thought for the unfortunate virgins).
3. Heretics, blasphemers and apostates should be killed ( or otherwise punished, for example by ostracism from their families).
4. Belief in god is a supreme virtue. If you find your belief wavering, work hard at restoring it, and beg god to help your unbelief.
5. Faith (belief without evidence) is a virtue. The more your beliefs defy the evidence, the more virtuous you are. Virtuoso believers who manage to believe something really weird, unsupported and insupportable, in the teeth of evidence and reason, are especially highly rewarded.
6. Everybody, even those who do not hold religious beliefs, must respect them with a higher level of automatic and unquestioned respect than that accorded to other kinds of beliefs.
7. There are some weird things (such as Trinity, transubstantiation, incarnation) that we are not meant to understand. Don't even try to understand these, for the attempt might destroy it. Learn how to gain fulfillment in calling it a mystery. Remember Martin Luther's condemnation of reason:
"Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God. Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of his reason. Reason should be destroyed in all Christians".
8. Beautiful music, art and scriptures are themselves self-replicating tokens of religious ideas.
Hence, I do not find these characteristics sensible at all.
Okelee-dokelee.Now enough of that mushy sentimental crap and back to the all out warefare! LOL
Nothing to do with God. Life after death might exist without God, or not exist at all with God.
Highly specific, metaphor from a particular religion. Bugger all to do with God.
You seem to confuse religion with God.
Maybe you are just confused.
You've been spending to much time with fundamentalists.
I suppose, in a similar vein, we should consider all Discovery Channel productions as the apex of scientific achievement.
etc.
Very interesting Q. I never heard that quote of Luther. Ample evidence that we can indeed learn from anyone if we listen long enough.
The rest of this, is addressed to fellow Christians because being in the language of Christianity it will certainly make no sense to you, Q, or to most atheists.
To fellow Christians,
I certainly have nothing but contempt for this sentiment of Luther's. There is a difference between accepting that reason has its limitations and denouncing reason altogether. It is the difference between real faith and blind faith. Real faith is living your life and making choices in the face of uncertainty, embracing the responsibility of life. Blind faith is really the opposite of faith because it refuses to accept or denies the reality of uncertainty and basically abdicates responsibility by refusing to acknowledge the choices involved. This blind faith is just willfulness derived from the basest human tendencies, such as arrogance and cowardice. No! I have no use for the "faith" of Martin Luther - I have no use for his arrogance and no use for his cowardice.
The Bible makes a rather clear denunciation of this in the Babylonian conquest of Israel. The Israelites had decided that God was on their side so that it was inconceivable that they could be conquered by Gentiles, and so they ignored and discounted the prophets Isaiha and Jeremiah who told them that they would be conqured by Babylon. Jesus also spoke against against this kind of blind faith and the abdication of reason in Luke 14:28-32, explaining that when Jesus is asking you to follow Him it is with all of your abilities including reason and not as a brain dead zombie expecting God to fight all of your battles and insure all of your victories.
So I would argue that many atheists and certainly scientists have more real faith than many if not most Christians, for the blind faith that so many Christians cling to out of a mixture of arrogance and cowardice, is really an abdication from life and responsibility that cannot profit them. I think the fundamentalist reaction to the discoveries of science (evolution) to willfully insist on a childishly literal interpretation of Genesis in opposition to reason is a rather clear sign or symptom that what they have is not faith but willfulness. As with so many things in life the proper way is one of balance, avoiding both the excessive reliance upon reason, where one will do nothing or give nothing unless reason demands it, AND excessive reliance upon "faith" (blind faith), where by expecting God to provide everything you are really giving nothing of yourself to God.
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