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Post by thylacine »

You guys are so funny... ! :LOL

I'm not sure if I believe in purgatory or not. Maybe... ? Some people deserve it!

My uncle, by the way, is a Jehovah's Witness and says that God only loves Jehovah's Witnesses. No one else will see Paradise.
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Post by Lauren »

No matter how many times it is explained or rationalized, I don't think I will ever understand people who think God only likes their kind...it's sad
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Post by TelegramSam »

Reminds me of a t-shirt I once saw; "Jesus loves you" and on the back "But the rest of us just think you're a jerk"
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Post by Lauren »

aww but that's just plain funny! I want a shirt like that!
"I am known as Valentinez Alkalinella Xifax Sicidabohertz Gombigobilla Blue Stradivari Talentrent Pierre Andri Charton-Haymoss Ivanovici Baldeus George Doitzel Kaiser III. Don't hesitate to call." -Vash the Stampede


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Post by thylacine »

Yeah... ain't it sad? Now that my uncle is a witness, he only calls us when he wants something. Real Christian, huh?
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Post by Lauren »

*phone rings*

Yeah hello? Yes, even though i know for a fact that god hates you and loves me and all Witnesses more, can I have some money?

I'd start hurting people.
"I am known as Valentinez Alkalinella Xifax Sicidabohertz Gombigobilla Blue Stradivari Talentrent Pierre Andri Charton-Haymoss Ivanovici Baldeus George Doitzel Kaiser III. Don't hesitate to call." -Vash the Stampede


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Post by The Drastic Spastic »

*lays the Holy Jesus Smackdown on Thyla's uncle* I am God's hands on earth.
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Post by Lauren »

yeah, God is always smacking people around when they piss Him off in the bible! why can't people do it too? We're only following His example.
"I am known as Valentinez Alkalinella Xifax Sicidabohertz Gombigobilla Blue Stradivari Talentrent Pierre Andri Charton-Haymoss Ivanovici Baldeus George Doitzel Kaiser III. Don't hesitate to call." -Vash the Stampede


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Post by Gaz »

Okay, now this thread is getting close to where everyone feared it would......
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Post by TelegramSam »

Which is why I'm keeping my mout shut. Some things don't warrant a response anyhow....
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Post by Tatu »

Originally posted by The Drastic Spastic
*lays the Holy Jesus Smackdown on Thyla's uncle* I am God's hands on earth.
Nah uh Jess, your the daughter of Satan, he told me so!
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Post by Maelstrom »

It warrants some interest that the Old Testament God seemed a lot more willing to punish and otherwise get involved in worldly affairs than the New Testament God. Think about it: considering that the OTG was willing to wipe out entire cities for sinful actions, do you think He would hesitate to wipe all of the Romans, the Pharisees, and an unhealthy selection of his Chosen people off the face of the earth for the death of His son? Yet the NTG was not only willing to put up with this affront, He, His Son, and the Holy Spirit all came up with the plan to step aside and let it all happen without interference.

It looks like someone replaced Gods between stories, doesn't it? ;)

So what's going on here? Is God the bipolar thunderer on high, who is blessing us one moment and damning us the next? Is He the snap-decision entity who reflexively decided to banish all of humanity from His presence just because his two prototypes screwed up? Or is He the patient, loving father, who so loved us He was willing to sascrifice His only begotten Son?

Obviously, it has to be a mixture of both, somehow.....

I look at it this way:

The first few books, were stories passed down from many sources, taken from the Sumerians mostly (the Semites settled in Sumerian land for a long time). And the old gods had the burden of "explaining" why things were the way they were. They had to explain why floods destroyed cities and killed children, why lions, crocodiles, and hippos attacked and killed humans, why disease was rampant. This was one of the reasons there were several gods in the old religions: one for the good stuff, and one that cause all the problems. You had to have someone looking out for you, to make you feel safe, but there had to be a scapegoat for all the rotten stuff you couldn't control.

About the time of Abraham, things started turning from allegorical into historical. However, God was still the wrathful, vengeful Guy you just didn't want to cross. Why? Look at the examples the Semites had. Good gods and bad gods, constantly mucking about with human affairs. But there was only One God for the Semites, remember? So they saw him in the only mode, the only way, they knew how from the examples around them. He was loving to those who obeyed, but unforgivingly harsh to the disobedient.

Things evolved a bit further with Exodus and Kings. After all, God but that rainbow up for Noah as his covenant, and promised He'd never again wipe out all humanity, so even He had some rules to follow. But bad stuff still happened in real life, so the only possible reason the Semites could see for it was that they had screwed up and God was angry. Remember that the concept of an afterlife was not accepted by Judaism at this time, so everything that happened in this life was a reflection of your good, or bad, living in accordance with His rules.

Look at Job (generally accepted as the oldest book in the Bible). The poor guy loses everything, just so God can test his loyalty and faith. This was doubly bad for a Jew at this time, because it meant he and his neighbors saw this as a sign of his bad living and God's displeasure. And when he complained, God basically bitchslapped him, said "What? Who gave you all this stuff in the first place? Don't you question me, buddy!"... and promptly gave him back what he lost twice over in an ending that seemed awful rushed to me.... :scratch Makes me wonder if this wasn't a (historically) modern political parable that got a last minute revision... :smirk

And then, suddenly, in the New Testament, God stopped talking to us. He stopped reprimanding us through his poor, beleaguererd Prophets. He stopped raining fire and lightning on enemies. He stopped telling us what He wanted through the Ummin and Therimm. Instead, He spoke only to and through His Son, who was almost never angry. (Okay, there was that one bit with the temple, but you get the idea.) And His Son volunteered to be brutally tortured to death just so He could show us the afterlife that awaits. And when His Son dies, the most He does is rip a few curtains and cause an eclipse.

And when Christ returns after a few days, suddenly everything turns on its head. Suddenly your misfortune in this life doesn't mean God hates you. Why? Because this is only temporary! You've got something infinitely better waiting. In one fell swoop, we've taken the yoke of "bad guy" off God's neck. We've allowed Him not to constantly nudge things and interfere with this life, because He's really more concerned with the next.

Here's the crux: God is eternal. God doesn't change. His moods don't fluxuate. Only our perception of Him does, according to our own personal views. When there was only this life, and the gods around us had to have their hands in literally everything from raising the sun to making the rain fall, it looked like bad things meant anger, and good things meant pleasure. But once the afterlife concept came into view, this life becaue less important, and God didn't need to constantly interfere. This was just a dress rehersal for the real gig sometime later.
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Post by The Drastic Spastic »

When it's all laid out like that, the whole God and faith thing looks completely fabricated by man...
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Post by Warbird »

It looks like the thread has just barely been saved from going down the intellectual toilet!! (though some of that was amusing).

Most religions have parts that parallel each other. Why? Because humans since the begining of existance have needed to explain the world around them and religion was an easy way to do it. It isn't just in good and bad though, people are week in comparision to nature, which to a species that can adapt to almost anything, is hard to understand. Even today man is trying to tame nature. We're not meant to live on the moon, but why the hell not? We're people, we can do what we want.

So how can a force that has not intellect be more powerful than the most highly evolved life form on the planet? There's a higher power running the show. Now I'm not discrediting Christianity at all, but most religions have this basis.

Now what is very interesting, is how Monotheism evolved. It did start out with a God that was willing of distributing both the good and the bad amung his flock. Embodying both sides of the "Gods" (multiple) spectrum. But if it was just a veriation of that "religion", why was Christianity able to evolve into what it is, while all other religions kept to their old belifes? Christianity is radicly different from all other ancient religions. Maybe it's because there's truth to it!!! Did these monumental, unfounded ideas just pop up out of no where? Did so many people risk their lives to follow it just because? I doubt it.

Before anyone decideds to argue that people will latch on to new religions easily because we're klanish, In egypt, a Pharro named Akanatom tried to change all of the Egyptian religion. He even made it law. Every one converted, but as soon as he died, people went back to their old religious practices. People don't break tradition unless there's a very very good reason.

So I guess this was all a round about way to explain why I have faith in Christianity despite the inconsistancies in the Bible. Human nature is too strong in my oppinion for these changes to come about without a true catalyst.
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Post by Lauren »

it could also mean that those whole sections of the bible that were taking out could have been the more God kills this entire village, babies and all because He's got PMS. They probably wanted him to look better. You never know...there's just too many conspiracys with the Bible!
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Post by The Drastic Spastic »

Originally posted by Warbird
Christianity is radicly different from all other ancient religions. Maybe it's because there's truth to it!!! Did these monumental, unfounded ideas just pop up out of no where? Did so many people risk their lives to follow it just because? I doubt it.
And this is where the faith comes in. Maybe it's because there is truth to it. But really, how likely is that?

Where exactly do you think ideas come from? From people! Someone has to think of it. Monotheism could just as easily be explained away as a bad acid trip, or whatever it is the wise men were smoking back then.

Did so many people risk their lives to follow it just because? Well... any religion can claim persecution... are any of those other people following their beliefs just because? I imagine it came more from fear than truth. The strategy of saying DO THIS or it's ETERNAL HELL for you is surprisingly effective. Just look at how many people send on those stupid chain letters that promise riches and love if you send it to enough people. Well, damn. They can't be doing it just because can they? They actually believe it, if only a bit. Which brings me to my point, people are superstitious idiots who will believe any damn thing if it's threatening enough. Starting Christianity? Easy as pie for some terrifying charisma-choked pothead. (Whoaaaa. What if there's ONLY ONE god... maaaaan.)

I know I won't convince anyone that this is truth if they believe but other points of view are always good.
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Post by Warbird »

I do agree that humans scare very easily and that could very well be an explination. But Ancient Greek and Roman religion had an after life that was good and one that was bad too. And there were other monotheistic religions that crashed and burned in the Acient world. Akanatum's was one of them.

My point is simply that widly followed religions, that are completely different theologicly are difficult to start when there is all ready a very well established religion. Even when it's forced apon them by their pharroh, tradition is stronger.

Now obviously, you're right, there is a possiblity that there Jesus was simply just a very charizmatic nut job. That's how Hitler got power. He just promised soemthing better and was a good speaker. I personaly just think that there is more to Christianity than that.
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Post by Maelstrom »

Originally posted by The Drastic Spastic
When it's all laid out like that, the whole God and faith thing looks completely fabricated by man...
:LOL Draz! You're not giving humanity or God nearly enough credit! ;)

It isn't so much that God (which ever kind you believe in) has changed according to our whim. It's that humanity's perception of him has evolved. With every new thought, every new generation, humans saw another facet of behavior, and with each sightning, it changed the basis of belief. The "obvious" conclusion to some was that God changed Himself. To others, the conclusion was that we just kept reinventing God depending on what our social mores were at the time. But while these are both understandable conclusions, I don't think either is quite correct.

In this case, I suppose you could make a tenuous analogy between faith and our discovery of various laws of physics. (Very tenuous, I know, as physics is generally provable by empirical research, but stay with me here.... ;) ) At one point, we had very simplistic, and incorrect, ideas of how things worked. Even Galileo, that brilliant individual who revolutionized astronomy (and pissed off the Catholic church/governing body with both his "politically inconvenient" discoveries and his egotism) believed that tidal action had NOTHING to do with the moon, and EVERYTHING to do with the Earth's roation instead. But no matter what anyone believed, the tides have always been dependent on the moon's proximity.

Or, perhaps, we could use the story of the four blind men and the elephant. Each one had a different idea of what the elephant looked like in entirity dependent on the part they touched. (One thought it was a long sinuos creature because all he felt was the trunk, another thought it was a winged thing because he felt an ear, and so forth.) If suddenly they all gained sight and saw an elephant for the first time, their opinion would change radically. Yet that elephant has never changed.

Just because we made discoveries, and those discoveries changed our conclusions about what we saw doesn't mean the object itself changed according to our whims. So, in a way, has God always been constant and unchanging. We're the ones who have evolved, not Him. We're the ones discovering new facets of God, as opposed to just adding another layer to our creation. (Or, at least, we should be. I'm not going to go into detail about nutcases who invent gods or deliberately distort the view for their own gain :urg. We've done a lot of talking about cults already....)
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Post by The Drastic Spastic »

Originally posted by Maelstrom
Originally posted by The Drastic Spastic
When it's all laid out like that, the whole God and faith thing looks completely fabricated by man...
:LOL Draz! You're not giving humanity or God nearly enough credit! ;)
Or maybe I'm giving humanity too much credit. :whistle

Though, religion in general still has a long way to go before it evolves into any real universal truth, or even something that does more good than harm.
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Post by Bamf Bunny »

Originally posted by Maelstrom
the Protestants have a history of just splitting off and forming their own church when they disagree, which is why there's so dang many denominations out there. The biggies are the Episcopaians
Episcopalians aren't Protestants, Mael. The Anglican Communion split off from the Pope independently of the Protestant Reformation, and many Anglican theologians consider the Communion continuous with the Catholic Church, and our bishops part of an unbroken line of succession back to the apostles. (In fairness this view is not shared by the Catholic church - the Catholic Encyclopedia says the Communion is "hopelessly committed to heresy and to heretical communication".)
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Post by Maelstrom »

Originally posted by The Drastic Spastic
Originally posted by Maelstrom
:LOL Draz! You're not giving humanity or God nearly enough credit! ;)
Or maybe I'm giving humanity too much credit. :whistle

Though, religion in general still has a long way to go before it evolves into any real universal truth, or even something that does more good than harm.
I think what you have more a problem with isn't the religion itself, but rather the organized structure behind it. Faith is a basis of humanity, and is supposed to make us better people. I can't see too many instances of a single person's faith causing worldwide social catastrophes. However, organized religion has been abused in this manner. "Holy Wars" (there's an oxymoron for you... :rolleyes) have been around a lot longer than Christianity, and they're invariably a result of organized religion rather than one heretical wacko. Or, should I say, one wacko wouldn't have a chance of starting these messes if he/she didn't have an base to start from, and corrupt people willing to accept, spread, and enforce this P.O.V. for personal gain.

Christianity is the big example of this because, put bluntly, we're the latest "success" story *shudder*, but you need to look at other historical precedents to see the pattern. Many of the faiths that follow a monotheistic ideal started with one man who espoused tolerance, forgiveness, and all those other good things. Initially the belief spreads because it is superior, in some way, to what is currently out there. It gives something that is missing from the current belief set. But once it spreads beyond his immediate reach (and especially once he's gone), a structure has to spring up to coordinate things... and things can get out of hand. Why? Because if you rub two people together you get politics. You get different ideas on how things should be run. You get one guy who says "live by example. Show them that belief in (x) will make them happier, and make everyone happier." And you get the other guy who's convinced that the population's beliefs are so incredibly wrong and damaging that the ends justify the means. Also known as "conversion by the sword". :mad

Some of the more obvious examples of this reasoning are:

RCs: the Inquisition (more recently, the lack of action in WWII)
Orthodox: "apologists" of the Russian communist party (at least, in the beginning)
Protestant: Salem Witch Hunts
Islam: conversion by the sword
Hindu: Thuggee assassins of Khali

(As an aside, the Khali thuggees were especially tragic, because they forever branded the image of Khali as a devouring, hideous, evil monster who demanded human sacrifice, and she was never that way. She's a lot more peaceful than most of the West thinks. There are lots of shrines devoted to her, and many interesting websites out there for those curious as to her true nature. Worth a look, no matter what or who you worship. ;) )

But all of these notable atrocities are perversions of the original faith. It isn't the faith that's rotten: it's the way it's interpreted by the current religious structure.

Organized religion can sometimes suck, depending on who's doing the organizing. But the original tenets are much harder to argue with, since you'll find they disallow the very actions that are done in "their" name.
Originally posted by Bamf Bunny
Episcopalians aren't Protestants, Mael. The Anglican Communion split off from the Pope independently of the Protestant Reformation, and many Anglican theologians consider the Communion continuous with the Catholic Church, and our bishops part of an unbroken line of succession back to the apostles. (In fairness this view is not shared by the Catholic church - the Catholic Encyclopedia says the Communion is "hopelessly committed to heresy and to heretical communication".)
My bad, BB. I listed the Episcopalians/Anglicans incorrectly, and I really did know better than that. :shame They deserve their own category, as they were created a good couple hundred years before Martin Luther nailed his thesis to the door, and formed for a slightly different reason.

The Protestants had a problem with many of the rituals and procedures of Catholicism (Roman and Orthodox). This lead to the idea of "Solo Scriptorum"; the Bible alone is sufficient. I don't think that the Episcopal church believes in Solo Scriptorum, do they? I think it has kept many of the original Catholic rites (weekly communion being one of the biggees: I've only seen a version of communion done once or twice a year in my husband's Presbyterian church....)
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Post by Bamf Bunny »

Originally posted by Maelstrom
I don't think that the Episcopal church believes in Solo Scriptorum, do they?
"Sola Scriptura", and no. Anglican theology is based on scripture, tradition, and reason.
I think it has kept many of the original Catholic rites
About ten percent of Episcopalians - that's the Anglican church in the U.S. - are Anglo-Catholic. Services are very similar to those in Catholic churches, down to the liturgy and vestments. The veneration of saints is so similar that most churches seem to get their holy cards from Catholic shops, and some people pray the Anglican rosary, though it's not obligatory. In fact some Anglo-Catholics simply refer to themselves as Catholic and confuse the issue no end.

But this obscures some very real differences. Most important, I think, is that tradition is central but not forever binding. Whatever the Church has historically taught may later be tested and found wanting. Since there's no single authority in Anglicanism, no pope, individual bishops or archbishops may balance scripture, tradition, and reason differently. Even the Archbishop of Canterbury is considered "first among equals". The Episcopal Church USA has no Archbishop, and individual bishops have no authority outside their dioceses.

Right now a number of churches within the communion bitterly disagree about how much latitude other churches have to emphasize one element or another. As you may have heard, to the point where some of the African, Southeast Asian, and Australian churches are threatening to break with ECUSA.
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Post by The Drastic Spastic »

Originally posted by Maelstrom

But all of these notable atrocities are perversions of the original faith. It isn't the faith that's rotten: it's the way it's interpreted by the current religious structure.

Organized religion can sometimes suck, depending on who's doing the organizing. But the original tenets are much harder to argue with, since you'll find they disallow the very actions that are done in "their" name.
How can you separate the original faith from the current structure when the symbol of that faith has been rewritten by each structure to come around in the last couple millenia? And probably didn't make much sense to start with...
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Post by thylacine »

I'm really pleased that this conversation continues to be interesting and thought provoking, and best of all... no one has had a big fight!

By the way... my uncle never asks us for money... he just has my poor mother waiting hand & foot on him. She needs to take care of her own health, so it ticks me off that he is so self centered.

Also... everyone out there in computerland! Say a prayer for my mother today, please... she is getting an MRI on her liver at the hospital. We don't know if it's serious or not. Okay? Bye 4 now. :bamf
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Post by Lauren »

WHAT?! your uncle makes her do stuff and she's sick like that?! Can I please know where he lives so I can smack him!

I'll pray for your mom though, hope she gets better!
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