Mad Rabbit wrote:

Relapse wrote:

halonachos wrote:If you look at it this way, most religions believe that if you don't believe in that same religion you are going to hell. Seeing as though no one can be more than 1 religion at a time, everyone is going to hell.

I've been taught that God is a loving father that will not cast his children off if they didn't have a chance to learn about him or just because they belong to another religion. He doesn't have us to play shell games over religion with a burning eternal Hell the punishment for a wrong guess.

Christianity is generally not inclusive, along with Islam and Judaism. Seems you're different, and I'm glad to hear it.

Cheese Elemental wrote:I'd just like to point out that of all the explanations for the creation of the universe I've heard, the theory of a big explosion out of nowhere is the most ridiculous.

Frazzled wrote:That and the muslims closed off travel to the Holy land, and Europe was still under the threat of jihad. Indeed that threat didn't disappear for centuries.

A desert stretches out before me: namely, the reflective experience of alienation and so also the word “alienation” itself. (It is no longer possible to think that an experience can exist in reflection divorced from the word both which defines it and by which it is defined.) At the heart of every way in which this word can be used is the idea of separation. In the most unambiguous example, “alienation” can signify the act of transferring some property from one party to another. This is to say that the object in question is “alienated” insomuch as it is separated from the original condition of ownership and ceases to be “alienated,” at least as far as the second party is concerned, when it is unified in the new condition of ownership. From this, it becomes clear that to talk about “alienation,” and thus separation, implies talking about unification (or reunification) as well. So here is the most basic measurement defining the experience in reflection, the very length and breadth of the desert itself—and perhaps also the means by which I can survive it.

And now to pause at length to study upon the reflective experience of desert and in so doing also upon the word “desert.” What sort of experience is this place and word? What has it to do with the word-experience “alienation”? Again, it is best to start least ambiguously. The trait that all places called deserts share is that they receive less than ten inches of precipitation annually. Like “alienation” with regard to separation and unification, “desert” is defined by a negative quality (aridity) that highlights the importance of a positive quality (humidity implying fertility). It therefore seems that rain primarily, and the lack of rain incidentally, is the conceptual key that will unlock the word-experience “desert.” The lack of fertility, being a lack of (pro)creativity, is definitive of the desert. This seems to make further sense in terms of “desert” pronounced differently and used as a verb. To desert means to abandon, implying another absence of some positive condition, like remaining or preserving—or perhaps saving. Given all of this, is not the desert static? Is the experience of desert not stark, absolute aloneness?

One question at a time; I must have patience: The desert is not static either as an ecosystem or as a metaphor for experience. Ecosystems aside, the prime examples (for my purposes) of experiential fertility (=dynamism) are found in the Scriptures. After being baptized in the Jordan by John, the Savior “was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.” That is Mathew, but Mark and Luke say much the same. Several points merit special attention here: To begin with, Jesus goes into the desert after being ritually cleansed—that is, transformed—through baptism with water. Next, He does not walk into the desert arbitrarily, but is led there (driven there, according to Mark) by a manifestation of the Divine, the Spirit. Finally, He is led there for the particular purpose of being tempted, one might say assaulted, by the enemy. Given the example of Our Lord, then, I can expect this much upon entering into the desert: I have arrived here at the edge of the desert because I have already been in some way transformed, I walk into it of my own free will but at the behest of a more profound call, and taken together these things indicate my readiness for a dangerous confrontation.

So much, then, for a static desert—it is instead the epitome of dynamism.

All of this can be found long before the Nazarene walked to the banks of the Jordan. The Israelites wandered on Sinai for the forty years evoked by Jesus’ forty days just as Jesus Himself is the evocation of Israel triumphant at last. The Israelites left Egypt of their own free will, yes, but they were led by Moses the Prophet—and this occurred (and only could occur) after they were transformed by Moses the Liberator from slaves to free people, separated from the unclean by the lamb’s blood on their doors as Jesus was by the baptism of John. And yet they could not fully be a people until they achieved their homeland, not a home in the sense that they were returning to it but in the sense that it had been promised them of God and that the hope of its fulfillment was what kept them, more or less, a people through all hardships. Even after overcoming their slavery in Egypt, the Israelites wandered forty years not yet a people so much as a pre-people. Homeless in the desert, their home lay in the future and so in Moses and the Law. The path that stretched out before the Israelites, and before Him generations upon generations later, was the desert. It is true that each of them went alone, Jesus as one man (and One God) into the wilderness and Israel—though numbering six hundred thousand—as one pre-people, one premature super-individual. Yet it is also true that both received supplication from the Father.

. . . good then, let me put away the Scriptures for now. They are so heavy all of the sudden and I must not admit to exhaustion until I have gotten to the bottom of this lesson and taught it to myself thoroughly . . .

I cannot therefore understand my loneliness in the desert as a separation from God (nor less God abandoning me, which is totally absurd) and so it cannot be stark and absolute. But it is stark and absolute insomuch as it is a separateness from others who are like me (because I will be unlike them) and, most especially, from myself (who I will be no longer and, somehow, already have ceased to be). The desert is thus an exile, freely accepted in the way that one freely accepts growing taller and eventually gray-haired. Yet exile is properly associated with the loss of home, but here it has no such connotation unless I have made a serious mistake—a mistake most serious and yet too obvious to evade my current preoccupations.

No, I am not speaking of exile from home because there is presently no such thing as home. I know it, I knew it before I could tolerate it; “we have here no lasting city.” (Ah, those Sacred Words again—but it is hard to put away the very breath in my lungs!) This is an exile from the self as it was formerly content to exist, if indeed “exist” is not too much of a compliment: an individual consciousness peering fretfully into a tarnished mirror, directing it now at Nature and now again at the nature that supposedly transcended Nature—disgusting lie, you are filth in my mouth! I spit you out, I vomit you up, you will die in the desert, you awful wretch! Get behind me! I tell you, this is an exile of no return, and a death, a death so that I may truly live. Such are my fearful ravings . . . At the edge of the desert I lift the spotty, foully deceptive mirror high above my head to dash it upon my own brow, like Moses hurling the tablets of the Law into the disgusting mob of idolaters, only to find my arms flailing uselessly. There is not now nor was there ever anything in my hands. The desert, the desert, the desert . . . my mind—no, not my mind, but I myself as a potentially total being, look to the desert. But where is the desert in a land of rain?

God is great. The whole world is a desert that He graces with rain in accord with His promise that we meek creatures shall inherit the whole of creation. We have but to mourn, which we can hardly avoid, and He will comfort us. We have but to hunger and thirst, to do only what we cannot help but do, and He will fill us. We have but to be righteous, and we will see His face. Where is the desert at whose edge I stand? Am I ready to stride into the wastes? Will I starve amid fasting and will the wild beasts come to tear me limb from limb? In other words, am I even ready to see the desert? Yes? Yes. Here, then, stretching out not before me but all around me for thousands upon thousands of miles . . . already in it, already dizzy from thirst and dazzled by the sun, already disposed and very nearly willing to collapse into the dust. For there is only dust thinly covering pale, cracked earth.

Gwar! wrote:

My View on Christianity, and religion as a whole.

dogma wrote:I also find it amusing that you would besmirch a large group of people for believing in God while simultaneously spending a great deal of your time debating the rules of a childish pastime on the internet. So much so that you feel the need to display your e-peen in your sig.

Gwar! wrote:Of course, you can think whatever you want to think, just as I can think whatever I want to think.

rubiksnoob wrote:how long has this thread been going?

reds8n wrote:Rough straw poll : who here is baptised/christened/etc then ?

Gwar! wrote:Of course, you can think whatever you want to think, just as I can think whatever I want to think.

sebster wrote:

Gwar! wrote:Of course, you can think whatever you want to think, just as I can think whatever I want to think.

That is true. It can't be anything but because no-one can ever stop you thinking what you want to think. But that doesn't mean all thoughts are equally valid.

Now, anyone can have any personal belief about God, and I don't see any merit in criticising that belief. If someone says they personally believe Jesus was the son of God, or that Mohamed was the final and greatest prophet, or that there is no God that's all equally cool, all interesting and all part of life's rich pageant. But that isn't what you're saying, because your opinion isn't just about your own belief, it's about the legitimacy of other people's. And once you make that leap to criticising other's, damn straight they can and should start on yours.

sebster wrote: But that isn't what you're saying, because your opinion isn't just about your own belief, it's about the legitimacy of other people's. Much as a Christian is free to believe until he says 'I have the only truth and the rest of you are going to hell', an atheist is free to believe without attracting criticism until he says 'and you're all foolish for believing in God'.

Gwar! wrote:They can criticise my Logical, rational observations all they want. Just as I can Criticize their belief in a Cosmic Jewish Zombie, Flying Spaghetti Monster or whatever it is they believe.

Why should they be able to go around preaching that I'm going to "hell" if I don't accept said Cosmic Jewish zombie as my Master, but I can't retort by saying it is a load of crap?

And as a very Friend of mine once said: "When was the last time you saw an Atheist fly a Plane into a Building in the name of Richard Dawkins?"

Manchu wrote:Actually, all categorical belief statements are a simultaneous affirmation and negation. When Gwar! says something like "God does not exist," he is saying not only that God does not exist but also that the belief that God does exist is false. Similarly, when I say "God does exist" I am also saying that the belief that God does not exist is false. Both positions carry an inherent criticism of the opposing viewpoint. If holding either position is itself legitimate then it follows that criticizing its opposite must also be legitimate.

sebster wrote:When was the last time you saw an atheist soup kitchen?

sebster wrote:I get what you're saying but context and delivery matters. There is a massive difference between 'I don't believe in God' and 'I don't believe in God, you're silly for believing in God and here's a picture that makes fun of your belief'.

Gwar! wrote:All views are equal, insofar as they may both be stated. Doesn't mean I can't say yours is a Bunch of crap.

sebster wrote:

halonachos wrote:Hey guys, it was a freakin joke. It doesn't need to be correct, it just needs to grasp at the top of the matter, not dig into the meat of it.

It's about as funny as saying WWII was just another war about oil. It isn't funny because it isn't true.

Relapse wrote:

Mad Rabbit wrote:

Relapse wrote:

halonachos wrote:If you look at it this way, most religions believe that if you don't believe in that same religion you are going to hell. Seeing as though no one can be more than 1 religion at a time, everyone is going to hell.

I've been taught that God is a loving father that will not cast his children off if they didn't have a chance to learn about him or just because they belong to another religion. He doesn't have us to play shell games over religion with a burning eternal Hell the punishment for a wrong guess.

Christianity is generally not inclusive, along with Islam and Judaism. Seems you're different, and I'm glad to hear it.

Thank you, it's pretty much what everyone in my religion is taught and believes.

reds8n wrote:

Rough straw poll : who here is baptised/christened/etc then ?

Gwar! wrote:

sebster wrote:When was the last time you saw an atheist soup kitchen?

So feeding a few Crack Addicts 2¢ Soup makes up for Years of Scientific, Social and Moral Repression?

All views are equal, insofar as they may both be stated. Doesn't mean I can't say yours is a Bunch of crap.

rubiksnoob wrote:

Gwar! wrote:

sebster wrote:When was the last time you saw an atheist soup kitchen?

So feeding a few Crack Addicts 2¢ Soup makes up for Years of Scientific, Social and Moral Repression?

All views are equal, insofar as they may both be stated. Doesn't mean I can't say yours is a Bunch of crap.

I think that this thread has the potential to be really good discussion on religion and peoples' personal philosophies. Let's not tank this thread by making comments like this.

rubiksnoob wrote:No, actually I am atheist as well but I am not telling people that their beliefs are a load of crap. Instead you could ask them why they believe what they believe, debate in a civil manner, presenting your argument and allowing them to present theirs.