Religion

No apology necessary, HB. You & my sister are the most sincere & truly inspired "fundies" I know

When I say that I am pagan, what I mean--& what I think MOST pagans mean--is that we are "earth-based" in our spirituality. I half-laughingly refer to myself as a "tree-hugging dirt-worshipper." What I really mean by that is that I take my cues from Mother Nature on what is important, & what needs to be considered in matters of concern. So of course, ecology is a major concern of mine.

You are correct in what you surmise about finding one's own personal deity/spiritual guide, at least to some degree. Some people NEED/WANT more specific guidance than others. So what works for person A may not work at all for person B. Thus, I am not surprised that different people respond VERY differently to doctrines, to history, to personal leadership, & all the other variables that come into play as regards spirituality.

My sister & I are fairly good examples. We are both intelligent women. She was always the more headstrong of the two of us, which is a little ironic now. Both of us spent some years being indoctrinated into the family Roman Catholicism. Yet today, she is the matriarch of a fundamentalist Christian family (& I must insert here, more open-minded than most such groups I've ever encountered); & I am unabashedly pagan. There is more common ground there than one might think; because she & I explore it regularly.

When you get down to it, what spirituality IS is how we interact with each other, with other living things, with the planet; & with our perception of the purpose of our lives.

 

You guys need to look deeper into the whole religious sham before spouting off about your saviors and dieties, et al. Does anyone actually believe that god or muhammed or krishna, or Santa Clause actually exists? Give me one shred of proof. Before you christian nutcases spout off on the bible as being the word of god, tell me this...were you there when it was written? Where is your proof that this is the word of some onimpotent being in the clouds? Have any of you played telephone? You know, the kid's game where one person whispers into the ear of the next and so on and so on, until at the end the original message is completely FUBAR (fucked up beyond all recognition)? This is religion. Face it, there's no proof and faith is a cop out. Tery, you're right on the money!

 

Not to chime in but the Bible you are reading was produced several centuries after the events even happened. In in most cases it was very liberially translated. The King James that is.

 

That's my point!

 

Oh my god. You killed Jesus. You bastardo! :xyzthumbs

 

Miss tery, I was not offended by your remarks.

My only discussion with you was that your argument was not logical or reasonable. Surely, after promoting reason and logic for your beliefs, I thought that it was disappointing that your argument didn't have logic or reason.

Your argument doesn't logic or reason for two main reasons:
1. You stated that generally speaking, the non-Christians you know are more gentle and polite than the Christians you know. Yet, your own style of posting showed that you were neither more gentle nor more polite than the Christians you were calling out.
2. You make a very general statement about ALL Christians based on the few that you've met or talked to. This is the same trouble that people get into when they judge any group by a few who are part of that group.

In regards to your personal beliefs, I have no beef with you. As I stated in another post, I believe that many people arrive at their belief systems in many different ways. I don't see my "role" on this board to ridicule you for your beliefs nor to try to make you change those beliefs.

 

This may be true to some portions of the Old Testament, however, this is simply not true regarding the New Testament portion.

In the New Testament portion, ALL of the books were written within 62 years of the death of Jesus.

The Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Luke, the letters written by Paul and the book of Acts are all dated from 45-63 A.D. The Gospel of John and the Revelation may have been written as late as 95 A.D.

In regards to your point about the King James Version of the Bible, it is not a liberally translated version of the Bible. In fact, it is just the opposite.

Many modern day versions are more or less translated with wide latittude in order to make it read easier in modern day english. This is more true with the paraphrases (The Living Bible, etc).

The King James Version came from a line of manuscripts that was put together by Erasmus, a Catholic scholar in the first century. His work became the basis for the Luther Bible, the French Bible and the King James Version.

These versions are very true to the Greek manuscripts with very little lattitude given to make it read easier.

 

We'll see. If the discussion at hand warrants it and I have time to kill, The Rest of the Story may come out.

 

I can't speak for everyone, but you would get a lot more respect from me if you took the time to question and analyze certain parts of your faith and discuss them as openly and calmly as some members here do.

There are holes and contradictions in your version of the "truth" as well and failing to discuss them simply makes you look like a politician spewing soundbites, IMO.

For me personally evolution and creation can easliy be part of the same system.

 

You are going to be in freaking Korea. About the only thing you're gonna have is time.