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Germany Bans Scientology (pg. 10)
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| Silky Johnson |
| quote: | Originally posted by Moral Hazard
The faults you list are the faults of men not of belief. |
YES. |
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| Clovis |
I saw a church sign this morning with black block letters that said
"PEOPLE DISSAPOINT, GOD DOESN'T"
Make what you will of it... |
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| Silky Johnson |
| Your MOM disappoints! |
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| spc |
| quote: | Originally posted by Clovis
I saw a church sign this morning with black block letters that said
"PEOPLE DISSAPOINT, GOD DOESN'T"
Make what you will of it... |
The only thing I make of it is that God does not use the spellcheck function. :( |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| quote: | Originally posted by Moral Hazard
Any system of belief; be it religion, political ideology, philosophy, scientific theories, is vulnerable to these same manipulations. |
Certainly, but I bet you would be hard pressed to argue that religion hasn't had a much higher proportion of those things than, say, science.
Now, you might just put that down to chance, or you might wonder whether there is something about religion (or at least a great many forms of it) that encourages those bad things to proliferate. |
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| Moral Hazard |
| quote: | Originally posted by jennypie
Your MOM disappoints! |
:toocool: |
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| Moral Hazard |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
Certainly, but I bet you would be hard pressed to argue that religion hasn't had a much higher proportion of those things than, say, science.
Now, you might just put that down to chance, or you might wonder whether there is something about religion (or at least a great many forms of it) that encourages those bad things to proliferate. |
I think that there is a lack of data to effectively argue either way on what if any system of belief is misappropriated more. It would be a rather difficult thing to quantify... first you'd need to define what constitutes misappropriation or misuse, then you'd need to total the number of instances of misappropriation (which would certainly not be accurate as many such cons would not be documented), then figure out how to decide how long each belief system has been available to misappropriate... it would be a promethian task.
Do I think it's likely that religion has been the most abused belief system... absolutely. The question is; is religion the most abused because it fosters greater opportunity for abuse, because people have traditionally put more stock in it than any other belief system, because it's the most personal belief system, or simply because it's been the most influential for the longest period of time (by a hell of a long shot at that) therefore there is just more evidence of it being abused. Certainly, humanity's brief flirtation with ugenics is a great example of people abusing evolutionary theory to advance a personal agenda... this is the most glaring example of this and admittedly it is difficult to think of many more; however, evolutionary theory has been with us for approx 200 years whereas the Abrihamic religions have been around for 4000 years and the Vedic religions for nearly 10000. |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
| quote: | Originally posted by Moral Hazard
You illustrate a lack of understanding of the faith here...
Christians believe that while Jesus was man he was more than man, he was God living as a human. God became human in order to live a human life, to experience being human first hand. This experience of God living, loving, suffering, and dieing as a human is what saves humanity. Having experienced the draw of sin first hand Jesus forgives us for submitting to it, in fact, he removes the absolute punsishent of sin by guarenteeing forgiveness to all those who seek it. Alternatively, some believe that there was never any punishment for sin other then that which we imposed upon ourselves, in order to relieve that self-imposed burden God punished himself through suffering on our behalf. He also removes all prior laws and commandments by replacing them with one law... "love each other as I have loved you." To Christians; God living and dieing as a human is an experience that changes God from the vengeful God of the Old Testament to the forgiving God of the New or at very least was God correcting the misinterpretation of his earlier revalations made over the years by religious leaders by delivering his revalation first hand to all who would listen. To answer your question... one can look at salvation two ways... it either is God saving us from his prior intolerance or God revealing to us that he was never a vengful god, salvation always existed, thus he is saving us from our misinterpretations of his word and the punishment we were imposing on ourselves and each other. |
I think you illustrate a lack of understanding of my post here...
I am well aware that the crux (lololol, pun) of Xtianity is that it casts a revisionist light upon the world of man and his relationship with his God. It's why, though I may irreverently fault Xtianity with many things, I still maintain that it is a very significant system of beliefs, completely regardless of the fact that it has captured some 2 billion subscribers (Look out Xtians though, World of Warcraft is catching up!). The idea of Christ changed the world because, as you said, people were somewhat 'free' in a sense that they would no longer feel eternally damned due to one slip-up. This was a huge thing for people, as religions prior to it typically instilled even more fear and guilt for transgressions against its tenets. Comparatively, Xtianity really went easy on people. It's easy to see why it became so popular, then. People believe whatever they want to believe. They believe in God because they want to believe in God, whether they admit it or even realize it - and the idea of a friendly, forgiving, compassionate God just sits so much better with the past-times of an inert and fantastic mind.
What I am saying is that the doctrine is unnecessary. I agree with things such as forgiveness and occasional compassion already, and find unconditional hospitality to be an incredibly civilized human thing. Many of the finer points that Christianity takes so much pride in were established several years before its inception. They gave it a name; the name just likes to give a nice little reward for those who do observe it to a T. Kind of like Credit Card companies who award points and cash-back and whatnot. It's just so quaint. My point is that people are obsessed with salvation. Like there is some lingering guilt hidden deep down for something they have done or been conditioned to feel bad about. Perhaps it is completely self-imposed; perhaps the hegemony has succeeded in sapping everyone's self-worth - in any case, salvation is unnecessary as guilt is unnecessary. We must lose our mind's attachment to it. We haven't done anything wrong by merely being. Any God who thinks so is not one worth worshiping, save for fear of eternal reprisal - and in that case, you might as well dismiss everything about a loving, forgiving and compassionate God int he first place. The fact that a supreme being would even care about our misinterpretations is ridiculous in the first place.
Sin is the fault and invention of man and not belief. There is scarce anything that we, as humans, can actually do or think that will affect our nature so greatly that it would justifiably offend any grand creator.
Though that one little caveat does interest me - perhaps our resident linguist can help us. Lira, is there a broader etymology behind the word blasphemy? As I understand it, actions or writings fall under its definition, but it could also very well cover any thoughts regarding "sacred" things. Interesting that in all this cosmic forgiveness, the one thing that means absolute damnation is blasphemy against the Lord. If that's really so, there's no turning back for most people. All the revisionist religion and unconditional love could not forgive a single moment of bewildered musings against a creator too afraid to show his face. In that case, your God. I've already sealed my fate. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
Well, I want to put many of the abuses down to a certain idea: that believing things without any evidence other than the say-so of a holy book, church, or priest is perfectly okay, that there is nothing wrong with feeling epistemological satisfaction when one does that.
I won't label that idea "faith," since many people would think that's a bad definition of the word. That's fine. But whatever you want to call that idea, religions have been promoting it as a virtue since they first came on the historical scene, and few of them have stopped to any significant degree. |
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| tubularbills |
| quote: | Originally posted by Salegon
Rofl! Listening to non-German people trying to talk German is a fun thing :haha:
LOlkatze ;)
Man versteht euch trotzdem wunderbar, Jungs. |
Ich verstehe deine Mutter!
OOOOOOOOOoooooo
LOL i got nothin |
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| Silky Johnson |
*yawn*
Don't you people get tired of debating the same over and over again? |
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