Got faith?

Post Reply New Topic

You been talking to my wife. Very much the message she puts out of late.

god has a plan to kill babies and the innocent.

Did he/she/it spare children from the plagues in Egypt? In fact, the firstborns of the Pharaohs were murdered.

babies die every day. Is that part of god's plan? If so, he's a sick, twisted, deranged mofo.

killing people can be a natural instinct, even in situations where it isnt apropriate.
doesnt make it anymore right to do against another human being.

as stated many places before i have nothing against a personal religion, the problem comes when it holds enough power as an institution either to draw or make "bad elements"
when that happens i believe it is the responisbility of everyone affected, a religion can be the buisness of the non religious.
ones faith can be anothers prison, so the faithfull must also keep their faith in check.

I didn't say that and you will not hear me say that, so don't throw it back at me. You cannot generalize from a vocal few who happen to claim to do it in the name of faith to the rest of us. I don't do it to you, so stopped doing it to me.

Master Jedi,

Your first mistake was to assume that the Bible is the sole basis for all faith, when it is the instinct for faith that causes people to seek a "First Cause" for everything. Some seek this cause in religious teachings, such as the Bible. Others seek it through scientific investigation. Still others seek it in learning everything they can from both religion and science, and then coming to their own conclusions.

Your second mistake was to assume that your contemptuous statements against the rest of us would matter to us. Instead, they reveal a mind that has decided to attack what it does not comprehend.

Your third mistake was to close your mind to what spiritual learning can reveal to you about yourself. You do not have to believe in a god or gods, but to believe that you exist apart and separate from that which you deride is to further isolate yourself from the majority of humankind.

Best wishes,

Fnord

Did you actually read the part that I placed in bold letters above?

Read them again.

i deirectly copied the format of your post

also the reason for the wink.
the argument works equally well in both directions

@fnord, yes i did, doesnt take away from the argument,
the reason i added the statement about my beliefs is because i have the impression from your posts that you only have a personal religion, so i added it so as to define the people i am talking about.

sadly not everyone holds that opinion and they (through inaction) let their religions harm others.

And THERE you been talking to me. Saying it has not worked so far.

Ah! Well done, then!

"only have a personal religion"?!?!?!????! !!

Please be so good you explain me that, does not compute into anything I can read as sense.

Google it - learning what it means on your own will help your own spiritual growth.

A. researching terminology is educational but has nothing to do with spiritual growth.

B. I dislike Google as a search engine and disapprove of using the name as a verb - offensive neologism. I prefer to use Yahoo to search for occurrences of a phrase.

C. I did so and found, first, no instances of "only have/has a personal religion". Secondly, several conflicting usages of "have / has a personal religion."

D. I will make an unsupported leap to assume the h]phrase here is to be read as "are not actively involved on proselytizing and imposing any group's religious norms."

E. That "only" still perturbs because in my value set "having a personal religion" is on a much higher plane than "being a member of a religious association".

Don't you? or did I misunderstand your intent when you started this topic on the role church hierarchy should play in deciding what the faithful believe? Anyone who does not follow the crowd has a personal religion.

@philologos

the only wasnt meant to detract from anything
i meant it as he only has a personal religion and not an institutional one
one can have both

Yes, and that's fine. There are distinctions between competing forms of thought that by definition creates divisions unless you don't really believe in your religion. These divisions are why some are of one variety and not the other.

Liberals don't mind being divided from Conservatives. They constantly call for unity, wherein conservatives drop their objections and join or unify around their "reasonable" positions. But if forced to adopt conservative positions, they would rather be divided between the two political religions.

A baby's birth and its death is determined by the natural law established by a law-giving God who rules over a law-abiding universe. Unless of course you believe an activist God who is either there to be our celestial butler or punisher if you don't devout oodles of time, prayer, and love to it...

The 10 plaques of Egypt was God's middle finger to the Pagan Gods of Egypt - each plaque targeting an Egyptian Divinity.

Those babies who were innocent were born to non-innocent parents. I thought this was established in the Noah narrative where Ham is not cursed by Noah, but rather, his son Cannon. Does a child who comes into the life of a sexually, mentally, or physically abusive alcoholic not live the curse of their parent?

Were the Nazi citizenry - who enjoyed a lavish lifestyle of wealth from conquest while a small group of their society was off exterminating none-aryans, jews, homosexuals, gypsies, communists, etc - innocent of the crimes of it's ruling regime and it's military? German parents were willing to sacrifice their children at the criminal alters of Nazism when they sent them off to murder others, and all germans, innocent or not, payed heavily for generations thereafter, with a sh***y economy, a divided country ruled by foreign rulership, and a negative aftertaste that lasted many generations towards Germans. Innocent Children? Yes there were many, and even in the 70's, 80's, and 90's, while backpacking through Europe or America, Germans who were not even born during WWII would would still be met with unfair/unjust reactions because of the actions of their parents/grandparents but you live out the curse of your fathers/forefathers.

The Egyptians - a pagan society that worshiped death - are no exception.