Favourite strange/ridiculous religious beliefs

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I think of Mother T. as the Wicked Witch of Altruism. Her heart was as black as night. Her work was more about her ego and her control addictions than about Love for the Miserable.

ruveyn

Who said anything about saving lives? There is a saying that science without religion leads to materialism and religion without science leads to superstition. This is a perfect example. I would rather lead a harmonious, truthful life and die young than to live forever without meaning. I would rather be wrong and happy than right and miserable.

What's the point of curing physical ailments if the spirit is ignored? Texts such as the Bhagavad Gita have pointed out how this leads to a regression of a person's humanity. It is known that anything and everything within material existence can be taken away, and eventually will be. The only thing that is of any permanence in our existence is the Self, Spirit, Atman, whatever you want to call it. It is the one thing that anyone can turn to at any time. It gives meaning to our lives, especially when times are hard.

I concede that Teresa of Calcutta was a poor example. I only chose her in order to point out that she was an inspirational figure to many people, regardless of her struggles with faith, her proselytism, and any other shortcoming she may have had. I wanted to have a more recent example, when really Gandhi should have sufficed. Even though he, too had his fair share of shortcomings.

As far as religious/spiritual apologetics, I recommend reading what Abdul'baha has written(the link is in one of my previous posts). It is somewhat similar to what Einstein has said.

I've asked Muslims about this. Apparently these are not regular human females who are alive now, but instead are created by Allah for the martyr after he dies.

Well that about sums it about now don't it. The rest of us would much have the best methodology and still be wrong. And miserable.

I didn't intend to imply that anyone was, would be miserable.

*edit: or that having a methodology that excludes spirituality is wrong.

This, like much of scripture, is intended as metaphor. To accept it literally would be materialistic and therefore hypocritical of true religion. It also should not be used to justify modern suicide bombers. Unfortunately, this has been exploited, both by terrorists and the West.

That point is grossly overused in the West as a tool to spread Islamophobia...much like the misinterpretation of Jihad as "holy war."

This is one of the reasons I respect Islam more than Western culture. Modesty is still valued.

I assume that you are implying here that these virgins would have to be ugly or in some way deformed.

In a modest society that places value upon self control, that would not be taken into consideration.

What exactly is it a metaphor for? Rewards are promised to those who die for Islam. These rewards are given a very specific nature. Where is the metaphor?

Well, that's the point of having a moral worldview, isn't it?



Well, this happens to be a material universe. What's wrong with that?



Knowing the truth is its own reward.



It's interesting that one of your examples in a previous post was the Buddha, one of the cleverest people in history, who argued that nothing was permanent, and who explicitly denied the existence of such a thing as a self, spirit, atman, or soul.

I don't care if I'm called a bigot or a cultural imperialist, I will still say: Western culture is superior to others.

There seems to be a rather rigid divide between people who examine the world closely and are satisfied that what they see is what they get and those others who erect fantasy structures replete with not only unknown forces but unknowable factors. It seems impossible to logically convince people to cross that divide without some personal psychological earthquake to shatter confidence in one outlook or the other.

Quite recently again - the west lost was well in the race with China and India till the end of Roman Empire, than the others became superior; it is only since the west emancipated himself form the dominance religious ideas that the west took the lead.

Superior to all contemporary cultures? and by what standards are you determining this?

Bigot.

Cultural Imperialist