The Theist Sanctuary

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I'm a Christian and I would love to have a place to talk in.

I hope this gets to stay here instead of getting moved to the PPR section, because all it would get is a bunch of anti-religious folks calling us stupid for believe in a bunch of 'fairy tales.' Or making fun of our beliefs.

I think for me as a Christian it is also hard trying to say anything over there because I see threads with a bunch of posters basically agreeing with each other on how Christianity is full of hateful people, and that they wish it was gone. And if anybody tries to say that they are seeing mostly lies on the fringes, they tell them that they are disillusioned and that most Christians are like that.
It's like they just want to believe it and resist anybody that might prove them wrong, so they can have a target to vent their anger on and blame for everything.

Nobody knows Zen Buddhism.

why is it so???

steve jobs travelled all over India and lived in himalayas many years meditating
he lived in extreme poverty and searched for a guru
once he had acute dysentry and had to be transported back to US
he had quoted that 'Edison had done far more for the world then Neem Karoli Baba and Karl Marx'
he then converted to Zen Buddhism.
Zen is very much deeper in philosophy

I think it was joke about knowing everything...

Quaker, friend of Jesus Christ.

Sort of. It was Zen humour. I'm actually a mongrel Zen Buddhist / Advaita Vedantist / atheist. Many years ago I was also a monk (bhiku). Those who profess to know Zen don't know Zen. It is rather too deep to try to explain here; but in short Zen is not about accumulating knowledge, there is nobody to know Zen and nothing to know.

As Namaste is Hindu, she will likely understand if I say Zen Buddhism has strong parallels with the Jnana yoga tradition in Hinduism... "Not this, not this"...

Buddhism is a religion?

To people feeling attacked about being religious by the majority of atheist. When you got religion pushed down your throught, it doesn't predisposed you positively towards it. You should see the anti religion sentiment under that scope. I admit i have my hair standing up when i hear Christian stuff. That's not the case with pretty much all other religions. For example, i find new age beliefs rather sympathetic. (i'm atheist)

Then I suggest that you preface all of your faith-based religious claims with "I believe..." or "My opinion is..." or even "I assume ..." and no one will have any reason for attacking you for stating an invalid claim as factual.

Maybe you could try to stop policing people's expressions of things that are difficult to express in mere words.

Apparently the TITLE of the thread is beyond your ability to comprehend.

As far as potential topics of discussion go, I'd be interested in discussing Zen, since it seems to deal with self-reference and contradictions a lot, Quakers, since I know almost nothing about them, but what I have heard sounds interesting, and Christianity, since I am one. Religious writings would also be interesting. The Bible certainly has a lot of interesting things in it. Also, C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton have written a lot about Christianity that I like, and hearing what people from other branches of Christianity think about what they wrote would be interesting. (I'm a generic protestant myself).

Frequently that sort of thread is started by atheists so they can be hostile in it. And, although I haven't gone into PPR much lately, I do remember threads not too dissimilar to this one being derailed by exactly this hostility.

Granted, controversial topics are much more likely to draw a flamewar, but religion itself is a controversial topic in PPR.

There are all sorts of interesting aspects of religion that I can't discuss in PPR, because any thread on religion there instantly becomes the latest atheist vs. theist battleground.


Despite being a Christian who was raised Christian, I have an aversion to what I call "Christianese", which is basically a bunch of verbiage and jargon that frequently gets tossed around without any attempt to pay attention to its meaning. So I can kind of sympathize with you there.

Yes, absolutely. That can be very trying.

Thinking something is an invalid claim is itself a belief or opinion. I do not see you carefully prefacing your opinions with such disclaimers.

If you wish to attempt to debunk theism, there is a whole subforum where that topic is welcome and extremely common. That is not what this thread is for.

Traditionalist Catholic here.

Yes. like whether photorealistic computer images and animations of human forms are graven images. That puts a dent in allot of new christian media.

Dear Shrox, My understanding ( or view) of the 'graven image' reference is that this was to prevent the worshipping of images, or idols. At that time, many Israelites were influenced by the culture and religion of Egypt, and owned and carried idols, images, and charms which represented Egyptian gods. If an image is not in and of itself vulgar or anti-Christian, I don't
see the principle of the scriptures being violated.
Admittedly, this is my own personal viewpoint, but this is what I hope we can discuss with each other here, while respecting and accepting each others' views.

Sylkat

Yes, that is it's origin. I am never pleased with how my animations with human forms look, so "graven image" is a good excuse for me...