Why I care about religion

[JB88]

vulcans.

[wrag]

Originally posted by Vulcan
I assume you're talking about the bible correct?

Herein lies one of the fundamental differences. Christians argue about semantics, buddhists just say "you know what I mean't".

From my humble point of view christianity is stuck worshiping words and fixed absolute values. It will never survive in the long run because of this.

Hmm.......

Actually no I wasn't talking about the bible.  I was talking about basic word deffinitions and how they can, and do, change over time.

Semantics?  Isn't semantics dealing more with what a word means in reference to timing, toneal quality, sentence structure, pronounciation?  Like saying a set of words in a specific order using a specific toneal quailty, very slowly, pronouncing extremely carefully, to say an equal, might be consider sarcasm by some?  and others might think your talking to someone hard of hearing.  Isn't it more concerned of how one speaks?

And if I honestly didn't  know what you meant then "you know what I mean't"  means what?

Words MUST mean something.  Otherwise HOW do we talk to each other, how do we communicate?

I find your christian buddhist comparison .... flawed.  It's possable that individuals can become so KNOWN to each other over time that they can say such and everything works out fine.

Your description of christains worshipping words?  Fixed absolute values? Please explain your meaning by these statements.  Perhaps with an example?

Lets get our word meaning a little more together?  More matching is perhaps the word I seek?

[68Hawk]

Rock on Hawco!

[Westy]

"Because they develop early in pregnancy..."


 Ah. So it seems that at conception we're all the same - just a big jumble of organic parts of which half get dscarded midway through development.  Why do men continue to display thier useless spare parts?!  Intelligent design?  Or nature?  

 Hmmmm.....




"so we can make fun of fat guys"

lol.  More like "so fat guys have some more things to play with"  

Or the torturer has someplace to attach the clips?

[lazs2]

I think that some of the "athiests" here are confusing me with a christian..  I am not.

I have faith that there is a god.   A creator who has an interest in my life and that there is something besides rot after death.

I freely admit that this is simply faith based.

The agnostic says.. "you may be right, you may be wrong, I don't know"

The athiest says.. "there is no possibility that you are right"

The athiest is dishonest because he will not admit his beliefe is simply faith based and that if it were not... he would not say he was an athiest but an agnostic.

I pointed out that many athiests believe that science can explain everything and... that they also believe in ghosts and aliens and bigfoot and a number of other things that are bizarre and have no proof.

They claim science but...  science says that anything is possible till disproved.... athiests say that god is impossible... not science here but.... faith.

Athiesm is a faith and an agenda and... in many cases... a political tool...  

lazs

[Vulcan]

Originally posted by lazs2
The athiest is dishonest because he will not admit his beliefe is simply faith based and that if it were not... he would not say he was an athiest but an agnostic.

I don't believe in the tooth fairey or father christmas. Doies that make me dishonest lazs?

I don't believe in such thing as a god for many reasons....such as:
 - the lack of evidence
 - the lack of logic required to establish the existance of a god (eg the who created god arguments)
 - the overwhelming fantasticalness of religions themselves that worship god(s) (eg christianity and its creationism theories)
 - the history of previous gods and hiow they've sooner or later been established as fantasy by suceeding religions

[Vulcan]

Originally posted by wrag
Your description of christains worshipping words?  Fixed absolute values? Please explain your meaning by these statements.  Perhaps with an example?

The Ten Commandments.

Game.

Set.

Match.

thanks for playing.

[wrag]

Originally posted by Vulcan
The Ten Commandments.

Game.

Set.

Match.

thanks for playing.

Hmmmm.........

OK to be sure I ge this...............

Your saying they worship the words of the ten commandments?

Fixed set of values?  Thought those were morals?

[Hawco]

Originally posted by wrag
Hmmmm.........

OK to be sure I ge this...............

Your saying they worship the words of the ten commandments?

Fixed set of values?  Thought those were morals?

And the lord spoke unto the AH fighter pilot:

" I am the lord your god and I command thee to sacrifice your only son"

The flyers said "There's something not right here, your commandments say Thou shalt not kill"

"The lord giveth the rules and the lord taketh away" said god

"But how do I know you are god? you could be the devil trying to trick me?"

"You must have faith"

"Faith? or insanity? You want to see If I have so little moral fibre that at a command of a booming voice through the clouds, I will commit infantcide"

"Me almighty!" said the lord, What you are saying is that is reasonable for you, a mere mortal, to refuse to do what I, the god, commands"

"I guess so and you've given me no good reason to change my mind"

[wrag]

I'm done here......................... ...

[68Hawk]

Lazs,

I'm not saying that 'we can't really know for sure'.  You may feel this way, and that is all right, but I am saying that for me I see no evidence of a god at all.  The human 'thesis' of dieties, in whatever form, has been disproven beyond doubt for me, and while you leave open the possibility that there could be, I don't.  

This is not about belief.  This is not about dishonesty.  This is about a difference in paradigms and initial assumptions.  Some people assume that there is a god, and a lack of proof of a god or gods existance does not disprove absence.  I do not begin with this assumption, but look at the issue from the perspective of humans positing that there is, and failing to see any proof whatsoever of the existance of dieties, or higher beings.  If someone tried to say there were sphynxs (sp?) flying around, I'd say show me a picture.  If they couldn't produce any proof I'd say, well sorry, you've never seen one and neither has anyone else.  Let me know if you do come across something, otherwise they don't exist.  Since we know that a sphinx is a mythological creation of man, as are dieties, we can KNOW that there is no such thing as a sphinx outside of human imagination.  

Simple as that.  It takes faith to believe in sphynxs.  It is not a matter of believing that there are none.  Humanity has been so fractured by religious superstition.  It will be a great day for everyone when we can all just get over beliving things without any cause or reason.

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by Vulcan
The Ten Commandments.

Game.

Set.

Match.

thanks for playing.

Vulcan,

The Ten Commandments is old testament.

Christians believe that the sacrafice of JC allows old testament sins to be forgiven.

So if breaking one of the "Fixed absolute values" can be forgiven, maybe they are  not so fixed and absolute....

Looks like the ball was on the line and the call may be overturned by the head linesman.

[Seagoon]

Hello Vulcan,

Originally posted by Vulcan
Perhaps you misunderstand. My buddhist friends find the bible funny because of the outrageous fantasy stories it tells, such as walking on water, converting water to wine etc. They didn't need to be drunk, the reaction was more of that akin to what you might think if you encountered 50 year old man who still believed in the the tooth fairy.

Please don't misunderstand, I didn't need to be drunk to ridicule Christianity either. I despised it in whatever condition I was in, although curiously of all the religions I had studied, it was the one I understood the least and the only one I prefered to only read about through the lens of other critics. I knew nothing of the Gospel, and felt that the miracles were so much make believe as well. I never stopped to consider that if God had actually become incarnate and dwelt amongst us, then what would be impossible for us would be nothing at all for Him. Then again, during Christ's time they either denied His miracles, or when they couldn't actually do that, they attributed them to the power not of God but of Satan. Certainly the rule is that the hardened heart will not accept the good news no matter how much evidence is piled up. And I can say that from personal experience.  

As for the railway of death, there was no religious motivation there at all. The japanese persecution of prisoners was both cultural and rascist. A much different kettle of fish altogether.

What you may not be able to fathom is the self judgement involved in buddhism. They doctrine is more of a be good to the extent you know you can be, and the only judge of your deeds is yourself. IE more of a 'its not good to kill if you can avoid it' as opposed to a 'thou shalt not kill'.

It is of course entirely possible, that despite having studied Buddhism and added a few of its teaching to my mix and match world view in the late 80s, I might not be enlightened enough to understand it. Then again, that shouldn't surprise me since everyone on the BB understands Christianity better than I do.  But in any event, no I wasn't going to attribute the actions of the Japanese during the Second World War to Buddhism, although many Buddhists took part in the atrocities, that was more due to a nasty nexus of Shintoism, cultural arrogance, and Fascism.

Actually, I was going to cite an example of what the practical outworkings of the ethical teachings of Buddhism versus evangelical Christianity look like. This following was recorded by Ernest Gordon during his time working on the Railway of Death. Incidently, Gordon began his time as a POW as an atheist. His memoirs are recorded in the book, Miracle on the River Kwai. I apologize in advance for the length of this quote, and that it will take two posts, it is however worthy of consideration:

They heard of an Australian soldier who was caught outside the camp trying to obtain medicine from the local Thais for sick friends. The Japanese sentenced him to death for this and insisted that all the men in the camp were to watch his execution. The Australian calmly knelt down, drew a New Testament from his ragged shorts, and read from it. He then put the book away, smiled and called out: 'Cheer up; it isn't as bad as all that. I'll be all right.' He knelt, bent his head forward, and a Samurai sword flashed in the sunlight as he was killed. On another occasion, at the end of a day's work, a guard declared that a shovel was missing. Working himself up into an uncontrollable rage, he screamed: 'All die! All die!' Just as the guard was about to begin shooting the whole group, one man stepped forward and said, 'I did it.' Seizing his rifle by the barrel, the guard brought it down on the prisoner's head. The Scottish soldier sank to the ground, dead. When the shovels were counted afterwards, they were all there. The guard had simply made a mistake.

Such acts of self-sacrifice made other prisoners ask, 'Is there anything in Christianity?' A new spirit of thinking about others became more evident in the camp. Ernest Gordon was not convinced that the Bible was true. He argued against Dusty's faith. Didn't Dusty realize that twenty young men were dying in Chungkai every day? 'Why doesn't God do something, instead of just sitting on his big, white throne in heaven?' Gordon asked.

Dusty thought for a moment and replied, 'We can't see everything God is doing now. I suppose one day we'll see and then we'll understand.'

At this time there was an incident outside the camp that influenced Ernest Gordon. Quite frequently as the prisoners tramped through local Thai villages on the way to work, they encountered yellow-robed Buddhist priests with their silver begging bowls. Buddhism was, and is, the dominant religion in Thailand. The philosophy of the priests was non-attachment to the world. Thus, if a prisoner dropped at the side of the road and was obviously dying, they would ignore him. The pitiful condition of the slave labourers was of
no concern to them. There was no place for mercy in their thinking.

One day the wretched prisoners passed through a village where the inhabitants, at some risk to themselves, gave them food, medicine and money. On enquiry, it was discovered that through the influence of a missionary, the villagers had been converted from Buddhism to Christianity. The contrast between the ethics of Buddhism and Christianity were crystal clear to the observant prisoners. Again, the question asked itself: was there more to what the Bible taught than Ernest Gordon had thought?

His questioning was still going on when an Australian sergeant dropped in one evening. The two men had never met before. The visitor wanted Gordon to lead a discussion group with the object of finding out what the Bible taught and if it was true. 'My men think you are right for the job because you are a fighting soldier and you've been to university,' he was told. They did not want 'Sunday School stuff. They wanted 'the real thing' — strictly no 'waffling', which was the gentle art of avoiding the facts.

The question to be answered was: 'What did Jesus really teach?' How could these teachings have anything to do with their lives? Feeling very unsure of himself, Gordon read from a Bible another prisoner had given him. They
gathered in a bamboo grove near the 'hospital'. He reported what the Gospels taught to the discussion group next evening. At each successive
meeting, numbers grew. Men knew that unaided human reason had nothing to offer them. Why not look elsewhere?

Ernest Gordon and his friends gradually came to know Jesus as a real person in their lives. The cross showed that God, through Jesus, knew all about suffering. There was no obvious explanation, other than sin, to explain why people suffered, but at least they came to believe that God cared. At that time, their biggest question was: 'How do I face death?' To that, human reason offers poor answers, or no answer at all. But Jesus said, 'I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die' (John 11:25-26). These men, including Gordon, approached God through Jesus. Some died trusting in Christ and listening to the Word of God. They knew that God was with them as they neared the end of their lives.

It was there at Chungkai in 1943 that Ernest Gordon and many others became real Christians. They experienced the new life of the Holy Spirit
within them, enabling them to believe in Christ, who had died for them and was gloriously raised again. As a result, a church came into being — not a building, but men united by faith in Jesus as Lord and Saviour. They held worship services. They prayed. For bread and wine they had rice and rice water. There was even a Bible-lending library. A man could borrow a Bible for one hour at a time.

This church without walls had all the marks of the biblical model, including an evangelistic spirit. Some British soldiers found two Chinese still alive after a massacre perpetrated by the Japanese. The two men were equipped with
fictitious identities and absorbed into the life of Chungkai camp. Christians witnessed to them. They were converted. There in the camp they were
baptized and admitted into the church without walls.

continued below...

[Seagoon]

Cont'd

On Christmas Day  1943,  over 2,000 men attended a service. It was a better Christmas when compared with 1942. There was a new spirit everywhere at Chungkai. Stealing from the living and the dead ceased. Men really cared about one another. Although the guards were as brutal as ever, it seemed to many men that a miracle had happened. Those whose sickness was less intense gave blood for the more seriously ill - They respected the dead and buried them carefully. Chungkai was transformed by numerous acts of faith and sacrificial love. Ernest Gordon knew that if he survived, he would take his newly found faith into the post-war world.

The death railway had been completed in the autumn of 1943, but the suffering and dying went on in all camps across the Japanese Empire until the aggressors were finally crushed. Good Friday 1945 was important. That was the day Ernest Gordon was finally able to forgive the Japanese. They did not deserve forgiveness. The guards and their masters knew perfectly well that what they had done was evil. Nevertheless, the Christian has to pray, 'Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us' (Luke 11:4). And did not Christ on the cross pray, 'Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing'? (Luke 23:24).

The test came when a train moved Ernest Gordon and some fellow Chungkai prisoners towards Bangkok. They were shunted into a siding alongside some trucks loaded with desperately wounded Japanese troops. These men, the refuse of war, were ignored by their own side and waited fatalistically for death.

Without a word, Ernest Gordon and some fellow officers went to give them water. Both the Japanese guards and other British soldiers preferred to let them die. 'You are fools. They are the enemy,' one man protested. Eighteen months earlier these men from Chungkai would gladly have murdered any Japanese had it been possible. Having read the Bible, they recalled the story of the Good Samaritan. Now they obeyed its teaching. Many a time in later
life Ernest Gordon reflected that it was right to forgive and not allow bitterness to dominate his life. 15 August 1945 was the day the war in the Pacific ended reedom came. With a friend he gazed across the hills towards Chungkai and recited in full the lovely words of Psalm 121 which begins:

I lift up my eyes to the hills — where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth... "
[Don Stephens, War and Grace (p.163-165)]

[storch]

the ten commandments are a standard.  the first five commandments deal with an individuals relationship with God the latter five deal with an individuals relationship with humankind.  they are an unattainable standard, no natural born person is, has been or will ever be that good.  we all fall short of the mark.  we are essentially condemned by the ten commandments.  

christians believe that the christ came and lived as a man amongst men for his appointed time and never failed to keep the standard.  his life was offered as God's planned, to be a perfect sacrifice in atonement for the shortcomings of all mankind.  

a person has but to acknowledge this and accept the person of jesus christ as Lord and his sins will be covered by jesus' blood sacrifice.  

if we remove all of the confusion created by still fallen man since the time of jesus' death, forget sectarian embellishments and all that other crap it boils down to this.  who do you say jesus christ is?  where your eternal soul will dwell depends on your individual response.  you choose to condemn yourself by your answer.  if you don't answer, you have answered.

this is what christianity is.  from the point of conversion forward the individual is transformed by the indwelling of the God's spirit and through study.  we don't all begin our walk at the same level preparedness or understanding and we are all unique but we are all changed by our conversion experience and we all gradually improve.  christians, as many of you repeated point out are far far far from perfect.

so it isn't how good or bad you are or how many whoopees you said or what church you attend and how often.  no one is better than me and I'm certainly not better than anyone else nor do many of us believe we are and yes many many horrible deeds have been perpetrated by men in the name of religion including christianity.  that fact does not change the more important fact that the simple reading of this message represents my witness to the reader that he or she must deal with the person of jesus christ.  in effect it becomes fiat, you have your warning.  "every knee will bend and every head will bow and every person born will proclaim that jesus christ is Lord"  some of us have chosen to do it voluntarily while it still counts as righteousness.  this is a message that everyone has heard or will hear many times throughout a normal life.  so we all have our multiple opportunities, we are all accountable for our decision.