Christianity ruins families.

[Elok]

Oh, I would dig up that Machiavelli quote about love and fear, but I'm just too lazy...for the record, I don't hate Islam or gays, don't believe in shunning, and wish this thread would go back to being about weddings.

[dannubis]

Islam, as far as I know the religion, is about living good enough to please God. I do not trust myself to live that good.

Is Islam wrong? Well, I do not believe that anyone is good enough to live without causing harm to himself and others (and God).
Can I prove that? No. But there's no need for me to prove that. The main question is just a personal question: am I good enough myself? If I believe so, then I may want to skip the Jesus part and just prepare myself to face God al by myself.

I personally believe that muslims who fear Allah and his judgement because they know themselves, will be accepted by God. (=Allah.)
In fact they have the same faith as a christian.

When I was in Jerusalem I talked for about 1 hour with this muslim guy. I asked him about his faith and he told me about how he believed that two angels were on his shoulder writing down all his deeds. One wrote down the good stuff, the other one wrote down the bad stuff. Then when he had to face Allah, all the good and bad deeds would be compared and Allah would judge them.

I asked him if he feared that moment, to which he answered that he feared it a lot because he was defenitely not sure that he was good enough. He told me that muslims even pray for Muhammed because even Muhammed may not be good enough. (hence the '(pbuh)' phrase they always put behind his name.)
That's also the reason that fundamentalistic muslims kill themselves to become martyrs. It apparently is the only way to be sure that Allah will accept them. (according to their views).

He then asked me if I did not fear to meet God and be judged. I said that I did not because I believed that Jesus would be there, saying to God: "It's ok father, because I know him."
Then he asked me to ask Jesus to be there for him as well.

I'm just saying that to show that this guy and me weren't that much different. Of course visually our believes were a lot different. But in the core it's the same. We believe that both of us have to face God one day and he will judge our deeds, and both of us know it's not going to be good. The only difference is that I rely in Jesus while he didn't know about that. I don't believe that ignorance is a reason for God to cast him away.

Original sin is that man wanted to be god, judging on good and evil himselves. Undoing original sin is all about accepting that you're not able to be god, and accept his authority. It's not about believing that the right god exists.
That's imho the main question to all people: Do you believe that you yourself are good enough to live good and finally improve yourself that much that you will not cause harm or unhappyness to yourself or others. Or do you believe that you're not good enough yourself to be the moral authority of your own life.

I believe that even an atheist who simply rationally can't believe there's a God, but still agrees that he would need one, will be accepted by God. I had such a co-worker. His father was a minister. He knew all about christianity, and simply stated: "I wish that it was true."
Personally I have a lot of troubles rationally to believe. There are many reasons to not believe, both from scientific reasons, and also from theological reasons. Yet I hope and wish and pray that it's all true anyway because I believe that I need someone like Jesus to die for my sins and be the perfect man, someone who will cover me when I meet God, if there's such a thing as a god.

Long story, I'm sorry

SUMMARY:

Religion advises you to to good things, not out of desire to do good but out of fear to look bad in front of the reverred diety...

Seems like a social construct to me...

[dannubis]

Ok. That makes no sense at all. Why not get rid of the rock altogether?

Dude, you are the one belonging to a religion that whorships wooden crosses...

[giblets]

"Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well." (Mark 16:16-18)

Let's feed Ben poison and see if he really believes.

[giblets]

This shows that you have a medieval view of hell.
Hell is not some tortuate place where demons stick pointy forks in your belly.
It's simply the place where God is not.

If you reject a woman, then you will be without her.
If you reject God, then God will simply let you be without him. I think that's bad. But I also think that it's bad to be without my wife.

It's not some kind of a gameshow where you choose a numbered box, hoping that the price is in it. And if it's not then you're dropped in a water basin, or something.

Hell is just a place with no religion? Awesome.

[Robert]

So the hellfire and the gnashing of teeth comes from where exactly?

figure of speech. (in the Bible.)
How can one verse state that hell is both the eternal darkness AND an eternal fire?
Fire lights the darkness.
Either the writer of such a phrase would be insane, or he's just a literal poet who describes the absence of God in figures of speech.

[Robert]

I want to see you PROVE Islam is wrong, Ben.

Islam, as far as I know the religion, is about living good enough to please God. I do not trust myself to live that good.

Is Islam wrong? Well, I do not believe that anyone is good enough to live without causing harm to himself and others (and God).
Can I prove that? No. But there's no need for me to prove that. The main question is just a personal question: am I good enough myself? If I believe so, then I may want to skip the Jesus part and just prepare myself to face God al by myself.

I personally believe that muslims who fear Allah and his judgement because they know themselves, will be accepted by God. (=Allah.)
In fact they have the same faith as a christian.

When I was in Jerusalem I talked for about 1 hour with this muslim guy. I asked him about his faith and he told me about how he believed that two angels were on his shoulder writing down all his deeds. One wrote down the good stuff, the other one wrote down the bad stuff. Then when he had to face Allah, all the good and bad deeds would be compared and Allah would judge them.

I asked him if he feared that moment, to which he answered that he feared it a lot because he was defenitely not sure that he was good enough. He told me that muslims even pray for Muhammed because even Muhammed may not be good enough. (hence the '(pbuh)' phrase they always put behind his name.)
That's also the reason that fundamentalistic muslims kill themselves to become martyrs. It apparently is the only way to be sure that Allah will accept them. (according to their views).

He then asked me if I did not fear to meet God and be judged. I said that I did not because I believed that Jesus would be there, saying to God: "It's ok father, because I know him."
Then he asked me to ask Jesus to be there for him as well.

I'm just saying that to show that this guy and me weren't that much different. Of course visually our believes were a lot different. But in the core it's the same. We believe that both of us have to face God one day and he will judge our deeds, and both of us know it's not going to be good. The only difference is that I rely in Jesus while he didn't know about that. I don't believe that ignorance is a reason for God to cast him away.

Original sin is that man wanted to be god, judging on good and evil himselves. Undoing original sin is all about accepting that you're not able to be god, and accept his authority. It's not about believing that the right god exists.
That's imho the main question to all people: Do you believe that you yourself are good enough to live good and finally improve yourself that much that you will not cause harm or unhappyness to yourself or others. Or do you believe that you're not good enough yourself to be the moral authority of your own life.

I believe that even an atheist who simply rationally can't believe there's a God, but still agrees that he would need one, will be accepted by God. I had such a co-worker. His father was a minister. He knew all about christianity, and simply stated: "I wish that it was true."
Personally I have a lot of troubles rationally to believe. There are many reasons to not believe, both from scientific reasons, and also from theological reasons. Yet I hope and wish and pray that it's all true anyway because I believe that I need someone like Jesus to die for my sins and be the perfect man, someone who will cover me when I meet God, if there's such a thing as a god.

Long story, I'm sorry

[SlowwHand]

Yeah. Ozzy gained a lot of rational points too.

Who knows what Hell is for sure? No one comes back with photos. For arguments sake, let's say that each person has their own private Hell. No fire, no teeth. Just whatever you hate the most for the rest of time, endless.
Maybe you would room with AAHZ and he's in charge of the music.

[Al B. Sure!]

So the hellfire and the gnashing of teeth comes from where exactly?

[Robert]

That is very much an anti-religion view of things. Your opinions only make sense if one believes that faith and God and the afterlife are all fairy tales we primitive folk tell ourselves to help us sleep at night.

It'd be like if someone came along and said "ah ha, I have invented the cure for cancer! I have something that could save millions of people! But.. cancer is a very personal thing, so I'm not gonna make a big fuss out of it, and just keep it to myself so as not to trouble anyone."

That person has come across a great, miraculous, life saving gift, and to keep it to oneself is selfish, anti-human, and destructive. It needs to be shared with everyone. Doing that is a logistical nightmare and requires a great deal of time, energy, organization, dedication, money, training, resources, etc. Just like any other human endeavor.

Also, if someone invented the cure for cancer, he'd want to make sure when people reproduced that cure they got it right. Can't just throw any ingredient into the pot or it'll stop being the cure for cancer, it'll just be snake oil. So time needs to go into making sure the truth of how to create this cure, or attain this cure, are set down and passed around accurately.

Obviously when the life saving gift isn't a thing you can hold in your hand but an idea and a way of life, it becomes more difficult to transmit it accurately. Just like in school you have silly jingles and pneumatic devices to remember things like the planets or the oceans or any other bits of information, rituals get set down as ways to remember and stay connected with the bits of information and truth we need. When those rituals become more important than the essential truth they point to, then yes that is obviously a big problem, but that doesn't mean rituals don't have their place.

QFT!

[Robert]

IIRC virtually every religion sends non believers to their versions of hell...

Which is another thing, despite the majority of the world's population believing in some form of religion, the majority of the world's population, by definition, has backed the wrong horse and is going straight to some form of fiery inferno or other such nasty place when they die because they can't all be right...

Has it ever occured to the Christians here that actually Islam is the religion you should be believing in and you've been wasting your time believing in the wrong God? I bet Allah has a special place in hell for people who jump ship to other religions Immy...

This shows that you have a medieval view of hell.
Hell is not some tortuate place where demons stick pointy forks in your belly.
It's simply the place where God is not.

If you reject a woman, then you will be without her.
If you reject God, then God will simply let you be without him. I think that's bad. But I also think that it's bad to be without my wife.

It's not some kind of a gameshow where you choose a numbered box, hoping that the price is in it. And if it's not then you're dropped in a water basin, or something.

[SlowwHand]

I'll tell you what. I don't know who this Robert Plomp guy is, but he's no dummy.

[Robert]

I love this statement more than I'd care to discuss on Apolyton.

SP

To be honest, it bothers me a lot that christians do not only disagree with each other that often, but even hate each other that often for that reason. It may be my worst problem with christianity.

At the other hand it also confirms the point of christianity. Man is fallable. Becoming a follower of Jesus Christ doesn't make man suddenly infallable. It's still a fallable follower of Jesus who makes stupid decisions and fights about stupid (and sometimes sane) ideas.

If the church would be unified and one, then there would be no need for Christ, because apparently we then would be able to fix our problems ourselves.

[Robert]

Religion is illogical - the fact that there is such a proliferation of different religions proves that very point!

Talking of thinking things through, JM, think this through: You are a Christian, which means your beliefs exclude all other religions - if you believe in Christianity, you therefore cannot believe in any other religion.

Christians don't choose a religion.
They choose a savior.
A christian denomination or church is just a group of people that follow the same savior. And they have different opinions on different things in life. I do not even agree with my wife on everything, why should I agree with people in my church? That would be sectaric.

Not to mention that christianity is not (supposed to be) about the doctrine. It's about the person of Christ. The doctrine comes second.
People have different backgrounds, tastes, contexts. It makes sense that they're all different.

What arrogance (for want of a better word) made you qualified as a mortal being to choose one particular religion and decide it was any more 'real' than any other religion - why is your religion any better than any other? Because you as a mortal decide it is...?

I do not choose or decide. I simply have faith in Jesus Christ.
A son has faith in father. He believes that his father will help him in danger and in good. This son doesn't choose a family. He has no arrogance. He simply has faith in his father.
I have likeway faith in Christ. I believe that he can (eventually) make me a better man and take my sins away.
I don't see how that relates to arrogance at all.
Is it arrogant to believe that a president candidate will be able to cause a better life?

I think that you guys compare religion to football or something, where a football fan insists that his team is the best team. It has nothing to do with that.

Basically you're just another atheist with the only difference being that you disbelieve one less religion than true atheists!

I'm as much as an atheist who just believes in only one more deity then other atheists, as I am a single guy who has faith in and love for only one more woman.

[Princess Peach]

I would love to see him prove that any of this is wrong. He says he's an objectivist, but saying he doesn't agree with homosexuality doesn't make it fact that homosexuality is bad. It's completely subjective.