Thread: What do you believe in?

james i agree to a point all branches of christians follow the same path and teach the same message and family values. i was just saying what i know from first hand experiance. I have the same respect for a cathlic as i do a luthern or baptist.

If you are going to seperate Christians from Catholics, you would have to do the same with the Catholics themselves. There is the Roman Catholic Church, the Byzantine Catholic Church, the Coptic Catholic Church, etc... even within the Roman Catholic Church there are different orders such as the Dominicans, Franciscans and Benedictans, all with different sets of rules within the same basic religion.

Originally Posted by Bruno

That's definitely an impressive tree. Its roots must go deep indeed, if it can find water.

I'd like to have a set of burl straight razor scales from that tree of life

Originally Posted by Bruno

He surely could. In fact, he could have created everything just now and given us all false memories that make it look as if we've been having this discussion for some time. That argument is one that noone can win or provide meaningful arguments about.

Given that the laws of the universe were undeniably created by God (if we accept his existence), they are the only fingerprint of his work that we can actually inspect. That is why I tend to lend credibility to it. Where we have access to those laws, I think they outweigh words that have been translated and transcribed and edited multiple times. Especially regarding the OT (which imo it is not to be taken as a literal account of things).

I don't believe eve was made from adam's rib and then bit into an apple. I think a lot in the OT is meant metaphorically, not literally. For one thing, when Kain slew abel, he was afraid of what 'the people' would do to him. Not 'his mom and dad'. That implies that there were other people around which were not his family. And biologically, we can't have come from 1 single set of parents. Not without an extreme amount of inbreeding (which means incest in this case) in the first couple of generations.

That doesn't mean that the moral lessons are lessened. It just means that I don't think it happened literally like that. And honestly, I don't think it matter whether you believe it did. We still believe in the same God. We just disagree on what he did or how he did it.

I agree with all you say, Bruno, but for me, it's like debates about capital punishment. I don't even discuss it, because it's the reason for the offense that's important, otherwise it's like combating the symptoms of the common cold without combating the cause. So I accept what's written, don't debate in my own mind what's fact and what's fiction 9lest i dump the lot) and get on with believing the essence.
I think one of the issues people have is they argue the point using physical rules, and the little tiny bits of physical rules that we mere mortals can understand. It's like using physics to argue 'magic if there is such a thing, in a fantasy sort of meaning, they just don't 'match'...

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

As a sidenote, nowhere in the scriptures is an apple mentioned as the fruit from the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil.....it's simply mentioned as fruit.

(It's not very important but it always bothers me when people talk about it as if it were an apple...maybe because I quite like apples...who knows?)

Genesis 3:


Also, I do not believe God planted "false hints".....

My Heavenly Father is not a deciever.....There is a fallen one with that role.

Yeah, you're right about the deceiving thing, probably, i just meant like the school of thought that talks of the universe being created in a 'mature' form. After all, Adam wasn't a baby (or was he?) :-)

And I don't think the type of fruit is important, just the disobedience and the gaining of knowledge of good and evil, i.e. fall from innocence. There's a lot of hymns about 'make me like a child again' and I think at times being innocent like a child would be quite nice...

Great discussion we're having... :-)

Yeah, I'm enjoying this discussion. And I don't think the type of fruit is important. It just bothers me when people proclaim knowledge when they have no real source.

For me, the whole creation thing is all a bit moot. It's just not important enough to get worked up about. The HOW of the creation of the universe is for me just not important.....merely important enough that after this life I'll ask some curious questions and during this life I'll read some interesting theories.

The WHY is just so much more important!

Passionate non-believer here.

I was raised slightly catholic, in that I was taken to church semi-regularly as a child, sent to Sunday school for a while, baptised, confirmed and then grew up enough to admit to myself that I didn't believe a word of it and actually found most of the Christian teachings profoundly distasteful. I don't think my mother was pleased when I told her I wasn't going to church anymore but she didn't fight it. My dad never said anything, and hadn't been to church in years anyway. I count myself incredibly fortunate that I grew up in a place where I didn't have to pretend any longer than that.

Recently I've discovered the likes of Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris (purely by chance) and I definitely regret not having heard of Christopher Hitchens before he died. Would've loved to have seen him speak or debate in person.

I truly dislike religion and faith and have no use for either. I think it's all nonsense, and actually quite terrifying.

edit** I haven't had time to read through this entire thread, if I'm the only one who's been this negative and anyone feels it's not in the spirit of the discussion, then I promise: I'm not trolling.

Originally Posted by Jimbo

Christians are christians, no matter what clothes you dress them up in IMO. The poll seems quite broad in that respect, and I don't think it serves any purpose drawing comparisons between sub-branches of the same bank.

James.

+1.

There are hundreds of different forms of Christianity by now. People tend to focus on the differences, and there are plenty to consider. For the purpose of this discussion, they don't really matter.

Originally Posted by carlmaloschneider

So I accept what's written, don't debate in my own mind what's fact and what's fiction 9lest i dump the lot) and get on with believing the essence.

I come from a difference place, as a formerly (a)gnostic person. As I said, I am an engineer. I believe that the laws of the universe are the work of God. They were created first. Everything I learn has to conform with, or at least not contradict those. If you don't dare to address the discrepancies between your beliefs and science, do you really believe?



Just my 2 ct. Everyone has to decide how they approach things for themselves.
And I don't think any less of people who don't follow my approach.

Originally Posted by carlmaloschneider

I think one of the issues people have is they argue the point using physical rules, and the little tiny bits of physical rules that we mere mortals can understand. It's like using physics to argue 'magic if there is such a thing, in a fantasy sort of meaning, they just don't 'match'...

True. Often it doesn't add up.
However, have you ever read the coldfire trilogy, by Celia Friedmann? I thought that was fleshed out very well. The story also brings a very interesting interaction between the 2 main characters of the story, one a priest and one being evil incarnate.

The trilogy expands on many interesting dilemmas and decisions. It was one of the best (and well thought out) stories I've ever read. If you are into fantasy, it is one that is likely to capture you. Even the 'evil' character turns out to be much more nuanced than appears at first glance.

Originally Posted by azjoe

I got to wondering what "other" would encompass when looking at the poll results, but I couldn't decide how anyone in other could explain w/o exposing their religion. So I googled for a list of the most popular religions... here's what I got, and the bonus is the estimate membership numbers worldwide.


1. Christianity: 2.1 billion
2. Islam: 1.5 billion
3. Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 1.1 billion
4. Hinduism: 900 million
5. Chinese traditional religion: 394 million
6. Buddhism: 376 million
7. primal-indigenous: 300 million
8. African Traditional & Diasporic: 100 million
9. Sikhism: 23 million
10. Juche: 19 million
11. Spiritism: 15 million
12. Judaism: 14 million
13. Baha'i: 7 million
14. Jainism: 4.2 million
15. Shinto: 4 million
16. Cao Dai: 4 million
17. Zoroastrianism: 2.6 million
18. Tenrikyo: 2 million
19. Neo-Paganism: 1 million
20. Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand
21. Rastafarianism: 600 thousand
22. Scientology: 500 thousand

Shouldn't Ásatrú (Norse mythology) be on that list? We should be at least a few million heathens up here in the north.