Scientology

horvendile,

Yes, even scientific research, you would still verify your findings and explanation with previous works, before pointing fingers and saying so and so is wrong. But definitely more involved than just reading past works.

In religion, its not about discovering new things, but making sure its not mistinterpreted, as it goes down the generation.

zidane1strife,

Yes, certainly, this whole creation is through love of God afterall, to share in his glory.

Sometimes, I wish that too, but God Justice is the one that will judge us in the end.

 

argh, why do you people miss the " " at the end and argue my sarcasm?

 

There are very few "qoutes" from God himself in the Bible. His most well known, said to Moses in response to Moses's questioning of who He is, is:

"I am, that I am."

Growing up in a Catholic household, we were told that the passage meant that He is everything: the Sun, Moon, stars, universe, grass, birds...everything. Everything, it seems, except emotions. It always felt like we were told God had two emotions: Love and Scorn. "You have to pay for your sins. You must repent! God is kind, but you will BURN IN HELL!" Um, yeah. Sure.

My mother, who is Prodestant, always said "God is love." Yeah, that's nice...then how do you explain the story of Noah? Or for that matter, Moses and the Ten Commandments? If He is just "love", then why so many conditions?

I believe the passage to mean that He is everything, love and hate included. Humans were supposedly made in His image. If we were made in His image, then wouldn't it stand to reason that he is at least all that we are?

My take on religion is this. I believe in God. I believe in Jesus. I just don't believe that Jesus was the only one He sent down here to spread the word. It doesn't make sense...why only allow a fraction of the population to know about Him? I don't think there is any such thing as a "chosen race"...I think that came about after humans interjected their own biases into the writings on which we based our modern religions. If there is a "chosen race" why have all other races? Just to make them feel bad? It's a retarded thought. I don't think people will burn in hell, b/c I don't believe there IS a hell. And when you break it down, almost every major religion is the same at the core, even religions with multiple deities. The catholics have saints they pray to...where's the difference between praying to the patron saint of agriculture or praying to the goddess of the fields? There is none, an idea that royally pissed off my 4th grade catachism teacher! Had to say 20 "Hail Marys" for that one.

I think that anyone in any religion, no matter how whacky it seems to us, is viewed in the same light by God. They are trying their best to show their faith to Him. But I don't think you have to pick a religion to do this. I have a very strong faith. There is nothing anyone can ever say to me to make me think for one second that there is no God and we happened on Earth by accident. Yet, I chose not to belong to a religion. I don't think I'm going to suffer an incomprehensibly bad post mortem experience just because I choose to believe in God in my own way.

*returns soapbox to the closet*

Sorry Still a little bitter about my childhood, I guess

 

I think God will not judge us in the sense that is normally/popularly implied, but that he aids us in this existence, and provides us with the means to better ourselves and improve our relations with others, although giving us the choice, and the ability to enjoy both success and failure.

Me neither... I mean look at it this way, God has a conciousness beyond comprehension, he is the most advanced being there is... So why would he make a bunch of simple creatures, give them a short amount of time to perform, tempt them, and then when the likeliest outcome occured... torture them for the rest of eternity...

Indeed, I tend to be fond of the jewish tradition of having no image whatsoever to represent the supreme being. I believe it's best that way, one does not limit, or tie one's view of the higher being to the limited primitive shapes we come up with...

 

Egad. There was a tremendously long discussion here concerning my slandering the catholic church because I stated I disliked the importance given to Mary and the saints and that to me it felt like polytheism.

Some devout catholic, whom I can't really remember the name of, was horribly bent out of shape and never could quite accept that I was stating my feelings and not impugning what anybody else believed.

 

I think not. Some flavours of Christianity follow the idea that humans are a fallen race, in my eyes and the eyes of many other muslims that's not the case. This concept is key to both religions and how their built up and this makes many of the concepts that are built on top of them very different.

This is what many don't understand, slight differences in the underlying concepts have HUGE implications that propagate through the layers of concepts that are built upon them.

 

I was speaking in extreme basics. You know, one ruler, prayers to that ruler, the basic concept that said ruler is responsible for the world's creation...humans overwhelming need to have one guy responsible. I understand the subtle and not so subtle differences are extremely important to each religion, but if you step back and look at the basic ideas, they are a lot alike.

 

Islam, Christianity and Judaism have the same origin - this is the view of Muslims.

 

<Continuing discussion from page 2:>

Technically I agree, but since the difference between the faith articles is so vast I maintain that it makes claims of similarity meaningless. IMO, it's like saying that since both guns and flowers are made of atoms, they are indeed very similar.

I disagree, but not in any way I haven't already touched upon.

I had a hunch that might be the case, given your wordings in earlier posts.

 

I partially (mostly) agree, but if it's not about discovering new things, then it's got even less in common with science.
(I could elaborate that further, but I need my sleep! )

 

Consider that the old testament detailed the old covenant with God, and is not the core of the belief system of Christians. The old covenant demanded blood sacrifice for transgressions and God was a vengeful God.

The new testament details the new covenant and is much more mellow and forms the basis of Christianity. No more blood sacrifices (Jesus is supposed to be the stand in for that), and the whole vengeful part was so 'last two millenia'.

 

Still, that's contradictory behaviour... Kinda bipolar if you ask me...

I think it's better to assume those are fables/mythos/legends ment to convey a message/moral/lesson rather than being taken literally...

 

I think you're missing the point. There is no need for the old testament and new testament to be consistant w/regard to the relationship between man and god.

The old testament provided history and background for the tenets of Christianity.

-Sets up man's relationship with God:
--Creation
--Fall From grace
--Original means of redemption (the old covenant)
-details a prophecy of the messiah
--Much boring lineage, with lots of begatting
-shows proof that of the prophecy coming true
--or as much proof as you can accept from the quoted prophets

The new testament is the book of Christianity.
It identifies the messiah
Lots of preaching and moralizing from said Messiah(some of which I find internally inconsistant, though some refer to it as 'mysterious')
Who, creates a new covenant between man and god by taking the place of the 'sacrificial lamb' that previously was used to atone for transgressions.
And finally a bit of new prophecy, also known as the Revelations, about the end of the world and the second coming of the Messiah.

If you can get past the point and accept that:
=You're busted by default
=Jesus is divine
=He died for you, to atone for your booboos
and don't need all the convoluted prophecy and history behind it to prove it to yourself, you can skip over the old testament and not be missing much. Except a lot of begatting. And nobody wants to miss out on any begatting.

In short, Christians are all about the new testament. Anything contradictory between the old and the new testament? Doesn't matter--new testament is the new hotness and wins because if you believed the old testament was the final word--you'd be a Jew.

Though, honestly, to me, the old testament is the most interesting part. Aside from the begatting, its amazing how much of it is true from a historical context, and how much of the histories of the surrounding cultures tie in with it. Its also interesting that the the creation myth is somewhat shared universally, and the myth of the great flood is also a near univeral one. But that's just me being a ancient culture junkie and a closet archaelogist.

 

Yes, I know they're not supposed to match, but still...

"--Fall From grace
--Original means of redemption (the old covenant)"

What fall from grace? The A&E one? So now we inherit the sins of our ancestors(I'm not even freaking responsible for their actions!!!)? What happened to forgiving? Isn't that what it's all about?

I still don't get why It'd be necessary for someone to die in a horrible manner in order to achieve redemption/forgiveness for the rest of us... What have we actually done that would be so wrong, as to require the sacrifice of a God?

I think it's more of a statement, to leave an example to follow, in order to spread the believe in god and love... and alter the course of things to come...

editedii

 

Yes, yes and yes, according to the Old Testament.

That's what the new testament is all about.

Don't blame me. I'm not the supreme being that came up with all the whacky rules.

 

But aren't we being forgiven for the sin comitted in the old testament? Why not just forgive and forget, after all we don't have anything to do with those sins?

 

See signature.

 

What the?(is that sig comment for me? :? )

 

No. It wasn't directed at any one person.

 

Who told you that ?
That quote is the holy name of God. God is God. Sun, Moon, stars, universe and everything else are God creation.

Are you saying "if God is love", than God must love evil too ? You can see what happend in the story of Noah, that was not the case. But God did saved Noah and his family though.

The difference is Saint intercedes for you, so you are still asking the one and only God. Not the case if you pray to goddess of the fields.