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Religion — Page 5

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mrbenja0618 said:

Ok, I'll throw my hat in the ring. As I've said in another thread, I am what you would call a Christian. I currently attend a Baptist church and currently am the active youth minister. I don't really claim any denomination, but I'm here for the time. Don't really care much about denominations anyway. To me it's the division of the church.

Another thought I've had as of late. The word: Christian. I've almost decided to retire it for me as it has been mistreated so much that it's hardly distinguishable to what it actually is supposed to be.

For example, this other thread was hijacked by this specific individuals so-called Christian beliefs... Well, say someone entered the forum with no prior knowledge of what a Christian is.... Well, this individuals hatred becomes the picture of Christ for that person, and that is what gets me.

Lately, I call myself a believer... Follower of the Way if you will. Either the true Christians need a name change, or we need to reclaim it.

Would love to talk to anyone about my beliefs.

Good for you, mrbenja0618.  I admire a person willing to stand for his or her beliefs and share them with the rest.  I assume the person you speak of was the guy who lived by Disneyland.  I appreciate your determination to represent your religion in a Christ-like manner.

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Hey!  Why so presumptious?  You never know!  He could have moved!  Geez!

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darth_ender said:

Faith can be either the easy road or the hard road, depending on one's willingness to understand and accept science.  For me it has become the hard road, but I love to have faith in what I cannot explain scientifically.

 I said this in my LDS thread, but I thought about this a little more and thought it might make an interesting topic.

There are those who believe in religion and therefore dismiss all science that disagrees with their worldview, finding the two incompatible.  This is the easy road for people of faith in my mind.  If it doesn't fit with your interpretation of events (i.e. the Creation), it must be absolutely false.

There are those who take a different sort of easy road, believing in science, and since it does not match up with scriptural accounts exactly, there must be no truth to them at all.  Sure, there are good stories and morals, but little scientific or historical value.

To me, a harder road is to believe in both.  How literal is the Bible?  How correct are our scientific measurements?  Are science and faith able to fit together?  Many Mormons are actually quite capable of both, and there is a surprising spectrum of those who take the most literal views of scriptures as opposed to those who take the most scientific views among Church leadership, past and present.  This can be difficult because obviously some things don't seem to line up.  It can cause a crisis of faith for those unwilling to suspend understanding.  Obviously our science is not perfect, but I don't believe our understanding of God's word is either.  But I do believe that God is real, that this is his universe, and that our understanding of his intentions in both science and faith will ultimately align.

I just had to elaborate my thinking.  Any thoughts?

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darth_ender said:


But I do believe that God is real, that this is his universe, and that our understanding of his intentions in both science and faith will ultimately align.

Which sort of brings me back to a question I asked earlier with no answer.

Why is God a man?  Or rather, why do we refer to him as "him?"  In my mind, if God exists, "he" is neither he nor she, but is no gender.  It would make more sense to refer to God as "it."  Why would an omnipotent, omnipresent creator of the universe have a gender?

Note that I don't intend to offend.  I am only using "it" to describe a God who is neither he nor she, not as an insult.

Along similar lines, do you believe in the possibility of other intelligent life in the universe?  Non-human life?  If we were to discover a race of alien beings sharing the universe with us, wouldn't that throw the whole "God made us in his image" theory for a loop?

And stepping back a bit, if God really did make man in his image, and then created woman from man (isn't that how it goes, Adam's rib or something?), is that the justification for giving women second class status in many religions?

-Ramblings brought to you from the resident ot.com Poor Black Mormon Canadian Jewish Swimsuit Model Atheist.

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I deliberately avoided answering this question in this thread because my views don't match most Christians' views.

Mormons see God not as omnipresent in the literal sense.  We believe he is a physical being with a body, and despite being everywhere in power and influence (and his ablity to be wherever he wants at any moment), he is physically only in one spot at a time.  That said, he is also a male to us.  Get out the torches, lynch the Mormon!

Most I believe refer to him as "him" out of convenience, because you can't truly assign a sex to a sexless being.  Correct me if I'm wrong, someone.

As for life on other planets, it's not something I'm opposed to at all.  Wouldn't throw off my beliefs, though it would be a case of not full understanding.  Is mankind special to be made in God's image?  Does this extend in a less literal sense to other intelligent beings (since Mormons consider "in his image" to be quite literal, but this is not the case for other Christians).  Perhaps God created other life that looks like us.  I don't know, but you might find the Ender's Game series fascinating.  Orson Scott Card is a Mormon, and his Ender character is the child of a Mormon and a Catholic.  There are aliens, and some attention is given to religion's interpretation of different life, especially in Speaker for the Dead, I believe.

We believe God created woman in his image as well.  "So God created man in his image.  In the image of God created he him.  Male and female created he them."  Woman's role to us does not make her inferior.  It is simply a matter of order.  Any married man in my church will tell you that a woman is in no way the lesser part of a marriage.  Her role is simply different than men's in our estimation.  Many Mormons (and conservatives, which probably means many religious people) are big supporters of prominent female politicians, such as Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman.  You have to admit that does not sound too second class to me.

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I have read and enjoyed the Ender's Game series.  Also the Bean books, although they get less enjoyable and more silly as they go on, IIRC.

If alien life, more intelligent than us, were to be discovered, and they looked like a spaghetti monster (just for instance ;-))....would we still try to say that God created us in his image?  Why wouldn't he have created the spaghetti in his image?  Or neither?  Why would he play favorites with one of us?

Remember that this is a religion thread, not a Mormon thread, so the treatment of women as second class was a reference to many issues...required covering of the head for religious purposes, not allowing women to ascend as high in rank as men in the religious power structure, that sort of thing.

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You are right, this is the religion thread.  I guess I felt I could speak for no one but the Mormons.

As for spaghetti monsters, I think they'd be created in the image of the angels.  Then we'd know why they call it angel hair.

WAKA WAKA!

 

In reality, I don't know how to address such a hypothetical situation without actually encountering it.  It's a fair question, but who knows how God created other life?  Hopefully someone else has a thought on this topic.

Glad you enjoyed Ender's Game.

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I'm reading Speaker of the Dead currently. Great book so far.

 

“Grow up. These are my Disney's movies, not yours.”

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I'm glad you like it.  I haven't read it literally since 2000 or 2001.  I'll have to reread it sometime.

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darth_ender said:

I haven't read it literally since 2000 or 2001.

How else would you read it? :p

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Via osmosis.  That's how I read my school texts. :p

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Side question while we're on Ender - is it worth it to go through all the books in the saga? Should I stop after Xenocide and Children of the Mind?

 

“Grow up. These are my Disney's movies, not yours.”

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My comments aren't directly relevant to Mormonism, so replying here:

TV's Frink said:

Yes, but the ceremony they get in the afterlife is unnecessary for anyone but the living.  The dead can have a ceremony given to them by the dead, or by Jesus, or whomever.

In fact, you could argue that a baptism is entirely unnecessary for the living as well.  If God can indeed look into my heart and know my innermost thoughts, would he not know that I had accepted Christ as my savior?  Why is there this need to declare it in public?

Of course, being non-religious myself, I think the way I live my life and treat others is much more important.  If there is a God, and this God is truly above mortal emotions like pride and jealousy, he/she would not even care if I didn't believe in him/her.  He/she would only care about how I lived my life.

Which leads to my central issue with most religions: that I am somehow a bad person (or at least severely misguided) because I don't believe as they do.

My point (which got lost in my rambling, perhaps) is that in my view, baptizing the dead is done for the benefit of the living, not the dead.

I suppose there's an argument that God requests such rituals as a means of solidifying people's commitment to their faith. Humans are built in such a way that rituals can help.

There are professions that require a formal swearing-in ceremony, like the legal profession. It doesn't matter that the candidates have already been declared competent, if they are not sworn in, they cannot be lawyers. It is quite possible that God recognizes the psychological benefit of ritual.

I attended my first funeral of a family member a few months ago. I found the (Catholic) wake thoroughly unsatisfying as far as rituals go. The only analogy I could come up is that it was like waiting at the DMV with a dead relative behind the counter.

I was offended when the priest went up and asked God to forgive my grandmother and save her soul. I wanted to slap the nitwit because if anyone was going to be saved it's she and it seemed awfully late to be asking. I reasoned with myself that we are all "sinners" needing forgiveness, but I still wanted to slap him.

Ultimately it all felt too much about the living when they're the one's sitting in chairs while my poor grandmother had no such luxury. Maybe I'm just not good at mourning.

Your agnostic views are very much like those of my significant other. She also especially takes issue with the idea that she is a bad person for not believing as others do. If a Christian is sincere, it is understandable that they would be upset when others' do not also seek salvation. If it's only about judging you for not yielding to peer pressure, their opinion is worthless.

One could argue that just because God wouldn't feel petty emotions of jealousy or pride doesn't mean he wouldn't care when people shut their eyes to the truth. And that does seem to be a primary argument in Christianity - that if you've been exposed to the teachings of Christ and do not accept, you therefore reject God. Christians feel that they're pointing right to the path of salvation and a non-believer is like 'thanks...but I'm gonna go this way.'

There is an issue with defining what makes someone a good person or is living a good life. To say that one is living good enough for God assumes that one knows what God deems good - not only society and culture.

Ultimately, I agree it's difficult to fathom God excluding truly decent and moral people from heaven. But if that simple axiom were the Word of God, I don't think it would mean very much for the reasons given. Living well in order to achieve salvation could mean whatever people felt was good. There would be no backstop or mechanism for God to require anything more concrete. And again, I think this goes to the value of ritual.

In Judaism, one needn't believe in God. It is very much about living a good life. But even then, there are many rituals backed by an ethnic and cultural identity that helps to define what constitutes living well.

Humans have so many psychological, emotional, and cultural hurdles, that religion can serve to offer a concrete means of overcoming those hurdles. Many people turn to God only when things get very difficult.

I have wondered whether someone with no major hardships in their life who lives well is just as worthy to enter heaven as someone with many hardships who sins constantly but honestly seek forgiveness from God.

There are people who live very bad lives. People who commit terrible crimes. And maybe it's due to psychological issues and traumatic experiences. Maybe God would see the goodness in their soul and save them, whether or not they even seek his forgiveness. Maybe a person who lives a good life just got a lot of lucky breaks but would have been rotten to the core if things had been a little different. So there is some difficulty of going down the path of simply living well. For some people, that position might simply be a way of dodging the pesky question of whether there is in fact a deity.

But again, I ultimately agree that if  a person is truly moral and lives as God desires, they should be saved even if they do not dot i's and cross t's - assuming there is a deity of course.

The blue elephant in the room.

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Mrebo, you have an eloquence about which that I envy.  Your posts are always thorough and unapologetic, and I appreciate it.  I echo what you have said when I say that these rituals have no real significance except in that they bring us closer to God.  They are the means he has chosen for us to return to him, though as an omnipotent being, he certainly needs no ritual from us to give us salvation.  Instead, it is a means of communicating, and a way for us to demonstrate our willingness to obey.  Thanks for the good comment.

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darth_ender said:

Mrebo, you have an eloquence about which that I envy.  Your posts are always thorough and unapologetic, and I appreciate it.  I echo what you have said when I say that these rituals have no real significance except in that they bring us closer to God.  They are the means he has chosen for us to return to him, though as an omnipotent being, he certainly needs no ritual from us to give us salvation.  Instead, it is a means of communicating, and a way for us to demonstrate our willingness to obey.  Thanks for the good comment.

Thank you for all the nice words.

The blue elephant in the room.

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What do people think of the alleged similarities among Jesus, Horus (Egyptian god), Buddha, Krishna, and Mithra (Zoroastrian)?

Some believe the stories of these deities and religious figures to have common roots.

http://www.sanfords.net/Framed_pages/origins_of_christianity.shtml

http://seandharmon.webs.com/jesusmithrahorus.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U1Grl4HSRU

Let me assure you this isn't meant to insult Christians. The similarities are interesting, but I'm not trying to debunk anyone's beliefs. Just curious to know if anyone (Christian or not) has learned or read about these comparisons. I'm not sure if all the claims are true and don't present these as facts.

“Grow up. These are my Disney's movies, not yours.”

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I only looked at the first link,

http://www.sanfords.net/Framed_pages/origins_of_christianity.shtml

Just skimming it I can tell that it is mostly bullshit. Just minimal research into the backgrounds of these other characters will show you that many of the "facts" about each of them are entirely made up. Horus was never born of a virgin, in fact, his origin myth is pretty explicit with his father being torn apart and his mother reconstructing him, but discovering the genitals to be missing, forcing her to build a new one for him which she puts into use right away resulting in the birth of Horus.

Stuff like the claim he was born in a cave/manger on December 25 (what's with the "/"? Those things are so far apart it is about like saying someone was hit by a bicycle/schoolbus) was completely pulled out of someone's anal cavity. As was "Anup the Baptizer", which actually gave me a good chuckle. Go ahead, google search "Anup the Baptizer". You'll find plenty of hits, but every instance you will find of him is sourced from the same place georgec link is using for a source (a 19th century poet, it would seem), some of them debunking the made up claim, others blindly perpetuating it. 

Dig deep enough and you'll find there is no "Anup the Baptizer" in Egyptian mythology.

While there are some striking similarities between the teachings of Jesus and Buddha, you'll find many of the claims of their connection in that link are also completely bunk.

All three bullets on Prometheus were accurate enough, but if you are familiar with the story of Prometheus and the story of Jesus, then it is a pretty obvious stretch to make the claim that the Jesus narrative is in anyway a copy of the story of Prometheus.

When you take out all the made up stuff, you're left with little more than a number of minor coincidences. Many of them only coincidences if your word them right (like with Prometheus).

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It's a bit like asking why do almost all road vehicles have similar features.

A religion has to function to survive and most religions function in the same way so it's natural that some of the component parts will be similar.

Sometimes this comes about because one religion adopts and adapts the customs of another, sometimes it's parallel evolution or design.

It's cold in winter, it's coldest at the midway point so it makes sense to have a feast then to build up morale, to use up semi-perishable stored food and to build up the body for the next half of the season.

Having that feast justified by a religious rite insures the maximum benefit for the community.

If a new religion moves into an area like Northern Europe where Yule already existed change Odin into Father Christmas and people will call it Jesus' birthday.

If you have a new religion of Consumerism you can spend lots of cash buying cards of Odin and Jesus and giving them to people.

It serves the same function, it makes sure employees of the card companies make enough money to keep the heating on over the winter.

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georgec said:

What do people think of the alleged similarities among Jesus, Horus (Egyptian god), Buddha, Krishna, and Mithra (Zoroastrian)?

Some believe the stories of these deities and religious figures to have common roots.

http://www.sanfords.net/Framed_pages/origins_of_christianity.shtml

http://seandharmon.webs.com/jesusmithrahorus.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U1Grl4HSRU

 

 C3P? already said it, but those are absolute tear inducing BS. I'm curious where, since SIN is not a Hindu concept, the authour found Krishna called the Sin Bearer?

While there are certain similarities that might be worth noting, since Buddhism and Christianity (for example) are so totally different, I'm not sure what these people are trying to do with their lists other than create confusion and delay.

This vageuly reminds me of the "Da Vinci Code." They make a claim that the Mayans (IIRC) had a divine image of a mother and child, and this was clearly the inspiration for Jesus and the Virgin Mary... not explaining how to unconnected cultures influenced eachother, or why a mother holding a baby isn't just a universal image.

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TheBoost said:

This vageuly reminds me of the "Da Vinci Code." They make a claim that the Mayans (IIRC) had a divine image of a mother and child, and this was clearly the inspiration for Jesus and the Virgin Mary... not explaining how to unconnected cultures influenced eachother, or why a mother holding a baby isn't just a universal image.

 You said it ! ... This is the oldest image our culture preserved. It existed in ancient Egypt already (Isis), and who knows from where it came before.

This is the Universal Mother, and the Child is the Christ who's... ALL of US.

He' not especially Jesus who'll rather be considered as an individual conceptualy speaking in such representation, and as an archetype for what he's accomplished (we only begin to understand 2000 years after).

...

My religion: I'm a DJED I.

 

 

 

May you like my bag !

 

 

 

 

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Uh...

Every 27th customer will get a ball-peen hammer, free!