Society Religious Discussion and Q&A Thread

[amar_kun]

Re: Christianity Q&A Thread

wow.. you did pull out many good points ToadSage!

 

[TechnoMagus]

Re: Christianity Q&A Thread

thanks toad sage...you said what was going on in my mind and i couldn't articulate it that much.....

looks like i'm going to have to add "humble, knowledgeable and articulate atheist" to my earlier list....

in fact i'm even more surprised at some good natured atheists having more knowledge in religion than some regular religious people....shows that they have gone through having serious thought about their beliefs...

----------------------------
i would like to add that the earliest Christians were also Jews who continued on their Jewish practices...

Jewish continuity See also: anti-Judaism and Jewish Christian Christianity retained a great many practices from its ancestral religion. Christianity considered the Jewish scriptures to be authoritative and sacred, employing mostly the Septuagint edition and translation as the Old Testament, and added other texts as the New Testament canon developed. Christians professed Jesus to be the One God, the God of Israel, and considered Jesus to be the expected Messiah (Christ). Christianity also continued other Judaic practices: liturgical worship, including the use of incense, an altar, a set of scriptural readings adapted from synagogue practice, use of sacred music in hymns and prayer, and a religious calendar, as well as other distinctive features such as an exclusively male priesthood, and ascetic practices (fasting etc.).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Christianity#Jewish_continuity

they were somewhat "rejected" and "persecuted" by the official Jewish authority establishment at the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_early_Christians_by_the_Jews
which would eventually lead to the unevitable schism between Jews and Christians because of differing beliefs in the Messiah and treatment/admittance of Gentiles....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schisms_among_the_Jews#Break-offs:_Samaritans_and_Christians


there are also contemporary Jewish Christians who have various degrees of retention of Jewish practices while also believing Christ to be the Messiah....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Christian

 

[xi0]

Re: Christianity Q&A Thread

The reality is that Christianity, Judaisim, Islam, and even the Bahá'í Faith are all Abrahamic religions. Despite the common origins, members from all faiths insist on killing one another and justifying it through their faith. See the hypocrisy?

For one sect to say their beliefs are superior to others doesn't even make the tiniest of sense in my opinion.

While I don't agree with everything Richard Dawkins says, this quote says it all.

We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.

 

[conan]

Re: Christianity Q&A Thread

The reality is that Christianity, Judaisim, Islam, and even the Bahá'í Faith are all Abrahamic religions. Despite the common origins, members from all faiths insist on killing one another and justifying it through their faith. See the hypocrisy?

For one sect to say their beliefs are superior to others doesn't even make the tiniest of sense in my opinion.

While I don't agree with everything Richard Dawkins says, this quote says it all.

you reminded me of a saying " guns dont kill people. people kill people" in the same manner
I think " holy scriptures dont kill people, people kill people", debatable ofcourse but moving on.

I have a simple question, whats the meaning of the word nazareth, it has a very similarly pronounced word in arabic, I was just wondering if they were the same.

 

[TechnoMagus]

Re: Christianity Q&A Thread

re: nazareth

welll since....

Nazareth (IPA: [ˈnæzərəθ]) (Arabic الناصرة an-Nāṣira lit. the victorious one; Hebrew נָצְרַת, Standard Hebrew Náẓərat, Tiberian Hebrew Nāṣəraṯ) is an ancient town in Israel. In the New Testament, it is described as the childhood home of Jesus, and is a center of Christian pilgrimage, with many shrines commemorating biblical associations. Today, Nazareth is the capital of the North District of Israel, as well as the largest Arab Israeli city in Israel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazareth

 

[xi0]

Re: Christianity Q&A Thread

you reminded me of a saying " guns dont kill people. people kill people" in the same manner
I think " holy scriptures dont kill people, people kill people", debatable ofcourse but moving on.

I wasn't implying that the teachings are bad, I was just saying how it's insane how similiar they really are, yet they insist on murdering each other.

 

[kiddo7]

Re: Christianity Q&A Thread

I wasn't implying that the teachings are bad, I was just saying how it's insane how similiar they really are, yet they insist on murdering each other.

If you visit the Islam Q&A thread you will find links to some youtube videos of this guy explaining Islam. They are very informative and well presented (I my opinion) and the answer to your ponderings are addressed in some of them.
I would answer that;
People are people and you will always find those that are willing to use any effective excuse to justify their hatred of others, Religion just happens to be a very convenient one, as there are well documented differences alongside the many similarities. This is probably part of the reason why "extremists" most often use religion as a cover; Because the very basics are generally the same in all variations.

I don't know if I am making a lot of sense today...

 

[Impel Down]

Re: Christianity Q&A Thread

All religious teaching are essentially the same, the difference between religions is just who's doing the teaching.

 

[xi0]

Re: Christianity Q&A Thread

If you visit the Islam Q&A thread you will find links to some youtube videos of this guy explaining Islam. They are very informative and well presented (I my opinion) and the answer to your ponderings are addressed in some of them.
I would answer that;
People are people and you will always find those that are willing to use any effective excuse to justify their hatred of others, Religion just happens to be a very convenient one, as there are well documented differences alongside the many similarities. This is probably part of the reason why "extremists" most often use religion as a cover; Because the very basics are generally the same in all variations.

I don't know if I am making a lot of sense today...

Even without people committing violent acts...to say that one's religion is the correct one is preposterous in my view.

 

[conan]

Re: Christianity Q&A Thread

thanks for the answer technomagus, well it surprised me a bit it wasnt the word I thought it was but I didnt expect it to be what you said, I know nazareth the city, my grandparents are originally from there, but we live elswhere now.

Even without people committing violent acts...to say that one's religion is the correct one is preposterous in my view.

I have to disagree with you here, there are sometimes major differences between us, similarity doesnt make the things the same, but it means the possibility of acceptance of the two to each other, you can believe your right and accept that the other believes his right, whats wrong with that.

 

[xi0]

Re: Christianity Q&A Thread

I'm not debating whether the majority of Muslims/Christians/Jews accept he one another or not. That's obviously true. I'm simply stating that thinking that one's faith is superior/correct over another's is stupid.

 

[conan]

Re: Christianity Q&A Thread

I'm not debating whether the majority of Muslims/Christians/Jews accept he one another or not. That's obviously true. I'm simply stating that thinking that one's faith is superior/correct over another's is stupid.

well there is a different between superior or correct, on superiority, were all humans arent we, and function as good as our brains and bodies let us, but on the correct sector, well what about the basic differences about the religions, I am a muslim, I dont belive the christianity version of what happened to jesus, but I accept that they believe so and are entitled to believe so, I beleive I am correct, they believe they are correct, we accept our differences, is there anything wrong with saying that.

 

[Impel Down]

Re: Christianity Q&A Thread

In my opinion, all the religions still believe in God and teach the same peaceful message, so I feel that they're each equal. Just because I have a different idea of exactly what happened with the theological time-line doesn't make me any better which, unfortunately, I think a lot of Christians do.

 

[xi0]

Re: Christianity Q&A Thread

well there is a different between superior or correct, on superiority, were all humans arent we, and function as good as our brains and bodies let us, but on the correct sector, well what about the basic differences about the religions, I am a muslim, I dont belive the christianity version of what happened to jesus, but I accept that they believe so and are entitled to believe so, I beleive I am correct, they believe they are correct, we accept our differences, is there anything wrong with saying that.

No. There is nothing wrong with that at all. However this is you. A substantial amount of religious people don't have the tolerance you seem to have for others' beliefs.

 

[Impel Down]

Re: Christianity Q&A Thread

Yeah, I really have to agree to that. I see religious intolerance as a serious problem. I mean, it's obviously prevalent and my own church.

 

[Absolutio]

Re: Christianity Q&A Thread

you reminded me of a saying " guns dont kill people. people kill people" in the same manner
I think " holy scriptures dont kill people, people kill people", debatable ofcourse but moving on.

I have a simple question, whats the meaning of the word nazareth, it has a very similarly pronounced word in arabic, I was just wondering if they were the same.

Before I ruin this post, I'd like to make it clear that I'm such an atheist, I don't even believe that people who believe in God exist... Nonetheless, my knowledge of things makes it impossible for me to ignore the factual errors in this post. I shall try to address them as they were ordered.

1) Your first point contains no paradox whatsoever, or rather, it's only paradoxical aspect is that you would speak with such authority upon a topic which you clearly know so little about. Essentially, in order to understand Christian doctrine, of all stripes with the exception of Gothic Aryan Christianity (which, so far as I know, hasn't been practiced since the 4th century AD), Christians believe that God and Jesus are the same. I don't want to belabor the point here, because there are volumes of literature-in fact, an entire 2000 thousand year old religion-to attest to this fact. I want you to think about this, and if you're at all as logical as you claim to be, you will immediately see all your points about delivery boys and polytheism vanish from the perspective of a Christian mind. Moreover, as I stated above, not knowing this crucial piece of Christian doctrine truly does demonstrate your lack of knowledge in regard to Christian faith-it's like not understanding the role that Moses plays in Jewish faith...

2) Part A: canonization was not limited to Jews. Indeed, Saint Oswald is an example of this, as well as literally thousands of other Saints besides who the figures I believe you are thinking of, the apostles. For that matter, the process of canonization continues to this very day. As we speak there is a movement afoot to canonize Pope John Paul who recently died. Pope John Paul was a pole, not a Jew, so here is yet another counter example to that first outrageous claim.
Part B: While I don't know enough about the Jewish conception of the messiah to address your second point entirely (notice the humility here) I can tell you this: Christians believe Jesus ressurected from the dead and performed miracles. It is primarily for this reason that Christians believe Christ is the messiah, as rising from the dead is a pretty miraculous thing. Of course there is a lot of history to consider here, such as the influence of the ancient Roman empire, the politics behind conquering the scraps of Rome after its fall, the parallels between Christ and other messianic cults of the day, but overall, from a spiritual point of view, the ressurection is really it. Why? Because God gave his only begotten son to suffer for the sins of the world and thereby rid us of original sin(provided of course you are baptized.) If you don't want to accept that, that's fine, but trying to examine why one group of fools thinks a falling church implies the presence of a messiah whilst another is willing to settle merely on the resurrection of a single individual is sort of like trying to argue why Square-circles are more plentiful than Angles on the head of a pin. One might also just say the more obvious thing, which is one needs a lot of faith to believe in obviously impossible things-Christian, Jewish, and otherwise-and therefore find it suspect to question another's impossible beliefs if they themselves believe in similar impossible things.

3) I imagine Christians will do the same thing upon discovering that Jesus is buried under a coffee shop in Israel as the Jews will do once they figure out Moses sat on a mountain creating all that Jewish law by himself. You want to talk about absurd, before there was even a Jesus there was an entire religion based upon what appears to be a very, very poorly performed sleight of hand. That an entire tribe of caananites wouldn't say to themselves, "hang on, Moses was sitting up there for a while, maybe he just carved those tablets himself" is as ridiculous as anything a Christian believe. And prior to that in history, you can really only resort to the time of Abraham when humans were supposed to live for 900 or so years, so using wildly unverifable evidence isn't going to help you much either if your overall goal is to demonstrate the scientific impossibility of a religion. You refer to Christians as post-Jews, which is itself fairly offensive considering their beliefs, but if that is so, then PJ's as you say are simply the fruit of a poison tree. In any case, if you haven't noticed, none of the Abrahamic religions (judaism, christianity, and islam) are very logically sound; do you really think the putative evidence of a single researcher and the director of Terminator 2 is going perturb such people, that is, people who already accept as fact impossible things? There are people alive right now who think dinosaur bones are a conspiracy, or the remnants of devils! I'll die laughing if anything James Cameron finds truly puts to rest the whole of Christian faith.

I asked those questions knowingly that I don't know much about christianity and the asken subjects as well. That's why I asked about them, if I did know, those question wouldn't have rose, wouldn't day? There was no need to be so aggressive..

4) Your cool "paradoxical" question isn't really very paradoxical if you properly define God. Lord knows I've tried breaking down Christian's arguments this way myself, and their counter is somewhat satisfying, unfortunately for me. God is, by definition, capable of any task, therefore to conceive of a task which he cannot complete simply is to say that task does not exist. Sof, if you recall the definition of a paradox, you'll discover that your question isn't paradoxical at all, because one of its premises is false. A statement is only paradoxical if, at the very least, all of its premises are true. So in other words, your question presupposes the definition that God is not capable of all things, as in your scenario, you have conceived of a God whom is incapable of performing a particular task. But that is not a God at all, for I can imagine a God still greater! Furthermore, just on a personal note, has it occured to you that since Christians believe in essentially the same God as the Jews and the Muslims, that any fact which undermines the Christian God's existence also undermines the other two? Kind of renders your entire post about the beliefs of the Jews being anymore credible than those of the Christians a bit moot if you think about it.

I said it's not a christian-only question, and I really didn't mean to use this question to doubt God's existence, but as a mere joke.

5) I hope if you do start a Jewish thread, you're as honest in dealing with Judaism as you think are being with Christianity, since all religions are ridiculous from a scientific perspective. I mean, if you're going to quote the director of T2 and his research team to "expose" Christianity as a fraud, maybe you would like to say something about how insanely impossible it would be, from a mathematical point of view alone, for something like Noah's arc to exist. I mean, maybe it was a miracle of God's, but if you're willing to accept that, then how is it any less possible that Jesus was also a miracle of God? I mean, there is no reliable logical source with which to counter that claim, just other beliefs, as you have already done in your original post. But then one could just say that pink unicorns cloaked in silver really run the universe and your God is just THEIR messiah, they are that powerful! You see, you really must respect other people's beliefs, because in the end, if you're a believer yourself, you should understand how vulnerable all believers can be to ridicule. We know the sun isn't pulled around the sky in a chariot anymore, so it's becoming increasing more difficult to condescend to one religion from another just because you think your religion is the right one.

I hope that I'll meet your expectations because you are right about what you're saying. More or less.. (Althought what you said about moses and stuffs wasnt too accurate either..)

---

And as for the Jewish Q&A thread, Go for it! I might have a few questions to ask eventually. You Jews have a really cool religion, and both Christianity and Islam have their roots in Judaism. It should be only natural to have a Jewish Q&A as well.

Thanks a lot for the support. I think I will open this thread tomorrow, although I'm not religious, I'll try my best and hopefully some guys here in the MH community could help me.

Thank you all alot for giving me all those detailed answers. It really helped me, since I have no christian friend that I can ask. Sorry if those questions were a bit unknowledged, but that's why this thread exists, isnt it? to make the unkowledged knowledged.

Again, Many thanks!

 

[conan]

Re: Christianity Q&A Thread

No. There is nothing wrong with that at all. However this is you. A substantial amount of religious people don't have the tolerance you seem to have for others' beliefs.

ah well, we dont seem to have much of a disagreement after all.

 

[Toad Sage]

Re: Christianity Q&A Thread

Given the condescending nature of your first "joking post" there was every need to be aggressive; you aren't going to convince me that I should be mild in order to spare you any embarassement, especially if you plan to go about ridiculing other people's beliefs only to rescind your remarks once you've been undermined. Also, what did I say that was so inaccurate about Moses? Are you trying to suggest Moses didn't receive Jewish law from God or that he's not an important figure in Judaism?

 

[nabil]

Re: Christianity Q&A Thread

Given the condescending nature of your first "joking post" there was every need to be aggressive; you aren't going to convince me that I should be mild in order to spare you any embarassement, especially if you plan to go about ridiculing other people's beliefs only to rescind your remarks once you've been undermined. Also, what did I say that was so inaccurate about Moses? Are you trying to suggest Moses didn't receive Jewish law from God or that he's not an important figure in Judaism?

I've been reading the post.Im a muslim.1st n for most i dont agree that a person from Arabamic-religion(in Islam its all the same=all muslims) should give a question like that even asking for an answer.Its better for an agnostic or atheist to give a question like that.We dont go make fun of other religions but we ask questions that can lead to truth.Of course we r differ in our religions.Yet we dont ask them to go to hell just bcoz ur not from my religion or what..thats like hitler dont u think.. We accept your differences but of course we dont agree upon that...

 

[Warrd]

Re: Islam Q&A Thread

hi and asalammualaikum toall

amar whats the different between sunah and syia?
they both are muslim right? but why they keep on fighting each other?