Religion vs. Religion

[Southtown]

Easy answer, the non murderer is the better person, not a good person perhaps, just a better person.

Yeah, for now...

[Mike C]

While most of the wheel spinning in this still very young forum to date has taken the spin of "Science vs. Religion", a clear spin off from this that has shown up several times is the issue of Religions natural conflict with one another based on differences in beliefs both large (e.g. monotheism vs. polytheism) or small (e.g. interpretations of requirements for salvation within Christian sects).

 

My question for this thread is two fold (which may mean splitting rather quickly, although they are intertwined):

 

1) How is the existence of varying beliefs reconciled theologically?

2) What are the various benefits and problems associated with resolving these conflicts?

 

Discuss.

 

Cheers,

Buffy

 

The 'one god concept' that the bible teaches is the problem.

Various religions are vying as to who is the 'one god'.

Result? Wars!

 

Mike C

[Pyrotex]

Buffy!

Yes, I am an atheist.

But I am also a Unitarian!! :hihi:

And this is what WE have to say about all you "TRUE Religions" out there:

 

We are Unitarian Jihad. We are everywhere....

 

Beware! Unless you people shut up and begin acting like grown-ups with brains enough to understand the difference between political belief and personal faith, the Unitarian Jihad will begin a series of terrorist-like actions. We will take over television studios, kidnap so-called commentators and broadcast calm, well-reasoned discussions of the issues of the day...

 

We are Unitarian Jihad, and our motto is: "Sincerity is not enough." We have heard from enough sincere people to last a lifetime already. Just because you believe it's true doesn't make it true. Just because your motives are pure doesn't mean you are not doing harm.... The world is not out to get you, except in the sense that the world is out to get everyone.

[Southtown]

Buffy!

Yes, I am an atheist.

But I am also a Unitarian!! ;)

And this is what WE have to say about all you "TRUE Religions" out there:

 

We are Unitarian Jihad. We are everywhere....

 

Beware! Unless you people shut up and begin acting like grown-ups with brains enough to understand the difference between political belief and personal faith, the Unitarian Jihad will begin a series of terrorist-like actions. We will take over television studios, kidnap so-called commentators and broadcast calm, well-reasoned discussions of the issues of the day...

 

We are Unitarian Jihad, and our motto is: "Sincerity is not enough." We have heard from enough sincere people to last a lifetime already. Just because you believe it's true doesn't make it true. Just because your motives are pure doesn't mean you are not doing harm.... The world is not out to get you, except in the sense that the world is out to get everyone.

Quite true, quite true. Amon, mon.

[rising crescent]

To be honest, if I truly allowed myself to be sincere and uncensored in my approach to you, I would come across as very rude and would likely hurt your feelings.

Not at all.

 

I"ve seen worse.

 

it just my some intuitive faithfully thoughts are hardly understand by westerns.

 

because they want to understnd the spiritual thing but hey use "wrog" minds called Rational minds who have conflicting faith with the minds who have faith ito spiritual thing (hidden life forms witnessed, opened by the poeer spiritual develped inside self)

 

You to be happy, and to remember that my opinion truly means nothing compared to your own.

i dont see in that way. I use others opinion to test my owns and for getting new knowledge about truth.

 

I see you as part of the problem with our society.

because your society are going to wrong directions. the path to own destructions.

 

With that said, I want...

You to know that I truly care about humanity.

With that said, I want...

You to know that you are a human being and have my respect, and I truly want what's best for you.

you have good hands with words :doh:

 

Religion gets in the way, but manages somehow to maintain a cushion of safety because it's truly not religion which is the problem, but the people who ascribe to one or the other.

but religion is everything about human. neglecting religion meas electing their own self

 

Crescent: This thread is about conflicts between religions, not about promoting your religion, although your post above is an excellent example of the way that professions of the "truth" of a particular faith is offensive to those of other faiths. Does it cause you no feelings of guilt when you say that Jews or Christians are practicing false faiths?

guilt?who have guilt?yes,i have guilt if jews/christian is the righteous one, but its different stories if what i have briging here is righteousess one. but my words is still rough. i am fixing that, not in forced language, but pull and push method based on growing awareness with others :)

[Moontanman]

Religion vs Religion, what a wonderful concept, if only it was that simple. We could just let the various "Gods, juju men, shamans, clerics, saviors, witch doctors, priests, yahweh, allah, or what ever the chump of the moment believes in go at each other or better yet put everyone who is totally sure their god is real and everyone else's is BS in a sealed room and see which god saves them from asphyxiation. Who ever lives we could just shoot and stop all this bull **** right now and go on with being human.

Somehow I am reminded of Mad magazines Spy vs Spy

[TheBigDog]

That gives me another idea. How about a t-shirt inscribed on the back with "The line to hell starts here"

[Moontanman]

That gives me another idea. How about a t-shirt inscribed on the back with "The line to hell starts here"

 

Too late, I already have that tatooed on my :) :naughty:: :naughty: ::):

;)

[Buffy]

Religion vs Religion, what a wonderful concept, if only it was that simple. We could just let the various "Gods, juju men, shamans, clerics, saviors, witch doctors, priests, yahweh, allah, or what ever the chump of the moment believes in go at each other or better yet put everyone who is totally sure their god is real and everyone else's is BS in a sealed room and see which god saves them from asphyxiation. Who ever lives we could just shoot and stop all this bull **** right now and go on with being human.

Somehow I am reminded of Mad magazines Spy vs Spy

Unfortunately you're missing the point here, which amazingly enough, should be *quite* interesting to you!

 

The real interesting foundation for this thread is the amazing dichotomy between the fact that such hostility exists between various religious beliefs, but it is *only* expressed in the abstract, "us versus everyone else." As soon as its pointed out that a specific religious belief is offensive to other religious beliefs, all of a sudden there is a upswelling of ecumenicism and a diversion of the argument toward "unbelievers."

 

Its the 500-pound gorilla sitting in the back pew of the church. :hyper:

 

Now what's really *scary* is you folks all *assuming* that if you locked these people in a room that they'd all kill each other off, when in fact what happens is that they all of a sudden "redefine" the enemy as....you Godless Humanists!

 

You ignore or belittle this topic at your peril boys....

 

Were it possible so to accelerate the intercourse between every part of the globe that all its inhabitants could be united under the superintending authority of an ecumenical Council, how great a portion of human evils would be avoided, :(

Buffy

[Overdog]

Unfortunately you're missing the point here, which amazingly enough, should be *quite* interesting to you!

 

The real interesting foundation for this thread is the amazing dichotomy between the fact that such hostility exists between various religious beliefs, but it is *only* expressed in the abstract, "us versus everyone else." As soon as its pointed out that a specific religious belief is offensive to other religious beliefs, all of a sudden there is a upswelling of ecumenicism and a diversion of the argument toward "unbelievers."

 

Its the 500-pound gorilla sitting in the back pew of the church. :evil:

 

Now what's really *scary* is you folks all *assuming* that if you locked these people in a room that they'd all kill each other off, when in fact what happens is that they all of a sudden "redefine" the enemy as....you Godless Humanists!

 

You ignore or belittle this topic at your peril boys....

 

Were it possible so to accelerate the intercourse between every part of the globe that all its inhabitants could be united under the superintending authority of an ecumenical Council, how great a portion of human evils would be avoided, :shrug:

Buffy

 

Sorry, just having a little fun is all..."boys will be boys..."

 

Ok, lets get serious....

 

BBC NEWS | UK | Protest disrupts bishop's sermon

 

This is a good example of how religions speciate, if you will. Because heresy is theologically irreconcilable.

 

EDIT:

Here's another one in the news, though I doubt this one will lead to a kind of major schism...

 

Excommunicated for shirtless calendar - Faith - MSNBC.com

[Moontanman]

Unfortunately you're missing the point here, which amazingly enough, should be *quite* interesting to you!

 

The real interesting foundation for this thread is the amazing dichotomy between the fact that such hostility exists between various religious beliefs, but it is *only* expressed in the abstract, "us versus everyone else." As soon as its pointed out that a specific religious belief is offensive to other religious beliefs, all of a sudden there is a upswelling of ecumenicism and a diversion of the argument toward "unbelievers."

 

Its the 500-pound gorilla sitting in the back pew of the church. :evil:

 

Now what's really *scary* is you folks all *assuming* that if you locked these people in a room that they'd all kill each other off, when in fact what happens is that they all of a sudden "redefine" the enemy as....you Godless Humanists!

 

You ignore or belittle this topic at your peril boys....

 

Were it possible so to accelerate the intercourse between every part of the globe that all its inhabitants could be united under the superintending authority of an ecumenical Council, how great a portion of human evils would be avoided, :shrug:

Buffy

 

We were just fooling around Buffy, I know exactly what you are saying. I have long been an advocate of the idea of."if the various religions and religious sects and or cults didn't have the unbelievers to fight they would indeed be fighting each other". all that would be necessary for their to be a religious war would be for the religious people to be able to suppress the idea of separation of religion and government. The unbelievers or less than rabid believers in countries like the US are the only thing that stands between the persecution of one religious idea by another. In countries where religion is synonymous with the government you are much more likely to have violence between different religions or religion sects. Islam would seem at the moment to be the most violent toward other religions but we should forget that at one time not only were Jews boiled in oil for eating meat on Friday, Catholics and Protestants wared with each other as well and then different sects of Protestants have also brushed each other with violence. Violence and hatred is as much a part of religion as god.

[Thunderbird]

Unfortunately you're missing the point here, which amazingly enough, should be *quite* interesting to you!

 

The real interesting foundation for this thread is the amazing dichotomy between the fact that such hostility exists between various religious beliefs, but it is *only* expressed in the abstract, "us versus everyone else." As soon as its pointed out that a specific religious belief is offensive to other religious beliefs, all of a sudden there is a upswelling of ecumenicism and a diversion of the argument toward "unbelievers."

 

Its the 500-pound gorilla sitting in the back pew of the church. ;)

 

Now what's really *scary* is you folks all *assuming* that if you locked these people in a room that they'd all kill each other off, when in fact what happens is that they all of a sudden "redefine" the enemy as....you Godless Humanists!

 

You ignore or belittle this topic at your peril boys....

 

Were it possible so to accelerate the intercourse between every part of the globe that all its inhabitants could be united under the superintending authority of an ecumenical Council, how great a portion of human evils would be avoided, :eek_big:

Buffy

 

 

In the last few years the preverbal "500 pound gorilla in the back pews" has been trending toward something more a kin to an ill tempered orangutan .

Christians: No One Path to Salvation - TIME

 

Americans of every religious stripe are considerably more tolerant of the beliefs of others than most of us might have assumed, according to a new poll released Monday. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life last year surveyed 35,000 Americans, and found that 70% of respondents agreed with the statement "Many religions can lead to eternal life." Even more remarkable was the fact that 57% of Evangelical Christians were willing to accept that theirs might not be the only path to salvation, since most Christians historically have embraced the words of Jesus, in the Gospel of John, that "no one comes to the Father except through me." Even as mainline churches had become more tolerant, the exclusivity of Christianity's path to heaven has long been one of the Evangelicals' fundamental tenets. The new poll suggests a major shift, at least in the pews.

 

[Buffy]

In the last few years the preverbal "500 pound gorilla in the back pews" has been trending toward something more a kin to an ill tempered orangutan .

Christians: No One Path to Salvation - TIME

Americans of every religious stripe are considerably more tolerant of the beliefs of others than most of us might have assumed, according to a new poll released Monday. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life last year surveyed 35,000 Americans, and found that 70% of respondents agreed with the statement "Many religions can lead to eternal life." Even more remarkable was the fact that 57% of Evangelical Christians were willing to accept that theirs might not be the only path to salvation, since most Christians historically have embraced the words of Jesus, in the Gospel of John, that "no one comes to the Father except through me." Even as mainline churches had become more tolerant, the exclusivity of Christianity's path to heaven has long been one of the Evangelicals' fundamental tenets. The new poll suggests a major shift, at least in the pews.

This is actually an excellent example of my points:

• When faced with with a question like "do you believe that other people will go to hell because they're not a member of your church even if they believe in Jesus," even the strictest fundamentalists get all ecumenical.
  
• Even when they're being ecumenical, if you read between the lines it's still got parameters around it: unbelievers or non-Christians are still going to go to Hell.

Bottom line is that while this trend is nice to see in America--and the enormous growth of these warm-fuzzy, loose doctrine, feel-good, drive-in mega-churches pretty much validate the move toward wider acceptance--its progressed to that almost more heinous, latent "there is no discrimination in America" mode, where its felt--being a Muslim in America is a real epithet: look at how hard Obama works to avoid the label--but not in any blatant manner.

 

Moreover outside the West, with the drift toward extremism among Muslims, we are seeing much more open Shia-vs.-Sunni hostility than has existed in a hundred years.

 

So, I'd still call it a Gorilla....

 

Ask a deeply religious Christian if he’d rather live next to a bearded Muslim that may or may not be plotting a terror attack, or an atheist that may or may not show him how to set up a wireless network in his house. On the scale of prejudice, atheists don’t seem so bad lately, :eek_big:

Buffy

[C1ay]

Even more remarkable was the fact that 57% of Evangelical Christians were willing to accept that theirs might not be the only path to salvation, since most Christians historically have embraced the words of Jesus, in the Gospel of John, that "no one comes to the Father except through me."

 

I wonder if it's just a coincidence that it's almost the same percentage of Evangelical Christians, 59%, that believe the bible is literally true word for word, according to the same survey.

[Pyrotex]

...it's almost the same percentage of Evangelical Christians, 59%, that believe the bible is literally true word for word...

Well, actually, us Evangelicals believe that 59% of the bible is literally true word for every other word. :shrug:

[Thunderbird]

The report is good news, its showing that the fundamentalist view point is looseing some steam within the US. I have seen this trend toward a more liberal mindedness among the church going public. The best way to combat fundamentalism is to join a community church and change it from the inside. When I became a member of my church there was a faction of fundamentalist that were constantly attempting to interjecting neo-conservative political idealism, and on occasion intelligent design in Sunday school. They were also many teachers in our church that were mostly liberal democrats. I became very outspoken during Sunday school about these subjects of separation of church and state, and church staying out of the school curriculums.

The consensus changed very quickly in the last year and a half. The fundamentalist faction has moved to less prominent, less affluent churches in the community. The best way to change these institutions are from the inside. If you do not like the influence of the church, don’t complain, join it.

[Pyrotex]

The report is good news, its showing that the fundamentalist view point is losing some steam within the US... The best way to change these institutions are from the inside. If you do not like the influence of the church, don’t complain, join it.

Excellent suggestion! Kudos!

 

;) Onward christian guerillas, marching as to war... :singer: