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| Do you have the true religion? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Aug 30 2007, 12:23 PM (2,016 Views) | |
| bostonfanatic87 | Oct 16 2007, 12:30 PM Post #81 |
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To throw my 2 cents in without reading through the long theological debates, I do not really have a religion. I'm still unsure as to if there is anything out there, any supreme being, or beings of any kind, and I wonder why they would be interested in humans, with the inevitability of there being so many different types of life out there. So I suppose I'm a skeptic at this point, I was brought up Catholic, and I still carry a cross on me at all times, but more as a good luck charm. I don't know if it actually is lucky for me, or if it's the attitude that my percieved good luck charm gives me, altering my point of view on events which I would not regard as evidence of good luck otherwise. |
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| T-O | Oct 16 2007, 06:22 PM Post #82 |
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Fanatic.. I understand what your saying, and you certainly are not alone. I have to tell you that part of man’s skepticism about God and an Almighty creator, and religious beliefs, falls squarely on false religion. When one looks at all the atrocities, the double talk, the hypocrisy, the inexcusable actions of the clergy such as sexual misconduct and the attempts at cover up, the preaching of false doctrines and on and on, it is no wonder that people have come to distrust and turn away from religion. I think a person first of all has to find out if there really is a living, loving creator. Not always easy because to where do you turn? The bible book of Romans chapter 1 verse 20 says this: “For his invisible [qualities] are clearly seen from the world’s creation onward, because they are perceived by the things made, even his eternal power and Godship, so that they are inexcusable’. Since God is invisible we have to look at his qualities and what he has done. Look at the creation around us, the incredible make-up of human bodies, animal and plant life, the oxygen we breathe, the water we need for survival, the sun that produces an enormous amount of energy that would fry us instantly if we got its full force instead of only 1 percent of its energy. None other than King David of Israel understood this and he wrote in the bible book of Psalm 8 these words, which happen to be my favorite passage in the bible… O Jehovah our Lord, how majestic your name is in all the earth, You whose dignity is recounted above the heavens! 2 Out of the mouth of children and sucklings you have founded strength, On account of those showing hostility to you, So as to make the enemy and the one taking his vengeance desist. 3 When I see your heavens, the works of your fingers, The moon and the stars that you have prepared, 4 What is mortal man that you keep him in mind, And the son of earthling man that you take care of him? 5 You also proceeded to make him a little less than godlike ones, And with glory and splendor you then crowned him. 6 You make him dominate over the works of your hands; Everything you have put under his feet: 7 Small cattle and oxen, all of them, And also the beasts of the open field, 8 The birds of heaven and the fish of the sea, Anything passing through the paths of the seas. 9 O Jehovah our Lord, how majestic your name is in all the earth! I feel this way every time I look at a starry sky, or read about the intricacies of just one cell of living matter and anything else of the world around us. Far beyond human comprehension, but what part we can comprehend has to certainly leave one in awe, and a new slant on things if one has ever been in doubt as to the existence of a Almighty God, a Creator. |
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| T-O | Oct 21 2007, 08:37 PM Post #83 |
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. Caulfield.. Finally getting around to comment on a couple of your points. Your quote: “While yes, there is some immense room for error in those huge numbers dealing with time, how much difference does is make in terms of the age of the universe being something like 13.7 billion years or as little as 6 billion, or even as many as 20 billion? Either way, to me, this would be enough time for many chance happenings to occur, possibly resulting in our creation”. Your right, a few billion here or there isn’t going to change things much. Its obvious that the earth has been around a long time and that creation did not take place in 7 24 hour days. It isn’t logical when you consider how God views time and how its worded in the bible to show that a day in Gods sight can be a thousand or more of our years it puts a different light on things. It seems that God used plenty of time in His creative days in order to get the earth prepared for man’s appearance. The bible says it was a formless void, indicating how unsuitable it must have been, but as the vegetation and animals appeared etc as the description goes it would certainly make sense that these were indeed long periods of time. I do disagree tho with your viewpoint that this allowed time for things to evolve. I think you could have a time period of billions and billions of years, and none of what we are aware of on the face of this earth would come about simply by chance. Far too many things involved.. That theory boggles the mind. But with creation, it would all make very much sense. Your quote… “As you said before, the Buddha's teachings went by word of mouth for a long time, and by that tradition, some things can be slightly changed and reworded over time. Same thing has happened with the numerous translations of the Bible, and the major editing that the Catholic Church did to it for about 1000 years”. As far as the translations of the bible are concerned, it is very true that far too often bible translators were more interested in promulgating their own interpretations of what should be, instead of looking for accuracy. Here is one glaring example. The King James which has been in very common use for 2 or 3 hundred years. And this is an important error. God’s name Jehovah. In the original Hebrew text, the letters YHWH were used about 7000 times. The King James translators only translated it correctly 4 times. Why the inconsistency? It’s the same letters each time. YHWH.. Yet they almost 100% of the time translated it as LORD in capital letters. This was apparently to indicate that they were talking about Almighty God Jehovah by using all caps. At other times when using the word lord, it was all lower case letters. This has been very confusing over the years as many readers would not even twig to the difference, but the point is they mistranslated this so many times. Leads you to think how many more times did they deliberately mistranslate events? For example, the word hell has confused people as well because it could be used to scare the hell out of people if you will pardon the expression. The correct translation would be "grave" from the Hebrew Sheol and the Greek Hades in the original bible manuscripts. People don’t understand I guess that the KJ really is NOT a very good translation. As a side note, hell fire isn’t too popular anymore among the clergy of Christendom. Even Pope John Paul toned it way down saying that it really isnt a place of fire torment. I wonder where that leaves all the Catholic people who have always believed that it was a fire torment. I can only imagine that they haven’t even noticed. Hell fire used to scare people INTO church, now it scares them OUT of church so the clergy have had to tone it down. Gotta run. I’ll look at more of your interesting post another time. |
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| T-O | Oct 22 2007, 09:21 PM Post #84 |
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Caulfield.. Further to your last post. Your quote:.. “Similar to Jesus' teachings of turning the other cheek, Buddhists are taught to not fight back in a physical manner against anything. Fighting is a cause of suffering, something we aim to cease”. I find this difficult. How is it that in so many revolts and uprisings against governments and other authorities, its often Buddhist monks that are in the forefront leading the action and often one hears of monks being killed or injured in these? This is not something that Jesus would have been involved in as we can see from his life on earth. He always said that his kingdom was NO part of the world, and if it had been he would have called scores of angels to fight for him. Rather he said that he had conquered the world. Years ago when I was younger I always wondered how he had “conquered” the world when he was taken and killed by that self same world. The answer of course is obvious. And that is one of the big things about him. He conquered the world by taking everything that Satan and the world could throw at him, and DID NOT BREAK HIS INTEGRITY TO HIS GOD AND FATHER. Right up to the point of losing his life. And no he did not lead any uprisings or resort to violence to change anything in the world. This was in fact a direct answer to the question that Satan raised in the Garden of Eden. That Jehovah God did not deserve the right to rule and also later at the time of Job when Satan taunted God that man would not maintain integrity to God in spite of all. Well Christ proved Satan a liar in this sovereignty challenge and since then thousands of men have done the same. Conquered the world by maintaining their integrity to God up to death if necessary. This is how Jesus actually promoted the idea of being peaceable towards all, which is apparently a feeling of Buddhists, and he taught his followers to do the same. JW’s show this peace in their lives as they strictly adhere to Christs command in this respect, not only to non believers, but especially to those in the JW faith around the entire earth. There is no refuting that statement. I cannot help but see that Buddhism has not fostered this too well, and especially now that Buddhists are living in many parts of the earth in large numbers. As you have mentioned, there is disparity even in their beliefs from one group to another. And this disunity in beliefs can not lead to the peace that Jesus taught. Thanks for your thoughts. |
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| MoRivera | Nov 19 2007, 11:03 PM Post #85 |
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Obi-Wan Kenobi
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an absolute MUST read EWTN's Pro-Life Expert weights in:
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| Jesus built one Church. He also said to follow Him. If you are not in His Church, you aren't following very well. | |
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| MoRivera | Nov 19 2007, 11:13 PM Post #86 |
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Obi-Wan Kenobi
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basically, it outlines the viewpoint of "pro-choice", and how the term "choice" pushes mothers to murder their children. The point of the story is how many Christians who are pro-choice are indeed false Christians. Phenomenal book. |
| Jesus built one Church. He also said to follow Him. If you are not in His Church, you aren't following very well. | |
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| T-O | Nov 20 2007, 01:49 AM Post #87 |
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MO.. I am a little dense. What is EWTN ?
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| MoRivera | Nov 20 2007, 08:43 AM Post #88 |
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Obi-Wan Kenobi
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oh Telegraph! I'm sure you've heard of TBN-a Protestant broadcasting network. Well, many years back, a nun named Mother Angelica started a Catholic Organization known as EWTN-Eternal World Television Network. The network began to grow, and it now the largest religious network in the world. They have television programming on 24/7-365. They show anything from Mass, to Catholic Classes, to Apologetics. They also have a website: ewtn.com in which they cover many Catholic attributions. You can also write in to any one of their experts to ask any sort of question you'd like. Judie Brown answers pro-life questions on the EWTN website. |
| Jesus built one Church. He also said to follow Him. If you are not in His Church, you aren't following very well. | |
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| bostonfanatic87 | Nov 20 2007, 01:39 PM Post #89 |
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Being pro coice is not pushing people to murder their children, it is not forced upon anyone. |
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| T-O | Nov 20 2007, 06:47 PM Post #90 |
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Boston there is a lot of truth in what you say, nevertheless it must have a huge effect on those who are encouraged by their counsel. And MO.. I think if I looked at EWTN I would pick a lot of holes in it, from the bible of course. What else.. Thats the only way you can get to the truth of the situation, is by the instruction from God's word. After all, the bible is what these organizations claim to represent. Do you agree on that? |
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| bostonfanatic87 | Nov 20 2007, 11:30 PM Post #91 |
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I can see how you could say that someone who wouldn't normally consider it would be encouraged to do it because the option is available to them, but Mo was making it sound like people are running around aborting strangers. |
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