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The Official Religion Thread
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Mgoblue201
Won't stop picking the right nation
JGS, I didn't say that they didn't know about Jupiter. I said that their conception of the universe was very different from ours. We know this by other Israelite writing. And anyway, you kind of want it both ways. You want the Bible to correspond to facts, but you don't want to answer why their knowledge of the universe and the history of life wasn't anything special and sometimes so often mistaken.
Even if we assume that we can pack all of existence into the very first line of Genesis, which is just merely projecting current scientific knowledge onto an ancient text that probably means no such thing, what you said makes no sense. It takes the light from the sun something like eight minutes to get here. Even if you account for whatever cloud cover, which required an atmosphere that probably wasn't formed until millions of years into Earth's existence, light was still radiating the surface of the Earth and indeed the entire solar system before the Earth was even formed.
The line about seasons and years(!) that we are referring to was made a couple of creative days before man was even around, so I don't think that explanation works. Also, your other explanation doesn't work because this was at the point in the creative cycle before fish were around (but after plants, which is another thing out of order). That was maybe 500 million years ago. The Earth was still to undergo incredible periods of climate change, including an increased period of oxygen and jungles and other periods of ice ages. The seasons didn't develop as we know them until about 10,000 years ago, after man was already on the stage. If we are to apply scientific knowledge here, then the story seems to be saying that the seasons have been steady for 500 million years.
I didn't bring up the tectonic plates. The author of the article did. So it's the Christian who's being nitpicky. Once again, I don't think that there is any standard amongst anybody for what the text should really say. What I was saying is that if it truly were to talk about tectonic plates, then it would make more sense to say that ground was created first and then it shifted around. But no, all I'm asking for is that it at least gets the "creation" order correct. And there are many hypotheses for where life developed. The ocean is one. The "warm little pond" hypothesis is probably the most popular. But life has nothing to do with this. Water is not the default state of the Earth, like Gensis implies. Looking around the universe, rock or gas is (I could list off the elemental composition if I wanted to be more specific). Genesis then heavily implies that ground did not show up until later, as god created and then named it. However, it should be the opposite. Ground or rock came first, then water was "created", then the Earth separated into large areas of water and ground. In very early Earth, you could take a stroll across the planet without encountering water.
Next point: I wasn't talking about the belief of the average person during ancient times and the Middle Ages (though it doesn't help to admit that people are bound by what they are taught). I was talking about the learned, those who studied the Bible for thousands of years. Some doubt about the literal veracity of the story did start to seap in toward the Middle Ages, but again, few or none of them ever used the Bible to postulate a history of the universe that even came close to reflecting reality. Not many in human history did (though one Greek did postulate that we came from fish, as rudimentary and immature as the concept was at the time).
Ken Ham gave an example of an indefinite time period as meaning something like "time of the Judges". To him, the creation story would not qualify because there is an obvious beginning and ending to each day.
The OT is laced with examples of the Israelites putting their own people, or even other people, to death. One can argue that god only kills for malignancy of the soul, which is sometimes true but many times not. There are many examples of the Israelites destroying every living thing within a city. Even if somehow the adults were deserving of death, were the children not good enough to rehab? Then there's the story of Achan in Joshua 7, and yes, I know the common response for why his sons and daughters were stoned. It's that they had knowledge of his sins. But the text gives no indication of that, nor does it even say that they lived together. Unless you want to argue that the oxen also had knowledge of his sin. It seems to me that they were destroying everything that even had to do with Achan, a man who admitted his sins, just so that they could remove some petty curse. It's kind of disturbing that the author just casually lumps people in there with sheep and garment.
Even if we assume that we can pack all of existence into the very first line of Genesis, which is just merely projecting current scientific knowledge onto an ancient text that probably means no such thing, what you said makes no sense. It takes the light from the sun something like eight minutes to get here. Even if you account for whatever cloud cover, which required an atmosphere that probably wasn't formed until millions of years into Earth's existence, light was still radiating the surface of the Earth and indeed the entire solar system before the Earth was even formed.
The line about seasons and years(!) that we are referring to was made a couple of creative days before man was even around, so I don't think that explanation works. Also, your other explanation doesn't work because this was at the point in the creative cycle before fish were around (but after plants, which is another thing out of order). That was maybe 500 million years ago. The Earth was still to undergo incredible periods of climate change, including an increased period of oxygen and jungles and other periods of ice ages. The seasons didn't develop as we know them until about 10,000 years ago, after man was already on the stage. If we are to apply scientific knowledge here, then the story seems to be saying that the seasons have been steady for 500 million years.
I didn't bring up the tectonic plates. The author of the article did. So it's the Christian who's being nitpicky. Once again, I don't think that there is any standard amongst anybody for what the text should really say. What I was saying is that if it truly were to talk about tectonic plates, then it would make more sense to say that ground was created first and then it shifted around. But no, all I'm asking for is that it at least gets the "creation" order correct. And there are many hypotheses for where life developed. The ocean is one. The "warm little pond" hypothesis is probably the most popular. But life has nothing to do with this. Water is not the default state of the Earth, like Gensis implies. Looking around the universe, rock or gas is (I could list off the elemental composition if I wanted to be more specific). Genesis then heavily implies that ground did not show up until later, as god created and then named it. However, it should be the opposite. Ground or rock came first, then water was "created", then the Earth separated into large areas of water and ground. In very early Earth, you could take a stroll across the planet without encountering water.
Next point: I wasn't talking about the belief of the average person during ancient times and the Middle Ages (though it doesn't help to admit that people are bound by what they are taught). I was talking about the learned, those who studied the Bible for thousands of years. Some doubt about the literal veracity of the story did start to seap in toward the Middle Ages, but again, few or none of them ever used the Bible to postulate a history of the universe that even came close to reflecting reality. Not many in human history did (though one Greek did postulate that we came from fish, as rudimentary and immature as the concept was at the time).
Ken Ham gave an example of an indefinite time period as meaning something like "time of the Judges". To him, the creation story would not qualify because there is an obvious beginning and ending to each day.
The OT is laced with examples of the Israelites putting their own people, or even other people, to death. One can argue that god only kills for malignancy of the soul, which is sometimes true but many times not. There are many examples of the Israelites destroying every living thing within a city. Even if somehow the adults were deserving of death, were the children not good enough to rehab? Then there's the story of Achan in Joshua 7, and yes, I know the common response for why his sons and daughters were stoned. It's that they had knowledge of his sins. But the text gives no indication of that, nor does it even say that they lived together. Unless you want to argue that the oxen also had knowledge of his sin. It seems to me that they were destroying everything that even had to do with Achan, a man who admitted his sins, just so that they could remove some petty curse. It's kind of disturbing that the author just casually lumps people in there with sheep and garment.
Dude Abides
Banned
JGS said:
The heavens means the firmament. The sun isn't created until Gen 1:16, but light appears at 1:3.
Dude Abides said:
Wouldn't this mean that the first verse is out of order with the creative days too?
Further the firmament was never used to descibe heaven as far as I can tell
Further, has there never been a time that it was dark during the daytime where you live or a time that the sun ceased to exist because you couldn't see it?
Atramental
Banned
When I was still at my Christian high school, I remember one of bible teachers using this verse to explain to my Hermeneutics class that anyone who was not a Christian could not truly do good works. And that the only reason why non-Christians do good deeds is in order to satisfy their selfish desires...jdogmoney said:
My classmates were rather befuddled to say the least.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Sometimes I secretly hope I will come back into this thread to find that we've all arrived at a consensus on the ultimate conclusion to the religious question..
"Turns out Mormonism is the one true religion.. Who knew? We all agree... there can be no doubt of this. I guess we'd better inform the world, then."
"Turns out Mormonism is the one true religion.. Who knew? We all agree... there can be no doubt of this. I guess we'd better inform the world, then."
Dude Abides
Banned
JGS said:
It probably is out of order of the creative days. The whole account doesn't make a whole lot of sense read literally.
Eh?
Genesis 1:6-8 said:
So you are saying there was light somewhere else? Ok, but what about the fact that the Bible describes day and night happening before the sun is created?
Dude Abides said:
Well. It makes sense if you think that the chapter is starting off with God creating the heavens and the earth and then focusing on what man is interested in - the earth he lives on and how it came to be inhabitable
Dude Abides said:
Oops missed that since I wasn't reading it at the time! :lol
I apologize.
To that I say you have a point except for the way I look at it, there's no contradiction which considering the close proximity of the verses would be the logical course imo. My brain has always changed it to atmosphere I guess because of this. Plus the Bible has at least 4 terms for heaven.
1. The universe
2. The sky/atmosphere - the domain of birds
3. God's place - A spiritual place where God resides
4. Governments
I always think of verse 1 being point one and verse 6 being point 2. The atmosphere becomes clear enough to witness the stars and notice the distinctions between the sun and the moon.
Dude Abides said:
Well, again it has to do with how the writer describes it. The creative day ends which would lead to night or a resting from that day of work. The story is told in a way that is undertsandable to the people (& the writer). This is why there is no closing of the 7th day of rest and Paul all the way in the New Testament makes mention of Christians entering that day of rest, meaning the 7th day never went to sunset mode.
A question for the atheists/hard agnostics, and maybe hopefully even one that will take this thread in a more interesting direction than the current back and forth between JGS and others and everyone else.
How did you replace your spiritual needs once you rejected the concept of god, religion, etc?
And by spiritual, I mean your sense of existential connectedness and belonging with others as well as a genearl sense of meaning to your life and existence? What aspect of non-theism did you find particularly refreshing/enchanting/fascinating once you were able to free yourself from the POV of religion?
It's been some years since I made the journey away from religion... and at some point I was even defending the merits of religion despite my newly found theism, but it's been a little too long since then.
But I'm pretty sure the best aspect of non-theism... and the general acceptance of the naturalistic order of things is that, the more you inspect it, the more you delve into it (and I apologize to Julia Sweeney, who I'm totally 'ripping' this sentiment off), the more detail you get. The more cohesive your conception of the world and universe becomes.
In my experience, with religion it's the other way around; finding that I essentially had to make shit up to reconcile my increasingly nuanced beliefs with the static words written in the bible.
That said, while the sense of wonderment at how well things all work together is great and all, it doesn't really give you direction in life.
But it's only recently (in the last couple years) that I realised that it's actually a boon to be able to determine your own direction, own goals and purpose in life.
I mean we do it all the time (in the relative minutiae of life)... but do we really do it? Do we really allow ourselves to be free if we allow someone else to suggest or determine the purpose of life?
Anyway... they're big questions, and my post doesn't even begin to scratch at my own personal thoughts on the issues raised. But I figured I'd give you guys a chance to say something... or let this post sink. Either way, I'm not particularly inclined to type out 5000 words and get no response (as posters continue to favour the not-so dramatic back and forth of semantics above).
How did you replace your spiritual needs once you rejected the concept of god, religion, etc?
And by spiritual, I mean your sense of existential connectedness and belonging with others as well as a genearl sense of meaning to your life and existence? What aspect of non-theism did you find particularly refreshing/enchanting/fascinating once you were able to free yourself from the POV of religion?
It's been some years since I made the journey away from religion... and at some point I was even defending the merits of religion despite my newly found theism, but it's been a little too long since then.
But I'm pretty sure the best aspect of non-theism... and the general acceptance of the naturalistic order of things is that, the more you inspect it, the more you delve into it (and I apologize to Julia Sweeney, who I'm totally 'ripping' this sentiment off), the more detail you get. The more cohesive your conception of the world and universe becomes.
In my experience, with religion it's the other way around; finding that I essentially had to make shit up to reconcile my increasingly nuanced beliefs with the static words written in the bible.
That said, while the sense of wonderment at how well things all work together is great and all, it doesn't really give you direction in life.
But it's only recently (in the last couple years) that I realised that it's actually a boon to be able to determine your own direction, own goals and purpose in life.
I mean we do it all the time (in the relative minutiae of life)... but do we really do it? Do we really allow ourselves to be free if we allow someone else to suggest or determine the purpose of life?
Anyway... they're big questions, and my post doesn't even begin to scratch at my own personal thoughts on the issues raised. But I figured I'd give you guys a chance to say something... or let this post sink. Either way, I'm not particularly inclined to type out 5000 words and get no response (as posters continue to favour the not-so dramatic back and forth of semantics above).
So what are your thoughts on people changing denominations/religions?
I really don't understand it, perhaps it's easier for protestant to protestant religion, but really I don't get it when someone leaves one religion that they were 100% behind then suddenly switch. I've seen tons of people that are like "Hey! that whole thing was sham! Everything they told me was a lie. But THESE guys, they're telling the truth!"
Seems like a fool me once kind of thing.
I really don't understand it, perhaps it's easier for protestant to protestant religion, but really I don't get it when someone leaves one religion that they were 100% behind then suddenly switch. I've seen tons of people that are like "Hey! that whole thing was sham! Everything they told me was a lie. But THESE guys, they're telling the truth!"
Seems like a fool me once kind of thing.
Kinitari said:
Well, if you reject God that is bad from God's viewpoint, hence atheists are bad religiously speaking.
However, that verse probably wasn't talking about atheists- maybe agnostics, but probably not even that.
David was talking about some who were living as if there was no God by their actions. That's why it makes mention of their heart condition. It could be anyone claiming to worship God but acting contrary to that. In our day, it could be atheists too though.
Atramental
Banned
The weird thing about me is that I never felt a need to be spiritual. When I was still a believer I felt I had all of eternity to be spiritual so why bother now while I'm flesh and bone? I was and still am, for the most part, satisfied by the here and now. When my bible teachers told me and my classmates to "set our minds on things above, not on earthly things" I always thought, "We can't really imagine or comprehend heavenly things, so why bother?"Zaptruder said:
I guess the only time I get a "spiritual" feeling is when I'm listening to some really calming music while working on some art work.
Now, I haven't done any psychedelic drugs yet (or any drugs for that matter) so maybe I'll want to be spiritual after getting a hold of some acid or DMT. :lol
Here's a small list of what I'm thankful for:
-I'm glad that no innocent people are going to hell.
-Not having to wait until marriage to have sex!
-That I'm not being watched constantly (even though I sometimes feel like I am. Probably just remanent of my former faith.
)-I can explore and live out different philosophies
-That I am in control of my own destiny (or at least it appears that I am)
-I can put whatever substances I want to put into my body. I'm definitely not gonna go overboard or anything but I do want to at least smoke some pot before I die. :lol
-I don't have to waste time and money at church.
Well okay you see, now this is silly. You are talking about perfection - the Bible says you cannot be perfect, that only God is - but you must do good and strive to be as good as God(Jesus). I have no idea how you can extrapolate that no one can do any good. And if that was the case, why would they then specify that the non-religious cannot do good as WELL as everyone. That is overkill.legend166 said:
JGS said:
This seems like quite the stretch. As far as I can tell, it is specifically saying that those who do not accept God in their heart can do no good. In fact, when I Google the line, no one else even kind of comes close to your idea of what that line says. Essentially everyone uses that as 'proof' of Atheists evil.
Kinitari said:
That's what I said so not sure how would be a stretch unless atheists want to be singled out specifically.
IMO, it would be an equal stretch to think there was a large contingent of any group that didn't believe in God in Jerusalem. We had established early on in the thread that the closest thing to a Godless group was a tribe of no more than 400 people who were the epitome of realists, thus had no concept of a God. Israel was a theocracy, however, even the nations around Israel worshipped something.
There isn't a large contingency of atheists now in their heyday, it certainly wasn't the case thousands of years ago. The Psalmist was lamenting mankind's wickedness in general. They do things contrary to what God tells them so it's like he doesn't exist. This is why the next verse says that God looks down and sees no one doing good. Hate to burst the atheist bubble, but everyone was not atheists back then.
However, I do agree that atheists could be included as part of the wicked which makes sense if you reject the only hope for salvation from the Bible's viewpoint, but Psalms 14 has a much bigger connotation. They may even be the cream of the crop in those terms, but I personally don't think so.
JGS said:
Thanks for that reply, that is actually pretty helpful, I think I better understand your point. The implication that Atheists more or less did not exist back then was lost on me. I guess at worst it is implying that those who do not accept the Christian God in their heart, can do no good - which isn't substantially better than my point, but my knowledge of the Bible isn't so strong that I would willfully argue that to be the case.
samus i am
Member
This is an open questions to all denominations:
Why do bad things happen to good people?
Why do bad things happen to good people?
samus i am said:
Time and unforseen occurrence befall us all. So a good portion of it is chance.
Another is simply direct repercusions by our actions, actions of others, & genetics.
Good things happen to bad people too (In fact, they get away with a lot), but you just take the good with the bad.
Dabookerman
Member
samus i am said:
That's life. Not much too it ;p
samus i am
Member
JGS said:
If you don't mind me asking, where you raised under any particular faith?
Mormon belief was that it was god testing/teaching those people some lesson they needed to learn like patience or something.samus i am said:
Surprisingly this is not a popular belief so it has sort of wavered between it's a lesson god's teaching you to a 'sometimes bad things happen and god doesn't have anything to do with it but all that other good stuff yeah, he's in all that.'
One of the reasons it's so interesting. It's like the Mormon church really can't decide what it wants to be sometimes.
samus i am
Member
ronito said:
Specifically, that is the type of information I was looking for. I recently was talking to my girlfriend that is not religious but was raised Catholic. She said that one of the reasons why she left the faith was because no one could give her a straight answer. It is ridiculous to take the stance where if Grandma dies of cancer it is not God's fault but if Grandma lives God saved him.
I was wondering what other faiths believed and if they were able to give a straight answer as to what is God's role in bad things happening to good people.
Well I wouldn't take Mormon teachings as status quo. They can be pretty out there at times.samus i am said:
But yeah, when I grew up the general teaching was that there was nothing that god didn't know/everything that happens to you is a trial from god. Obviously that wasn't too popular a belief when the church really tried to grow beyond the Mormon corridor so under President Hinckley you heard this sometimes bad things just happen. Now that Monson's back the church is sort of going back on this but not entirely, they're really in the middle about this.
PflargBlarg
Member
samus i am said:
Woo, just finished reading through 1800 posts, now I can reply to something. I think most people would respond to this with "shit happens". An acquaintance of mine was killed in a car crash in Australia while there doing missions work. I don't think it would be reasonable to assume that god had some direct hand in that and was trying to teach some lesson or it was part of his 'plan'.
I dunno, I don't think about it too much. Maybe it would be harder for a theist to justify.
samus i am said:
Loads of different people answer it in loads of different answer. Here's an uncommon one. One answer I heard was that questions like these suggest that man can never be a diety. Because we're subjective creatures. Not objective.
Its far out, but there you go.
here is another one, I picked up:
God exists. so bad things should automatically stop. <<<We're inventing our own world here, instead of trying to understand the world we live in.
This one is more subtle, I guess. Do with it what you want...
soul creator
Member
This is the kind of story that irks me
So basically, god was mysteriously absent when the girl got lost in the first place, but he decided to directly talk to this one guy and lead him to where she was.
Of course, it's great that she was found and everything turned out for the best, but it always strikes me as weird when god always gets credit for things like that, while mysteriously escaping any responsibility when something bad happens. And unfortunately, this mindset can lead to people having to make convoluted apologetics and having "crises of faith", so it can actually be a damaging mindset over the long run.
So basically, god was mysteriously absent when the girl got lost in the first place, but he decided to directly talk to this one guy and lead him to where she was.
Of course, it's great that she was found and everything turned out for the best, but it always strikes me as weird when god always gets credit for things like that, while mysteriously escaping any responsibility when something bad happens. And unfortunately, this mindset can lead to people having to make convoluted apologetics and having "crises of faith", so it can actually be a damaging mindset over the long run.
Atramental
Banned
soul creator said:
Yeah, hearing stuff like this drives me nuts as well.
Good thing happens: "IT'S A MIRACLE! PRAISE JESUS!"
Bad thing happens: "It was God's will. God works in mysterious ways."
Atramental
Banned
Do we have any followers or former followers of Judaism here on Gaf?
If so, my question to you is how do you guys feel about the Christians and the Muslims, who took your religion and made their own version of it? Does this upset you? Or does it impress you that the god (minus the theological differences) of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is now worshiped by many?
If so, my question to you is how do you guys feel about the Christians and the Muslims, who took your religion and made their own version of it? Does this upset you? Or does it impress you that the god (minus the theological differences) of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is now worshiped by many?
Atramental said:
The problem I find is that objectively, logic sides with no one.
It could just as well be that shit happens, and god steps in when god wants to. This runs accordingly with their world view. If you don't believe in god then shit just happens, and things get fixed without the help of a god. What's there to be pissed about? unless the thought of people praising their god upsets you? or are you just angry at people's 'stupidity'?
Manos: The Hans of Fate
Banned
Atramental said:
100, 200, 300...oh sorry was counting my stacks of money.
Doesn't bother me, amuses me how much hate we get, but without us you ain't got anything. Like a classic song that gets sampled a lot.I do wish the Jews had invented Kung Fu like the Buddhists did. They got us with that one.
soul creator
Member
Ashes1396 said:
Most people tend to be annoyed by self-centered and arrogant folks who think the world revolves around them. Believing that the all powerful creator of the universe specifically intervened in their life, and ignores everyone else (others who would be far more deserving of divine help) is like the ultimate example of that.
soul creator said:
Bold part: perhaps... okay I'll say yes.
The rest, I'll be polite, and say that I don't follow. It doesn't have to be that way at all.
I was once witness to a part of an argument where one person said to another: No believer will ever believe you if you say that god asked Hitler to murder the jews. You'll be laughed at for the logic.
soul creator
Member
Ashes1396 said:
I'm...not sure how the last part relates to my post. Although one obvious question to ask is...how would we even know? That's kind of the problem with someone claiming god spoke to them, whether it's something good or bad. There's no way to independently verify that. We can verify that people are capable of being crazy as shit though, so that can be a good working assumption when someone claims god is specifically talking to them.
To clarify though, all of this stuff I bring up isn't meant to be some sort of "formal logic" argument against the existence of a god. It's just more of a casual observation that the world seems to behave as if there were no divine being interfering with it. If god was needed to find a lost little girl, but somehow the same god was unable to lead the girl and prevent her from being lost in the first place, that seems to be a pretty inefficient divine creator of the cosmos, and he's way overrated :lol
Of course, the typical response to that is that god actually has a special plan, and as limited human beings we are unable to understand the majesty of his grand plan. So sure, there's a bunch of other lost girls who weren't found by god, but we can't make any sort of judgments from that. But in this case, obviously god's voice beamed down into this one guy's head and turned him into a divine GPS.
Oh yeah, and there's no clear evidence that this plan is even for our benefit, but...worship anyway?
I suppose I was trying to show the fallibility of conjecture. For argument's sake, lets say there is a scenario where the greek god Zeus has two children to save. He saves one and lets the other die. It's his choice, right. You are arguing that because Zeus let one die,*or in perhaps your words*, he killed a child, he is therefore evil. But to some people it does not necessarily follow. The opposition bench would argue that everybody has to die. Life and death are in Zeus's hands. Both should be dead. Zeus chose to save one.
And thus it doesn't neccesarily follow that Zeus is good or evil. Further, if both deaths are almost certain, he is merciful.
I do agree though, where you say that working out the mind of a god is purely conjecture.
My own view is this.
*I think* there are a hundred billion trillon ways of us being hurt, getting hurt, or dying. What should god do, wrap us in cotton wool? Logically, a world without suffering wouldn't really be like this world anyway; I mean gravity or bacteria can't exist in that world. In fact, it would be an incredibly leniant god to create such a world. Heaven for the Christians, I suppose.
What I don't understand is, if one man takes a knife to another, how is that a god's fault? Say if Zeus existed, how is that his fault? should Zeus be at your beck and call?
If a volcanoe erupts, and people die, are they not suppose to die? and even if you are alive and were thankful to zeus who saved you; the logic above says that your not allowed to be thankful, because he blew up the volcanoe and killed all your friends. <<< I don't follow this kind of logic. I say be thankful, if you believe in what you believe.
And thus it doesn't neccesarily follow that Zeus is good or evil. Further, if both deaths are almost certain, he is merciful.
I do agree though, where you say that working out the mind of a god is purely conjecture.
My own view is this.
*I think* there are a hundred billion trillon ways of us being hurt, getting hurt, or dying. What should god do, wrap us in cotton wool? Logically, a world without suffering wouldn't really be like this world anyway; I mean gravity or bacteria can't exist in that world. In fact, it would be an incredibly leniant god to create such a world. Heaven for the Christians, I suppose.
What I don't understand is, if one man takes a knife to another, how is that a god's fault? Say if Zeus existed, how is that his fault? should Zeus be at your beck and call?
If a volcanoe erupts, and people die, are they not suppose to die? and even if you are alive and were thankful to zeus who saved you; the logic above says that your not allowed to be thankful, because he blew up the volcanoe and killed all your friends. <<< I don't follow this kind of logic. I say be thankful, if you believe in what you believe.
This probably should be a girl age thread. I will not create one of those, however. There's this girl. Very rad. Etc. However, she's very religious. Catholic (or Christian? whichever one is more "meh" on the Pope). Goes to church weekly, etc. I am not religious at all. Kinda a deal breaker for me. But I like her a lot. Vice versa. I don't know wtf to do. SO uh, GAF go?
Dartastic said:
You can either ply her for critical thinking skills.
If she has none, then forget it, walk away. If she does, then slowly, subtely introduce her to the idea of free thinking. If she gets it, then it doesn't matter if she's still religious, as long as she understands the most important parts of secularism, it's all good.
Or level with her knowing that it'll probably not work out.
Peronthious
Member
I thought this would be of interested to some here: earlier this month the book Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years was released. I haven't yet read it, though I intend to at some point. It goes over the foundations of Christianity and how the different creeds of all of the separate sects have evolved over the millennia.
NYT Review here.
NYT Review here.
NYT said:
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