On 12/5/06, Gruss Gott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > No, they are all this way. For example, is there room in Christianity > to question whether Jesus really rose from the dead as Thomas did? > No.
That analogy makes no sense. Is there any room among computer programmers for someone who does not know how to program a computer? No. Therefore, programmers are exclusionary. It's the very belief in Christ's divinity that makes you a "christian". I guess it's possible you could believe that Christ was "God", but didn't rise from the grave....but that wouldn't make much sense, because a belief in him as "God", would certainly include the proclivity to rise above death. That is, to be part of the Christian religion you must believe in > every aspect of the faith or you're not complying in the faith. At a > minimum you'll get a talking too. At worst you'll be murdered. Here is where you and I part company. In any congregation, I challenge you to find ONE person who has competely adhered to their professed religion. My bet is you can't find any. There are core beliefs that they generally hold in communion, but even those beliefs can have nuances that belie the individuality of the human person. With spiritualists you're free to believe anything you like. You can > meet every Sunday, sing together, discuss belief, faith, etc. You mean, you can join together and practice your shared beliefs? If the beliefs aren't shared, are we celebrating together, or just discussing our differences? What if you are worshipping caterpillars, and suddenly find someone else who also worships caterpillars at one of your spirituality meetings....have you just formed a "religion"? Or are you still just spiritual, and happen to be celebrating together? Look at it this way: I don't exclude you or look down on you because > you don't lift weights 5 days a week or more. And if you do, I don't > require that you do the exact same sets as me or you can't attend my > gym. What if I only lift weights 4 times a day, can I still come? What if i lift a different weight than you, can I still come? I still believe that lifting weights its important, I just do it a little differently....but I still really like going to your gym, because everyone there seems to agree on the imporance of lifting weights. Hmm...I think that's a great analogy to illustrate the differences between how you and I view religion. Now if I were religious, I'd probably ask you to attend my gym for > free and then try to convince you to do a 10x3 workout like I do. If > you didn't agree then, at best, I'd let you continue to attend, but > not let you teach others your non 10x3 ideas - even though we're all > just lifting. If you tried to tell them about your non 10x3 work out, > I'd ask you to leave. If I were REALLY religious, I'd have you > murdered. I was raised Catholic, and I saw some of that. I also saw an awful lot of tolerance and acceptance. It helped me form my opinion that religion can be very harmful, for all the reasons you have pointed out, but that it can also be very helpful, for many of the reasons i've tried to point out. I also think, at this point, that it is more often helpful, than harmful...though that balance seems to be tilting in recent years :/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Create robust enterprise, web RIAs. Upgrade & integrate Adobe Coldfusion MX7 with Flex 2 http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;56760587;14748456;a?http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/flex2/?sdid=LVNU Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:221694 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
