after having read and responded to a person on this board who declares themselves to a. dhere to an atheist ideology, i came away feeling that ive been discussing matters with .
a theistic dogmatist.
it was quiet unusual because their attitude towards others was .
Thanks for the link Narkissos.
I'm no scholar (obviously!) but if Allah and Yahweh are one and the same, why would he inspire two contradictory books he knew would end up causing so much strife in the world today? Is it multiple personality disorder? These kind of questions pop up instantly in my head whenever someone claims he's the 'author' of both books.
after having read and responded to a person on this board who declares themselves to a. dhere to an atheist ideology, i came away feeling that ive been discussing matters with .
a theistic dogmatist.
it was quiet unusual because their attitude towards others was .
I think the question comes down to 'Do any Christians here think Islam is based on revelations from Allah?'
If the answer is yes, then a change in religion may be on the cards.
If the answer is no, and the reason for this answer is that there is no good reason or evidence available that shows Allah inspired the writers of the koran, then it can just as easily be turned around on Christianity.
let's see exactly what people are holding so firmly to, while all the time believing they aren't actually deluded.. section taken from: .
http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,1816,are-the-new-atheists-avoiding-the-real-arguments,edmund-standing-butterfliesandwheelscom.
first, let's take a quick look at the basic biblical narrative:.
I did not name the thread 'God in a nutshell' or 'Religion in a nutshell'.
Maybe it's me but I'm having difficulty understanding what makes Christianity different from other religions if not the beliefs described in the first post. Compare with Islam...
Both believe in a god - are they the same? No, they're still two different religions.
Both believe the creator of the universe inspired a book - are they now the same? No, still two different religions, and two different books.
So what is the difference? Well Christians believe Jesus was crucified and... ahh! Now we're into the specific beliefs, in this case the story of God coming to earth in the form of a Jewish man and being crucified. Muslims don't think Jesus was crucified. That's one of the things that makes the religions different. They believe different events took place in the past.
Islam coming later than Christianity didn't make it a different religion. Mormons and JWs came even later, yet they are still Christian. They are Christian because they follow the Bible (in whichever way they interpret it). They believe certain stories that are unique to Christianity, not Islam.
So if it isn't these stories that people think happened, what makes religions different from one another?
after having read and responded to a person on this board who declares themselves to a. dhere to an atheist ideology, i came away feeling that ive been discussing matters with .
a theistic dogmatist.
it was quiet unusual because their attitude towards others was .
*waves white flag*
I don't want to get a rise out of Carl, nor have I wanted to in the past. I cannot prove that, you will have to take it on faith.
But to address some points.
Atheist dogmatism. This was discussed on another site recently if anyone's interested in seeing multiple responses.
My personal response is that if I am dogmatic, it's limited to words that nobody has to read.
without any reference to how this related to
JWs, posting this in the area "Beliefs, Doctrine & Practices: What Jehovah’s Witnesses
believe and why they do what they do."
In this area of the board, people chat about beliefs in general, not just what the JWs believe. The title is misleading for sure, but it's just been that way for years here. It seems odd that you would choose my topic to bring this up while there are numerous others that do the same thing.
the efforts of others to show that his original statements
were erroneous were constantly ignored until 5 pages later where the atheist finally
admitted to making unverifiable statements, but still not conceding to the rest of
the data offered by others.
I made a wrong call in saying Christianity was based on the Bible, as in the book. I still believe that particular religion rests on the stories.
I escaped the JWs nine years ago, and never really gave religion much thought. Then the 'new atheist' movement got started, and I saw they made some good points about how we automatically respect religious beliefs. They questioned why this was the case, especially as anything else can be open to ridicule or disrespect. Choice in music, choice of favourite president, people's cooking, people's clothing, hairstyles, belief in alien abductions, belief in ghosts- everything else can be spoken about in whatever way we wish, yet a wall of respect surrounded religion. They thought it was well past time the wall came down, and I agreed.
I think most here will be aware of the story in the news recently about the young mother who died after refusing a blood transfusion. Her religious beliefs got her killed. The Governing Body has blood on its hands. Do we say 'Well it's okay, it was her religion' or do we see her as the victim of false beliefs? Many here would say the latter. Many here would not give the JWs religious beliefs any respect. So if other religions have blood on their hands also, there are some here who will speak out against that too.
The post in question was not based on atheist logic or a more detailed look at what the arguments are for a god. For that, you will have to search my post history. I have had many conversations which get into the nitty gritty.
Regarding the revelations from Yahweh that Christianity supposedly rests on, is a Christian able to tell me what they feel the religion of Islam is based on?
No.
let's see exactly what people are holding so firmly to, while all the time believing they aren't actually deluded.. section taken from: .
http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,1816,are-the-new-atheists-avoiding-the-real-arguments,edmund-standing-butterfliesandwheelscom.
first, let's take a quick look at the basic biblical narrative:.
No offence taken. Maybe it's the whole nature or nurture argument. All I know is that "I" as in me and my mind right here and now, however it developed, if faced with another belief backed up with no evidence, would not start to believe in it. If I'd grown up in a different society, who knows? Nurture could have changed who "I" became.
let's see exactly what people are holding so firmly to, while all the time believing they aren't actually deluded.. section taken from: .
http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,1816,are-the-new-atheists-avoiding-the-real-arguments,edmund-standing-butterfliesandwheelscom.
first, let's take a quick look at the basic biblical narrative:.
Hello Narkissos,
To use another comparison, talking about things that are backed up by zero evidence or proof: There may be groups of people who believe in faries, other groups that believe in pixies, other groups that believe in gnomes. I think fairy belief is silly. If I was in a society that believed in faries, I would still think it was silly. I may not know much about gnome belief, but I don't need to know a lot to see it as being just as silly. Any belief in something there is no good reason to believe in is equally as silly, or smart, depending on whether one believes in these things or not.
As an outsider, my views hold a certain weight. But if a fairy believer spoke about their faith, would it hold more? It's possible it could hold less, as it wouldn't be an impartial view, but words from a deluded individual backing up their delusional beliefs. A fairy believer may say the pixie believers are deluded, and the other way round. I tend to think the only people who could see things objectively would be those who aren't a part of any group that believes in things 'on faith', whether that's fairies, pixies, gnomes, Allah, Krishna or Yahweh.
I think you're right when you talk about events being interpreted as myths, legends or actual events. If the original post had spoken about Samson's hair, or the worldwide flood, or the talking donkey, I think it would have been easy to see that Christians can interpret these things very differently- metaphorically, as historical events, etc. But with the events that were mentioned, I do think all of them are believed by Christians to have really took place in the past.
let's see exactly what people are holding so firmly to, while all the time believing they aren't actually deluded.. section taken from: .
http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,1816,are-the-new-atheists-avoiding-the-real-arguments,edmund-standing-butterfliesandwheelscom.
first, let's take a quick look at the basic biblical narrative:.
I'm going to concede a point. Shock horror! But regarding Christianity being reliant on the Bible or not, I think some good points have been made by Carl and Lovelylil. Christianity did exist before the Bible was properly compiled. So I'll admit I jumped the gun there.
But I do feel Christianity was still based on the storiesnow found in the Bible. Whether they were written down or passed orally, it's the stories themselves that set the foundation for the Christian beliefs. If 'God guided evolution' is to be believed, they were being passed on for many thousands of years before Moses wrote them down.
And if that isn't impressive enough, the first humans (with an 's' because there wasn't an original couple- one man and one woman) hadn't even developed language!
http://www.jrmooneyham.com/lostcv1.html
Lovelylil, you're right when you say you haven't been trying to convert me. I apologize for my mistake. On the topic of not being reliant on the Bible for your Christian beliefs... you're quoting Jesus. As far as I'm aware, the only place we can find the words of Jesus are IN the Bible.
Narkissos:
Most of it happens to be common to both, and it would take only a few modifications and additions to make a "specific" parody of moslem beliefs.
I agree there are similarties. But they aren't similar enough, otherwise there wouldn't be two different religions. You're right when you say it would be easy to state what Muslims believe and make it look silly.
This thread isn't talking about religion as such, it's talking about events that Christians think took place in the past.
If the conversation was specifically about Jehovah's Witnesses, there could be a philisophical discussion on where religion comes from, how it shapes our lives and effects society etc etc, but we could also just state what they actually believe. E.g. They believe Jesus set up his kingdom invisibly in 1914, that a few elderly men in New York are being guided by God - and learning things like God prefers people don't have oral sex and God doesn't mind people having blood fractions now, and that most humans on the planet will be killed any day because they didn't join up to their religion. Religion can be an interesting subject without being afraid to state just how ridiculous JW beliefs are. It's the same with mainstream Christian beliefs.
Christians are seeing it as a parody too, yet it IS what they believe. People such as Lovelylil may not be reliant on those beliefs, but they still believe they happened. That's all that's being said.
let's see exactly what people are holding so firmly to, while all the time believing they aren't actually deluded.. section taken from: .
http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,1816,are-the-new-atheists-avoiding-the-real-arguments,edmund-standing-butterfliesandwheelscom.
first, let's take a quick look at the basic biblical narrative:.
The description in the first post is what seperates the Christian religion from say, Islam. The difference is what events people think took place in history. We're not talking about religion as a whole, we're talking about one set of beliefs unique to Christianity. I'll answer any other points tonight.
let's see exactly what people are holding so firmly to, while all the time believing they aren't actually deluded.. section taken from: .
http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,1816,are-the-new-atheists-avoiding-the-real-arguments,edmund-standing-butterfliesandwheelscom.
first, let's take a quick look at the basic biblical narrative:.
I got a personal response from Serotonin instead of his placing anything further in reply to this thread.
This was because this thread is about the basic beliefs of Christianity, and I saw no point in posting what I put in the other thread, here. You seemed to have concerns about respecting beliefs, so I directed you to a thread that dealt with that exact subject. It was not to avoid responding to you here. It was because that line of thought had already been dealt with recently- in the thread I directed you to. Posting a PRIVATE message in the public arena is not what I expected to see.
Now, again I ask - because still no one can answer this - exactly what in the first post is not true? Point out one sentence that Christians do not believe. People say there are lies there, yet when asked what lies there are, all I hear is that they just don't like the way it sounds, when the actual content isn't in question.
I've enjoyed the majority of persons on here. But to be honest I didn't come here to defend or debate. I was also expecting people to be past this. I was looking for support and offering support. I was looking for friends who, unlike Witnesses, would like me regardless if I shared their beliefs or not.
May I suggest you avoid the debating threads then and stick to the supporting ones. There are threads here for everyone, and if you aren't keen on one, nobody will force you to read it or take part in it. I also find it hypocritical of you to be talking about respecting beliefs, while at the same time you don't respect my belief that people can debate matters important to them.
Who says I don't like you because we have a difference of opinion? If you honestly think that, all I can say is I'm sorry if I gave you that impression. You need to seperate the person from the beliefs.
Lovelylil:
after a while it ocurred to me that no matter what answer I give, seratonin will not accept it.
This is because I do not have blind faith. If a Muslim tried to defend Islam to you, I can't see you agreeing Islam is true. You would want good reasons to believe, and so do I. So far, you have presented no good reason whatsoever to believe in the Biblical god. Is it wrong for me to not accept your answers because I find them inadequate?
