Yes I know there are extremists and proselytizers. The debates can be quite entertaining

I guess if thats how you feel maybe you can't possibly come to any other conclusion. I won't say its wrong for you to feel the way you do. I am not the judge.

Well, in some sense, to believe in Christianity requires a belief in a Supreme Creator that has abandoned, and doesn’t care, about the vast majority of its creation.

That may make sense to you, but it makes absoltuely no sense to me.

If God can inspire men to write books, he could have inspired men from all over the world. Now that would have been impressive. If all cultures everywhere all had the same inspiration then we would only have one religion.

Why would a God who wants everyone to only believe in one religion even permit other religions to grow? After all, if he’s going to be playing this game why be regional about it?

This just makes no sense to me at all. This would be a God who plays favorites. A game-playing God.

I don't believe in a God who plays games with human souls.

but as you have seen - there are a great many commonalities
among the worlds religions and their core beliefs. so if you
merely abandon the notion that one religion or belief is
superior to the others then there is no problem. One God,
one religion...

and, proselytizing is pointless.

Agreed!

Total agreement.

Yes it is. Now lets get back to the work of unlocking the secrets of the Universe.

Please, by all means let the unlocking begin!!

Okay.

Which one of you people have that key?

I wouldn't say that there are any genuinely loving religions or philosophies, only a person can be genuinely loving. If what you mean is "What's a religion without any restrictive sexual morality associated with it?", then I guess there's Unitarianism and paganism, maybe.

You can all join my church. I will change the name of it back to "The First Universal Life Church of Hot Tubbing and Movie watching."

That is what it used to be named, my sister moved into the Church building and there is not room for the hot tubs any more.

So I renamed the Church to : "The First Universal Life Church of Brutal Truth and Honesty."

I am the Rev High Priestess.

Jeannie

At this church we are watching movies while *in* the hot tub yes?

If so then I'm in- can we eat ice cream too? Ice cream is very spiritual IMHO....

That was the original plan, yes. And everyone would take turns being the preacher... But to be brutally honest, we have no church building any more.

p.s ice cream is fine. I was thinking more like... wine.

Um... that's not something we have actually discussed at my Unitarian church... but as we don't prohibit anything except harm to others and don't require anything at all then now that you mention it we can do anything we want as our own individual morals allow.

However, at my church and many other Unitarian Universalist church, many of the attendees have another, more structured religion as well. Eg. many are in relationships where the religions conflict- e.g. Christians and jews, buddhists and pagans, etc.

But I know quite a few christians who ignore or refute the sexual prohibitions of their religion. Isn't that what being a free thinker is about? Examining the individual elements of any philosophy or set of rules, etc. and deciding which you agree with and which ones you don't?

God don't you have that? I hardly ever lose my keys but when I do it's always when I was in a hurry....

I was kind of in a hurry to find out the secrets of the universe...

(sigh) maybe tomorrow.

I think it involves the wave structure of the particle and a holodeck. I just can't find those keys to the holodeck. Now where did I put them?

Just for the record, I don't think that everyone who joins the military is a group thinker.

Neither do I believe that everyone who believes in Christianity is a group thinker.

It's quite possible for people to believe the same things and to want to achieve the same goals and still be 'free thinkers'.

However, I feel where 'some' Christians display their group mentality is via their proselytizing methods.

If they are acting like everyone has to believe its true then this shows that they aren’t a free thinker.

If they believe in it freely then they would clearly know that other people are free to believe other ways.

The very idea that they feel that people must believe in it implies that they feel they would be chastised by a higher authority if they were to choose to not believe in it themselves.

Their very proclamation that God will be peeved if they don’t believe in this religion is a dead giveaway that they are sacred to death to think on their own, and that they are indeed cowering down before an authority that they fear the wrath of.


The basic understanding of God by us living in a finite life existence is flawed, even with the Bible as a road map. How can any created being living here (in time) understand a sinless Holy God? If we don't need Jesus's death to pay for our sin, then we don't need God. But if we do have "sin" how can we pay for it? We've already sinned. Who makes the rules up? Created beings? I believe that God created us as "free moral agents". He gave us body, soul and spirit and a will and an ability to make decisions. He knew we were going to mess up. Unconditional love-His son to pay for our mistakes-accidental or pre-meditated for those who would ask with a sincere heart. Everybody gets to choose, that's conditional. Faith in self, faith in God. I can't read people's minds or see in their hearts, and I make decisions based on my experiences which may be virtuous or sinful, that's why I need a God of reconciliation. Also, Jesus said He would send the "Comforter-Holy Spirit" as a guaranty of what He said was true. You have to believe like you can bet on the sun coming up tomorrow, but it's not something that we can manipulate with our will. I am "they" that you write about, and you have made some generalizations that frankly do not hold water with me, but I understand where you're coming from. Christians (as a whole) spend to much time trying to get another notch in their salvation belt, or the next mega-church with bowling alleys and day-care, instead of being used by God. It's not the judgment of God that inspires mature Christians to share the Gospel, but the mercy, love and forgiveness of God. If you have read the Bible, you know in the book of John, Jesus said to kick the dust from the soles of your feet at the house of those who reject the good news. Not because He didn't love those who rejected Him, but there were others who would accept Him. One thing about time, it runs out.

No worries. You just set yourself up as a tax deductible NPO and watch the money roll in...



Wine is good... in vino veritas etc. etc. But ice cream is good too... why be exclusionary? But they don't go well together imho.

Abra I think you may have to go with the old saying- "if you want something done right do it yourself".

Start your own religion. I'm willing to be the incredibly charismatic high priestess... and I would also be happy to design the costumes- um vestments...

and I know you won't have any trouble whipping up some inspiring verses. Let's not make it too complicated though. Maybe just the golden rule for "rules" and then some fun group projects- e.g. ending world hunger, prejudice, jealousy and injustice, creating peace in the the middle east, engendering goodwill among mankind, saving the rain forests, increasing the use of solar power... you know the sort of thing I mean. Oh and maybe we could go to Hawaii. That sounds like a good pilgrimage don't you think?

That would imply that the God of the entire Old Testament had absolutely no value at all and wasn’t needed.



I’m not really into ‘organized religions’, but I do like the idea being involved with charismatic high priestesses.