Exactly!
Why is there so little intertheist discussion?
- Thread starter wynn
- Start date
Exactly!
G'Day Hardalee. I don't remember having a direct discussion with you. Have you been on this forum before under another name? I find tags like liberal and conservative unproductive. It's best just to deal with individual issues. Sometimes i am called conservative sometimes i am called liberal. I am a bible believing follower of the Messiah Jesus and don't like being put in a box.
Well just look at the post above your post then.
Dywyddyr quoted me and mocked my statement. Did not add any thoughts to the discussion at all. Nothing but trolling. If you stay on this forum for long enough you will see it is one of the worst for flaming and bad manners.
Oh i have things in common with most Theists and atheists. I doubt i will ever find a person i have nothing in agreement with. But no matter how many things people have in common if there are a few Vital issues they disagree with that overshadows all the things they agree about.
Yes indeed. But agreement on the fringes in the eternal scheme of things is worthless.
Did he say that? I doubt atheists in here would acknowledge that as an accurate quote.
All Praise The Ancient Of Days
Yes this is a point that i was about to make. Any inter Theist discussion naturally includes people giving their thoughts on God and stating their belief in their beliefs. This is seen as preaching by the moderators. Such threads are usually suppressed in short order.
Another thing if i want to discuss things with a Theist on these forums i will invite them to a religious forum. Where freedom of religious speech is allowed.
I have had discussions with 2 other Theists on these boards in other forums.
All Praise The Ancient Of Days
Of course i believe there are a lot of Theists who are not going to be saved. A lot of Theists actually reject the concept of being SAVED.. They believe in Works merited eternity with God. Not Eternity with God by His forgiveness.
Yes i try to save Theists who do not believe in salvation through the atonement of the Messiah Jesus. Is that such a revelation to you.
Amazed you would even ask this question...
What’s absurd about it? muslims in here have tried to move my beliefs away from salvation through the Messiah Jesus. Actually most Theists in here have tried to inform me that my beliefs are wrong even blasphemous. I am not afraid of such attempts to change my mind. I am confident in my faith. I appreciate on one level that they believe in something so much to want to change my mind to believe it. Better to have a vital discussion with a heart felt Theist then be trolled by a mocking/ flaming atheist with no manners.
What do you mean by conflict? There is always a war of ideas going on between theists especially Theists who claim to be following the same God. But that conflict of words can only turn into a conflict of weapons if one or both sides see it as their obligation to God to enforce their beliefs on others through violence. As a Christian who believes Jesus. I do not fall under that category of dogmas that teach the obligation to enforce ones beliefs on others.
No it's not a Joke. There is one God and He has one will. So therefore there must be religions that are wrong and people who follow them need to seek and find the true will of God.
I got no problem with a jew or a muslim or a catholic or a protestant telling my i am wrong. I got thick enough skin and confidence. I am currently in a passionate discussion with a tulmud jew in another forum. Very challenging and stimulating open discussion too.
All Praise The Ancient Of Days
Nonsense. There is no real moderation of this forum with respect to the 'letter of the law', so to speak, of the posting guidelines. The moderator(s) have clearly decided to allow quite a bit of latitude and as such "people giving their thoughts on God and stating their belief in their beliefs" is basically the default practice, and it's very common for things to go even further than that.
Yes i try to save Theists who do not believe in salvation through the atonement of the Messiah Jesus. Is that such a revelation to you.
Amazed you would even ask this question...
No, it certainly isn't a revelation. It is, rather, quite obvious that many religious people believe similar sorts of things. I just think it's important to highlight this fact in an environment where it hardly ever seems to be acknowledged.
Let's assume that you're right; that "Theists who do not believe in salvation through the atonement of the Messiah Jesus" specifically, aren't going to be saved. That would mean, as I've already pointed out, that there are indeed theists in here who are not saved but are still trying to save other people anyway, and are therefore effectively leading them down a path that could instead result in eternal destruction.
What's not absurd about it?
Christians who believe that Muslims aren't saved. Muslims who believe that Christians aren't saved. In fact many adherents of both of these religions believe that pretty much everyone else, no matter what their particular faith, is not going to be saved.
That kind of conflict.
It certainly does become a joke when theists with conflicting doctrines regarding salvation are all proselytizing with the same degree of conviction.
One theist here.
Mind Over Matter
Registered Senior Member
Fact and faith have little in common? Maybe from the perspective of those who reject the factual accuracy of things knowable only through faith. For those with divine faith, things known by that faith are known to be objectively true with as much or sometimes more certainty than things knowable through natural means, like reason or the senses.
Moving beyond "fact and faith" to "religion and science" and to the Einstein quote you gave, I guess the idea could be subject to both good and bad interpretations.
A bad interpretation (though it may indeed be what Einstein meant) would be that faith is incapable of bringing a person to true knowledge, while science on its own is incapable of motivating people to live their lives and to strive to learn and invent and accomplish. One thus would need science to inform one's views of reality, but also something a little irrational or at least arational to go on living in a creative and optimistic way.
A good interpretation would be that faith and reason (and among the things reason can bring us to, empirical science) enrich each other rather than being in any kind of true conflict. Faith confirms the philosophical assumptions empirical science is based on, like the value of human reason and the basic reliability of the senses, and provides a check against some serious errors one may mistakenly fall into through errant science (modern empirical science is a young field after all and deals mostly in probabilities, and anyone with a knowledge of history knows wrong ideas have had periods of popularity). Reason meanwhile helps us better understand ideas we already hold by faith, through things like theology, archeology, biology, etc.
I can't speak for others, but in my own case I have found bouts of argumentation with other theists to be very refreshing - even where I did not agree with them - I actually find it very fascinating to interact with people who think about their religious leanings and venture to explain them. I think the term "Absolute Truth" is a misnomer in religious dialogue simply because we filter all reality through the limits of our perception and everyone has their own version of "absolute" truth. In the Qur'an, this is called zannah or pointless speculations about religion which cannot be verified/denied and hence a waste of time.
In all my dealings with other theists, I have always encountered interest in theology as the primary reason for dialogue and most theists accept that knowledge about God is akin to the Six Men of Indostan [to learning much inclined...]
Then I suggest you search http://vedabase.net/ for "Absolute Truth."
Upon further consideration, it would seem to me that you should be engaged in at least an equal effort to block the attempts of other theists to 'save' an atheist in cases where you believe the theist in question is possibly going to do more damage than good.
Consider the following scenario:
A person is downing in an alligator infested lake. An onlooker grabs a thin, dry, brittle stick and extends it toward the flailing 'drownee', instructing them to take hold of it so they can be pulled back to shore. As an onlooker yourself, you know that the stick is going to break, that the rescue attempt will fail, and that the person will certainly perish, in one way or another. But you neglect to speak up anyway, since at least someone is trying to do something. Yet the whole time, you've been holding one of these:
Why? Will it make pointless speculation more relevant?
Socratic Spelunker
Registered Senior Member
Many Christians seem more critical of other Christians than they are of atheists. We're all either not holy enough, or we're the wrong kind of holy...
Well obviously you’re not me. I have had more than a few posts deleted. Not because of any flaming or foul language but because they where powerful posts with good points. Actually its been good because every time i get a post deleted i know it was convicting, so i then use that post on other forums. Getting a post deleted here by the atheist moderators is a sure fire endorsement of a good post to me.
All Praise The Ancient Of Days
Well obviously you’re not me. I have had more than a few posts deleted. Not because of any flaming or foul language but because they where powerful posts with good points. Actually its been good because every time i get a post deleted i know it was convicting, so i then use that post on other forums. Getting a post deleted here by the atheist moderators is a sure fire endorsement of a good post to me.
Nevertheless many posts of yours in which you are clearly "giving [your] thoughts on God and stating [your] belief in [your] beliefs" remain intact, so you can simply use those as a gauge for how far you can go in discussions with other theists.
But really, at this point I'm not really trying to push you to do so. I'm just pointing out that none of the reasons you are giving for not doing so are making much sense.