I respect your opinion and accept your chosen way as a path to understanding, but cannot, no matter how hard I try, believe it is the only one.
Kind Regards,
Why is there so little intertheist discussion?
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I respect your opinion and accept your chosen way as a path to understanding, but cannot, no matter how hard I try, believe it is the only one.
Kind Regards,
Nobody said it was funny. Just the opposite.
Some of us think it is absurd, though.
Religious pluralism is a serious matter (even with people killing eachother in the name of it);
yet when a number of people staunchly claim
"I know The Truth!"
and then each of them has a vastly different idea of what that truth is,
it all gets absurd.
No matter how certain you appear, no matter how much confidence you exude and no matter how genuine you seem, there are those who clearly possess at least an equal measure of those same qualities, yet are preaching a contradictory message.
The likely response to this is that it's not the person preaching the message that matters, but rather the message itself. But here, too, we have a host of messages that all have their own particular strengths and weaknesses, insights and oversights, harmonies and inconsistencies, conformities and incompatibilities.
Add to all this the fact that it is easily demonstrated that people can believe with all their hearts in the 'truth' of things that are demonstrably false, even to the point of doing things like giving away all their possessions, putting their lives on the line (and indeed, even taking them) and other similar acts of supreme faith, and you end up with a situation where even the most seemingly profound circumstances are definitely not a reliable indicator of the objective existence of anything beyond one's own particular method of experiencing the world, and efforts to make sense of such.
All that is left, then, is your insistence that none of that is truly relevant because your message is true regardless, along with all the equivalent proclamations of those with conflicting messages.
If you still don't see how absurd it is, imagine that you stop by a street corner, wind down your window and ask a bunch of bystanders how to get to the local library. Instead of providing you with a detailed route, they all shout different directions at you while intermittently accusing each other of being wrong (and in some cases engaging each other in what looks to be the beginning of a protracted debate). The individual bystanders themselves might be taking it seriously, but the situation itself is indeed an absurdity.
Yup. Any notion of Absolute Truth is pointless speculation, because it assumes complete knowledge and perception without bias
Mind Over Matter
Registered Senior Member
You are welcome, Hardalee.
Without both faith and reason mankind is direly incapacitated. Faith without reason gives us 9/11 and its ilk. Reason without faith gives us Auschwitz and its ilk.
Which members are theists here? Seems like a rare breed.
kx000
Valued Senior Member
Thats how you know religious is bs. Religion, is fanaticism. All it does is tell you everything is ok... when thing CLEARLY are not okay.
You are welcome, Hardalee.
Without both faith and reason mankind is direly incapacitated. Faith without reason gives us 9/11 and its ilk. Reason without faith gives us Auschwitz and its ilk.
Hitler's Germany was not the result of reason.
LIGHTBEING
Registered Senior Member
Well put Rav
That indeed is Absurd! But just like you pointed out, perhaps the bystander takes it with the upmost sincerity. They continue to point in their direction only with complete disregard of their fellow bystanders and their directions. I wouldn't imagine how they could possibly understand the absurdity of the situation, much less the driver's point of view.
This analogy is a keeper but next time I would urge you replace:
how to get to the local library
with:
how to get to the Sasquaches' Lair
or perhaps:
how to get to the Flying Speghetti Monster's house
one more:
how to get to Xenu's spacecraft
That indeed is Absurd! But just like you pointed out, perhaps the bystander takes it with the upmost sincerity. They continue to point in their direction only with complete disregard of their fellow bystanders and their directions. I wouldn't imagine how they could possibly understand the absurdity of the situation, much less the driver's point of view.
This analogy is a keeper but next time I would urge you replace:
how to get to the local library
with:
how to get to the Sasquaches' Lair
or perhaps:
how to get to the Flying Speghetti Monster's house
one more:
how to get to Xenu's spacecraft
I so wish you would take this up with LG!
Off the top of my head:
Lightgigantic, Jan Ardena, rcscwc, MindOverMatter, Cifo, Adstar, Saint, kowalskil, NMSquirrel, Scifes, Sam, GreatestIAm, Marlin, Lori, arfa brane, Big Chiller, LoRaan, wellwisher ...
Then you do not believe God has one will?
Or you do not believe there is one God?
Are you a polytheist, or do you think God suffers from multiple personality disorder? Or maybe you think God plays sadistic games with different peoples telling one group His will is one thing and telling another peoples His will in an opposing thing?
All Praise The Ancient Of Days
Your constant interjections are only sowing confusion. Primarily i was talking to Rav on this issue, i would like to focus on his thoughts on this particular issue in this thread from now on.
All Praise The Ancient Of Days
SO...? I understand there are people who are confident in their beliefs that are opposed to mine. Not seem confident mind you, I believe they are just as confident as i am. They believe the message they have received as absolute truth because it meshes with a perfect fit into what they deem as being correct.
But as i have said before the Message of the Love of The Truth contained in the Bible is designed to move those whom it is designed to move to accept it and be saved. Others with a spirit offended by that message or whom think it is foolishness will be attracted to another school of thought. There are many schools of thought, tailor made for different people.
Belief that a God exists must be satisfied with knowledge of God, If the true knowledge of God offends a person they will continue to seek until they find a school of theist thought that does mesh with their ideal of what it should be. Once they’re in their school they are locked in until death. Only some kind of life changing experience will ever move them.
This does not faze me nor do i consider it weird. Its just the way it is and it happens because of clear resion (well clear to me anyway)
Why would that be my response? Well it wasn't anyway.
But that’s YOU using YOUR mind as an assessment tool. Now if you come to the point in your life when you realise your mind is not an infallible and all knowing entity, you may come to the point of discomfort when you will genuinely call out asking for guidance.
Yeah because they want it to be true. The untruth fits their idea of what truth should be. The fault lies within them.
Yep.
Where not talking about road directions are we. If i saw people in such fierce contention over such a petty matter i would shake my head and wind up the window and go look for someone else to give me directions. We are talking about ones state of eternal existence in this issue. So all these strong POV's are understandable to me. It is a vital issue.
All Praise The Ancient Of Days
Yes it was. One of its founding reasons was Darwinism. hitler’s main tenants was based on survival of the fittest and the subjugation and destruction of inferior examples of human "evolution" to facilitate the accelerated development of the superior race into a perfect race by scientific selective breeding methods.
Sadly for him and his fellow Darwinians their assessments of the superiority of the Arian racial ideal was unfounded. This was proven in the end because they did not manage to subjugate and exterminate the races they considered sub-human.
Many of them where wiped out by these same peoples they considered inferior.
All Praise The Ancient Of Days
Because upon accepting the Message of the Bible i was then given dreams that confirmed it and gave me greater understanding.
I have dreamed the future perfectly in first person perspective complete with perfect audio and taste. I trust in the guidance i am being given.
All Praise The Ancient Of Days
Insufficent choices offered, poorly worded. I believe there is a God.