<p>
Speaking just for me, maybe it is because in one instance the people are merely suggesting I visit Hell when I disagree with them and in the other, they are telling me God has ordained it. LOL. ;)</p>
<p>BTW, any God that I would worship would be smarter than one who held such exclusive beliefs.</p>
<p>“Why is it people don’t get upset when these groups express an “interest in converting others” or make an “attempt to recruit others,” while at the same time they get so blown away when a Christian attempts to do the same thing.”</p>
<p>They do. I know because when I first became a vegetarian, I was guilty of being over-eager. I wanted to spread the word! I made it into a religion and I went around trying to convert people! I was awful!</p>
<p>I was 21 years old. A friend told me how pushy I was, and I was appalled. I did NOT want to be like that! So I quit doing that.</p>
<p>See, anyone being pushy will turn people off. Of course there are many environmentalists, animal rights activists, political activists, etc who are guilty of the same thing as the Christians. Anything can be made into a religion.</p>
<p>There is a crucial difference with the environmentalists, though. They are trying to save the whole planet, not just one person’s soul. If people don’t wake up to the reality of global warming, ALL of us are affected. In other words, it is understandable that they are being a bit more pushy, because another person choosing to remain ignorant directly affects others in this case, as opposed to a person’s choosing a different religion affects only that person.</p>
<p>“BTW, any God that I would worship would be smarter than one who held such exclusive beliefs.”</p>
<p>YES!!! And not so wimpy as to lose most of his creation to his adversary. Not exactly ‘all-powerful’ to have been tricked by his own creatures.</p>
<p>Nah, I prefer to believe in an omnipotent, all-powerful being whose infinite love far exceeds the capacity of us mere humans to understand. Not one who is so petty and so heartless as to sentence a majority of his creation to suffer eternally because they weren’t smart enough or lucky enough to choose the ‘right’ religion.</p>
<p>i heard someone the other day talking about religio being an 'accident" of birth</p>
<p>that your religion is based mostly on your parents and location…if you were born elsewhere you would most likely have a different path</p>
<p>as for me, I can’t imagine believing in a vengeful, mean, callous God who would banish good people to hell, and I keep saying that because that belief is the core of many practices and interpretations of the bible</p>
<p>and when one talks about “true believers” that is VERY different from blind faith</p>
<p>yes I BELIEVE we need clean water and to save dolphins, those are tangible, the other, “blind faith” is believing in an ancient book’s stories and trusting with heart in what it says</p>
<p>you must be able to tell the difference</p>
<p>for instance</p>
<p>belief in evolution
faith in creatisnism or intelligent design</p>
<p>Are humanists called upon to evangelize and proselytize, cgm? 'Cause you sure are good at it. ;)</p>
<p>I agree with cgm completely, with the minor distinction that I do believe in Intelligent Design, which may have had evolution built into the system. In other words, an Intelligent Being designed and set physical laws into motion, as opposed to the theory that it all happened by accident.</p>
<p>Good point about religion being mostly subject to chance. I find the very concept of God setting up such a lottery, with such high stakes, and essentially playing with his creation to see who wins the lottery, to be a very primitive and simplistic belief system. I mean, think about it: If you or I were to design a planet and create some humans, wouldn’t we come up with a better idea than that? Honestly, would you or I devise a plan that would ensure only the LUCKY people get to be happy for the rest of eternity? Don’t you think we would have come up with some idea to help ensure that more people made it, instead of depending on chance? </p>
<p>Surely God is smarter and more merciful than WE are? If even we mere humans could have designed a more fair and reasonable system, then surely God could have!</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>hh: It is not proselytizing to express one’s opinion.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>This is fundamentally the reason that I can’t get behind any one organized religion.</p>
<p>Let’s say I read a religious book, I ask God if it is true, and I feel him reach into my heart and tell me that it is. But literally billions of others read/heard a different book, asked the same question, and received the same answer. I just can’t make the case that MY revelation is genuine, and all those others are fooling themselves, and the God who spoke to THEM about the truth is a figment of their imaginations.</p>
<p>It just seems like hubris to me to place such stock in the literal truth of MY faith experience while dismissing the inconsistent faith experiences of billions of others as so much mumbo jumbo.</p>
<p>To me, this points in the direction of two possible answers, both of which acknowledge that I’m no better at finding God than anyone else in the world. 1, we are ALL kidding ourselves, and imagining the gods of our choice; or 2, the powers actually in control of the universe choose to speak to their creation in a multitude of languages and forms.</p>
<p>I am not proseltizing anyone, those are my opinions about myself…what I think</p>
<p>I just want religion out of the politics, medicine, science, and schools (except in a wide education of most religions)</p>
<p>that is not to much to ask</p>
<p>“Students in public schools are subjected to all kinds of propaganda, and their primary recourse is to report whatever is said or done that they believe to be outside of acceptable boundaries.”</p>
<p>Logosprincipal, it may surprise you to learn that by and large, when students and their parents complain of prostelytizing in the public school classroom and other forms of religious discrimination, the response usually ISN’T, “Oh, you’re right, I’m so sorry, I’ll stop immediately.” Even if they don’t complain, but simply choose not to participate, the kids are subject to ridicule; they’re singled out in front of their peers as deviant troublemakers; often, their families have to change schools or move away. </p>
<p>The teacher I mentioned who was forcing kids to stand up and pray her denomination’s prayers and scolding them for not bringing their Bibles to school? </p>
<p>There was tremendous hostility in some sections of the community when she was made to stop her illegal behavior. The adult who complained about it nearly had her own career ruined over it. Only then did some of the parents come forward to say that they had been uncomfortable about it, but had been too intimidated to do anything.</p>
<p>What the worst of the theocrats want is to be able to subject children in the public schools to HH style name-calling over their religious beliefs and to remove any legal recourse the parents have to make it stop.</p>
<p>or as woody allen claimed: 3, God is an underachiever</p>
<p>If God is sittin’ around waiting for my obeisance, She clearly has too much extra time on her hands.</p>
<p>she should get a real job</p>
<p>roro - where you been? Berurah’s missed you. ;)</p>
<p>what evidence have you for this, brother nole, as this thread peters out into the sputtering irrelevancies and spelling mistakes that are the unmistakeable signs of dissipation?</p>
<p>speaking of religion, there is a stamp just issued in England that portrays Santa sitting on a chimney which has drawn complaints since he looks to be defecating while on the throne. It is a charming image(saw it in The Week) and now i know what i want for Xmas. I mean what I will ask my wife to bring back when she visits,…Oh, never mind.</p>
<p>Well, you two are the only ones who had a ‘cute spat’. :D</p>
<p>To wit:</p>
<p>mommusic - ber & ro–your little spat was so Cute!</p>
<p>berurah - <em>lol</em> My story is <em>still</em> that roro started it, and I’m stickin’ to it! (and I guess he realizes that he lost, so he went slinking away in humiliated defeat–either that, or he hadda go to work… )</p>
<p>I suspect that ~ber met her match, but what do I know? ;)</p>
<p>Oh that. I was surprised when it was characterized as a spat so then I re-read it and realized afresh what a difficult human being I am. At least that’s what those who love me claim.</p>
<p>
Are we back to the gender thread? (jk) :D</p>
<p>“Let’s say I read a religious book, I ask God if it is true, and I feel him reach into my heart and tell me that it is. … the powers actually in control of the universe choose to speak to their creation in a multitude of languages and forms.”</p>
<p>Well said!</p>
<p>I prefer to see the common threads in the various religions/belief systems, instead of focusing on the differences which are really petty when compared to the essence of what they’re all about.</p>
<p>
not enough, it seems. 
roro a match for MOI??? Surely you jest! </p>
<p>What’s with <em>this</em> anyway, p2n?? 
What happens in Sinner’s Alley STAYS in Sinner’s Alley, O.K.?? ;)</p>
<p>~ber</p>
<p>And what’s with ro’s and your obsession with my tildes?</p>