A Tough Question for the Religious

Isnt that what the 'god' of judaism is????

In Saqqara, in Ankhmahon’s tomb. Visir of the Pharaoh Teti (Dynasty 2345 BC) there is a bas-relief with a representation of circumcision



http://www.egyptancient.net/circumcision.htm


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exactly. the guy in charge makes the rules. when you write a book, it's all in your hands.

circumcision is over 15,000 years old, and has been practiced all over the world, even in the pre-Colombian Americas. the original Austrailians might have took it with them from where ever they came from, or they might have thought it up on their own.

 

i would not want to have it 'all in your hands'.

ps... no god, ever wrote a word

but it was nothing from a 'god'

 

don't be a novelist.

are you sure?

were you there?

 

basic

cant duplicate, the experiment.

Unless, i name it 'computer'

Neither was Moses or any that per se 'wrote' the torah,, bible(s), quran or any of the literature of the three horns (3 religions of abraham).

When Moses, per se got the 10 commands, from god off the mount, it was per se on stone (tablets). Imagine how much stone, it would take to put just genesis down into words as both came from 'per se' the same mount (of god).



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1) Surely you are aware that reports on human sacrifices were probably wildly exaggerated by the Spanish conquistadores. That does not mean they did not take place at all and of course they belong to the sort of religious practices that are to be condemned. Hence my use of the word “necessarily” that you seemingly overlooked.
2) It’s not arrogant to note that just like the rest of human thought religious thought developed over time.

"Narrow is the way" refers to the way to achieve being a good person. It ain't easy to love your neighbour as yourself, which by the way is a principal rule that all major developed religions proclaim in so many words.


If you are interested, this theologian (Keith Ward, specialized among other things on comparative theology and former joint president of the World Congress of Faiths) may answer some of your questions concerning my viewpoint.

[video=youtube;jnn1IajIq5Y]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnn1IajIq5Y[/video]

And if you’ve got a little more time to spare:

[video=youtube;NMvf68nkDyM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMvf68nkDyM[/video]

 

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn! (In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.)

We all know that Cthulhu is the only logical choice for what god to worship since he will destroy his worshipers last when he returns. What other god can claim that?

 

I am assuming you to be christian, so your God is the same God for the jews and the muslims, ie God of abraham. They also tend to have the same type morals. So what distinction do you have from those other abrahamic religions. I know Jesus, but that is just a path to God when one dies.

 

I did answer your question very clearly. If you (wilfully) lack reading comprehension, that’s your problem.

That would be in the eye of the beholder. If you don’t like human sacrifice it certainly has. The practice still occurs in some parts of Uganda, other than there it has widely been abandoned ages ago.

As I said: All developed religions I can think of teach the golden rule. I hear even most atheists take it to heart. That notwithstanding every group, religious or not, has its fair share of nutters.

That would be in the eye of the beholder. If you don’t like human sacrifice it certainly has. The practice still occurs in some parts of Uganda, other than there it has widely been abandoned.

I don’t think I could have made my point much clearer. And again you have overlooked a vital part of what I said: “If you are interested …”. Obviously you are not. So why should I bother doing any more typing and elaborating? If you want to stick to your prejudices, do.

 

Answer to tecoyah's question:

The only god that is valid is mother "nature's God." Who is that? It is the God of Truth, Mercy and Faith. It is the only god that became human and overcame all human weaknesses to show us His Character in human terms, to prove Himself to humanity and the universe, to show us the awfulness of sin, to catch us in our murderous hatred of Him, and to save us from ourselves.

Most gods are mere human suppositions about who God is. Most most of them are simply the social egos we all inherit.

 

There is only One G-d.
That is the current popular science theory today. There is only one singularity; one Big Bang; one starting point. Perhaps science is right this time....

And - do not do unto others what is hateful to you.
This commandment from G-d pretty much works across the board, for all living creatures. That's kind of unique.

 

What was irrelevant was your question which IMHO was more based on the wish to troll than on the wish to engage in intelligent conversation.

That’s what I said: if and how religions improved in the course of their development is in the eye of the beholder. If you want to behold anything on the matter you need to study the history of religion. Otherwise your opinion is pretty much baseless.
As for the practice of human sacrifice you may want to start your studies here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice

In a sense we all do, some of us just lack the historical awareness to realize this. Just speaking for my cultural background: “From the beginning of Western thought, religion and morality have been closely intertwined. (…) “http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/religion-morality/

Of course that doesn’t go to say that you need to hold religious beliefs to be moral, it just means our current morals and ethics didn’t spring out of thin air. So don’t start throwing a fit.

 

Even though they are part of the curriculum in any halfway decent theology seminary “Comparative Religious Studies” as such are a secular academic subject. Generally speaking religious persons have as much ability to maintain the necessary level of objectivity when studying it as convinced atheists do. If one is prone to have an intolerant agenda, that ability goes down, no matter whether that agenda is religious or anti-religious. Just judging by their posts I can think of a couple of religious and atheist people in this forum who would not be able to study anything to do with religion objectively. Count yourself in.

That may be as it may. It’s more than just likely though that your ancestors were religious and that their moral reflections were just as closely connected to their religious reflections as those of mine were to theirs:

"Over the millennia, the Chinese civilization has been influenced by various religious movements, including local folk religions, Taoism, Buddhism, Christianity, Shamanism, Islam, Manicheism, Zoroastrianism and numerous new religions. Of these, Taoism and Buddhism have had the greatest impact in shaping Chinese culture. Taoism is the most notable Chinese indigenous religion, while Buddhism spread to China from India in the 1st century CE." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China#Religion)

And just a little advice: it’s well possible to cherish one’s own heritage without looking down on others. You should try it one day.

The latter would be a question of personal belief and would certainly not be the question at hand for somebody studying the history of religion/the history of ideas and its influence on the development of our ethical codes objectively. Whether you share certain religious/moral convictions or not should be irrelevant to your description of them.

I was just trying to prevent what from my experiences in this forum was a rather predictable scenario.

 

And you didn’t wonder how I could have possibly come to that impression?

As you said: hard to say. Picking lice off each other may be a start. I’m pretty sure though that Chimpanzees won’t come up with anything resembling the Ten Commandments, Kants categorical imperative or the Bill of Rights any time soon.

Do you not? Cultures and religions met and merged all the time, apparently even in China. And when they did, usually something new sprang up. If I could travel back in time and meet one of my (presumably) Saxon ancestors I would not even understand his language and I’d have as little in common with him as I’d have with a 1th century middle-Eastern Jew. Probably even less, seeing that I happen to know more about 1th century Jews and their Temple than I do about 1th century Saxons and their Irminsul.

Thanks

We are creatures of history. If we had not started painting caves and getting religious ideas we would not be what we are and I doubt we’d be better. From our point of view some of our ancestors moral notions may sound atrocious, however as I said: they developed. And who knows, maybe in 2000 years time historians will look back at our moral notions and find some of them incredibly barbaric in comparison to their own.

From my modern point of view Luther had some atrocious religious viewpoints, but his less atrocious religious viewpoints eventually led to moral values such as “freedom of thought” and “religious tolerance”, both of which I hold dear. You don’t need to go with the idea of divine inspiration to subscribe to those values as well. Personally I think the idea of divine inspiration is very reasonable, but if you don’t, that’s fine with me. Reasonable people disagree all the time with each other about what's reasonable.

I just wanted to make it clear that I don’t deem non-religious people any less (or more) moral than religious people. Partly because I believe that - unbeknownst to them - God inspires them, too

You are far from playing nice but I take it that you think you are and it’s the thought that counts. And don't worry: I usually try to be nice, whether I always manage is another question.

 

Sadly you’re proving it was not so cheap by showing a continuous unwillingness for critical self-reflection.

If you like you can trace it back to the amoeba we’ve evolved from and still be right. However, I don’t expect my dog to be capable of above mentioned critical self-reflection and certainly won’t declare it morally guilty when it bites. So I think you’re kind of missing the point here.

I certainly did not ask you to adopt it.

Thankfully the vast majority of humankind has not taken your opinion on these matters on board. IMHO had our religiously motivated ancestors not taken cave-painting to whole new levels, the world would be a poorer place now, and not only because the UNESCO World Heritage List would be considerably shorter.

So at least we agree on something. That’s the thought that makes me a bit more forgiving about crimes of the past, by the way. Judging old Aztecs by modern moral standards seems a bit harsh.

Sadly you would probably not even get to hear about this message, because “preacher vids” are not to your taste, even when the preacher happens to be a distinguished Oxford Professor whose field of expertise is comparative religion and who could have explained to you what proclamations all major religions have in common.

The word you overlooked this time is: “unbeknownst”

Maybe one day in another thread. Frankly, I’ve said all I wanted to say in this one and am getting bored of the pointless banter our conversation here is turning into. So I’m out.

 

I've never seen such a simple question danced around so much.

Oh, wait, yes I have. In pretty much every other thread directed at religious people.

 

i think it started out as a yes or no question.
J:
I believe that there is just one God who is worshipped in many different ways none of which is necessarily better or worse than the other.

T:
So.... the Aztecs with their offerings of still-beating human hearts
to your god were doing just fine....?

 

That wasn't the question in the OP, which is what I was referring to. Everyone seems to be ignoring the fact that there are different gods and different religions, and the challenge was to give an argument for why their religion should be taken more seriously.

 

And it just kept branching into other q's to dance around.

 

You assume that religious people necessarily think that their religion is more valid than other people's religion. As I pointed out they don't necessarily do that. I certainly don't.