could you cope if your sister, daughter etc wanted to convert to Christianity?

[darkmoon]

just asking

[gaius]

People are so easily offended.

[Emilia]

If my sister found religion suddenly (regardless whether Christianity or Islam - just to mention two of the most aggressively conquering ones) I would be very upset. She is worldly, intelligent and well educated though so it isn't likely to happen.

[KathyM]

Why do people assume that people who have a religious faith are unintelligent and uneducated? Just because they have a different belief system than you? The vast majority of Christians I know personally are college graduates, very well educated, well traveled, with a high I.Q.

[BetheButterfly]

just asking

 

In many countries nowadays, freedom of religion is a right. In the USA, the Constitution protects the right of freedom of religion. The following is the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights:

 

"Amendment I Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Bill of Rights Transcript Text

 

 

My three sisters are Christian; I am too. However, if one or all ever decide to no longer be Christians, I would be sad, but would fully support their right to do so.

 

 

 

Jesus, by the way, did not command his followers to kill or hurt people who no longer followed him. He just asked his chosen if they wanted to leave too.

 

 

John 6 (NIV) - I boldened some.

 

 

"60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”

61 Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? 62 Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit[e] and life. 64 Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. 65 He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”

66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

67 “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.

68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

 

 

Sad to say, in the past and even in some countries today, those who no longer follow a specific belief are persecuted and often killed. Even many Christians killed or persecuted people who were no longer Christians. This is a tragedy.

 

 

However, now thank God, many Christians understand not to persecute, hurt, or kill anyone who decides to no longer be a Christian. That is their right.

 

 

 

Christians are, however, to expect other people to persecute them, to mock them, and to be rude to them. When people mock Jesus and Christians, they are fulfilling Jesus' words about how his followers will be persecuted.

 

 

Matthew 5 (NIV) - I boldened some of the teachings of Jesus:

 

 

"6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

for they will be filled.

7 Blessed are the merciful,

for they will be shown mercy.

8 Blessed are the pure in heart,

for they will see God.

9 Blessed are the peacemakers,

for they will be called children of God.

10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

[Feelin Frisky]

I don't care what my sisters think in those regards. One is actually a religious nut as it is who has let herself be sequestered away in a far away state with an aspiring David Koresh. She's very nice but hopelessly nuts. I only would care about being in a relationship with someone modern, liberal and liberated who up and went religious on me. That would hurt. It's hard enough trying to make a relationship the cloud of heaven it could be and taking on this artificial super-nature crap equates into a long evil winning at my expense. I would want to raise a daughter to be grounded in sound logic and science but beyond that, I could not control her and would have to yield is she went with the poison I see as religion.

[Diamonds&Rust]

Why do people assume that people who have a religious faith are unintelligent and uneducated? Just because they have a different belief system than you? The vast majority of Christians I know personally are college graduates, very well educated, well traveled, with a high I.Q.

 

This is a really good question.

 

First, intelligence and education are somewhat different. Considering just uneducated, the standard itself reflects our education system. The story of Western Thought's advancement has been in many ways a rejection of religious authority. Even the ministry of Jesus is an example of this pattern.

 

History's hero always tends to be the same plus or minus a few plot points: some rebel free thinker with a great idea that everyone laughs at that ends up being totally right about the universe beyond the wildest of then-contemporary dreams. Jesus himself, the stories go, walked the well-tred path of defying the religious authority to espouse some essential part of humanity's truth. This occurred almost 500 years after Socrates drank the poison in his own ideological passion play.

 

The Scientific Revolution responsible for demystifying many of the essential truths of the universe was a bloody battle, and if faith and reason are truly harmonious parts of our consciousness, they certainly didn't act like it. It's easy to bifurcate certain aspects of religion today, but that doesn't change the fact that Galileo wasn't allowed to leave his home for looking in his telescope. The triumph of reason has diminished faith by necessity, by removing from religion's purview the parlor tricks of satisfying our curiosity about the natural world.

 

I'm not going so far as to argue that empirical observation atrophies our need for spiritual engagement, except to point out that there are many satisfied atheists who feel that way. Still more non-religious folk prefer idiosyncratic spirituality, which seems to appeal especially to those who want to dissociate from all of the bad P.R. organized religion has received and make their own rules and language instead.

 

But, back to education, the reason that many Christians are seen as uneducated is because one's churchiness is no longer a mark of a quality education. I don't mean that flippantly; I'm merely pointing out that for a butt-ton of years the monks were the smart and literate ones, and even the Christian creation story is a tale of God asking us politely not to consume forbidden knowledge. My point is that religious education was inseparable from learnedness until very recently, civilizationwise, but that's definitely no longer true in this part of the world.

 

So the state of modern education, to sum up a lot of other interesting historical developments, is in many ways a celebration of inquiry and a new sort of Faith which refuses to call itself so. In many cases, it's the faith that controlled, measurable experiments will, when repeated, give a result that tells us something new about that thing. But (really) all it needs for us to consider it true is the resiliency that religious lore never had, an openness to being wrong and a satisfaction with how it's currently right.

 

This capacity to know with increasing satisfaction is the appeal of education, whereas true faith is in one way an opposite action: the capacity to not-know with equal satisfaction. The Freud/Jung comparison is very relevant. Freud thought religion was for stupid people who hadn't yet transcended it. Carl Jung, who himself saw no need to disrespect people of faith, saw past the characterization of religion as a security blanket to defend against death's icy chill.

 

Our tendency to view Freud and Jung as opposed is an artifact of the very conflict (Christians are stupid vs. Christians are not stupid) you're referring to. They're not really opposites; there's a polarity there between making people better against what's holding them back and making people better by bringing out what's deep inside their potential. Religion can do the latter for many, but it's not as attractive as it used to be--no judgment there, it's just not in fashion right now. And religion can certainly be a force that holds people back, it's a very easy defense mechanism for some people because it represents a complete surrender of volition.

 

So the reason that Christians get a reputation for stupidity is because the term's a bit loaded--it represents in some ways an over-valuing of KNOWING things, whereas Christianity should be in many ways a way of tolerating a state of not-knowing, of surrendering that tension to God. It's easy to equivocate between not relying exclusively on a type of intelligence we've come to value (as it's historically come of age against religious oppression) and being simply unintelligent period. It's certainly unfair, but the rules have changed.

 

We now see intelligence as a very masculine act, a rigorous and transparent method of knowing to the best of our ability and being happy with that conclusion. As a result, there's a pathology in modern Christianity. It's in response to what society models as certainty. Carl Sagan calls science a "candle in the dark," and that metaphor is sort of linked to the idea that a candle is our hope for understanding what else is around us--a too-perfect metaphor, really, because it lends a false security by barely illuminating a narrow sphere around a tiny flame. One arguing for the wisdom (seems less loaded than intelligence) of Christianity should point out how adaptive it would be to develop a comfort with the dark, rather than the probability of unseen demons lurking therein.

 

My guess is that "vast majority" of degree-holding Christians you mentioned (and let's be honest, this is the internet so it's a very generous concession to even hypothetically consider the veracity of your sample) do not use their Christianity to illuminate what they know to be true about the world, but rather have a more feminine (in an archetypal way, not related directly to gender) intelligence that wouldn't respond aggressively to someone who tried to engage them on that masculine can-you-prove-it level. For them, it's a way of tolerating the not-knowing, and science persists as a useful tool--a yin to their yang that they learned to love while wading through all that school you said they went to.

 

So, if those Christians are quietly balancing their faith and their intellect, who among the faithful to defend Christianity against the newly-crowned intelligent and their arrogant demands for "evidence," "logic," and "rationality," is remaining? These folk are happily afflicted with the pathology in modern Christianity I previously mentioned. To put it mildly, they're not the learned folk you make them out to be. Perhaps you don't know any of them, or perhaps you've re-defined Christians so that they don't count. However, to put it less mildly, if they did go far in school, they weren't paying attention or went to a school where they can write a five page exercise in cognitive dissonance about how natural selection doesn't work if you stick both fingers in your ears and sing hymns really loud at the fossil record and earn a doctorate for doing so, perhaps with a ribbon that reminds them that anyone who persecutes them is actually blessing them.

 

They're damn vocal and they define the false dichotomy between intelligence and devotion by making an ass out of Jesus. They're the ones for whom scripture review takes the place of peer-review, who interpret religion not through a peace-seeking tolerance of the unknown but with the unerring certainty even the least-controversial scientific realities won't lay claim to. The reason they're seen as stupid isn't just that they're 100% sure about some stupid things. It's not that they believe that Jesus was the light of the world, a lovely and intrinsically-harmless thought, it's that after claiming to believe in him we need not cope with the darkness of uncertainty.

Edited March 9, 2012 by Diamonds&Rust

[Diamonds&Rust]

10 characters.

Edited March 9, 2012 by Diamonds&Rust
double-post

[zengirl]

My mother was never really Christian when I was growing up (our family was) but is much more religious now. She's still the same person, who believes in gay rights and personal freedom and science and a person's right to choose their religion and that religion doesn't make a person good or bad alone, so no worries there. I don't care what religion a person worships, as long as they don't push it on me. The main problems I have with some religious people are:

 

1.) They consider their religion absolutely correct rather than a personal choice. Many religions dictate you must, in fact.

 

2.) They try to infringe upon the rights and privileges of others by legislating or socializing their religion upon society.

 

3.) They get offended by anyone pointing out inconsistencies or potential that their religion may not be absolute truth.

 

If someone is religious and does none of those things (totally possible), they are 100% cool by me. Most Buddhists don't do those things, and that's a main reason why I selected that as my religion after exploring many.

 

Why do people assume that people who have a religious faith are unintelligent and uneducated? Just because they have a different belief system than you? The vast majority of Christians I know personally are college graduates, very well educated, well traveled, with a high I.Q.

 

I'm tempted to call "no way" on this, not because Christians cannot be those things, but because the majority of Americans are not these things, particularly well-traveled. I would like to know what do you consider well-traveled? Personally, I don't presume Christians, or any other religion, are ignorant, unintelligent, or even not well traveled (I think it's odd if MOST people you know all are "very well educated" -- which I'd consider more than a college degree -- and well-traveled and have above average IQs, though). I think there is a vast variety in all religions and that religions don't, at all, dictate IQ.

 

I do think it's interesting and worth noting that almost all pure scientists are atheists. I find that fascinating. In fact, the numbers are trending more and more that way, every generation. I suspect that's why the notion of people of faith being unintelligent comes from, because they are naturally less scientific (mind you, scientific intelligence is only one form of intelligence) and thus less 'logical' by today's standards where science has replaced philosophy as the primary logic of the day.

 

FWIW, I'm not an atheist, or a particularly scientific person. *Shrugs*

[quankanne]

They're damn vocal and they define the false dichotomy between intelligence and devotion by making an ass out of Jesus. yep, they're the ones who put a bad flavor in the mouth when they "live out" their "faith." I'm a firm believer in keeping private my beliefs unless someone asks about them; faith in action is much more important to me as a believer, because they are the most credible form of witness, IMO. Why beat someone over the head while telling them how wonderful you think God is when all you have to do is reflect it in how you live?

 

as for the original question, I'll turn that around a bit, since I'm Catholic, and therefore Christian: How would I feel if someone I loved wanted to convert to another faith belief?

 

my brother's ex-wife was raised Presbyterian, and when she remarried, it was to a Jewish guy. She started going to temple and studying the Torah, and my brother was pissed off because she chose not to be Christian. In fact, he and our sister used to make fun of her decision, because in their ignorance, ridicule was a suitable response. I know she was very hesitant to tell me, but after we talked, i could see that this was how God was leading her back to him (and she had a pretty rough time with things in her life and had trouble envisioning a loving God in the form of Christ). When you want someone to embrace God in a healthy, positive way, how can you profess to love them if you try to stand in their way of their relationship with him? How can your own relationship with God ~ one you deem important above all others ~ be something so real if you deny another person that very same thing, even though they found a different path of worship?

 

bottom line? If it truly brings the one you love that much closer to God in a positive way (i.e., no fruit-loopy cults, etc), then it's got to be a good thing. Maybe not an easy thing for us to absorb, but if it's for the greater good ...

[KathyM]

What's your point with this? Intelligence and education are somewhat different? True, although it usually takes an intelligent person to get into college and be able to obtain advanced education. The people I am referring to, whom I know personally, are college graduates. At least twelve of them have been designated as gifted. One got a perfect score on his SAT test, and a full scholarship to a top college. Several graduated in the top percentile of their high school and college graduating class. One has a degree in statistics. One has a degree in computer science. One is getting a degree in engineering. One has a degree in political science. These are only a few examples of the highly intelligent, well-educated Christian believers that I know personally.

 

History's hero always tends to be the same plus or minus a few plot points: some rebel free thinker with a great idea that everyone laughs at that ends up being totally right about the universe beyond the wildest of then-contemporary dreams. Jesus himself, the stories go, walked the well-tred path of defying the religious authority to espouse some essential part of humanity's truth. This occurred almost 500 years after Socrates drank the poison in his own ideological passion play.

 

Jesus was not some free spirit rebel. He was a fulfillment of prophesy, very specifically described in the Bible, and obedient to God's word. When the religious leaders of that time were going against or misinterpreting God's word, Jesus called them out on their hypocrisy.

 

The Scientific Revolution responsible for demystifying many of the essential truths of the universe was a bloody battle, and if faith and reason are truly harmonious parts of our consciousness, they certainly didn't act like it. It's easy to bifurcate certain aspects of religion today, but that doesn't change the fact that Galileo wasn't allowed to leave his home for looking in his telescope. The triumph of reason has diminished faith by necessity, by removing from religion's purview the parlor tricks of satisfying our curiosity about the natural world.

 

You seem to think faith and reason cannot co-exist. That's really not an accurate assumption.

 

I'm not going so far as to argue that empirical observation atrophies our need for spiritual engagement, except to point out that there are many satisfied atheists who feel that way. Still more non-religious folk prefer idiosyncratic spirituality, which seems to appeal especially to those who want to dissociate from all of the bad P.R. organized religion has received and make their own rules and language instead.

 

But, back to education, the reason that many Christians are seen as uneducated is because one's churchiness is no longer a mark of a quality education. I don't mean that flippantly; I'm merely pointing out that for a butt-ton of years the monks were the smart and literate ones, and even the Christian creation story is a tale of God asking us politely not to consume forbidden knowledge. My point is that religious education was inseparable from learnedness until very recently, civilizationwise, but that's definitely no longer true in this part of the world.

 

So the state of modern education, to sum up a lot of other interesting historical developments, is in many ways a celebration of inquiry and a new sort of Faith which refuses to call itself so. In many cases, it's the faith that controlled, measurable experiments will, when repeated, give a result that tells us something new about that thing. But (really) all it needs for us to consider it true is the resiliency that religious lore never had, an openness to being wrong and a satisfaction with how it's currently right.

 

I don't see the point you're trying to make here. God's word has remained the same since it's conveyance. It doesn't change. Does that make it wrong because it hasn't changed? Because we can discover new things and learn new things about our world, does that mean that God's word is no longer valid since it is not changing? Your point makes no sense.

 

This capacity to know with increasing satisfaction is the appeal of education, whereas true faith is in one way an opposite action: the capacity to not-know with equal satisfaction. The Freud/Jung comparison is very relevant. Freud thought religion was for stupid people who hadn't yet transcended it. Carl Jung, who himself saw no need to disrespect people of faith, saw past the characterization of religion as a security blanket to defend against death's icy chill

 

Christians learn and grow in their knowledge of God's will. But some things are beyond our capacity to understand. Some things are beyond our present sensory capacity. But for many of us, we have witnessed God's power in our lives, and have seen the evidence of God's existence. I know I have.

 

Our tendency to view Freud and Jung as opposed is an artifact of the very conflict (Christians are stupid vs. Christians are not stupid) you're referring to. They're not really opposites; there's a polarity there between making people better against what's holding them back and making people better by bringing out what's deep inside their potential. Religion can do the latter for many, but it's not as attractive as it used to be--no judgment there, it's just not in fashion right now. And religion can certainly be a force that holds people back, it's a very easy defense mechanism for some people because it represents a complete surrender of volition.

 

How is religion holding someone back? If anything, it advances and expands your existence.

 

So the reason that Christians get a reputation for stupidity is because the term's a bit loaded--it represents in some ways an over-valuing of KNOWING things, whereas Christianity should be in many ways a way of tolerating a state of not-knowing, of surrendering that tension to God. It's easy to equivocate between not relying exclusively on a type of intelligence we've come to value (as it's historically come of age against religious oppression) and being simply unintelligent period. It's certainly unfair, but the rules have changed.

 

Some people like to believe that Christians are stupid for believing things that cannot be seen. They never consider that something may exist that is outside of their current ability to perceive or understand.

 

We now see intelligence as a very masculine act, a rigorous and transparent method of knowing to the best of our ability and being happy with that conclusion. As a result, there's a pathology in modern Christianity. It's in response to what society models as certainty. Carl Sagan calls science a "candle in the dark," and that metaphor is sort of linked to the idea that a candle is our hope for understanding what else is around us--a too-perfect metaphor, really, because it lends a false security by barely illuminating a narrow sphere around a tiny flame. One arguing for the wisdom (seems less loaded than intelligence) of Christianity should point out how adaptive it would be to develop a comfort with the dark, rather than the probability of unseen demons lurking therein.

 

My guess is that "vast majority" of degree-holding Christians you mentioned (and let's be honest, this is the internet so it's a very generous concession to even hypothetically consider the veracity of your sample) do not use their Christianity to illuminate what they know to be true about the world, but rather have a more feminine (in an archetypal way, not related directly to gender) intelligence that wouldn't respond aggressively to someone who tried to engage them on that masculine can-you-prove-it level. For them, it's a way of tolerating the not-knowing, and science persists as a useful tool--a yin to their yang that they learned to love while wading through all that school you said they went to.

 

While I can't prove to you over the internet that God exists, although I have seen proof in my own life and in the lives of others, you can't prove that He doesn't exist. No scientists have been able to prove that God does not exist. Many scientists have come to the conclusion that God's existence is a possibility. Many scientists have come to be believers in God after grappling with these issues. Science, in fact, contradicts itself. It changes, and what was once thought to be true, is sometimes disproven. How can you put all your faith in science when it is so limited?

 

So, if those Christians are quietly balancing their faith and their intellect, who among the faithful to defend Christianity against the newly-crowned intelligent and their arrogant demands for "evidence," "logic," and "rationality," is remaining? These folk are happily afflicted with the pathology in modern Christianity I previously mentioned. To put it mildly, they're not the learned folk you make them out to be. Perhaps you don't know any of them, or perhaps you've re-defined Christians so that they don't count. However, to put it less mildly, if they did go far in school, they weren't paying attention or went to a school where they can write a five page exercise in cognitive dissonance about how natural selection doesn't work if you stick both fingers in your ears and sing hymns really loud at the fossil record and earn a doctorate for doing so, perhaps with a ribbon that reminds them that anyone who persecutes them is actually blessing them.

 

These learned Christians you are trying to disparage went to the top universities and colleges, with degrees in science, math, psychology, philosophy, and one studied all the world's religions. Don't mock when you don't know. You can choose to not believe what I say, but I have no reason to lie to you. You're just a stranger on the internet.

 

They're damn vocal and they define the false dichotomy between intelligence and devotion by making an ass out of Jesus. They're the ones for whom scripture review takes the place of peer-review, who interpret religion not through a peace-seeking tolerance of the unknown but with the unerring certainty even the least-controversial scientific realities won't lay claim to. The reason they're seen as stupid isn't just that they're 100% sure about some stupid things. It's not that they believe that Jesus was the light of the world, a lovely and intrinsically-harmless thought, it's that after claiming to believe in him we need not cope with the darkness of uncertainty.

Don't you think we all question our beliefs at times? Christians are not above that. Everyone develops their belief system based on what they think is most reasonable, most logical, most accurate. Christians, at times, have moments of uncertainty and question their beliefs, but they come to the conclusion that what they believe is the truth. Some have witnessed miracles in their lives that can only be answered by the existence of God. It's too bad you limit yourself only to what you have seen, and only to the scientific world, which is, in itself, flawed, and limited by our own capability.

[KathyM]

They're damn vocal and they define the false dichotomy between intelligence and devotion by making an ass out of Jesus. yep, they're the ones who put a bad flavor in the mouth when they "live out" their "faith." I'm a firm believer in keeping private my beliefs unless someone asks about them; faith in action is much more important to me as a believer, because they are the most credible form of witness, IMO. Why beat someone over the head while telling them how wonderful you think God is when all you have to do is reflect it in how you live?

 

as for the original question, I'll turn that around a bit, since I'm Catholic, and therefore Christian: How would I feel if someone I loved wanted to convert to another faith belief?

 

my brother's ex-wife was raised Presbyterian, and when she remarried, it was to a Jewish guy. She started going to temple and studying the Torah, and my brother was pissed off because she chose not to be Christian. In fact, he and our sister used to make fun of her decision, because in their ignorance, ridicule was a suitable response. I know she was very hesitant to tell me, but after we talked, i could see that this was how God was leading her back to him (and she had a pretty rough time with things in her life and had trouble envisioning a loving God in the form of Christ). When you want someone to embrace God in a healthy, positive way, how can you profess to love them if you try to stand in their way of their relationship with him? How can your own relationship with God ~ one you deem important above all others ~ be something so real if you deny another person that very same thing, even though they found a different path of worship?

 

bottom line? If it truly brings the one you love that much closer to God in a positive way (i.e., no fruit-loopy cults, etc), then it's got to be a good thing. Maybe not an easy thing for us to absorb, but if it's for the greater good ...

We are called to witness to others and proclaim our faith, not keep it to ourselves and hide it.

[Diamonds&Rust]

What's your point with this?

I was answering your question. I split my responses into paragraphs so that it would be easier to read, not so that each paragraph could stand alone without context.

When the religious leaders of that time were going against or misinterpreting God's word, Jesus called them out on their hypocrisy

I'm well aware of the story. I did not accuse Jesus of having a free spirit. Your refusal to call this rebellion is semantic. Additionally, I don't see any evidence that Jesus made his present-day followers immune to misinterpretation.

You seem to think faith and reason cannot co-exist. That's really not an accurate assumption.

Your assumption about this is so far from what I was saying that I'm questioning whether your original question was even earnest. I'm not sure whether you're looking for an argument or not. If you are, "most of the Christians I know are intelligent" is not an exceptionally good one.

 

Didn't you want to know why some people think Christians aren't intelligent? Don't confuse me with those people, I was only trying to answer that question.

 

Whether or not faith and reason can co-exist, the history of what we now call "reason" is marked by struggle against the political authorities of faith. That's just history. If you look at an evangelical atheist (Richard Dawkins, for example) that fear is still very much alive--for good reason.

 

God's word has remained the same since it's conveyance. It doesn't change.

Perhaps. If I ever meet God, I'll have to ask him about this.

 

Instead, all we have are a bunch of words that human beings wrote, in a language you probably don't understand very well. Most of what we call the Holy Bible today was assembled carefully in 1563. If one were to argue that divining what was the true word of God and what wasn't was the only task of the Council of Trent, I'd call that a naive belief.

 

Because we can discover new things and learn new things about our world, does that mean that God's word is no longer valid since it is not changing?

If God were to return to Mt. Sinai and say something to the effect of "THOU SHALT INTERPRET ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF SCRIPTURE WITHOUT ENGAGING THINE CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS" or "THOU SHALT CONTINUE TO DENY NATURAL SELECTION IN SPITE OF ALL OF ITS INCONTROVERTIBLE EVIDENCE," then yeah, I'd say it's no longer valid.

Luckily, that doesn't seem to have happened.

 

My point about the natural world is only that religion's role has changed in how we understand the natural world. If you rely on religious faith to understand science, you're doing both wrong.

 

& don't blame that on God. Not cool. I was under the impression that God was quite clear about taking his name in vain. There's a lot of vanity in fundamentalism.

How is religion holding someone back?

That was Freud's opinion, not mine.

 

If anything, it advances and expands your existence.

Jung saw the potential for this. I see it too. It's certainly not a given though.

 

While I can't prove to you over the internet that God exists

It's super clear to me that you've confused me for an atheist when all I was trying to do was answer your question. I'm not trying to convince you of anything.

 

No scientists have been able to prove that God does not exist.

No scientist would try. None shoulder the burden of proof on this one.

 

Science, in fact, contradicts itself. It changes, and what was once thought to be true, is sometimes disproven. How can you put all your faith in science when it is so limited?

I don't put all of my faith in science. Because you've clearly approached my attempt to help you understand something about our culture as an argument, it's not so distressing that you've missed so many of my points.

 

The times I do get distressed is when we're saying the exact same thing. This is one of those times. Perhaps when you're less fired up you may be interested in re-reading what I wrote, unless I'm correct in assuming that you may not care.

 

These learned Christians you are trying to disparage went to the top universities and colleges,

They most certainly did not.

 

I was careful not to be disparaging except to those who deserve it. No "top university or college" would give you a doctorate for what amounts to a rant, but plenty of Bible colleges will.

 

It's true that I pick on fundamentalists, particularly Creationists. It's not their intellect that offends me, but their theology. Simply put, it's not that I think they're bad thinkers, though I do; it's that I think they're bad Christians.

 

It's too bad you limit yourself only to what you have seen, and only to the scientific world, which is, in itself, flawed, and limited by our own capability.

It's too bad you barely scanned what I wrote.

 

It's also too bad I thought you were earnestly asking a question. There are plenty of people everywhere who fit the description you're projecting onto me.

 

We are called to witness to others and proclaim our faith, not keep it to ourselves and hide it.

Interesting point. I wonder if your job is done after you've proclaimed your faith, or whether there's also some duty to concern yourself with how the "witnessing" is received. If no, it's clearly not about witnessing to others at all; it's just vanity.

[quankanne]

We are called to witness to others and proclaim our faith, not keep it to ourselves and hide it. however, there's nowhere in the Bible ~ or through tradition ~ that calls for us to bash others over the head with what we believe.

 

besides, didn't Jesus tell us to love God and love one another? If we intentionally offend someone by our behavior because it's more important to us to proselytize than it is to give genuine witness, then that's no show of love.

 

what's that adage? Preach the Gospel ... if necessary, use words

[Snow-white]

If my sister wants to convert to Christianity (she would not, but just saying), that's OK for her and her life. It would be her decision. But I would not want her to speak about that stuff around me or trying to argue. I am agnostic leaning towards atheist.

[TaraMaiden]

KathyM, if you'd like a few lessons on how to get your points across logically, with no excessive call on fiery emotion, and in a succinct, coherent and intelligent manner - you really do need to study Diamonds&Rust's method of answering comments.

it's really very articulate, logical and founded on quite a bit of knowledge.

 

Plus - you could learn how to use the quotes facility better.

 

i clearly remember explaining how to do this to you once when you stated you didn't know how to do that.

I guess you might have missed that, but unfortunately, it seems you do tend to skip and misinterpret some things....

 

with sincere Metta,

 

TM.

[Woggle]

I would care as long as she wasn't some religious right kind of fanatic. A person can have a faith and still be intelligent and open minded.