Originally Posted By ecdc >>And ecdc, I certainly didn't mean you as someone to whom it wouldn't be "good enough"<< No worries at all. I promise I'm not trying to be difficult by pushing the issue. And I hope I'm being clear that I'm not hung up on issues of why would anyone do that, or you don't need faith to be a good person. Obviously I was a person of faith who picked and chose. I picked and chose until there was nothing left to choose So I wonder if I just have a personality that's not good at compromise, or...whatever. For me the core issue is this notion of malleability. If you can shape your faith into whatever you want it to be, then it seems to be undercutting the very purpose of most religions to say "This is the way the world is and this is the right way to behave and this is the wrong way to behave." Surely it holds much value on a personal level. And like I've said, I prefer those believers who are thoughtful enough to say "I'm not so on board with some of this stuff." But from the larger perspective of faith communities, it sounds awfully Unitarian. And those faith communities that are the most literal, the most dogmatic, are often the ones that thrive the most, because there's power in literalness.
Originally Posted By CuriouserConstance ^^^ It makes zero difference. Unfortunately, what people believe, tends to make a huge difference in other's lives. That's where I feel it stops being your right to believe how you want to, and it starts becoming you shoving your religion down everyone else's throat. NOT you specifically PrincessJenn, or Kar2oonMan, I think you both are exceptions to my beef. Some examples of religion interference: Stem cell research, gay/lebsian rights, Pledge of Allegiance in schools, etc.
Originally Posted By CuriouserConstance My response was in response to post 280 " As long as my being Christian does not hurt you or others what difference can it possibly make to you what I choose to believe?"
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "And how can you be a good judge of what a Christian is or is not supposed to believe if you are not a Christian?" Because I used to be one.
Originally Posted By dshyates Josh, I know you believe that there is no hate in your support for Prop 8. But it really is hard to see your point of view. It reminds me a lot of the Germans eradicating the Jews. There were a lot of people involved with rounding up, transporting, and gassing the Jews who claim they had no hate for the Jews. Some just felt pity for them. But they felt that the Jews as a group were detrimental to society. And with compassion for the good of society they needed to rid society of the Jews. So they viewed the killing of the Jews as not hateful, but an act of campassion for society. Now very few outside of the indoctrinated could possibly see their actions as anything but hateful. They themselves didn't see it as such.
Originally Posted By CuriouserConstance ""And how can you be a good judge of what a Christian is or is not supposed to believe if you are not a Christian?" Because I used to be one." Yeah, Hans was Christian till about a month ago, when I finally manage to convert him. :<>
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt One more question for anyone who is willing to respond: as a Christian, or follower of Christ, do feel compelled to believe that he rose from the dead, ascended to Heaven, and will return to Earth one day?
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "You also don't need a mate to get through life. You don't need a family, and you don't have to have friends. You can be a loner if you like and get by just fine. But most people choose to have other people in their lives -- friends, family, partners. And some of those people draw comfort from having faith that there is a God as well." Deserves repeating. As irrefutable a post as there ever could be around here.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "One more question for anyone who is willing to respond: as a Christian, or follower of Christ, do feel compelled to believe that he rose from the dead, ascended to Heaven, and will return to Earth one day?" I've said this before. I belong to the Church of Me. I don't much care for organized religion. Baptists, Methodists and Catholics is too much like Cubs, Yankees and Cardinals. It's the frailty of the human psyche taking over in that many people seem to think we even have to compete to see who's got the best religion, and due to the extreme personal nature of it all, we can't just play a game, our failures as humans make us think one's very life and fate is at stake instead. That's insanity to me. But I believe there is a God. There is certainly a supernatural existence somewhere. Too many things have happened in my life and others I know for me not to believe that. I try to live by the Golden Rule. I don't need anything else. I often don't succeed, but that's what I strive to achieve every day. I feel if if God is everything he's purported to be, then that should be enough for him. I doubt very much His Feelings will be hurt. I don't think there's a God requirement that I go to church every Sunday or even belong to one. I believe God is okay with the fact I'm in a sports bar by 9:30 a.m. on Sundays during the fall watching football. I believe he's got a sense of humor about it all. Look around, he'd have to have one. In line with that, I don't feel compelled to believe he rose from the dead and ascended to Heaven and will someday return. But I certainly believe it's possible. There's so much we don't know, anything has to be possible.
Originally Posted By CuriouserConstance "There is certainly a supernatural existence somewhere. Too many things have happened in my life and others I know for me not to believe that." Just curious what you mean by this? What types of things are we talking about here?
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "Just curious what you mean by this? What types of things are we talking about here?" My own personal life experiences.
Originally Posted By CuriouserConstance I was just looking for an example or two. Doesn't have to be what actually happened to you, but something similar that could give me an idea of what you mean.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder I didn't have time to give much of an answer last time. My answer is more of a stream of consciousness thing, anyway, in no particular order. There was a car wreck I had in 1987 where I was cut off in an intersection and slamming on the brakes made me spin out of control. I was sure I was going to die because I was heading for a commercial truck. All I remember thinking was I wonder if this was going to hurt before I go. It all went in slow motion. Instead, my passenger side (I had an RX-7 like this -<a href="http://images.carpictures.cc/photo/m/Daveseven_Mazda_RX-7_00001540.jpg" target="_blank">http://images.carpictures.cc/p...1540.jpg</a> gets t-boned by the truck and the only part not crushed was where I was sitting. When I came to a stop, I heard some voice say "get out, get out". I thought it must be someone on the street but no one ws around. Later, in the hospital, as I was strapped to a gurney, I heard the same voice again say "it wasn't your time." I thought it was a nurse, but again, no one was there. Later, the girl I was living with but had just broken up with told me a male voice had called her and said she needed to go to the hospital because I was there. She couldn't find anyone who made the call but I was indeed there. In 1993 I lived in my grandfather's house in Palos Verdes after he died. I kept seeing him sitting on a porch swing on the weekends. All his tools were still in the garage. I would look for a certain one in a cupboard, not find it, then the next time I went to the cupboard, whatever I was looking for the time before would be front and center in the cupboard. I was installing a surveillance camera one time and secured it to a frame inside a ceiling. It was immobile. When I got out of the ceiling and looked at the picture on the monitor, the picture was spinning as if someone was twirling the camera. I got back in the ceiling to check it and it was still secure. Later, we saw rolling racks of clothes suddenly move by themselves from one end of a loading dock to another as if the building we were in was a ship at sea. We sat in an office in the same building and watched a light switch move up and down by itself as the lights went on and off. A girl who worked for me in the mid-90's was into Ouijia boards. She came to me one day all freaked out. She told me someone on the board said to tell me "C. Dick says to have a beer. Dan says to have a beer." She said the board kept saying that. She wanted to know if that meant anything. What she didn't know was that I was friends with a guy named Dan McLain who was a singer/drummer for a group based in San Diego called the Beat Farmers. I spent far too many grossly inebriated nights with them. Dan died on stage in Whistler, Canada in 1995 of a heart attack. His stage name was Country Dick Montana. Google him sometime, he was quite the character. One night, after a particularly debauched evening with the Beat Farmers in Pacific Beach, I was driving home in my replacement RX-7 (might was well show a picture, mine was light blue- <a href="http://www.sitting-ducks.com/~jeff/sachs/mazda_RX7.gif" target="_blank">http://www.sitting-ducks.com/~..._RX7.gif</a> ). I had dropped a girl off at her home around 2:30 a.m. I had been getting a lot of grief from friends about my partying, especially when I spent time with the Beat Farmers. I didn't listen to them. After I dropped her off, next thing I remember is waking up driving around Escondido but I had no idea where I was. In my stupidness, I thought it was a brilliant idea to go to a pay phone, dial 911, and ask where I was. I did just that, but during the call, suddenly realized what a dumb idea that was. I calmly hung up, got back in my car, and found my way back to the 78 and home. On the way, I passed numerous police cars going towards where I was coming from. I haven't drank that much since then, much less have any drink and then drive. It was literally my wake up call. Something was looking out for me that night. My brother's girl friend's autistic 15 year old son recently had a pug he owned die. He wanted another one. He insisted they go to a particular shelter to find one. His mother called and was told no pugs there. The boy kept insisting they go anyway, so they went. They checked every row at the shelter, no pug. The boy insisted they look around the corner at the last row where they weren't allowed to go. His mother told him they couldn't go, but he ran from them and went down that row. Three cages from the door at the end of the row sat his pug. My brother says the pug started barking incessantly and was licking the boy like crazy through the cage. They adopted it. Turns out the last row was death row at the shelter and his pug was third line. The boy now couldn't be prouder of himself for saving that dog. He's animated, talking more (the boy, not the pug) and isn't as hard to control as he was. These are just a few brief examples. There have been many more. I could relate how I made a sudden decision to leave a job of 16 years and decide to go to law school. Everyone thought I was nuts. Don't know what made me suddenly decide to do it, but I did it. Best thing I ever did besides marry my wife. Speaking of which, for some reason I remained friends with a girl I had dated twice, years apart. We remained friendly, just knew we shouldn't date. Most people don't do that. That girl ended up introducing me to my wife a month before I graduated from law school. My point is, yes, there are coincidences in life, but after a while, when strung together, the way things work out, there often seems to be some other "thing" at work with some type of hand in it all. Whether something large or small happens, taken a total context, things seem to work out for a reason. The reasons aren't always good. Another brother of mine whom I've talked about here lost his sight at age 36. He partied like a mother------. People kept telling him to knock it off and he wouldn't, despite two DUIs. He didn't wake up driving around Escondido one early morning. Instead, he went blind due to Tobacco-Alcohol Amblyopia. He's almost 43 now and doesn't drink anymore. So anyway, that's why.
