Hi Impenitent,
There is a well quoted example that I can’t find just yet, in which a Jew who is suffering persecution say’s something like, “they have taken the cross and turned it around. They have made the cross into a sword and now they are beating us with it!”
I agree with Scythethkain - a good metaphor
Shalom
Bob,
In every single sentence you claim that I alone see things the way I have described, but don’t you read the newspapers, watch news on TV, read weekly magazines?
I read them, I just don’t interpret them the way that “Bob’ does.
Don’t you read history books, haven’t you read church history?
I have read them, but I don’t interpret them the way that “Bob†does.
This isn’t about Bob, though I assume you would like it to be.
It seems to be about “Bob†imposing his intolerant view of other’s opinions, upon the very people he claims to seek to reconcile.
It is about manipulation of masses.
A manipulation that “Bob†is immune to? Despite the fact that “Bob” cites newpapers and T.V. and his source for information about the world
You are talking about damagogues, look in the mirror.
I have not called the people I claim to seek to reconcile producers of : bigotery, hypocrisy, perversion and disgrace
I am telling people we have more in common than organised religion would have us know.
As long as these people drop the beliefs they cherish and agree with “Bobâ€.
You are saying the only way out of the mess we are in is by way on conflict
The imposition of a unified thought upon distinctively evolved forms of worship or behavior is a violence. The violence in your project is marked by your words which describe the very people you wish to unite. There is conflict in your voice as you call for “no conflictâ€.
Dunamis
Hi Dunamis,
You bore me!
What a waste of intelligence - I genuinely consider you as being intelligent, but what you are doing is avoiding the issue.
Shalom
Bob,
“I genuinely consider you as being intelligent, but what you are doing is avoiding the issue.”
The issue is, look at your shadow, or at the very least the shadow of your project. Unless you do, you cannot lead others.
Dunamis
You don’t have to drop your beliefs, you have to drop your exclusive RIGHT to your beliefs. You have to drop the madness. You have to give up the insanity.
But you gain access to an inclusive spirituality.
we need to confront behaviour like this to stop further madness:
godhatesfags.com/featured/20 … -bomb.html
fundamentalist exclusive beliefs (religious is to narrow a brush, secularists and atheists can fit under the exclusive belief brush.) endanger our livelyhood.
we can stay exclusive and have massive losses of human life.
Or we can become more inclusive and accepting of people who are different. It doesn’t mean “giving up your self” it means “adding to who you are.”
Dunamis,
You are clearly interested in this issue. I asked you, very politely, to begin a thread addressing these issues and you declined. What is it? Put yourself out there. You obviously have an agenda, or you wouldn’t keep responding, what are you driving at other than taking pot shots. It’s time to play fair.
JT
Scy,
“You don’t have to drop your beliefs, you have to drop your exclusive RIGHT to your beliefs.”
And if your belief is that you have knowledge of the exclusive path?
Dunamis
Tent,
“You obviously have an agenda, or you wouldn’t keep responding, what are you driving at other than taking pot shots.”
I find those that speak of world peace and other spiritualized conceptions have projects that include a violence which they do not recognize. I do not have a position or agenda other than to point out this violence when I see it. If you call this taking pot shots, I call it making people responsible to the consequences of their views. I do not agree with over all spritual social engeneering, but rather in case by case review. In other words, apparently I do not think like you. Is there room in your mind for people who do not think like you?
Dunamis
Dunamis,
JT is right, I can’t find a single thread you have started. You enjoy sitting in the second row criticising the players at the table but you keep away from the table yourself. Come on, put your money down!
Shalom
Dunamis,
Of course I do. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be responding to you. You couch your response in lofty terms, but you speak to Bob as if he’s the only person in the world with the views he has expressed. Your animosity isn’t directed at the issues, but at Bob personally. The transparency of this is obvious. If you disagree, fine. But you discredit yourself by directing your comments AT Bob instead of the issues. Again, play fair.
JT
Tent,
“You couch your response in lofty terms, but you speak to Bob as if he’s the only person in the world with the views he has expressed. Your animosity isn’t directed at the issues, but at Bob personally.”
I have nothing against Bob personally, but I do not appreciate how “Bob” has represented himself. He tosses around hostility under very subtle innuendo. “Conservative Christian” in his use becomes a derogatory remark, a remark in tone which one poster has already taken objection to. He has accidentally grouped me with his experiences in Bible groups and the such, and yet he presents his view as if they should be transparent to all. The reason for personalizing his view as “Bob” is to make distinct the violence he is inadvertently committing against the personal views of other people, that he is not working from authority but from singular view, and as such must take all other singular views into account if he is going to bring about “reconciliation”. I would have much less a problem if this was Dr. Satanical, in fact probably no problem at all, because Dr. Satanical’s ideology matches his action. What I do have a problem with, enough to make a firm point of it, is when one claims to preach peace and reconciliation, but one’s mouth is filled with judgment and criticism. Perhaps this is a sore point with me, spiritual hypocrisy has more to do with the problems in the world than do the “authoritative” and literal readings of texts. I have no ill will towards Bob personally, in fact I suspect he is a very nice person and good to be around, but in a public arena, this kind of hypocrisy of project, even if subtle is the kind of thing I speak out against. Call this conviction.
Dunamis
Dunamis,
If this is your viewpoint and your conviction, why all the run around? Why all the posts to this thread to draw this out? There might have been a kinder, gentler, more direct way of addressing all this… or perhaps not. 
JT
tell me how your exclusive path is better than john’s exclusive path?
Tent.,
"If this is your viewpoint and your conviction, why all the run around? Why all the posts to this thread to draw this out?
What you call drawing something out, I call point by point responding to that to which I object.
There might have been a kinder, gentler, more direct way of addressing all this… or perhaps not."
There might have been. I am a sharpened sword at times, and make no claims not to be. But if you check the history of the thread, it was when Bob claimed that I was purposively not understanding him - his second response to me -, that the social contract of reasoned exchange was broken. I ignored the intent at the time but eventually the agression of his vision raised its head. Again, from Dr. Satanical I wouldn’t have even thought twice. But when making claims as to a spirit of reconciliation, one must be held to them. “Freedom for all” at some point turns into “Death to the enemies of Freedom”, something those that chant the first slogan seldom think about.
Dunamis
Scy,
“tell me how your exclusive path is better than john’s exclusive path?”
I do not claim to have the exclusive path, but attempt to speak on the behalf of the many of those who do, those that one imagines should be reconciled. I also don’t know who John is.
Dunamis
Hello F(r)iends,
The problem is not with the translations. The problem is with interpretations. Thus, the problem is with the interpreter and furthermore, the problem is with mankind. Man has long sought to subjugate his fellow man… it is this that drives mankind into organized religion.
Bob, even if you feel the New Testament translations have been less than adequate in expressing the Eastern mentality, you could agree that the more accepting messages of Christ have not failed to be made clear.
How much more clearer do we need the words of Jesus?
Matthew 22:37 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
Matthew 22:39 Love your neighbor as yourself.
Matthew 5:39 But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
Matthew 5:44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
-Thirst
that’s the whole point, you don’t know John or his path, but he claims absolute truth and absolute exclusive path to god.
He goes around stating that only he knows the absolute truth about god, and has absolute exclusivity over god.
Need I say the stick is leading the sheep? Or should I say your using the stick to beat other sheep to retain your exclusivity?
Don’t worry John does the same thing along with his brothers, Joseph, Ischmael, and Mohamet.
Scy,
that’s the whole point, you don’t know John or his path, but he claims absolute truth and absolute exclusive path to god.
I assumed John was “JT” or another poster. I’m sorry that I don’t pick up on your theological reference. But the point isn’t that my exclusive path or another’s exclusive path is correct, but how to reconcile people who believe that they know the exclusive path. Does it consist of telling people that their beliefs are fundamentally wrong and in need of “correction”?
Dunamis
I tried reading this thread and was reminded why I often stay out of the Religion forum. I would like to ask, sincerely, shouldn’t logic be anathema to a christian? If a christian is going to insist of strict logic in discussions related to matters of faith, then, well… if it was me, I would ask about the trinity and reply later pretending to agree.
I can understand what Bob must be feeling right now. There are plenty of political discussions taking place here at ILP that Dunamis tends to ignore, but they could greatly benefit from his penchant for following certain claims and lines of thought to their logical conclusions (at least those that fit his arguments). I imagine he avoids them because said discussions are what they are, often pointless, meandering, subjective rants.
I suppose what I am saying is Bob, Dunamis probably wouldn’t have bothered if he didn’t see something worthy in either your post itself, or in you and your style of argument. At least, I hope that’s the case, because the first page quickly passed what little bit I was taught in my 300 lvl World Religions course, and thre isn’t much aid my agnostic self can provide, except to suggest that Dunamis has a weakness for the Ancient greeks and chocolate cupcakes.
GCT
I only speak for me but esoteric Christianity has made logic meaningful.
Dunamis
I’m beginning to like you. 
This may be the kiss of death around here but I tend to agree and sympathise with your concerns. Religion initially had the purpose of making a silk purse out of a sow’ ear. But it has gradually become secularized in public to justify ones perceived existence as an imagined silk purse and of course, all silk purses should get along if instructed properly. Heh heh heh
This is why Jesus said the world would hate the truth since it reveals the image for the emptiness it is.