evidence supporting christianity? i know ive heard of it...

Well, I don’t think they need to be so sharply different. I mean, you know what they say about the best intentions. Yes, maybe the people who started the Inquisition were nothing like the people who arranged the Bible, but I don’t think that’s necessary- rather small mistakes can result in huge catastrophes when you are talking about people who weild that much power.

When you talk about the formation of the official thing, do you mean the Bible? Obviously Christianity was around a long time before that. And when is the ‘next time’ we have reliable information? Are you saying there’s some big break in our historical knowledge of the Church sometime after the 5th Century? I am in no wise a historian, I’m asking.
Really, the goodness or the evilness of what the Church has become is irrelevant to my point though. I’m not saying that the Church is some holy thing that God has preserved and kept perfect from Jesus until now. What I’m saying is, the formation of such a powerful institution tells me that the original message of Jesus was something powerful and monumental, that it didn’t just fade away. The institution forces us to regard Him as something other than a forgettable nutjob. Something really big and really world-changing happened back then, that’s one piece of the puzzle.

There’s certainly enough people like that active right now that I can’t discount the possibility of it happening before! But I hope you see now how this isn’t impact what I’m trying to say.

I can see why you would think so. Other pieces of the puzzle speak against that, though.

Possible. But the first piece of the puzzle, that they actually succeeding in establishing something so massive and successful, speaks against this. The second piece of the puzzle for me is with the martyrs- whatever this massively world-changing thing was that happened, plenty of people around right at the beginning were willing to die claiming that it involved God coming to Earth as man. In other words, the closest we have to eye witnesses believed this, and believed it so very strongly that they could not be shaken. So,
1.) Something happened to completely change history.
2.) The people around at the time believe it was the miraculous actions of God become man.

I cannot stress enough how misleading the term ‘martyred themselves’ is for people that were captured, tortured, and killed. I’m sure every one of them would have preferred that not to happen. They did not do anything to themselves to prove a point. They lived their point, and were killed for refusing to deny it.

Well, I would say that’s an irrational bias on your part, BUT I would also say that the people who presented the miracles of Jesus to the world were not at all rich, unless you take a very strange view of Church history- you can claim that rich people made up Jesus, made up the miracles, and made up the Church as part of a scam, but as far as I know, not even atheist scholars believe that.

This is my third piece to the puzzle.
1.) Something happened to completely change history.
2.) The people around at the time believe it was the miraculous actions of God become man.
and now:
3.) I have no dead-set refusal to listen to claims of the miraculous- I will take them seriously when they are presented seriously.

Are you talking about the Incarnation of Jesus?

I wasn’t facing Mecca or anything, but yeah, actually I have. I like it in the right circumstance.

The point of your thread here seems to be about the evidence of Christianity being true, not how happy it makes people. If my goal is truth, then I have to take it for granted that the things my brain presents me with are mostly reliable, or I’d be screwed.

Christianity making good on it’s claims to present a good morality and answered prayer is the 4th piece of the puzzle:

1.) Something happened to completely change history.
2.) The people around at the time believe it was the miraculous actions of God become man.
and now:
3.) I have no dead-set refusal to listen to claims of the miraculous- I will take them seriously when they are presented seriously.
4.) The things that Christianity points to now to back it’s devine ancestry are true (in my experience)- prayer does work wonders, and God’s Word does provide the answers to difficult questions in life, and good way to understand the Universe.

After that, all that’s really left is to examine the internal logic of the unique concepts- the idea of God, the idea that He could become a Person, the idea that everybody has sinned, and that God has the authority/capability to forgive that sin. All of that is logically possible, it’s not incoherent or absurd. Call that a 5th piece if you want, but I think of it as evaulating the other 4 pieces. The end result after all that is that Christianity is more thank likely true- I have good cause to believe it. I hope this has satisfied the original question of your thread!

Well summed up Uccisore

Hello Emorgasm

If you are seriously interested, first read the "rawpaint"link posted on the initial post of the following thread.

ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/vi … +needleman

If it resonates with you perhaps we could discuss some ideas. If not, that’s OK since not many are interested in these things.

The essence of Christianity deals with man’s “being” and the interaction of the energies and materiality associated with it. Knowledge of being and human being in particular, though able to be described intellectually, is psychological and verified experientially where the question of being is unimportant. In this way it differs from factual knowledge verified from outside ourselves. In order to understand the relativity of man’s being and its conscious potential as a microcosm within a greater cosmological structure, an organized teaching must be constructed which is the intellectual part of, but not exclusive to, Christianity as it is known.

The level of earth is in a unique place within the cosmological perspective. It is the point where mechanical evolution moving up can meet the lowest point of conscious involution moving down into creation. Man has already evolved mechanically as far as possible from the bottom up. Consciousness is required for man’s continued evolution which comes from conscious help from above. The purpose of Christianity is to allow one to become open to it.

Future Man, I don’t know how to answer you since there is no organized thought. If you’d like, read that link also. it is the first chapter of a thought provoking book. If it makes any sense, maybe it will help you to understand what St. Clement is driving at with the idea of “levels”

What if each and every human on earth was able to equal or become greater then the Christ in atleast one way? Then what?

uccisore,

Most of this was covered in my flying spaghetti monster, but it bears the sake of repeating some points.

likewise, muslims believe the mohammed was the prophet of god for lots of reasons.

Scientologists believe that L.R. Hubbard was divinely inspired for lots of reasons.

it is respected by all of it’s followers. Why should it be respected by those who don’t believe? It’s like Futureman stated… one need only look even to recent christian past to see many, many sordid episodes of hatred and bigotry and violence, being espoused in the name of christ. And it’s not like they are making this stuff up on their own… it’s all right there in the bible. Just like the “fundamentalist” muslims, who follow the path of martyrdom. They aren’t making it up, such “commands” do exist in the Qu’ran.

and in a mere 17 years, the muslim religion will have more followers than the christian religion. Will you respect that great and powerful institution?

There must be something to that mohammed guy if so many people followed him right?

People are willing to die for all sorts of things they believe in, in most recent memory, we have the heaven’s gate cult and the martyrs of islam.

I don’t see how this claim proves the truth of christ. It also seems to me, that those who aren’t willing to die, fully realize the grave importance of life here on earth, versus those who are willing to die for a cause.

I think this is also a matter of opinion… Jesus hated families. He told his followers to leave families to follow him, and to let the dead bury the dead. His own family thought he was crazy. (mark 3 i believe?)

you mean you are unwilling to apply the same level of skepticism to the “miraculous” as you do other things.

I think futureman answered this good. If you were a good muslim/mormon/moonie/scientoligist you’d also feel good. It’s completely pyschosomatic.

Does that mean I think it’s bad? I think not. I think it’s worth studying why meditation and prayer cause euphoria. There is a study done with an MRI that shows an area of the brain comes on that is not on for any other purpose.

It’s certainly looks like the brain is hardwired to beleive in “something”. Whether that’s christianity, buddhism, mysticism, islam, etc… doesn’t seem to matter to the brain.

as for morality?

Need we touch that issue again? rewind time and look at all the moral behaviors the church took part in… by command of the “good book”.

yeah… people have lived and died for lots of causes, why does that fact make it better than other religions?

the oldest copy of the torah exists in a museum in London… it’s little talked about because of how different it is from modern “holy scripture”.

i think the farther we get from the past, the harder it is to see through their eyes. What caused these people to believe that a man was god, and that we could be resurrected?

Certainly if someone made such claims today, most of us would apply some level of skepticism to the claims and the man making the claims. The church would grow slowly, (scientology, mormonism) and eventually would have a sufficient number of followers to be called a “legitimate” religion.

Certainly you look at the mormon or scientologist claims of the afterlife, and of how this life works (and certainly the E-meter crap deserves to be mocked) and apply the highest level of skepticism…

But is it really that much different from the claims made by christianity?

that our body will rise up from the dead and we’ll walk the earth (or heaven depending on your view.) as soulmen.

conclusion:

Now it may appear that I’m mocking your belief in christianity… I’m challenging it. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with your belief, like the belief in the diamond in the backyard (is there a god thread) the belief in the diamond makes someone happy, the same way the belief in christianity fulfills your life.

Scythekain, your entire point seems to be “Uccisore shouldn’t have strong belief in Christianity because lots of other people believe lots of other things juts as strongly”. Luckily, I already have a thread just for that.

scythekain said:

I disagree with this based upon personal experience, and a complete lack of knowledge or understanding by medicine/science.

1. Meditation and prayer are different. They can show similar effects, which is just an end result, but they are not related.

2. Meditation is a discipline. No, I am not speaking about the version of western meditation taught by hippies. I am speaking about the martial tradition, which requires being taught by someone who has studied and mastered the discipline.

3. Meditation does not cause “euphoria”. It is altogether different, but I won’t waste time explaining it to a westerner.

4. I have seen the study with the MRI, and it was summarily inconclusive, and speculatory.

i mean when constantine transformed it from a rebel, anti-rich movement into a gigantic cathedral, fancy robed, golden chalice pro-rich establishment. i dont know if that was actually him or how long it took to make that trsnformation, but i imagine the endorsement of the emperor took a little bit of the ‘fight’ out of the ‘fight the power’

plus its called the dark ages for a reason, not much historical evidence. probably because christians were constantly burning things like people and books. which they were, right? but im really not sure about the accuracy of christian history at this time either. its really what i was mainly looking for with this thread. but who is gonna write in a book about the virtue of the members of the councils? what evil rich guy would allow that to happen? what subsequent evil rich guys would allow those books to continue to exist for a thousand years?

im pretty sure that at least catholics would say that god actually has been talking to and directing the popes and the clergy (thats what makes the clergy special, isnt it?). i mean, dubya bush says he talks to god, and we all know hes a damn dirty liar. why believe bush? why believe anyone who says god talked to them but not you?

ghandi wasnt a forgettable nutjob either. what if nobody knew about what he accomplished except for the surrounding area. and people went around and told the story. its not hard for me to believe that somebody is either going to misinterpret or exagerate some parts of the story. like he should have starved long before he did, or if some soldiers got sick, then ghandi’s divinity is what caused it. and ghandis divinity caused his fellow strikers to be stronger than they would otherwise have been, and the strikers themselves, psychosomatically affected by the huge importance of their actions, might have actually felt stronger than they knew they had felt when starved for similar periods of time in their past experience.

the feelings associated with being a part of something masive might have felt a little supernatural, and the story tellers might have exagerated at some point, giving ghandi a slight bit of divinity, like a saint, but not jesus. but then the indian authorities realize they are dealing with a permeating rebellion that isnt going to go away. they finally give in after killing hundreds of otherwise innocent people and they make some reforms and they adopt some of the memorial rituals that the ghandians invented to honor the great guy who they hoped was watching them while he was dead.

then, as everyone gets used to the idea that ghandism isnt a rebellious movement but, instead, the conservative old fashioned status quo kind of thing, they forget that its supposed to be about rebellion. the grandchildren of the people who knew ghandi dont care about the remembrance rituals and they dont believe that ghandi is watching them honor him from the afterlife, they just do the rituals and claim to believe whatever it is they are told to believe and they go back to their life farming. with this attitude, the rich animals who are always trying to take advantage of something can slowly sneak in over the course of centuries of dark ages. slowly change things and impose tithes and invent requirements that were never even close to anything ghandi ever said.

i just dont find it hard to believe. considering the fact that people who are supposed to be avatars of jesus are burning people alive like it was a slap with a ruler, i find it hard to believe that the church wasnt corrupted beyond repair at some point during their reign of horror.

but what if the reason why they claimed that belief wasnt because they actually saw that it was true but because they were trying to prove the point that jesus was so amazingly great. rebels can lie too. and how do we know that they specifically claimed the divinity of jesus instead of the evil of their rulers? how hard would it have been to modify the records of however it is that they professed their beliefs and the records of exactly why the romans were punishing them?

i mean, do the records say that they were specifically killed for saying that someone besides one of zeus’s buddies was a god? they dont just say they were troublemakers? and these records existed somewhere in the roman empire after the roman empire converted itself to utilizing christianity? how hard would it have been to go back and change those records from anti-rich people rebels to pro-christian-establishment records for the sole purpose of causing you and the peasants to believe exactly what you are saying. have we carbon dated the ink and paper?

yeah but they were trying to get people to listen to them as much as possible. it worked for lots of other people who apparently arent the son/avatar of god but claimed they were.

the imbuing of magical powers. ive never seen a miraculous heal, i never felt anything from the eucharist even in second grade when i totally wanted to believe because i was afraid of hell. and i really wonder why god would only have one jesus. why wouldnt he always have a jesus on earth to help us out? was the time of the romans particularly evil, and he chose this route instead of another great flood?

i just dont see how god can expect me to believe it, and when the church says that he requires me to believe in his magic that ive never seen, i have to wonder if god and the church understand what the word believe means.

youre right, but its also unnecesary. what evidence is there of free will’s existence, and therefore the existence of sins to be forgiven? what does god actually accomplish by making his avatar on earth magical instead of merely intelligent and powerful?

that last part is the only reason why i dont like christianity. a bunch of fancy fluff that jesus didnt ask for. and if we are to believe that the bible sums up every main point he made and didnt leave out his decree that we need golden chalices etc, then the creation of these silly things took place during the dark ages, presumably at the request of rich animals seeking to impress the public. during that same time, people were tortured by rich animals claiming to have the authority of god.

i wholeheartedly agree that everything jesus said is cool and we should listen to it. i dont think he said a lot of the things the church does and i dont understand why anybody believes it when the church says it has the authority to decree these things.

did you read my conclusion?

yes that is my point, but as I stated in your other thread I don’t think people should willy nilly give up there beliefs.

I wonder if anyone is aware of the fact that there are numerous studies on the fact that predisposition towards/against religiosity/spiritualism is intrinsic from birth, possibly as a genetic inclination?

Perhaps the problem with belief is as much individualized in the genome structure(intrinsic) as in the acquired value system(extrinsic)?

edited

Faith without inquiry is blind indeed. Sheep, although easily controllable, do not make for better company. It is the inherent nature of the human animal to question, as such it should be viewed as grandeur, not abomination.

WJ i dont think the need to proselytize is just for religious fundamentalists. why do you think i made this thread?

and the gene probably serves some evolutionary purpose like respecting the alpha male in your clan.

scythekain

Sorry for not reading this before. Can you explain what you mean by challenging a belief with which you don’t think there’s anything wrong?

FutureMan

No doubt. Christianity of course had to be a 'fight the power' religion back when the power was feeding them to lions. I don't think I have the same distrust/dislike of wealthy that you do, so this doesn't phase me the same way it does you. 

 I have heard that. To be fair, pagan barbarians were burning people and books at a much faster rate-Christianity may have destroyed books and people related to Christian heresies, but most acts that seem motivated by a general hatred of learning stuff were barbarians. A lot of the "Christians burned the libraries" stories come from situations where a city would recently be Christianized (either through missionary work or conquest during the Crusades) and then immediately sacked by barbarians when vulnerable. Of course, the end result is still "Pagan/Muslim city stands as a center of learning, comes under Christian control, libraries destroyed shortly thereafter." It's kinda pointless to blame barbarians for things, because - well, they're barbarians.  Again, this is what I've heard from a mixture of fair and not so fair sources, I could be wrong. :wink: 
 Of course, no doubt lots of stuff was burned during the Crusades, by people on both sides of the conflict. 

A good Catholic would, anyways.

Not gonna address comments about Bush- wouldn’t be prudent. But, I will say that I talk to God too, so I can identify with that and it doesn’t intimidate me.

No doubt all of that can be true. Still, it’s a piece of the puzzle, and I don’t think it can be easily denied- whatever really happened back then, it was hugely influentional in history. Yes, other people have been influential as well.

I think we need some hard facts to characterize things in that way. Yes, Christianity did some nasty bad stuff in the Middle Ages. But it [i]was the Middle Ages. [/i] People died of the plague, wars were still fought with swords and boiling oil, penicilin and anesthetic didn't exist. Monarchy was the rule of law, everywhere. There was no Hitler to compare political rivals to. 
What I mean is, it was a radically different time than this, and "killing someone for heresy" didn't have at all the same cultural and ethical impact that someone doing that now would have. I think we would need to look at what the Christians did, and compare it to what history (to that point) had told them was right to do, and what their neighbors were doing.  Was what they did wrong? Yes. But, it didn't necessarily take an evil, ruthless bloodthirsty villian to do those things, just like how these days, it doesn't take a shameless whore to have sex with 1 or 2 guys in her life before she gets married.

Then I think they would have caved when their fingernails were pulled out, they were threatened with crucifixition, or fed to wild animals. Yes, it is concievably possible that some crazy people could stick to things they knew were false besides that. But odds are, no.

 Yeah, actually, though you mean Jupiter. They were asked over and over, to disavow Jesus as Lord and to take part in some token ritual to offer loyalty to some Roman god, and promised that they would be let go and not further harrassed if they did. This is not a hard thing to read about on the Internet, you can Google as well as I can. :slight_smile: 

 Apparently we're one person who knows nothing about history talking to another person who knows nothing about history, eh? What I can say is, the situation you postulate above is not believed by actual historians on either side- both Christians and otherwise acknowledge that there were actual Christian martyrs killed for Christianity.  As a philosopher, I can say that making up a story which no expert believes, relying on [i]your[/i] ignorance of the facts to defend it, and relying on [i]my[/i] ignorance of the facts not to attack it, is very shaky ground.

 Like who? Any names come to mind? Seems to me that the tendency was for god-men to already be in great positions of power (Warlords, kings, stuff like that) before they made their proclamation- IF they even made it themselves at all. 

I speculate that if the Church every became as corrupt as you are saying it’s always been, that maybe God would do something like that. The message and goal would have to be different, since the Covenant of the Ressurection couldn’t be broken by people behaving badly, but still.

 Well, you aren't alone. But you certainly aren't in the majority, either- a general claim that Christianity can't be believed or is only believed by stupid/gullible/uneducated people is the easiest thing to disprove. 

What evidence is there of free will’s existence? You mean, other than the apparent fact that each of us makes choices everyday? What more evidence could you need? Anyways, the justification of the internal logic is, as you say, unnessecary. All that really matters is to investigate claims of contradiction or incoherence. If Christianity is coherent, then it is still ‘on the table’ of things that might be true.

And that just hasn't been a part of my experience as a Christian. l've always attended quite small churches, and our big extravagence is having speakers put in the back of the church so the old people can hear. As far as pre-defined rituals and chants, well, we sing songs- and somebody else wrote those songs.  Have you ever had a group of 50 people all just start singing, without a common tune or words that they were told to stick to? Well, ok, neither have I. But I bet it would suck. 

 Jesus personally instructed his disciples on the First Communion. True, as far as I can recall, He didn't say "And keep doing this every Sunday or so." But it makes perfect sense to me why people would take it upon themselves to do so out of respect. 
   As far as your criticism of my 4 points, it really seems to boil down to a mistrust of authority and wealth. Which is healthy, I suppose. But if Christianity had remained a thing shared among a couple dozen people without any influence, we never would have heard about it at all, so what do you want?

well, if god could zap into their brains the divine wisdom to choose the correct books for the bible, he should have given the divine wisdom to not sanction, let alone cause, unnecesary torture. if god cares about an ambiguous book of uncertain benefit to humanity more than the pain of innocent people… well that kinda stinks.

cool, i wish everyone would give me an idea for the next thread every time they deliver the death blow. quick summary: why did somebody else make decisions so totally different from yours? their broken, evil soul?

i wanted poor people to be in charge of it, and for those poor people to unify against the rich and ensure that nobody is able to take advantage of peasants like that again. the church im familiar with very often took advantage of peasants, or at the very least, didnt viscously condemn secular rulers who did.

i mean, isnt that an important part of christianity? the poor. thats what i cant get over. the only time i hear about christians in the news its when they are trying to ban something that i want, like abortion, stem cells and condoms. obviously they are doing plenty of great things that nobody thanks them for and the media isnt interested in that.

but shouldnt somebody be lobbying our government to help the poor people? shouldnt that be the number one priority of all of christianity? i mean, i know you are defending unborn fetuses, but thats just going to cause more poverty for either those kids who are put up for adoption or the poor parents who shouldnt have had sex. i mean, if god made the crusades to serve some divine purpose, how is that different from him allowing the invention of abortion? how else can we prevent impending overpopulation? oh right, apocalypse!

anyway, thats off the point. i think im going to throw in the towel regarding jesus’ divinity as a result of the fingernail pulling out to spite jupiter. i guess maybe it was real divinity back then. but i will never respect that god forsaken church because if god ever was a part of it, he literally had forsaken it for a big ambiguous period of time and has yet to show me any sign that he was a part of it after constantine (or somebody after him) changed it from a rebellion to an establishment.

i still dont think theres any reason to think that the bible and traditions came directly from god instead of from these failure institutions and their wealthy puppeteers. but christianity can totally be based on a true story. and thats something i wouldnt have said before now. congratulations, this might be like the second or third time ive ever changed my mind.

i hate the big establishments because they havent made the world perfect yet and really dont seem to be trying. but they are the only ones who can. the church in particular.

Thanks for the utter nonsense. Genetic inclination means that there is no direct link to a certain haploid set, that it is understood to be in the code, likely in more than one definable location… thus “inclination”.

Does it obviate the contention that arguing for/against religiosity/spiritualism is a summarily fruitless endeavor?

Yeah, and He could do that for everyone, all time. I think we have to acknowledge that God doesn't work that way. I didn't say anything about God zapping devine wisdom into the Bible-assemblers brains. I don't think any of the points I made hinge on that happening. 

Maybe sometimes. I would guess most of the time, though, they just were exposed to different evidence, heard different arguments, and were raised in different backgrounds than me.

 Then I guess you should stick with making up your own religion- because that was never the point of Christianity in the first place.  It's not so much a matter of corruption at that point, but of totally different aims. 

So, the evil rich people who run the Church are dishonest by default, but the evil rich people who run the news are reliable? 

Yes.

When you say ‘help the poor people’, do you mean ‘make them not poor anymore’, or what exactly? Poor people in Christian nations live far, far, better than poor people in the rest of the world.

In the end, that’s really all I think too- I’m not Catholic at all, so I have no interest in defending most of what you’ve attacked. I don’t think it’s impossible for the Bible to have been corrupted, I don’t think it’s impossible for the present church to be Evil. What I think, is that the stuff the Bible says happened back then probably did happen, even the really weird parts. Or at the very least, enough of it happened to justify a person in being a Christian.

ok mastriani, sorry to think that genetics have something to do with natural selection. so religious inclination is like tonsilitis? some get it some dont, no reason why. i didnt think your point mattered unless it connected to natural selection, because that could provide an explanation not only for the existence of religion, but the psychosomatic, prayer induced religiony feelings.

well i thought the authority of the often shady and unscrupulous church was predicated on their contact with god? and the validity of the bible hinges on gods inspiration of its writers and editors? what part of christianity hasnt passed through either of these filters, other than the knowledge that christians died for what was probably a divinity back in the day?

oh… shoot. wasnt jesus concerned about the jew church’s neglect of the lepers and such? and annoyed with the tax collectors? i mean sure he didnt want anarchy, but i dont think he would approve of the behavior of the super rich throughout history.

well, certainly not. but something tells me that if the biggest group of people in america was constantly marching on washington to enact anything close to the craziness of western european socialism, it would be on the news. not that i think thats what we should do, but i think there should be marches for forcing the govt to protect the poor people before we allow ourselves the luxury of caring about unfeeling clumps of cells.

anything. stop protecting the super rich. stop using the military to enact the will of the super rich. dont let america be the lowest per capita contributor to charity in all the civilized countries while still being the richest (govt expenditure on charity i mean, no sense in marching on washington to make citizens do anything).

if you believe jesus’ message, and arent a crazy catholic, i dont see the effect that believing in his divinity has on your life. then again, while i thank god, i cant really say ive found prayer to be a useful thing in my life. i mean because i havent really tried, or been faced with much reason to. ill be a little more open to the possibility when the appropriate time arrives.

Authority of the Church to do what? The Church can't really do a whole lot other than make suggestions these days. Yeah, I think the Catholics believe that their leaders are in constant contact with God, maybe they are, I dunno. I think that the Gospels present a more or less accurate portrayl of what happened back then, and that gives 'authority' in my eyes to any organization who affirms those same things and lives by those ideas. 

Sure, those were and are concerns. Nevertheless, the purpose of the Church wasn't to rag on rich people, per se, it was to spread the Word of Christ. That will at time involve both condemning the rich and accepting their help, depending the context. 

How do these things help the poor, exactly? Sounds more like efforts to spite the rich. I would hate to think that your gripe with Christianity is that it’s not spiteful enough.

Effect? I simply think it’s true.

I would argue that Governments don’t have the capacity for charity, because every penny the government has was taken from the people by implied threat of force. If I mug you, and give 10% of what was in your wallet to the United Way, am I charitable? I feel that the only ‘charity’ the Government should concern itself with is letting people keep more of their money to begin with. What’s important is not that we disagree on this- what’s important is that enough of the American people feel the way I do, that the Government giving to huge amounts to charity would be against the will of a lot of the American people- especially if the charities were for helping people outside of the US.

uccisore,

well… this one is going to be hard to justify.

In the simplest terms I think it’s important to have your faith challenged to see how planted your faith really is. Are you simply along for the ride? or do you truly have roots that substantiate your faith?

In more complex terms, it’s important to remember the other side (like all those I mentioned above) and the catastrophes that occur from people simply believing something. Manson, believed he was christ… and he was able to convince other people to believe that as well. Joseph Smith was able to convince people he could talk to god. People followed. Hubbard was able to convince people that we are angry aliens that were killed in a volcano.

…

There’s two sides to the same coin. On the one side it’s important to have a community that believes the same thing you do. It’s important to have a solid base for your beliefs.

On the other side is the dark side of belief. Murder, rape, bigotry, hatred… all of these things are justified in belief. (even atheists, this isn’t exclusive to those who believe in god.)

It’s important to remember that it doesn’t take much to go from a good happy lovy faith to a dark hating veangeful faith. Do you think there is that much difference between what you believe and what Pat Robertson believes?

You both believe in the power of grace, that christ is god, and that by following christ is the only path to heaven. He also believes (which you probably don’t) that god punished New Orleans for having gay pride parades. That god punished India with the Tsunami for having a muslim population.

The reason it’s important to continue to challenge your own faith is so that you don’t flip the coin to the dark side of faith.

I spoke of “filters” in my other post in your thread about “is religion different”. Pat Robertsons filter isn’t that much different than Osama Bin Laden. Both want the blood of the other to be on god’s hands. Both use vengeance and hatred strapped to belief in god to justify their thoughts and actions.

And people blindly follow. Without challenging what he says, or challenging their own subsect belief of christianity.

And that is the real danger right there.