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Did you mean "until theist are prohibited from posting here"? Because railing on theism is the purpose of this forum and there's little to no interest in the Athiest forum. Arq actually asked Mystic to stop posting over there because they needed the forum space for other (save the world) purposes. LOL! So don't worry there will always be "theistic discussions" here.
To me MysticPhD posts get very repeatious as he terns every thread into his claim that his personal view of God is scientific and the only one possible. Was he told that the space was needed to save the world or are you again mocking or insulting an entire group of people?
We don't have a sub-forum for Abrahamic Religions. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all trace their roots back to Abraham. This thread is equally applicable to all three.
Obviously true.
Nonsense.
Again, nonsense. That's not going to happen.
And, in a later post I agreed with Ozzy that this was an appropriate post for this sub-forum.
What would you consider hidden irreligion in Islam?
Just curious, since I work for what you might call "moderate Muslims". The wife does not cover her hair, though she dresses modestly (suits, with pants, blouses buttoned to the neck) and she made her hajj last year. The husband told me, "I am only a Muslim at Ramadan", although he only eats halal meat. Neither of them drink alcohol. The son is American born, drinks alcohol and eats non-halal, but not in front of his parents out of respect. The wife said to me once that she does not care what anyone's faith is, that what is important to her is that someone is a good person.
Interesting post. I had a somewhat similar experience. A young man who worked in our front office was from Pakistan and a Muslim. He treated me like I was his father, and eventually I even lived with him and his wife. He was a "modern thinking" Muslim man...not particularly religious...much like many people of most religions. I would say that his wife was even less religious than was he, and certianly not the type that would cover her head for face.
I have to tell you a funny story about him. One of the secretaries had a bag of snacks in the office, and he tried one and really liked it. He finally asked what they were. They were pork rinds...the type you can get in the potato chips aisle. He ran out of the office to the restroom where he vomited.
To me MysticPhD posts get very repeatious as he terns every thread into his claim that his personal view of God is scientific and the only one possible. Was he told that the space was needed to save the world or are you again mocking or insulting an entire group of people?
The post is easy enough to find and you are not being honest if you are accusing me of being prejudiced against entire groups of people. That's not my bag or anything I need to do. Perhaps you're just projecting because you're certainly not being honest.
If you understood what the Bible was saying, the message itself is that books are not required for understanding God.
Yet atheists only seem to care about discussing the whether the stories are literal or not. They don't even care about what the purpose or message of the story is, but only whether it literally occurred or not. (The truth is that they are describing how God relates to human beings, which is why people believe them.)
But doesn't your concern over literalism not seem 100% absurd? Really? That's all you care about the stories?
One of the greatest writers of Christian stories, and a favorite of very conservative Christians in particular (mostly because they don't really understand his views), C. S. Lewis said this:
Quote:
My own position is not fundamentalist if fundamentalism means accepting as a point of faith at the outset the proposition "every statement in the Bible is completely true in the literal, historical sense. That would break down at once on the parables. All the same common sense and general understanding of literary kinds which would forbid anyone to take the parables as historical statements, carried a very little further, would force us to distinguish between:
1) Books like Acts or the account of David's reign, which are everywhere dovetailed into a know history, geography, and genealogies
2) Books like Esther, or Jonah, or Job which deal with deal with otherwise unknown characters living in unspecified periods, and pretty well proclaim themselves to be sacred fiction.
Such distinctions are not new. Calvin left the historicity of Job an open question and from earlier, St. Jerome said that the whole Mosaic account of creation was done 'aftejus,' (or, "after the fact").
Of course, I believe the composition, presentation, and selection for inclusion in the Bible, of all books to have been guided by the Holy Ghost. But I think He meant us to have sacred myth and sacred fiction as well as sacred history.
Interesting post. I had a somewhat similar experience. A young man who worked in our front office was from Pakistan and a Muslim. He treated me like I was his father, and eventually I even lived with him and his wife. He was a "modern thinking" Muslim man...not particularly religious...much like many people of most religions. I would say that his wife was even less religious than was he, and certianly not the type that would cover her head for face.
I have to tell you a funny story about him. One of the secretaries had a bag of snacks in the office, and he tried one and really liked it. He finally asked what they were. They were pork rinds...the type you can get in the potato chips aisle. He ran out of the office to the restroom where he vomited.
The post is easy enough to find and you are not being honest if you are accusing me of being prejudiced against entire groups of people. That's not my bag or anything I need to do. Perhaps you're just projecting because you're certainly not being honest.
I gave my honest opinion, I find most of your posts either mocking and insulting or attempts to stifle discussions. You don't have to like my opinions.
One of the greatest writers of Christian stories, and a favorite of very conservative Christians in particular (mostly because they don't really understand his views), C. S. Lewis said this:
C. S. Lewis, in a letter dated October 5, 1955
He saw what was obvious and irrelevant, too. I once saw an atheist argue that Luke's parable of the talents had Jesus approving of killing. The parable is just an illustrative story, of course, and I suppose that the argument was that Jesus should not have used the act of killing as an analogy. of course Mathew's version is the original and the adaptation is Luke's, so you can't blame Jesus.
But the discussion about whether any of it is true or not - because, if it isn't, the message or understanding they convey is worthless.- is a valid one and perhaps the only valid one. This ought to be obvious but apparently isn't.
When atheists argue about the factuality, truth or reliability of the Bible, we know about parables, analogies and similes, and I suspect our opponents do, too and are just trying to trip us up.
The wife said to me once that she does not care what anyone's faith is, that what is important to her is that someone is a good person.
If only the world contained more people like her.
It shows conclusively that all faiths - including atheists - could peacefully co-exist with one another if everyone decided for themselves what to believe and then keep it that way.
Unfortunately, the fundementalists on both the Christian and Muslim side refuse to do that and would rather force everyone to believe exactly as they do. With the Christians, it is heavy-handed propaganda, historical revisionism, using the government to promote their agenda, science denying, and outright lies in order to conquer the world. With the Muslims, it is too often violence, threats, intimidation, holy wars, fatwas, jihad, blaming the West for all of their problems, authoritarian dictatorships, the destruction of non-Muslim artifacts and historical sites, and their own brand of heavy-handed propaganda that is used to spread their horrifically strict religion.
If everyone could leave everyone else alone regarding their religious beliefs, I do feel that the world would be a much more peaceful place.
Oh, there will always be wars, always be violence - and I have mixed feelings about that. Technological advancement and rapid improvements for the human condition often occur because of war. Not just weapons technology, but all forms of it, for quite often one thing has to be invented for the other thing to be invented, and that yields some marvelous breakthroughs. Wartime is the only time when corporations and governments are willing to invest huge sums of money in theoretical research without concern for profit.
But the price is oh so very high. This is one reason why I cannot be convinced that we were intelligently designed and/or created by an omnipotent and omnibenevolent being. There are just too many fatal flaws in human behavior.
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