Rus, I think you seem to be deliberately or accidentally misreading my posts. For instance, if you had paid attention to what I actually wrote, I never said the Coulter woman is "one of the best and wisest defenders of Christianity" - that's something that comes from your mouth. I pointed out that, like it or not, this is what you risk becoming if you start from the assumption that since you're right, everyone else is wrong or misguided. And this seems to me to be exactly what you are doing - trying to find ways to justify why your point of view is inherently right. I also notice that you apparently have paid no attention whatsoever to when I mentioned that I was raised as a Catholic (and therefore I reckon I should know enough about Christianity), as well as to the fact I never used any of my arguments to say "this is why I'm not a Christian". I used my arguments to discuss the possibility that other religions might be equally as valid in their claims and that you cannot, as a reasonable and rational man, start an argument from the assumption that the religion you follow is the unquestionable truth, and that therefore whatever people say to contradict you or to argue with you is wrong.rusmeister wrote:While I would acknowledge one serious strength in people like Ann Coulter - the ability to acknowledge that there is absolute Truth - neither would I support her understanding of Christianity as that of the original and continuously existing Christian Church established by Christ and the Apostles, and so presenting her as one of the best and wisest defenders of Christianity is not something I'll take you up on, nor would I say that using the weaknesses in her arguments to reject Christianity as a whole 'lets you off the hook'.
That said, the best thing reasoning people can do is to inquire,learn, and then come to conclusions - that is what reason is for, after all. You can condemn a person's conclusions by proving them wrong, but not condemn them for merely coming to conclusions.
As to Judaism... if Christianity is true and all of humanity needs to be saved, why
1) would people not want to be saved - or want to be destroyed?
2) why would Jews be exceptions?
Again, the focus on inferior forms and champions of a faith seem to indicate a desire to avoid engaging with what is wisest and truest in a faith. The way to come to a conclusion that you can consider valid is to defeat the best and wisest defenders of a faith, and to risk being 'defeated' yourself. If you knowingly seek out the Ann Coulters of the world and say "This is why I am not a Christian" you can't be said to have seriously investigated Christianity.
In fact, you still are evading my questions regarding other religions and their validity in comparison to the Christian faith. Not to mention that you still have to respond to my comments regarding why should faith be so absolutely necessary to salvation. Since you seem not to have read those parts, I'll take the liberty of copying them here:
To close the post, I'd like to point out that I would rather believe that God appreciates His children asking questions and trying to figure out things for themselves, rather than believe He prefers children who accept everything unquestioningly. If He did not want us questioning His words, He would not have given us curiosity, desire to know, and would have made sure His words reached us in a way that we could not mistake as anything else than God's word. And if I'm wrong and no matter how good you are in life, full salvation can only be achieved by members of a particular faith - well, chances are good at least wherever I'll go, I'll be in good company, since almost every faith says that everyone else doesn't go to Heaven.Xar wrote:I disagree with this statement of yours. Since there is no authority higher than God and therefore He is the one who makes the rules about salvation, Heaven and Hell, it follows that depending on how one interprets "rejecting the salvation that is offered to you", the implications change. Let's make an example. I'll admit that I've had little first-hand experience with fundamentalist Christians, but I've heard from friends who have had these experiences, and of course I've read about them a lot on the internet and elsewhere. Now, for the sake of argument, I'll assume that most of what I've read is true - bear with me. So here we have groups of Christians who apparently believe that if you do not accept the message of Jesus Christ, you will burn in Hell. They actively try to save you, not because they want to be obnoxious, but because they genuinely believe they're doing you a favor. Some may go as far as claiming that yes, you may be a good person, but still you won't get into Heaven without this faith. Now, again for the sake of argument (and since you admit yourself that we cannot know for sure what awaits us on the other side), let's say they're right: if you do not accept the message of Jesus, you will burn into Hell no matter what you do. At best, a good and honest person may hope for purgatory (or Dante's limbo, maybe).rusmeister wrote: Therefore, if it IS true, then you wilfully choose damnation by rejecting the salvation that is offered to you, just as a person drowning at sea refuses a lifeline and thus condemns themselves to drown. It is NOT something God "does" to you.
Now the question is - why should faith in this particular message, as opposed to any other, be the difference between this final destination and eternal Heaven? What I mean is - why should a good and honest man who lived his life trying to do good deeds be refused entry into Heaven just because he happened, for example, to be a Muslim or a Hindu?
Obviously this was an extreme example; but the fact is that whenever one says that faith is the important factor about the afterlife, he or she is implying that all other faiths, no matter how honest their adherents, are "inferior", "false", or ultimately flawed. But most of all, he or she is implying that faith is more important than good deeds and a good life. And while faith may be a way to admit who we are, to accept our shortcomings and possibly forgive ourselves for it by struggling to overcome them, this does not mean that only the Christian faith can do this. Islam, Hinduism, Shintoism, Zoroastrianism, and so many other faiths have adherents who are probably just as strong in their faith as you are in yours, and who are we to say they are wrong and we are right? You may say "because our book says so", but they too have their own books and holy texts (in the case of Islam, chronologically speaking one could even suggest that the Qu'ran, based on the Hebrew and Christian faith, could be considered an "updated version") which very likely say similar things, and the truth is that none of us knows enough about what lies beyond this life as to be able to formulate an objective statement as to which faith is right, if any. In fact, some of these faiths are quite strict in describing who goes to Heaven and who doesn't (usually those who belong to other faiths), but others are far more open (Zoroastrianism is a prime example - and interestingly enough, it predates all the Abrahamic religions and some believe it may have served as inspiration for them).
So, with this wealth of holy texts and scriptures, many of them contradicting each other, who are we to judge which one is the right one? A Muslim could easily say you, the Orthodox Christian, are wrong, and his word would have just as much validity as yours, since neither of you would know what happens after death.
And that's also why it's unrealistic to believe that belonging to a particular faith could be either essential or very helpful in increasing one's chances at Heaven after death; it is not adherence to doctrine as much as adherence to the spirit of the faith - the teachings, not the forms - that is important. And it is not a coincidence, in this case, that most religions share the same basic teachings and philosophies - something far more universal than dogmas and creeds.
After all, why should God care if we eat pork, or drink wine, or if we cut our hair or our beards, and so on? Why should God deny someone paradise only because he was buried with a piece of pork? I submit that the form of your faith - or the lack thereof - is not so important as your adherence to these teachings, and that these teachings do not necessarily require a religious framework to be fulfilled. To do good, to love, to improve the world... An atheist could stumble onto this philosophy and follow it even without ever thinking of a divine being behind it; but as long as he follows it sincerely and not with hidden purposes, he is just as sincere as the next pious Christian, Muslim, and so on.
The Zoroastrians have a central tenet of their faith that says:
"Good thought, good word, good deed."
They have another one which says:
"Don't be lazy."
These are the tenets by which their religion judges those who are worthy of paradise. And are they not at the core of almost every religion, in one form or another? So as long as one follows them sincerely, and strives to improve himself and the world - after all, one can admit his own faults and strive to change himself even without adhering to any one faith - what does it matter if he is Christian, Jewish, Muslim, atheist or agnostic?
As I said before, I was raised as a Catholic and I am still a believer, although my own experiences and my own interests in the study of other religions have changed my concepts quite a lot from mainstream Catholicism. I have had a Catholic education and I am quite aware of the points you raise. But I also try to think with my own head - simply because it is not good enough to me to accept what others tell me without questioning why. I'm a scientist, after all - curiosity comes with the name Wink Perhaps this is why I also disagree with you about the "flawed/not flawed" concept. But here we enter the arduous territory of the free will vs. determinism argument which detractors of the Christian faith use so happily, and I'd rather not go there in order to avoid derailing the thread.rusmeister wrote: You say that God 'made us flawed'. This is NOT the Christian understanding, but a straw man invented to make Christianity easy to prove wrong (in some people's minds). If you honestly inquire into Christian teaching (I will speak from Orthodox Christianity, as the only Church that I can honestly defend) you will discover that God made us perfect and saw that "it was good", and that man fell by his own choice to turn away from God and reject God as the source of life, seeking that life instead in himself. We were never intended to die. It's a tragedy that was never supposed to happen, and lead to the Incarnation of God Himself, to sacrifice Himself, in order to save us from our own mistakes. But now the pride that keeps us from accepting the lifelines thrown to us and keeps us floating on our little planks leads us to our destruction. Again, as you pointed out, the theologies of varying denominations do have holes or points that are difficult to explain at various points - but FTR, Orthodoxy claims to be PRE-denominational. It's always been around, and never broke off from anybody. Unlike Protestant denominations, there is no date of the founding of the Orthodox Church, other than roughly AD 33 (The only other Church that can make this claim is the Roman Catholic Church, so that would narrow down your search really fast). I'd suggest you seek to understand Orthodox teaching before rejecting it, and you need to get your info from the horse's mouth.
I just want to point out something in the above quote which relates to what I said earlier about the validity of one faith over another. The part I highlighted in italics is what I want to call your attention on. Here, you speak from the assumption that the Christian revelation is true. It is understandable, given that you are Christian; however, anyone from a different faith or from no faith altogether could disagree with you with just the same validity. A Hindu could tell you that the revelations in the Bible are completely wrong - life is a cycle of reincarnations (interestingly, the ancient Jews had the concept of reincarnation). A Muslim could also tell you that his revelations of the afterlife don't quite match yours. And while you may think you are right, it does not negate the fact that they, too, think the same.rusmeister wrote: Esmer, your speculative question has a good point - we can't really know how things work on the other side, outside of things specifically given in revelation. CS Lewis said, "There will be surprises", so I think your point is good - but I doubt that we would be questioning where we are at that point.
Can you elaborate on where our axioms or assumptions differ majorly? Keep in mind that if one wanted, one could say that I, too, am not fully embracing a modern framework because although I am a scientist, and therefore taught to use logic, trust only what I can prove, I am also a believer - although perhaps, as Rus realized by now, not exactly adherent to the Catholic doctrine any longer. So in many ways, since we're speaking of paradoxes, to many people I am a paradox by myself 
I was wondering why some people have "Ranyhyn" showing in their profiles...
