Fundamentalist madness

[Holsety]

I can actually agree with this statement to an extent. There does seem to be, however, an insinuation that pointing out bias against Christianity equals taking criticism to heart. I assure you, attitudes on these forums do not touch my personal faith. If you saw self-satisfied Christians sneering at ignorant and backwards agnostics and congratulating each other on their cleverness you might feel peeved without feeling your conviction of the correctness of agnosticism (or pantheism or whatever) threatened and might even want to express how you feel.

And there are plenty of other reasons to discuss this sorta thing. Maybe your personal faith is fine, but if you think (as plenty of christians do) that christ is THE only salvation for humanity, then it's reasonable in my view that a christian would be agressive in trying to defend their faith. From their POV someone's soul is in the balance every time they get in such an argument - perhaps this person, too, can be saved. So while I have found it rather tiresome on the one instance an evangelical christian has tried to convert me, I see where people like that come from.

And it's not like people who are fully comfortable with their beliefs should never defend them.

[rusmeister]

I can actually agree with this statement to an extent. There does seem to be, however, an insinuation that pointing out bias against Christianity equals taking criticism to heart. I assure you, attitudes on these forums do not touch my personal faith. If you saw self-satisfied Christians sneering at ignorant and backwards agnostics and congratulating each other on their cleverness you might feel peeved without feeling your conviction of the correctness of agnosticism (or pantheism or whatever) threatened and might even want to express how you feel.

And there are plenty of other reasons to discuss this sorta thing. Maybe your personal faith is fine, but if you think (as plenty of christians do) that christ is THE only salvation for humanity, then it's reasonable in my view that a christian would be agressive in trying to defend their faith. From their POV someone's soul is in the balance every time they get in such an argument - perhaps this person, too, can be saved. So while I have found it rather tiresome on the one instance an evangelical christian has tried to convert me, I see where people like that come from.

And it's not like people who are fully comfortable with their beliefs should never defend them.

Entirely reasonable!

Actually, having been raised fundamental Baptist, that was one of the things that struck me about Orthodoxy (I spent two years as an agnostic chauffering my wife and children to an Orthodox church) - you walk into a church service and no one pays much attention to you - their attention is up front, on the service and on God. There is no 'invitation' where they lay it on thick trying to get you to 'convert' and it's much more letting you approach it at your own speed and rate of desire. Certainly there is mission work, but it doesn't involve 'door-to-door soulwinning' or accosting people - a person who is not looking is not likely to find.

[Avatar]

Hey. Hey. Islam should be getting more than christianity in that case. They got the most people.

Major Religions Ranked By Adherents

--A

[rusmeister]

Hey. Hey. Islam should be getting more than christianity in that case. They got the most people.

Major Religions Ranked By Adherents

--A

The central problem with this kind of statistic is that it speaks of what one nominally is rather than what they factually practice. I understand that it would be nearly impossible to obtain useful data of the latter, but if a large portion of nominal adherents do not in fact practice the faith, then the numbers don't have much meaning.

[Holsety]

Dang. I can't believe us jews are getting beaten by the sikhs...We really do need to have more babies I mean considering the relative 'recentness' of the bahai they'll probably be beating us out soon.

(You really have to go to temple to get it)

What is "Chinese Traditional Religion?" Animism? Animism w/ some influence from Confucius?

[Avatar]

The central problem with this kind of statistic is that it speaks of what one nominally is rather than what they factually practice. I understand that it would be nearly impossible to obtain useful data of the latter, but if a large portion of nominal adherents do not in fact practice the faith, then the numbers don't have much meaning.

*shrug* For the purposes of comparison, it's enough that people claim the faith to determine which faith has the most adherents.

--A

[Xar]

Dang. I can't believe us jews are getting beaten by the sikhs...We really do need to have more babies I mean considering the relative 'recentness' of the bahai they'll probably be beating us out soon.

(You really have to go to temple to get it)

What is "Chinese Traditional Religion?" Animism? Animism w/ some influence from Confucius?

That should be Shintoism, if I remember correctly.

[Avatar]

I thought so as well at first...but isn't Shinto more Japanese?

--A

[variol son]

Shinto is definitely Japanese and not Chinese as far as I know. "Traditional Chinese Religions" refers to Taoism and Confusianism according to the link.

[Holsety]

Shinto is japan's animism that has been influenced by confucianism, taoism, buddhism, and (probably) chinese animist beliefs, and also probably other acculturating forces over the years.

[rusmeister]

To offer a teaser for Chesterton that is relevant to our respect for other religions, here is an excerpt from the very beginning of his (imo) greatest book, "The Everlasting Man":

Now the best relation to our spiritual home is to be near enough to love it. But the next best is to be far enough away not to hate it. It is the contention of these pages that while the best judge of Christianity is a Christian, the next best judge would be something more like a Confucian. The worst judge of all is the man now most ready with his judgements; the ill-educated Christian turning gradually into the ill-tempered agnostic, entangled in the end of a feud of which he never understood the beginning, blighted with a sort of hereditary boredom with he knows not what, and already weary of hearing what he has never heard. He does not judge Christianity calmly as a Confucian would; he does not judge it as he would judge Confucianism. He cannot by an effort of fancy set the Catholic Church thousands of miles away in strange skies of morning and judge it as impartially as a Chinese pagoda. It is said that the great St. Francis Xavier, who very nearly succeeded in setting up the Church there as a tower overtopping all pagodas, failed partly because his followers were accused by their fellow missionaries of representing the Twelve Apostles with the garb or attributes of Chinamen. But it would be far better to see them as Chinamen, and judge them fairly as Chinamen, than to see them as featureless idols merely made to be battered by iconoclasts; or rather as cockshies to be pelted by empty-handed cockneys. It would be better to see the whole thing as a remote Asiatic cult; the mitres of its bishops as the towering head dresses of mysterious bonzes; its pastoral staffs as the sticks twisted like serpents carried in some Asiatic procession; to see the prayer book as fantastic as the prayer-wheel and the Cross as crooked as the Swastika. Then at least we should not lose our temper as some of the sceptical critics seem to lose their temper, not to mention their wits. Their anti-clericalism has become an atmosphere, an atmosphere of negation and hostility from which they cannot escape. Compared with that, it would be better to see the whole thing as something belonging to another continent, or to another planet. It would be more philosophical to stare indifferently at bonzes than to be perpetually and pointlessly grumbling at bishops. It would be better to walk past a church as if it were a pagoda than to stand permanently in the porch, impotent either to go inside and help or to go outside and forget. For those in whom a mere reaction has thus become an obsession, I do seriously recommend the imaginative effort of conceiving the Twelve Apostles as Chinamen. In other words, I recommend these critics to try to do as much justice to Christian saints as if they were Pagan sages.

In other words, this is what I was trying to say earlier kevinswatch.ihugny.com/phpBB2/viewtopic ... 804#532804 about acknowledging our ignorance about eastern religions (and therefore truly being unbiased against them), but having a bias against Christianity because we think we know the best it has to offer. (I can include the man I was 5 years ago in this 'we').

[deer of the dawn]

Maybe your personal faith is fine, but if you think (as plenty of christians do) that christ is THE only salvation for humanity, then it's reasonable in my view that a christian would be agressive in trying to defend their faith. From their POV someone's soul is in the balance every time they get in such an argument - perhaps this person, too, can be saved. So while I have found it rather tiresome on the one instance an evangelical christian has tried to convert me, I see where people like that come from.

Thank you for saying that. However, I also know that I will not lead people into the presence of Christ through defensive argumentation.

Instead, I try to share my joy in Christ. Long before I believed, something happened to me when I heard the name "Jesus" sung in reverence or spoken in love. That is what I want to convey to others.

I also try to defend Christ in argument, but that is not my strength. I know there are smarter people out there than me and intellect can always find a way to justify its conclusions or wriggle out of undesired ones. But no one can argue with my smile or my song, or the way I love children, or can listen to someone and pray with them and something changes.

I am NOT saying that faith is all warm and fuzzy, either. But warm and fuzzy means a lot more when people are in pain than intellectual and "right."

Oh, yeah, I didn't actually read the fundie statements. I've heard it all before *sigh* and find it tiresome myself. Second law of yermommadynamics, yada, yada... A good antidote to that is to pick up my Bible and read the red words. (the ones that Jesus himself
actually says)

Good quote, Rusmeister.

[The Dreaming]

I thought so as well at first...but isn't Shinto more Japanese?

--A

Animism is sort of a catch all for a category of religious belief. Shintoism, the beliefs of native Americans, and those of australian aborigines are all examples of animism. It's considered (Anthropologically at any rate, I don't want to get flamed for this, this is from class) to be an early stage in Man's spiritual development. It's characterized by a sort of "totemistic" belief, with spirits inhabiting everything in nature. Very Jedi like, if I remember.

[deer of the dawn]

Does EVERY thread in the close get jacked by Jedi-ites????

[Avatar]

There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no chaos, there is harmony.
There is no death, there is the Force.



--A

[lurch]

People who assert that their values are superior to MY FREEDOMS only demonstrate their lack of thought and how easily they are mis led. Without Freedom, there is no Fundamentalist. Without Freedom there is no Christian, Jew, Hindu, Moslem, Shinto..etc etc etc etc. Any attitude, belief, of one being Superior , excludes Freedom. That in its self..is enough to make the decision of which is being presented is wacko,,and which is closer to any conceived truth.. F-R-E-E-D-O-M.