Abrahamic faiths

What is there to gain? A sense of what reality is instead of a myopic view of life. You are so worried about peace. If we examine certain negative aspects of religions, we can find out that some of them will destroy the very peace you are looking for. How do you expect humanity to confront these things if they don't discuss them? I think that you are highly naive.

My reply:

Yes I am worried about peace.. I think getting along is a crucial issue in this age and time.. The problem I see is that you may be focused more on the negative aspects and by doing that lose sight of opportunities to build better inter-faith relations. I was involved in an Inter-faith community for the past seven years or so and that's where people can learn more about each other and find ways to cooperate.. Have you been involved in say some meaningful inter-faith dialogue in your community?

- Art

Arthra said:

What is there to gain? A sense of what reality is instead of a myopic view of life. You are so worried about peace. If we examine certain negative aspects of religions, we can find out that some of them will destroy the very peace you are looking for. How do you expect humanity to confront these things if they don't discuss them? I think that you are highly naive.

My reply:

Yes I am worried about peace.. I think getting along is a crucial issue in this age and time.. The problem I see is that you may be focused more on the negative aspects and by doing that lose sight of opportunities to build better inter-faith relations. I was involved in an Inter-faith community for the past seven years or so and that's where people can learn more about each other and find ways to cooperate.. Have you been involved in say some meaningful inter-faith dialogue in your community?

- Art

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Arthra, please use the quote function and stop including my quote within yours. I have asked you to stop this before. If you look at the post, it appears that the first paragraph is your quote instead of mine. Secondly, you force me to have to edit your post and parse your quote from mine. Use the quote function please. If you look below, this is what I had to do to make the post readable and quotable. I should not have to do this. It is not fair to waste my time doing this for you.

peaceful soul said:

What is there to gain? A sense of what reality is instead of a myopic view of life. You are so worried about peace. If we examine certain negative aspects of religions, we can find out that some of them will destroy the very peace you are looking for. How do you expect humanity to confront these things if they don't discuss them? I think that you are highly naive.

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Arthra said:

Yes I am worried about peace.. I think getting along is a crucial issue in this age and time.. The problem I see is that you may be focused more on the negative aspects and by doing that lose sight of opportunities to build better inter-faith relations. I was involved in an Inter-faith community for the past seven years or so and that's where people can learn more about each other and find ways to cooperate.. Have you been involved in say some meaningful inter-faith dialogue in your community?

- Art

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Hopefully any sane person wants peace, but what does that have to do with bringing up negatives of one's religion? We can't discuss negatives and still work for peace? Must we achieve peace at any cost, even if it means ignoring possibly many negatives that are responsible for disrupting peace in the first place?

You are equating building peace with not discussing negatives. You need to listen to how irrational that is. There is no causality between the two.

I am not interested in interfaith discussions if the goal is to harmonize various religions. The root of the problem is not religious disunity, but people. Changing attitudes of people is what is ultimately going to change world affairs--not religious unity, if that is what you are advocating..

I am not interested in interfaith discussions if the goal is to harmonize various religions. The root of the problem is not religious disunity, but people. Changing attitudes of people is what is ultimately going to change world affairs--not religious unity, if that is what you are advocating..

My reply:

O.K...well I kind of suspected you were not "interested in interfaith discussions"... of course you are having one here with me...you could say.

Religious disunity to me is problematic as it seems to encourage looking down on other religions or attacking them...this causes tensions in families and communities as I'm sure you are no doubt aware.

Yes I would advocate more unity and cooperation among religious people!

- Art

rhyddid_rose said:

See, this thread is only confirming what I've known for a long time: Monotheism is not logical.

You have 3 major monotheistic religions which can not agree on the nature/attributes of the One God which they say they worship! If there is One God or deity, why cant you agree?


Just my £2 worth,

Rhyddid Rose Rhys

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Your 2 £2 is worth is worth £0 in this case. I am not trying to devalue your thoughts/beliefs, but you are making a fallacious argument as if monotheistic religions are the problem. Any 2 people that get together can and will eventually have issues with each other's beliefs and actions. There is always at least one issue (I'm being generous) that they will fight over. This is not something restricted to religions either. It happens all of the time in philosophical, political and other areas as well. Like I said, it is people that need to be changed regardless of their religion, politics, etc. The Bible teaches and shows us that these problems are all in one way or another due sin which is responsible for man's imperfect nature. If man understood that, then man would probably have a better chance of achieving a certain level of peace with each other. Until one knows Jesus, they are incapable of understanding their imperfect nature and how to combat it. Trying to combat it on your own is a futile attempt in the end. We are selfish creatures not because we choose to become selfish, rather because we are imperfect beings who have an imperfect spiritual nature that tends to do that which is against God's will.

Arthra said:

I am not interested in interfaith discussions if the goal is to harmonize various religions. The root of the problem is not religious disunity, but people. Changing attitudes of people is what is ultimately going to change world affairs--not religious unity, if that is what you are advocating..

My reply:

O.K...well I kind of suspected you were not "interested in interfaith discussions"... of course you are having one here with me...you could say.

Religious disunity to me is problematic as it seems to encourage looking down on other religions or attacking them...this causes tensions in families and communities as I'm sure you are no doubt aware.

Yes I would advocate more unity and cooperation among religious people!

- Art

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Arthra, I asked you to use the quote function when creating posts so that we don't have to reformat your posts and separate our quotes from yours all of the time. Is that too much to ask? You keep intertwining my quote withing yours. This is just one example of why peace can't happen in this world. It is little issues that can make great problems between humans. I asked you to be more thoughtful and accomodating to your fellow humans, but you want to be stubborn. Do you see why I say religious disunity isn't our real problem? You are purposely creating friction in a non religious way, unless of course, your religion teaches you to be stubborn? People have an imperfect spiritual nature. Disunity of religions is not the source of this problem. Perhaps one day you will see that. People don't agree and won't agree because they are self serving individuals who ultimately will look out for themselves at the expense of others.

I would agree that we are in a way, having an interfaith discussion, but this discussion is not an attempt to unify Chritianity with the Bahai'i faith. That is what I thought was the kind of unity that you were advocating. Like I said in my previous post, if we are just getting together to try to work out problems amongst each other, I have no problem with that. If religion is the means, then I am not OK if the goal is for each religion to somehow harmoniously unite. That would suggest in my mind that you expect for me to compromise my walk with Christ. I am not willing to do that--non negotiable. There is no chance of that. I follow Jesus and am not going to compromise that. I hope you understand that.

What you should be focusing on is unity of people to promote peace. A religous approach is too narrow IMO. You are leaving out political, social, philosophical differences etc., too.

peaceful soul said:

Arthra, I asked you to use the quote function when creating posts so that we don't have to reformat your posts and separate our quotes from yours all of the time. Is that too much to ask? You keep intertwining my quote withing yours. This is just one example of why peace can't happen in this world. It is little issues that can make great problems between humans. I asked you to be more thoughtful and accomodating to your fellow humans, but you want to be stubborn. Do you see why I say religious disunity isn't our real problem? You are purposely creating friction in a non religious way, unless of course, your religion teaches you to be stubborn? People have an imperfect spiritual nature. Disunity of religions is not the source of this problem. Perhaps one day you will see that. People don't agree and won't agree because they are self serving individuals who ultimately will look out for themselves at the expense of others.

I would agree that we are in a way, having an interfaith discussion, but this discussion is not an attempt to unify Chritianity with the Bahai'i faith. That is what I thought was the kind of unity that you were advocating. Like I said in my previous post, if we are just getting together to try to work out problems amongst each other, I have no problem with that. If religion is the means, then I am not OK if the goal is for each religion to somehow harmoniously unite. That would suggest in my mind that you expect for me to compromise my walk with Christ. I am not willing to do that--non negotiable. There is no chance of that. I follow Jesus and am not going to compromise that. I hope you understand that.

What you should be focusing on is unity of people to promote peace. A religous approach is too narrow IMO. You are leaving out political, social, philosophical differences etc., too.

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wow... great post peaceful soul

peaceful soul said:

Your 2 £2 is worth is worth £0 in this case. I am not trying to devalue your thoughts/beliefs, but you are making a fallacious argument as if monotheistic religions are the problem. Any 2 people that get together can and will eventually have issues with each other's beliefs and actions. There is always at least one issue (I'm being generous) that they will fight over. This is not something restricted to religions either. It happens all of the time in philosophical, political and other areas as well. Like I said, it is people that need to be changed regardless of their religion, politics, etc. The Bible teaches and shows us that these problems are all in one way or another due sin which is responsible for man's imperfect nature. If man understood that, then man would probably have a better chance of achieving a certain level of peace with each other. Until one knows Jesus, they are incapable of understanding their imperfect nature and how to combat it. Trying to combat it on your own is a futile attempt in the end. We are selfish creatures not because we choose to become selfish, rather because we are imperfect beings who have an imperfect spiritual nature that tends to do that which is against God's will.

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Duly noted! You are correct in that whenever people get together, they will almost always be some kind of disagreement. That's basic human ego at work, LOL!

I dont agree that all man's problems are due to 'sin'. I dont believe in sin, because I dont believe I can offend the Eternal, the Source of Life, with my puny actions. I can and do offend other humans. Whenever I do that, I ask for forgiveness and attempt to make amends. I resolved not to repeat it and learn from my mistakes. I believe in personal responsibility for one's actions and that there are consequences to your behaviours. I believe each one of us has to choose good or evil; chaos or order.

Of course, humans are imperfect. We aren't gods; we are mortal. We are dying from the minute we are born as entropy affects us as the rest of creation. That doesn't give us an excuse to NOT live an ethical and moral life.

Peaceful Soul, I'm not a Christian; my path is Asatru. I dont follow Jesus nor the bible, but I understand what you're saying. I also believe that humans have a spiritual dimension and when that is understood and fulfilled, it makes for a better person.

PS: I still believe that monotheism is illogical, no offence meant.


Hail the Aesir; Hail the Vanir,

Rhyddid Rose Rhys

originally posted by rhyddid_rose

Duly noted! You are correct in that whenever people get together, they will almost always be some kind of disagreement. That's basic human ego at work, LOL!

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Ego is part of it, but where does this ego come from is a greater question. I believe that I know that answer. It is call sin--spiritual ineptness of God's fallen creation. I know that you don't believe that, but that is OK.

I dont agree that all man's problems are due to 'sin'. I dont believe in sin, because I dont believe I can offend the Eternal, the Source of Life, with my puny actions.

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If God is indeed a perfect moral being, He will be offended, since you are not choosing to be perfect in your humanity as I believe that He created you with. My premise is that God made man perfect/complete--without sin, as alluded to in the OT in Genesis. Consequently, we are to be perfect. To fall short of perfection, is to fall short of God's standards, which is the essence of what sin is. Failing to keep God's standards is not trivial, no more than it would be of any other kind of perfect standard, even in the world we live in. Just imagine a hospital allowing doctors to perform very delicate surgeries in a less-than clean enviornment. Wouldn't that offend you, especially if you were the patient? If you answer yes, then you can begin to understand how God views spiritual imperfection/sin.

I can and do offend other humans. Whenever I do that, I ask for forgiveness and attempt to make amends. I resolved not to repeat it and learn from my mistakes.

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Yes, we can agree on that, I included offend, but why would we allow ourselves to offend in the first place if we could prevent it? That would seem rather silly to do something bad while knowing that we shouldn't do it. Why can't we prevent ourselves every time from doing it? Even more importantly, why would we even think of doing it? These are questions that make sense in context of sin. There is some cause and effect that is not completely dependent upon our wills. What explains it?

I believe in personal responsibility for one's actions and that there are consequences to your behaviours. I believe each one of us has to choose good or evil; chaos or order.

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My question would be, "How do we know what good and evil are in order to choose them? What would make something evil or good? Who sets the bench mark whereby each person can agree on the same things as evil? Just as you see that there are consequences for our behaviours--physical/metaphysical, so are there spiritual laws that God imposed that also have consequences for our spiritual imperfect state--sin.

Of course, humans are imperfect. We aren't gods; we are mortal. We are dying from the minute we are born as entropy affects us as the rest of creation. That doesn't give us an excuse to NOT live an ethical and moral life.

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Who sets the standards of what is ethical/moral? You? Others? or perhaps God? Exactly why should you try to be ethical and moral? If you say that it is a standard, then you must wonder why should you even care to attempt. Why not just live as you please?

The fact is that even on our best day (choose 1 that you think is your best), we are still imperfect beings. There is nothing on your own that you can do to change that even if you dedicate your entire day to postive thinking and purposely attempting to do what is right in your mind.

Peaceful Soul, I'm not a Christian; my path is Asatru. I dont follow Jesus nor the bible, but I understand what you're saying. I also believe that humans have a spiritual dimension and when that is understood and fulfilled, it makes for a better person.

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I believe that I understand what you are saying as well. I agree that if we understood our spiritual nature ( I don't know if I would call it a dimension), we would make us better. The problem that i have with that is that being better is still not the same as being perfect as I believe God made man at his creation.

PS: I still believe that monotheism is illogical, no offence meant.

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Hail the Aesir; Hail the Vanir,

Rhyddid Rose Rhys

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In what ways is it illogical? Just curious.

I know that you will have responses to my post, I expect you to post them; but, after your post, we can discuss this either in a new thread or by PM, that is, only if you would like. I don't want to go any further off topic in this thread than we already have.

Thank you for your input and insight. I appreciate it very much.

Peace Everyone,

This has been quite an interesting thread--and for the most part, fairly free of animosity (quite refreshing!).

If we (monotheists) believe the One God to be a reality, then speaking of worshipping the "same" or a "different" single God is a bit odd. A monotheist believes that there is but ONE God, and any other "gods" either do not exist, or are not "gods" but rather created beings.

I think it is clear, on the theological level, the conception of God among Jews, Christians and Muslims has some similarities, but also important differences. For example, the Christian concept of Trinity is vastly different than the Muslim conception of the Uni-personality of God.

The question of "worshipping" the same God--this is problematic. Some (Christians) might argue that if you've heard of Jesus but don't think of Jesus and the Tri-unity of God in worship, then you aren't worshipping the One, True God. Others (Muslims) might feel exactly the opposite--if you conceive of Jesus as in any way divine, you are associating partners with the One, True God and therefore not truly worshipping God.

Christian Scripture is fairly clear (if you accept it), that one cannot have the Father who does not have the Son (see John 5:23, 1 John 2:23), and if you deny that Jesus is the Messiah you are a "liar" and "antichrist" (1 John 2:22). Therefore, I cannot see how a Christian (who believes in the inerrancy of Scripture--not all Christians do so) can believe that either Jews or Muslims are honoring God, in that they reject the Son of God. (Yes, I know that Muslims accept that Jesus was the Messiah, but not the 'Son of God', which they explicitly reject. Jews reject both Jesus' Messiahship and his Sonship.)

From John's writings, I conclude that a biblical Christian cannot accept that either the Jew or the Muslim (or anyone else, for that matter) who does not acknowledge Jesus' Messiahship and Sonship can honor God. And what is "worship" if it does not include honoring God?

Likewise, I believe that the Quran is equally clear (from what I have read in translation), that if one ascribes partners with God (which Muslims believe the Trinity would suggest), he or she isn't truly honoring God. (Muslims, if you disagree, please clarify.)

Now, I have to admit that I have problems with this view, though I cannot escape that this is what the New Testament or Quran teaches (though I acknowledge that I'm no Quranic scholar, and I could be wrong about that.) This is also why I feel that it is not exactly biblical for Christians to on the one hand believe in the inerrancy of the New Testament but on the other hand to believe that Jews who reject the Son somehow honor the Father.

All of this being said, I don't see how our sharply different views of God should make us enemies of each other, or make dialogue impossible. To be sure, to hear from someone "you're not honoring God!" is probably not the most diplomatic thing, and it is natural for us to get defensive. However, I think that rather than soft-pedaling the teachings of a religion, we should be open and honest with each other about what we believe (or at least honest about what religious texts state, even if we don't believe it.)

Peace,

Daniel

I think there is disagreement among Muslims, Christians and Jews and others as evidenced on this forum...but it does not mean that "monotheism" is illogical.. What is logical to me is that there is only One God and that is the premise held by the major religions..

If they all say there can be only One God why the conflicts?... these are attributable to human beings who have prejudices and conflicts spanning centuries..but it does not follow from that monotheism is "illogical".

For a pretty fair article on monotheism visit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotheism

Baha'u'llah revealed the following:

All-praise to the unity of God, and all-honour to Him, the sovereign Lord, the incomparable and all-glorious Ruler of the universe, Who, out of utter nothingness, hath created the reality of all things, Who, from naught, hath brought into being the most refined and subtle elements of His creation, and Who, rescuing His creatures from the abasement of remoteness and the perils of ultimate extinction, hath received them into His kingdom of incorruptible glory. Nothing short of His all-encompassing grace, His all-pervading mercy, could have possibly achieved it