A question for the faithful.

[Dave Ellis]

Not true "about" the world. No subject/predicate. Truth SIMPLE. Truth is WHOLENESS, PURITY, JOY, ONENESS.... I can go on and on and on. But there is no use in explaining the truth to one who is sadly trapped in his own mind. There is only Oneness... Everything else is an appearance that you yourself project, (i.e, the "world"). There CAN'T even be any truth about the world in the penultimate sense of Truth because it's all one and the world is all separated!

Then enlighten me, because I have no idea what you're talking about.

What is oneness, and what is truth to you?

And how can everything be one, but the world is separated? That would mean everything is not one, because it is separate.

 

[WonderBeat]

Then enlighten me, because I have no idea what you're talking about.

What is oneness, and what is truth to you?

And how can everything be one, but the world is separated? That would mean everything is not one, because it is separate.

There is only the IDEA of separation. It is literally nothing.

Everything is existence. However, this existence likes to play with itself. So in comes difference.But really, that is simply an illusion. Everything is space. Everything exists, therefore everything is existence! There cannot be TWO existences!

THIS IS SO SIMPLE!

 

[Going Merry]

And as Captain Kirk said, I'm a soldier, not a diplomat. I can only tell the truth.

 

[Dave Ellis]

There is only the IDEA of separation. It is literally nothing.

Um... ok.....

Everything is existence.

I agree, everything that exists, exists. Therefore it is in existence.

However, this existence likes to play with itself. So in comes difference.

Um... ok...... And how do you know existence plays with itself? Are you trying to claim existence is in some way conscious?

But really, that is simply an illusion.

So you're positing a claim, then calling it simply an illusion in the very next line.

No wonder it's impossible to follow your argument, everything you say you claim is an illusion.

Everything is space. Everything exists, therefore everything is existence! There cannot be TWO existences![

It depends how you define existence

THIS IS SO SIMPLE!

Clear as mud.

If this is so simple, obviously it must be equally simple to justify your argument. Please do so.

 

[madaz]

I did not answer it.

Yes you did.

You give a logical question. The only logical answer is yes.

 

[dlamberth]

There is only the IDEA of separation. It is literally nothing.

Everything is existence. However, this existence likes to play with itself. So in comes difference.But really, that is simply an illusion. Everything is space. Everything exists, therefore everything is existence! There cannot be TWO existences!

THIS IS SO SIMPLE!

The way the Mystics view it...there are many realities and at the same time there is only One Reality..One Truth.

.

 

[AlexBP]

However, I've never been given any convincing argument that my religion was false.

What about the fact that christianity adopted most of its rituals from the mithra religion?

That's a fiction, not a fact. There is not a single professional scholar of religion or history on the planet who believes that Christianity copied any ritual from the Mithric Mysteries. In fact, the Roman Mithras Cult didn't even exist until many years after the New Testament was written. Historians barely know anything about what the Mithras cult practiced, because their rituals were kept secret. Here are some articles on the topic:

Zeitgeist, the movie Debunked - Part One - Zeitgeist Exposed - Skeptic Project
The Ecole Initiative: Mithraism
Mithraism. Not an influence on Christianity

Most of the arguments that atheists toss at me are so absurd and illogical that they tend to strengthen my conviction that Christianity is true.

Sounds interesting, will you please post a quoted example?

Sure. Your claim that "Christianity adopted most of its rituals from the mithra religion" is an example, since it's blatantly untrue. If atheists had the truth of their side, they wouldn't find it necessary to make up such things.

 

[naturenurture]

If you were given absolute proof that your religion is false, would you abandon your religion?

Edit-Since there seems to be confusion over the above question I have rephrased it below.

If you were given a convincing argument based on empiricism and/or logical reasoning that your religion was false, would you abandon your religion?

Absolute proof? I suppose that absolute proof would include whether the religion actually works for the person or not in the first instance; there would be a trail or triangulation to 'prove' the argument. One could only look at the argument and consider whether it is true in their lives, or not. Hence this is why people abandon or strengthen their faith.

Many times within a persons walk of faith they find that their mode of triangulation does not work and a process of reevaluation is then entered into or abandoned. For Christians this seems to be part of the path because of original sin.

So my thoughts would be to look at who the author of the 'convincing argument' is in the first instance. How did they triangulate their findings? To say one has a convincing argument is fruitless without the evidence they are stating, no?

So, no I would not abandon my faith because my faith is 100% founded and true. When there has been faults with my method of triangulating what Jesus said and did and my being able to be part of this, each time it has been through a fault already identified by Him or Scripture. Never through another means. I therefore have concluded that the process is really that we become the evidence of faith, rather than being able to point and hold a 'convincing argument'.

So, above all else, the OP's question goes against the very processes within learning and reevalution, which we are all party too, religious or not. It is what we find and how we find it which counts. That is the process of faith. The personal relationship angle of Christianity; God defending His own position and walking with us. This what has made Him stand out from the other religions in my mind and experience/s. One can only be party to such knowledge if they are part of actual process.

x

 

[griggs1947]

My threads here,particularly arguments about God, evince evidence that no God exists; know God= no God!
Belief is mere animism at work, that superstition! Ti's right to query about convincing evidence as absolute proof is only for logic and mathematics.
To prattle that one needs only faith reflects irrationality!

 

[madaz]

Sure. Your claim that "Christianity adopted most of its rituals from the mithra religion" is an example, since it's blatantly untrue. If atheists had the truth of their side, they wouldn't find it necessary to make up such things.

I suggest you derive your information from reputable sources before you conclude my assertion is "blatantly untrue".

 

[AlexBP]

I suggest you derive your information from reputable sources before you conclude my assertion is "blatantly untrue".

I have already done so. I linked to three reputable sources, any one of which is more than sufficient to debunk your assertion that Christian rituals were copied from the rituals of the Mithras cult. At risk of stating the obvious, you have not yet provided any source, reputable or otherwise, to back up your claim. The reason for this is obvious. There isn't a single reputable source that backs up your claim.

(Our little repartee here demonstrates the difference I most often observe between how religious believers and atheists think. A religious believer, when encountering a claim such as "Christianity adopted most of its rituals from the Mithra religion" is willing to be skeptical, investigate the claim, examine the evidence, and read arguments from both sides. An atheist just believers whatever he hears and never even considers the possibility of questioning it. I'm not saying this is true for every individual atheist, but I've found it to be broadly true.)

 

[madaz]

I have already done so. I linked to three reputable sources, any one of which is more than sufficient to debunk your assertion that Christian rituals were copied from the rituals of the Mithras cult.

Do you really believe a few links to some christian or conspiracy or apologetic type websites are sufficient to debunk my assertion?

At risk of stating the obvious, you have not yet provided any source, reputable or otherwise, to back up your claim. The reason for this is obvious. There isn't a single reputable source that backs up your claim.

Read the book "Zoroastrians" by Mary Boyce. A scholar in such matters.

(Our little repartee here demonstrates the difference I most often observe between how religious believers and atheists think. A religious believer, when encountering a claim such as "Christianity adopted most of its rituals from the Mithra religion" is willing to be skeptical, investigate the claim, examine the evidence, and read arguments from both sides. An atheist just believers whatever he hears and never even considers the possibility of questioning it. I'm not saying this is true for every individual atheist, but I've found it to be broadly true.)

That is a shame, I suggest you're mixing with the wrong Atheists.

 

[Nietzscheiswrong]

Sure,

The rejection of belief in X is entirely different to the belief that X does not exist.

There are perhaps more examples of the reciprocal of my statement, eg something that is actually illogical is in their minds logical.

Change X and put God and its the same! I.e. the exact opposite of what you wrote.
I'll rephrase it so you can understand.

The rejection of belief in (X)God is the same as the belief that (X)God doesn't exist.

Its mathematical logic. sum of + and - = -. sum of two - = +.

rejection = (-) belief = (+)
("doesn't exist", "wrong" is the same as rejection use a thesaurus)

Hence mathematically

(-)+ (+) = (-) The first part

(+) + (-) = (-) The 2nd part.
Extremely poor logic here on your part.

For someone who claims to be all logic and reason is quite frankly disappointing. Ever taken an elementary course on mathematical logic? Seems to me you haven't.

 

[Nietzscheiswrong]

Do you really believe a few links to some christian or conspiracy or apologetic type websites are sufficient to debunk my assertion?



Read the book "Zoroastrians" by Mary Boyce. A scholar in such matters.




That is a shame, I suggest you're mixing with the wrong Atheists.

You haven't even taken a history lesson. The Mithras cult changed and evolved (it was taken by the remote corners of the imperum romanum) copied the rituals which were already present in Christianity not the other way round. No unbiased historian will ever tell otherwise. Just because you base your info on the bunk film zeitgeist doesn't make it truthful. Zeitgeist = The da vinci code by Dan Brown.

 

[AlexBP]

Do you really believe a few links to some christian or conspiracy or apologetic type websites are sufficient to debunk my assertion?

Yes, I do. The websites that I linked to are all written to scholarly standards and contain footnotes to back up all of what they say. Of course, if you feel that those websites are in error, you are welcome to explain why you think that and to offer other sources to back up your claims.

Read the book "Zoroastrians" by Mary Boyce. A scholar in such matters.

I have read the book Zoroastrians by Mary Boyce. There is nothing in it which in any way backs up your claim "christianity adopted most of its rituals from the mithra religion". Indeed it mentions nothing about the Mithric Cult in the Roman Empire, since it's about the Zoroastrian religion that existed in Persia, removed by thousands of miles and many centuries from anything related to Christianity. While ancient Persian religion did include a character named "Mithra", that character shared nothing other than the name with the Roman Mithric cult of the 2nd and 3rd century A.D. One of the articles that I linked to earlier explains this. Also, as I mentioned before, the Roman Mithric cult did not exist until several generations after the founding of Christianity, which makes it logically impossible that the Christians copied anything from the Mithric cult.

If you believe that Mary Boyce's book Zoroastrians justifies your claim that "christianity adopted most of its rituals from the mithra religion", why don't you quote the actual words from Boyce's book that justify this claim, and tell us which pages those quotes come from?

 

[griggs1947]

The other god-men, miracle mongers and moralists were as unique as Yeshua! All the religions partook of the same milieu, so commonalities arose.
Christians did take the 25th of December from the Mithra religion and took other matters from elsewhere.
Christianity had nothing over the other religions, but when made the state religion it hoarded the people in its grip: it hated religious freedom as did Yeshua himself, that authoritarian cult leader.
Any religion can claim that it has some difference from other ones to make it special!

 

[madaz]

Change X and put God and its the same! I.e. the exact opposite of what you wrote.
I'll rephrase it so you can understand.

The rejection of belief in (X)God is the same as the belief that (X)God doesn't exist.

Its mathematical logic. sum of + and - = -. sum of two - = +.

rejection = (-) belief = (+)
("doesn't exist", "wrong" is the same as rejection use a thesaurus)

Hence mathematically

(-)+ (+) = (-) The first part

(+) + (-) = (-) The 2nd part.
Extremely poor logic here on your part.

For someone who claims to be all logic and reason is quite frankly disappointing. Ever taken an elementary course on mathematical logic? Seems to me you haven't.

You are correct! my apologies, I made an error, what I meant to say was......

"The rejection of X is entirely different to the belief that X does not exist."

I hope this now makes sense.

 

[WonderBeat]

Hypothetically-If you were given a proof that religion was false, would you abandon it?

In this age of Kaliyuga, irreligion predominates. But it is a passing phase, so to rephrase your question, "If you were given a proof that fashion was the ultimate everlasting truth, would you accept it?"

 

[Gottservant]

Proof that religion is false, on its own, does not stop you from doing good works, which justify belief.

If I were to stop caring too, then yes, for the length of time that I consider my religion false and did not care, I would give it up (the power, for example, less so the authority, to begin with, for example (as an example of the order of decay that would "creep in").

 

[madaz]

Proof that religion is false, on its own, does not stop you from doing good works, which justify belief.


If I were to stop caring too, then yes, for the length of time that I consider my religion false and did not care, I would give it up (the power, for example, less so the authority, to begin with, for example (as an example of the order of decay that would "creep in").

Please stay on topic and address the question, this is not a thread to spread your nonsense.