How tolerant are you of other religions?

Aaron11 · Sep 11, 2003

Aaron11 said:
T,

How did He come out of the grave?

radorth · Sep 11, 2003

Amen bro. In this case, our "hate" is not hate at all, and is driven by love for souls, no matter what the politically correct want to call it.

Rad

vajradhara · Sep 11, 2003

Whitehorse said:
God sees any other religion as an affront to Him. I endeavor to be pleasing to the Lord. I love what He loves and hate what He hates. I do not hate the people who practice these religions. There's a key difference. But as CHristians, there is no question that we are not to tolerate false religion. And because we do, we have failed in our responsibility to keep our land pure, we've been bullied by the left, and now we have a nation that is being ripened for God's judgment. If I really love people, I will hate anything that threatens to destroy their very souls.

Namaste Whitehorse...

i'm hesitant to ask...

but even if those people don't believe that such a thing as souls exist? What sect of Christianity do you practice? that will help me alot in understanding your view point here.

"our land" do you, by that, mean America?

TheOriginalWhitehorse · Sep 11, 2003

vajradhara said:
Namaste Whitehorse...

i'm hesitant to ask...

but even if those people don't believe that such a thing as souls exist? What sect of Christianity do you practice? that will help me alot in understanding your view point here.

"our land" do you, by that, mean America?

Yes-I'm from the United States, and I'm reformed by denomination.

The thing is, our beliefs don't actually have the power to determine or alter reality. Only truth can determine this. Some people may not believe they have souls, but in fact they do, although they do not know it. They may not believe Jehovah is God, but He is anyway. It's kind of like man walking on the moon. There are still people today who believe it never happened. But even if they don't believe it, it still happened.

Blessings to you.

tcampen · Sep 11, 2003

Palatka44 said:
Tcampen, you've got to know that the accounts of Jesus' death, burial and ressurection ring true. Every one of those that were involved with the story of His ressurection (120 men and women) went to their graves after undergoing terrible persecution. If any of it was a lie at least one would have confessed it to have been so. To this day there is not one account of any that bore witness of lies.
Sure many have endured a life of lies if they thought that they stood to get away with a crime, but these had committed no crime. In fact their lives were quite miserable because of their witness of these events. Read the Book of Acts and see how they had to flee Jerusalem to Damascus and on to Antioch to escape persecution. This is what makes this story so compellingly true.

Just because people are willing to die for what they believe in does not necessarily mean what they believe in was true. A few dozen people suffocated themselves in a mansion in San Diego because they all believed an alien space craft behind a comet approaching the earth was going to take them away. Does their willingness to die mean they are right? What about the Palistinian suicide bombers dying for their cause? Do their willingness to die for their beliefs give it a ring of credibility?

I am not nearly so clear as you are as to what those martyrs actually witnessed or believed. Paul cannot speak for everyone, despite his belief in somekind of resurrection of Jesus. In fact, Paul is curiously vague on the details of the resurrection, which is very odd considering the proximity in time of his writings to the alleged event. One would think he would have mentioned something specific about an empty tomb, a virgin birth, walking on water, rasing Lazarus, or something. But we have to wait until after nearly all those martyrs die for the earliest accounts of the life of Jesus to be written by unknown authors. I just don't buy the argument that these things were so widely known at the time that they didn't need mentioning. Hogwash. Paul wasn't just preaching to people who were witnesses, but rather to those who were not.

So I understand your point. I don't discredit it completely. I recognize it is a powerful indicator that those disciples were motivated by something they really believed in. I just don't necessarily buy your idea of what there motivation was.

TheOriginalWhitehorse · Sep 11, 2003

Two important things to look at are who chooses God's servants, and the purpose of scriptures. God chooses His own-they don't choose themselves. So Paul does have this authority.

The second important thing to look at is the purpose of the Bible. Paul didn't write the epistles to prove the resurrection-the Holy Spirit provides the necessary faith. The epistles were written to the churches of believers, with the message God wanted sent to those churches. And after we see what that purpose was, we can properly pull out the correct applications for ourselves.

Blessings and peace.

tcampen · Sep 11, 2003

Whitehorse said:
Two important things to look at are who chooses God's servants, and the purpose of scriptures. God chooses His own-they don't choose themselves. So Paul does have this authority.

The second important thing to look at is the purpose of the Bible. Paul didn't write the epistles to prove the resurrection-the Holy Spirit provides the necessary faith. The epistles were written to the churches of believers, with the message God wanted sent to those churches. And after we see what that purpose was, we can properly pull out the correct applications for ourselves.

Blessings and peace.

This is exactly what I was talking about. Sorry, I don't buy it. Paul was not just talking to people who already believed. He converted non-believers himself, and I don't think you can claim his epistles were not intended to be read by anyone who was not already a believer. That would make no sense at all.

Rather than starting with the premise that the NT and bible as a whole must be perfect a right, why not just re-examine it with a open mind and see where it leads you. You might come to the same conclusion, which is fine, but at least you might understand where other reasonable minds are coming from.

pease right back.

vajradhara · Sep 11, 2003

Whitehorse said:
Yes-I'm from the United States, and I'm reformed by denomination.

The thing is, our beliefs don't actually have the power to determine or alter reality. Only truth can determine this. Some people may not believe they have souls, but in fact they do, although they do not know it. They may not believe Jehovah is God, but He is anyway. It's kind of like man walking on the moon. There are still people today who believe it never happened. But even if they don't believe it, it still happened.

Blessings to you.

Namaste Whitehorse,

you will note that this land is not "ours"... it was already somebodys... and it was taken from them. more basically than that... nobody "owns" this part of the continent. our nation has political control over it now, but we don't own it.

you say soul is true and i say it's not. you claim it's truth for it is proclaimed in your scripture.. i deny it's existence as that is proclaimed in my scritpure.

you say Jehova is God and i say Jehova is your God for my tradition has no creator god.. one is not necessary for us.

you say truth is what you claim it to be and i say that it's not.

in the final analysis, what we have is two different perceptions of things around us. you find the answers to your questions in the Bible and God.. i find the answers to my questions in myself... as much as such a thing can be termed myself.

some people look at a tree and see a wonderful creation of God. some people look at a tree and see the forest. some people look at a tree and see an organic oxygen producer/carbon dioxide scrubber. some people look at a tree and see new homes and buildings. i look at a tree and see firewood.

1 tree. many interpetations.

TheOriginalWhitehorse · Sep 11, 2003

tcampen said:
This is exactly what I was talking about. Sorry, I don't buy it.

That's okay. I'm not selling anything.

Paul was not just talking to people who already believed. He converted non-believers himself, and I don't think you can claim his epistles were not intended to be read by anyone who was not already a believer. That would make no sense at all.

This is where looking into the purpose for which the scripture was written would be immensely helpful. Take a look at the epistles, especially the first couple of verses. The author tells you precisely who he is writing to, and these were churches.

Rather than starting with the premise that the NT and bible as a whole must be perfect a right, why not just re-examine it with a open mind and see where it leads you. You might come to the same conclusion, which is fine, but at least you might understand where other reasonable minds are coming from.

pease right back.

I'm not interested in melding with temporal minds. I'm interested in melding with the Lord's. I don't want pleasant beliefs-I want truth. Isn't eternity a very serious thing to enter into, being armed with nothing but pleasaant, false beliefs?

tcampen · Sep 11, 2003

vajradhara,

you rock. Well said.

It seems fruitless to me to claim that there is some objective, absolute "Truth" (about a god, gods, etc.) out there when our human condition makes it impossible for us to experience it. It is functually irrelevant whether such a thing actually exists if no one can know what it is. Those who claim to be of the same faith cannot agree on what that objective, absolute "Truth" is themselves. So if they can't figure it out among their own, why should they think they can convince others outside that faith?

In my mind, the diversity of spriritual belief in the world, and within the various religions themselves, is direct evidence of how such is really just a matter of subjective opinion. One person likes apple pie, and the other prefers pumkin, and no amount of tortured reason and argument can provide convincing reasons for ultimately changing one's mind about such things. Spirituality does not reside in such a plane of existence.

I believe if we accepted faith more on this level we'd have far less conflict in the world, and a heck of a lot more peace. But I guess what I consider to be respect for others' faith is not shared by those who must be right.

tcampen · Sep 11, 2003

Whitehorse said:
This is where looking into the purpose for which the scripture was written would be immensely helpful. Take a look at the epistles, especially the first couple of verses. The author tells you precisely who he is writing to, and these were churches.

I understand that. But to accept your premise means that those epistles were never meant to be read by any else. Do you really believe that? Should we disregard them completely today, because they were intended for 1st Century christians? What's the point of even having them in the Bible if they weren't meant for anyone else? Does that mean the epistles should never be quoted when witnessing to non-christians? Hmmm. Besides, it is presumptuous to think even those early Chuches had a perfect understanding of the details of Jesus' life and resurrection. We have no clue how many of them were personal witnesses to anything claimed in the Gospels. In fact, the gospels were written decades later by unknown authors - so we have very little idea of exactly what those early followers were aware of or believed to be true with regard to the details found in the Gospels.

tcampen wrote: "Rather than starting with the premise that the NT and bible as a whole must be perfect a right, why not just re-examine it with a open mind and see where it leads you. You might come to the same conclusion, which is fine, but at least you might understand where other reasonable minds are coming from."

I'm not interested in melding with temporal minds. I'm interested in melding with the Lord's. I don't want pleasant beliefs-I want truth. Isn't eternity a very serious thing to enter into, being armed with nothing but pleasaant, false beliefs?

Reliable inquiry should not be motivated by fear of the unknown, presumptuous claims of already having a special insight into the "truth," or knee jerk rejections of claims that conflict with your own beliefs. Such a position can never lead to an honest, or reliable evaluation of anything.

vajradhara · Sep 12, 2003

tcampen said:
vajradhara,

you rock. Well said.

It seems fruitless to me to claim that there is some objective, absolute "Truth" (about a god, gods, etc.) out there when our human condition makes it impossible for us to experience it. It is functually irrelevant whether such a thing actually exists if no one can know what it is. Those who claim to be of the same faith cannot agree on what that objective, absolute "Truth" is themselves. So if they can't figure it out among their own, why should they think they can convince others outside that faith?

In my mind, the diversity of spriritual belief in the world, and within the various religions themselves, is direct evidence of how such is really just a matter of subjective opinion. One person likes apple pie, and the other prefers pumkin, and no amount of tortured reason and argument can provide convincing reasons for ultimately changing one's mind about such things. Spirituality does not reside in such a plane of existence.

I believe if we accepted faith more on this level we'd have far less conflict in the world, and a heck of a lot more peace. But I guess what I consider to be respect for others' faith is not shared by those who must be right.

Namaste tcampen,

thank you for the post and the kind words

in our tradition, we basically take the stance that, whilst there is an "Absolute Truth" it's beyond our conceptual abilites and, quite often, it's de-emphasized in the practice as it tends to lead one awry.

though, in interest of disclosure, we do believe that there is a methodology that one can follow to have the same experience as the Buddha or other enlightened masters.

in any event, i absolutely agree with you... people are of differing capacities, and as such, the various world traditions speak to people in a way that they can understand. it would be a terrible mistake to try to make a "universal" religion for all people. it's not "one size fits all" at the ole spiritual haberdashery.

you've pretty much nailed it on the head, so to speak. if your tradition has a doctrine of exclusivity, you've got to believe that you are right and all others are wrong.. and if you really believe that.. you cannot be tolerant of others beliefs. it's a shame, really. the world religious traditions are like so many precious jewels.. if only we could learn to value them all for what they are capable of producing in a faithful believer.

fortunately for me, that is exactly the case in my tradition

or i would not have been able to practice it for long.

~Wisdom Seeker~ · Sep 12, 2003

I have no trouble speaking to anyone of any faith. Not that I've encountered a great deal of various religions...but I have encountered several.

My tollorance of them is usually dictated by thier tollorance of me. Is that bad? I try to keep from getting emotional...but I've never encountered an athiest who could have a conversation with me without getting frustrated and angry at me for not proving God to him.

What can I say...you treat me with respect and I'll treat you with respect. You don't...and you lose me. I can be polite to anyone, including my enemies, yes I have them. My mother taught me right. But I'm not really into participating in any communication that gets abusive. Too old for that.

vajradhara · Sep 12, 2003

Wisdom Seeker said:
I have no trouble speaking to anyone of any faith. Not that I've encountered a great deal of various religions...but I have encountered several.

My tollorance of them is usually dictated by thier tollorance of me. Is that bad? I try to keep from getting emotional...but I've never encountered an athiest who could have a conversation with me without getting frustrated and angry at me for not proving God to him.

What can I say...you treat me with respect and I'll treat you with respect. You don't...and you lose me. I can be polite to anyone, including my enemies, yes I have them. My mother taught me right. But I'm not really into participating in any communication that gets abusive. Too old for that.

Namaste Wisdom Seeker,

i don't think it's bad.. we try to be mirrors to people... in any event.. luckily i don't have that conversation with athiests very often

~Wisdom Seeker~ · Sep 12, 2003

Namaste.

In my real life, I rarely encounter atheists. But on the Internet...well, let me put it this way...it's happened a few memorable times. On the one hand, atheists are often nicer than religious fanatics...this shouldn't be so, but very often is. But on the other hand, sometimes their frustration level rises when I can not adequately prove God to them.

I guess faith is so much a part of who I am that it sort of oozes into my mannerisms. And Atheists are interesting...to have no faith? It's probably the most incomprehensible of any position to me.

Man spends entirely too much time trying to be grouped into like-mindedness. It seems such a deterant from true spirituality.

But hey, I'm human, it admittedly feels better to be accepted than ostracized.

TheOriginalWhitehorse · Sep 13, 2003

Wisdom Seeker, you're not alone. I think everyone struggles with feeling ostracised at one point or another. I know I did. What I do now is to view any decision as one that will foster both acceptance from one direction and alienation from another. Accpetance from the world will mean alienation from God. Acceptance from God means alienation from the world. Even in the church it's hard to find people who are willing to support diehard devotion, and that can be tough. But God will always reward you for your suffering. Sometimes He even does that here. But in the end, there's nothing the world has to offer any of us but spiritul death. On those terms, it's very easy to pass up.
Many blessings to you.

radorth · Sep 13, 2003

Re: Tcampen

It is functually irrelevant whether such a thing actually exists if no one can know what it is. Those who claim to be of the same faith cannot agree on what that objective, absolute "Truth" is themselves. So if they can't figure it out among their own, why should they think they can convince others outside that faith?

Tcampen, this sounds wise on the surface, and I agree with much of it, but there are ways to know. I can honestly say I know, instead of "I believe." Jesus did not begin a single statement with "I believe." In a sense he didn't believe anything. Your whole premise is based on your belief that God can't make anybody know, but that isn't true. Jesus told us how we CAN know. The issue here is not whether we can know, but whether ordinary people actually experience manifestations which cause them to know. Look, either the apostles experienced miracles or they did not!!! Can't you see how intellectually dishonest it is to blithely group people who claim to have spoken in foreign languages spontaneously, seen miracles and resurrections with those who haven't? Please. Call them charlatans and liars, but spare us your "it's all just folks opinions" argument. If God exists, he would make you KNOW, and nobody in the NT is saying "you'll never know for sure. You just gotta have faith and cross your fingers."

In my mind, the diversity of spriritual belief in the world, and within the various religions themselves, is direct evidence of how such is really just a matter of subjective opinion. One person likes apple pie, and the other prefers pumkin, and no amount of tortured reason and argument can provide convincing reasons for ultimately changing one's mind about such things. Spirituality does not reside in such a plane of existence.

Actually faith only leads us to proof. Hebrews says faith is the substantiating of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. Those that would find God must (for the sake of truth) believe that he is, and proves himself to those who seek "diligently" to know him. You say they will find him automatically then and so that is a wrong approach. That isn't necessarily so. If you diligently seek him and ask for reasonable proof, and see none, then fine. But that doesn't happen and we know that because you never find people who say "Yeah I searched every single church, and prayed every single prayer I could think of and I never found God."

I could never NOT have faith because of my experiences which made the spiritual world far more real than what you call the "real" world. It would be absurd for me to deny what happened, including a visit to the third heaven ( I share that apprehensively), speaking in tongues spontaneously, my truly mystical experience in a Denny's restaurant, the two spontaneous healings I have seen, etc. I feel like a guy who would at times love to leave "the faith" but God has made that quite impossible, both intellectually and spiritually.

I needed absolute proof and I got it. The difference between us is that you are not willing, nor have you ever been willing, to take the intellectual risks which I have. You would find it difficult even to say with Barry MacGuire, "OK fine God, if you are real, I want to know about it." Your basic approach, pehaps subconscious, is to find fault with the way God manifests himself, and to find fault with his phony followers who know nothing.

You might ask why God doesn't just physically prove himself and get it over with. Fair enough, but I assert that he would be interfering with essential free will, making unwilling converts and basically wasting his time. If God manifested himself to every "seeker", no matter what their approach, he would create havoc and people would be even more self-righteous than they already are. He prefers to manifest himself to the irreligious and unindoctrinated seeker, and he has a history of doing that, perhaps because they are more honest.

Do you find the story of the Israelites rebellion anethema to human nature? I think it fits right in. Even if the facts of the story were false, their blase' rebellion after actually seeing the cloud is hardly unbelievable. God led them out of Egypt because that was his purpose and promise. After that he basically ignored them or helped them here and there because physical manifestations are helpful only to those who "diligently seek him." Those who want to do their own will instead of God's will, will do it no matter what God does.

Rad

TheOriginalWhitehorse · Sep 13, 2003

tcampen said:
I understand that. But to accept your premise means that those epistles were never meant to be read by any else. Do you really believe that? Should we disregard them completely today, because they were intended for 1st Century christians? What's the point of even having them in the Bible if they weren't meant for anyone else? Does that mean the epistles should never be quoted when witnessing to non-christians? Hmmm. Besides, it is presumptuous to think even those early Chuches had a perfect understanding of the details of Jesus' life and resurrection. We have no clue how many of them were personal witnesses to anything claimed in the Gospels. In fact, the gospels were written decades later by unknown authors - so we have very little idea of exactly what those early followers were aware of or believed to be true with regard to the details found in the Gospels.

God meant for the epistles to be used by us in a secondary way, to learn from and be used for spiritual growth. But the epistles weren't for twenty-first century Christians, they were written for the purposes they address. I understand-sometimes we would like more details. But when we begin to change scriptures to fit what we are capable of understanding or believing, we veer away from what the scripture actually says. Remember, this is about an eternal God. All-powerful, and far capable of acting high and above what we are able or willing to understand. He did, after all, create this world. If He can invent the laws of gravity, for example, it stands to reason that He can also bend or suspend those laws at will. He created life. He created our bodies the first time and filled them with life, so when you think about it, it really isn't all that amazing that He can replace the life He chose, for a time, to remove. It happens in the hospital operating rooms all the time. So when you think about it, it really isn't all that incredible that Jesus rose again from the dead. But it certainly is exciting, because it's a fulfillment of a promise that His own will share in this same resurrection. Pretty cool, huh?

By the way, Luke was a historian. I'm not sure who told you they were written by unknown authors-the authors are given along with the recipients in the first couple of verses in the epistles. It was standard format for writing letters. Whoever told you this just made it up to make people stumble.

As for the understanding of the churches, the fact of the resurrection is laid out very clear. It only becomes fuzzy when we try to bend it to fit our human, finite abilities. Alexander the Great said (and I'm paraphrasing) that when we shoot for what we think we can achieve, we always get less. If we shoot for absolute perfection, we may not get it but what we do get is very, very good. And don't forget-this is all about God. He operates within the hearts of those who trust in Him, enabling them to see certain privileged information, as Jesus told His disciples when asked why He spoke in parables. But if you trust in Him, you will receive this beta also.

Reliable inquiry should not be motivated by fear of the unknown, presumptuous claims of already having a special insight into the "truth," or knee jerk rejections of claims that conflict with your own beliefs. Such a position can never lead to an honest, or reliable evaluation of anything.

But this removes the concept of authority. Let's start here: when you seek the truth about God, an allpowerful, eternal being, where do you look for this information? Looking inward to personal tastes, what we would like to be true, etc. is unscientific at best. So let's assume there is a more scientific approach. What would it be? And then, let's ask this question: does the supernatural fall into the natural realm? How can this be measured with science? And doesn't this assume that we are capable of knowing in and of ourselves, without a higher authority, to think we could measure the supernatural with natural means?

TLGitom · Sep 13, 2003

I am very encouraged by the results of this poll and would like to express my gratitude to this thread's starter. The fact that we as believers of Jesus Christ can have honest debate with people of other religions and know that they are wrong is in my mind a very profound event.
We must let others know that No one can come to the Father but through Him. To not stress this is to neglect our Christian duty and our love for all our friends regardless of their religious background. Though we regard any that are outside Christianity as wrong and eternaly depraved we must have debate and in the process win some for their eternal state.
However if one should still not see that the message of Christ is the only way we must accept that their decision is theirs and leave it at that.

Havoc · Sep 13, 2003

Interesting claims you make TLG. Can you back any of them up with substantive evidence? Can you prove that we are wrong and you are right?

No?

Ok then, we'll give your religious rhetoric and condescending diatribe all the consideration it deserves.

The fact that we as believers of Jesus Christ can have honest debate with people of other religions and know that they are wrong is in my mind a very profound event.

Honest debate? I don't think you realise the irony of your statement.

How tolerant are you of other religions?

How tolerant are you?

I don't tolerant other religions well at all

I tolerate people of other beliefs, but know they are wrong

I see merits in other faiths besides my own

I tolerate people believing anything at all

I can easily tolerate faiths related or close to my own

I can easily tolerate faiths that are popular in my culture

I accept every faith as possibly true

I don't believe in any religion, and think they are all dumb

I believe in no religion, but see merits in some

I am undecided or different

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