sgallan

No, I'm not being rude...I wish you luck...whenever you can afford to move. Why? It doesn't disprove it either. And your point is? I have a hypothesis..... the type of Islam as practiced by OBL is more peaceful and kind than is Christianity.

I wish you much luck in your new abode. Did you miss the part where I said I can't afford it? Or are you just being rude?

I might refresh your memory a little why we nuked them. Read a little history about their modes of torcher and how the war with Japan started at Pearl Harbor. I am familiar with the history. I even teach it. Doesn't change the fact that we nuked, and firebombed them, causing tortorous pain upon thousands of innocents. Nor did I say I was against what we did. Just doing a little exercise in compare and contrast is all. I think people who are unhappy with America should change places with them. If I could financially manage it, I would move to Canada. We may at some point. They are big in the sport of womens wrestling too, so it would be a good fit.

I didn't do it to get an reaction. The fact that you did react the way you did, is your problem. It doesn't make me a trol. Continued afforts at trolling duly noted. You can't handle the truth son! Declaring yourself as the foremost arbirter of truth doesn't prove your hypothesis either.

The Japanese religious tradition is made up of several major components, including Shinto, Japan’s earliest religion, Buddhism, and Confucianism. Christianity has been only a minor movement in Japan. However, the so-called “new religions” that arose in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are a prominent feature of Japanese religious life today. Still doesn't prove you hypothesis. And Japan is a pretty peaceful place today. Far more than we are. And come to think of it..... didn't we nuke them.... twice..... and burn much of Tokyo?

Shinto is not Buddhist. One battle, nor one war does not prove a hypothesis. I lived in Japan.... no problem. You have a very weak front. Me trolling? Geeze. The above trolling..... saying things not really germaine to the discussion just to get a reaction. It does indeed prove my statement. No it doesn't. Budhist were the religion of the area. Shinto was.

Have you not read your history boy? That is trolling There are many different stories. Nanking is one. But there are others like this one. That was under an Shinto/Emporer government. And it doesn't prove your hypothesis.

Non violence isn't all it is cracked up to be and the most violent people came from countries which were Budhist. Prove it. Non violence isn't all it is cracked up to be Agreed. Especially in this so-called Christian nation that locks up more of it's people than any other industrial nation. Heck non-violence could get you killed. As a matter of fact I once got into a street fight (in the 80's) with some people who wanted to get violent with some gay friends of mine and me (I guess they assumed I was gay). Bad luck for them..... two of us were wrestlers, and the other had a black belt in Ju Jitsu. It was actually kind of fun till one punk had is elblow dislocated by the Ju Jistsu guy and started screaming. Shreeking actually. Felt kinda bad for him. Badly dislocated elbows are permanent.

I would never euthanize a healthy cat, and wouldn't even know where to start to explain such a thing to a child. And if I were a kid I might think..... "boy I better not have any accidents". I've had a couple of cats who got into a peeing contest. So they both became outdoor cats. With a single cat I'd try Aristotle's advice first, and then if that didn't work..... introduce the cat to the great outdoors.

Always fighting fire with fire bro. Indeed. Actual religious shooting wars have been known to get started in this way. Non-religious ones as well. It's kind of why if there 'were' a worldwide religion, Buddhism is probably the best one. Though not perfect, they seem less violent than the more god based ones. And the Dalai Lama rocks.

I am going to put this post in a file for when Maureen comes and attacks me telling me that I am the one attacking. Ahh.... the two wrongs makes a right defense. Way to take the high road....

I agree... .... see, I told you we had a meeting of minds.

Its your choice if I had extended such an invite. But seeing that I haven't, it isn't your choice. That's cool. I pretty much figured you weren't interested in having anybody not like you in your religion. Oh.... and it is all good. I am not interested in being hated up front by folks like you.... ...and you are not interested in having folks like me in your religion. I do believe we have a meeting of the minds here.

Syble and Ray..... Honestly, I wouldn't except an invite to your respective Ward's from either one of you (and I have excepted a couple of invites in the past for baptisms, baby blessings, and missionary returns from friends). Given your attitudes why would I? To be abused. Heck if I wanted that I could go to a Southern Baptist congragation..... they think even less of my type than you do.

Eat drink and be merry here in my life and oh yeah~ I'll get another chance on the other side to be with all those saints who dilligently sought the Lord and to do His will while on this earth. The truth sometimes sounds rude to the lazy saints and non-saints alike. To be honest.... even if this were to be the truth.... I wouldn't want to be on the other side with this god nor his saints for an eternity.

As many would like to blame membership for these things, it would behove us to check back a couple centuries to what our forebearers had to endure and they didn't suffer from depression. Wow.... you must be a really really really old sociologist.

Well it is prophesied that Christ's church would be small and the Great and Abomiminable church is large. So be it. Perfect fit then..... I for one don't want to spend an eternity with most of the LDS.... or any other religious persuasion. And they sure as heck don't want anything to do with the likes of me.

I'll leave. You can go back to having you somewhat slow and usually dysfunctional board.... .... I'll pop back in and post every couple of years.... like usual.

Outshined - At least we (and others) are giving some history lessons.

I start with two basic assumptions about God: That He's all-powerful, and that He's good. I interpret the Bible stories, the commands, etc. from this core anchor. You haven't reached that place of faith, yet. You question God's character, and thus wonder if He even is. Dude... no matter how big the font.... if you can rationalize a being that makes Hitler and Stalin look like slackers.... just because he is God... well knock yourself out. But there is no way you can spin it to meet the standards of the skeptic. That is what is called "spin" at it's greatest.

Kerry is a Catholic; despite the Pope's position against abortion, Kerry was pro-abortion. So is he a Christian in your view. Or do we start to lower the 85% number by taking out all pro-choice Christians.

2. However, if I am wrong, and Mormonism is deemed unacceptable in God's eyes, I lose my place in eternal heaven, and will instead be doomed to hellfire. For me I rather like the LDS version. I get to go to the TK. That works. I sure as heck don't want to spend an eternity in the CK..... that would be ahell. With your faith I am doomed either way. On the one hand I get hellfire. On the other hand I'd have to spend an eternity with a psychopathic god who would allow the eternal torture of the vast majority of humanity AND evangelicals, baptists, and the religious right. I think the fire would be preferable.

Isn't truth the most valuable of all things in the Love of Christ? Try it you'll like it. Prove your truth. You can't outside of the supernatural. Nor can I disprove it. But I see no more reason to believe in your version than any number of the other thousands out there. You see there was a time when I attended you faith even after I quit believing. Why? Because a lot of the people were nice, and with the issues with my wife I thought there might be some value in it for the little one. But folks like you pretty much dissuaded me of that theory. KNOCK IT OFF!!! Picking sides eh. Figures you'd pick the Christian over the heathen. I mean us heathens can't possibly have any redeeming value, right?

Great posts (as usual TS) Since our resident troll brought up Adams, I thought I'd add a few more Adams. He is pretty cool..... God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world. -- John Adams, "this awful blashpemy" that he refers to is the myth of the Incarnation of Christ, from Ira D. Cardiff, What Great Men Think of Religion, quoted from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind. -- John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" (1787-88), from Adrienne Koch, ed., The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society (1965) p. 258, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church" We should begin by setting conscience free. When all men of all religions ... shall enjoy equal liberty, property, and an equal chance for honors and power ... we may expect that improvements will be made in the human character and the state of society. -- John Adams, letter to Dr. Price, April 8, 1785, quoted from Albert Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom (1991) As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed? -- John Adams, letter to F.A. Van der Kamp, December 27, 1816 The frightful engines of ecclesiastical councils, of diabolical malice, and Calvinistical good-nature never failed to terrify me exceedingly whenever I thought of preaching. -- John Adams, letter to his brother-in-law, Richard Cranch, October 18, 1756, explaining why he rejected the ministry I shall have liberty to think for myself without molesting others or being molested myself. -- John Adams, letter to his brother-in-law, Richard Cranch, August 29, 1756, explaining how his independent opinions would create much difficulty in the ministry, in Edwin S. Gaustad, Faith of Our Fathers: Religion and the New Nation (1987) p. 88, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church" When philosophic reason is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it. -- John Adams, from Rufus K. Noyes, Views of Religion, quoted from from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it. -- John Adams, letter to his son, John Quincy Adams, November 13, 1816, from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced! -- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, from George Seldes, The Great Quotations, also from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning.... And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes. -- John Adams, letter to John Taylor, 1814, quoted in Norman Cousins, In God We Trust: The Religious Beliefs and Ideas of the American Founding Fathers (1958), p. 108, quoted from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief What havoc has been made of books through every century of the Christian era? Where are fifty gospels condemned as spurious by the bull of Pope Gelasius? Where are forty wagon-loads of Hebrew manuscripts burned in France, by order of another pope, because of suspected heresy? Remember the Index Expurgato-rius, the Inquisition, the stake, the axe, the halter, and the guillotine; and, oh! horrible, the rack! This is as bad, if not worse, than a slow fire. Nor should the Lion's Mouth be forgotten. Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1,500 years. -- John Adams, letter to John Taylor, 1814, quoted by Norman Cousins in In God We Trust: The Religious Beliefs and Ideas of the American Founding Fathers (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), p. 106-7, from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief Numberless have been the systems of iniquity The most refined, sublime, extensive, and astonishing constitution of policy that ever was conceived by the mind of man was framed by the Romish clergy for the aggrandizement of their own Order They even persuaded mankind to believe, faithfully and undoubtingly, that God Almighty had entrusted them with the keys of heaven, whose gates they might open and close at pleasure ... with authority to license all sorts of sins and Crimes ... or withholding the rain of heaven and the beams of the sun; with the management of earthquakes, pestilence, and famine; nay, with the mysterious, awful, incomprehensible power of creating out of bread and wine the flesh and blood of God himself. All these opinions they were enabled to spread and rivet among the people by reducing their minds to a state of sordid ignorance and staring timidity, and by infusing into them a religious horror of letters and knowledge. Thus was human nature chained fast for ages in a cruel, shameful, and deplorable servitude.... Of all the nonsense and delusion which had ever passed through the mind of man, none had ever been more extravagant than the notions of absolutions, indelible characters, uninterrupted successions, and the rest of those fantastical ideas, derived from the canon law, which had thrown such a glare of mystery, sanctity, reverence, and right reverend eminence and holiness around the idea of a priest as no mortal could deserve ... the ridiculous fancies of sanctified effluvia from episcopal fingers. -- John Adams, "A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law," printed in the Boston Gazette, August 1765 We think ourselves possessed, or, at least, we boast that we are so, of liberty of conscience on all subjects, and of the right of free inquiry and private judgment in all cases, and yet how far are we from these exalted privileges in fact! There exists, I believe, throughout the whole Christian world, a law which makes it blasphemy to deny or doubt the divine inspiration of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, from Genesis to Revelations. In most countries of Europe it is punished by fire at the stake, or the rack, or the wheel. In England itself it is punished by boring through the tongue with a red-hot poker. In America it is not better; even in our own Massachusetts, which I believe, upon the whole, is as temperate and moderate in religious zeal as most of the States, a law was made in the latter end of the last century, repealing the cruel punishments of the former laws, but substituting fine and imprisonment upon all those blasphemers upon any book of the Old Testament or New. Now, what free inquiry, when a writer must surely encounter the risk of fine or imprisonment for adducing any argument for investigating into the divine authority of those books? Who would run the risk of translating Dupuis? But I cannot enlarge upon this subject, though I have it much at heart. I think such laws a great embarrassment, great obstructions to the improvement of the human mind. Books that cannot bear examination, certainly ought not to be established as divine inspiration by penal laws. It is true, few persons appear desirous to put such laws in execution, and it is also true that some few persons are hardy enough to venture to depart from them. But as long as they continue in force as laws, the human mind must make an awkward and clumsy progress in its investigations. I wish they were repealed. The substance and essence of Christianity, as I understand it, is eternal and unchangeable, and will bear examination forever, but it has been mixed with extraneous ingredients, which I think will not bear examination, and they ought to be separated. Adieu. -- John Adams, one of his last letters to Thomas Jefferson, January 23, 1825. Adams was 90, Jefferson 81 at the time; both died on July 4th of the following year, on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. From Adrienne Koch, ed., The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society (1965) p. 234. Quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, "Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church."

See..... if this were truely a 'Christian' nation, then it would be a theocracy. And I would either be dead or in jail. Because theocracies are notorious bad for those not part of the ruling religion (and the LDS/JW's would be toast as well). What this country really is, is called a Democratic Republic with a majority of the populus proclaiming themselves to be Christian to varying degrees. And...... even if you did want to make it a Christian theocracy..... look how many Christians are disagreeing with your desire?