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All religions
Topic Started: 20 Oct 2009, 09:52 PM (5,186 Views)
Concolor
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Barabbas
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No, then I have not expressed myself clearly. I do not believe in any God because I do not see any convincing evidence in favor of them and a lot if convincing evidence against them.

What I meant by saying I would not follow a God who demands human sacrifice was that, if I thought there was enough convincing evidence to believe that the God of the Bible was an existing entity, then I most certainly would not think he was very nice. I would probably be a maltheist if I believed that the God of the Bible was real. But this is not a reason not to believe in God, it's just a reason to believe that he is not good if he did exist.
Life is beautiful, love heals, people come through.

Reason, compassion and love comes first. Everything else is secondary. Except for Skittles. - And emperor Cheezy! Posted Image
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yeah i asked you what you had againest God....
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Concolor
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Barabbas
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Nothing. I don't really have anything against someone that I do not think exist. Just like I don't really have anything specific feelings for or against the Man in the Moon, or Zeus for that matter. (But if Zeus existed he would be kind of a jerk)
Life is beautiful, love heals, people come through.

Reason, compassion and love comes first. Everything else is secondary. Except for Skittles. - And emperor Cheezy! Posted Image
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Junior
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Brother-in-law of Soul
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Nothing. I don't really have anything against someone that I do not think exist. Just like I don't really have anything specific feelings for or against the Man in the Moon, or Zeus for that matter. (But if Zeus existed he would be kind of a jerk)
I concur. Atleast our "imaginary friends" have manners :P
Call it what you want
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concuring with concolor

i can name a few specific feelings ive noticed.....
why do you then like to discuss a God that you have already decided does not exsist....
oh i get it now-thats your faith its called nonbeleif :thumbs:


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Concolor
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Barabbas
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@ARAZEC:
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why do you then like to discuss a God that you have already decided does not exsist....
Because to a lot of my fellow humans, these Gods DO exist. So in order to understand my fellow humans, I must understand their beliefs (even if I don't share them) and why they have these beliefs.
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oh i get it now-thats your faith its called nonbeleif
I didn't really get that one.

Firstly, as to calling my view of the world "nonbelief": I believe in loads of stuff, many of them similar to things that you believe in. We both believe that the earth is round, we believe that humans do not get reincarnated when we die and we believe that notion of Zeus being the king of the Gods and hanging out at Mount Olympus is not a very credible idea. Yet when it comes to a particular book, the Bible, we have a difference of opinion when it comes to it's credibility and relevanse to reality.

Secondly, I do think you agreed with me earlier that "belief in contradiction to evidence" as a good definition for the word "faith". I would claim that the label "faith" would be a poor one for my view of the world, as the only criteria I have for this view is for it to align with and encompass as much of the reliable evidence I am presented with as possible.
Life is beautiful, love heals, people come through.

Reason, compassion and love comes first. Everything else is secondary. Except for Skittles. - And emperor Cheezy! Posted Image
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there may be a lot of circumstantial evidence yet the truth ends up being the opposite.

i am a witness of Jesus Christ
You may see me as an unreliable witness.
i have no motive to lie to you-so you beleive me-but at the same time say its my reality and what i have been preprogramed or influenced to attribute my experiances to.
and yet there are countless stories of ppl having conversions with little or no exsposure to christianity-i btw would consider myself to be more of a Saul if anything....Hey there is a Muslim lady with a book about how she became a Christian -its an interesting book have to dig it up.....
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Concolor
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Barabbas
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@ARAZEC:
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there may be a lot of circumstantial evidence yet the truth ends up being the opposite.
Exactly. I never claimed that the path towards greater knowledge is a straight and easy road. Just like when our forefathers looked up at the sky it looked like the sun was orbiting the earth, then we gathered more evidence and found out that the earth was orbiting the sun. At first it looked like the orbit was a perfect circle, but when we looked more closely and gathered more evidence it turned out that the earth actually moves in an ellipse around the sun. Our knowledge is steadily improving, and the only way to improve it is to look at more evidence and correct our view of the world accordingly.

We may never reach a full understanding of everything in existence, but by keeping up our investigations and gather more evidence we can always move towards greater knowledge. And that is a lot bettter then to just accept that the sun orbits the earth and leave it at that.

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and yet there are countless stories of ppl having conversions with little or no exsposure to christianity
Yes, most of them have conversations with other Gods. People exposed to Islam, usually meet Allah. People exposed to Hinduism usually converse with Brahman. People exposed to Buddhism, meet Buddha or one of his Bodisathvas. You've heard of a lady who was a Muslim and then became a Christian. I've met Atheists who were once Theists, and Theists who were once Atheists. I've met a man who was once a Christian, then a Hare Krishna, then a Buddhist and finally a Muslim. He told me he had personally experienced the glory of Allah and had recieved proof that Islam was the one true path. I had no reason to doubt his sincerity and the fact that this was the truth to him. I do not, however, see any reason why this should convince me to believe that his view of reality should be true for me as well.

Revelation is a personal, subjective experience. I cannot share another persons personal, subjective experience and therefore I cannot use it to base my reality upon. And if I tried to do so, how would I know exactly which persons subjective experiences I should choose to accept. The Muslim? The Christian? The Buddhist? The spirit-worshipper? My mom? The guy who fixed my sink? A televangelist? A guy with little money? A guy with lots of money? Someone with a lot of followers? Someone with few followers? How would I know?
Life is beautiful, love heals, people come through.

Reason, compassion and love comes first. Everything else is secondary. Except for Skittles. - And emperor Cheezy! Posted Image
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there are things that happen when no one is around to see them but they are still a reality and saying The God of the bible is a personal God and saying having a personal revelation is not evidence of a personal God then you cut out many ways to prove this is possible-but is that a meaningfull question to ask? i think not if you are serious as you say in steadily improving your knowledge.

when you state that most most of them have conversions with other Gods what do you mean-the ppl living in India convert to Hindiuism? thats not a conversion-thats a result of conditioning in that particular Religion-a conversion in a Christian sense is different from going to what you always know.
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Concolor
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Barabbas
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@ARAZEC:
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there are things that happen when no one is around to see them but they are still a reality and saying The God of the bible is a personal God and saying having a personal revelation is not evidence of a personal God then you cut out many ways to prove this is possible
Yes, because it is not valid as evidence for others, only for the one who has that experience.
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but is that a meaningfull question to ask?
Yes it is :)
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when you state that most most of them have conversions with other Gods what do you mean
I'm saying that the God of the Bible is not the only one who people claim to have a personal relationship with. There are many people who has a personal relationship with Allah, many who has a personal relationship with Brahman, many who has a personal relationship with Buddha or his Bodisathvas etc.
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the ppl living in India convert to Hindiuism?
Not only in India. People from all over the world convert to Hunduism, and people from all over the world convert from Hinduism to other things. For historical reasons, most Hindus are in India.
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thats not a conversion-thats a result of conditioning in that particular Religion
Yes, I imagine that most Hindus are in fact brought up to be Hindus in the same way that most Muslims are brought up to be Muslims and most Christians are brought up to be Christians. But there are also converts going to or from the different religions in addition to this.
Life is beautiful, love heals, people come through.

Reason, compassion and love comes first. Everything else is secondary. Except for Skittles. - And emperor Cheezy! Posted Image
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i have studied a lot of statistics from a few different sources heres what i found to be consistent

From Table 1-1 you can see that the world growth rate of Muslims is 2.13, and for Christians it is 1.36. A closer look reveals, however that the birth rate of Muslims world wide, is literally double that of Christians. This is due to the fact that Muslims are largest in the developing world where dirt floors, thatched roofs and large families are common. When you the actual conversion rate, where men chose their religion, rather then are born into it, you can see that Christians are converting, on a percentage basis, almost twice as many as Muslims (1.7:1). This means that individual Christians are out converting Muslims almost two to one! What this means, is that as third world Muslim controlled countries gain the advantages of education and technology found in the Western world, their birth rate will drop off to match that of the West, but Christians will still continue to out convert them at a rate of 1.7:1.
Total adherents
New from conversion
Number of adherents to make one new convert:

Muslims
1,188,242,789
865,558
1,372

Christians
1,999,563,838
2,501,396
799


Although this particular information mentions Muslims AS I MENTIONED WHEN IT COMES TO CONVERSIONS Most conversions are to Christianity not to any OTHER RELIGION OR GOD it does still happen but not as commonly as you may think.

Aggressive marketing?
You cant sell a faulty product and have that kind of Longevity in the marketplace ;)
i would say its more supply/demand

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conradw
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where are you getting your data?

its just that the numbers of adherents of both religions seem a bit low.
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Concolor
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Barabbas
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@ARAZEC:
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You cant sell a faulty product and have that kind of Longevity in the marketplace
So from the fact that Islam has been around for more than a thousand years, and people are still being recruited, we can thus conclude that the teachings of Islam are true?
Life is beautiful, love heals, people come through.

Reason, compassion and love comes first. Everything else is secondary. Except for Skittles. - And emperor Cheezy! Posted Image
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WilloftheProphet
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I am a Christian turned Muslim. I'm not Shiite or Sunni, just plain Muslim. I certainly believe the teachings in the Qur'an to be true. That being said, I do not necessarily believe the teachings of other faiths are wrong. In a way I think every religion in true in some way or form.
Edited by WilloftheProphet, 14 Dec 2009, 09:41 PM.
“And they claim, “None shall ever enter paradise unless he be a Jew” – or, “a Christian”. Such are their wishful beliefs! Say: “Produce an evidence for what you are claiming, if what you say is true! Yea, indeed: everyone who surrenders his whole being to God, and is a doer of good withal, shall have his reward with his Sustainer; and all such need have no fear, and neither shall they grieve.” Qur'an: Surah 2:111
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Concolor
14 Dec 2009, 06:11 PM
@ARAZEC:
Quote:
 
You cant sell a faulty product and have that kind of Longevity in the marketplace
So from the fact that Islam has been around for more than a thousand years, and people are still being recruited, we can thus conclude that the teachings of Islam are true?
ah but you cleverly miss the point-from the outpouring of the holy spirit in the book of Acts -to the deathbed confessions and prayers of salvation of today conversion to Christianity continues to rise.

Make of it what you will -i am just saying that the God of the Bible moves in mens hearts the world over and forever.

oh and :welcome: WOTP
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