Do you feel threatened or uneasy about the religious population

[DTCwordfan]

Personally I do not as most religious people keep their views to themselves and if that is how they feel about their God, so be it.

However I do have a problem with the type of evangelical person that pontificates to others, tryng to force their views on to them, the Jehovah's Witness type, some of the "bizarre" minority religions who take to the street with the "End of the world is nigh, convert to Jesus" type messages.

I do not have an issue with folk who are well-read and can construct a good aregument, well founded on their beliefs and creeds but i can not stand those who blithely cut and paste texts from others' web sites. Isn't this rather disingenuous of them and doesn't it risk devaluing their religion and those who are learned and respected practitioners?

I also have an issue with people blatantly lying about their religion, and those not being straight up and rather subversive in their avoidance of being being challenged, such as we are finding on here.

Are they not debasing their religion in doing this?
What will their God and Satan think of them?

What do you think?

[DTCwordfan]

I heard on the Beeb that the Rt Rev is giving up.....at 85

[237SJ]

I certainly don`t feel threatened by people with strong religious views. I can`t imagine that a group of Jehovah`s Witnesses are going to walk up to me in the street and clout me across the head with a batch of Watchtowers. I do feel threatened by Islamic extremism though and the people who perpetuate it.

[Truthabounds]

I am a Christian and a non denominational one. I follow the Bible, do not stand on street corners with a mega horn and have no intention of going to Heaven. I am imperfect like every other person on this planet but endeavour to live by Bible principles. I live with ordinary people in an ordinary town, in fact, how do you know I am not your next door neighbour, or your fellow workman. I could even be your dentist, doctor or your banker. You don't know me and I don't know you. You don't need to know what, if any, religion I belong to apart from the fact I am a Christian, and abhor war, terrorism and anything connected with it. And I am not alone, I can speak for many others around the earth. I have free will and acknowledge that every other being has free will. I would even die for my beliefs. Would you?

[naomi24]

//I would even die for my beliefs. Would you? //

Yes - but unlike yours, mine wouldn't be a futile death. Too many people have died - and are still dying - for religion. Religion is a blight on this planet!

[venator]

go on DT, i've not read all this history, but you seem to be an OK sort of AB person - if it won't spoil the delicious spontaneity of this thread, do you have any religious views at all, or are you a seeker after truth like me?

reply on Ab Editor if it's less stressful <]:-)) clean shaven

[DTCwordfan]

I am, venator, I guess an agnostic and highly skeptical.....bordering on Atheist. Having said that, I accept that if somebody is a believer, then so be it, that is their right and I will not challenege that directly, especially if the ir arguments are well-reasoned and thought through.

Christianity, in part, did allow for the creation and maintenance/evolution of our moral and ethical base in society - that part is valuable. The 10 Commandments and all that.

However, when it becomes "forceful" representation, complete balderdash and even a pack of misconstrued opinions and posturing, as demonstrated adequately here by certain folk, then I will object.

The Bible to me was a clever document in explaining the unexplainable when it was put together and it should be seen like that, also a useful historical document as to around 0BC and then as a record keeper post William the Conk.

If anything, I am an "Einsteinian" perhaps to God - that if God exists, its more as a macro-designer for the universe at large - there is too much order and symmetry in the physics, chemical and mathematical relationships, though of course, the recent discovery that there may be something faster than light is fascinating, if proven. Einstein was a believer that God existed in this form, but not the clap-trap associated with the Bible.

I do believe in spirits etc - but not from a biblical perspective - more that there are energy forms out there that we do not eyt understand - after all how would one have explained static and Elmo's fire back in the 16thC. We may have lost some knowledge as well - just do some research on lay lines for this and how all the early (pre 13thC) churches from St Michaels Mount to Norwich are on a straight line passing through Stonehenge.

Part of Christianity's brilliance in its propaganda was to absorb " the best" of pagan religions - a "Pick and Mix" of Divinity.......

I know it sounds weird, but is space endless.....or does it have boundaries of some form - perhaps a neo-flat-earther mentality? Are we a cell within another cell.....its a fascinating philosophical and scientific concept and, to me, it is this area of science that will reveal the greatest discoveries and, perhaps, with enormous impact to us here on earth - such as warp travel or nuclear fusion as to power power generation.

Thanks for your kind comments about my being reasonable - many wouldn't say or agree with that - rather that I am "half-mad" but that is just the creative side coming out as I write and draw/paint professionally. I enjoy the ability to "play" here.

[DTCwordfan]

sorry my logic is cracking up - I forgot to move the third last para on "Pick and Mix" back to the para after "The Bible" and before the Einstein comments.

Aaaagh.

[cathfromsaron]

i find a simple 'no thanks' suffices when preachers call!

[Elderman]

DTcrosswordfan



You still spouting forth your drivel......I guess you are still short of your daily quota, the Key Perfomance Indicator your brainwasher sets for you. Oh well, crank out a few more and then the rest of us can be spared the waffle.

[Elderman]

Are they not debasing their religion in doing this,No
What will their God and Satan think of them
Well, we are not surprised by such opposition. In fact, we expect it. After all, they know that faithful Christians in the first century C.E. were “objects of hatred,” so why should those endeavoring to be true followers of Christ today expect to be treated any differently. (Matthew 10:22)

[naomi24]

Elderman, your self-proclaimed insight clearly doesn't provide you with the ability to understand human nature. I can't speak for all the atheists here, but if they think anything like me, I'd hazard a guess that you people are certainly not 'objects of hatred' - rather objects of pity - so sanctimoniously donning the martyrs robes and telling us that you're following in the footsteps of the early Christians actually comes across as rather pathetic.

What you don't seem to appreciate is that many here have read the bible probably just as many times as you, but they've done it without the influence of other men and without a pre-conceived agenda. They read what's there, and needless to say, unlike you, they have the courage to acknowledge the facts.

[sandyRoe]

If I had to choose a martyr's death I think it would be that of John the Baptist. Watching a strip show while have a few drinks and someone comes up behind you and lops your head off. I'd be in heaven before I knew it and wouldn't have felt a thing.

[naomi24]

Haaa! Sandy!! I'm shocked!! God's watching you, you know. ;o)

[LazyGun]

I think that last comment of Sandys is the first of their posts in a long time that I could agree with ;)

[jomifl]

Sandy, you may be in heaven before your head is lopped off but I have strong doubts about the 'after' bit

[jomifl]

Truthabounds.. it appears that you only have free will so far as your peer group allows it and your's has stricter rules than mine, apart from the use of logic and truth where you can be as cavalier as you like.

[goodlife]

DT// Well, Albert Einstein, the best-known scientific theorist of this century, was led to speak of “a spirit [that] is manifest in the laws of the Universe—a spirit vastly superior to that of man.” And more recently Fred Hoyle, the brilliant British astronomer, was reportedly converted from disbelief to belief in the existence of a creative power when he calculated that it was mathematically impossible for life to appear in the universe by chance.

These examples illustrate to some extent the truth of the Bible’s statement: “His [God’s] invisible qualities are clearly seen from the world’s creation onward, because they are perceived by the things made.” (Romans 1:20) However, insofar as there are limits to what science can teach us about God. Neither Einstein nor Hoyle was able to discern from science more than the fact that an organizing God must exist. We have to go to the Bible to learn who that God is and what his purposes are. All such knowledge is truth beyond the reach of science.

[DTCwordfan]

Distorting the truth again, goodlife.?.....Einstein did not believe in anything Biblical, ascribing the design and patterns that he theorised to more of a ephemeral being, not the God that you worship, or the history, sociology and spiritual "logic" and reasoning outlined in the Bible - this was a human way of explaining the unknown, logical at its conception time, nothing less, nothing more.

[DTCwordfan]

Suggest that you buy and read:

Amazon.co.uk User Recommendation

before you start spouting Einstein at me.

[jomifl]

Fred Hoyle said a lot of silly things, many of them stemming from the fact that he was an astronomertrying to be a biologist. His justificaton for the notion of panspermia was naive and simplistic, demonstrating that he had a poor grasp of meteorology . He should have stuck to what he knew, as should you goodlife. Your attempts to bolster your religious beliefs with science are 'beyond your paygrade' and to those of us with scientific training demonstrate your inability to grasp the principles of rational thought.