Hi Hollie:
I think you are confusing the abuse of religion with the consistent practice of it that is mutually beneficial for all people and for humanity, which is my understanding that I support, not the abuse of any religion.
For that matter, do you consider the support of government as supporting abuse of govt to
* allow corporations to run amok destroying the environment?
the same freedoms and principles in our laws also allow for wrong to be committed and unchecked
"until due process" is gone through; so that these laws and freedom are abused too!
Are you, Hollie, going to throw out all the positive uses of our govt and secular laws
becuase of the people abusing their freedom under this democratic/capitalist system?
Look at the difference between how Asian countries execute drug dealers whereas in
the US the drug abusers and dealers are filling up our prisons.
Are you going to say that supporting the American way is EVIL because it allows such abuses to continue?
* for Christianity, are you going to say that ALL people are evil abusers who support the good principles
of "living life for the good of the whole", being selfless and putting spiritual health of people, relations
and society about one's selfish desires that become abusive when not "treating others as ourselves."
the Golden rule in Christianity is also a natural law in ALL religions.
So are you going to throw all that out because of the people who abuse it?
Please explain how you can make a distinction between the good use of law
vs. people who abuse freedom to break the law,
but you cannot do the same with teachings in Christianity.
There are some people who DO believe the Constitutional laws were all based on greed for property
by white men, and abused to enslave poor people and slaves, so they distrust those laws.
Are you like that, too? Just because the Constitutional laws and govt were used to justify
slavery and discrimination against blacks and women from voting, are you going to
be consistent with your arguments here, and just say supporting Constitutional principles
is endorsing slavery and oppression and enabling political abuse by those with more power?
What is the difference, Hollie, between abusing political authority of the govt
and abusing religious authority of the church? If you are going to reject all the church,
laws and authority because of abuses, are you going to reject all of govt and laws because
of how these are abused by people with more power taking advantage of other people?
Love to hear your answer on this Hollie.
Maybe you can explain it, as I have not heard anyone try yet.
The last person who tried to argue with me that the Christian faith was more of a problem
than any other collective institution that becomes corrupted, changed his mind. And rewrote
his 400 page book after he decided that the problem was greater than just Christianity
but existed with people in general, and wasn't just the religions doing this. All people with
political agenda were equally pushing their views and imposing and oppressing others, not just Christians.
Hollie if you are only saying that Christians are the biggest hypocrites about it, I might agree with you.
Everyone has biases and getting in groups large enough can cause collective damage and oppression.
Corporations, govts, both religious and political groups; even nonprofits commit mass fraud int eh wrong hands.
But I would agree with you that if Christians claim to have the greater responsibility for fixing all these problems,
then when Christians are caught promoting these very problems and making them worse, then that
hypocrisy hurts worse than people who never claimed to have the absolute answers.
If that is your point Hollie, I understand; the difference between you and me is that I see that
for the extreme evil that is caused by any person or group, they also have to balance that by
providing proportional good in order to fulfill the laws of justice. So for every evil that you blame
on Christianity, the good that Christianity does is equal or above that, so we come out ahead by
correcting the problems and bringing out the good points and purpose in each person or group, including Christainity.
If you do not have faith that equal good comes from the bad in order to bring justice,
then that is the difference between how you see it and how I see it. I also see the evil done,
the horrible genocides and selfish destruction. But I also see how the good in Christianity
not only overcomes, but corrects, prevents and heals the root causes of where this harm comes from.
If you only see the negative side, I understand why you would respond this way.
I can only tell you that from what I have seen and experienced, it goes both ways
and for everything bad that happens, equal or more good can come from it that more than makes up for it.
There is much more good in Christianity, and any evil or abuses can be corrected
and prevented by practicing the good in it. It is like the spirit of Charity. A lot of charity events
and organizations can be fraudulent and abuse the good will of people to commit wrongs for selfish reasons.
but the number of charity outreach efforts and organizations that are good far exceeds the ones that are bad.
Christianity is the same way.
And back to the analogy of govt and laws that are abused by selfish people,
the good still outweighs the bad, and the correct use of the system is to check and prevent the bad abuses.
same with Christian laws that when used correctly can stop the abuses which I assume you are complaining about.
both church and state laws are supposed to check against abuses of their systems, even though
the problems still occur while humanity is on learning curve to prevent and correct the wrongs.
If you have more faith in the state system than in the church system,
I'd like to know why. Because both the church is made up of people
and the govt is. So it is up to people to use the laws correctly in both the church and state
and to prevent the abuses.
Frankly I think it is harder to stop abuses in the govt because the laws are mandatory
and harder to change. the changes in the church can be done directly by the people,
as Luther did or the people who merged the Unitarian and Universalist churches.
so I think there is more freedom in religion to change how we teach and do things,
and harder to correct problems in politics because of the legislative process required.
Hollie if you have more faith in the govt system, that is significant. If you believe the
corruption in politics, govt and courts can be fixed using that system without throwing
out all the laws, surely there is hope for religions to correct the abuses!
Dear Derideo_Te: Thank you for your clarifying statement.
I wish all people would EXPLAIN as you did what the problem is.
That way at least we know what is going wrong and have a chance to address it.
In this case, it may be this is just an exercise in learning to forgive unconditionally.
If Asaratis does not define your beliefs, then don't let him.
There is no need to ignore or cut him off to make this not so.
If it is truly independent, then he should be able to keep thinking what he does
and not affect you. Let him be wrong.
So this could be one of those exercises in how to really stop this nonsense of
associating people by label.
...<snip>...
My dear Emily,
My time is my own and I am under no obligation to suffer fools gladly around here. Those who prove themselves to be a complete and utter waste of my time don't deserve the privilege of wasting my time so that is why I consign them to Cyberia. The feature is there for a reason and I make good use of it because the value I place on my time far exceeds the vacuity of the posters who now reside in Cyberia.
They can still post their mindless drivel as much as they wish but it won't interfere with my time in this forum in the future. I am the one and only master of my time and when I decide that they are not worth it that is the result. I don't make this decision lightly because I consider a number of factors before I issue the one way ticket. Essentially when I see no redeeming value at all in the posts of someone I push them out of my time slot.
There is no shortage of posters either so it isn't as though I won't have anyone else to exchange ideas with. The abundance of fools though can make it tedious wading through their blather. Going by Carla's recent response to QW in this thread I am glad that he was the very first poster that I ignored when I first arrived here about 18 months ago. I must have saved many hours of my time by now not reading his claptrap.
So yes, the ignore system works perfectly. I get to control who I read and respond to and that improves the USMB experience. The Cyberians might as well be speaking another language or residing on a different planet as far as I am concerned because what they have to say is just meaningless noise since it contains nothing of any value whatsoever.
Peace
DT
Dear @
emilynghiem ,
DT above expresses nothing more than self aggrandizement coupled with intentional veiling of his apparent inability to cope with those "beneath him" that logically challenge his errant postings and surreal re-definitions of terms that have been accepted for decades. This is very much akin to the liberals changing their own label from liberal to progressive in an attempt to escape the negative connotations now attached to liberal. Ignoring the opposition is also another tactic used exhaustively by liberals. It bears no resemblance to that which it precludes; productive dialog that often leads to self improvement and understanding.
Just as does hatred, ignoring people has little effect on the target.
Regards,
asaratis
Concluding that your promotion of fear and superstition (which you call "christianity"), is a reasonable and rational conclusion.
Concluding that Leprechauns are a product of fear and superstition is no different than a similar conclusion reached in connection with your multi-gods.
