QUOTE So you're basically saying that God does exist and that that is a proven truth... You say that all of the religions are not the true religion. By what means have you come to that conclusion? Therefore, if anybody follows a religion, they must think it's the true religion, which in turn, basically makes them...stupid? I don't think I'm following what you're saying. QUOTE Anyway, theology is not the same thing as mathematics. There is room for gray areas. Wouldn't quantum mechanics be a gray area in the midst of all other math?

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Haha... I guess I'm not explaining my opinion clearly enough... sorry.

1. I am a Christian.



2. What I said was that God didn't send the Bible directly down from heaven. Now what I should have added/replaced to that statement was "He didn't send it down from heaven for us in a nice neat pre-formated book". I definately believe that all the texts Bible are God inspired, otherwise my faith would be worthless to me. But, IMO, "God Inpsired" does not mean God literally wrote it, and gave it to us. And further on what I was saying, even if God did not directly write it, I believe He certainly would have decided what was in the "Bible" that we have to day. I am certain He would not give us the Word with lies in it.



3. As far as I know, religion is the act of rituals and practices. However, faith is the belief in something. Therefore, faith can be included in religion, but I could definately keep my faith if I did not have any religious practices to go with it. So the essence of my argument was that: "Christianity, if considered purely as a religion, is certainly no more than any other religion. However, faith with/without these religious practices is much more than any religion could ever offer."

Unfortuneately, I was not being clear enough. Hopefully you understand me now. If not... well.... I'll try again

 

 

 

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1. Well, that certainly clears things up.
2. Well, if God inspired these writings, as you say, wouldn't there be resolution loss? Wouldn't the error of humans be considered? I'm just thinking, maybe his (His? I keep getting confused.) original and pure message got noised up a little.
3. Doesn't religion necessarily include some sort of faith? "Religions" like Shinto or Taoism aren't really "religions" in the strict sense... they're more like "lifestyle practices".



1. I say that no religion can truthfully (no emphasis, it's just my edit colour) claim that they are the "one true" religion. It doesn't mean that there isn't one, but it doesn't seem like we've discovered it yet. If someone follows a religion, they can follow it because it was created by "the one true God", but it is not necessarily the "one true religion". I mean, every religion claims that it's the "one true religion". If it really was that one true religion, then it wouldn't need to be claimed: it would already have been proven.
2. You're pretty much right.

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I can agree with that. Religion isn't like a cold, hard fact, although many would want it to be.

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2. As impossible as it may seem, I would say no, there would be no resolution loss. Which was one of my other points. The Bible is essentially God's Love letter to us, so surely (as He is all powerful), He would allow no errors. But again, this matter comes down to faith and trust.

3.

Time and time again, we see the word religion as defined as rituals, a set of beliefs, and practices. Now, as you will probably have noted in definition NO. 5 the "ritual observance of faith". So as you noted in point No. 3, religion includes faith. IMO, this is not always the case. Which is why as I stated previosly faith can and often is intertwined with religion, but religion without faith is useless. My point was that Christianity as a religion without faith is no better than any other religion, but Christianity as a religion with faith far surpasses any belief out there.

(Note: I desperately hope the purpose of this argument is to find truth... if it becomes something else... I may no longer participate)

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2. I don't think God would allow error either... but it does come down to who we're putting our faith and trust into. If the Bible was essentially written by men who were inspired by God, then we would be trusting that the men wrote God's word down correctly. We can put our faith and trust in God saying that his (I'm only writing "His" to satisfy the "proper" Christians out there) word is true. It's only the interpretation of men that leaves something to be desired.

3. Of course religion without faith is useless. But then it's not really a religion anymore... if someone practices Christianity without faith, then you can hardly call them Christian... that's the point I'm trying to make. If you can claim that "religion" is just a set of rituals of which faith has no importance, then you could call Scientology a religion as much as Christianity or Judaism.

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This is an absurd question. One would have to understand all the religions in the world to even make comparisons. Besides, everybody hails from different cultures and has different mentalities. Someone may think a certain aspect of one religion is superior to one aspect of another simply because of the way they were brought up or what they were exposed to in life. I believe religion is one thing that we could not rank.

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I must agree with you. Christianity without faith... well its not really Christianity. But then I run into one problem, why are many without faith in Christ considered Christians by themselves and others? This leaves me at the conclusion religion is able to exist apart from faith... or at least it has become able to... although... it really shouldn't.

In short what I am saying: "Religion should not exist apart from faith, unfortunately, it does."

I can't argue much on scientology... which I know hardly anything about.

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I have to agree with what ankitunlimited said. It's extremely reatarded to think you're better than anyone regardless of which religion you follow. NO religion is superior.

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Well Superiority of religion according to me has no meaning
We should treat every religion equally and there's should be no descrimination.

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