Officially OT -> Re:My fiscal responcibility...

[Madison Kelly]

James Knott wrote:
> Madison Kelly wrote:
> 
>> Chris F.A. Johnson wrote:
>>
>>> On Sat, 22 May 2004, Lloyd Budd wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 22-May-04, at 22:55, James Knott wrote:
>>>>
>>>> You say God it is just fiction .  Prove it ;-)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>     Why should one believe in god any more than the monster under the
>>>     bed? Or the tooth fairy? ......
>>
>>
>>
>>   Being Buddhist means I too don't believe in god but I do believe in 
>> Khamma and Dhamma (the former being analogous to the laws of physics 
>> that define our physical world except it governs the spiritual world 
>> and the later being the teachings of Buddhism).
>>
>>   That said, I totally understand and respect other people's beliefs 
>> in god. My mom, for example, is devoutly catholic and even presents 
>> surmons at her church every other Sunday). For her (and others who 
>> believe in god) He/She/It/They is/are a manifestation of the start of 
>> creation as we know and a point to focus on when trying to decide the 
>> meaning of their life and existance. If for no other reason than as a 
>> psychological tool god is both real and important.
>>
>>   For you and other agnostics you have decided that you don't need to 
>> believe in god or any other higher being and that life simply is. The 
>> trade off is that you need to realize the need, benefit and reality of 
>> god to others as much as they need to understand your lack of need.
> 
> 
> As I said before, I don't doubt some people need to believe in fiction. 
>  However, you take any religion, and you'll have a hard time finding 
> facts in the real world to back it up.  Faith does not make reality. And 
> far to many people in this world take religious belief as reality and 
> use their favourite fiction, to impose their beliefs on others, and when 
> taken to extreme, you have the situation in the middle east etc.
> 
> You want to believe fairy tales?  Fine, just keep them to yourself and 
> quit claiming it's "God's" will" etc.

   I will be the first to agree that many people try to use their 
religious beliefs as a beating stick and to me those people miss the 
tenants of their own religion by a mile (that was my "hammer" analogy). 
I think most people's objection to faith isn't the person's faith but 
rather the tendancy for people to insist that others must agree with 
their faith.

   This I speak from personal experience, having been raised Catholic 
and been subject first hand to the attempted brain washing of those 
"church goers" who felt they had the right to judge me from day one and 
to thus punish me for not following their beliefs. When I finally 
started studying Chritianity (and then other religions) it was obvious 
that what they had done and the way they acted was well outside their 
own core teachings. ("Love thy neighbor", "Judge not lest ye be judged 
yourself",  "Let he free of sin cast the first stone", etc...).

   The first trick in respecting other religions is to seperate the 
people who abuse the religion they claim as theirs from the religion 
itself. "God, save me from your followers!" - kind of like that.

Madison

PS - I am not arguing for the validity of other religions (or even my 
own), I simply am arguing for understanding.

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