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What is your religion?
iheartBBM:
--- Quote from: Aussie Chris on April 28, 2006, 07:30:40 pm ---
Why does it have to be true in order for the lessons to work?
--- End quote ---
Exactly. Luckily I have a pretty liberal New Testament professor (I'm a religion major in college) and he said something very much like that.
I guess I'm just way too sensitive about stuff, but I hate the bad rap that religion has in our culture today. I hate the way Christian fundamentalists pervert it to suit their own agenda, and I hate the way a lot of people end up getting the message that all religion or all Christianity is unaccepting and wrathful and end up being turned off of it completely.
I know I'm not the only liberal gay-affirming Christian in the world, but sometimes I feel like I am because of the way the "Religious Right" is so prevalent and they act like they are representatives of all Christianity... shit it pisses me off.
But I can only hope that, since I intend to go into the priesthood and to continue working for the gay rights movement (I'm the secretary of my college's GLBT organization), maybe my life will make some small contribution towards making this a better world for gay Christians and indeed for all gay people, be they people of faith or not.
Haha sorry. Done ranting. LOL.
Kea:
Oh I dont know which box to tick.....
I am Roman Catholic ...raised so and I hold the beliefs now...spent time in the pursuit of a religious life part trained by an Italian order plus the Franciscans and Benedictines...
they thought me lots about theology, philosophy, ethics and human rights...not as closed minded as alot of people think...
the close minded ones are just louder...
But I also practice Zen Buddhism....been vegetarian all my life...and hold the issue of the rights and regard for all living creatures very close to my heart....
so I would say....Catholic Zen Buddhist..... ::) ::) ::)
hugs
kea
delalluvia:
--- Quote from: Aussie Chris on April 28, 2006, 07:30:40 pm ---
Back in my religious ed days in high-school, the best lesson I remember came from one of the science teachers who said: "as rational beings we know that we came from our parents, they from theirs, and so on. We talk about evolution as the mechanism that leads to our humanity, and the big bang being the beginning of the universe. What we find difficult to talk about however is what created the big bang. That unknown, he said, is God". Now to a 15 year old was a real wow experience, and I've always been amazed that so many see science and spirituality as opposite ends of the spectrum when in my mind they are really one and the same. A famous quote by Albert Einstein was: "There are two kinds of people in the world. Those that do not believe in miracles and those that believe everything is a miracle".
--- End quote ---
Great post Aussie!
My favorite quote by one of my college professors (atheist) kinda goes against your science teacher's.
"Men think epilepsy divine, merely because they do not understand it. But if they called everything divine which they do not understand, why, there would be no end of divine things."
-- Hippocrates
iheartBBM:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on April 29, 2006, 01:22:29 am ---
"Men think epilepsy divine, merely because they do not understand it. But if they called everything divine which they do not understand, why, there would be no end of divine things."
-- Hippocrates
--- End quote ---
Unfortunately, I think the opposite of this is what happens these days... people call everything "sinful" which they do not understand.
FuzzyChanny:
Aussie Chris, that was a really brilliant post!
--- Quote from: Aussie Chris on April 28, 2006, 07:30:40 pm ---Now the two groups that just amaze the hell out of me (pun intended) are the fundamentalist Christians and the splinter group of "intelligent designers". The problem with these groups is they feel the need to believe that the Christian Bible is word-for-word literal and true. When I went to Sunday school it was always talked about the Bible as a book of parables to be used as lessons for life. So when did it become true exactly, and why does it have to be true in order for the lessons to work? This to me is the fundamental problem (another pun) with religions generally, and why religion is so inaccessible to most people. So they have a book that says God hates me because I'm gay? Well gee, I thought you told me that God made me in his image? Make up your mind. Strangely, I don't feel like God hates me. I wonder what's in it for these people to say that he does?
--- End quote ---
What bugs me is the translation of the book, both into other languages from Ancient Greek and into it's meanings. Like any good piece of literature, a story can be taken to mean different things in different ways. So therefore, I believe the bible to mean something different to every person (with the basic outline remaining in tact) but the church only want you to believe it the way they have deciphered it. Once again judging...
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