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You
Guest
Great! One down, how many to go.
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Lui
Guest
True, which is why I would now consider myself as an agnostic. I can’t say if there is a God or if there is no God. I remember when I was about five. I sat in the back of my parent’s car while we passed this huge cemetery on Queens Blvd in New York. I thought maybe life is just an illusion and I suddenly wake up and realize I am a being on another planet who was just dreaming.
Don’t ask me how a five year old can come up with this thought/theory. Who knows if that isn’t the truth?
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StAnastasia
Guest
“The sun is an invisible electromagnetic battery revolving in the universe’s center on a 24-year cycle. Our visible sun is only a reflection, as is the moon, with the stars reflecting off seven mercurial discs that float in the sphere’s center. Inside the earth there are three separate atmospheres: the first composed of oxygen and nitrogen and closest to the earth; the second, a hydrogen atmosphere above it; the third, an aboron (sic) atmosphere at the center. The earth’s shell is one hundred miles thick and has seventeen layers. The outer seven are metallic with a gold rind on the outermost layer, the middle five are mineral and the five inward are geologic strata. Inside the shell there is life, outside a void.”
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Moontown_Rabbit
Guest
Replace the word “born” with “standing”, replace “specific faith” with “light” and replace geographic location with the metaphor of a plain of dappled sunshine. All you are saying here is that some people are standing in darkness, some are standing in full sunshine, and others are standing in a mixture of shade and bursts of light. There is in fact nothing stopping any of the people on the plain from walking to another location, either brighter or dimmer, and to suggest that such journeys are never made insults most of humanity. I have heard this meaningless assertion so many times that it induces a gag reflex. Please stop it.
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StAnastasia
Guest
You analogy suggests there is something superior about light. Most of the universe is dark, and more people on earth have brown eyes than blues, and more people have dark rather than light skin. Please stop with your “light-is-superior” analogy or it will induce my gag reflex.
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Elizabeth502
Guest
You just activated my own gag reflex for redirecting the conversation to some inappropriate political theme which cannot be inferred from the quoted poster’s statements. I didn’t read hue into his post, but you obviously did. I read illumination as the connotation of “light.”
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Moontown_Rabbit
Guest
Not my problem if light makes you gag. Am I the only one who is tired of people saying “The only reason you believe that is because you were born in Philadelphia”? Is there no one else who does not find the suggestion that we are helpless victims of geography offensive? Come on, there must be at least one other person out there who is fed up with this.
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Lui
Guest
My answer was basically the follow-up of several answers. I didn’t mean that you can only believe in a specific faith if there is evidence but rather the opposite: faith is based on belief and not on evidence.
There are several people here who claim that Catholicism is a proven fact and that those who don’t accept it as the truth just didn’t do the work to look at the 100% undeniable facts that leave no doubts.
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Lui
Guest
Oh, I guess you were actually born into a Muslim family with Persian roots but discovered the truth when you picked up the Bible…lol.
I’m pretty sure that both your parents were Christians and you were baptized as a child and raised in a Christian environment with a Christian upbringing and THAT led to your enlightenment that the Gospels are true.
Listening to people say it is a fact that Christianity is the truth is just as tiresome after hearing it the millionth time and btw, your whole post induces a gag reflex. So I guess we’re even
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Elizabeth502
Guest
Whether that is or is not true of him, it is an utterly false assumption. Not only is there insufficient data to back up that assumption as a general theory, there is abundant anecdotal evidence that religious adherence is eventually weakly related to one’s upbringing but strongly related to one’s adult decisions about that upbringing (regardless of what that upbringing was/is).Oh, I guess you were actually born into a Muslim family with Persian roots but discovered the truth when you picked up the Bible…lol.
I’m pretty sure that both your parents were Christians and you were baptized as a child and raised in a Christian environment with a Christian upbringing and THAT led to your enlightenment that the Gospels are true.
A child’s concept of God and adherence to, or struggle with, religion, is unlike that child’s religious encounters (and intellectualizing about religion) as an adult. The intersection of religion with adulthood is radically more demanding and can be fugitive, depending on a number of factors influencing a continued faith: original conviction about that religion, level of earlier practice of and belief in that religion, environmental influences during the unstable and questioning years of early and late adolescence, the presence or absence of mature religious role models in adulthood, and much more.
An entire family, all raised within the same environment, with the same expectations and practices, often ends up with differentiated religious identities – from agnosticism to devotion, and from the original (or original version) of that religion to several new affiliations in adulthood (among the family members). My traditional Catholic mother married a believing Protestant who rigorously complied with his promise to raise all the children Catholic. Of the 6 of us, only he and I have retained our consistently strong belief in Christianity. What differentiated my father and I from the rest of the pack? The only trait I can p(name removed by moderator)oint is that we two are the only members who are unafraid of wonder, welcoming of mystery (not obsessed with “figuring it out”), and not overly dependent on the left sides of our brains. The other members, during adolescence and adulthood, reverted to rationalism to try to resolve the inexplicable, and when unable to, abandoned all faith summarily. All four of them are on the extreme end of the analysis spectrum, with two of them professionally in the sciences. I’m very analytical when I need to be, but I also know when analysis is completely inappropriate and futile; my right brain and I are super-friendly.
I’ve seen similar differentiated patterns played out in many other families.
There is some genetic evidence that brains of “religious” people look different in terms of factors of receptivity. I’m sure someone here will find the link quickly.
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grannymh
Guest
Me.
What bothers me is the assumption that only Philadelphia has access to the world wide web and is the only town people can travel to. Granted that there may a few countries which are closed to the world. But even then, money from tourism can be an influence…
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Lui
Guest
Of course there are always exceptions to the norm like my Catholic born father who became an extreme atheist. My mother went to an all girl Catholic school and is as religious as Richard Dawkins.
You also have your occasional Catholic who turns to Buddhism, the hippie who turns to some cult or the one Muslim who turns to Catholicism.
The best evidence I can offer is a question: WHY are the majority of Arabs Muslims? Why isn’t that region a big mix of all kinds of religions because they all went on a spiritual journey when they grew up to discover Christianity, Buddhism or Hinduism? Why are the majority of European descendants and Europeans Christian and not a big mix of religions because they all went on a spiritual journey when they grew up to discover Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism. Why are the majority of Indians Hindu and not a big mix of religions because they all went on a spiritual journey when they grew up to discover Islam, Buddhism or Christianity? No, the vast MAJORITY of people stick with the religion they were brought up with and that is a FACT.
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grannymh
Guest
I’ve never heard that Christianity **is **the truth. Sounds funny like misplaced grammar.Listening to people say it is a fact that Christianity is the truth is just as tiresome after hearing it the millionth time and btw, your whole post induces a gag reflex. So I guess we’re even
Actually, Catholicism is the best *means *to the truth. However, those curious about the supernatural have the innate capability to seek out the means and then choose the means.
Of course you may disagree because you have the capability to choose what you want.
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Lui
Guest
You mean like Catholicism was forced on people all throughout history? The Romans forced it on the rest of Europe and the Europeans went on a World Tour of Force. In 1533 Atahualpa, the Emperor of the Incas was given a breviary by the Spaniards led by Pizzarro with the words “this is the word of God”. Atahualpa tossed the breviary away and said “I don’t hear anything”. Ooooooh, big mistake. That led to his execution. Obviously the religion of the Incas was wrong and they had to be forced to become Christians.
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Lui
Guest
Pizarro and his men were Spaniards
The Roman Empire didn’t exist in 1533 anymore.
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buffalo
Guest
Local abuse of power was not sanctioned by the Magisterium.Pizarro and his men were Spaniards
No doubt one can look through history and find all kinds of individual abuse and failures.
The Koran sanctions the spread of Islam through power.
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