Has EvC changed your beliefs?

Ian, I'm telling you that I hate Lex Luthor. That I know he is a vile and evil person and I thoroughly hate his guts.What is your opinion of me and my hatred of Lex?lfen

What if I accused you of hating Lex Luthor because you think he is only a comic book character?I think it then follows that it's illogical to accuse someone of hating some one they don't believe exists. To hate Christ, or God, of Allah, Siva, etc. would entail believing that they exist. Unbelievers don't hate Christs, or [insert name of a deity here], they simply don't find the evidence offered satisfactory for their requirements of believability. A big difference from hating.lfenABE: For me religions are social institutions. They serve important social functions though they are not quite as necessary as they once were they remain important. Religions may carry some truths but they are not true as in "real" because the real lies beyond language. Religion among other things is a linguistic contrivance. Meeting our existence call it "God", call it "Self", call it "What Is" , or call it "Tao" is beyond language, concept, and social institution. Edited by lfen, : read the warning and thought I should add more on topic material

Don't you think there are different tenacities of belief both inter and intra personally? And aren't we often working on probabilities?I think I irritated my elbow by resting it on the arm of my computer chair, but I also thinks it's possible it started by something else I don't remember like bumping it in my sleep. I'm pretty sure, certainly the chair arms irritate enough now, that I removed them.So I think I'm right about what I say but I allow for possibilities as often enough in my life new data has come to light and I have changed my mind. So "right" is a value subject to change.What amazes me is the tenacity with which fundamentalist hold to their interpretations of ambiguous, obscure, or coflicting Bible passages. Two literalist fundamentalist will disagree over whether Jesus is or isn't God for example with great tenacity as if they could know? When we don't even know if Jesus existed or what his life was like. I think that degree of rightness, and it seems fundamentally important to them is something I'm still struggling to understand and is a major motivation for the time I spend here.The only idea I have is that fundamentalist have to be right because they for reasons I can't yet see have less faith in their place in the universe. I say that because it occurs to me that I do have a feeling that could be called faith that I am a product of the universe and belong and that, hmmm, hard to find words for it, just that in ways I don't understand I fit, and it occurs to me that this is a statement of some sort of fundamental faith. But I'm not sure if I'm RIGHT about this or not. lfen

I wish I could remember her name so then I could look up her posts but about a year back a woman was here who said she had a Ph.D. in psychology and read the Bible literally.She believed God had a face because it said to look on God's face was to die and that he had a back because he showed it Moses. She didn't believe Jesus was God because she found no statement to that effect in the Bible. She said she wasn't a JW but agreed with their reading on Jesus. Perhaps Fundamentalist is defined in a way to exclude her views but they were certainly literal basic Christianity. I don't know how Christians define Jehovah Witnesses.lfen

Well I know some one who was raised in some sort of hell fire guilt tripping Christian church. He has converted happily to his wife's Jewish faith. I finds it a relief from the Christia vision he was raised with.Now I know less about Judaism than I do Christianity and I don't the fellow that converted well.I am also of the opinion that the way upbeat Christianity of Jim and Tammy Faye Baker to name one well known representive of a whole upbeat "give me seed money so you can drive Cadillac's with Jesus too" Christianity is high paying con.I am skeptical about any of these sales techniques, whether it's get rich (monetary or spiritually i.e. get into heaven free) or scare tactics. I'm more interested in ordinary life truths. The Christians who impress me are those who's love in demonstrable in the way they deal with life. This love is not exclusive to Christians though, there are Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and even atheists whose lives have it. It's not where they found it that is important to me but that they found it.lfenEdited by lfen, : cleared up the ambiguity of "him" by substituting "the fellow that converted"Edited by lfen, : changed misplaced quote mark