how can any one religion make a valid claim to be the fundamental truth?

No, I do not agree with him. I told you, I do not support either side of the fence, when it comes to exactly how we got here. For many reasons, and what I believe does not go against the bible. Niether does evolution.I just believe in God, and I found him through his Holy word.

Right, I will start another thread about that one.
I made a mistake, slightly. When I said the mind and soul are one, I meant the metaphorical mind, not the pysical mind. That is part of your body.

Ok, we are nit picking here, but try to understand.I do not want to claim a religion, as there are so many religions from the same book.So for the purpose of this thread, now that we hashed it out, (BTW I loved this thread) I guess my answer would be Jesus. I use many versions of the bible to understand it, and went to many different churches, as well as many private teachings. It's God's word, that can be found through reading the bible that I believe to help you find the truth. But the truth is not in the religion per say. It is in the book from which the religion comes, and the person who reads it.Not the church, not the organization, not the faith system, or extra set of rules set forth by such religion, not the belief's of any particular person, except yourself. (ding ding, see bottom of reply)Is that religion?Websters definition seems to better fit my understanding of religion. Note, that your definition seems to imply that if you believe in God, then you are religious, and therfor have a religion, even if it is your own.

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Is it not possible to not associate God with any religion? Can I not believe in God, without believing in any particular religion? Your definition would not allow that it would seem.

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ding ding: It was placed on my heart that you are looking for a way out here. You are looking for the truth, that is apparent. You may have posed yourself as someone who knows there is no truth, and wants to prove that, but the pose is weak. You wish to prove that there is no truth, by getting someone to claim that it comes from a religion, and then you can elborate on why it can't be that one because of this that or the other thing.

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It is perplexing you that I do not claim any religion, but claim to know the truth. You are even trying to trick me into thinking that what I believe in is actually a religion, but it is not.

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Check this out:

John 1
11Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God. 12Demetrius is well spoken of by everyone—and even by the truth itself. We also speak well of him, and you know that our testimony is true.

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13I have much to write you, but I do not want to do so with pen and ink.

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He speaks of the truth as though it is a separate person.

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Here too:

1 John 3:19
This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence

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Listen, how many ways are there to get from NY to LA? Probably 10's of thousands. Each one can get you there, but there may be detours, traffic jams, bumps in the road, airport delays, etc.
Are any of those ways the perfect way? No the perfect way is the one you take, because you took it, and it got you there.

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Do any of those ways hold the truth? No.

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Religion does not hold truth, but the other way around.

You just pull stuff out of your backside most of the time, don't you?

So are true Christian's IMO. But what do I know?
If 90% of people who claim to be Christian's are not, what does that mean?
90% of all people who claim to be this or that, aren't really that good at whay they do, thats been my personal observation, and it has nothing to do with these peoples actual ability's.
Does that give you the right to not believe? But since his son was sent, and he explained to us that he is truth, then that is not part of his image, but a poor judgement call on our part of how we choose to live.God is probably capable of lying, but will not lie. Only we fall short of that glory.But that was a funny one

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Good point.
How do you prove you love someone?

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Exactly.

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"Exactly" what?Stop dicking around and get to the point.

You love me.

Schrafinator, I love you. (as a person)
What is love anyway schraf?

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Schrafinator, I love you.

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Doubtful. You don't know me. You may have some kind of magnanamous caring for life in general and humans in particular, but love me?If you love me, then you love way too casually.

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(as a person)

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What other way would you, "(as a cauliflower)?"

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What is love anyway schraf?

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It is an emotion.I believe I asked you to come to a point sometime soon.

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You love me.

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No, not really.Nothing personal.

No you asked me what I meant by prove love.
You can't really can you. Not really, I love others as I love myself. Just because I love you, doesn't mean I like you, or what you do or say.

Well, that sounds better than a straight up no, I'll take it.I am suprised, that you never responded to what I said about you and your horse.

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No you asked me what I meant by prove love.
You can't really can you.

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It depends what you mean by "prove", doesn't it?That's why I asked you to tell me what you meant by "prove".Let us remember that you began talking about "proving love" right after onhai and I had that small discussion about science and "proof".It should be clear to you that there are several definitions of "proof", depending upon the context.Which one do you mean?

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I am suprised, that you never responded to what I said about you and your horse.

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Didn't I? Sorry, I must have passed over that.

You can’t pick and choose what words you want to haul out just to prove your point,
You pick Conscientiousness: (Def: governed by or done according to somebody’s sense of right and wrong)
But miss Archaic: (Def: used to describe a word or phrase that is no longer in general use but is still encountered in older literature and still sometimes used for special effect or no longer useful or efficient. And so does yours.If we had a poll here on these forums that asked the question does riVeRraT have a religion then I would bet that the vast majority of the votes would be for ‘YES’.Remember, that the tortoise can believe he’s an eagle all he likes, but every one who sees him will say look, there’s a tortoise.If you were truly without religion, you would stop using that book as a crutch. And while we are at it, swinging back to the point about religions and truth, what gives the bible any valid claim to the truth over the religious texts of all the other religions? This is an important point as you claim the bible is what gives your faith, belief, religion validityYou claim to use all the versions of the bible to illuminate your life as to the existence of god. I hope this means you include the NWT and the book of Mormon. Why stop there? If all the versions of the bible are valid in your eyes then why not use the texts of Baha’I, Buddhism, Confucianism, Jainism, Judaism (oh, silly me you already do with this one , Doh!), Hinduism, Islam, Paganism, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism. And so on. If you claim not to follow a religion then there is no harm in seeking wisdom and truth in these texts as well?If you deny the validity of any of these religions and their texts in favour of the bible then you are choosing one religious system over all the others, and thus choosing a religion. It may be your religion, which is heavily based on the Christian religions but it is still a religion.Claiming you don’t follow a religion is simply ridiculous, considering your stated views. Ah but what if the destination you should be heading for is London England? What if you have the wrong destination?This message has been edited by ohnhai, 01-26-2005 09:07 AM