Weak. So weak, in fact, that I cannot even call it a weak argument, for it is no argument at all.
If you want to tell me it's not that simple, you must also tell me why, and provide evidence, sources, SOMEthing other than your own reactionary, emotion-based [and therefore blind] defense of the...
Welcome. If, as you say, you cannot relate to any of the Abrahamic religions, I humbly suggest you leave them alone and begin a different search. You are clearly uncomfortable with the Abrahamics, yet your focus remains there; perhaps because they are all you've known so far. There is a wide...
I have never seen animism and paganism as mutually exclusive. In fact, I'm guilty of taking it for granted that they're often pretty symbiotic [though of course that is not necessarily always so]. Husband isn't familiar with those terms in English, but based on our discussions, he sees Shinto...
There wasn't, as far as I know - I didn't mean to imply there had been. :flushed: It came up in my response since it's been an interesting and somewhat ongoing conversation he and I have, in which we're both often surprised at the similarities of thought in such divergent cultures. :relaxed:
This is a great idea for a thread, and framed pretty brilliantly. :blush:
My first thought is that (4) can be combined - and often has been - with any of the preceding, since by nature it is individual rather than collective. Every state-sanctioned religion has had its mystics, prophets, sages...
There is no medical reason for cannabis to be a Schedule 1 drug, and good reasons it's medically ideal for testing and appropriate use; not least among them the fact that there is no lethal dose. (That is, it's not physiologically possible to absorb enough of the drug at once to cause death.) It...
Oh no no, that sad old excuse won't do. Someone as decorated with omnis as God does *not* get off the hook that easily; did he grant Man any of his omnis along with freewill and dominion? No. So just what did he expect, in his endless wisdom and love, from a new-formed creature that in...
Let's bottom-line this quickly: the god of the bible [assuming for the moment that he is a real character] is very omni-happy. Omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniamorous, omnis forever and ever amen.
With all of this limitless power, love, knowledge, etc, he gives creatures freewill. He...
Uh, let me be very biblical and contradict you on that one. Scripture contradicts itself all the time, including where it speaks of God's character, or quotes him directly. Ezekiel 18, for instance. So many others ... but yeah, some smartass even made a meme:
Well, now that I HAVE read the whole thread, I'll say what I always seem to say, which is that humans are subjective creatures. Therefore anything in our common experience is still highly individualized, including appetites.
Some people are incredibly passionate about food or wine; their level...
Actually those are all potentially arguable ;) - some animals (penguins, frogs, cats, etc) prefer same-sex mating. As for the higher thought processes or soulish concepts, I'm pretty sure some of them are way ahead of us. They also have demonstrable hierarchies and/or lack thereof, which is...
Where to start ... o_O
As a matter of fact, I have read and studied the letters of the apostles - which, first of all, we're making a huge leap in even acknowledging as such, given the extremely sparse textual historical evidence (one fragment of the gospel of John, dating to 90-odd years after...
I read the whole thread, and it was worth reading. :) I don't remember who said it here, for which I apologize, but the point was very well-made that not only CAN we [*we* being humans] ignore the correlation between religion and violence, we always HAVE been; at least where our own faith is...
As in all things, I believe balance is healthy. Anger serves vital purposes in its proper place; it gives strength to act where fear destroys it, it motivates the fight against injustice, it gives energy for accomplishing goals where despair drains it. Anger is sometimes the only appropriate...
There are several explanations for that which are more credible than believing a supernatural event to have occurred with no other substantiation. Delusion springs to mind first; given first-century Palestine's cultural context, it's easy to see how a mass delusion involving messianic figures...
I'm with Mystic and Luis on this. Trust is the most intimate part of any relationship; you can still love someone deeply without trusting them, sadly, but you cannot easily rebuild a trust that's been betrayed. In order to protect that trust in a love relationship, honesty is paramount. What two...