Professional parents have to sell their own daughters.

Somebody please explain to me why these so-called “professional” parents sell their daughters? Are they selling their sons into prostitution? Well gee, NO. What kind of parents sell their children of either sex, to anyone, for any reason, merely to ensure their own survival? Why does no one question THIS kind of morality, or ethics, of ANY religion, that permits such an atrocity?

Take the Evangelical and the Missouri-Synod wings of American Lutheranism as an example–they both support Lutheranism, and yet they have come to different value judgments , and therefore make different moral judgments on people.

In my opinion, theism really ends up in the same place as atheism–you organize a subset of the population that share common value judgments.

Thoughts?

Athiesm is not a belief system.

It is disbelief — which is by no means and is in no way sytematic.

No, it’s the BELIEF that there is no god. Athiesm is just another religion with a another set of beliefs

TMander@147: Militant Islam has been attacking Christianity since there WAS militant Islam. First the Byzantines. They invaded half of Spain and made it to the midpoint of modern Yugoslavia. The Europeans were asked to assist on behalf of their various sponsors in WWI. To honour their promises, they promised the Zionists a State (Israel) and the Palestinians a partitioned country. When The Europeans kept their promises, the Muslims not in on the deal attacked Israel from all sides. Sadly, the only answer modern Islam leaves the West is to militarily dominate them until they leave us alone.

The Turks went to the gates of Vienna Austria, Poland lost its king in the battle, Hungary lost its king and I believe most of its kingdom. However Moses Maimonides the Jewish Philosoher got an education in Spain under Muslim Almoravid rule rule. The Almohads however a Fundementalist bunch from Africa took over and drove Moses to Saladin’s kingdom not the Christian Kingdoms. It seems the Christians had become like their fundemenatlist Muslim enemies and begun demanding like the fundementalist Muslims that Jews convert or die.

We long for love, harmony and sympathy because we are intended by a Creator to find them.

Wow. Funny then how so many believers all over the world and throughout history have hated and argued and fought and had contempt for others. Talk about intentions going awry. But no problem for God — he just turns around and blames the believers because somehow they weren’t faithful enough or they are sinners.

George Bush believes in God. So does Osama bin Laden. I’m not seeing their actions as in any way compatible with a search for love, harmony and sympathy. Yet both believe that God directs their actions.

Maybe you are actually wrong about human beings and the framers of the constitution got it right (and the authors of religious texts from every tradition including the Christian tradition) — maybe we really long for power and money and ego-gratification. Because God created us that way. And what kind of a God would do that and then expect us to achieve love, harmony and sympathy?

Not a God who valued love or harmony or sympathy.

AJ

It is disbelief — which is by no means and is in no way sytematic.

boxer @ 127

If religion is a group of shared beliefs, than atheism is a religion also.

That is totally wrong. Atheism is the absence of belief in god/s, nothing more.
If I don’t collect stamps, does that make me a member of a non-stamp collecting religion?

Religion is not just shared beliefs, like people who enjoy Star Wars. Religion comes from ‘re-ligate’, to reconnect with, to re-attach. In my opinion, it’s profoundly a Christian idea based on the idea that we are inherently ‘fallen’ and we need to do something to reconnect with God.

Therefore, there is civil, moral and spiritual behavior or belief.

Buddhism, on the other hand, isn’t about reconnecting, but realizing, awakening to, understanding the reality as it Truly Is and that Compassion for your fellow man who is in the dark is necessary for us to all get along in this strange strange world. At least that’s the way I understand Buddhism.

Take for example Zen meditation, the study of koans or of yoga. All these are designed to help us understand how everything is in some way One, whole and without parts. You could call that religion except that they wouldn’t accept your characterization that there is a separateness to begin with. It’s the Realization of Oneness, not the manufacturing of it which they seek.

Hinduism, with it’s many deities, is a mystery to me. They seem, unlike Buddhists, to revel in multiplicity and in dualities (at least superficially).

Taoism is more spiritual and mystical in presentation. I don’t know if there’s a Taoist god, but the belief in Life Force and of Flow of spiritual force seems to be related to some extent to Confucianism and how one is to relate to the world, rather than how one is to Be oneself. Religion? No, I’d say they are closer to Buddhism in asserting there is always Oneness and your task is to realize it and live in harmony with everything and everyone.

Does that lead us to Shamanism of the Western Hemisphere?

Not today. I’m already going on far too much.

Time to relegate the floor…

Anyway, the thing about Christianity which was debated most heavily before 1600 and fundamentalists want to relive today is the question of whether we’re all Evil from the moment of conception because we’re “fallen” or if it’s possible, just possible that good and bad aren’t inborn.

Maybe, as Forrest Gump’s mama once said, “Evil is as Evil does, Forrest.”