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Originally Posted by willravel
It does, in fact. We like to pretend that "it's the literal body and blood of christ" vs. "it's the figurative body and blood of christ" is a huge gaping crevasse, but it really isn't. Very few people actually believe that it's the literal body and blood of christ, even though that's their denomination's official stance on the issue. The only real key difference is the faith to works ratio for salvation. Some say it's just faith, some say it's faith and works. Even in that, though, the "strictly faith" types, like the LCMS, still do preach works whether they want to admit it or not.
So yes, even though they'd like to think differently, most Christianity is the same. Judaism? You'll have to ask Levite. Islam? It's the word of Allah that it's a sin for there to be denominations. Yes, there's Shiite and Sunni, but the difference of opinion is simply over the teaching lineage from Muhammad. So really, Islam is pretty much just one big party too.
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There is a resemblance between difference sects of Christianity, which is to be expected, given that that Christians believe in Christ and reference the bible, beyond that, saying they're the same is ridiculous. That's like saying all economists are the same because they all talk about numbers and have all read Adam Smith. Maybe it's the same as far as you're concerned, but the fact that you can't be bothered to see distinctions doesn't mean that they don't exist.
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All power isn't vague at all. It's all power.
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There is something you're not getting here and it has to do not with the definition of power, but the way in which power is used. I can go outside and punch the first person I see. The fact that I don't says more about how I view the appropriate uses of my power than it does about the actual characteristics of my power. The definition of omnipotence is irrelevant to anything I'm saying. I've never disputed the fact that theists tend to believe in omnipotent gods.
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That sounds about right. Those who have the power to stop evil but who do not stop evil clearly are either apathetic or spiteful.
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Yeah, or they don't share your definition of evil, or your opinion that existence should be void of it...
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But, as I demonstrated above, a vast majority of religious people believe their deity to be omnipotent. There's no inconsistency there.
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You demonstrated something that I never disagreed with. My main qualm with Epicurus is that he presumes that there exists an objective definition of evil as it relates to the human experience. That's something that's very difficult to do; there are many different meaningful ways of defining evil. Perhaps you could hunt down a quote from a religious text where a god claims that the elimination of evil from the human experience is its goal.