slvrnblck

Like I stated in the Passion thread, Ive been depressed lately trying to find out who I really am and what my purpose on earth is. Im going to just ask some questions, some may seem stupid, some may be valid, and some may not be answered.

I was born into a Muslim family but am not religious at all,(neither are my parents), I dont really know anything about different religions, but I would like to learn someday.....Anyway I dont want to make this that long so on to the questions.

1. What is this truth that most people search for? Is it what the individuals purpose on earth is and who they really are? If so, that is the truth I want to find out but dont know how to. Help would be appreciated.

2. If Mohhamad was the last known prophet, Shouldnt everyone follow his words, and have only one religion, or for that matter, no religion at all.

3. If God wants all of his children to believe in him the same way, why do different religions even exist?

4. If God truly loves his children and is most forgiving, why would we go to hell if we dont believe in him or his prophets?

5. Why did all these prophet and god situations happen so long ago, but nothing happens in the present day? Why doesnt god share is words with us presently? It is much more needed today, and would make much more sense as there would be ways to prove if it really happened or not. The Bible, Quran, etc etc is full of man made lies anyway. Who knows if any of these prophets existed, right? There is not enough proof.

6. Stupid question, which proves I am ignorant when it comes to religion. What is the diffrence between Christians and Catholics?

7. If God exists why are some people born blind, deaf, or mentally challenged etc when they have not even had a chance to live yet?

Anyways, I wont bore you any longer. I will have more questions when they come to mind. I apoligize in advance if these questions are silly or have been answered in another thread but I have not checked or come across any.

Mojo_PeiPei

2. Muhammed is Islam's last prophet. In christian the term of "prophet" has evolved with time. For all intents and purposes most saints and all the pope's are prophets because they speak for God and he speaks through them. Its mostly a matter of context, it has skewed the definition.

But god gave man free will, its up to them to accept him. That also ties in with your question of hell. i was always told in the end it is not God who rejects us, but us who reject God. He can only show you the door, whether or not you want to open it and go through is up to you.

3. God reveals himself to people differently. Or on the flop people come to find God or whatever through different means.

4. fair question. All I can really say is don't necessarily believe everything you are told. Fear was a good way of keeping people in check. The Fundmental message of any God I would hope would just be the best person you can be. I think Hell is also a comfort mechanism people hold, its so assfucks like Hitler will get theirs and not be entitled to the same paradise as we are.

5. Its mostly a matter of politics and establishment. There is proof that everyone existed for all intents and purposes from the bible. The Quran is different then the bible but historically it is extremely well established that Muhammed existed.

6. The Early church was "the way". "The way" evolved in the Catholic church. All catholic means in universal. As politics and ideals became more prevelant you had "schisms" (thats the word right?) in the church. That led to the establishment of what I refer to as the Cafeterian Catholics, they are fundamentally the same only they pick and choose what they like. Basically if you believe in Jesus your Christian, bottomline.

7. Not so much from a deist perspective, but God does not interfer much with human existence.

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slvrnblck

"7. Not so much from a deist perspective, but God does not interfer much with human existence."

That doesnt make sense because he already has interfered through the prophets. Imagine life without religion, it would be an entirely different world, without gods interference, religion would not exist. Why would he make us want to think he exists anyhow?

irseg

You make the assumption that religion exists because of God.

I can write a book about flying pink elephants from outer space and maybe it'll persuade people to believe they exist. Doesn't mean they really do.

It's commonly accepted that Greek myths were just fantasies that people came up with to explain the world around them. But somehow despite being the same damn thing, modern religion has credibility among most people. I don't get it.

Lebell

I'm feeling prolific tonight, so here we go!

1) I believe you hit the nail on the head, as it were; that is EXACTLY our purpose. But to discover the answer and as importantly the way to the answer, we have the wisdom of those who have gone before us, those who are with us and our own experience and intellect.

ALL SHOULD BE USED IN THIS ALL IMPORTANT TASK!

2) Well, if everyone agreed that Mohhamad was the last prophet of God/Allah, then we would all be golden, but not everyone has that believe. Christians, Jews, etc. don't believe that he was a prophet at all, while the Baha'i believe that there was actually another prophet after Mohhamad, which of course, puts them in the sh** with the Muslims.

As to one religion, it would require that God forced people to believe the same thing about Him/Her, which is only one step above forcing people to believe in God at all.

This is something that would directly violate the free will that God has given us.

So perhaps God prefers that we all try to seek Him/Her the way that seems best to us. (Or so goes my own belief).

3) See answer #2.

4) While fundamentalists may believe that, many many MANY religious people do not, or at least, give God the benefit of the doubt in terms of leaving the Judgement of others up to Him/Her.

At least that's what I do.

Who says they only happened a long time ago?

This is, IMO, one of the greatest heresies of some modern churches, e.g. that God only reveiled Him/Herself to those hundreds if not thousands of years ago.

Poppycock, codswallup and other colorful coloquialisms.

God is very much revealing Him/Herself to us today.

Read the writings of the Dalai Lama if you don't believe me.

God speaks through that man...

2nd part) Of course they are full of man made lies. But the duality is that they are full of truths as well. If you are serious about your journey, part of it will inevitably be figuring out the wheat from the chaff.

3rd part) In terms of proof, Mohhamad definitely existed, regardless if you believe he was God's prophet or not. Jesus almost certainly existed, as did Joseph Smith, Moses, Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddah) as well as many others.

Saying they did or did not exist is like saying the wind does or does not exist. It is outside of you and cares not one wit if you believe in its existance or not.

6) Mojo_peipei tried, but I need to throw in some clarification.

The early Christian Church split into three ancient branches, which still exist today: The Egyptian Coptic Church, The Eastern Orthodox Church, and the (Western) Roman Catholic Church. All were Christian and all follow the Nicene Creed of belief. Dogmatic belief, different ceremony and other non sequitors separate them, even today. Other Western Christian denominations split off of the Catholic Church at various times, or in some cases, formed separate from it.

If you have specific questions regarding Catholic vs other Christian dogmatic beliefs or practices, I can make a good try explaining them to you (or someone else can try ).

Good question!

I think it is because a) God never intended to create a "perfect, painless world", hence birth defects, accidents, etc. and b) that we can find God in everyone, even the poor and most defenseless among us.

For example, look at the work Mother Teresa did amonst the lepers and sick of Calcutta and look at the inspiration many get from her life today.


I had fun answering them,

Thank you and Peace!

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"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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SecretMethod70

I'm going to re-interpret this question, perhaps inaccurately, as "what is God's Will for me?" Personally, my belief in this, and what I'm presently learning to be the Catholic belief in this, is that God's Will is for each person to do what is individually applicable to that person to become a person of love and without hate. That's a REALLY broad generalization, but I could probably write quite a few pages on this based on the lectures and discussions I have gone through in the Catholic theology class that I'm currently taking.


The first key here is that not everyone accepts Mohhamad as the last prophet. Christians believe - using the term prophet as most people understand it - that Jesus Christ was the last "prophet." Someone else said it better than I could in another post and I'll try to paraphrase it here. The Old Testament is God's Will concealed and the New Testament is God's Will revealed. That is to say, Jesus was the living revalation of God's Will and who God is in relation to humanity, calling Him "Abba" or, in english, papa, something which was unheard of at the time. Getting back to Mohhamad though, whether he was or was not a prophet, no one would ever agree on this, just as no one will ever universally agree about Jesus. I think the big problem that causes this, at least in the case of Jesus, is that we apply our human standards to these vessels of something that is beyond creation. In other words, people thought that Jesus wasn't the Messiah because, surely, the Messiah would become a great king and ruler, and surely he would be majestic in appearance, etc etc. Well, for all we know, Jesus could have been illiterate (more than likely) and chubby and ugly. The point in this is that, at least from a Christian perspective, it doesn't matter. God is concerned with what is "inside" us, not what is in physical creation.

I probably left a bunch of open ends with that cause I sort of ranted so...sorry

Again, speaking from a Catholic viewpoint, the way I understand it, God speaks to all humanity in many varied ways. Thus, there are many different interpretations of the ways in which He has spoken to us. And by varied ways I mean not just different scriptures and prophets but I mean even that feeling you get when you watch a beautiful sunset and you get the feeling that there must be "something else" although you can't explain what that "something else" is. Thus, there are many world religions to interpret this "something else" in different ways and, thus, most every world religion has some of God's Truth in it. Catholicism believes that it contains the fullness of God's Turth but that there is Real Truth in most every world religion because they are all the effect of God's interaction, in some way, with humanity. Thus, even non-Christians, from a Catholic standpoint, are capable of being "saved" because most religions teach the most fundamental thing which God wants from us in some way or another, and that is to be a loving people.

Why doesn't everyone then convert to Catholicism or Christianity? Well, there are obviously multiple reasons for this, not the least of which is the inevitable failures of the humans who participate in those and any religion. Humans can never be perfect and we should stop expecting people to be "perfect" but only to understand and accept one another's imperfections and love one another despite them. Ideally, a Christian looking to convert someone would do so by their actions of love and perhaps mutual discussion focusing on the similarities between different beliefs. Unfortunately, as imperfect beings, somehow we get the idea that we can "teach" people the Truth of God and that if we say things to people enough all of a sudden they'll "get it." Obviously, that's not the case. Another thing I could probably go on for pages about, but without forethought right now I'm just rambling I think.

I alluded to it above, but according to Catholic belief you don't necessarily go to Hell for not believing in Jesus or other prophets or whatever. Would it be fair to say that it's more difficult? Probably. But, an all loving God who wants everyone to be able to share in Him would obviously not punish people for such trite things. This used to be the thought and that's where the idea of baptizing babies came from for example, but as Christian and Catholic theology is rethought and reapplied to present day (as it should be since the Word of God is living and ever-changing in the way it applies to humanity) it is clear that it does not make sense for an all-loving God to punish people for such ultimately under-important things. (Yes, I made a word ) In fact, from a more contemporary Catholic viewpoint, there is no such thing as a punishment from God. God is not a judge and is not a punisher, but, to sum it up in one sentence, God is Love. Thus, what we perceive as punishment - hell, etc - is moreso an act of our own. Hell is not so much a place as it is a state of being. Hell is a state of being entirely detached from God. That is a choice which one makes themself. That is of course where the Catholic concept of Purgatory comes in as well. Many people, clearly, do not fully become one with God in their lifetime (dare I say most people) but they do work at it and wish to be one with God. The concept of an all-loving God who wishes for everyone to choose to accept Him and be one with Him necessitates something like Purgatory which can be looked at as simply a state of being in which we can continue this work towards being one with God. Thus, someone who has not fully rejected God is not sent to Hell because there is still hope for them and they have CHOSEN not to go to Hell by their underlying wish to be one with God. Again, I'm rambling, so I'll stop here.


It really all depends on how you look at the Bible. If you look at it as historically accurate, that there was in fact a great flood, etc etc, then yes it could seem that all these things happened long ago and not today. I'm sure the people of Jesus' time said the same things - "Noah and Abraham happened so long ago but nothing happens today." Or, if you look at the Bible from a bit of a different perspective, (at least, especially, the Old Testament) as a spiritual history book, using metaphors and stories loosely based on worldly history to convey the spiritual history between man and God it is much more easy to accept that there probably was never a time in which "great miraculous things" happened differently than they do now. God does still speak to us today, and probably in a similar way as He always has, such as in the example of the beautiful sunset I mentioned above. Ultimately though, the key to this is that no matter how much I try to "explain" it the answer is unsatisfactory to human logic, because God is above human logic. He is something outside of human logic. Go back to the reasons people did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah for an example of this. The key is to understand God through experience first and then, AFTERWARDS put what little logic can be put on it. That is what occured to Jesus - the Apostles EXPERIENCED Him and then, later on, having shared the experiences with others, people attempted to sort out the EXPERIENCE of "Jesus" and try to figure out, in more human terms, how to EXPLAIN that experience. Ultimately, the best way to think about it however, is that it's one of those "you had to be there" kind of things. Not in the sense that we are incapable of experiencing it, because Jesus was essentially the model human for everyone to be like, opening themself up fully and completely to the love of God, but in the sense that we cannot fully fathom it through words but only through sharing the experience with others. And, thus, I end another unsatisfactory (IMO) response.


This could take a VERY long time to explain, so, I won't really. Ultimately, the important thing to consider is that there are more similarities than differences.

The first thing to understand is that Catholics ARE Christians, but what I'm sure you meant was the difference between Catholics and Protestant Christians. This is REALLY difficult to get into, but on a basic level you can think of it in relation to the various forms of Judaism. There are many different forms of Judaism out there which range from very liberal to very conservative. Likewise, the different forms of Christianity vary in their interpretations of things while all agreeing that Jesus was the Son of God. A quick example is that the Catholic Church accepts that the Bible can be interpreted to coincide with science regarding the creation of the universe whereas some of the more literal translating Christian faiths believe that what science has shown in evolution and big bang is wrong, and this is necessarily so for them since they hold much more importance on the literal words in the Bible.

This is really something that could be gone on and on and on about, so I'm not going to get into it any further here.


I've taken a long time on this post so I'll get back to this later



Anyways, I wont bore you any longer. I will have more questions when they come to mind. I apoligize in advance if these questions are silly or have been answered in another thread but I have not checked or come across any. [/B][/QUOTE]

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SecretMethod70

OK, having read Lebell's post, I can say I agree with 99% of everything he said (that 1% is essentially nitpicking on words so I won't even bother)

Just cause this is one thing I'm picky about, there was the Egyptian Coptic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Catholic Church, not Roman Catholic specifically. Roman Catholic is a particular rite of the Catholic Church and, while it is the most widespread and common, it is not the only one.

The best way to sum up what I mean by different rites is this: all Catholic rites are to believe the same things as far as interpretation of scripture, etc, but as far as the organization is concerned things may differ. Take, for example, the organization choice in the Roman Catholic Rite that priests cannot marry. This is not a matter of faith for Catholics but, rather, something that the Roman Catholic Rite chooses as a way to run itself. The Byzantine Rite or the Latin Rite however allow their priests to marry. All in all, I believe there are 13 or so Catholic Rites. They all work under the Pope and College of Cardinals.

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Le temps détruit tout

"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

ARTelevision

One of the things I do here in the Forums is present a non-religious point of view in favor of a realistic and pragmatic way of looking at the world. You'll come across my thoughts on these subjects across the board.

I would simply offer you the possibility that many of the things you are thinking about are not necessary to leading a fine life.

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tecoyah

I would answer your questions with one paragraph:

I don't "know", nor does anyone else, and no one ever will.
To know the answer you must have truth, and anyone claiming to have truth in regard to your questions is unfortunately, confused, or selling you something. Inside yourself are answers, and they are right for you, for now.The answers will cahnge as you grow, and will always be correct, for you.

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SecretMethod70

Also a very accurate response. Religion or faith or whatever you want to call it is only a way of organizing different methods of seeking the truth. Religions are not the truth themselves.

__________________
Le temps détruit tout

"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

Thagrastay

Slvrnblk
To Borrow from AA's Big Book, :
"Most people are emotionally ill and frequently wrong."
What that means, is that you cannot trust the opinions and thoughts of any single human being you encounter on this planet. Priests, Judges, Imams, clowns, lawyers (much the same thing) acrobats, doctors, prostitutes, bartenders, politicians, etc., hold no concrete answers for you. Neither do mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, or prophets, seers, psychics or policemen.
Despite what you will hear from many people, Truth IS immutable. That is why it is called TRUTH. By definition it cannot be relative. But I digress.
Slvrnblk, my suggestion to you is this- If you want to know who God is, don't ask people. That's like calling the Baker to fix your car.
Rather, if you want to know who God is, Ask God.
Then listen for His answer. In fact, expect His answer.
It will come, I guarantee it. But don't take MY word for it.
Ask God. He will know.
And please, share with me the response you get. Please.
Thank you.

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asaris

I think I'm going to nitpick here myself. To the best of my knowledge, the Roman Catholic church has only two rites: the latin rite and the eastern rite. The eastern rite arose when the Ukrainian churches joined the Catholic church rather than the Russian Orthodox church. The Eastern Orthodox church is an entirely seperate organization, which split off from the Roman Catholic church somewhere around 1000 AD, consisting of, among others, the Greek Orthodox, the Russian Orthodox, and the Armenian Orthodox. As a whole, it is much more loosely organized than the R.C. church. I don't know a whole lot about the Copts, but I don't believe they're part of either of these organizations, and if they are, I would suspect it would be the Eastern Orthodox.

As far as the teachings on marriage go, I don't know what the Orthodox church teaches, but I believe that priests in the Eastern Rite are allowed to be married, but not to marry. That is, if they are already married, they can still become priests, but once they've become a priest, they're not allowed to marry. Priests in the Latin Rite, of course, cannot be married at all.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

irateplatypus

Good post Lebell, but I've certainly got to take issue with this portion of it. I feel it is worthy pointing out that in Christian theology (I realize that isn't the only one being discussed) God did indeed intend to create a perfect world. The biblical narrative clearly begins with one. Apparently it was we humans who chose to deviate from God's intended purpose.

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If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

Lebell

Well, I'll have to be restocking the library with some Church history books (long story).

Anyway, the one thing I wanted to add was that if you are a married Episcopal priest, you can BECOME a Catholic priest and still be married. So there ARE married Roman Catholic priests.

That assumes of course that you believe in a literal biblical narative, tho.

As to my own theology, I don't see how a baby can "choose" to deviate in an orthodox "original sin" sort of way, but I CAN see how they can deviate by doing self destructive activities which as they grow older, affect the people around him/her as well.

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"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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SecretMethod70

OT....

asaris, this should be of interest to you: http://www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/c...d_churches.htm

All in all there are over 20 Catholic rites in 4 major groupings of type. The important thing to understand about Catholic rites is that they are not like denominations. All Catholic rites are in unity in their beliefs, but they may perform the liturgy and various other things differently.

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Le temps détruit tout

"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

slvrnblck

Another thing I dont understand. In what form exactly will his answer come. I just asked God for a sign to prove to me he exists, yet I didnt get a sign, why did he not answer. This is what I dont get. Does the answer come from within? If so, than its not god.

asaris

Thanks SecretMethod. I actually talked with my roommate when I got home, and he explained it to me a bit more clearly.

Regarding whether or not God intended to create a perfect world; my answer would be yes and no. Yes, in the sense that he's a good God, and does not want people to suffer. The evils of this world are because of us, not because of Him; whether or not you take a literal reading of the first few chapters of Genesis, this would seem to be part of the message the Fall story is trying to get across. But no, since all things are ordained by God, so the pain and suffering is also ordained by Him. I'm sure philosophers have a distinction for these two types of intending, but it's been awhile since I've done any philosophy of religion. The distinction is something like the distinction when a father takes his child to the doctor to get a shot. The father does not, in some sense, intend for the child to get hurt -- he intends for the child to get inoculated. But of course, the father is well aware that the inoculation will cause pain to the child, so in another sense he does intend for the child to get hurt. But also note that in ordinary English, the use of intend in this second sense would generally be viewed as perverse.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

SecretMethod70

Much of the reason why it's difficult to understand God (and much of the reason why the Jews of His time had difficulty accepting Jesus) is that we as humans have an unending urge to project our own thoughts and expectations onto God. We expect God to be this way or that way, but instead God is just the way He is. In fact...even talking about God does this inadvertantly because we use words to describe God such as Him or Her or It but God is not some thing because God is not created - something we cannot understand and something which there is no adequate language to truly describe. Thus, I think that's perhaps one of the reasons it is said that Jesus taught not to test God, because the very act of asking God for a sign is projecting our own expectation of God (I expect God to prove His existence to me, or I expect God to speak to me in this way) onto Him. God, however, does not obey our will and our desires and He cannot be understood by us as we are living in a created mindset and are attached to created things.

So, I guess my point is, why can't God be within? Why must He be without? Or, better yet, why can't He be both?

Thomas Merton - someone who I've only just recently been introduced to the writings of but whom I already have great respect for - basically says that we cannot come to know God in any substantial degree unless we abandon our preconceptions and expectations of Him. This involves abandoning our ego and pride in terms of projecting our own will onto His. Many people, I think, do this to a great degree and, for that reason, I think many people lose their faith easily. "I'm sad because God let my parents die in a car crash. How could God let my parents die in a car crash. There must not be a God." How audacious it is for us to expect God to work for our own Will really. Not saying that we don't all do it at times, but I think that's mankinds most significant barrier to meeting God because we have such an attachment to our own ego and created things.

__________________
Le temps détruit tout

"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling