Serious Debates

[Blue Fire Cyndaquil]

Now, this is just a thread open for debates when people need to, or when someone needs to let off steam.

[Winters Rage]

First, and with the song for the mood: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iovcnjuf ... re=related

[PoikSpirit]

Serious debate. No, this is a friend breaker. I will not participate in a religious debate against already angered people. You do not even know if I posted what I believe to be true, and escalated a joke to an insult. The maturity of this act is non-existent even. Do you really think I would be a supervillain? I, the one whose only remain fears from his childhood are the fears of seeing others in pain and doctors with knifes (not knifes, doctors with knifes), a supervillain. Ha!

If you cannot be my friend for a joke, I cannot be your friend as I am a joke.

[Blue Fire Cyndaquil]

I changed it into just a place to debate stuff. I was just angry at the time. Is that ok, or should I change it back *eyebrow raised*?

[Saber Knight]

There is no good and evil, only what WE see to be good and evil! That is the fact of the matter!

If you were raised in a culure where no one had possessions of their own, and every possession belonged to everyone in the community and it was COMMON for people to go into one another's house and TAKE their belongings (say, some food because they were hungry), are they not breaking and entering and stealing? But, OH! STEALING! EVIL! RUN AWAY RUN AWAY! ...no. In their eyes, there is nothing wrong with this--it is not evil. In your perspective, it may be evil.

And, oh, shall we look at the crusades! TO THE HOLY LAND, MY FRIENDS, BECAUSE WE'RE CHRISTIANS AND WE THINK WE'RE BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE! Of course, we MUST be the good guys, they must be the bad, because there is ONLY black and white, and WE ARE GOOD, so they MUST BE BAD. We are going to LIBERATE the Holy Land. OF COURSE! Right... what about the people already there? Why can't Muslims be there. OH NO, CHRISTIANS ARE COMING, oh we BETTER stop being ever so EVIL because they're the GOOD GUYS! NO! They think themselves to be in the right, and who are we to say they aren't.

A man robs a bank... but then donates everything to goodwill.

I am a Christian, and I am not offended by this. Dear lord, look at the past! Chrisitians have made TERRIBLE mistakes. Does that make them evil? No. Does that make them good, then? No. They are whatever they see themselves to be--someone else can see something else. Nothing wrong with that.

We, as the fabled "do-gooders" strive to do good, but can we? We do what is good in OUR eyes.

Edit: I was ninja'd while making this post, but I'm not taking it down, FYI.

[Winters Rage]

((Must... resist... Batman joke...))
Are you the joker?
((Drat...))

[Blue Fire Cyndaquil]

Ah, but the bible does distinguish right from wrong. We Christians at least know what right and wrong should be, according to our religion. It would be wrong to steal, and good to give the money to charity, but you still sinned. We are inherently evil, but we can accept Jesus, and, while we still may sin, we can try our best not to. God can forgive us, but we start out evil no matter what. If the people believe in sharing, it is not evil. But if the person wants to keep his or her possessions, it would be a sin to take it. There is a difference. Killing is always sin, in any culture. Alternatively, telling the truth is not sin. And we are not better. "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23) We are as bad as non-Christians, but the difference is God has forgiven us. We are no better than anyone else, and, as such, anyone can have redemption.

[Saber Knight]

The Bible however, is open to interpretation, as is any text. There are many books that were written by other prophets that were lost over time, but we do not hold them as part of our religious text.

If you can tell me where in the Bible it discerns right from wrong, then please show me, and I will acknolwedge it. I am always willing to lend an ear to different ideas and different perspectives.

What if a wealthy man gives to the poor without stealing. However, he just did this so that his name will be remembered in the ages to come. What does that make him? Good, because he gave, or evil, because he was conceited? There is only black and white for you--he's one or the other.

Well, if that person did not want to give up their possessions in a culture where EVERYTHING is shared, that make the alleged "theif" evil? I think not. I think that this person was being selfish by keeping their things to themselves when EVERYONE ELSE shares. As I said, good and evil is relative.

Killing is always sin, in every culture? Ever heard of human/animal sacrifice? I don't think they think they're sinning when they do that. They honestly think it's what their god(s) want. I'm not saying I agree, but I'm just saying, you have to look from their persepctive. If the Mayans think they have to kill a human every day so that the sun will again rise, does that make them evil for killing a human? Not in their eyes.

A person walks down the street. Evil, or good? You said yourself there is ONLY black and white.

I have friends who are aetheist, agnostic, Jewish, Hindu and one who's mom is Muslim, but he himself barely sticks to their customs along with Christian friends of several denominations. I do not believe that I have a special treat to the afterlife and they do not. They are good people. People should be recognized by the deeds they do in their life, not if they make some prayers here and there to a certain god.

[Winters Rage]

It says in the Bible that God does not want you to be open with your worship (to some extent, he want's you to bring others in but not brag about stuff like 'I fast for 2 days every week and I pray to the Lord every morning') There is a part in the Bible that talks about a Prophet and a Tax collector, I do not know the entire story, I only remember parts from church but it goes something like this: The Prophet goes up to the temple of God (or something) and starts shouting out his praise to the Lord "Lord, I pity this tax collector, I pray for your pity on his soul! I fast 2 times every week and pray to you daily..." and he goes on about stuff like that but the tax collector goes over to a corner and cries saying quietly to himself "Lord... I'm sorry for all the wrong I have done, but please pity this poor, lost soul..." (he's talking about the Prophet, BTW) Basically, the Prophet was putting on a show to get worship from the people of earth and the Tax Collector didn't even want to be seen as he prayed to the Lord. The lord says "He who praises Me for the worship of the people has already received his word, but he who shamelessly will hide in a corner and pray to Me will receive a much greater 'prize' later" Or something like that, I hope I didn't screw it up too bad, if you really want the whole story, I'll go ask my parents for the verses about the Prophet and the Tax Collector.

[Josiah]

If this discussion is going to continue everyone needs to ensure that it does not get personal. Argue with history, argue with logic, argue with your own feelings, but keep things well thought out and completely non-accusatory.

I don't want to take the time to make a long post right now (I've been running late all day as is), but here's a few quick points on what has already been said. If people want, I can expand on these and/or explain my own beliefs when I have more time. For the record though, I am very religious, and I do believe in Jesus and the Bible, but there's a lot of fundamental differences between Messianic Judism (what I am) and Christianity. Also, for the record, I'm very knowledgable about the Bible, Christianity, and Judism.

Also, I hereby declare this thread immune to The Week of Randomness. If anyone is going to debate heavy topics like religion and right and wrong, it's best to do so in plain clear speech.

1. Values and morals do vary based on your country, religion, and personal beliefs. In that respect, they're all relative. If you believe in a god, however, then you are essentially saying that said god is the final authority on what values, morals, behaviors, etc are and aren't right. Though that doesn't mean religious people follow everything their god says (many don't) or even correctly understand what their god wants them to do (there's how many different denominations of Christianity now?).

2. Pretty much every major religion has some very violent and very wrong (even by their standards) events in their history.

3. Being religious doesn't make you a good person and being non-religious doesn't make you a bad one. It's all about how you as a person act. There's many horrible religious people and awesome secular people. That said, some religions do seem to, in general, produce a higher precentage of "good" people than others religions and secular society do.

4. I could actually mount a very strong (and completely Biblical) arguement against the "we're forgiven for everything because we accepted Jesus" line. For now, let's just say that I don't think God ever meant forgiveness from sins to by totally non-conditional so long as you pray the sinner's prayer.

6. Also, just wanted to point out that in many countries and cultures, and even in the Bible itself, killing isn't actually a sin. Murder is usually a sin (though there are exceptions) but there are often many "legitiment" reasons to kill people (be in in self-defense, punishment for a crime, etc). Though it can be difficult deciding where to draw the line, there is a very large difference between killing someone and murdering someone.

7. The story BG is refering to is one of Jesus's parables. The point isn't about whether you worship publically or privately, it's that you should worship God sincerely, not in order to get other people's attention or to try and show that you're better than the people who don't worship.

[Phonox]

Did you get BFC and NG mixed up Josiah? Oh yeah, I'm staying away from all religion debates because those have been known to get heated in the past. I'm just going to pull some quotes every once in a while that someone reminds me of.

"A man who kills on his own is a murderer. A man who kills at his government's request is a national hero."

[Winters Rage]

I don't think I'm very comfortable with being 'BlueGamer'... lol, Interesting name though... anyways...
Wait... no, never mind that, NG is done with toady, and has already started practicing for tomorrow :P

[Josiah]

Actually, thing was that the B and N keys are right next to each other and I must have hit the wrong one.

And that's why I said it's hard to figure out exactly where to draw the line between killing and murder, though it really does need to be done for any serious debate on that topic (though said topic is slightly off-topic for this thread).

[Winters Rage]

NG thinks there should be a new thread for religious debates then, and he also think there should be about 7 mods in-charge there to keep a lid on it it it gets too heated they can always lock it when needed then unlock it after about an hour and the people have calmed down.

[NabMaster]

All I shall add to this debate is a friendly reminder to all that the bible (both testaments) were written in non-English languages. They have been merely translated to English. Not only is the bible open to our interpretations, but it's also open to complete, jaw-dropping, and brutal translation errors and the like. If you want to see the butchery of a language, look at its translation.