I’m another person who dislikes denigrating other’s spiritual icons, be it sacred books, statues or whatever. There is conflict between religions whether in groups of 50 or tens of millions. Much blood has been shed. I believe that an appropriate action by the pastor to serve his purposes of casting aside Islam would be to teleprompt those objectional passages of the Koran in sermon with corresspondig written text and then one by one drop the pages with objectional passages into a burn barrel to signify his belief as to where these tenants of Islam belong. No burning of the ‘Book’ but getting the message out.
Yup, and that's why I don't subscribe to ANY religion. Killing over some "belief" with zero empirical facts?
Definition of BELIEF by Websters: 1 : a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing 2 : something believed; especially : a tenet or body of tenets held by a group 3 : conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence
Right. "trust or confidence". Like I trust Ahmanutjob with his 12th Iman who is going to majically crawl out of well. Like I trust Jesus Christ to come back and save the believers and let the rest rot in the Tribulation (how nice and forgiving of him). Like I trust Buddha to re-incarnate me into another creature (what a bedbug?). Like I trust the Mayans that the world will end in 2012?
When the major religions were formed, they thought the world was flat!
Must I say that again? They also thought the Sun revolved around the Earth! They thought lightening was a sign from their gods. They thought the Middle East was the beginning of humanity, when it's been proven that homo sapiens and their hunter/gatherer culture originated in Africa.
Other than quacks, who has ever come back from dead to tell us which religion is correct? Don't even go with the "near death" experiences. Lack of blood to the brain pan.
So, someone tell me, which is correct? Buddhism? Hinduism? Judeism? Christianity (though I appreciate its principles of love and tolerance - again, human compassion and empathy)? Islam (inhumane beliefs)? Greek gods? Roman gods? Aztec gods? Mayan gods? Asian royal family human emperor gods that gave the okay to slaughter our people at Pearl Harbor? Amazon deities? African deities?
To me, all religions are based in superstition and a need for people to believe they exist once dead. Maybe humans do grow a kind of conscience that evolves as they grow older and becomes ONE with the Cosmic Energy as the hippies like to say. Who knows?
But, here's a news flash! Did you know you existed when you were a sperm hitting an egg? Of course, you didn't. Did you have logical conscience when you were born? Of course not. You were like a puppy whose only instincts were to suckle on mom's teats.
I base my beliefs in the goodness of humanity, whether created or evolved or intentialy evolved. Those who don't want to subscribe to that mutual goodness are welcomed to die earlier and find their heaven or hell or non-existence. Don't care either way for the bad guys. Just die and go away and let us live in peace on this beautiful planet in the Cosmos.
All the above said and after listening for many years of astro-physicists theories, I still tend to think the "big bang" theory was not without purpose. Who knows what is within and/or beyond our Universe and outside our simplistic reasoning? Just over 100 years ago we couldn't imagine a horseless carriage. But yet, all the various forms of religion knows what is behind all this? Are you kidding me?
This is simple 10 year old stuff. Who? What? When? Why?