Posted on 09/18/2006 5:34:16 PM PDT by sionnsar
History has been the record of events of humanity in terms of spatial-temporal categories and cause and events. This contains things that we can be proud of as well as things to be ashamed of. The role of every religion is to encourage its followers in holding on to what is truth, beauty and goodness that is so much the characteristic of God. Whatever atrocities have been done to humanity in the name of belief, philosophy or someone's idiosyncrasy is to be despised. Certainly winning followers for one's religion is not by the annihilation of another human persona.
If there is any religious belief that subscribes to fanaticism, fundamentalism and violence, its belief system calls for reconsideration. If the goal of religion is ultimate salvation of the human person, then it cannot negate itself in the destruction of fellow human beings. Otherwise we are reinventing the barbaric Stone Age, the survival of the fittest and the ideology that might is right.
Moderates in any religion need to speak up and reflect what the tenets of a religion hold out for the benefit of humanity. Burning at stakes, Jihad or killing of missionaries in any part of the world is inhuman. At the end of it all, if we are doing this in the name of Almighty God, wonder if the Almighty will approve of championing His cause by the misguided loyalists.
God has endowed us with reasoning and therefore we need to engage in a civil manner even if we choose to disagree. What kind of a world are we passing on to our posterity, is something worth asking. Devaluing one's life through suicides and that of others by homicide or genocide is not the right seeds of morality that we are sowing in the minds of the young.
If pointing this out warrants an apology, then we all owe an endless apology down the human history for the atrocities committed against ourselves down the centuries as far as we could see. Whether it is sanctioned by one's religion or not, taking out the lives of the others for any reason, is certainly against the mind of the Creator. We need to remember that today's story is a tomorrow's history.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. If the early Christian moderates had their way, we would all be circumcised and observe Jewish holidays today. As an Jew, Paul was an extremist and he was hardly less as a Christian.
I find it hard to believe there are moderates in the religion I think this article is talking about. I am reading between the lines I realize, but I feel they either believe the teachings of their holy books, or they don't. Period.
Yep, I've always had a problem with St. Paul. Even after his "Road to Damascus" experience he drifts into the fringes (i.e Women, shut up in church!) from time to time, especially in his debates with St. Peter and the other apostles. OTOH, I wonder how far this new "Jewish" offshoot of a religion would have gotten with out him? I reconcile a lot of what he says with the fact that he was the "redheaded stepchild" of the new Christian sect in that he never really met Christ (except in the spirit).
Would that have changed the central principles of Christianity? Although it would have slowed it's spread down quite a bit.
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