The Christian Thread!

[Darth_Terros]

According to Christianity, plants were once free of poisons and thorns, before the Fall. And according to Christianity, they will be free of poisons and thorns once again after Jesus' second coming.

 

[Edited]

 

Care to point me to where it says this?

[PoiuyWired]

Now, while I am happy that the Pastafarian page is locked, it does point out a few interesting points.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastafarian

 

It seems like some people dwelled too much on things that are supposed to be a leson of deeper value, and treat everything with just the word value.

 

Obviously, die-hard creationism fanatics would be one of it, but there are other aspacts of believe that dwells on the same peril.

 

There is a difference between faith and ignoring possable alternative answers. And believing humanity is sparked by the all mighty is different from believing that the planet is a flat surface...

 

Ok, what I use might be an extreme case, but there are many similar things happening between sects, especially when it comes to things like rituals and more "minor" aspacts.

[Joetheeskimo]

Care to point me to where it says this?

 

Genesis 3:18 - "It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field."

 

and,

 

Revelation 21:4 "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things as passed away."

 

Since thorns are an imperfection, and they cause pain, we can assume that thorns, among many other things (e.g., bee stings), will be gone.

[Dagobahn Eagle]

Since thorns are an imperfection, and they cause pain, we can assume that thorns, among many other things (e.g., bee stings), will be gone.

Thorns are nowhere near imperfections more than claws and teeth are. They are supposed to sting, to keep unwanted animals and birds away. Likewise with bee-stings, for that matter.

 

"No more (...) pain" could mean a thousand things. It could just as easily mean that humans will just stop hurting themselves on the thorns.

 

Ok, what I use might be an extreme case, but there are many similar things happening between sects, especially when it comes to things like rituals and more "minor" aspacts.

Right.

 

To believe in Gods (although our buddy Richard Dawkins begs to differ) is far less silly than believing that the Earth is flat, or that the Sun revolves around it. Those things have been proven false a thousand times, while the belief in God has not.

[DarthXilon123]

Christian/Cathlic

[grrrrrrrrrr7]

I'm Lutheren

[Samurai DD]

Proud Atheist!!!

[Dagobahn Eagle]

Proud Atheist!!!

Ditto.

[Fealiks]

@Fealiks

"Qur'an" is a poor western mimicry of the arabic word for the Holy Book. It is a terrible spelling because it is phonetically variable in pronuciation.. eg. some might read it "Cure-ran" or "Chew-ran" or "Ker-ran" etc. In Australia, I definitely can say that "Koran" is the standard Australian-English word/spelling for the Islamic Holy Book. Im not sure who still uses that exotic version you have listed. Maybe in the UK??

 

Being of Turkish heritage, I have spelt it in Turkish, which has a wonderfully phonetically precise alphabet. "Kuran" is our word for the book and is derived from the eski Turkce ("Old Turkish") word for the book. Old Turkish of course had arabic letters, so this word was identical to its arabic equivalent. Whether we originally used it in the form "Kur-an" Im not sure(please note that the letter "u" in Turkish without accents on top is always pronounced as "oo" so there are never any difficulties in reading/pronouncing the word) I can say though, when the modern Turkish alphabet was introduced in the late 20s, some of the nuances of Arabic/Eski Turkce pronunciation were dropped, for political and somewhat practical reasons.

 

mtfbwya

 

Well, I'm friends with alot of Muslims, "Qur'an" is how they all spell it. I don't know if this is the correct Islamic spelling, but this is how we spell it throughout the whole of the UK (I think)

[MachineCult]

Well, I'm friends with alot of Muslims, "Qur'an" is how they all spell it. I don't know if this is the correct Islamic spelling, but this is how we spell it throughout the whole of the UK (I think)

Due to the large Indian, Pakistani, etc. population in the UK we learn alot about Islam at school (in primary school my whole class went to an inner-city school for a day that was all muslim.) and everywhere i've seen it the word is spelt Qur'an.

[Good Sir Knight]

Proud Atheist!!!

 

It's a thread asking people of their Christian faith and the atheists can't help but evangelize their beliefs. 'Quick lets go to the Christian thread, we need to preach the secular gospel.'

 

 

 

 

 

Episcopilian.

[SkinWalker]

Well, poppycock and BS needs a dissenting voice wherever its found.

[Jae Onasi]

Well, I'm friends with alot of Muslims, "Qur'an" is how they all spell it. I don't know if this is the correct Islamic spelling, but this is how we spell it throughout the whole of the UK (I think)

 

The spelling differences come about because the Arabic letters don't always translate directly into English letters and vice versa. For instance, we have no letter equivalent in the English alphabet for the Arabic letter 'ayn, because we don't use that sound in English. I think K gets used in place of Q sometimes so that there's no confusion on the sound. When we see 'Qu' in English, we tend to think of a 'kw' sound (as in 'queen'), but the Arabic 'Q' has a sound more like what we associate with our English letter K.

The challanges of transliterating from one alphabet to another is why we end up with multiple spellings for (for lack of a less controversial example at the moment) Osama bin Laden--I've seen it spelled Usama, bin interchanged with ibn, and Laden/Ladin.

 

So, when translating from Arabic to English, there could be more than one spelling and they all could be correct, though there's usually one accepted convention.

 

Astro'd have to comment on translation/transliteration in Turkish. I only took Arabic, and only 3 credits at that, though when I get a little more time, I'd like to go back and learn more because it's a really cool language.

[Astrotoy7]

Well, I'm friends with alot of Muslims, "Qur'an" is how they all spell it. I don't know if this is the correct Islamic spelling, but this is how we spell it throughout the whole of the UK (I think)

 

lolz...hasnt this been settled ? Yes, Qu'ran for UK. Because of academic smarminess, most likely finding its origins in Colonial/Victorian times, the UK English word for the Islamic Holy Book is a (IMO) silly and unnecessary mimicry of the original arabic. As Jae and others has said above, arabic is phonetically different from English.

 

It doesnt matter at the end of the day though, the says of Imperial English are well over - so this form of lingustic patronisation no longer occurs

 

I like the US/Australian English "Koran" Nice, simple, phonetic The "Qu'ran" version is much easier to misread ie. "Chew-ran" "Cue-ran" (etc. as Ive already mentioned before)

 

Jae - it seems you know more arabic than I do. There is an ever growing contriversy in Turkey and other non Arabic speaking Islamic nations to allow readings/prayers of the Book in their native langauge. Current law dictates that it MUST be in Arabic, which makes it hard to follow without knowing arabic or what the main suras mean.

 

There was a similar practise in the Roman Catholic Church which only allowed certain prayers (in Church) in Latin. IIRC, this was changed about 50 years ago.

 

I'm all for conversion to native languages. I know there is something that is lost, but it makes things much more accessible to all people, not just Arabic speakers. It would be like asking all Christians to learn Aramaic to be able to pray with the words as Christ had used them. It's not very practical

 

mtfbwya

[Jae Onasi]

 

Jae - it seems you know more arabic than I do.

 

I started learning it from my History of the Middle East prof in between undergrad and grad school, because I am an education junkie and have withdrawals if I'm not learning something new on a regular basis. I took 3 credits in grad school, but didn't have time to keep going with it once I hit professional training because the scheduling and the amount of credits required were crazy.

My undergrad history prof gave a lot of essay tests, and had to suffer through reading my horrible writing. A few weeks after working on learning how to make the letters and putting together some simple words, he said "Hey, your penmanship in Arabic is a lot better than it is in English." I'm left-handed, so that sort of makes sense.

 

There is an ever growing contriversy in Turkey and other non Arabic speaking Islamic nations to allow readings/prayers of the Book in their native langauge. Current law dictates that it MUST be in Arabic, which makes it hard to follow without knowing arabic or what the main suras mean.

 

There was a similar practise in the Roman Catholic Church which only allowed certain prayers (in Church) in Latin. IIRC, this was changed about 50 years ago.

 

I believe the change came at the Vatican II council in '62, but I'm Protestant, not Catholic, so I may be incorrect on that. I was thinking 'you know, that was in the '60's, not too long ago....' and realized that yes, that was awhile back. My perspective on what was 'a long time ago' changes as I get older.

 

 

I'm all for conversion to native languages. I know there is something that is lost, but it makes things much more accessible to all people, not just Arabic speakers. It would be like asking all Christians to learn Aramaic to be able to pray with the words as Christ had used them. It's not very practical

 

mtfbwya

 

I'm with you on that. I think scholars need to learn the original languages to fully understand the intent and language nuances, but the vast majority of us aren't religious scholars. For instance, in the Greek New testament, there's 3 different words for love, but in English there's only one, so English speakers miss out a little in the translation, but unless someone's a theologian, it's probably not much of an issue if at all.

 

The rest of us learn a lot more if it's in our own languages. I'd have no real access to the Bible if I had to read it in Aramaic or Greek, since I can't read either. I'd be missing out on a lot if that was the case.

[Sabretooth]

Oooh, religion threads! Fascinating!

 

I'm a Hindu, not a fervent one, but only in formalities. I prefer the Baha'i faith more, but I'm inclined to stay out of religion and build my own religion, my own spirituality. I refuse to accept the idea of a God, but then it is impossible to prove that he does not exist. Maybe there is a soul, I believe that, but then how do you prove that? Maybe not. I'm spiritual, yess, maybe a little superstitious, even, but not religious, never.

 

About the Quran, as far as the Hindi pronounciation goes (which I think must be quite accurate to the Arabic one) is, "Ku-rann". The Ku is like "coo" from "cool", ra like a reverse of ar from "farm" and the double n is a heavy "n" used in Indic languages, which I believe is impossible for westerners to pronounce. Try rolling your tongue against the upper jaw while pronouncing "n".

[Nedak]

The thing I don't get is why would god create Earth and put people on it but do nothing with the other planets? Also why would god care so much about little mistakes that we make and send us to hell for it? People always say, be a good chirstian..ect ect.(well not to me but to others)

[90SK]

We don't know anything about the universe at large. God, no god: both are assumptions based on the same lack of knowledge. Nobody should have the right to elevate their opinions of the matter above others. If you have a sense of faith (I.E. belief that there is some sort of higher power), fine. If not, fine. But saying one scenario is more plausible than the other is ridiculous, because how should we know. Can we base a decision that immense on experience ascertained in the known world? Certainly wouldn't seem that way.

[Jeff]

The thing I don't get is why would god create Earth and put people on it but do nothing with the other planets? Also why would god care so much about little mistakes that we make and send us to hell for it? People always say, be a good chirstian..ect ect.(well not to me but to others)

Well in the Bible it says the reason is because God loved us so much that he made us superior to all the other creatures and gave us free will. We don't really know why he didn't put us on other planets but it probably falls within the same answer.

[Negative Sun]

Who says we aren't on other planets? I mean how much of the universe do we really see or know about?

[Valter]

I'm a Christian.

 

To be more specific I'm a protestant.

[wHen]

I'm officially a protestant (as in a christian) but am planning on leaving the church since I don't really believe in the christian god.

Therefore I say: No, I'm not a christian (atleast i dont want to be ;o)

[Valter]

 

Atheists have beliefs, to be sure. They base these beliefs in evidence and predictable observation.

 

Not true, God has never been disproven, nor has He been proven. Then again, neither has evolution... anyway that's a different debate altogether. My point is Atheists and religious folk (like myself) only have different points of view.

 

Life choices and experiences shape a person's outlook on religion, not facts.

 

Just my $0.02.

[SkinWalker]

Not true, God has never been disproven, nor has He been proven. Then again, neither has evolution...

 

I don't see how your comment about the proved/unproved nature of your, or any other, god has on the passage of mine that you quoted. I made no reference to this. With regard to that other debate of evolution, only the under-educated and those who believe their mythology is threatened and thus deny it believe evolution to be anything other than a fact. That debate can be accessed in my signature.

 

Life choices and experiences shape a person's outlook on religion, not facts. For example my life experiences have showed me time and time again that there truly is a God.

 

My bet is that your parents and the culture you grew up in is where you draw your "knowledge" of whatever god you believe in. If I'm wrong, then you are an anomaly since the vast majority of all religious adherents inherit the mind virus of their particular religion from their parents and their dominating culture. This is why nearly every single child born of muslim parents is a muslim; why nearly every single child born to catholic parents is catholic; why nearly every single child born to protestant parents is protestant; and why nearly every single child born to Masai parents finds that he is a Masai.

 

Those that allow facts to pass them by rather than influence their worldviews find themselves continuing to follow the religious cults they are born to, without examining other faiths and philosophies and without inquiry into their own religion. Indeed, nearly every religion has a common attribute: inquiry and criticism is taboo. It simply would not do to have adherents question their religious cults and the doctrines they are based upon.

[TK-8252]

Not true, God has never been disproven, nor has He been proven. Then again, neither has evolution... anyway that's a different debate altogether. My point is Atheists and religious folk (like myself) only have different points of view.

 

A teapot in orbit around the sun has also never been disproven, nor has it been proven. Are you prepared to believe in that teapot simply because you cannot disprove it?