Christianity ruins a relationship ....Alpha courses?

[Andy in Sig]

Fnaar,

while I essentially agree with your long post and have no faith myself, the only thing which bothers me is that there is a body of evidence for what we loosely call the supernatural and it needs explaining. I'm not suggesting for one moment that if e.g. ghosts were shown to exist that this somehow would be justification for the existence of a God but the point is that your view, as put, does perhaps not cast its net quite wide enough.

 

[Cathryn]

I love how as a christian i get labelled a bigot because i would prefer to marry someone who shares my belief, but actually many of the most offensive, bigoted people are those trying to denigrate my faith.

 

[CopperBrompton]

I don't personally see your stance as an unreasonable or bigotted one.

I couldn't imagine being in a relationship with someone with strong religious convictions simply because there would be a chasm between us that could never be crossed, and that doesn't strike me as a sound basis for a relationship. You are saying the same thing, just from the other side of that chasm.

 

[Fnaar]

Fnaar,
while I essentially agree with your long post and have no faith myself, the only thing which bothers me is that there is a body of evidence for what we loosely call the supernatural and it needs explaining. I'm not suggesting for one moment that if e.g. ghosts were shown to exist that this somehow would be justification for the existence of a God but the point is that your view, as put, does perhaps not cast its net quite wide enough.

Aye, fair point, but many "spritual" experiences have rational/physical/chemical/luminal explanations ... I reckon a lot of the supernatural is a product of our own self-awareness...

 

[Riding in Circles]

I love how as a christian i get labelled a bigot because i would prefer to marry someone who shares my belief, but actually many of the most offensive, bigoted people are those trying to denigrate my faith.

Christian girls should shag around, after all what right do they have to decide what to do with their own bodies and who do they think they are deciding what they like or don't like?

That seems to be the consensus among a lot of the people posting here, can anyone see a problem there?

 

[Andy in Sig]

Probably but there are some things which remain inexplicable. For instance there are well documented cases about children describing their previous incarnations and checks have apparently shown that the detail they described was correct. I think that it is conceivable that there are things going on which our senses are ill equipped to detect.

 

[Fnaar]

Probably but there are some things which remain inexplicable. For instance there are well documented cases about children describing their previous incarnations and checks have apparently shown that the detail they described was correct. I think that it is conceivable that there are things going on which our senses are ill equipped to detect.

Just as I said to Joan of Arc

 

[Cathryn]

I don't personally see your stance as an unreasonable or bigotted one.

I couldn't imagine being in a relationship with someone with strong religious convictions simply because there would be a chasm between us that could never be crossed, and that doesn't strike me as a sound basis for a relationship. You are saying the same thing, just from the other side of that chasm.

Exactly...and it wasn't you I meant!!

I do get pretty sick of the God bashing on this forum. I don't bash other people's beliefs or what they like doing or believe. If I was a muslim, you'd all be a lot more careful in how you criticised my faith there. It feels like there's total freedom to slag christianity off simply because people don't agree with it, and put me down as a poor, deluded fool.

You may think i am a poor deluded fool, you might be right. But I honestly believe that my faith makes me a better person and for the majority of christians I think their faith makes them at least try to be better people. Yes we may have views society at large disagrees with. Yes, there will be some people who thrust their views down people's throats (those people annoy and frustrate other christians as well) but most christians are just damn nice people who try to do good rather than harm and would NEVER speak about you lot in the way some of you speak about christians.

I'm off to work now, so i'm not sulking, I promise.

 

[CopperBrompton]

[Andy in sig]Probably but there are some things which remain inexplicable

99% of such things are easily explained by mechanisms we already understand. There are, of course, things we don't yet understand, and that will always be the case until we finally achieve that Theory of Everything nirvana. That doesn't mean that rational explanations don't exist.

Many things were seen as magic before we understood the mechanisms.

Ben

 

[Dave Davenport]

I have to admit that there's a tiny part of my brain that thinks maybe this (as in life) isn't just it, perhaps something of our being continues in some way even if at some sort of atomic level. But I tend to lump all organised religions from christanity to cargo cults in the same file marked 'mumbo jumbo' that contains the new age tosh and loch Ness monster reports.

 

[Fnaar]

Exactly...and it wasn't you I meant!!

...
You may think i am a poor deluded fool, you might be right. But I honestly believe that my faith makes me a better person and for the majority of christians I think their faith makes them at least try to be better people. Yes we may have views society at large disagrees with...

That's fair enough Cathryn, but there are enough atheists who also aspire to the same, myself included... absence of faith does not make one a worse person, but there are enough beleivers who will tell you that it does.

 

[CopperBrompton]

Yes, there will be some people who thrust their views down people's throats (those people annoy and frustrate other christians as well) but most christians are just damn nice people who try to do good rather than harm and would NEVER speak about you lot in the way some of you speak about christians.

There are theists and athiests alike who want to loudly insist they are right, and anyone who disagrees with them is deluded.

By their very nature, such people stand out, but I don't think they represent the majority of either theists or athiests.

Ben (who self-describes as an agnostic though I fall into the category Dawkins labels as 'default athiest')

 

[Andy in Sig]

[Andy in sig]Probably but there are some things which remain inexplicable

99% of such things are easily explained by mechanisms we already understand. There are, of course, things we don't yet understand, and that will always be the case until we finally achieve that Theory of Everything nirvana. That doesn't mean that rational explanations don't exist.

Many things were seen as magic before we understood the mechanisms.

Ben

I agree that rational explanations will be found. Suppose reincarnation does happen and suppose ghosts do exist. There is no a priori reason why they couldn't be perfectly natural phenomena. My point is that proof of their existence would not lend any more support to the idea of the existence of a God.

 

[CopperBrompton]

Agreed on both points.

 

[barq]

she "wont have a relationship with someone who isnt a Christian"

Trying to fundamentally change someone is a really bad basis for a relationship.