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Mon 14 Mar, 2005 12:35 pm
I was staying with friends of mine this weekend. On Sunday, before breakfast, the husband was flipping channels and he stopped on a tv preacher program. I had the knee-jerk reaction of expecting him to change the channel. I said "you watch this stuff?". He said, "yeah, this guy is good". I said that I had a thing against tv preachers. He said it didn't matter what religion he was using because the things he was talking about were true and transcended religion. We then had a long and interesting discussion. My friend (his wife) said that she enjoyed listening to him and that she was secure in her religion and was not afraid to be exposed to "the other". It occurred to me that they're use of religion is very similar to mine. I was raised Christian and retain some principles from that religion, but those are the principals that are largely shared by all religions. We ended up discussing how people lose sight of spirituality and morality by focusing too much on the details of a specific religion. For example, the funamentalists I was brought up with were so focused on salvation and trying to get people "saved" that they lost sight of the teachings of Jesus and weren't improving people's spirits at all (least of all their own). They had similar stories about fundamentalists in their own religion.
So it occurs to me, are the folks who practice religion in moderation the only ones who really get it?
Last spring I was stuffing envelopes for the local ambulance fund raising campaign. A Catholic woman spoke up and said that since she'd been widowed in November she didn't like to drive far in winter weather and had been attending the Methodist church which was closer to her home.
Several Methodist ladies welcomed her all over again.
Then the Catholic woman mentioned that the Methodist minister wouldn't allow her to take communion.
All the ladies--Catholic, Methodist and other forms of Protestant were highly indignant.
I thought I understood the Minister's viewpoint--to say nothing of the probable stance of the Catholic church, but figured the ladies also had a point.
I definitely see the ladies' point.
FreeDuck, your religious upbringing sounds just like mine, but my parents never forced anything on me. (my dad seldom went to church).
The fact that your Muslim friends were intelligent enough to separate the wheat from the chaff is most interesting. Maybe there are still questioners out there in all religions.
I've been thinking about my religion quite a bit lately because of illness in my family.
Noddy, as a godparent for two kids, I took communion in the Episcopal Church, and the bishop asked me to remove my gloves. What a jerk, as if that had anything to do with a ritual.
However - as soon as you think that you "get it" because you are a moderate - have you already lost it?
I do wonder if the actual problem is thinking we have "got it"?
You might be on to something, there, dlowan. Along those same lines we talked about how in their religion it is forbidden to say that someone will go to hell as it puts you in the position of God who is the only one who can decide such things. Needless to say, I have been told by many a baptist preacher that I am, indeed, going to hell. But in reality, the Bible also says "judgment is mine, sayeth the Lord". So perhaps there is no basic difference between the principles of Islam and Christianity. Maybe the only difference is the insistence by one that Jesus was the son of God and that only those who believe that can go to heaven.
Something else we talked about was this particular tv preacher's emphasis on living and on getting the most out of life. I realize that he was probably 4 parts inspirational speaker and 1 part man of God, but my friends had a point. He was focusing on how to use one's relationship with God to make the most out of one's life. Most preachers I've heard focus on what to do in one's life to be sure that one will make it to heaven.
Maybe that's what all of this comes down to. Whether the benefit to finding God is going to heaven or finding heaven on earth.
But I'm just rambling now. Than you all for letting me share this conversation with you. I just found it very interesting.
Noddy24 wrote:
Then the Catholic woman mentioned that the Methodist minister wouldn't allow her to take communion.
must be "free methodist" vs "united methodist" or something the communion for the "united methodists" is open to "all"
I forgot to mention - eveytime I visit a Catholic church I get pissed-off cause they for sure do not invite others to the table.
Of course, FD, my take makes the prophet folk - like Jesus and Mohammed - highly suspect, too!
"There is likely only one god, and I think his or her name is Allah. And his or her prophet appears, on the balance of probability, to be Mohammed!"
"I am the son - I think - of god - if there is a god. I think I may be the light, the truth, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, and the way - if I don't get lost."
Oh yeah, and that was the other thing we talked about, how the respective "good books" are so open to interpretation and, in both cases, written in a language most people today do not understand. So how can anybody be sure that they truly understand the message?
You know, this was kind of the idea I was trying to discuss on a thread I opened ages ago on whether fervent beliefs were "bad".
It kept being turned into a Philosophy 1a debate about belief (in my view - prolly cos I wasn't precise enough in how I worded it) so I gave up in disgust.
I was meaning fervent beliefs about politics, and religon, and other core stuff - ie whether, as soon as we hold a strong belief that we are right (or are right through some prophet or god's word, or Marx, etc) then we have lost balance and proportion and the ability to step outside ourselves and empathise with other views.
Of course, the paradox is that such a stance can become, in itself, a fervent belief!!!
Yes. I did mushrooms once with my sister ( I think I mentioned this before) and it was a very interesting experience. At one point I was talking to her about how I had no rules. Everything that came up somehow came back around to the fact that I had no rules. Until I realized that not having any rules was itself a rule. This made me laugh hysterically for hours.
i definitely do not think that people should practice a religion in 'moderation'
if you take a few principles from christianity but do not practice it fully- then i would not see you as a christian (although you may believe in the christian god)
similarly with other religions.
if you really want to follow a religion then follow it completely.
i don't believe in 'moderate christians' and 'moderate muslims' cause they are not christians or muslims
i am not sayiong they are wrong in what they believe- just that they are not christian or muslim.
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