2nd Child Dies After Parents Choose Prayer

are you one of those people that believes that if the bible and all religion were rid from the world that all violence and hate would dissapear?

would depend on the household people grew up in.

"Completely" is speaking in absolutes and I'm no Sith.

Since we're mainly talking about Europe and 'Murica, yes Christianity played a major part. I'm not qualified to speak on the history of the Middle East but Islam is at a different point in its religious story than Christianity is.

The aforementioned beliefs were stoked by the fires of Christianity and its rulers who through brainwashing and intimidation bent the people to their will under the pretenses of religious dogma. We can take this further and apply it to any system of religious dogma in which dissenting opinions are conflated with evil intent but that speaks more to dogmatic belief rather than any religious sect but that ignores the reality that Christianity/Judaism and Islam to a lesser extent were the major religions in Europe and the underpinning texts are rife with intolerance.

The problem of course is that dogma was peddled as the truth, people were influenced by their religious superiors that they had the right to commit atrocities and once you've bought into that you're a puppet for anyone smart enough to put you to work. There is a natural human aversion to differences in just about everything but when you attribute differences with an absolutist ideology then your intolerance will almost certainly sprout into violent actions and this is exactly what religion and the men behind it latched on to as justification.

The decrease in power of the Church and the individual being able to make decisions for him/herself along with greater education and the ability to see people different from yourself rather than languishing in ignorance has done much to break the back of dogma though you see its vestiges every day coming out of the mouths of our elected officials. There have plenty of decent people who follow religious tenets but the Bible is full of bloodlust and intolerance all over its pages.

This is the same text that classes women as commodities and encourages slavery after all.

Many are raised with it... some also find it later in life... even those that are raised with it have issues with their own faith where it is questioned and they make a decision on whether they still want to follow that path or not... Look at Zah... she is still struggling... then you have people like Sparth who have rid themselves of it... and others have chosen to carry on...

I didnt cherry pick any beliefs, Flavin.

The belief that God has perfect judgment, and his commandments are prefect even if that includes murdering your own child, is a core belief in Christianity.

Yes, it would depend and not all situations and people are the same, but if you were raised to believe something was true without evidence, that gives you comfort, you are much more likely to believe it later in life. It's called indoctrination

God's Will and all that, ya?

Yeah totally - there have never been any non-religious ethnic cleansings. Cambodia, Bhutan, the Indian Removal Act, Acadia, Croatia ... none of those count!

I left out an important one because I don't want to fall into a pit of alligators.

God wills it!

I remember something about romania pushing out all the muslims when they were under communist rule (or something like that)

I thought you were trying to make religion sound bad.

Do tell?

Christ's teachings may be found in the bible, but there is a whole lot more there too. Much of it BS, obsolete, and even dangerous.

TLDR: Christ's teachings =/= the bible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx7irFN2gdI

Of course not, that would be silly.

Religion has a monopoly on hatred and violence, but it isn't the only source for hatred and violence.

Someone wise on this forum once pointed out that the entirety of the non-circular, topical arguments in a religion thread will have already played out by the third page. I still come into these "depths" of these threads once in a while when I could use a laugh, or I am feeling a little too sane.

This statement above is stretching my brain to the limit trying to understand what you were trying to convey. Can you put me back together?

That's quite possibly the best way of saying "da fuq...?" I've ever seen lol. Well done sir.

Sorry Ashman, All the King's men, couldn't put poor Humpty Dumpty together again.

I just had lunch.

edit* plus I wanted to be polite. He has gifted me with the miracle that is Ping-Pong cats.

It has been for quite some time and still is. I remember as a child my grandparents and other Church friends coming over after Church and comparing different versions of the bible to the priest's sermon. It's not something my parents enjoyed, but they definitely interjected their opinions. Church is professional post the act of confirmation(I'll explain a bit below).

The bible isn't supposed to be read in one day, one week, or one month. It's something that you take a while to digest. It's something you read a little bit before bed, sometimes mom/dad will read you a soothing passage from Psalms before bed. It's also not easy reading; there are easier versions like the New American, but the translations in those are very odd imo.

It's been profession since the advent of the KJV. It also has been a study hence since the process of confirmation. Traditionally, you receive a nice bible as part of your confirmation. When I say nice bible I'm talking 50 bucks or more. That bible includes not just fancy binding and pages, but super-scripts that include alternate versions and original texts of particular words/passages.

EDIT: I'm also not trying to disagree with everything you said. I feel it's true in many circumstances. Just trying to provide my insight on some of this.

God has everything layed out in his pre-destined plan, in that plan has moments where you are allowed-free will. Sometimes tests.
As far as prayer. It's not always for a direct response, sometimes it's simply for understanding.

You studying Latin and knowing even the Hebrew alphabet is more than I'd say most Christians know! I dunno maybe it's just the one's I've met then- I dunno.

They are compatible. They are explained thoroughly in Catechism.

Right here is key about understanding the bible. What you read in the bible is NOT all of it. There is a lot of dispute among scholars what actually belongs in the old testament and what does not. Hence you get the apocrypha and the deuterocannon.

The Story about Father Abraham was more or less a story about knowing when to question one's faith.

Keep in mind also that the Bible says "Thou shalt not worship any other God but me", and "Thou shalt not worship false idols". These two phrases in particular seem to contradict each other.

Reason being: It admits to the existence of other Gods, yet many "devout" (quotation marks to denote fanatically devout) pracitioners claim that there is only 1 God. In the essence of not worshipping false idols, Mankind is not supposed to put mere mortals upon pedestals to give the imagery of prophets, prophetizing, legend and myth-making, and yet, the Bible was written close to 1,000 years after the events took place.

This is simply my opinion on the matter, since it's precisely what I got out of it before leaving the church as a child. Of course, if everything is "God's Will", or "By God's Will, be done", perhaps it was his will that I left, and others seem to question the validity of everything in an attempt to qualify and quantify the idea of free will.

Having "Free Will" in a predestined or "Divine Plan" where everything is already mapped out, that would include the actions taked during our time with "free will". It's contradictory at best. Particularly if everything is already "pre-destined" to happen, regardless of our actions.

Basically, in a "predestined" plan where everything is already going to happen, regardless of what choices we make as a group, community, or as individuals, there can exist no form of free will.

To be quite frank, the native american, aboriginal, or indigenous (choose which ever word you like) of North America had it closer to being right. They believed in a Creator, some essence that formed the creation of life, without the omnipotent and omniscient powers of God. The Creator granted life, and watched over it as it began to flourish in all of it's myriad forms. One of the rituals uses Sage grass in order to communicate our thanks, and our prayers, so the Creator can see us, hear us, and help us by granting various opportunities, instead of praying for wishes, that impede or completely ridicule the idea of a Divine Plan.

Do you not understand what a monopoly is ?

She*

Not everything is pre-destined. You are not pre-destined to go to Hell, for example, according to the Church. You are allowed moments of free-will in response to God's pre-destiny if that make's any sense.

The bible in both the New and Old testament kinda fortifies this when God "tests one's faith."

I wasn't referring to cherry picking beliefs... I referred to cherry picking passages or stories to make a singular point while ignoring all other things... just like Sparth has spoke about people picking out specific passages/stories and applying that as an excuse for their actions...

As I've said before...Humanity has a monopoly on that... Religion is just another excuse we use... if religion were not around we would just find another one...

Don't bring other animals into this!

But whatever Flavin.

You're not going to convince me that Abraham would have found another reason to want to kill his child, if he didn't have a religion.

I'm not trying to... and even though he showed he would God did not make him strike down his son that day... now if you're trying to relate that to the common man these days... there's a lot of kids that get killed by their parents for reasons that have nothing to do with religion...