I dated a Mormon. While sometimes they are pushy, they are only trying to "help" you. They truly believe in their religion. And if you believe in the same thing, then you'll join them in heaven. To some, it's annoying, but to them, they TRULY believe they are helping you.

They are only human. They don't understand how pushy they are any more than they understand why YOU don't want to stay out of hell. Just go easy on these people, say you're not interested, and don't be an ass. It's that simple.

 

Sorry if that makes you mad Jon, but it's the way I feel, just an opinion. Doesn't mean YOU are weak minded, I just think it means that someone in our pasts that led us to belive what we believe in was weak enough to actually truly believe the stories in the bible.

On that point, has anyone else here ever seen a translation of an OLD version of the bible? Like before the King James version? MASSIVE differences. HUGE differences. SO if the bible IS true, what is true in it? Who's version IS true?

Or as I said before, how do we know ANY of it is true? Look at the time when the bible first was printed. The world was in dire straits, the Roman Empire fell and almost all knowledge gathered over the past few thousand years was lost, until the Islamic sections of Spain were conquered during the crusades and the information was brought back to us. Look at how drasticly our culture changed after the return of knowledge and the development of the printed bible. Could it be that maybe, just maybe, it WAS a great story of fiction written to make man think that there were consequenses outside of normal life for his actions?

I tend to think so. The worst part is, the older I get, the more I see of that line of thought actually making more sence. I guess I don't understand why all the "Miracles", and gynormous events in the bible took place way back when and don't happen anymore. Makes me feel as if we've been left alone.



Well that's good. nana.gif



I do respect their right to belive what they want to, if my opinion is insulting, I'm sorry, but I'm not telling them they have to belive what I've said.



I know, misspelling is a b****.



Not true. Unfortunately, the Mormon missionaries have been chasing me down for the past 16 years, and every time they find me, I tell them to leave me alone, that I'm not interested. But of course, no, they just have to tell me this one thing, blah blah blah. Any of the roomates I've had in the US Army, just by pure luck, were religious zelots, telling me that I have to belive, holding group prayers in my room when I'm passed out asleep to forgive me of my sins, some wacko shit.

Unfortunately, saying "No thanks", just doesn't work anymore.



I don't see how I've insulted anything. I said my beliefs. If they are insulting, then I'm sorry, but they still are my beliefs. If there is a catholic in here, I won't tell him he's wrong, or tell him he's a b**** because he is a Catholic.



I've not been an ass to them, but I just wish I'd get left alone to live my life as I see fit.

wink1.gif

 

People love to make that claim as a negative against religion, but I have to disagree. When you look at most wars throughout history, religion was nothing more than a superficial excuse. The real reasons were greed and the quest for power. Even supposed religious wars like the 30 years war were all politics and greed.

It's not religion that causes wars. It's human nature.

 

True, which in hence, shows why most Churches are so quick to get your money. Greed.

But on the other hand, if King Alpha wants to wage war on King Bravo to get his land and riches, and uses the name of religion to do it, isn't that feeding my belief of weak minds?

It's a quagmire, you can look either way on many of these points I suppose.

 

There's a saying I have..never discuss religion or politics amongst old friends, it's the fastest way to make new enemies.

I would like to point out something here..in ancient days, almost all religious faiths consisted of symbolism and, through the years, people have started taking these symbolic stories way to literally. The story of the blind man receiving sight may allude to the fact that the man was in "darkness"...in other words, he was a sinner and did not know of the true path towards salvation. He then went into the pool and came out with the ability to see which may allude to the fact that the man was brought out of "darkness" and into "light." How you want to interpret this I leave to your own discretion.

REMEMBER, history is full of fantastic stories that are based on historical fact in which there are many examples: The siege of Troy, Noah's flood (it was actually a natural dam that broke somewhere around modern Russian that only flooded the entire region and not the whole world), the story of Atlantis. There are even more recently exaggerations based on true people or events: George Washington the story of him cutting down the cherry tree for instance) Abraham Lincoln (I never tell a lie) Davy Crockett (there a bunch of wild stories about him). What I'm trying to get at here is that there are many exaggerations based on true events or people and if you think about it, these stories are very numerous and have been around since the beginning of recorded time to the present.
Whether or not Jesus actually performed miracles is another story but I believe the man actually existed and tried to teach his fellow man how to reach salvation. Some of the things he did may have been either exaggerated to mythic proportions, may be symbolic stories misinturpreted, or maybe fact..I'll let you decided what you want to believe, I'm just trying to give you guys a different point of view. I believe it's the moral to the event or story and not what actually happened that makes a difference.