On Faith and Salvation

[bcasabee]

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@samokan.......does all buddhist monks practice martial arts? I like the idea of a spiritual leader who had undergone physical training..........I remembered a text about Jesus saying.........the spirit is willing but the body is weak when he saw his discipiles who were asleep when he was about to be arrested........I guess it also makes sense to practice not necessarily martial arts but any sports that makes our body strong...........

[Carlo Borromeo]

you said you believe in God. how did you arrive at that and what made you sure about that?

Because the alternative sucks. And because life is full of so many things that can't possibly be coincidences.

Religion, after all, is simply man trying find reason and purpose.

[iron_golem]

you said you believe in God. how did you arrive at that and what made you sure about that?

Because the alternative sucks.

okay. If the alternative sucks, there must be something in the belief of God that has to offer. i choose a computer over a typewriter because i can do a lot of things with a computer than a typewriter.

can you expound why your belief in God matters than the 'alternatives' out there?

And because life is full of so many things that can't possibly be coincidences.

so you are now trying to say now that there are indeed truths in this life and that we can be sure about them?

Religion, after all, is simply man trying find reason and purpose.

even without religion, man has always thought about the purpose of his existence.

[Desert Father]

Congratulations for your thread.Â* Anyway this is your thread.Â* I wont venture here a minute longer.Â* I already know what is the belief of Carlo so I let him be.

Its his right. At least I know why he reasons out that way. It leads to something else.Â* For sure it leads to a concept of a God that I dont share.Â*

@iron golem: Carlo believes in wicca. A kind of occult religion. Kindly search it for yourself in the internet.

I guess that would make you decide whether you would continue discussing issues with him. For me it is a futile exercise.

[Carlo Borromeo]

Well the alternative to God is that everything is all just a big coincidence, that life JUST happened, no reason, no purpose. It just happened. I don't like that.

so you are now trying to say now that there are indeed truths in this life and that we can be sure about them?

No. I'm saying that there are things which I find profound, that can't possibly just be about chemicals and physics. Like Life itself. Is it just all a coincidence? I don't think so. I don't know what Life is really for, but I believe that there's more to live than just living.


I'm not saying that I have the answer. I don't even think I ever will. And I don't want to appear like a guy who has answers.

What I do want to do is ask questions. Hopefully, they will lead me somewhere.

[Carlo Borromeo]

For the last time, I am not a Wiccan. I placed that on my myspace account because I didn't think anyone would be stupid enough to believe me.

I was wrong.

[bcasabee]

You believed in God because you can sense him........you were using your basic instinct which is common sense to know that there is God...............and thats good..........Assuming we believe in the same God.......then I think you will find your true faith in no time..........just keep on using your common sense since our God is constantly giving us clues on where to find him.

you said you believe in God. how did you arrive at that and what made you sure about that?

Because the alternative sucks. And because life is full of so many things that can't possibly be coincidences.

Religion, after all, is simply man trying find reason and purpose.

[Carlo Borromeo]

Back to the topic at hand.

i choose a computer over a typewriter because i can do a lot of things with a computer than a typewriter.

And yet, I know several great writers, such as my favorite, Elmore Leonard, or even Larry McMurtry, a Pulitzer-price winning novelist, who up to this day prefer the clanging of the typewriter to the clicking of the keyboard. Why? They say, because it suits them fine.

To each his own, I suppose.

Again, let me stress something some people aren't getting. I'm not siding with ANY particular religion. What I actually want to find is what different beliefs have in common.

[Carlo Borromeo]

One of my favorite ideas is that of Carl Jung.

Simply stated that certain characters(Hercules, Christ, Buddha) and certain stories (the Great Flood, for example), are all based on some ancient collective memory that we all have. That, despite all our different version of our stories, myths and bibles, we're recounting and believing in the same thing, only that because we have different perspectives, we have different ways of interpreting and communicating our beliefs.

[Carlo Borromeo]

Religion is sort of like the parable of the blind men and the elephant.

To retell it: several blind men gathered around an elephant. One blind man described the elephant as if he was a tree, because the man touched the elephant's leg. Another blind man said that he thought the elephant was a snake, because all he touched was the trunk.

They were all right, in a sort of way, but then their description was iincomplete, unless the blind men tried to feel the elephant's whole body, all of its parts, to really properly describe the elephant. And even then, since he was blind, you couldn't ask him what color the elephant was.