T-Man "is" being a true Christian whatcha wanna do Ken crucify him?

prob is more Christians need to be more like T-Man (including me) but i always fail

Brad will most likely make the adjustment to go please everyone,
(I hope T-Man does not)

I prefer to love my neighbour and know my enemy....

Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer....

In an argument/discussion about religion, there is only one winner.....your faith...[whether it withstands scrutiny].

It is otherwise a pointless discussion. If the terminology or title of a skin section is at odds with people in general, and specific sects/religions in particular, then it needs be changed.
Any debate as to which flavour of religion is better/more appropriate/whatever is meaningless, irrelevant and immaterial, and will certainly get nowhere.

'Religious' is certainly more appropriate than 'Christian', as it is non-discriminatory....

yeah and thinking that Jesus was just a man, is certainly more easier to accept than he is the son of God...

oh well

T-Man I will say a prayer for you tonight! hehe

got no energy for this topic Lakers is on gotta go jump on the couch with the guys inside and watch the Lakers

Ken, Jafo I know where you are both coming from, I just don't agree on this one, be happy it is not my site

T-Man - I think you're just yankin some people's chains to watch them dance.

I'm not impressed

Hey, was I wrong to think T-Man was joking?
I'm starting to doubt now that Doreen seem to agree with him. Is Doreen joking too?
Surely nobody in this day and age openly refuses other people's rights for their own beliefs?

Come on. I respect your belief, respect mine, his, hers, everybody's.
Now, please open a new section and call it "caucasian".

I thought you were playing devil's advocate and I thought you had balls. But now that I'm starting to think you were serious, I am offended, very much so.

It looks like things may be starting to get a little heated so I think its time to calm some things down before anything gets out of hand.

First off, please look back to my first responses, as Paxx and DavidK have pointed out, I was playing the devil's advocate. And unfortunately no one even took notice that I had changed all the Christian categories to 'Religion' after my first response.

Kenray, you do make excellent points. We, as Christians, need to lead the way by example and not by force. And for those who know me personally can vouch for me that I am not the type of person that force's my will/beliefs onto others. I am actually a very passive person.

But there is some truth to my points as well and quite often good things (not just Christian things) must take a back seat to those who preach political correctness. And it does disgust me at times that so many people make huge issues over public prayer and such only to get public prayer abolished. But I guess as part of being a good Christian it is our duty to step aside and set the example and only hope and pray that others will see our actions, or inactions, and learn from them.

Well, I think I am just starting to ramble now so I will stop here before I just sound like a lunatic.

Actually, paxx, I think you'll find a lot of people are so blinded by their own beliefs that they find themselves unable to respect the rights of others.

I don't have a problem with things such as public prayer in schools, just so long as people don't attempt to restrict the type of prayers included.

I was reading an article just the other day where a particular, local christian group was trying to
get prayers read before each school assembly. When it looked like the idea was going to be passed, but with a different religious prayer each week (Jewish, Muslim, pagan, etc...) rather than exclusively christian, the group suddenly started asking for a moment of silence instead. Quite pathetic, IMNSHO.

As far as public prayer in classrooms go it is becomming much more difficult to bring harmonany to everyone.

My particular solution would be that the schools should not have classes for prayer or hold assembly's for prayer. But if they wanted to set aside a small time for private personaly prayer that would be fine. However I can see some people complaining about that too because by the virtue of having a 'prayer' time insinuates (sp jafo?) that there is a god and that would be intruisive to athiests beliefs.

And, if a group of students wanted to conduct quiet prayer between classes I personally do not see any harm in that and feel, at least, that should be allowed.

'insinuates' is correct, Mr. T....

Thank you, T-Man,
I knew it couldn't be true.

As for public prayers and such, we don't have those here in Canada. Only some religious private schools do.
Generally speaking we have a christian class once a week, but student have the choice of taking and alternative class instead. I, myself, took classes called "religions of the world". It was quite fascinating. I got to study what different religiouns were about. Funny how in the end a lot of it is similar, yet everybody is fighting.

My personal view is the same as Jafo, quoting Marx earlier: "Religion is the opium of the people" (I'm translating it as I know it in French "La religion est l'opium du peuple").

I think I'm just gonna go to bed. There are just too many mistakes in the above text...

Not to get too embroiled but that was just one more thing about which Marx was wrong I think citing Marx as an authority on anything (except perhaps muddled thinking) is risky at best.

jcg....my quote was from '1984'.....the other quote from which that I use is 'our future lies with the proles' [or something like that....I read it sooo many years ago].
So if it was a quote from Marx, it was once-removed...

T-man,

thanks.
and to all who commented here, thank you too.

i would liek to re-iterate a point on public prayer that was previously mentioned.

If you have it at all, you will have to have it for all. and tho you may think it a good idea for all people everywhere to hear you start with

"Our Father, Who Art in Heaven",

you must be smart enough to realize that, the second you get that, some other person will start up with

"O Great and Lower King Satan:"

and do you really want your kids hearing that?

Doesn't public prayer depend on the school you're on? If you're on a christian school you have a public christian prayer, on a catholic school a public catholic prayer and on a islamic school an islamic prayer. On a non-religious school, you should have no public prayer, for it is a non-religious school.

Crae, I am not sure how the school system works in the US, but in Canada, we have 2 kind of schools: public school (free) and private schools ($$$). Private schools are as you said, some have a faith (Catholic, Jewish, Islamic, etc.), and some don't. But in the public system, the debate here used to be wether religion has or not a place in the public sector. In Canada, the crucifix that used to be on every wall of every classroom, courtroom, hospital room, etc., have been removed some years ago.

Over here in the country beneath the sea, most of the schools are public (free) which come in all flavours (religion based or not). So if you want to have prayers and such, you put your kid on a school with a religious base and if you specifically do not want that, you go for a school with a non-religiious base. And if you don't care about all of that (like my parents did) you put you're kid on a school that is close by and ahs a good feel. Which is why my atheist self ended up on a christian school.

personally i feel that people should be allowed to reach their own conclusions based on various "facts". i certainly dont hold with schools trying to force feed children christian religion. but having said that, the school i went to had a very strange method of teaching about a "loving" god.

my abiding memories of religious teaching at school are:
a) turn the other cheek, i.e. it was fine to be at the receiving end of violence, but to retaliate, ever, was a terrible thing, to be punished heavily. hardly a workable solution in the playground
b) the bible story where some children taunted a holy man, so god sent a bear down from the hills to rip the children into little shreds of flesh.

the net effect was to drive me a very long way away from any form of christian belief. i have thought for many years that belief comes from within, not from without.

i have concluded that a lot of "sensible" religious people seem to share a large amount of common ground, like acceptance, forgiveness, love of god. perhaps if people could focus more on the things they have in common rather than the differences a lot of these problems over different religions would be a lot smaller?

You're a weird cat, feline (and I ain't talking Jive here). But your conclusion is valid. People should focus on what they have in common and not focus on where they differ (as they do now). But als, only cats and basement dwellers stand far enough from the masses to reach that conclusion...

perhaps there in lies the solution
i am reminded of that musical cats, and also of catwoman in the second batman movie. both imply it is possible to convert some people into cats.
for the rest, all we need to do is find a nice large basement that isnt currently being used, and lock them into it until they start to see sence.
admitadly this is a fairly extream solution, but extream situations call for extream solutions

well, the issue of public prayer, adn genereal expressions of ones religious beleif actually extends outside the schoolyard.

Schools are the easiest place to identify and realate to the issue, but there are other situations....

How must my Muslim friend feel when he is sworn in to a US Court? (in the US, to be sworn in to testify, you must place your hand on the CHristian Bible and pledge an oath).

...............

Hilariously, as a Christian, i have also noticed antother thing about "us".

It appears that our GOd is the only one worth picking on in art and the public press.

Notice, you will see no controversial painting called "Piss Buddha", neither will you ever hear Tori Amos singing, "Vishnu, sometiems you don't understand..."

OF course, the Christian God is like, the only one, who teaches the aformentioded cheek-turning.

If some smart aleck visual artist put a painting in the Met called "Piss Allah", he probably wouldn't live very long...

all these years pass and ppl still cannot handle even the word "Christian" hehe
(must be the power within that word)

Paxx to clarify... I was not joking

but yes I feel this site is public and to put only one category of Christian will invoke trouble on the site, and if the person running the site is not Christian he should just put "Religion" however if the person running the site is Christian it should remain Christian so he stands by his faith and does not change to please others!

my prob was seeing T-Man being pushed into a corner and I hate seeing ppl be "run out" of their faith...

Christians are NOT suppose to compromise to please other ppl or compromise their faith.

(and yes this all being said from a bad Christian female who has trouble staying on that narrow path)

About courts, I don't know if you have the same rights in the US, but in Canada, although by default you are asked to swear on the bible, you have the option to swear on the holy book of your faith if you request it, or even to simply make a "solemn oath", no book required.