Quote:
Originally posted by Timber Loftis:
Ah, but a religion only is evidenced by its manifestations. Muslinism may be a peaceful religion, but many Muslim leaders pervert it to evil ends.
YOUR take on your religion may be absolutely good and wonderful, but remember that YOUR list of CORE VALUES of the religion is YOUR list. Others have made the their list to include many atrocities, all in the name of God, osbtensibly.
So, if you want to cite the "good" churches who use Christianity and the Bible as YOU see proper, I am perfectly free to remind you that there has been a large number of misuses over time as well. I'm simply saying that you should not purport to comprehensively espouse the full range of virtues and core values of the religion unless you are willing to somehow work all the atrocities into your fold as well. Otherwise, your statements do NOT apply holistically to the religion and its core values, but rather only apply to you and how you see/interpret those core values.
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Wrong. A religions ideals are verifiable independently from the manifestations of those who claim to follow it. In this way you CAN ascertain who DOES follow the religion, and who doesn't. Otherwise anyone who claimed to be a Muslim would be, even the atheist who eats pork. It makes a mockery of using descriptive language.
Some Christians lives measure up to the teachings held in the Bible. Imperfect, but clearly aligning with what is written given allowances for individual interpretation and human failings.
Others clearly do not. They either totally misundertand it, or are using it for political ends.
Islam, to bring up your example, is a wonderful example, because it TEACHINGS advocate violence, as Martyrdom is the only assurance a Muslim has of salvation. A "peaceful muslim" living in harmony with Jews and Christians and friends, advisors and confidantes is expressly living a life at odds with recommendations held in the Qu'ran and Hadith.
You cannot simply look at the followers or you will not have a true understanding of a particular faith. You have to look at the teachings. And then at the initial exemplars. Then, you look at the followers. You see what matches up. It may be the resultant faith of the practitioners is so divergent from the initial teaching it has to be called another name for qualification.
Hence the myriad names within organised religions, from Mahayana Buddhism, to Wababist Islam, to Qaker Christianity.