Quote:
Originally Posted by Mnemosyne  So the Bible teaches killing your children over loving your neighbors? Is that what Christianity is about? |
No. I feel it's very important to make the distinction. The word "Christianity" is essentially meaningless, except in very broad strokes. You have to come to see Christians not as "members of Christianity", but as people who have a set of beliefs strongly aligned to that of their church, which is to say, a lot of other people.
The Bible does not explicitly teach a lot of what people claim it teaches. You have to realize that the vast majority of the Old Testament is
a historical record, though not written by a historian in the modern sense. From memory, the only teachings to be found outside of dialogue are Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the epistles of Paul, James, and John. Maybe Jude; I don't feel like looking it up.
Noteworthy, for instance, is that the book of Esther does not contain the word God. What does that teach us? Don't speak the name of God while in exile? It doesn't teach anything.
The point is that people don't know what's in the Bible. People don't know enough paleontology, archaeology, or mythology to recognize the context of the historical settings in the Old Testament. People don't have any idea of church history, neither their own or in general.
But they believe that the Bible teaches good things, and that the Bible is true. It doesn't actually matter what's inside.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mnemosyne Seriously though, what are the major tennants of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Wicca? What is the ultimate goal? |
I don't think a religion has an ultimate goal. I view religions as a set of rules for the way a society operates based on a mythological justification. I'm also too unfamiliar with the other religions to deliver an argument regarding them.
However,
Judaism draws from the same historical stories as Christianity. Another poster has provided a list of verses from the Qu'ran which sounds fairly deplorable (though we're promised a dissenting perspective on the same verses, so we'll see how that goes). Hinduism is rich with blood, though the blood itself is often a touch... symbolic. Buddhism and Taoism are decidedly peaceful, in comparison, but I can't claim to know enough about either to remark. Certainly both belief systems are central to a large number of martial arts, from the Shaolin to the samurai. And I know Wicca has roots in Celtic culture, which does involve blood sacrifice and such, but again, I'm ignorant.
I'm generally more lenient about non-Christian perspectives in America, because the overwhelming dominance of Christianity means that anyone choosing to
not be a Christian is likely to have put enough thought into their religion that any random acts of insanity may be countered without reason. It's a probability thing.
Though, if you ask me, the absolute most hilarious product of Christianity has been Satanism, which is basically a carbon copy of Catholicism with a massive, massive dose of melodrama. Any Satanists reading are welcome to respond to that. Seriously, not even Catholics are that pretentious.