Bay 12 Games Forum

Yeah, there's a certain degree of biblical support for a fiery hell. There's also support for a number of other sorts, of course, but let it never be said that consistency was terribly important to the folks spread out over a generation or two that actually penned the bible.

Buddhism has nothing to do with gods, generally. As a rule, it's apatheistic at "best" and generally more atheist or agnostic -- siddhartha said pretty straight up that things such as the existence or non-existence of gods are not questions worth contemplating. He was fairly dismissive of most metaphysical concerns, iirc, and most, if not all, buddhist traditions that came afterwards align pretty well with that. There are, of course, exceptions (Such as christian buddhists, natch), but to the best of my knowledge that's the trend.

Hinduism is something very different. In Hindu belief, gods -- all gods (and, frankly, everything else) -- are simply manifestations of aspects of the brahman, the true reality. Other religions fit into that quite well, especially alongside the natural fallibility of mankind. Christianity expressing aspects of the true reality, even if not with 100% accuracy (just as basically nothing human does, honestly) fits into that just fine. Christianity would simply be wrong about the only path to salvation being jesus. It would be one path, but not the only one. Error alongside truth does not invalidate that truth.

@chao: Brahma's actually something different from brahman The former is an aspect of the latter, though.

Name cat Dog, yes? Or Duck. Some other animal.

The last cat I had that was actually mine I named You. You was a good cat with a good name, until someone else let her out and she (probably) got ate/run over. The next cat I have will be named You Two.

Shank? Shank would be a good name. Food related and an ambiguous verb. Absurdity is important when naming things. Roofy would be vaguely amusing for a cat, as well, if a bit morbid considering the general conditions the term "Roof Rabbit" was coined under.

Lemon would be good, too! Fruit in general. Apricot? Apricot is a good cat name. Meringue would fit its coloring better, though, I think. It kinda' looks like a lemon meringue pie.

... it was pretty but stupid, iirc. That puts it at least on par with the space elf Avatar movie >_>

Yes, its true that people say they have found in many different places. But the thing is, only one can be right! Christianity doesnt allow for other religions to be correct at the same time. It just doesnt.

... what does one religion's insistence on being the only true one have to do with reality? Christianity is perfectly capable of being simply wrong on that point. Baldly asserting otherwise doesn't exactly provide support for the position -- you need some kind of justification, some sort of proof to suggest the position is true, otherwise there is zero reason to support that position over others who do the exact same thing. Of which there are many.

... unfortunately, as noted, there is nothing christian belief provides that isn't attainable elsewhere. Hell, none of it even requires religion -- moral codes are perfectly createable without substantiative metaphysical burdens, the various emotional/psychological states related to it are attainable via lifestyle choices or medication, the organizational aspects obviously constructible from secular means... the list just kind of goes on. S'nothing particularly unique to the belief system.

And you've got religions such as Hinduism, which is perfectly happy to hold that all religious belief stem from the same source. They've got a nice lil' explanation for it and everything. Why should one not believe that christian belief is just another aspect of the brahman? Just missing or misrepresenting a few key points. It's certainly a better explanation for the apparent viability of other faiths. Bit of inaccuracy or confusion even cheerfully explains stuff like the monolatrist/monotheist shift -- someone just got some bits wrong, lost stuff in translation, etc.

Only potentially. If the legal response to drug use was execution, "no murder" would mean more or less jack -- murder's referring to something fairly specific in that line. Probably a handful of other situations it'd bypass that particular stricture, too.

Christianity's not actually all that disinclined towards killing, though it's long tried to spin the PR to say otherwise.

Sorry, I just dont see that many similarities, thats all.

... largely identical moral codes and strongly similar metaphysical claims (which isn't exactly surprising, considering they both claim to worship the same thing), which is to say more or less all of it worth mention. There's differences, but they're both monotheistic abrahamic religions that have filled more or less the same social roles, with most of what that entails. To a fair extent they're more alike than not, really...