Modok and tGunslinger,
I am not trying to pick a fight about religion.
It is just that over the course of the last few months people on this forum that call themselves christians (and I think you could expand that to every other faith) have supported their point of view with the bible.
All of them have used parts they liked and ignored parts they disliked. There is a lot of cherry picking going on and christians do not even seem to be able to agree on what cherries to pick.
F.E. homosexuality is a sin, according to the bible, but so are a gazillion of other things like touching a pigs skin on shabbath, etc, you both know the list is endless, but only some abominations seem to be a matter of concern for todays christians.
She basically does the same, and by judging her you are using todays mores that are extremely non-biblical in some areas. She is probably closer to the biblical truth than both of you and since it is all based on faith there is no way to say who is right anyway, unless of course you can vote on what is true, which of course happens in reality, but cannot be admitted by you, because it undermines your faith to see it as mere social conventions in an easily digestable cultural package.
Of course I see the difference between people like you and her when it comes to who I would rather have as my neighbour, but I am completely unable to see how people like you are able to explain the underlying problem, irrationality of faith systems, away by simply saying: Well, she is no true christian.
People like you have a mild form and she has the fully developed one of the "things must be true because I wanna and my parents have told me " syndrom.
I am interested how you can intellectually separate between the validity of the things she believes in and the things you believe in, except of course you are using basically utilitarian arguments, which you should not be able to do, believing in a higher power from which moral absolutes are derived.
When does wishful thinking go to far?
What constitutes going to far?
If I am convinced that my god demands it, could anything go to far?
If I answer this question with yes, am I a fanatic or a true believer or does that depend on what I am convinced my god demands me to do?
I know that religious people somehow manage to get all those ideas to coexist inside their heads and I am very interested in finding out how the hell they do it.
PS: If those questions seem like an attempt to try to pick a fight about religion it would be disturbing; religions have been around for quite a while and I can hardly be the first to ask those questions.
