ahh, thanks, i kinda feel stupid for that now

Oh there has been disagreements on this thread: http://www.tree-of-souls.com/general..._out_more.html

(Just wanting to share this)
I found a review of a book last sunday: Tea with Arwa written by Arwa El-Masri (Wife of rugby player and all round good guy Hazem el-Masri) and in it she wants to dispel a lot of misconceptions about her faith and she tries to help people see that everyone is human equally but we have our differences that make us unique. Plus it's interesting to see a feminist who dons the veil and it helps to get rid of some of the views that people have towards women and the veil.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/ipad/a-v...-1226155283231

http://resources2.news.com.au/images...m-el-masri.jpg

The parameters of religion, not the validity.

Hey I just looked up the definition of parameter and this is what I got:
.
Mathematics .
a.
a constant or variable term in a function that determines the specific form of the function but not its general nature, as a in f ( x ) = ax, where a determines only the slope of the line described by f ( x ).
b.
one of the independent variables in a set of parametric equations.
2.
Statistics . a variable entering into the mathematical form of any distribution such that the possible values of the variable correspond to different distributions.
3.
Computers . a variable that must be given a specific value during the execution of a program or of a procedure within a program.
4.
Usually, parameters. limits or boundaries; guidelines: the basic parameters of our foreign policy.
5.
characteristic or factor; aspect; element: a useful parameter for judging long-term success.

So if parameter means guidelines when using the context of religion and flamewars then yes the thread I brought up has had disagreements on the guidelines of Islam..I don't even know if you read that thread I posted.

You've taken one word out of the definition. I've never seen anyone argue about the rules or limits, boundaries, guidelines of a religion. I am not referring to whether those guidelines in themselves are correct, I am referring to whether they exist and what they are.

It might of been a tad easier if you could of explained that when you mentioned flamewars. :S Although the thread that I posted still has diagreements (Plus some misunderstandings) on what those guidelines of that religion are and whether certain ones exist.

Of course since there are many versions of Islam, there are many versions of the guidelines. The only topic of debate I have seen even close to the debate of religious parameters is which version of Islam is best, which is entirely speculative. I'm sorry you seem to have had so much trouble understanding me lately :(

Edit: Sorry to Iron Jones about derailing the thread :xD: the second one this week! Pa'li we're on a roll here.

Me too, I really don't like misunderstanding people, especially people here..Don't worry though I never set out to disprove what you're saying, I'm just trying to grasp what you are meaning and how I can reply to it. ;) *hugs*

As for the thread I posted, we had huge disagreements on certain guidelines of Islam such as women's rights and responsibilities..It got to the point where I just left the thread hanging.

Do remember that if you feel a thread is derailing or contains offensive posts, you can always use the report button, or contact me or any other staff member directly. ;)

No problem, let's hope that nothing like that has to happen, including in this thread. :)

Will do.

I don't recall this thread being made for debates about islamic beliefs.

A few offtopic posts now and then can hardly be of harm - as long as it's not too much and the thread in general stays ontopic. ;)

Nevertheless, I do agree and suggest we return to the topic at hand.

No it wasn't but I replied to something that Moco had said about relgious discussion and flamewars. I had no intention to derail your thread, although I do recall that you said that any faith could be discussed here. ;)

EDIT: Oh right my bad.

I think he said that any other faith should be made other threads about, in this section. ;)

I said I want people to make threads about their faith.
But I digress..

HOW ABOUT THAT CHRISTIANITY, EH GUIZE!?

Yes, that reminds me - you mention you actively practice it, iron_jones - out of curiosity, how do you practice it? After all, there are many, many kinds of Christian beliefs. ;)

Really, I thought that there were different variations on some beliefs thought the fundamental Christian beliefs are almost the same.

Quite possible, but practices still vary between both individuals and groups. ;)

I suppose I'm a member of the Christian *tradition*, as I do observe a Christian holiday every now and then. ;) My farther was Episcopalian, my mother Lutheran, and when they married they decided that the result should be... Presbyterian. *shrug* Don't ask me! :S Consequently, my religious upbringing was fundamentally schizophrenic and not particularly strict. I was baptized Presbyterian, though.

Then, 25 years later, I married a Mormon, and the result was... I have no idea. For lack of any single term, I'll call myself a spiritually-inclined agnostic with a thin Christian facade. :)

When you say satanist, what do you mean? Like when I hear satanism, I think people who accept the opposite of christian beliefs as morally correct, ie takiing things like lust, greed, selfishness, etc to be acceptable. I don't think that's you though, so what do you mean by satanism?

Well my beliefs basically are the beliefs that are listed on the Alliance wiki page

Christian and Missionary Alliance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

in a nutshell of course.

So yeah I know God and Jesus as my savior and through them I find forgiveness for the things that I do wrong to myself and others (and there's a lot :P )
I try to attend church if work doesn't get in the way and I read the Bible often. I often have have times of prayer, usually every night.
I usually try to avoid any kind of religious debates. They go in circles.
I never try to convert anyone and I try my best to accept everyone for who and what they are.

I'm not sure if many people know this but in Christianity, the word teaches you that as a Christian you are to pass no judgement on anyone and accept everyone exactly who they are and always show compassion. Obviously this isn't something practiced everywhere in Christianity as I think we can all agree that we have the reputation of being very judgemental so I try my best to not fall under that stereotype, especially since I, myself, am a very very cynical person. :P

The original cultural context of "pass no judgement" in the bible was only in reference to other Jews. Just a fun fact, I'm not referring to the present day values of Christianity in any way :P I find it fascinating how morals evolve over thousands of years as humanity moves forward ;)

When it says "Jews" in the bible, it's not referring to what modern day Jews are. I don't know exactly what it is referring to, but it's different then what a Jew is today.

Possibly the actual Jewish ethnicy? Which, when you work backwards through the geanology is either extinct or covers the whole world... :P

I'm not sure I ever read "Pass no judgement, but only for jews"

But however:


Matthew 7:1 - Judge not, that you be not judged

Luke 6:37 - Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven

Matthew 5:44 - But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you


We are not to judge anyone and show compassion to all.

But maybe it does say that somewhere.

In context, it makes more sense. In Jesus times (new testament), that moral is a little more loosely applied (occasionally to non jews).

Ha, they should change the name of the New Testament to "Jesus Times" :P

But after Christ's arrival and death, a lot of the older teaching from the old testament became obsolete.
The Old Testament is ****ed.

OK, here goes. I was raised a Missouri Synod Lutheren, going to Church School through the sixth grade.
When I was 8, and was told lights out, I would sit up in the bed with the covers over me, reading the Bible with a flashlight.
I'm going to make a long story much shorter here, while in the Army, I was listen as "Protestant" and went to the protestant services, even though I had some serious problems with some of the Protestant beliefs.
After getting out of the Army, I became a Seventh Day Adventist, and eventually attended SDA College studying Theology.
The Adventist Church threw me out, when my BIZARRE genetics were discovered. I have been thrown out of more churches than you folks have walked into.
God is still my "Commanding Officer", and I believe that heaven is very real. Since I was seven or eight, I viewed Heaven as being different for EACH of us,
(Yeshua said, "In mt Father's are MANY Mansions, if it were not so, IO would have told you", and so I believe that I will have the dreams that I saw from eight years of age on, that I would have an airstrip, and a house, with a Ford Tri-Motor, YES my recurring dream is THAT specific), to fly ovet the rain forest in.
I never saw any Ikran though.
Niri Te

Man, you're walking in to some ****ed up churches then :P
A church that truly follows the teachings of the word of God would never throw someone out, they would love them and accept them.
Luckily enough I found one of those churches, though I've never been outspoken on my true views on how I see Christianity and religion as a whole. I'm sure some people there would be a little off put by me if I was.

Welcome to ToS, Taylor, nice to meet another believer.

I noticed your Avatar that is an animation of someone playing an electric Guitar. Do you play in a church Praise an Worship Team?
Tee and I play old "Backwoods" Country Gospel music in several Churches in the area. She plays Mandolin, and sings Alto, and I play 6 and 12 string, as well as Dobro Guitars, keyboards, Viola, Harmonica, and sing Soprano.
Niri Te

I play the drums and mandolin in our worship team.

I also am a classical/opera singer, but I don't do too much singing in the church.

Ideally, morals shouldn't become "obsolete" :P

Without getting into a heated debate over it's merits, there are a lot of the mainstream Christian Churches that believe in "Replacement Theology", where most of the Old Testament was made null and void after the Cross.
Before anyone starts, I am NOT going to get into a Debate here on the Public threads, I was just stating the beliefs of many Christian Churches, NOT commenting on those beliefs.

Not morals. Rules.

Such as the one from the old testament that forbids wearing clothes made of mixed fibres? :P

Yeah, exactly.

I guess for me it’s “many paths that lead to the same mountain top”.
I don’t know who I am anymore. Born in a Communist country, got into Buddhism in the uni; when the Berlin wall went down, & everything went “Crash!!!”, then people started going to Orthodox churches – whereas I moved over to Islamic Middle East, then to historically Catholic Spain... where I got myself into Amma's , again - the oriental concept of karma (basically, the law of cause & effect, "what goes round comes round"), life - death - life, & "spirit is all that matters". I stick to Amma cos she welcomes everybody, & doesn’t impose her (traditionally Hindu) views upon anybody. This is why you will see Buddhist, Catholic, Protestan, Orthodox monks, nuns & priests there, Jews & Moslems hugging each other, & also there will be lots of atheists, punks, business people, hippies, mommies with babies, old people, young people… Everybody feels welcome cos nobody is twisting nobody’s arm.

So “many paths that lead to the same mountain top” clicks just fine with my philosophy.

But since it's a Christian thread, I felt like sharing with this testimony of one of my prisoner pen-pals (a charity job I am doing - correspondence).

It was his second 4-year-term in the Middle East. The guy used to be very skeptical about religions and “all that stuff”.

I only omitted the names & did some minor spelling corrections, the rest is uncut:

*******

One fine day a man gave me a bible a small tiny book I thought what is this and i tossed it among my many collection of books.
A short time later another man gave me another bible it was a bit bigger that the 1st but again i tossed it.
Then this old man came to me and said " you are a Godless man son” and gave another Bible this man had spent 38 years in prison YES. Anyway this was even bigger than all the others I think "is someone trying to tell me something".
Anyway a very short time later a terrible thing happened. I hear men screaming for their lives. Getting beaten 38 in hospital one dead. I say they come for us next and they did.
I opened the Bible at pure random and my eyes see a passage " a 1000 men will fall to your right and a 100 to you left but you will walk protected by the Lord ". Anyway sure enough the door opens and they gas us with a nasty chemical strip naked and go outside to face an army of heavily armed men. Battons, Guns, riot gear and a lot of testosterone.
I say protect ya head forget the body to anyone around. So we must walk past these animals and yes animals they were. I walk arms down oblivious of my surroundings i can hear men getting beaten around me Badly but I for some reason seem to be invisible and I tell the truth. Then put in a yard under the desert sun for an hour only to face the bastards again. And yes again I am invisible I see men on the floor broken but me like i dont exist.
It was then that I truly believed in the FORCE it exists and no-one will tell me otherwise

Yeah, I get the idea. The vast majority of my family is very Christian, and has made sure I understand this clearly ;)

Okay. Take it or leave it, whatever, but I'd like to ask, why?

Here are some personal questions I will propose that fit the theme of this thread. Feel free to answer them for your own faith.

1. What is your personal background?
2. Why did you pick/confirm/practice the faith the faith that you hold?
3. Who are the role models that inspire you in your faith?
4. What are the challenges you face in your faith?

To answer them myself:

What is my personal background?

Roman Catholic here since birth and confirmed since the age of eleven but I'd venture to say that my personal perspective of the faith is much different than most others. The two sides of my family come from the different sides of the globe--both Catholic for many generations. Its interesting to see this play out. Our winter holiday celebratory meal includes both Oplatki (unleavened bread) and Chinese moon cakes. Despite what others may say, from what I have personally seen, Catholic celebratory practices vary quite a lot incorporating elements of local tradition but all adhering to same the dogma of the teaching of the Church. I am also involved in my local community working for my parish and local food bank (though not so much these days due to college).

Why did I choose to be confirmed and still remain a practicing Catholic?

I chose to remain Catholic because I believe that the teachings of the Church are in line with the teachings of Jesus Christ. I was raised upon not only the teachings of scriptures but of the apostolic tradition of the early church leaders, founders, and followers who lived together as a single community. Not to affend anyone here, but whenever I exam and study the teachings of other Christian faiths, especially those whose only basis is scripture, they seem so different--even alien--to me, a far cry from the spirit, teachings, and belief system of the early Christian community.

My local parish priest always says that faith is an act of will, not a state of fleeting emotion which is like a seed landing on a rock covered by sand; it withers and dies quickly. So I too say, I choose to be Catholic because I desire in full conscience to stand for these truths: that God created mankind in his own image and actively seeks to maintain a close relationship with us, sending his only begtton son to live among us, that humans at all stages of their lives should be treated with respect and dignity regardless of their present functional capacity, that the source and process that creates human life should be held in reverance rather than seen as an annoying inconvience, and that humans can reason, realize, and resolve what is morally good and just and then in both free will and clear conscience choose between what is right and wrong.

Who are the role models that inspire me in me faith?

Besides the obvious choice of Jesus himself, one of the figures that comes to mind was a person who lived and was raised in the very same area as me and who was later martyred for her actions, beliefs, and personal conscience.

http://www.blogcdn.com/blog.moviefon...terdorothy.jpg
The death of the forest is the end of our life.

She was born in Dayton Ohio, a nun with the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur order, who was inspired by her faith and its social teaching to become an active enrivonmentalist. Working with the the Pastoral Land Commission, an organization of the Catholic Church that fights for the rights of rural workers and peasants, and defends land reforms in Brazil. She traveled to the edge of the Amazonian rainforest to protest and draw attention to illegal logging activities that threatened the livelihoods of small scale farmers who lived off and were forced off the land. She worked with local leaders to help organize and protest the actions of logging companies.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ksT48LfkLV...othy+stang.jpg
I don't want to flee, nor do I want to abandon the battle of these farmers who live without any protection in the forest. They have the sacrosanct right to aspire to a better life on land where they can live and work with dignity while respecting the environment.

She pushed hard for a "sustainable agriculture" program known as PDS, under which peasant farmers would be given a 250-acre plot of land on the condition they farm only 20% of it, or 50 acres. The other 200 acres would remain uncut. This enabled peasants to own, often for the first time, enough workable land to earn a living. At the same time, it stopped the large-scale ranchers and loggers who bought or simply appropriated thousands of acres of rainforest and clear-cut the whole thing thereby helping to preserve the rain-forest.

Her activities angered many officials whose saw her as a risk to their profits. She continued her activities even though she knew she might be killed. On Feb. 12, 2005, Stang was murdered at the age of 73, shot six times at point-blank range. The case gained nation-wide recognition in Brazil and Sister Dorothy Stang was posthumously awarded the 2008 United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights and was formally recognized by the Vatican as a modern day martyr.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Then there is Oscar Romero, the archbishop of El Salvador during El Salvador's brutal civil war.

http://soaw.org/img/romero1.jpg
If God accepts the sacrifice of my life, may my death be for the freedom of my people. A bishop will die, but the Church of God, which is the people, will never perish.

I do not believe in death without resurrection. If they kill me I will rise again in the people of El Salvador.

El salvador at the time was the under the strict and brutal rule of a small elite class. Government forces would regular crack down on protests and assassinate, kidnap, and torture opposition leaders. Born into the ruling social class himself, Oscar Romero was at first reluctant to speak out but after seeing for himself personally what happened in streets everyday at the capitol, he took up and championed the cause of peasants, people, and populace. He called for international intervention to protect those being killed by government forces and for other countries like the United States to stop selling arms and weapons to El Salvador's government which were being used to kill its people. He would regularly make broadcasts over the radio encouraging people to stand up to the government but not join the guerillas' armed resistance. He instead called upon and organized citizens to peacefully protest in the streets






Romero (11/11) - YouTube

His last words as he lay dying were:

"May God have mercy on the assassins."

The state government warned him against continueing his actions many times. Romero was assassinated by a gunman hired by the government on March 24, 1980.

--------------------------------------------------------------

There are many other such as Pope John Paul II, Dorothy Day, etc but all these individuals remind me that my faith challenges us to question, examine, and oppose the status quo in society if called for.

What are the challenges I face in my faith?

The greatest challnege that I face is that there are many people who have strong misconceptions about what the Catholic faith teaches, why do we do certain things, and what stances we take on issues. If I had reason to believe any of these were true, I probably would not call myself Catholic. Often times people I hear people say that "you worship Mary" but we do not worship her. We instead hold Mary in reverence along with the other saints. We follow these people as role models.

Other times I here people say that "you support wealthy capitalists." But I know that the average Catholic is an impoverished person. The greatest numbers of followers of Catholicism are centered in generally poor parts of the global such as South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. If anything the Church preaches social justice and calls upon those with wealth to share with those in need. In fact, I remember just recently that with the elections in my home state, the Catholic Telegraph was printing advertisements calling on all believers to support the rights of workers to unionize. The Church may be socially conservative in many aspects but often times, people overlook the fact that we support many economically liberal policies directly because of our consciences. Most elections for us come down to "picking between the lesser of two evils."

There are many more claims out there but perhaps we the greatest thing we're struggling with now is the recent HHS Mandate demanding that Catholic hospitals and institutions that provide major public services dispense contraceptives (some of which are abortifacients) and offer sterilization under the so called "Affordable Care Act". We have been given thirteen months to comply. We are in essence being forced to choose between our conscience and our social work which stems from our own consciences. Regardless of what you may think of the issue of contraceptives, in my opinion it is still wrong to force anyone to go against what they truly and consciously believe is right or wrong. :(

-----------------------------------------------------------

This is to simply state my faith and that is all.

My personal background.
I was born to, and raised in a Missouri Synod Lutheran Family, and educated for the first twelve years of my life in Lutheran Church Schools. From the time that I was eight, I would spend a lot of time reading the Bible, and had a problem with the dichotomy of what the Bible said, and what the Lutheran Church taught, that being the observance of the Fourth Commandment concerning the Sabbath. I could see no example of Yeshua, (the Hebrew name of Jesus), ever even HINTING at changing the Sabbath from the seventh day of the week, to the first day of the week. When I respectfully brought up this question to my parents at the age of nine, I was beaten horribly. From then on I kept my thoughts to myself.
At twenty seven years of age, I found out about the Seventh Day Adventist Church, and joined, eventually becoming a lay Pastor, in Samoa where they did not hold to the American belief that Women could not preach.
This was a lot better than what I was forced to practice as a child, but there were still two main problems, and those were the Biblical Feast and Fast days that were never to end,as they will be practiced on the "New Earth", and my adherence to a Kosher Diet.
Fifteen years ago, I learned of "Messianic Judaism", which I have steadfastly practiced ever since.
Why I picked the Church that i did
Because it upholds the basic tenets of the Bible as I understand them.
Those that I look up to
Yeshua, Abraham, Issac, Jakob's son Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, King David, The Disciple Peter, the Apostle Stephan, The Apostle Paul.
The difficulties that I face because of my faith
There are no Messianic Jewish assemblies within 150 miles of where we live, main stream Christians tell us that we are hopeless "Legalists", and therefore undeserving of Yeshua's grace, and Jews call us HERETICS at best. I just know what Tee and I read, and the two of us place our full faith, hope and confidence in HIS promise to redeem those who love and follow HIM.