Silverfire was most certainly in his right to use "pagan" as an umbrella term, firstly since he told everyone that he was using it in that way. Secondly, since a whooole lot of people all over the world loosely credit various forms of faith revolving around the same principal ideas as "pagan" (I specifically mean when talking about forms of faith reminiscent of the form Muz posted).
In academic quarters it should have been "neo-pagan", but by glancing at the replies I guess he's off the hook there.
There is no need to steer this thread down into the realm of fire(pun intended).
I pity the FOO who will pat people without washing his hands properly!
Originally Posted by UrbanMonk You have no clue how much I know.
Like I said ealier, I've heard just about everything.
However I've never heard anyone use pagan incorrectly until now.
I've said all there is to say at this point anyhow.
I love you all!
EDIT: don't hate me Brandon..still friends right?
Absolutely, Urban. We're all having a very mature and frankly, fun discussion here. I'm in no position to hold anything you say in here, against you. You've never given me a reason to be upset with you.
I say we continue the discussion. We've gotten this far without a flame war or fighting and on this site, that's pretty impressive.
PS: Yeah, neo-pagan would've probably been a better term. I just haven't done too much research in how the prefix effects the word and was a little nervous to attach it without knowing exactly what it meant or how it could've been perceived. The first thing I think of when I hear neo-[faith here] is the neo-nazi's and ignorant as it may seem on my part, that scared me away from using it because I don't know how many other people might misunderstand me as I did when I first heard it.
You don't have to explain why you didn't, and as I said, it's only viable for opposition in academic quarters, we're on the internet in a standard discussion. Better to use words/pre-/suffixes that you're sure of than those you aren't.
I too, by the by, fit into the umbrella(strange sentence when put out of context!). Though with a slightly more "religious" view/feel/[insert whatever] touch, quite hard to explain, but I don't feel contradictory being passionate about "The God of Abraham" and the "Goddess" at the same time. For me they are both shards, visions in the mist, of the same origin.
Originally Posted by Yami Johnny Look - "God doesn't give you any free choice. You either serve or you don't."
What didn't you understand ?
God doesn't give you a free choice, serving or not is a choice you are giving to yourself. Unless you sagree that saying "you either serve me or go to hell and burn forever" sounds like someone's giving you a free choice ?
Originally Posted by Yami Johnny Look - "God doesn't give you any free choice. You either serve or you don't."
What didn't you understand ?
God doesn't give you a free choice, serving or not is a choice you are giving to yourself.
Unless you agree that saying "you either serve me or go to hell and burn forever" sounds like someone's giving you a free choice ?
Originally Posted by UrbanMonk Yes Horrendous whatever you say.
*pats head*
What's wrong with what he said ? That's this sort of attitude that destroys serious discussions, you just read his post and then tried to make it look so dumb that it's not even worth replying, when we all know the reason is you simply don't have any arguments against what he said.
Also, until now you weren't able to reply a single one of my questions.
EDIT: I didn't see this post.
Originally Posted by UrbanMonk
"Allah" means "god," but it is certainly not the same god. Please refer back to my first post.
The crusades were not done by true Christians.
That's like those crazy people that kill someone and say that god told them to.
It's not ? Islam and christianity are both called abrahamic religions for a reason, they have the same origins. The abraham episode is in both the bible and quran and told exactly the same way.
Also, why do you say the crusaders weren't real christians ?
It seems to me that, had they won the war, you'd probably call that a miracle, but since they failed it's all very convenient that you brand them as "crazy people".
Originally Posted by Yami Johnny Look - "God doesn't give you any free choice. You either serve or you don't."
What didn't you understand ?
God doesn't give you a free choice, serving or not is a choice you are giving to yourself.
Unless you agree that saying "you either serve me or go to hell and burn forever" sounds like someone's giving you a free choice ?
I think this is just a misunderstanding, your wording kind of made it easy to take out of context. I think you meant to say something along the lines of "God doesn't give you any free choice. According to him, you either serve or you don't."
I got a laugh out of it, though.
/-=?=-/-=?=-/-=?=-/-=?=-/-=?=-/-=?=-/-=?=-/-=?=-/-=?=-/-=?=-/-=?=-/-=?=-/-=?=-/-=?=-/-=?=-/-=?=-/-=?=-/-=?=-/-=?=-/-=?=-/-=?=-/-=?=-/
That Really Hot Chick
now on the Xbox Live Marketplace!
If it doesn't make sense to you, I'll rephrapse.
If you're being robbed and the robber tells you "If you scream, I kill you" is he giving you a free choice ?
If god tells you "you either honor me or I'll send you to hell" is he giving you a free choice ?
If this still doesn't make sense for you then it's not a matter of me not making sense, but of you not wanting to understand.
"Islam and Christianity are called Abrahamic because Arab's and Jew's are both decedents of Abraham, not because their religions have the same origin.
It's very obvious if you read the Qu'ran that it isn't talking about the God of the Bible. "
What ? No offense, but you don't seem to have a clue on what you are talking about or you simply can't accept the truth.
Both religions came from judaism, christ himself was seen as a jew in the bible. Christianity began a sect of Judaism. The abrahamic religions are called this way because they all started with abraham and his supposed message from god, not because "arabs and jews are his descendents".
Islam, judaism and christianity are different branches from the same religion either you want to believe or not.
Judaism started it all, Islam preached Mohammed's teachings and Christianity preached christ and his disciples's teachings and that's how these branches divided into the religions we still know today.
Abraham, Jacob, Moses, all these characters are present throughout all three sacred books, and all of them, supposedly contact with the same god.
"Christian means "Christ-like" although the definition has changed over the years.
Would you assume that the crusaders were "Chirst-like?" "
Why wouldn't they be christ-like ? From what I know, they aren't any different than most christians of today.
"But yes, it's very convenient that people who do wrong like to pin the blame on God. "
What point you are trying to make ? If that's about the crusades you're talking about, they were done in the name of god BEFORE they knew they were going to lose. I thought this was obvious.
Ok, I get what you're saying.
You still have a choice in that circumstance though. You could still scream, or not, or try to run, or whatever.
You feel like discouraging certain actions == no choice.
I don't feel that way though.
You make whatever choices you want everyday, and I believe that God allows us to.
Not everyone seems to be much afraid of the consequence for their actions these days though.
I know what I'm talking about, geez.
Go look back at my first post on this thread...I mentioned it in the first post because I knew someone would bring it up.
I've heard all this before.
Muslims have some of the stories from the Bible, but they have some slight differences.
In the story of Abraham, Ishmael was the chosen son and not Issac. (contradiction)
UPDATE: I'm not one to use wikipedia, but I can varify that this information is correct:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael
"Ishmael is a biblical person first mentioned in the Book of Genesis and later referenced in the Qur'an."
Judas died on the Cross and not Jesus. (Contradicts many historical documents, not just the Bible)
and some other silly ones...not to mention deception and murder are some of the key components of Islam.
Christ taught forgiveness and truth. (Don't bring up God's destruction of the evil cities again, they could've had forgiveness if they wanted it, this has already been established earlier in the thread. )
When someone says "free choice" it usually means feeling free to chose something. In this case, god strongly discourages not honoring him so he's not giving you a free choice.
I know what you mean, but I strongly disagree. I make my own choices simply because I can, not because "god allows me to".
As for god/allah not being the same... they are, the difference is they are both described differently in both books, the same can be said for some of those passages. If some of what's in the quran can be proven as false, the same can be said for a lot of what's in the bible put people still manage to find subliminal messages or meanings of all sorts.
Not being muslim and understanding their culture and principles, it's probably hard for you to read the quran and say you understand islam perfectly. From what I understood from some of my muslim friends, the islam is the exact opposite of what you said. They advocate truth, peace and forgiveness, not the opposite.
The difference is how the quran is interpreted. You have all sort of islamic sects, some will tell you that dieing for the islam will grant you heaven while some will tell that you'll go straight to hell for doing such a crime in the name of allah for example. Christianity is no different in any aspect from islamism. Islamism is no more correct or wrong than christianity.
Also you keep avoiding my questions, you still haven't answered me why crusaders are not christ-like (not to mention the hundred other questions I asked you but got no reply).
Originally Posted by Johnny Look If that's the case then very few to none christians are actually "christ-like".
Yeah, I know, I wish they'd stop calling themselves Christians when they aren't.
So if it was that easy for you to see, then you should be able to tell when a real one comes along.
Originally Posted by Johnny Look From what I understood from some of my muslim friends, the islam is the exact opposite of what you said. They advocate truth, peace and forgiveness, not the opposite.
Of course they'd tell you that! Their Qu'ran teaches them to lie if it furthers Islam.