If I claim certain religions and philosophies are false does anyone listen? Does anyone care? No! So how does that threaten freedom of religion in the least?
What would you do if you got control of the government and could, with the stroke of a pen, abolish the constitutional rights to freedom of religion?
Would you justifying it with a statement of, "People don't need the government to guarantee religious freedom because people will follow whatever religion they want anyway".
And by the way, freedom is God given.
Really. And that's why in the Old Testament He gave such detailed instructions on who were valid candidates to be captured and used as slaves and how it was okay to sell daughters but not sons?
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. Endowed by the CREATOR with certain inalienable rights.".
Yeah, well God didn't say that, did He? That statement came from humans. Every scrap of freedom we have had to be fought for (and we're probably going to have to do some fighting again to stop those Plutocrats on Wall Street from tanking the global economy in order to make themselves even more rich than they already are).
In case you hadn't noticed, God's been very neutral on the subject of how humans choose to hierarchicalize, subjugate, and regulate each other. When it comes to government, God's shown a definite tendency towards rolling His eyes, standing back, and watching while He sighs over how we handle *that* one.
And you should know that, because you sound like an Apocryphalist... the type who thinks that God's deliberately standing back letting humans try to govern themselves until they finally destroy themselves with an Armageddon in order to shock-and-awe themselves into letting Him be in charge.
In any case, notice how the statement says "Endowed by the CREATOR"... notice how it doesn't say which theological theory about the Creator. It's doesn't say the Jewish Creator, or the Christian Creator, or the Islamic Creator, or the Bahai Creator...
In regards to your first statement, you would have to agree with the fact that truth is absolute,
Not quite, and I think that is what's confusing you.
There's actually two kinds of "truth".
There's Relative Truth, and Absolute Truth.
Relative truth is stuff like, one person says, "Red is the most beautiful colour", when another says, "Blue is the most beautiful colour".
They're both telling the truth, but it's a Relative Truth according to the subjective perceptions of the perceiver.
Absolute Truth is stuff like 1+1=2. That's just a fact that isn't going to change regardless of what a person's subjective perceptions might be.
In your posts, you systematically confuse relative truths with absolute truths.
if you want to dig deeper into that one. Absolute truth means either God exists or he doesn't, regardless of any persons' feelings or thoughts on the subject.
That is correct... now, do you have any proof which it is?
Finally, you can call buddhism all you want. Its just another deceptive face of unbelief, one of millions of paths to a grim destiny.
Really... and how is person supposed to know that.
Suppose you find a tribe of people who've never been exposed to any organized religion, and have never been taught or told any faith. You place a copy of the Bible, the Koran, the Baghavad Ghit, and the teachings of Buddha in front of him, and tell him that one of the is "the Truth".
How's he supposed to know?
I bet the only reason you think your religion is The Absolute Truth is because you were born into it and were indoctrinated into it from an early age.
From the way you write, it sounds like you are of the FLDS denomination. Are you?
If you are, then that means your organization split from the Rocky Mountain Mormons in 1890, when polygamy was suspended, because your group wanted to keep being polygamous. The Rocky Mountain Mormons also abolished Blood Atonement (the notion that it was okay to kill someone who was getting in the way of expression of your faith, because you were actually doing them a favor and sending them to heaven by taking away their ability to corrupt the hearts and minds of the "true believers").
So, if FLDS still hold on to the notion of polygamy, does that mean they also chose to hold onto the notion of Blood Atonement? If you're FLDS your Avatar indicates you do.
"Because you hold this opinion..." You trying to tell me that I'm some sort of second class citizen?!?!? Is my opinion not equal to yours?
Not at all... just understand that it's an opinion, i.e. relative truth, and that you should therefore stop talking about it like it's absolute truth.
So let me get this straight, if Christianity is right for me, I will be with Jesus in heaven one day. And if Islam is right for Mohammad, he will be with Allah in heaven one day. And if Buddism is right for Bob...
Maybe.
Don't be surprised if on the day of judgement, the criteria isn't so much which faith you followed, but how well you followed it.
That makes no sense whatsoever. The evidence of Christianity far outweighs this man-made concoction that you didn't invent, its been around.
Really... and what evidence is that?
C'mon lone_wolf! Think about it, God, who created the universe, isn't going to share the spotlight with mortal Buddha! What kind of a God would that be?
A very tolerant one.
I can't SHOW you the proof, you have to look to GOD for the proof! Seek and you'll find brother!
What if he did seek, and didn't find your idea of God to be what's there?
There is no MY truth or YOUR truth. There's just truth.
Again, there is Relative Truth, and there's Absolute Truth. All you have to do is keep it clear in your mind which applies to what.
I'm not giving money to support buddhism! Do they give back to the community? At least churches help the poor. And don't tell me that buddhist do help the poor because I know for a fact they don't do it ON THE SCALE that Christian churches do.
Yeah they do give back to the community, and yes they do help the poor, and the only reason you don't see it ON THE SCALE is because there's not many of them around here, but if you were in Asia you'd see it the other way around.
Christianity teaches tolerance. TOLERANCE. Tolerance doesn't mean VALIDITY. It's doesn't say what's right for a man is right for a man. It doesn't say that!
Yeah, and you're really tolerant about people building their kind of temple on what is probably un-arable land.
BTW: What part of Jesus' teaching ARE YOU ignoring? Salvation perhaps?!
So you're obsessed about the Salvation aspect. Ever read the sermon on the mount, and the teachings in Mathew? Those were not about salvation via saying "Jesus is the Son of God"... they were about how to be good in the eyes of Lord in the here-and-now.
