by Insanity test on Sat Sep 16, 2006 3:40 am
Woah, I just have to say, It's alot easier to convince people of your point of view if you don't patronise or act in a sepratist or superior manner.
I myself am a christian, yet find myself becoming irritated when I hear people from any belief, trying to 'save' me.
To be saved in this context implies that those who don't exactly agree with you are somehow going to suffer the consequences. This could by extension be interpreted as a threat, even if those who issue it are filled with the best of intentions.
If you want someone to truely in their very heart believe something, you must convince them. If you fill them with fear about how they are currently living, you are not in fact doing this, you are instead causing them to doubt their future. A frightened person will often search for the nearest refuge to allay their fears, but this does not nessessarily mean they actually believe in what they are now doing. Instead, it's a comforter. Something to help them feel safer. But the fear was only implanted by those very people who now offer to take it away again.
This to me seems predatory and does not, in fact encourage true belief, but a psychological safety net.
I believe in god because I have devoted much thought to the matter and somehow feel it to be right. Those who join a faith because they are frightened into it, or pressured into it, or - as in the case of the old crusades but not nessessarily here - forced into it, never gain the full benefits of the faith because in some way or other, their freedom to choose has been robbed of them.
Give people a chance. I personnally can't believe that a beneveloent god can create so much life and only protect and save a small proportion of it.
All life is precious, not just that which interprets it's faith in a certain way.
--/:Out of cheese Error:/--
Please shutdown Universe and reboot from Start.