to have a religious faith…of any sort…?

I don’t think so.

Important in that it affects your outlook on life and your conduct therein in a positive manner…

Crusaders didn’t exactly have what we would consider a positive attitude…or any other killer fanatics…

People that kill in the name of religion and/or follow a religion that commands the killing of people are sadly mislead individuals… Certainly their religion is important enough to them to kill… my religion on the other hand is important enough to me to die for…

RB, I think you labor under common misunderstandings of the Crusades. While there were certainly some bloodthirsty knights and nobles, the majority of the Crusaders and the overall motives of the Crusades were much more defensive in nature. They certainly weren’t about forced conversion. That’s something commonly assumed (and misunderstood) when people malign the Crusades or liken it to radical Islamic terrorism.

absoluteliquid wrote:>Important in that it affects your outlook on life and your conduct therein in a positive manner…

Yes, but if humanity had never come upon relegion, would todays world have turned out better or worse?

In my view FiNix, humanity did not come upon religion, rather visa versa. If God had not made Himself known to us I know we would be in much worse shape than we are now…

ratboy wrote:
>to have a religious faith…of any sort…?

To me it is. To others it may not be. It’s a personal decision.

absoluteliquid wrote:
>In my view FiNix, humanity did not come upon religion, rather visa versa. If God had not made Himself known to us I know we would be in much worse shape than we are now…

I would tend to agree with this. (Except, being the pedantic smartass I am, I’d say, “If God had not made Themselves known to us…” ;-) ) I don’t think there’s too much evidence out there of people waking up one day and saying, “Hmm, I think I’ll invent a religion today…” L Ron Hubbard excepted. Rather, religion springs from an attempt to explain supernatural phenomena. Because such phenomena are supernatural as opposed to natural, they cannot be explained by a scientific process that demands that a phenomenon is repeatable in controlled conditions. We can’t really fault man for attempting to explain the supernatural, as it’s the same sense of inquiry that prompts the sciences (albeit applied differently).

absoluteliquid wrote:>In my view FiNix, humanity did not come upon religion, rather visa versa. If God had not made Himself known to us I know we would be in much worse shape than we are now…

Why wouldn’t we be just as well off without knowlage of the feller up-stairs. Could you please elaborate?

FiNiX wrote:
>Why wouldn’t we be just as well off without knowlage of the feller up-stairs. Could you please elaborate?

We might be, if there are not divine entities which desire to harm us. But because this is a concept believed not only in Christianity, but several religions from Zoroastrianism onward, it’s worthy of theological consideration. Collectively, that is, for those who are moved to study theology… again, I don’t see religious faith as necessary to an individual.

I see.

But seeing as that concept is part of relegion, wouldn’t that basically make relegion necessery only because of the existance of relegion? And by that logic, relegion is unnecessery because without itself, it has no reason for existing.

Without relegion, there would be no reason for relegion.

I agree on the Crusades, Aran, there was a fear that the folks who took over the holy land would push into Europe, in fact, I believe they did (?) I do feel, though, that it was a waste of time for the Crusaders (and lives). They didn’t want to convert the people, they wanted secular control over the area. They didn’t like “infidels” being in control over there?

Yes, Koo. In fact, the fear was fairly well founded, since Spain had been conquered by Islamic expansionists (who did force conversion by the sword, or subjugation) and most of Eastern Christendom in Asia Minor had also, similarly, fallen, leaving the Byzantine Empire in desperate straits, the last buffer preventing muslim armies from invading more of Europe.

I agree, too, that, after the First Crusade (the only largely successful one), they were failures. The subsequent Crusades were trying to hold on to the European states in the Levant, but failed (often miserably) due to poor leadership, bad luck, and infighting. But they were not about forcing conversion at all. Plenty of Christian missionaries tried to persuade conversion among the muslims, but not by force.

FiNiX wrote:
>I see.

But seeing as that concept is part of relegion, wouldn’t that basically make relegion necessery only because of the existance of relegion? And by that logic, relegion is unnecessery because without itself, it has no reason for existing.

Without relegion, there would be no reason for relegion.

FiNiX…you’re mad…luff ya m8…

ratboy wrote: FiNiX…you’re mad…luff ya m8…

I luff ya’ too, RB. ^^

awww…

Say, I don’t suppose anyone might actually address that issue which I’ve brought up, eh?

Wouldn’t it be much more fun to dress little animals???

Sorry…I thought I had addressed it…It is important to have a positive set of ideologies stemming from a faith in a religion that has a strong fundamental basis in the Bible.

FiNiX wrote:>I see. But seeing as that concept is part of relegion, wouldn’t that basically make relegion necessery only because of the existance of relegion? And by that logic, relegion is unnecessery because without itself, it has no reason for existing. Without relegion, there would be no reason for relegion.

This was the issue that I was refferring to.

Religion needn’t exist as a reality for folk to embrace it and believe in it…It’s called…faith

absoluteliquid wrote:
>Wouldn’t it be much more fun to dress little animals???

“Officer…that man tried to dress my vole…”...points*

Why the Bible, AL? Why not another set of scriptures?