Jesus Camp Trailer

[Gandelf]

Well seeing as he arrogantly put us down suggesting that it's something we can't grasp then yes, he does have to explain himself and reason with us.

With all due respect Xest, when I wrote that, I was cringing inside, because I fully understood what it was I was saying. Yes, it is very arrogant for me to suggest that unless you do become "born-again" that it's difficult, maybe even impossible, for a non-believer to fully understand the wonder of that experience. So I apologise for that.

However, if there is a born-again experience that anyone can have and it's something so wonderful and inexplicable, then you have to allow me to say to you that that's the way it is. After all, that's freedom of speech. It may seem arrogant, but unless I can say it openly on a forum like this, then how else can say it? If I was prevented from saying such things, wouldn't that be censorship?

As I said earlier, I will take the time to share my faith with you, how I became a Christian, what it means and how anyone can do the same. I won't be using scientific language or anything like that to explain those things, so if that's what you're expecting, stop reading this thread from this post onwards.

I just want to share my faith, that's all. Is that so bad?

[<ankh>]

I just want to share my faith, that's all. Is that so bad?

Not at all, your doing the right thing - however, your still avoiding the question i've asked you 4 times now. Do you concider the other billions of religious people to be wrong because they arent reborn? Cos you kind of said earlier that only the reborn ones are true christians and fully understand it all. And my follow up question to that is: If so, how do you explain that they say the exact thing like you did only about your path and every other path. There are branches of all religions claiming they are THE only true path - so what makes you think you found the only true one? Cos I can assure you that the are just as 100% sure as you are - hell, some of them are ready to die for their beliefs too. Are you ready to die for your belief?

/Ankh

[Sharkith]

First of all apologies Ankh my comments were aimed at this debate in general and I meant nothing personal to anyone. I disagree with these kinds of discussions because they are paradoxical. The person of faith is required to rationally justify themselves to the rationalist and the rationalist cannot get that faith is not rational. So all these sorts of dicsussions lead to is paradoxes of observation when two modes of looking at the world cross each other. What is there to be gained by that?

Since I posted the debate has once become centered on reason and rationality and this simply takes you further from even beginning to understand or even coming close to grasping what it is to go through the experience of faith. Unless you have really spoken with people who are deeply faithful you will always struggle to see what it means. This is not because of some insufficiency of reason on your part it is simply because you haven't experienced it.

Some of the most beautiful people in the world have the kind of faith that bring such a feeling of humility that when you look in their eyes all you can see is happiness. I know quite a few people like this muslims, christians, buddists and hindus. They might not all follow each others pretexts but none of them would ever condemn the other because none of the people I know who are deeply faithful would ever feel they were able to pass judgement on anyone else.

So please be very careful when you go ahead and stereotype this group of people and place them with the whores that tout faith in the interests of national security. All of that is kind of missing the point.

Alternatively we could turn the mode back on the beam of rationality and ask - is scientific rationality free from blame in the worlds conflicts and problems?

I doubt it is.

[<ankh>]

First of all apologies Ankh my comments were aimed at this debate in general and I meant nothing personal to anyone. .

No need to apologise mate, if it wasnt aimed at me there was no offence taken anyway

/Ankh

[Cyfr]

To try and go back on topic a bit..
When Ankh showed me that trailer i was shocked. To see children act the way they did and say what they did was terrible to see.
When i showed the movie to my father, he had a totally diffrent view and opinion than me. And that was the same as gandy's.

Thing is we look at it from a non-believers point of view. So ofcourse we're gona see the next generation of bombers there. But to a true believer seeing something like that is a good thing cos then they know that their religion isnt gona die. They know what those kids mean. We dont.

I used to be a true believer, things happened that changed my view on that. But i can still remember the peace that was over me when i did believe in god.

My respect to Gandy.

How come you changed your mind on not posting here again?

[<ankh>]

How come you changed your mind on not posting here again?

Does it matter? Thorn in your eye?

/Ankh

[Lieva]

How come you changed your mind on not posting here again?

cyfr

remember our msn conversation?

enough...

[Xest]

Maybe he just misses her?

However, if there is a born-again experience that anyone can have and it's something so wonderful and inexplicable, then you have to allow me to say to you that that's the way it is. After all, that's freedom of speech. It may seem arrogant, but unless I can say it openly on a forum like this, then how else can say it? If I was prevented from saying such things, wouldn't that be censorship?

There's a certain responsibility to freedom of speech, else we'd just have people saying things like "You're an idiotic peice of shit, shut up and go away", of course that's an extreme example, but you get the idea - there does come responsibility with freedom of speech. In real life if someone abuses their freedom of speech there is some come back, that is if someone makes a racist comment to someone they're likely to get their head kicked in or lose their job or whatever, on forums that kind of come back doesn't exist so has to be enforced either by censorship or much more ideally by users being somewhat more responsible in what they say. You wouldn't expect the censorship argument to be valid if someone were to make the above example comment to someone surely? If not at which point do you think censorship is and isn't ok? are you suggesting that censorship of things you don't like is ok, but things other people don't like isn't?

[Cyfr]

Does it matter? Thorn in your eye?

/Ankh

I gave up work at the rose bush factory long ago, why do you ask?

[Lairiodd]

.... so has to be enforced either by censorship or much more ideally by users being somewhat more responsible in what they say.

... or by people letting me re-install the market based rep system .

More to the point, nobody is stopping Gandalf from saying these things. However, it is not censorship for others to say that they don't agree or that his arguements are invalid due to structural reasons. Part of freedom of speech is the freedom to not have to agree with others.