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Interesting
I've given up on putting much value on stats quoted by people during interviews and such. In my opinion a very large percentage of people are only educatable to a degree, not because they are stupid, but most people, in my experience, are not concerned about the difficult questions and their probable answers at all. These they leave in the hands of the specialists. Their main concern is about having a good time within the limits of their worldview. Such people can be believers or not. I think for many their belief or unbelief is a comfort zone thing. If you have to think about something long and hard, they're simply not interested. It is so much easier to accept some authority figures' claims than it is to work it out for yourself.
The interactions between Christianity and Islam is an interesting phenomena. On the surface it seems as if the only real difference between the two is the claim to divinity of Jesus, but most Christians I know will not believe any other name but "God" can point to the exact same set of concepts. So if you insists on calling God, Allah (or any other name) they will reject it as false teaching. The opposite is true of Islam. Islam accepts Jesus as a prophet and is knowingly built on the older Judaic religions more so than on the other "local" religions at the time of Mohammeds' life. This gives Islam a distinct advantage in the race for supremacy. They include were Christianity excludes. If Islam at large was more tollerant of modernization, including racial and sexual equility and less violant in its means of expression, it would be a runaway victory for them in no time (once again, my opinion). These negative traits in current Islamic facevalue to non-Islam is probably what works hardest against its' spread.
posted by
AardigeAfrikaner
on September 16, 2008 at 3:28 AM
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Hey,
I could follow this!
posted by
KaBooM62
on September 16, 2008 at 12:18 AM
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So you have people who believe there is a God, and people who believe there
isn't a God. Basically, we all believe--something!
As you rightly point out, it would help a lot if those discussing it would start by defining terms. Maybe starting with 'God.'
I wrote something on the topic in my Universe blog some time back (Jan 4 this year, actually, on this page: http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/CLRedding/s30 ) that you might find interesting.
posted by
Ciel
on September 13, 2008 at 10:57 PM
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