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If you were born into a different religion...

2

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  • Registered Users Posts: 676 ✭✭✭HamletOrHecuba


    Festus wrote: »
    You should try reading a real history book from time to time instead of getting your "history" from anti-Christian websites.

    The Crusades were a defence against Muslim agression and if they hadn't happened you would probably be a Muslim now. I say probably because if you wanted to be a Christian or an atheist they would kill you for apostasy.

    Sorry my understanding of the crusades hasnt come from websites. The violence against Eastern Christians were part of the Crusades and what had they got to do Muslim aggression even if your reading of thing is correct.

    Your understanding of Islam though seems to have come from websites.

    Do you support the right of the state of Israel to exist?


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,245 ✭✭✭✭Fanny Cradock


    muppeteer wrote: »
    I wouldn't call it a fallacy to say that the majority of people are a particular religion because they were raised in that religion.

    Not at all. But it becomes a genetic fallacy if you want to say more than this. For example, "If you were born into a Muslim family in Indonesia you would be Muslim. Therefore Christianity is untrue". Whether this is being implied here is questionable but it certainly occurred to me when I read this thread.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,087 ✭✭✭Festus


    Sorry my understanding of the crusades hasnt come from websites. The violence against Eastern Christians were part of the Crusades and what had they got to do Muslim aggression even if your reading of thing is correct.

    Humans are prone to sin and bad things happen and I won't deny it any more than you can deny that the Allies committed war crimes during world war ii, or the Irish Army committed attrocites during the Civil Way.
    The point is the purpose of the Crusades was defensive.
    Your understanding of Islam though seems to have come from websites.

    I'll take it that is your opinion.
    Do you support the right of the state of Israel to exist?

    In what form?

    I have nothing against Judaism however I am not a Zionist or a dispensationalist.


  • Registered Users Posts: 676 ✭✭✭HamletOrHecuba


    Festus wrote: »
    Humans are prone to sin and bad things happen and I won't deny it any more than you can deny that the Allies committed war crimes during world war ii, or the Irish Army committed attrocites during the Civil Way.
    The point is the purpose of the Crusades was defensive.

    I have nothing against Judaism however I am not a Zionist or a dispensationalist.

    Okay I will re-phrase it, do you support the state of Israel to exist outside of its 1948 borders? Do you know any Muslims, have you had serious conversations with any?

    Peter The Hermit was preaching defensiveness? Are you sure about that?


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,087 ✭✭✭Festus


    Okay I will re-phrase it, do you support the state of Israel to exist outside of its 1948 borders? Do you know any Muslims, have you had serious conversations with any?

    Regarding Israel I have said what I have said. Regarding Islam I think the evidence from the Islamic states is clear.
    Peter The Hermit was preaching defensiveness? Are you sure about that?

    Lets stick with Pope Urban II


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  • Registered Users Posts: 676 ✭✭✭HamletOrHecuba


    Festus wrote: »
    Regarding Israel I have said what I have said. Regarding Islam I think the evidence from the Islamic states is clear.

    Lets stick with Pope Urban II

    Really? Islamic states do and have varied wildly. Ive been to Saudi Arabia and to Iran and the differences between them are wider than the differences between the USA and Russia.

    Did Peter the Hermit not play a huge role in the First Crusade? Was the conquest of Jersusalem and the Holy Land in general not a goal of the Crusaders? Did the Crusades not lead to making firm the division between Eastern and Western Christendom?


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,087 ✭✭✭Festus



    Did Peter the Hermit not play a huge role in the First Crusade? Was the conquest of Jersusalem and the Holy Land in general not a goal of the Crusaders? Did the Crusades not lead to making firm the division between Eastern and Western Christendom?

    He was not the Pope.


  • Registered Users Posts: 277 ✭✭Farcheal


    How do you explain the crusades against Byzantium? and the establishment of the latin empire? I suppose the reconquest of iberia was defensive. This tripe is ridiculous.

    Also, a person growing up in a religion is conditioned to accept it above othets, as a cultural thing among other reasons. And the current religioms are nothing like "Jesus" or Yeshua's original intended personal God and no real huge overbody


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 9,639 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manach


    My understanding from the Crusades is academic, and those were in the most part in defence from outside aggression - although no side was blameless in that era.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,087 ✭✭✭Festus


    Farcheal wrote: »
    How do you explain the crusades against Byzantium?

    The Byzantine Emperor asked the Pope for help with some bothersome neighbours.
    Farcheal wrote: »
    Also, a person growing up in a religion is conditioned to accept it above othets, as a cultural thing among other reasons. And the current religioms are nothing like "Jesus" or Yeshua's original intended personal God and no real huge overbody

    We are humans not animals and we are educated not conditioned.

    and tripe is pretty good with onions but you do have to cook it slowly for a long time.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 4,255 ✭✭✭tommy2bad


    We are humans not animals and we are educated not conditioned.
    Didnt go to the Christian Brothers then?


  • Registered Users Posts: 277 ✭✭Farcheal


    Your seriously just trolling now. Mixing Catholic Pseudo history with your own opinions doesn't make it true. The Byzantines did not ask to be invaded. We are animals. Sentient animals who can apparently think for themselves.


  • Registered Users Posts: 676 ✭✭✭HamletOrHecuba


    Festus wrote: »
    The Byzantine Emperor asked the Pope for help with some bothersome neighbours.
    .

    He did indeed, the only problem was that the help was much worse than what it was supposed to stop.


  • Registered Users Posts: 445 ✭✭muppeteer


    philologos wrote: »
    Pew Forum 2009 - http://www.pewforum.org/Faith-in-Flux.aspx


    Most Christians that I have met, have had a stage in their lives when they have started to make sense of their own beliefs for themselves, irrespective of what mum and dad might think. For me, I wasn't too sure of it all. I decided to read the Bible cover to cover as a teenager and I started to see that it was true concerning the human condition and our relationship with God. It opened my eyes in fact, as there was whole swathes of content in there that I had never heard before in my life. It made me rethink what perception I had of what this life thing was about.

    The idea of children having brains that superglue ideas about God to their brains is simply demonstrably false. Even the UK chart shows that. Ultimately, people must realise what makes sense for themselves whether they like it or not, or whether their parents like it or not. That's simply life.

    Again, there are millions of people becoming Christians in the world who aren't from a Christian background. Indeed, most growth is happening in areas of the world where Christianity hasn't been heard of. Christianity in the 21st century is fundamentally different to any other century in so far as nobody can no longer say that it is mostly confined to traditionally Christian countries. There are more Christians outside of the Western world than are inside it.
    I would expect most Christian conversions today to be in non Christian countries due to simple saturation of the market in the west. The US and UK data shows this well as here people mostly change within Christianity and very little to Christianity.

    People will of course make their own determination as to what religion they want to follow. I would think the options they consider seriously though are mainly driven by what they are exposed to. Access to information about other religions may be freely available but accessing praticing members is much less so, as such there is far less exposure to the very different/minority religions. Obiously people will be mostly exposed to the religion of their parents and their community. I would guess that raising a child to believe that the doctrines of a religion are true would more likely produce a child that would not want to go against those doctrines. If it didn't then the religious wouldn't even bother with children would they. It isn't super glue, but it does stick sometimes, and from the data is seems to stick more often than not(and when not it doesn't stray too far from the Christianity nest).

    As to the OPs question I would doubt if a Christian in the UK was instead brought up a muslim they would still find the Christian message convincing and convert, simply from the rarity of this happening in real life. Maybe a Catholic converting to CofE or similar seems more cerdible.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,334 ✭✭✭RichieC


    Festus wrote: »
    How much of the Churches income goes to charity every year?

    If it is truly the church Jesus Christ founded (It isn't) then all of it.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 22,479 ✭✭✭✭philologos


    muppeteer: I guess I don't find your argument as convincing, because I know people who were raised Muslims who now are Christians here in the UK. I also know people who were brought up in secular homes who are now Christians. There's numerous examples of this happening. Especially outside of the West where Christianity is growing significantly, most of those people never would have been from a Christian background.

    This weakens your argument somewhat.


  • Registered Users Posts: 25,907 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    Religion is much more than a set of beliefs; it encompasses a whole set of practices and customs as well as a bunch of individual and communal relationships. Changing your religion is comparatively rare, because it involves much more than changing your mind. And radically or fundamentally changing your religion is rarer still. (A shift between two mainstream Christian denominations, for example, is much less disruptive and challenging than a shift from Judaism to Christianity.)

    The fact is that most people remain in the religious tradition in which they were raised. And this remains true even if we expand the notion of “religious tradition” to include non-religious positions like rationalism and skepticism. They may - and typically do - shift positions somewhat within their tradition, but they tend not to make fundamental changes.

    If you talk to people who have changed religion in a significant way - a change of denomination, say, rather than a change of position within a denomination - about their reasons for doing so - the proportion who make the change purely because they are attracted by their new faith (I read the bible one day and I was convinced!) is quite small. I’m not denying the authenticity of their experience, but they are not typical. As well as being drawn to their new religion, there are usually one or both of two other factors present:

    First, they have become dissatisfied with the tradition they were raised in - they find it too restrictive, or too simplistic, or they cannot reconcile it with their experience. Thus they are already searching for, or at least already open to, a new religious position.

    Secondly, they have developed connections to a new religion through a personal relationship - usually, but not always, a romantic relationship. (And their connections to that religion often survive the end of the relationship.)

    I think the question posed in the OP is basically unanswerable. If you were raised in a different religion, you wouldn’t just have a different set of beliefs, but also a different set of attitudes and practices, and a different set of relationships. Whether you’d move on from that depends to some extent on how satisfactory you found it, and it’s pointless to evaluate that from the perspective of the religious position you now have, because of course in that situation you would be evaluating it from a completely different perspective.

    For example Festus’s view that Islam “ultimately is not a relgion of peace” is not necessarily a view he would hold or form if he were a Muslim. Likewise his view that, if he were a Buddhist, he would be dissatisfied with Buddhism as a result of his exploration of science is questionable; if he were a Buddhist he would be exploring science with a completely different perspective; it might present him with a completely different set of challenges.

    (Not to get at Festus in particular, I hasten to add; it’s just that he contributed fairly early on in the thread. But similar points could be made about many posts.)

    Fundamentally, I think, the Christian position is that the fact that I am (or anyone else is) a Christian is the mysterious outworking of the grace of God. I may be thankful for it, but I can’t claim any credit for it. And the view that in a completely different and fundamentally unknowable set of circumstances, growing up with a different set of values, I would find my way to Christianity because of my own tastes and desires and understanding and insight looks a bit presumptuous to me. I hope in that circumstance that I would respond as honestly and authentically as I could to God’s call, as I perceived it. Where that would take me, God only knows - I certainly don’t.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,267 ✭✭✭gimmebroadband


    From a book I once read:
    Religion is a means of man searching for God, Christianity is God searching for Man!


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,087 ✭✭✭Festus


    RichieC wrote: »
    If it is truly the church Jesus Christ founded (It isn't) then all of it.

    Well , if it isn't which Church did He found?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    philologos wrote: »
    This is the genetic fallacy. It presumes that people are Christians because their parents are Christians. However, there are millions of people who have become Christians without Christian parents in the world. Therefore the logic is flawed.

    I think availability is key. However, in the 21st century, Christianity is available pretty much everywhere, even in persecuted countries. I'd have to concede that there would be lessened availability, but nonetheless there would still be a probability of this being the case.

    Simply put, I don't believe in Christianity because of my parents, I believe because I'm convinced of the Gospel and what Jesus did.

    Specific religions are like specific languages.

    All humans are born with a brain that is adapted to learn a language. There are a wide range of languages this could be and that will largely be determined by their cultural and geo-graphical location, though there are commonalities among all human languages.

    So the vast vast majority of people will continue to use the language of their culture throughout their life and pass that language on to their children.

    This of course is not a fixed thing. Some people when exposed to other languages may find that they are, for some reason, easier to work with, more beautiful, make more sense etc for that particular person.

    So you might get an author who was raised with English moving to Paris and working exclusively in French because he finds that it is, to him, a far more beautiful language to express his work in.

    The fact that people may find in later life a language that they prefer to the one they were raised in really doesn't speak at all to the under lying principle that humans have a pre-disposition to language, because the argument is not that we are all prone to learning English, it is that we are all prone to learning language, in a general sense.

    The same is true with religion. We are all pre-disposed to accepting what is known as "natural" or "personal" religion. This, like the difference between language and English, is a general notion of shared religion concepts, such as supernatural agency, ritualistic behavior, systems of moral correctness etc.

    Most people will with religion, like language, simply accept the first religion they are exposed to through their family and cultural experience. This is good enough, in the same way that knowing English is good enough if you are born in Dublin.

    And like the author learning French and preferring it, some may gravitate to other specific religions when they have learnt about them because they some how fit better for that specific person.

    This does not disprove the in built human pre-deposition to "natural religion", any more than someone deciding that they like French more than English demonstrates we do not have an inherent pre-deposition to language.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 445 ✭✭muppeteer


    philologos wrote: »
    muppeteer: I guess I don't find your argument as convincing, because I know people who were raised Muslims who now are Christians here in the UK. I also know people who were brought up in secular homes who are now Christians. There's numerous examples of this happening. Especially outside of the West where Christianity is growing significantly, most of those people never would have been from a Christian background.

    This weakens your argument somewhat.
    There are indeed numerous examples, which are the exception but not the rule. I'm even an exception myself as I recieved much the same Catholic upbringing as my peers, who are mostly still somewhat Christain.
    Christianity growning outside the west, as large as it is, still only shows a minority proportion of the local adult population changing from their origional religion to a new one.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 7,142 ✭✭✭ISAW


    muppeteer wrote: »
    There are indeed numerous examples, which are the exception but not the rule. I'm even an exception myself as I recieved much the same Catholic upbringing as my peers, who are mostly still somewhat Christain.
    Christianity growning outside the west, as large as it is, still only shows a minority proportion of the local adult population changing from their origional religion to a new one.

    You would be wrong on this>
    Jenkings is qa good source>
    http://history.psu.edu/directory/jpj1
    For at least half the history of the Church the majority were outside the West and it will shift back that way by 2050>


  • Registered Users Posts: 445 ✭✭muppeteer


    ISAW wrote: »
    You would be wrong on this>
    Jenkings is qa good source>
    http://history.psu.edu/directory/jpj1
    For at least half the history of the Church the majority were outside the West and it will shift back that way by 2050>
    Wrong on what exactly?


  • Registered Users Posts: 135 ✭✭Cato Maior


    I was raised as a Catholic and even went as far to train as a priest for a while but am no longer a Catholic. People can and do change, perhaps not often, but it is not rare either. If people are open to listening to and considering other ideas they may change their minds or it may confirm them in their current beliefs.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,080 ✭✭✭lmaopml


    Cato Maior wrote: »
    I was raised as a Catholic and even went as far to train as a priest for a while but am no longer a Catholic. People can and do change, perhaps not often, but it is not rare either. If people are open to listening to and considering other ideas they may change their minds or it may confirm them in their current beliefs.

    I think you are right Cato, perhaps this is more prevelant today too with the speed of information and communication? Perhaps the theory of geographic location is getting smaller and more defunct, inline with the availability to persue and read and absorb and of course communicate too.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 22,479 ✭✭✭✭philologos


    muppeteer wrote: »
    There are indeed numerous examples, which are the exception but not the rule. I'm even an exception myself as I recieved much the same Catholic upbringing as my peers, who are mostly still somewhat Christain.
    Christianity growning outside the west, as large as it is, still only shows a minority proportion of the local adult population changing from their origional religion to a new one.

    We have a different experience, insofar I would say the majority of my friends from school were atheist / agnostic.

    As for Christianity growing outside of the West, I'm not sure you're aware of the actual impact of this. More Christians attend church regularly in China than they do in the entire European continent. Christianity isn't really dying any time soon, largely sustained by people outside of the West who are discovering Jesus.

    Your argument is fading into irrelevance globally, and it is based on a Eurocentric viewpoint.


  • Registered Users Posts: 445 ✭✭muppeteer


    philologos wrote: »
    We have a different experience, insofar I would say the majority of my friends from school were atheist / agnostic.
    That's why we don't rely on our own experience because they vary too much. That's why we rely on the data posted earlier.
    As for Christianity growing outside of the West, I'm not sure you're aware of the actual impact of this. More Christians attend church regularly in China than they do in the entire European continent. Christianity isn't really dying any time soon, largely sustained by people outside of the West who are discovering Jesus.

    Your argument is fading into irrelevance globally, and it is based on a Eurocentric viewpoint.
    Yes I'm aware of the growing Chinese Christianity which doesn't really damage the position that people mostly do not stray far from their parents religion.
    For Christianity to become a majority in China, the growth, as large as it is, will take a generation or two to really take off, as the children of the current Christians marry and have kids of their own and secondary conversions add to the momentum.

    An aside:
    Perhaps PDN might have a better insight into this but would it be fair to say that many Chinese would have a slight spiritual vacuum due to state suppression of religions? They may have atheistic views currently that would have to be overcome by Christianity's worldview but they may lack an existing spiritual framework which might make it easier to introduce a Christian one. In other countries Christianity may have a harder time of it due displacing existing spiritual frameworks and so conversion in China may be easier. /speculation:)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 22,479 ✭✭✭✭philologos


    muppeteer wrote: »
    That's why we don't rely on our own experience because they vary too much. That's why we rely on the data posted earlier.

    That data didn't show what you wanted to. Rather what is showed is that a sizeable portion of people can and do change their minds. Likewise the US figures I provided earlier back this up.
    muppeteer wrote: »
    Yes I'm aware of the growing Chinese Christianity which doesn't really damage the position that people mostly do not stray far from their parents religion.
    For Christianity to become a majority in China, the growth, as large as it is, will take a generation or two to really take off, as the children of the current Christians marry and have kids of their own and secondary conversions add to the momentum.

    I don't agree with you either on an anecdotal level, or on the basis of what statistics I've provided. Also, your argument presumes that if people don't change, that it is out of blind allegiance to their parents. I think that's false, on the basis of 5 years+ active Christian experience, and seeing people by and large work out their beliefs for themselves as I did.
    muppeteer wrote: »
    An aside:
    Perhaps PDN might have a better insight into this but would it be fair to say that many Chinese would have a slight spiritual vacuum due to state suppression of religions? They may have atheistic views currently that would have to be overcome by Christianity's worldview but they may lack an existing spiritual framework which might make it easier to introduce a Christian one. In other countries Christianity may have a harder time of it due displacing existing spiritual frameworks and so conversion in China may be easier. /speculation:)

    I don't think that PDN is going to back up your argument, but let's see if he wants to chip in.


  • Registered Users Posts: 445 ✭✭muppeteer


    philologos wrote: »
    That data didn't show what you wanted to. Rather what is showed is that a sizeable portion of people can and do change their minds. Likewise the US figures I provided earlier back this up.
    The data shows exactly what it shows, not what you or I want it to. I'm actually agreeing with you here, a sizable chunk can and do change their minds within Christianity and a much smaller chunk change to different world religions. I fail to see why you disagree here.

    I don't agree with you either on an anecdotal level, or on the basis of what statistics I've provided. Also, your argument presumes that if people don't change, that it is out of blind allegiance to their parents. I think that's false, on the basis of 5 years+ active Christian experience, and seeing people by and large work out their beliefs for themselves as I did.
    We can dismiss 5 years of anecdotes but not the data I posted.
    Blind allegiance is not my presumption and I haven't really offered one other that to say it might be that it is caused by people being far more exposed to the religion of their parents or peers. If people change it can be for a multitude of reasons, which have little bearing on the data showing most don't stray too far outside of changing denominations.


    I don't think that PDN is going to back up your argument, but let's see if he wants to chip in.
    Well it's not so much an argument as a side train of thought that I might look into more later.


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  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 833 ✭✭✭snafuk35


    If I had been born into any other religion my constant questioning of "is this right" would ultimately have led me to converting to Catholicism.

    Even if you were never exposed to it?
    In probabilistic terms the next most likely religion to have been born into would be Islam and while its Abrahamaic and believes in God ultimately it is not a religion of peace and that is a problem for humankind. If it presents a problem then it cannot be right and true.

    A Muslim would say the same about Christianity e.g. Crusades etc.
    If I had been born into Judaism my questioning nature would have led me to the study of Jesus Christ and any study of Jesus leads ultimately to joining His Church.

    How do you explain the phenomena of Muslim and Jews theologians who have studied Christian texts or Christians theologians who have become atheists?
    With Buddhism I imagine I would have had problems with its attitude to marriage and with its lack of a God, who is more and more evident the deeper one delves into science.

    Yet how many Buddhists have converted to Catholicism?
    I could go one but essentially any exploration of why the Church teaches what it does leads to one place and one place only.

    That's self-evidently false. I have read the Catechism of the Catholic Church, I was brought up a Catholic and I have left the faith.
    The only question remaining is whether you accept it or reject it.

    You have just contradicted you entire post.
    You have basically protrayed the Catholic faith as the one and true religion and you claim that anyone who is exposed to Catholic teaching will inevitably convert. And you claim that if you were born anywhere in the world and no matter what religion you were born into - you would still be a Catholic today?


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