[ilostabet]

(04-07-2019 11:33 AM)Sherman Wrote:  

A fundamentalist Christian will assert that a non Christian who is virtuous is inherently bad, while a corrupt Christian is saved by their beliefs. This is an ethical system which is arbitrary and not based on truth.

A christian that asserts any of these things is clearly mistaken or ignorant.

Romans 2:12-15
For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law; (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another

(04-07-2019 11:33 AM)Sherman Wrote:  

the notion that one is only moral if one believes in or repeats a magical formula perverts morality

Correct, but it's the dumb dialectic between faith and works. There are no works without faith; and faith without works is meaningless. You always act on something. And if you believe in something, you act according to it. This goes for moral beliefs as anything else.

James 2:26
For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

I tried yoga and mediation, but it's not for me. But the practices in themselves, if stripped of their religious history, don't seem to conflict with the Christian faith. I believe it can be helpful for some people.

What I don't see is how 'turtles all the way down' is a solid framework for anything, and this is the end result of every belief system not based in creation ex nihilo. And the only belief system that solves this problem by affirming creation ex nihilo is Christianity (and Karaite Judaism, which is unfulfilled Christianity). This is the least ambiguous and confusing origin story there is.

(04-07-2019 11:33 AM)Sherman Wrote:  

The history of the incredible violence that was created in a fractured Christian world

What does this even mean?

(04-07-2019 11:33 AM)Sherman Wrote:  

Hinduism (...) recognizes that people have different personalities

Somehow I don't think this is exclusive to Hinduism...