I was going by rote and did not mean to make a historical class of it just illustrating the stupidity and ignorance I encountered during my time in the church.

(November 20, 2009 at 9:32 am)Pope Alfred Wrote: fr0d0, you must be joking.

No. All denominations agree on the Nicene crede.

(November 20, 2009 at 4:02 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: No. All denominations agree on the Nicene crede.

Creed, not 'crede'. Which version of the Nicene Creed are you talking about, and with or without filioque?
Regardless, it addresses none of the issues I listed earlier.

(November 20, 2009 at 4:02 pm)fr0d0 Wrote:

(November 20, 2009 at 9:32 am)Pope Alfred Wrote: fr0d0, you must be joking.

No. All denominations agree on the Nicene crede.

Because the ones that didn't were persecuted and killed.

(November 21, 2009 at 5:47 am)Pope Alfred Wrote: Which version of the Nicene Creed are you talking about, and with or without filioque?
Regardless, it addresses none of the issues I listed earlier.

Thankyou for the correction.

I can never recall which version annoyingly. Those issues you mention aren't important is why.

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(November 21, 2009 at 12:32 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote:

(November 20, 2009 at 4:02 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: All denominations agree on the Nicene crede.

Because the ones that didn't were persecuted and killed.

That's probably true.

I agree with you fr0d0 on this one most Christians do believe in the Nicene creed but it is on other matters that they differ greatly.

OK, Fr0d0, so these issues I listed are not important:

why mankind is in need of salvation.
what you have to do to be saved.
who decides who is saved.
what you are saved from.

Fine. Tell us, please, which issues are more important.

That you are 'saved' or get to life life to the full.

(November 22, 2009 at 6:56 am)fr0d0 Wrote: That you are 'saved' or get to life life to the full.

Yes, but how do you have to behave to be saved? What do you have to do? Ideas vary enormously. Catholics believe that good deeds are counted, others that they are not. (The new testament says both).
Calvinists believe that you are either pre-chosen, or not; nothing you do can make any difference. Others say you can only be saved by grace if god does it for you, others that you can choose faith by yourself.
Catholics say that you can only be saved through the sacraments of the church administered by a valid priest (extra ecclesiam nulla salus), protestants basically need no priest for salvation.

These are enormous, vital differences. If I were a christian, I should want to be pretty darn sure I'd got it right, otherwise I could waste my whole life on god and still be damned.

@ the OP

(November 14, 2009 at 1:19 pm)solarwave Wrote: If there is no God does it matter if people believe in Him?

Only in the sense that I think the world would be a better place to live if it wasn't for religion. Not all delusions are harmful, but most of them are, and religion as a whole surely seems to have a bad effect IMO.

Quote:So do you have a problem with people believing in God? Of course religion has caused some bad things to happen in the past, but I think what it brings to individual lives out weighs this.

I think everyone has a right to believe so long as they don't impose their beliefs on others or, say, indoctrinate their children.

However, I do think things would be better off without religion. And when religious people are ever talked out of their beliefs, if they can ever be persuaded to drop their delusions (without violence of course), more power to skepticism and not believing in bullshit I say

Quote:What do you think and why?

I think what I said above, and I'd also like to add: I also advocate the 'conversational intolerance' that Sam Harris does. Non-violent resistance to religion, pseudo-science, and other bullshit.

EvF