Question for Christians

[CapnAwesome]

Of course I'm not a Christian, but if you asked the Muslims in Pakistan the reverse of the question, they would likely provide the same answer. Although the religious have true devotion to ignoring evidence, this is perhaps the most obvious example. We as a species have an extremely difficult time getting over our childhood conditioning, because it's been imperative to our early survival.

Some Christians (and Muslims and Jews) will refute this by saying that they went through a period of un-religiousness (Note: not Atheism) followed by a revival where they 'discovered Christ' or some such. However they almost always go back to the faith that they were brought up in, or the dominate faith of their culture, no matter what that is. This is not a coincidence, it's in our genetics.

[Drich]

No.

And you know this...how?

My mother is korean and was a buddhist. My Father was a 'spiritual' hippy. I have exceed my parents religious influences in my life. Why should being born a muslim be any different?

For that matter most atheist are born into religion and still seek a life without God. They too go beyond their up bringing. This would lead a logical man to conclude that we are not born to any specific type of faith. we adopt a faith because it suits our needs.

[Faith No More]

we adopt a faith because it suits our needs.

Are you saying that your own faith is a product of needing that which Christianity can offer, and that it is not a product of any sort of underlying truth?

[Anomalocaris]

And you know this...how?

My mother is korean and was a buddhist. My Father was a 'spiritual' hippy. I have exceed my parents religious influences in my life. Why should being born a muslim be any different?

Because Islam matches Christianity carrot for carrot and stick for stick, and targets the deficiencies of feeble minded self-important morons like you just as accurately and effectively as christianity, and much more than most forms of buddhism.

It is only by chance of your birth and your parent's itinary that your utterly and pethetically defenceless "mind" is infected first and more aggressively by the christian bacillus rather than the Islam virus. It is by your narcissistic temperment that you would inevitable imagine what made that precise thing to which you exhibited such pitiful vulnerability must also be something that makes you better than those with real brains and resistence to pitiful exploitative superstitions. You are as pitiful as those effete narcissists of last century who thinks their vulnerability to tuberculoisis is a mark of their literary genius.

[CapnAwesome]

My mother is korean and was a buddhist. My Father was a 'spiritual' hippy. I have exceed my parents religious influences in my life. Why should being born a muslim be any different?

For that matter most atheist are born into religion and still seek a life without God. They too go beyond their up bringing. This would lead a logical man to conclude that we are not born to any specific type of faith. we adopt a faith because it suits our needs.

Ummmm......except that what you say is not true.

In the United States anyway, only 16% of people switch religion from that of their parents. The vast majority of those Christians who changed their category to No Religion. The rest primarily being Christians who changed branches of Christianity (not really a switch, if you ask me.) That means 84% retain the religion they were born into, an overwhelming majority. So basically your premise is based on an incorrect assumption, partly on your own situation, which is abnormal.

Source: http://answers.google.com/answers/thread...01009.html

[Minimalist]

If you had been born in Pakistan to Muslim parents, would you hold the Muslim faith with the same conviction that you hold the Christian faith?

No.

Liar.

[Something completely different]

My mother is korean and was a buddhist. My Father was a 'spiritual' hippy. I have exceed my parents religious influences in my life. Why should being born a muslim be any different?

I dont think you understood the argument. If you are born in a islamic part of the world such as Turkey or Pakistan you are more likely to be a muslim, when born in the Uk you are more likley to be a anglican, when born in Brazil you are more likely to be catholic.

If your stated background is true, you are exception, from a usual cultural background of a nation, a mix of two cultures so to speak, therefor it is more likely that you would choose for yourself. As people with multicultural background become more common, it is more likely that people (from such a background) will make choices on faith by themselves and wont let the dominant cultural sociatial structures influence them.
This does not mean that your choice of christianity is "devine". I have a multicultural background with part catholic\part anglican parents and am a atheist.

I agree to a certain extent on the muslim world. In almoust every country in wich the majority of the population is muslim, leaving islam (apostasy) is considered a crime and therefor is punishable, in some cases eaven with death (Saudi Arabia, Iran) and in other countries with muslim population violence towards such individuals is something common and has happened in nations like Turkey and Nigerea but also in the UK and France. But one must underline that these people leave their faith because of fear.

For that matter most atheist are born into religion and still seek a life without God. They too go beyond their up bringing. This would lead a logical man to conclude that we are not born to any specific type of faith. we adopt a faith because it suits our needs.

Needs? If you live in a muslim country and you choose to leave islam, you might end up beheaded. And I think life is a "need".
Here in Europe, there still are countries like Spain, Italy and Greece, in wich, after you leave the dominant sect, you commit social suicide.
A lot of religious people talk of their "spiritual" needs. But I`m not going to go into this.
What I asses is, that in some countries religon builds up power and influences a nations sociaty to a way, that a human beings "needs" to be accessible for a individual outside of that sect is made hard or eaven imposible.
Organised religion attempts to create a monopoly on the provision of those needs so it can discriminate.

[Ryantology]

Needs? If you live in a muslim country and you choose to leave islam, you might end up beheaded. And I think life is a "need".

That's the important part of the original question.

If you live in one of the world's liberal democracies, you have the freedom to explore religions (or reject them). In many Muslim-dominated societies, apostasy can earn you (and perhaps your family) a death sentence. I have to imagine that there are a statistically insignificant number of Muslims in these countries who are so drawn to the Word of Christ that they risk so much.

[John V]

That's the important part of the original question.

If you live in one of the world's liberal democracies, you have the freedom to explore religions (or reject them). In many Muslim-dominated societies, apostasy can earn you (and perhaps your family) a death sentence. I have to imagine that there are a statistically insignificant number of Muslims in these countries who are so drawn to the Word of Christ that they risk so much.

If that's the important part of the question - punishments for apostasy - why ask it specifically of Christians? It's equally applicable to atheists. I have to imagine that there are a statistically insignificant number of Muslims in these countries who are so drawn to atheism that they risk so much.

[Something completely different]

If that's the important part of the question - punishments for apostasy - why ask it specifically of Christians?

I didn`t and I dont think anyone in this thread did.
The muslim world, to me is one perfect example of how much can go wrong in a modern sociaty if organized religion has to much influence in sociaty.
Would a sociaty with so much christian influence realy be that much different?

It's equally applicable to atheists.

I have never murdered, nor threatened to murder nor eaven demanded the murder of those who were atheists and left atheism to join a faith.
Out of wich ever part of your anatomy you pulled this, you can shove it right back there!
Atheism, unlike religion, has no dogma, and is mainly based on individual thought process and rational conclusions out of observations. There is no "holy book" nor "pope" in atheism who tells me what to do. I decide for myself and arrange my actions arround what I believe to be moraly correct.

I have to imagine that there are a statistically insignificant number of Muslims in these countries who are so drawn to atheism that they risk so much.

I dont know what the numbers are, and honestly I dont think they are that high. I live near where the western world borders the muslim world and have encounterd a lot of muslims, and what all seem to have incomen is a superiorior complex, that although their countries are in most cases third world tyrannies, they still believe their sociaty to be supirior on the baseis of their faith.