The following are different Christian sects. They all claim to have the same god - yet they often point to each other and say "I'm right, you're wrong and you will not be saved".

If monotheism was merely the acceptance of a single godhead, then all monotheistic religions would be tolerant of each other. But monotheism tends to be accompanied by specific beliefs about that one god which seems totally contradict the theory that all monotheistic religions have only a single godhead.

No matter, one god or many, tolerance is not a built in feature of monothesim or every sect on the list would still be Catholic.

Catholic Church
Eastern Catholic Churches
Independent (self-identified as Catholic)
Orthodoxy
Protestantism
Lutheranism
Anglicanism
Reformed Churches
Presbyterianism
Congregationalist Churches
Anabaptists
Brethren
Methodists
Pietists and Holiness Churches
Baptists
Spiritual Baptists
Apostolic Churches – Irvingites
Pentecostalism
Charismatics
Neo-Charismatic Churches
Latter Day Saints
Oriental Orthodoxy
Assyrian Church
Oneness Pentecostalism
Unitarianism and Universalism
Swedenborgianism
Messianic Judaism
Jewish Christians
Esoteric Christianity

People certainly can assume that any single godhead is really the same godhead that every worships. The real problem is that every religion's godhead does not seem to agree with every other godhead.

Some people might say that individual interpretation and understanding is the problem, but rarely is that thought considered to be the fault of the person thinking it.

Thus, again, we come to intolerance.

Thanks Creative for your responses. I think this is a difficult concept and I've read yours and Bushido's posts several times. I tend to stay away from the word truth because it always seems to cause issues with discussions. I think I can better understand why it does but I will be honest and tell you that I'm still not completely clear on the topic.

For example, in our English language, speaking "the truth" is stressed even to the point of holding a person responsible for speaking the truth or facing criminal charges.

We must accept a person'ts sworn statment that only truth will be spoken even though, in a court of law, speaking truth may only be considered 'circumstantial,' simply because what is spoken cannot be confirmed but that doesn't mean it was not truth to the individual.

What it would take to make the statement true, in the absense of 'hard evidence', is plausibility. If the person believes he/she is speaking truth, then the spoken view need only be believed an accurate depiction that is plausible.

I attempt to speak/write with truth, but the word truth is not a word I have ever been comfortable with using. If I'm understanding the concepts laid out in this thread, I think better understand why.

Am I learning yet???

Yes - WELL that and one other little thing. Each monotheistic religion has a singular god. When there is a singular god with very specific characteristics and attributes and a set of rules bestowed by the god, then we have the conditions of "my god is the one and only 'right' god.

Thus the claim "all monotheisitc religions are intolerable,they do not tolerate the god of any other religion.

That was my guess.

Here is my confusion:



That is the beginning of the OP - how can it be subjective, objective or even independent is there if there is no such thing?

So NOW let me ask you

Is a truth claim subjective

I would error on the side of Yes until after it has passed some kind of standard (like a scientific study, which validates or falsifies the claim. At that point it may be validated or falsified but it cannot be truth because truth does not exist.

It can however, be a building block for future truth claims. Is that right?

No not at all. There are Christians who believe Jesus exists and there are probably some people in the world have never heard of Jesus of the bible.

But a belief is not the same as something existing just as
non-knowledge of the same belief is not the same thing as something not existing.

Certainly the belief exists even if Jesus does not - but would the belief exist if there was no bible to embelish the belief whether Jesus had existed or not?

That made think of an incident with my own son. The two kids from down the stree were over playing with my son. They were home schooled and once I heard the kid arguing so I went upstairs to see what was going on.

My son said "they're telling me that its impossible for other life forms to exist in the universe" I just said "oh, why is that?"

The answer was something like: "There can only be humans becaue Jesus was a human." (obviously I was still lost but son wasn't, he said)

"mom that means that there can't be a race of Vulcans because they wouldn't have souls for Jesus to save"

And they began to argue again and through the course of the argument I got the jest of the theory. - ya gotta love home schooling -

Finally, and sternly, I told my son that Jennette and James were his friends and his guests and it was impolite to argue with them.

At that point the two kids got up and headed for the door. I said they didn't have to go because the subject wouldn't be discussed anymore. The girl (about 11 yrs old) turned around and looking fearful said

"no we really have to go and we won't be able to play with 'your son' anymore"

My son felt bad and that's one of the reasons he took an interest in and began researching all kinds of religions. He made me proud.

There have been quite a few studies which seem to indicate that higher education changes individual views, often by making one question or become more skeptical and discerning.

Statistically, as far as actual movement between belief systems or non-belief, in the U.S., there seems to be a greater number of proclaimed atheists than ever before, but it's a very tiny percentage.

In recent years the largest growing religion has been Muslim. It seems to have grown in a similar proportion to the deline in other monotheistic religions in that same time frame.

I think all the internal movement between monotheistic religions indicates a strong dissatisfaction with the current belief systems.

It might be likely that we will see a decline in monotheism and increases in other theistic beliefs and agnosticism. From there I think atheism will increase as it becomes a more acceptable option.

Of course if Yellowstone blows - all bets are off and if humans survive there will likely be a resurgence of all kinds of mystical beliefs.

Thanks for the reply Miles,

Yellowstone is quite problematic. Are you thinking that this is part of climate change? Do you think it's all tied in?

It's been suggested that if Yellowstone errupts much the U.S. will dissappear and much will be uninhabitable.

I wonder - if the great hole left by the emptying of the lava chamber might not create a new ocean which could help clense the land around it for future generations.

That might be a 'natural' way for some healing of the Earth for human existance, BUT there's no telling if humans would survive the kind of devastation such an erruption has been predicted to bring.

Interesting!

I grew up on a second hand existence and watched a black and white TV all the way to 1974 and the color TV that replaced it when I was ten was a hand me down from some friends who cot a newer color TV. I generalize? I have seen real poverty. A lot of what the media pushes in our faces as the poor are not really the poor.

I feel... cheated? No, I feel ripped off and lied too! We are run by hypocrites and many of the poor out there are taught by the system to work the system to get their income from the system. Far too many people have gone on Unemployment and rode it to the end because they felt they needed and extended vacation. My father was just like that. On top of that I have witnessed sop many others doing it and citing that reason why. "I do it because I can." In some of the worst neighborhoods out here I can find high end BMWs, Benzes, Land Rovers. Fools be busting lots of bling. Hoes be fronting one another over who spends more on their doo and their nails. And oh how so many of them are brand whores! Yes, so many of these people are really poor! When I was growing up we DID use cable spools for tables. I built many a model on one. I grew up being the ultimate recycler. So again you want to compare MY life experiences?




Stick you head in a bucket of ice water and shake out some of the hate you have inside it. Now look at drug and alcohol use from the perspective of growing up in a generationally poor family in the inner-city. I don't think welfare adds to drug and alcohol abuse, it's already being abused, remember, crack houses, meth labs, people living under stressful conditions every day of their life.

NOW to apply all this to the OP; defunding planned parenthood.

Someone (may have been you) suggested that the problem is education. Yes it is but there must be an all out push in this country to end that and we are nowhere near that kind of push. Even if we were and a plan was laid out - it would be a few generations before there was evident progress. It's not happening because of the kind of thinking that you have in the post I am addressing.

(I really believe you are smarter than that and I hope the problem is just a lack of real knowledge and personal experience.)

At any rate, planned parenthood has been a step in the right direction. We are sexual beings - and that must be obvious to anyone who can understand that our sex drive is the way we assure that there will be more humans.

Planned parenthood does not judge, they do not decide who gets welfare. They help individuals find alternative means of medical advice when they can't afford to pay full price. PP saves lives and they help to make life better for families who might otherwise end up on welfare should they bring another baby into thier life.

We have no right to try and judge the circumstances of every person's PP visit nor do we have a right to judge the decision of a woman in her own health care.

I consider abortion a healthcare issue for a woman becasue only that woman knows the reasons behind her dicission to choose abortion.

Privacy laws being what they are in this country, abortions should ALWAYS be only an anonymous statistic unless the individual chooses to share her decision with others. Having shared that information should never make it self-incrimination of a crime. It is a hearlth care issue.



I am not comparing Planned Parenthood to drug addiction. I actually support the presence of Planned Parenthood so you need to wake up.

My Mom's BF after she divorced my father wound up becoming a paid councilor for NA and AA. My later HS years thanks to my looser father screwing me out of every opportunity to advance myself possible I got sucked into life on the street. I knew and know many addicts and alcoholics. I have seen both ends of the spectrum of their life and what it takes to get someone to recover and recovery begin with them actually taking responsibility for themselves. Sympathy only makes addiction worst. Planned Parenthood prevents women from giving birth to drug addled and genetically flawed children thanks to their addiction. DO NOT EXPECT ME TO SHOW ANY SYMPATHY FOR ANY ALCOHOLIC OR DRUG ADDICT! I have no sympathy as does anyone who knows anything about the problem. There is at least one member here I can think of but not by name who did do what she needed to recover herself and did and the whole thing is she admits what she faces! That is a person I can respect but I am not about to sympathize at all over.

Several surveys over the years including a couple of Liberal groups looked into the world of the hard core welfare addict and found out they had no intent or desire to redeem themselves. All they wanted was their check, and their next fix. the actual lifestyle is different for crack, meth, and smack but the behaviors are the same.

Addicts will ALWAYS look for a free ride and ride it as long as they can until they have to find a new way of getting what they want. that is why the reception of benefits should come with a drug test including Planned parenthood so some of these addicts can be identified and dealt with appropriately. Even if they do perform the abortion they got to make the process as pressurized as they can to get people to straighten up. it isn't about God or Jesus or revivals. it is about getting people to either pull their heads out of their azzes or letting them flounder until they kill themselves.

My step brother died from Meth. I think Meth contributed to another friend of mine recently too. I don't HATE the addict. I hate the addiction. Meth DOES have medicinal uses under strict controls. I can't hate the drug itself. But I can hate the bathtub brewers!

And this is how to deal with them!



Toasty!











For someone who claims to have been there, there is not much empathy what-so-ever, not even understanding. That tells me that you think EVERYONE can rise above their poverty to any status they work hard enough for.

Some poeple harbor a lot a rage and hate and unfortunately they aim it toward those who had nothing to do with the cause the negative feelings being harbored. This appears no less a form of fundamentalism than what is often assigned to some religious groups.

- Ricky Recardo you are not - so no 'splainin for you.

By virture of the term 'mono' ALL monotheistic religions are intolerable, sometimes even among those who claim the same label. How can they be otherwise?

The idea that any one is worse than another may only be a matter of what one has grown accustom to.

So how should we determine who's an idiot? Have you ever lived in a very large city or worked in a position which brought you into daily contact with the public at large?

I don't know what your theory might be, but I don't think half the poeple I meet would qualify beyond 'idiot' for the right to carry a weapon (of any kind).

Did you have a point to make - I really don't want to guess.

It's not about voting, it's about making our representitives responsible to the people. That means WE must take some kind of action to assure that we are being represented according to our needs.

We don't do that by voting, we do that by making our demands known through our voices and our presence.

When you vote for any office - how many poeple are on the ballod? Who put them there? So does it matter who wins? What matters?

What matters is what we do AFTER those who win have taken office.

Do you know there is a whole department in the Federal Govenenment devoted to ETHICS?

Do you know when the last time was that this department filed a grievance agains anyone? Do you know the budget for this department?

Speaking of education - how much do you think the average high school senior knows about the governenace of their state and of their nation? How much do you know?

The bail out has been a lie and a fraud. The bail out should not have been necessary and the money should have gone to the people through the FDIC when the banks failed.

When the banks failed their assets, the mortagaes, should have been sold, at a discount, to those banks that DID NOT FAIL. During the interrim payments that were missed by property owners should have been forgiven until such time as the new mortgage terms were worked out.

Those who were in charge of the failed banks should have been held legally responsible for breaches in federal regulations, misconduct, and properly tried and made to pay restitution if found guilty of the charges brought against them.

We, as citizens, are not allowed to use ignorance of the law as a defense, nor should the elite who ran the failed organizations be allowed to say "but everyone else was doing it"....

If the chain of misconduct created a path to the Federal Reserve, or to any member of a state or our Federal Government, the individuals involved should likewise have been charged and tried.

Certainly the FDIC funding would not have been sufficient to cover all the losses, but isn't that the reason for selling the banks assets? Isn't that the reason for trying those responsible and demanding restitution in cases of guilt.

If that had occurred, many smaller and sound financial organizations would have increased - and would require new employees (those who might have lost their jobs from the failed orgs perhaps).

More people would have suffered far less financial loss and those in retirement might have been able to stay in retirment. Losses of pensions/401k s/IRA s, etc would not have some sort of reimbursement and retirement for many would still be secured. More homeowners would have had the second chance they needed.

More jobs would have been saved, and with more money at their disposal, some people may have taken avantage of the situtuation by starting their own small busniness, adding more job opportunities.

So why where the financial institutuions not allowed to fail?
Why is the pathway of these failures dimmed by a mass bailout? And why have we been told it was to save the economy?

With a cool head I have to wonder - are the American people not part of its own 'economy'?

The government has told the media and the media regurgitates without fail the story that the 'recession' ended two years ago, and the bail out worked.

But who did it work for, who is 'the economy'?

Who has been charged with misconduct, who has been brought to trial? What restitution has been received and by whom?

If the financial institutuions are currently profitiable BECAUSE of the bail out - why are THEY not RESPONSIBLE for paying that debt back?

Why are is the workforce present & future, being strapped with this debt, with no reason why?

Who is 'the economy'? Who is the workforce?

What is nationalism and when did it cease to be a blanket we shared with capitalism? Did we ever share the same blanket, the same ideals as a people, as a nation?

A lot of questions that we have to ask but we can't know ourself without reflection and who we are must be part of a society of people greater than the individual that we would hail as being free.

Freedom requires labor, equality, opportunity, responsibility of action, and respect for human rights. Unless we seek these things for all people, we are not free we are capitalists who are individuals feeding off the apathy, of the divided unions of the world.

- Why are we at war? - lots of questions that demand a lot of time, a lot of research, and for some - a lot of learning.

Now that sounds like a real move toward socialism. With food shortages and prices expected to drive the economy, we may even be issuing 'government store' vouchers in lieu of pay.

REALLY? And who taught you NOT to be poor?

What kind of opportunities do you think the 'urban poor' have that are in any way comparable to rural families whose socioeconomic class is leaps above thier urban counterparts?




OK - here is your food budget for the month $100 and you have to buy any paper products you use out of that money. I hope you like hamburger helper and boxed mac and cheese because on that allowance you won't be able to afford much produce and meat - try hamhocks and greens are usually cheap (but not too bad with butter and salt or bacon drippings.

Reality buddy - if you havn't been there how would you know? I know and I haven't always been here - but I have stood on the edge most of my life.

Illness - lots of studies out there that prove that stress IS a major risk factor to many diseases.
Can you imagine growing up in the environemnt of the inner-city poor?

Can you even wrap you mind around a month of nights in a house with plastic coving some of the windows and shots heard nightly, and knowing that the meth house on your block is too close should it explode?

Asbestos and lead paint - did you know that if a landlord posts clear warnings of possible contamination in the contract and provides safety notices to the tenants that the landlord does not have to be concerned? I know that, because I currently live in such a place.

Now imagine living a life time n that kind of environment. You're right there are a lot ills do you still question why?



You over generalize. THINK a little more logically. Think about the situation I just outlined for you. How long do you think those kind of belongings would last in someone's home?

Not saying it doesn't happen - someone make money off the the sale of drugs, but you see the few and feel cheated. Would still feel cheated if you had grown up in that environemnt and did not own a big screen TV?



Stick you head in a bucket of ice water and shake out some of the hate you have inside it. Now look at drug and alcohol use from the perspective of growing up in a generationally poor family in the inner-city. I don't think welfare adds to drug and alcohol abuse, it's already being abused, remember, crack houses, meth labs, people living under stressful conditions every day of their life.

NOW to apply all this to the OP; defunding planned parenthood.

Someone (may have been you) suggested that the problem is education. Yes it is but there must be an all out push in this country to end that and we are nowhere near that kind of push. Even if we were and a plan was laid out - it would be a few generations before there was evident progress. It's not happening because of the kind of thinking that you have in the post I am addressing.

(I really believe you are smarter than that and I hope the problem is just a lack of real knowledge and personal experience.)

At any rate, planned parenthood has been a step in the right direction. We are sexual beings - and that must be obvious to anyone who can understand that our sex drive is the way we assure that there will be more humans.

Planned parenthood does not judge, they do not decide who gets welfare. They help individuals find alternative means of medical advice when they can't afford to pay full price. PP saves lives and they help to make life better for families who might otherwise end up on welfare should they bring another baby into thier life.

We have no right to try and judge the circumstances of every person's PP visit nor do we have a right to judge the decision of a woman in her own health care.

I consider abortion a healthcare issue for a woman becasue only that woman knows the reasons behind her dicission to choose abortion.

Privacy laws being what they are in this country, abortions should ALWAYS be only an anonymous statistic unless the individual chooses to share her decision with others. Having shared that information should never make it self-incrimination of a crime. It is a hearlth care issue.

HEY SPIDER - Whoa there, yourself what happened to your superior attitudet that claimed -