Yes, there comes a point when it is very offensive.
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Mangling others' religions
- Thread starter tayla
- Start date
matthew 13:23
the clothes do not make the man.
people come disguised in all manner of religions but their works prove what kind of fruit they bear.
the intermingling of cultures leads to johnny appleseed type scenarios.
case in point buddhist missionaries were known to be in alexandria egypt during jesus' time. the spice-silk routes carried more than material goods.
Buddhist influences on Christianity - Wikipedia
Greco-Buddhism - Wikipedia
it's also well known that ireland had a direct influence from the middle east.
things aren't as black and white as they appear.
tau crosses in ireland believed to be from buddhist missionaries long before christianity came.
Ireland's first farmers were far different from the Irish we know today
shmogie
Well-Known Member
I disagree. If one believes the scriptures are inspired by God, then they are not bound by anything and express the will of God, past, present, and future.
They never become obsolete.
Personal interpretation of what is clearly written, and clearly applicable in only one way one way, that is interpreted in another way, is human desire sup[planting Gods desire.
Jeremiah Ames
Well-Known Member
I cannot understand why we “have to understand” and interpret people’s scriptures from the perspective of how those who believe these books to be scripture understand them.
If they’re wrong, why must I follow their erroneous understanding?
I did what you said for years.
It doesn’t work in the long run.
As the old saying goes:
I could agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong.
People come up with all sorts of nonsense. The best we can do is point them in the right direction if they're willing to listen.
The advantage of living in such a connected world is that when people are genuinely interested in a subject, today they have many tools to do research and find out what is true and what isn't. It takes time and a little effort, but there is still hope for the truth
I concur. When an outsider looks into someone else's religion and makes claims that they know more than the adherent themselves, it reeks of ego. It's like some guy in London, having visited New York City for a week, telling the New Yorker all about his city. Frankly, I find it mildly annoying, and never take it seriously. Better to not spend a minute of your time trying to correct them as obviously from the fact they did it in the first place, they have no clue.
Yes I've had western folks or non-Hindus tell me all about Hinduism. They get so much wrong it's funny.
If it's a religion that tries to assert power over non-adherents in any way whatsoever, then it most definitely is justified.
everything is supposedly inspired by god no matter what religion you're crowing from.
there is 40,000 denominations of christianity. i doubt someone who isn't christian is going to get a whole lot wrong about the world's largest religion.
shmogie
Well-Known Member
There ya go then
CG Didymus
Veteran Member
Did Jesus go to India? Did he go to the Americas? Did his Spirit come back in a man from Persia?
No one "owns" God's Word? Yes, they do. Each religion claims to have some kind of "Truth" whether it is from a prophet, an angel, from a dream or vision or an incarnation of a God or whatever. The person who had that "Truth" and told it or gave it in a book to others, set some rules on how it should be followed. Even the Baha'i Faith has rules on how to obey and interpret Baha'i Writings. I can't come along and say that I have a new and better interpretation of the Baha'i Faith.
New religions, however, run into the problem of having to change people's beliefs about the older religions to give people a reason to switch and follow the new one. Christians dumped the Law from Judaism. They might pretend they didn't, but they don't follow the Law... a Law supposedly given by God. The Christians interpret the Jewish Scriptures to show how the Law was temporary and how people need Jesus to get saved from the penalty of sin.
Then now what? Baha'is reinterpret all the Scriptures of all religions to show how the old laws were from God but only temporary. They eliminate the Christian need to be "saved", because Baha'is eliminate the belief that if a person dies without believing in Jesus they won't go to hell, because they isn't such a place.
So the justification is that the new religion believes the old religions and their Scriptures are flawed or even false. And their "Truth" needs to be told to made things right and give people the real new improved "Truth". But then, there is the same problem. All the new religions contradict each other. So what's true and what's made up baloney? I got a feeling it's not "all" God's Words.
I think it begs the question: Why would someone want to go to another's faith and critique it, let alone change it? What is it that is wrong with your own faith that propels you to change someone elses? Since when does it serve any purpose? Sure, if said faith is attacking yours, you have every right to defend yourself, but to dive in uninvited and tell them they all got it wrong, personally I see no just purpose whatsoever.
Where in your own scriptures does it tell you to go and tell other people they got it wrong?
EtuMalku
Abn Iblis ابن إبليس
The idea of Indian influences on Jesus (and Christianity) has been suggested in Louis Jacolliot's book La Bible dans l'Inde, Vie de Iezeus Christna (1869). Jacolliot compared the accounts of the life of Bhagavan Krishna with that of Jesus Christ in the gospels and concluded that it could not have been a coincidence that the two stories have so many similarities in many of the finer details.
That said, there is very little if any, evidence what Jesus did, or that there even was a Jesus, much less that he went to India and so forth.
That said, there is very little if any, evidence what Jesus did, or that there even was a Jesus, much less that he went to India and so forth.
amorphous_constellation
Well-Known Member
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought heard or read that to some interpretation of Hinduism, Jesus was perceived as an avatar of one their gods. If that's correct, that's probably why Hinduism succeeds in sustaining itself, because it is able to integrate foreign spirituality well through that kind of perception.
Perhaps, but what culture or religion does that in all honesty? The world was probably at its most henotheistic around the 1st century, but behind that, religion & culture generally become proselytizing forces. Maybe the melting pot of American culture kind of gets what your saying in theory in a way, but maybe not in practice, not really. Large cohesive blocks of people, or countries/cultures in other words, often end up being about conformity somewhere down the trail.
MJ Bailey
Member
Any belief is open for interpretation. You are taught to see the sky and call it blue, but that doesn't mean the color is the same from all perspectives.
Why should someone from one religion re-interpret scriptures or teachings and doctrines from someone else's religion?
I suppose it is justified to determine whether the claims are true or not.
They change the message too to make it fit their New Age beliefs.
If they are wrong, you should believe they are wrong.
To claim that certain teachings and doctrines and scriptures are wrong is not the same as re-interpreting them.
Seems to me it's fair game for anyone to assess the truth claims of any religion (or any other kind of claim for that matter). We are obligated to use critical thinking to discover truth and error.