Hi Poly -
I’m ‘unnecessary’? The theological implications ALONE are staggering…
Has anyone ever ‘found’ a diety of which they had never heard?
and std bitch: ‘RELIGION’ does NOT mean ‘CHRISTIANITY’
hh:
Poly did not say you are unnecessary, but rather that he was forestalling an unnecessary post by you. The two are not the same thing.
Well, I was “found by” a face of the divine about which I knew very little.
Does that count?
That was sort of my point about the underlying assumption of the OP. After all, some other religions do not have “denominations.” In fact, Protestant Christianity is the only religious branch I can think of that refers to schistic (is this a word) breaks in this fashion.
Catholics, after all, call all these Protestant denominations “Protestants.” Or by the group’s name of choice, if the Catholic happens to have that specific knowledge. 
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Assume God is benevolent (you wouldn’t want to know an evil God, and even if you did, you wouldn’t be able to trust Him anyway)
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Start praying earnestly for more knowledge about Him (“God rewards those who earnestly seek Him”, somewhere in the Bible i think)
Then, if this doesn’t work, you can still say “But I triiiieeeed” 
Your benevolent God will deal with you according to what you DO know and HAVE done rather than judge you for what you don’t (There are relevant scriptures, I will post them id anyone cares)
As for denomination, who cares so long as your church has God in it? Unless you’re the kind who loves splitting doctrinal hairs, of course
Yes, because as we all know, ALL muslims are lunatic terrorists :rolleyes:
I’d be pretty suspicious of any church that considered certain questions to be “out of bounds.”
yes, and if the god is telling you to bomb abortion clinics, then it’s the christian, huh?
I think most people choose a denomination as the one they are most comfortable with.
If you grew up indoctrinated in Denomination “D”, and your beliefs have not changed, you will most likely be comfortable at Church D. And your friends are probably there, too.
I don’t think most people sit down with a book of religions/denominations and analyze the pros & cons of each before choosing. But when I was of high school age, I did. I asked each of my friends to take me to their church so I could observe first-hand.
My religious beliefs had changed (Philosophy 101 laid the seed), so the original family religion seemed wanting. But each church I tried had some belief that I could not reconcile with mine, so I never joined any.
Maybe if I had attended the Church Of The Athiest, I would still be a member today. 
Sorry to take so long to address this issue, Poly.
The actual classic and current stance of the LDS is that the LDS Church is the one, true church in the sense that it is the complete church founded by Jesus Christ and is the one with the fullness of the Gospel. Feel free to peruse http://www.lds.org to see the explanations regarding the concept of other denominations having truth within them.
Admittedly, I’m just glossing here so as to keep it from being mind-numbingly detailed and lengthy.
Thought your post was pretty interesting until the above.
hint: Muslims also have the OT. The God of Abraham is Allah.
Maybe you were joking? I hope so!
Another hint, istara: Muhammed, PBUH, also had the NT in addition to the OT.
My feeble answer to the original post is to “love the one your with.”
I personally have been searching to return to the fold, and I suppose I have a chance to choose faiths. (This is a good thing, right?) I also have a quandary, since I am drawn intellectually to several faiths that are different from my original faith, but I am emotionally drawn to my original faith. I’m told that this is apparently not an intellectual decision. But then again, I’ve never been emotionally comfortable with anything until I have hashed it out intellectually, thus my current search which undermined my original faith in the first place. Ain’t life a bitch?
But most Christian denominations claim faith is more important than works. It doesn’t really matter what I have done because I don’t have the prerequisite faith, right? And won’t I (me, personally) be judged more harshly because I was raised with total knowledge (e.g., as a devout Christian) but found no affirmative reason to continue actively embracing it after Philosophy 101 (similar to another poster’s remarks here). Thus, I effectively rejected it for a time, and I am having difficulty getting back in.
How very kind of you (really). Most are not so gracious when discussing the likelihood of salvation for those not of the chosen faith (at least not down here in the South). Heck, one of my former co-workers believed I was going to Hell because “baptism” means “immersion,” and I was only baptized with sprinkled water. Now that’s harsh! (If he knew me better, he might have come up with a better reason for damning me, but that was the best he could do with insufficient information.)
And from this, you extrapolate a generality about “those who have found god [sic]”?
I’d like to think your (many many) questions to people of faith are sincere, but I swear it seems to me that they all come across as basically the same thing, namely, “How can you people be so stupid?” I’m willing to have a battle of the intellect with you if that’s what you want, but first you have to raise an intelligently worded and well thought out topic. If I thought this were really your level of sophistication, I wouldn’t call you out. But I think you’re sandbagging.
davlovindj -
I think you might be exaggerating the differences between denominations just a trifle. I can only speak for Christians, but not all Christians consider the theological differences between, say, Methodists and Lutherans to be all that earth-shattering.
I have received the Eucharist in a large number of different denomiations (Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopalian, non-denominational), and, as far as I can tell, it was the same God.
My take is that God seems a lot less concerned with doctrinal purity than people are. Take what comfort you like from that.
If your question had to do with which religion you should choose, it might be a bit easier to answer. Even so, the same Judeo-Christian-Islamic God seems to keep showing up.
Animist faiths like those of Ba’al and Ashteroth are at least easier to distinguish from monotheism. Wicca, from what I know (almost nothing at all) sounds more like animism and less like, say, Buddhism.
Good luck, if your question was sincere.
Regards,
Shodan
I’ve noticed this too, dalovindj. You defensively claim that your belief is firmly that “anyone who claims to ‘know’, one way or the other, is making an irrational statement”; but curiously your scorn is saved for those who believe (in God) while those who do not believe elude criticism from you. This is a friendly question: if it is not rational to believe in God and also not rational to not believe in God, why do you choose to grind your axe on the believers?
You dismiss the historical record out of hand (“a 2000 year old book that appears to be filled with stories of magic and mythology as evidence”), and deny believers both personal experience (“only personal accounts of ‘feelings’”) and the testimony of other’s experiences (“Believing anything your [sic] told is a poor idea.”). What is left? Honestly.
Do you employ such gusto in arguing against the rationality of physicists who believe in certain subatomic particles (which have never been observed), or of historians who believe that Attilla the Hun ravaged central Europe (based solely on sketchy historical records), or of people who believe that they love their mothers (based on personal “feelings”), or of people who believe that their mothers love them (based on the testimony of another)?
In this rather long essay, Peter Suber talks about logical “rudeness”. He reaches the conclusion that many forms of (logical) rudeness should be tolerated. Only one is fallacious: “the dismissal of an objection on grounds that would suffice to dismiss the theory itself”. In other words, it is a fallacy to reject the theories of others on grouds which should also cause you to logically reject your own theories. But that is what you seem to do: you dismiss any argument that is not rational by your somewhat non-standard criteria, which are themselves most decidedly not rational (by those same criteria).
I’m not advocating your acceptance of any particular belief. Rather, I think you have two choices. You can revise your criteria for acceptance and rejection to something other than “rationality”. It is frustrating to read your OP and know that most argument will be rejected tout court (while you simultaneously rail against such rejection of your own beliefs, since they’re founded on something you call “common sense”, though it’s not clear it is common or sense). Or, you can aggressively revise your own beliefs to ensure that they cannot possibly fail any criteria of rationality.
On the one hand, you embrace extreme skepticism; on the other you object loudly to solipsism. Are you aware that there is a very fuzzy dividing line between the two?
kg m²/s²
PS: In answer to the OP, I searched for one that I was comfortable with (both with the trappings of the church and its intellectual strictures), as well as one that I agreed with on most matters of doctrine.
I don’t think people are capable of embracing a worldview or religion that seems to them to be evil or oppressive, whether or not that worldview works intellectually. People like what they believe in, no matter how bleak it appears to others.
If I was in your situation, one thing I would do is more research. More knowledge can’t hurt right? Trust God to guide you - because if you do, this is all the faith you need, and your past becomes irrelevant. What is faith, if not trust in God?
Thanks ;j
Yes, faith is important to all Christian denominations, but ideas about what faith you need have will vary. Only the most extreme Protestant denominations would take the view that, if you don’t share the specific faith expressed by that denomination, you’re damned. A more mainstream view, which I think would include most Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans and Methodists, would be that a sincere search for God, coupled with a desire to do what is right as your conscience guides you, is going to get you over the bar faith-wise. (Obviously they’s like a little more, particularly if you actually want to join their denomination, but they’d accept that what I have outlined here is sufficient faith to attain salvation.) For the most part, as regards becoming active in a congregation Episcopalians in particular are welcoming of those who are doubtful or who are still on a quest for faith (which is not to say that others will turn you away, of course).
Seems to me that there is a major misperception widely shared here:
Salvation, whatever you may mean by the term, is by something that you do, whether adhering to a given belief system or trusting God or whatever interpretation you put on “faith,” or by “being good” or “doing good works” or charitable behavior towards one’s fellow man.
While each of these has its role in bringing one before God, the bottom line of Christianity has been that one is saved by the Grace of God – that and that alone. One accepts that gift of grace by loving and trusting Him – that’s faith in the meaning of trust, and by striving to understand who He is that you have decided to love and trust – that’s faith in the meaning of “orthodoxy” (which translates to “right belief”). And then by doing what He would have you do – which is outlined in extenso in the Gospels.
Bottom line is, suppose that you become convinced – it doesn’t matter how – that there is a God with the traditional omni-qualities and that He loves you and has expectations of you. If you can go so far as to put your trust in His love for you and consequent good intentions towards you, you’ve achieved the requisite faith. Your misinterpretations of Who He might be, what role various humans may play in His plan, etc., are not subject to His judgment, except by the judgmental, whom He condemns for their stiff-necked spirit of law and not of love.
Hi Polycarp.
I certainly didn’t intend to commit the sin of presumption. Yes, salavation is the free gift of God. You can’t earn it, but it is offered to you. All you can do is accept or reject it.
If your last paragraph implies that you have to be convinced of the existence of God in order to be saved, I don’t agree. The call to salvation is universal, and can be accepted by those who are searching for God. Only where somebody, knowing God, has rejected him, can we say that they must also have rejected salvation.
Istara,
As far as I understand it, this is correct: Jews, Muslims, and Christians all claim to be the children of Abraham. Pretty impressive for one elderly sheepherder!