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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill Jackson who wrote (141257)	1/6/2002 7:39:49 PM
From: jcholewa	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1585690

> Let others have their beliefs, and you have yours > and me mine. Yes, yes, that's all and good. But I don't have any beliefs. Are you saying that you do not think it a good idea for me to ask people about their beliefs? However else will I be able to find a set of beliefs for myself? I have noticed that people who believe in things happen to be a lot happier than, say, me, and I like to try all things that could potentially make me a better and/or happier person.

To: Bill Jackson who wrote (141257)	1/6/2002 9:47:39 PM
From: stribe30	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1585690

Bill said: JC, Let others have their beliefs, and you have yours and me mine. faith based belief systems are based on arbitrary postulates in the minds of their priests to gain maximum flock size and control of that flock and their financial resources. Join a flock, believe or not believe, understand or not, it matters not to the priests as long as you keep to the ways of the flock, pay your obeisance and monies as directed. Some so called religions tolerate non believers in their midst, some do not. Some expell them, some kill them.Understanding is not needed, obediance is. In fact the priese in control know whay they are doing and know how to do it. lower echelon priests are often unaware. Looks at the so called Church of Scientology if you doubt me. Money, money, money, gimme, gimme, gimme. Same as the RC church and all the rest of them. Bill.. I think you've spent far too much time in the Intel thread... I didnt realize you were so cynical :) Secondly.. you should study religion a bit more or the Christian Church in general.. there are many different sects or denominations in the Protestant part of the Christian Church that have no priests... we have ministers... ;) 2ndly... some of these denominations have a very loosely tied central authority ... a lot of power is devolved to the regional church branches and even individual churches.. in fact.. you will not find many Protestant denominations with anything remotely resembling the hierarchy and structure of the Catholic Church... an example of this would be the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec (or Convention Baptists as we are most often known as).. 3rdly.. you need to distinguish between the mainstream Christian Church (Catholics, the varous Protestant denominations (ie Baptist, Lutheran, Pentecostal, Methodist, etc..), Anglicans/Episcopalians who arent quite sure whether they want to be Protestant or Catholic, and I suppose Eastern Orthodox) and religious cults or sects that have warped Christian values ( I consider the Church of Scientology to be one of these... David Koresh's group would be another example).. Instead of worshipping God, they tend to develop a cult of personality towards the "leader" of their group, and this leader often takes advantage of this brainwashed devotion. You cant paint what they do to what mainstream Christianity is supposed to represent. Finally.. remember... in the case of Christianity (and I daresay the other major religions) the worst religious excesses are caused by ma'ns warped interpretation of what they believe the Word of God to be.. not the Word itself. I suppose you've figured out I'm a Christian by now ;) but.. I strongly believe in life after death... and I believe in having a spirit/soul.. and I can tell you that faith and prayer have helped me thru many difficult times and given me answers when I asked... not always .. but sometimes... and you're right.. a lot of this depends on faith and not so much on scientific evidence.. but I believe we have been given free will to decide these things for ourselves.. and our actions and deeds will be judged in the next realm after our passing from this world. Thus ends my sermon for today (heck.. its still Snday after all) :)