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Post by general313 on Aug 30, 2019 20:13:15 GMT

Aug 30, 2019 19:09:15 GMT @homergreg said:

Aug 30, 2019 18:58:45 GMT general313 said:

The choice wasn't "religious practices", it was "religion". I'm not saying you necessarily fit this pattern, and I already expressed my hope that you don't, but history is full of religious people that condone or outright commit violence against "nonbelievers". There's plenty of them around today, in the States and elsewhere.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about in practice, maybe it will better illuminate my view here:

There is a father and son who belong to a religion that forbids interfaith marriage. The son falls in love with and marries someone outside this religion. The religion states that the father must disown the son in this circumstance. The father wrestles with the situation, prays long and hard about it, and comes to a decision. The father welcomes his new daughter in law and is excommunicated from the religion.

I personally believe that the father did not put his son ahead of God in this situation, but he sure put his son ahead of his religion.

Ok, this makes some sense, if you define religion narrowly, which is often how the term is used (eg. Seventh Day Adventists, a branch of a branch of Christianity). But if you move higher up the hierarchy to Christianity as a whole, I think most Christians would equate a rejection of Christianity to a rejection of God (at least the Christian conception of God). Supposedly, everything we know about the Christian God is in the Bible, which wouldn't exist without the Church, ecumenical councils and prophets.