In Reply to: the proof is in the pudding posted by lydia on April 13, 2004 at 07:06:01:
It's kind of a 60's thing to claim that religion has the onus of killing more people than non-religious systems. That was first a doctrine of the "kill all opposition" type of communism,and became the claim of socialism, which wanted the same goals, but wanted the "real communists" to carry out purges, pogroms and counter-revolutions.
It's kind of like the old Moody Blues lyric from "Lost in a Lost World" (appropriate title!);
The Revolution never won.
It's just another form of gun
to do the same things "they" have done.
Hmmm.
Marx/Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot and the like kind of put the lie to that; I'm afraid--count again.
A lot of young adults (I'm 51+) now pretty much accept the basic premise of Post-Modernism, which asserts that ALL experience, religious and otherwise, is what CS Lewis called "true truth", so that a Christian's experience with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, may be real enough, but is supplantable, by virtue of mere experience alone, by the experience of not only atheists and humanists, but that of animists and nature-worshipping pagans, followers of Satanism and/or "satanism-lite", or any other spiritual "experience". All are real, all are valid, and all MUST be "homogenized" to arrive at ultimate truth, which "couldn't POSSIBLY be the Gospel".
Actually, that's what the philosopher Hegel claimed:
Major Syllogism:
1. There are ABSOLUTELY NO "ABSOLUTES"
(Hmmm. Sounds kind of dopey at the outset--how would one become absolutely sure about that?).
Monor syllogisms:
2. All statements about truth, or theses, MUST, WITHOUT END, be supplanted by the action of a contrary antithesis, which must necessarily ultimately resolve into a synthesis.
3. No truth "do-overs"--you can't go back, you're now deterministically "stuck" at the point of synthesis, at which you've currently arrived.
4. Propositional and/or objective truth cannot, therefore exist.
Logical problem:
1. False premise
2. Incomplete middle
3. Begging the question
4. Circular argumentation
I've EXPERIENCED the demonmic nature of the occult/psychic/ cosmic yoga crap, etc. It's real, and spiritual, and "on demand", especially if you're philosophically prejudiced about the possibility of true, experiential and BIBLICAL Christianity, or, rather, a relationship with God. A real one. Not like TF, a horrible experience I share.
It's like the Devil got a "parting shot", and convinced some exers, FG as well SG, to believe not only what TF taught them (and which they, admirably, then partially or fully rejected), but then got them to accept the "straw image argument/"throwing the baby out with the bathwater" argument.
Only one thing's good about Post-Modernism--it still validates experience. That might leave someone open to the REAL Jesus; I sincerely hop so.
I've experienced other religions, but most Post-Moderns accept "alll other religions" (EXCEPT a Biblical and experiential Christianity), without ever having experienced them.
I wrongly assumed that TF taught "true truth", but I was wrong, again. That did not invalidate the real, true, pure and wonderful experience I have had since then, with the real deal.