Posted by consider the truth on September 28, 2013 at 13:45:42
In Reply to: Re: Personal Opinion posted by fh on September 25, 2013 at 05:02:59:
I met a very spiritual couple and one was Islamic, the other Christian. Since they married in a country where Islam was the only recognized religion and evangelism was forbidden, she converted to Islam on paper but kept her Christian faith behind closed doors. She and her husband moved to Spain where they could both be open. They had a child who was too young to be taught about religion, but they said they would teach him about both of their religions and be open for the child, when growing into adult, would choose whatever the child becoming adult chose and respect their child's choice. I suppose this smacks of universalism, but that is what I believe as an atheist. Spirituality is not confined to one single religion, neither is it void in a person of no religion. I can remember for awhile TF thought of itself as possibly the select 144,000 in the making. I don't like that kind of exclusivity that narrows supposed chosen few as the winners and the others as he'll bound or with lesser privilege in the afterlife any more than bergs' bus levels or levels of authority in the afterlife. TF had a caste system of sorts where certain individuals were royal family, others were robotic leaders on different levels and the rest were grunts, those confined to menial and repetitive labor. Worse yet, the children in each of these levels had different levels of food, housing, clothing and education. Then the RF kids, being around DB and co. were often exposed to some of the worst sexual abuse, separations from biological family and so on. It wasn't the fruit of the righteous or a tree of LIFE org, for sure. I think when religion divides humanity it is destructive, bearing bad fruit. When it unites, relates to the human condition we all deal with, good, apathetic, negative, and then strives for justice, equality, compassion, empathy, encourages self care, self confidence, care for the world around us, this is spirituality and bears good fruit whether atheist, agnostic, catholic, protestant, Islamist or other. Certainly there are many Christians who are practicing these principles, but humans of any race, creed, or religion or lack thereof do too!