If my way of describing what I thought applied to narrow mindedness has nothing to do with worldview, then I guess the book Catcher in the Rye is actually about killing John Lennon. Look at this from my side. I was giving an example of the narrow minded Christians. That was all I did. These Christians were spiteful and hateful when it came down to it. I wasn't being general or anything. Just giving an example.

Also, every religion is technically narrow in what is truth when you think about it. Every religion, except maybe Pastaferianism, is open about how it believes it is right. If I was say... a Hindu. I would come to this thread saying Christians need to stop putting me down. There's an example. Say someone here was a Jew. They'd feel the same way. It's how religion works. I'm giving the neutral viewpoint as a way for people to look at the world from the eyes of another religion so they can understand that this topic and most Christian topics can be turned into topics about a different religion and still mean the same thing.

Example, try and take this to a Muslim forum. If anyone wants to do it as an experiment, I am all for it, as I have a feeling interesting things will happen if we called this, "Are *insert religion here* narrow minded?".

Okay. Got my point across. Time to do three school subjects so I can stay in my homeschooling program. Thank you. Pray that I don't get kicked out. No really.

I believe Christians are narrow minded. Its only one way or the highway.

tRIUNE : People knew what was right and wrong before relgion came about, especially Christianity. God has nothing to do with it. The Chinese and Japanese traditionally have there own relgions/beliefs and they know what's right and wrong. So you think non Christian nations are bad/evil for having other beliefs ? That's a very sad way to look at the world, you must be miserable. Are you so weak that you can't control your own emotions, and you need help from God ? We can't reform ourselves ?
So you're saying everyone outside of Christianity is a slave of sin? Sorry but that's absolute crap. Christ didn't give us the choice, we've always had it. Everyone is responsible for there own actions. Stop selling yourself and others short. We are In control of our own lives by the choices we make everyday. We learn from mistakes. Slavery to God, that sounds nice, how about we have no slavery full stop.

Golvellius : Yeah , no worries dude, all I'm saying is that if you knew your sin according to the Holy Bible then you would know that you can't control that sin apart from God's help. I am weak in regard to my sinful nature and do need His help, as a supportive Heavenly Father, not a crutch. Free will is not all it's cracked up to be, the purpose of it is to make a commitment to God on our own accord and not His. Actually, slavery to God is much better than slavery to sin.

"Actually, slavery to God is much better than slavery to sin".

I've been overseas and done things to help people In dire circumstances, now I'm not a Christian but I have a big interest in it. So you're saying that even though I have done good things as opposed to Christians who do bad things or do nothing, that I'm a slave to sin and essentially a bad person who's gonna get the fire and brimestone treatmet ?
Most Christians I wouldn't even call Christians, they're a joke. "Going to church no more makes you a Christian than standing in a garage makes you a car"-GK

I respect you for actually practising what you preach.

Golvellius : The fact that people knew from right and wrong before Christianity came along proves even more that God has something to do with it. God has given everyone a conscience to know from right or wrong. It's known as the "law that was written in your hearts" in the Bible. The fact that we have morals is because there is an absolute moral lawgiver. People have sometimes made morals to be subjective, like majority rules, or government, etc to determine rules, but in the end, people know of an absolute right or wrong in their hearts, because God put them there.

When you see other religions, all of them are different to Christianity, because they all have a work based way of getting back to God. Muslim has the five pillars, Hinduism has reincarnation determined from your works, etc. Christianity, however, says that no one can meet up to God's perfect standard. No one is good enough to earn heaven. Everyone is weak and that we all sin. Yet God came and became a man and took the punishment of our sins, which is death, even though He Himself is perfect and does not deserve this punishment. He defeated death and call those who repent(change of mind from sin to God) and trust in Him, not by works but by faith, your sins would be justified because God is the substitute, and in that process God would change you, that things that God hates (sin) and you loved, you now hate, and the things that God loves and you formerly hated, you now love. You would be sanctified and cleaned from inside out, and it would be EVIDENT that you are saved, because there would be an evident change from your old self to your new self. That is what a slave of God is like. The Bible mentions this that we are originally children of wrath and we were rebelling God through our wicked works. WE ALL DESERVE HELL

As for those hypocrites or those who don't practice what they preach, they are not fooling God. God knows who truly follows Him. And the Bible actually talks about those who think they are following God when they are not. There will be people who would come up to Him in the end and say "Lord Lord" (said twice to show that they are close) when He will say "depart from me, I NEVER KNEW YOU." One can tell if someone is a false convert (someone who never was born again or surrender to Christ) when they lived as if Christ never died for them. It would seem as if there is no improvement in a person's life. (Though we can never be sure because we cannot judge the heart, but there are false converts around, and God knows) I completely agree with that quote from GK.

Now this will get a little personal, I just want to point out something. You talk about what you did...did this, done that....yet you would never reach God's standard of perfection. To add to that, we get prideful of our works and think that it means much to God. Yet God is perfect and just and holy, and breaking only one law makes us guilty of all (Book of James). Christians are not trying to sell themselves short, they humbled themselves and see that they fall short, and instead of continually fighting God's offer of salvation and continue to rely on themselves, they surrender, they admit they need help, and they rely on God, since He is the author of salvation anyways.

That is what "Grace" means, and that is how God is also mercy and loving, yet still holy and just.

Golvellius : Alright, awesome that you have an interest in Christianity. I was raised by a Christian family, however, I did not follow their religion. I was a drug addict and in-and-out of jail from 11 to 19, then is when God saved me.

I've been a born-again Christian for about 7 years now (since 2003), and truth be told, I thought I was a Christian all my life because I was "brought up Christian". Anyway, according to the Bible good things you have done don't out weigh the bad. So, according to the Bible, unless you've been born-again, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God (John 3:3). Trip out on that, eh? I did at first.

play4fun : Did you even read my post ? This is merely your fundamentalist view. I'm talking about people knew right and wrong before they knew anything anbout the hebrew god.Just because you believe god put it in our hearts doesn't mean it's so. Your belief is no more right than the next person. Just because you believe that we're all sinners doesn't mean it's true.

I will be looked at better than many self proclaimed christians because instead of sitting on my arse anoying God all the time, I had the guts and balls to be a man and do something on my own. Most christians winge and whine and pray for help, few get off there knees and actually go do something useful.

If i spend my life doing good things and God does exist and doesn't think i've met God's standard of perfection, then that's God problem. God's not so perfect, God's standard is very low if you read the old testament. People cant even agree on the bible so what's so perfect about that. God's killed many people, including women and children. Adovocated rapes, murders, slavery.
God's done worse things than i could ever do in my lifetime, and Christians call me a bad person. "God is also mercy and loving, yet still holy and just". I don't know how you do it, or why you do it but you must be reading the wrong bible. I dont know how you can justify that inside your head, something bad must have happened to throw all commen sense and reason out the window.

If something good happens in my life it because of hard work, this has nothing to do with praying for it or god giving something to me. Anyone who has a talent has spent years to perfect it, it's not as simple as being blessed or praying for it. This is exactly why Chrsitains sell themselves short. They can't survive in the real world. The have to clutch onto something else to get through life like a scared puppy dog.
This probably didn't answer everything but i suck at typing.

Golvellius : Not to speak for play4fun, I do hope that he responds to your post, but could you please reference the scripture in which God advocates rape? As far as the murder and possibly slavery I understand your point of view. I believe in karma, however, I believe it comes from God and not some mysterious force out there.

tRIUNE :

Zechariah 14:1-2
Numbers 31:7-18
Deuteronomy 20:10-14
Deuteronomy 22:28-29
Deuteronomy 21:10-14
Exodus 21:7-11

Golvellius : Okay, for starts, these scriptures are not talking about rape. They're talking about 'wives' as spoils of war (meaning that, the scriptures aren't specifying whether the marriages were forced or not). Second, and most importantly, these scriptures are a record of a far less civilized (due to date) than even the New Testament, let alone our own time.

tRIUNE : Wives as spoils of war ? You don't have to think hard to work out what that would mean. These women were war booty, they're not exactly going to consent to having sexual relations or to marriage, It would have been forced upon them. That aside Zechariah 14:1-2 Is very clear.

Numbers 31:17, Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
18,But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

Keep alive for yourselves.I'm pretty sure that these guys who kept these women didn't treat them nicely with hugs and roses.

It doesn't matter what time these incidents occured. Rape is rape, murder etc etc. From previous posts we've discussed how everyone knows right from wrong because of God and only God. So therefore these people knew what they were doing back then and the theme is still applicable by todays standards because we've always known right from wrong, right ?

Golvellius : I don't have the answers to everything; there's not a single Christian/pastor/scholar who does. But I'd say because God allowed/allows things to happen, doesn't mean he advocates them. You know, for me if I have a difficulty understanding something about either the Bible or about the Lord I still remain narrow-minded in my faith towards him because I've experienced his grace and mercy.

This doesn't mean that I don't question things from time to time, which isn't necessarily always a good thing that I do, but some things are required to question -- the Bible says to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling," or in other words 'reverence and concern' (Philippians 2:12).

Concerning God as an advocate of murder, King David was prohibited from building the temple of the Lord because he caused so much bloodshed, instead his son Solomon built it (1 Chronicles 22:7-10). This shows that God is not pleased with bloodshed and murder. As for the 'rape', originally the Israelites took wives as spoils of war, which was not instructed by the Lord to do so. Thus, it was allowed to happen to them when they were taken captive.

Other than this, I'd say check out this link, Why God allows evil, and see if it might answer some of your questions.

8. Atheists, Agnostics, Pagans
-No salvation (?)

As one of the resident Pagans on the board, I would like to dispute this. Firstly, I don't think I would really call it "salvation", since in our belief what is there to be saved from? Same with Buddhists or Hindus... there is no concept of Original Sin, therefore no need of salvation. We believe in an afterlife, the bulk of us believe in reincarnation of some kind.

As to the title question of if Christians are narrow-minded. Well, in my experience, the bulk of them are... no offense to people here. First there is the whole "If you don't follow my religion then you are damned to Hell." Then there is the "If you don't believe EXACTLY the way I do, you are going to Hell" (yes, I know people that say Catholics/Protestants are going to Hell, that Jews are going to Hell, that Muslims are all going to Hell, etc). There are many who are very tolerant, but in a lot of cases it is obvious that it is a mask and they are trying to "save" you instead of respecting your beliefs. I respect your belief that Jesus died for your sins, but in my faith he is just a very kind philosopher who was killed by bad people for trying to change things. To those that truly are respectful of other's beliefs, I thank you and wish that there were more like you, I really and truly do.

tRIUNE : well most aren't but the one's who hate gay people or other stuff

Elara : "there is no concept of Original Sin, therefore no need of salvation."

original sin isn't the only reason for needing salvation... it was simply the introduction of sin into the world. Everyone is in need of salvation because they have committed sins at some point in their lives.

Elara : Reason for me wrapping parenthesis around the question mark for salvation of Atheists, Agnostics, Pagans is because I'm not fully comprehensive of these beliefs--or, I'm not sure if they regard salvation.

Well, let me ask you this: do you, in the least, fear death although you will be reincarnated? You might say no, but seriously--if you knew you were going to die within the next 5 minutes, would you be comfortable with that? Honestly if I believed reincarnation to be true--I'd end this suffering life of mine right now so that I could start over. If reincarnation is assuring to you in this way, why do we not just do so whenever hardship comes our way?

As for me, I believe in salvation through Christ--not just on some emotional trip, but through experiences of numerous times of when I should have died, but miraculously I was spared. Not only this, but on several occasions I've prayed for something along the lines of support or intervention in my, or others' life, and saw it miraculously come to pass.

I'm not saying that I disrespect others' faith/beliefs, well to be more specific to the thread, I'm curious to know if the people of diverse faiths/beliefs have a sincere connection with, or to, the source of life. Well as for the Pagan belief, to the best of my knowledge, and I might be wrong so I'm sorry if so, Mother Earth created life. If this is the case, Earth isn't capable of having a being, or 'personality'--God however, is.

tRIUNE : Just because a certain verse says something nice compared to something not so nice, doesn't make it any better and doesn't cancel it out.

Golvellius : When it is understood as discernment, then it does.

Wow...When I read the bible I read without interpretating it,without twisting meaning etc. I'm told this is how it's supposed to be read. Your comment is Irrelevant as I'm not making my own judgement, No one is supposed to, because we're told how to, it's already done for us In the Bible. Do whatever you must to sleep at night dude. I'd hate to see how you make decisions in the real world.

Golveliius: OK, I'm not clear here--sorry. I'm just saying that when you cross-reference certain scriptures with others then the ones that seem out of place make sense--because certain verses in the Bible will be offensive without the cross-reference which wxplains the scenario.