QUOTE (neutrality @ Mar 14 2006, 01:51 AM) You guys are now going off topic since Islam is not really related to Christianity unless you choose to look back to the beginning of the religions.
To get it back on track - I am a Buddist so if I offend anyone with my ignorance, I will say sorry right now
That said, I remember reading long time ago that Lutherans came to be because a British? king decided to divorce his wife and since h couldn't, because she was reelated to pope, he started his own branch so he could get another wife. Is this accurate?
Islam is related to christianity, and many islamic texts do mention Christ. Mohammed started islam about 500 year after Christ, demoted him to a messenger of god, and Mohammed himself because the one true prophet of god.
at least this is what i have been reading.
as for the main discussion i have an interested book on my shell right now i'd reccommend to Bold, however it may be near impossible to find another copy as it's 30 years old.
Check out Religions in America edited by Leo Rosten. It's based on an ongoing series by LOOK magazine and pretty much covers all christian sects.
Right now i'm currently reading A History of God by Karen Armstrong and it's a recent New York Times Bestseller. YOu might also be interested in that. Thirdly, check out The Gnostic Bible, which contains many translated Gnostic texts.
My own beliefs lie within a very christian mindset i guess, but believing christ to be human, a man of god, rather than divine, a god of man.
I pull my beliefs alot from the Gospel of Thomas, a supposedly heretical text from 50 AD which is a collection of wisdom sayings, although many sources have also been read and pulled from, including cannonical gospels and the gospels of mary and phillip. Christ, I believe had knowledge of god, or at least the will of god, as have others throught history. I believe the miracles happened, either through sleight of hand, or genuinely. After all, without the miracles it would be nearly impossible for the religion to develop: there were others with the same teachings at the time and in the region that didn't form religions, not to mention there's just a rather odd feeling accompanied by the miracles of christ in the gospels that when the apostles supposedly perform similar miracles in Acts, it simply comes off as a boast and a facetious claim of being ale to copy that whichh others had witnessed at the time.
I do not believe however that the miracles are of much value, simply because the teachings are the true message, and i remember a passage being of christ saying "I only do these so that you believe", in other words, they're just there to back up his authenticity.
It does not even matter that the words came from christ to me. buddhism has the message of loving kindness, and so do many other religions teach messages of loving your fellow man, doing acts of good will, etc.
that's what's at the heart of it all and that's what's important.
Other than that I'm skeptical as hell in a Thomasonian tradition (let me stick my fingers in the damned wounds before i believe), perhaps my little rant might have indicated that.
I really don't know what that would classify me as. Feel free to give your imput.
