Society & Culture - 29 July 2006

Saturday Im getting baptized. I will be dedicating myself to Jehovah in front of all the people at the convention saying I want to be one of his witnesses. I want to do his will. Im so excited. Im a little scared though...I havent told my mom or dad or family yet. What words of encouragement can you guys give. Thanks

2006-07-29 14:04:09 · 26 answers · asked by hispeach128 2 in Religion & Spirituality

Do any of you have a college degree in the field of Biology or Biochemistry? And if yes, after you've seen all the evidence and explanantion in your classes, you still don't believe in Evolution, but will believe something written in a book 2000 years ago with no proof whatsoever?

2006-07-29 14:04:01 · 10 answers · asked by trafficer21 4 in Religion & Spirituality

Eh? Any thoughts? I am constantly baffled by this. More specifically, I'm thinking of things like staying awake too late, having yet another biscuit, smoking another tab...other rather more extreme instances have just popped into mind, and I'm sure you can think of your own examples...why do we do it?!

2006-07-29 14:03:54 · 13 answers · asked by dorothy 4 in Other - Society & Culture

... understand the true nature of things?

2006-07-29 14:02:06 · 4 answers · asked by rodneycrater 3 in Other - Society & Culture

i pray three times a day. I would like to know which section of the bible should i pray for love and happiness.

2006-07-29 14:01:34 · 16 answers · asked by Anonymous in Religion & Spirituality

2006-07-29 14:01:23 · 3 answers · asked by Anonymous in Other - Society & Culture

The Bible definitely teaches he believed he was, after all, he said, before Abraham was "I AM". That is the very name of God in the Old Testament. If you say the Bible is inaccurate, then what other wrtting is accurate and says that Jesus did not believe that about himself?

2006-07-29 14:01:00 · 17 answers · asked by nobodiesinc 1 in Religion & Spirituality

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/685ozxcq.asp

2006-07-29 14:00:47 · 7 answers · asked by whynotaskthemoron 1 in Religion & Spirituality

To all those people who tell me not to judge islamic facist-- can we not judge the actions of the nazis? I mean not all of them killed jews right?????? Hypocrites.

Wake up, islam is the new threat to this world.

2006-07-29 13:56:53 · 11 answers · asked by Anonymous in Religion & Spirituality

People kill me when they quote that verse thinking they are so smart.... but oh how inaccurate they are as they mis-quote a statement and do not even know it....

2006-07-29 13:56:46 · 22 answers · asked by nobodiesinc 1 in Religion & Spirituality

i have noticed that most nonchristians know what this really means and respect it. i want to know if anyone else knows what this really means as well and keep in mind that i am looking for personal meaning to it not a bible meaning if any of you christians answer this.

i am my self a spiritualist/pantheist

2006-07-29 13:56:36 · 12 answers · asked by Anonymous in Religion & Spirituality

2006-07-29 13:56:03 · 17 answers · asked by Smegma Stigma 4 in Religion & Spirituality

My real estate agent just helped me in a very big way, with all of the steps of buying a house (including several things that really weren't her job to do). She went above and beyond and I want her to know that I didn't take it for granted, that I really appreciate everything she did for me. I don't live in her area (she lives about 600 miles away) so I am somewhat limited in my choices. Also I don't know her very well so it has to be something that is socially acceptable for a strictly professional relationship.

Any idea will be appreciated!

2006-07-29 13:55:59 · 34 answers · asked by I Know Nuttin 5 in Etiquette

I'm a young Black American female who talks properly and when I talk around Black people they ALWAYS ask me "Where are you from?" I am from the South but does that really mean anything? Just because I was born, raised and live in the South doesn't mean I have to talk all the slang and ebonics. I'm just being myself. I'm not trying to be white by talking proper or relaxing my hair or wearing Aroepostle(Forgot how to spell it.) What if I don't like to hear rap all the time or wear Baby Phat? It sounds like they're trying to say that white people talk right and we don't. What do you think?

2006-07-29 13:55:16 · 46 answers · asked by ♥Ms. Heart♥ 5 in Other - Cultures & Groups

Can somebody please translate this from chinese to english?

Gai shi Ting Xiong Yai...

2006-07-29 13:54:10 · 4 answers · asked by Snaox 1 in Languages

I asked God if I should eat or not.. told Him I was hungry.. and wanted to know if it would make me sicker or would He have it nourish my body in good health. My plate of food suddenly fell off the countertop and crashed onto the floor with no help from anyone. Was that a sign?

2006-07-29 13:49:50 · 15 answers · asked by ? 2 in Religion & Spirituality

Where do you think the ten tribes were scattered to?

2006-07-29 13:49:14 · 5 answers · asked by Bimpster 4 in Religion & Spirituality

2006-07-29 13:48:53 · 52 answers · asked by truthyness 7 in Religion & Spirituality

Maynard James Keenan is God and Corey Taylor is the Messiah.

2006-07-29 13:46:48 · 13 answers · asked by azmurath 3 in Religion & Spirituality

See Romans 8:29-30 and Ephesians 1:5 & 11

2006-07-29 13:46:38 · 15 answers · asked by nobodiesinc 1 in Religion & Spirituality

So....

1 Samuel 15:2-4
2 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.
3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ***.
4 And Saul gathered the people together, and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah.


"Now kill all the boys [innocent kids]. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man. (Numbers 31:17-18)"

Extreme fundamentalists and racists from among the Christians such as Pat Robertson and George W. Bush who could careless about who dies and who doesn't in wars from innocent people are WELL KNOWN FOR THEIR CARELESSNESS about the deaths of innocent civilians?

YOUR BIBLE TEACHES YOU THIS! OMG! YOU MURDERERS!

2006-07-29 13:46:22 · 14 answers · asked by Anonymous in Religion & Spirituality

"Ask a college student to describe the Catholic Church and his answer might be: "corruption." But it should be "civilization." No institution has done more to shape Western civilization than the Church. This book explains why modern science was born in the Church, how the Church invented the university, the truth about the Galileo affair and more." -HOW THE CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILT WESTERN CIVILIZATION by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
http://www.ewtn.com/vcatalogue/pages/itemdetail.asp?itemcode=60387&source=categories.asp&category=BOOKS&pgnu=9

2006-07-29 13:46:04 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Religion & Spirituality

2006-07-29 13:46:04 · 12 answers · asked by BM 3 in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender

this is not how the world should end according to revelations.

2006-07-29 13:43:09 · 40 answers · asked by Anonymous in Religion & Spirituality

I sure have if so what has been your best experiences and why?

2006-07-29 13:43:08 · 18 answers · asked by Anonymous in Other - Society & Culture

2006-07-29 13:42:44 · 24 answers · asked by Anonymous in Religion & Spirituality

See the links below to author and pastor Dr. Dell F. Sanchez reveling to the Hispanic/Latino community in America that they too came to the Americas fleeing religeous persecution just like the English Pilgrims, Quaker, Sabbatarian and Puritan Christians. Many of them fled the Inquisition that followed them to Mexico and lasted up into the 1800s to the United States in the SouthWest. Many of them were the lower class in Mexico because the aristocratic families kept track of thier lineage and surnames so they would not intermarry with them. I also read about this in a two volume English version of Mexican history under "Conversos". Do some research on the internet using "conversos", "cryto-jews" and "marronos" to see what you will find.

http://4sephardim.com/sephnews.html

http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-17516-3

2006-07-29 13:41:40 · 6 answers · asked by echadone 2 in Other - Cultures & Groups

2006-07-29 13:41:30 · 14 answers · asked by Anonymous in Other - Society & Culture

That bothers me so much! A couple of months ago I flew to Atlanta Georgia,to visit a sick friend.I went to this church and it had a lot of black people.While I was sitting I could hear people whispering saying stuff like this "why is there a white man in our church". I felt bad but then it made me realy angry when I asked some of my black freinds.They said the only people who know god is black people.Since then a lot of people have been saying that.I feel that anyone can know god no matter if your black,white,spanish,ect.

2006-07-29 13:40:55 · 23 answers · asked by Anonymous in Religion & Spirituality

PARIS -- Al Fath Mosque is in a scruffy immigrant neighborhood not far from the neon-lit kitsch of the Pigalle district. On Friday afternoons, the mosque is jammed, and the overflow of worshippers spills into the streets.

Tourists who stumble on the scene reflexively reach for their cameras, struck by this unusual public manifestation of religiosity in a country where Christian belief has become passé.

In France and in almost every other European country, Christianity appears to be in a free fall. Although up to 88% of the French identify themselves as Catholic, only about 5% go to church on most Sundays; 60% say they "never" or "practically never" go.

But Islam is a thriving force. The 12 million to 15 million Muslims who live in Europe make up less than 5% of the total population, but the vitality of their faith has led some experts to predict that Islam will become the continent's dominant faith.

Princeton University historian Bernard Lewis, the dean of American Middle East scholars, flatly predicts that Europe will be Muslim by the end of this century.

George Weigel, a leading American theologian, frets about "a Europe in which the muezzin summons the faithful to prayer from the central loggia of St. Peter's in Rome, while Notre Dame has been transformed into Hagia Sophia on the Seine -- a great Christian church" will "become an Islamic museum."

Lewis and Weigel represent a trend among American thinkers who say they fear Europe's doom if it does not re-Christianize, and soon. Most European experts believe those fears are exaggerated.

France, with Europe's largest Muslim population, surely will be a test case.

A church in crisis

Little argument exists about the severity of the crisis facing the Catholic Church in France. In contrast with the vigorous (and masculine) face that French Muslims present to the world, a typical Sunday mass almost anywhere in France will feature an elderly priest preaching to a dwindling congregation of mostly elderly women.

"Mass is boring," said Odon Vallet, a religion professor at the Sorbonne. "The ceremony isn't very beautiful; the music is bad; the sermon is uninteresting. Mass is for people who have nothing else to do on a Sunday -- no sports, no hobbies, no shopping, no entertainment."

Islam is France's fastest-growing religion. But this is mainly a result of immigration patterns, not conversions. Most of the 4.5 million Muslims who make up about 7% of the French population are immigrants or the descendants of immigrants from former French colonies in north Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.

Global Islam is eager for converts. But in Europe, the situation is nuanced. According to Olivier Roy, a leading French scholar on Islam, Muslims in Europe would be happy for Christians to convert, while Christians merely want Muslims to become more secular.

While President George W. Bush proudly declares America "a nation of prayer," French President Jacques Chirac praises the virtues of French secularism. France developed a distinctly French notion of church-state separation more than a century ago in an attempt to curb the influence of the Catholic Church. Known as laicite, it allows all faiths equal status and ensures that all are equally divorced from the functions of the state.

Bruno Bourg-Broc, a deputy in the National Assembly and self-described committed Catholic, laments the erosion of the faith in France.

"We are a fundamentally Christian society," he said. "The landscape is formed of churches. It's part of our culture, our literature and painting." Whether people want it in the constitution or not, "we were formed in this way and should not be ashamed of it.

"The doctrine of Islam is to conquer and convert, and we must keep this in mind. I don't think there is a real risk here, but if it happens, it will be our own fault."

Hope for the future

Last year, when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected pope and took the name Benedict, the patron saint of Europe, it was seen as a sign that he would refocus the church's energies on rebuilding the faith in Europe. The Vatican was heartened when a million young people turned out last August for World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany, and heard the new pope urge them to rediscover Europe's Christian roots.

Some experts also are encouraged on Christianity's behalf if only because things can't get much worse.

"If you are the type of person who buys stocks and bonds, I'd buy Christianity," said Vallet of Sorbonne. "The price now is very low, so I think it has to go up."

Other analysts believe Europe's future is neither Christianity nor Islam, but secularism. A pragmatic reading of the numbers suggests that not only will Christianity never regain its dominant cultural role but also that churchgoers will be forced to recast themselves as minorities or subcultures.

"Who truly thinks that Benedict XVI is the future of Europe?" said Roy, the Islamic scholar.

Tourists who stumble on the scene reflexively reach for their cameras, struck by this unusual public manifestation of religiosity in a country where Christian belief has become passé.

In France and in almost every other European country, Christianity appears to be in a free fall. Although up to 88% of the French identify themselves as Catholic, only about 5% go to church on most Sundays; 60% say they "never" or "practically never" go.

But Islam is a thriving force. The 12 million to 15 million Muslims who live in Europe make up less than 5% of the total population, but the vitality of their faith has led some experts to predict that Islam will become the continent's dominant faith.

Princeton University historian Bernard Lewis, the dean of American Middle East scholars, fl

2006-07-29 13:40:40 · 8 answers · asked by whynotaskthemoron 1 in Religion & Spirituality