Religion & Spirituality - 9 November 2007

Why are there so many Y!A accounts with cats as their avatar in the R & S section? Are these Felintheists? Is there a felinism movement? I see way more cats as avatars then I do any other type of picture (other then the standard cartoon head you can make sort of look like you if you squint).

2007-11-09 09:20:39 · 12 answers · asked by Take it from Toby 7

2007-11-09 09:20:26 · 8 answers · asked by JamMamSam 2

2007-11-09 09:19:41 · 24 answers · asked by Anonymous

spankins for the lot of you.

2007-11-09 09:19:28 · 13 answers · asked by Anonymous

Quite often I get thoroughly chastised or pitied for my lack of belief. For all you know those who ask the most challenging questions might be those with the deepest faith.

2007-11-09 09:18:16 · 10 answers · asked by DavinaOpines 5

2007-11-09 09:18:05 · 13 answers · asked by Ace of Spades 5

It's a virtual Quran, you can turn the pages n stuff. I think it's really nice:
http://www.quranflash.com/quranflash.html

2007-11-09 09:17:26 · 18 answers · asked by ¸.•*´`*•.¸ ℓανєη∂єr ¸.•*´`*•.¸ 6

my chem teacher told me to ask evoultionist what they thought about it.

2007-11-09 09:16:36 · 19 answers · asked by bre 3

Does it mention anything about the US. I heard about 2 or 3 Ecclisiasties something like that. Help you scholars.

2007-11-09 09:16:27 · 5 answers · asked by Ace of Spades 5

I'm talking about atheists in particular. Do you automatically make negative assumptions about us, such as moral character, behavior, and personality, when you find out that we are atheists? Or do you treat us like any other person?

In other words, would you be my friend in real life if I told you I was an atheist when we first met?

2007-11-09 09:15:54 · 44 answers · asked by Alex H 5

Where in the book of Acts does it mention anything about a python? Heard a message once about it, trying to find the source, help

2007-11-09 09:13:58 · 5 answers · asked by Ace of Spades 5

Father Reilly proclaimed that they would, but I don't trust him.

Bobby is cool and he helped me with science fair project, and gave me iPod for my birthday, and there's no way he's going to Hell.

My brother might have hard time trying to explain to St. Peter at Pearly Gates why he ratted me out to my mom, when I was caught stealing his sigarettes. But Father Reilly will have much harder time explaining why he reached into my pants and grabbed my private parts.

2007-11-09 09:13:55 · 4 answers · asked by Alexander 6

Go to heavesn is not.

2007-11-09 09:13:33 · 5 answers · asked by Nino 3

Who trusts the top scientists?

http://www.google.com/search?gbv=2&hl=en&q=atheist+most+mistrusted+minority

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html

2007-11-09 09:12:32 · 19 answers · asked by Anonymous

I got my account deleted for the second time, and the abstract rage I felt at this GRIEVOUS injustuce (Vengence will be mine I tells you!) inspired me to quit R&S completely.

...That was yesterday.

Honestly, I was felt a bit left out that no one picked me as an online R&S dork-crush in the seemingly endless stream of questions about that lately. Anyway, even though you cause me frustration (((R&S)))

Does anyone else think we R&S regulars might be just a bit unhealthily addicted to this? Is there anyone or group of people who keep you comming back?

2007-11-09 09:12:20 · 25 answers · asked by Skalite 6

2007-11-09 09:11:37 · 12 answers · asked by Ace of Spades 5

The book of Mormon just changed. Before anybody says it was ones persons opinion its something that the church has been teaching for decades. This is what I was taught before I was baptized. Here is the change.

"After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians."

The new BOM will state this….

"After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians."

What does this change? Everything every missionary has taught. For the first time the LDS church is quietly agreeing they were not in America first. They are admitting others were here first. They just joined in.

What does it mean? I don’t know. What does it mean to you? Why did they just change it without any announcement to a major change in how we were taught to believe, they just had General Conference. Why did the publisher know before the members?

2007-11-09 09:11:07 · 14 answers · asked by financing_loans 6

2007-11-09 09:10:38 · 9 answers · asked by Ace of Spades 5

In a nutshell, we are Christians, with the same bible as "other" Christians. (We use the King James version). However, we believe that Jesus also took His ministry to the American continent after His resurrection. The record of that is in the Book Of Mormon (where our nickname comes from).It does not replace the Bible - it enforces and testifies of the truth of the Bible in fact.
We also believe that His gospel is still alive today - in it's fullness, with prophets and the priesthood and revelation, but that God is the same yesterday, today and forever, in His principles and laws.
We also believe in the Eternities and that families are eternal.
Obviously, a religion cannot be explained in a few words.
I am not going to go on the defensive about issues people have with us. We have many millions of members worldwide - we all have a testimony of the Gospel and of Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost as 3 separate beings.
What do you think of Mormonism?

2007-11-09 09:08:45 · 12 answers · asked by jo :) 5

I just saw a question where someone complained that Atheists are know-it-alls. Just wondering.

2007-11-09 09:06:32 · 18 answers · asked by Anonymous

You walk into your home.
No one else is there.
You drape your jacket over a coat rack,
and walk toward the kitchen.
As you step through the doorway to the kitchen,
a hand goes over your mouth.

You walked into your home while it was being robbed.
The intrudor clearly intends to kill you.
But, before he pulls out a gun, you have a moment to pray to God.

Do you pray for your life to be spared, or for the salvation of the soul of your assailant?

2007-11-09 09:05:43 · 25 answers · asked by [[Princess For The Day]] 2

The US Constitution gives us all freedom of religion...so why are we now being denied this right. A very few people find it offensive to see GOD anywhere...well many people left the other hemisphere due to religious persecution...so what now we too will be persecuted for displaying GOD in our lives...So let us who do want GOD displayed let it be so: put the sign of GOD for you on your car, front door, windows, or wherever...our forefathers faught for it and our service men are fighting for our freedoms as we sit at home in peace...so wave GOD to your hearts content...do you agree?

2007-11-09 09:04:48 · 20 answers · asked by teri 4

The God Delusion
The Bible
The Da Vinci Code
Harry Potter


which was the most disturbing, insulting or influential on how you answer questions here, and which are you?

2007-11-09 09:04:36 · 34 answers · asked by GEISHA 3

2 Nephi 5:21 says,

"And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, and they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them."

2007-11-09 09:04:17 · 8 answers · asked by Jesus Cake 3

In the Garden of Eden, humans disobeyed God's command and ate of the "Fruit of Wisdom", but what if they had eaten of the "Fruit of Life" instead?

2007-11-09 09:03:31 · 12 answers · asked by Anonymous

The Church accompanies its faithful from even before birth, through all the steps of life to death and beyond, with its prayers, rites, sacraments, preaching, teaching, and its love, faith and hope. All of life, and even death itself, are drawn into the realm of the life of the Church. Death is seen as evil in itself, and symbolic of all those forces which oppose God-given life and its fulfillment. Salvation and redemption are normally understood in Eastern Christianity in terms of sharing in Jesus Christ's victory over death, sin and evil through His crucifixion and His resurrection. The Orthodox Church has a very strong pro-life stand which in part expresses itself in opposition to doctrinaire advocacy of euthanasia.

Euthanasia is understood to be the view or practice which holds that a person has the right, and even the moral obligation, to end his or her life when it is considered to be - for whatever subjectively accepted reason "not worth living." Euthanasia advocates nearly always include in this assertion the right and duty of others, including medical personnel, to assist the person in fulfilling this purpose. Needless to say, the Orthodox Church rejects such a view, seeing such behavior as a form of suicide on the part of the individual, and a form of murder on a part of others who assist in this practice, both of which are seen as sins.

Thus the Orthodox Church, in the words of 1976 Christmas encyclical of former Archbishop Iakovos, considers "euthanasia and abortion, along with homosexuality ... a ... moral alienation." Modern medical practice, however, has affected another part of the Church's perspective. The Church does not expect that excessive and heroic means must be used at all costs to prolong dying, as has now become possible through technical medical advances. As current Orthodox theology expresses it:

"The Church distinguishes between euthanasia and the withholding of extraordinary means to prolong life. It affirms the sanctity of human life and man's God-given responsibility to preserve life. But it rejects an attitude which disregards the inevitability of physical death."

This means that the Church may even pray that terminally ill persons die, without insisting that they be subjected to unnecessary and extraordinary medical efforts. At the same time, the Church rejects as morally wrong any willed action on the part of an individual to cause his or her own death or the death of another, when it otherwise would not occur.

2007-11-09 09:03:24 · 4 answers · asked by Jacob Dahlen 3

It seems to me that most religions - when you strip them of all the stuff that we imperfect beings have added - have the same basic truth. Surely If we could get rid of all the historical nonsense and social rules that constitute religion, and strip it back to a simple spirituality we'd all get along together with love?

2007-11-09 09:02:56 · 20 answers · asked by pippi 2

The teaching of the Orthodox Church on sexual questions is strongly determined by the Church's attitude toward marriage and the family. A representative Orthodox statement which shows the centrality and importance of the family in Orthodox thinking is found in an encyclical letter by former Archbishop Iakovos of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, issued on the occasion of National Family Week in 1972. He stated:

"Home and family life is the bedrock of our Greek Orthodox life-style. The spirit that binds us together as a people finds its deepest roots in the home where the tenderest values of human existence, love, compassion, forbearance and mutual helpfulness thrive in abundance."

Over the centuries and throughout most cultures and civilizations the family has been proven to be the unifying unit of society. Today we find the family under attack both from within and from without. Outside forces would have us believe that the family as we have come to know and cherish it is no longer necessary. From within, the erosion of spiritual values and emphasis upon materialism has created for many families confusion and uncertainty where commitment and dedication once reigned. Marriage is holy. The home is sacred. Birth is a miracle. In these we find the very meaning of life itself.

One aspect of the "commitment and dedication" of the holy state of marriage and family is cast in terms of sexual behavior. Most moral questions relating to sex are generally best understood in the light of this high regard for marriage and the family. Some of the questions on sexual issues addressed by the Orthodox Church are the following:

The Orthodox Church remains faithful to the biblical and traditional norms regarding premarital sexual relations between men and women. The only appropriate and morally fitting place for the exercise of sexual relations, according to the teachings of the Church, is marriage. The moral teaching of the Church on this matter has been unchanging since its foundation. In sum, the sanctity of marriage is the cornerstone of sexual morality. The whole range of sexual activity outside marriage - fornication, adultery and homosexuality - are thus seen as not fitting and appropriate to the Christian way of life. Like the teaching on fornication, the teachings of the Church on these and similar issues have remained constant. Expressed in Scripture, the continuing Tradition of the Church, the writings of the Church Fathers, the Ecumenical Councils and the canons, these views have been restated by theologians, hierarchs and local Orthodox churches in our own day. For example, the Decalogue prohibits adultery. In the tradition of the Church, the second-century Epistle of Barnabas commands "Thou shalt not be an adulterer, nor a corrupter, nor be like to them that are such." The fourth-century Church Father St. Basil wrote against the practice (Canons 35 and 77); and the Quinisext Council (A.D. 691) repeated the same condemnation in its eighty-seventh canon. All major Orthodox jurisdictions in the United States have had occasion to repeat the condemnation of adultery.
Generally stated, fornication, adultery, abortion, homosexuality and any form of abusive sexual behavior are considered immoral and inappropriate forms of behavior in and of themselves, and also because they attack the institution of marriage and the family. Two representative statements, one on abortion and another on homosexuality, from the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America follow. They are from the Twenty-Third Clergy-Laity Congress held in Philadelphia in 1976. The Orthodox Church has a definite, formal and intended attitude toward abortion. It condemns all procedures purporting to abort the embryo or fetus, whether by surgical or chemical means. The Orthodox Church brands abortion as murder; that is, as a premeditated termination of the life of a human being. The only time the Orthodox Church will reluctantly acquiesce to abortion is when the preponderance of medical opinion determines that unless the embryo or fetus is aborted, the mother will die. Decisions of the Supreme Court and State legislatures by which abortion, with or without restrictions, is allowed should be viewed by practicing Christians as an affront to their beliefs in the sanctity of life. The position of the Orthodox Church toward homosexuality has been expressed by synodicals, canons and patristic pronouncements beginning with the very first centuries of Orthodox ecclesiastical life. Thus, the Orthodox Church condemns unreservedly all expressions of personal sexual experience which prove contrary to the definite and unalterable function ascribed to sex by God's ordinance and expressed in man's experience as a law of nature. The Orthodox Church believes that homosexuality should be treated by religion as a sinful failure. In both cases, correction is called for. Homosexuals should be accorded the confidential medical and psychiatric facilities by which they can be helped to restore themselves to a self-respecting sexual identity that belongs to them by God's ordinance. In full confidentiality the Orthodox Church cares and provides pastorally for homosexuals in the belief that no sinner who has failed himself and God should be allowed to deteriorate morally and spiritually. Psychiatric reconciliation is bound to prove short-lived.
The possible exception to the above affirmation of continuity of teaching is the view of the Orthodox Church on the issue of contraception. Because of the lack of a full understanding of the implications of the biology of reproduction, earlier writers tended to identify abortion with contraception. However, of late a new view has taken hold among Orthodox writers and thinkers on this topic, which permits the use of certain contraceptive practices within marriage for the purpose of spacing children, enhancing the expression of marital love, and protecting health.

2007-11-09 09:01:34 · 5 answers · asked by Jacob Dahlen 3

Did your parents force you into it? Peer pressure? All of the "cool" people are into it? Ignorance? Lost a bet? Just wondering.

2007-11-09 09:00:14 · 22 answers · asked by Anonymous

every week about now?

Here in Austin TX USA, it is 4pm on Fri afternoon before a long weekend and time invariable slows down to a thick, imperceptable ooze.

Why does God do that?

2007-11-09 08:59:34 · 8 answers · asked by Acorn 7