format_quote Originally Posted by
AntiKarateKid
In the most recent Time magazine a comment from one of the readers caught my eye. She insinuated that religion replacing local customs was condescending and that it destroys their culture...
Meh, typical angry athiest. My counter question to that person would be: define her country's culture. Heck, British culture
is booze, cigs and porn - yeah, that's a great culture to be proud of! Besides, religion doesn't replace anything. If we look at the teachings or religion, who follows them? The followers of the religion - everyone else does what they want. How the heck is that replacing a local custom or destroying a culture; us theists aren't asking for you to change, we're asking can we pray here, can we live here - we aren't asking anyone to move out and we aren't asking anyone else to stop what they are doing. We're
adding but people like the angry athiest in the Times magazine assume we are
subtratcing.
...What the hek is so hard for these people to understand? It seems like they close their eyes, and turn their noses up at religion jsut so they could make their disbelief look noble in some way or another.
One of the speakers at JIMAS conference this year gave a parable; there is a difference between one who is blind and one who closes their eyes. No matter how hard you try to convince a man who doesn't open his eyes that the sun exists, he will never believe it. You can say anything you like: ''you can feel the heat from the sun'' His response: ''so what, it could be fire - I've felt fire before!''
The blind man, obviously cannot see the sun, whereas the one who closes his eyes does not want to see the sun.
Another speaker said that the best way to convince them of religion is the concept of tawheed and that there IS a God - since this is the foundation of (theistic) religion.