http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-38445120090311?sp=true

Short recap:
christian church uses allah instead of word god and muslims are getting mighty annoyed over it. It apparently causes confusion and some muslims cannot differentiate between christian church and a mosque.

Would that mean muslims cannot use word god as it might also confuse people? Christianity has used it longer, apparently. And X has used it even longer and Y longer than X.

The similarities are more of a separating factor than actually unifying thing. All religions have a god(s) and as the god concepts can be very similar in behavior and qualities the people do not accept them to be the same. It has something to do with humans desire to resist change, even if the change is positive. The materialistic nature of religions hangs tooth and nail on holy books even if they have in practice ignored the majority of the rules presented in the books. Add to the mix the xenophobic teachings in the holy books which validate dominating all those of not like us and you have modern day world.

But the extremes grow out of from various interpretations of bible and quran by each penny and dime preacher, mullah and what not. Christianity is so fragmented that it is a chore to even try to find out what each and every commenter means with the word christianity. Same goes with muslims who have the same problem. Even if they believe in few common items the rest is all up for grabs.

The variants which allow one thing, deny one thing and believe to be the only one having it right is not a suitable soil for harmonious growth.

Organized religion is very comparable to a field let to grow wild. There will be many different type of plants, weeds and grass. Majority will always be of the same type, some generic type of grass or weed but the different ones are what cause the problems. There will be nice flowers and not so nice burrs. The flowers, even if nice looking can often be poisonous to animals, the burrs, well you know what kind of problems those make.

And the kicker is this, field that is left to grow wild changes, after a while the original plants no longer grow there. The whole ecosystem has evolved to a state that is totally inimical to the original plants.

Lets assume there is a christian who believes in god but has discarded the bible, dogma and organization sans the golden rule. Would we have much trouble with such a person? Would he still be a believer? I would say he is and that is also the problem with many religious people today. They believe that atheism wants to take away their faith. What other atheists want, I do not know, but I would not mind them getting rid of the organizational aspect, the dogmatic aspect and specially the selectively literalism and return to the basics,

Do to others what you would have them do to you

Your age is not a problem, you just have so much more time than older people to effect the change. Just set the goals to achievable as all human accomplishments are build upon the gradual increase.

Overnight change is seldom beneficial as the weeding out process for faulty advances is missing.

Yes, I remember something like that in there. I actually made this post only a few hours or so after I seen the movie, I just had to get my opportunity to rant and rave about it. But yes what most Americans don’t see is that there are Christian extremists as well as Muslim extremists and Jewish extremists. I think that, yes, action needs to be taken, but not against one group in the group. We need to take actions against ALL religious extremists groups, like Oklahoma city, that was a CHRISTIAN extremist group. But then again, like I said I’m only 16 not many people take me seriously.

Also, one more thing I would like to say; I have no idea where this Christian/Muslim bias is coming from. For starters, the Muslims came about after the Christians. AND THE MUSLIMS LIKED THE CHRISTIANS. They called them “people of the book” they were in reality no different then each other except Christians belived Christ was the savior, and Muslims though Mohammad was the savior. AND I LEARNED THAT IN 10TH GRADE SOCIAL STUDIES!!!! Is it really that difficult to comprehend that they are worshiping the same god??? just a different name (ALLAH = GOD IN ARABIC).

You are right, that is exactly what this camp was about, it is even directly said in there (do not remember exact wording).

The leader of the camp was saying asking what the interviewer what he thinks is happening in the madrases (not sure if it was implied or even said directly, that they are training terrorists) and that ‘we’ must meet their actions with equal actions aka train children to be willing to die for their faith.

It is always the other people who are supposed to die for the faith of these types of people.

I’m going to paste this link to the Islam cartoons since I feel it is appropriate. So, if your interested I hope you click it and find out, what or if it is a generation off or not?!

Btw hell(heaven) is there only for christians.
You made hell, you will come there after your death..
There is no way how we others can go to that fictional place from some fairytale..

First, read up on Pascal’s Wager to understand why your initial premise “To make sure you are eternally secure…” doesn’t pass Go. There are better and more entertaining gods than the one you prescribe. Try e.g. here for a better chance for your eternal salvation. Well, a tastier one, anyway.

Second, much of the readership here has already read the bible in both its absurd testaments plus various (mis)translations and versions, and soundly rejected it as fiction combined with wishful thinking.

Why do you think that a purportedly omnipotent being has any need for a book, and such a badly flawed one as the bible at that, to get its message across to beings that it, as purported god, has complete control over?

Religion is ridiculous