Ah. I don't think anyone should verbally 'share faith' unless asked.
Wearing a symbol of your faith could help if that's what you're looking for.
Going to a faith sharing meeting of some sort would be good too. One that's meant for informing new-comers or people who are curious.

I'm personally fine with being asked what my religion or faith is (I'm a LaVeyan Satanist by the way (^^) ), but many are not and you could end up with someone hostel if you do. It could be seen as an invasion of privacy unless they have a symbol of their faith showing, in which case they want you to know or ask.

Sometimes sharing your or someone sharing their religious beliefs can't be helped. Such as when I asked my friend if she wanted some Easter candy and she asked if it bought/given with Easter in mind. She couldn't eat it if it was apparently, since she's a Jehovah's witness. I knew about those of that faith not celebrating such events but I didn't know her choice of faith until then.

You can't make someone believe. You can only educate them as much as they're willing to listen to. The best thing to do would tell them a story from the bible, if they find it interesting tell them to read it for themselves. It's just like a big book.

Originally Posted by whitebeast

[b]I'll try to respond to this as philosophical as I can.

You see... When we talk about truth, it's a matter of where you're coming from.

Just imagine me tearing all my hair out. Now imagine saying what you just said about ANYTHING in reality as you know it. "You see, when we talk about mathematics, it's a matter of where you're coming from... Now, the modern free thinkers will tell you, 2+2=98!" I'd bang my head on the table for emphasis if it would help.

If someone tells you 2+2=98, it doesn't matter who they are or why they said it. The fact is, there is the small matter of the truth (like I said)... which has got nothing at all to do with "where we're coming from". As if 2+2 were open for debate. Anything real is not open for debate, because it IS real. Therefore everything about it is already set in stone, and our personal feelings or thoughts can't do anything to change it.

God isn't a figment of anyone's imagination. Therefore there is a solid truth about Him, and it doesn't matter "where we're coming from". Either we're right or we're wrong, no matter what we personally hold. What we decide to believe doesn't make the reality. The reality is the measure of whether what we believe is crap or not. I can't believe this is so difficult for people to acknowledge. "Oh, that's just what YOU believe." Doesn't matter what anyone believes, except whether or not, point by point, they really ARE right or wrong about it. If they're right, they're simply in touch with reality. If they're wrong, the wholeheartedness of their belief or disbelief isn't going to alter the reality of things.

Reality isn't an opinion, a philosophy, a way of looking at things, a matter of taste or what have you. Reality, or truth, just is what it is, and it's out there, and we can know it, and either we've got it right, or else we're as daft as the lunatic who thinks 2+2=98. Let's at least take God as seriously as we take our numbers.

Personally...

Religion or otherwise, imposing on others your own ideas would be denying them the freedom of thought and action which my postmodernist self does not like. D: That's just not right!

But if a person's religion coincides with the reality about God, then that reality is already "imposed" on everybody, whether we like it or not, just like the reality of gravity or physics or mathematics is imposed on everybody. (Don't we just wish math, at least, was exempt, and we could've gotten by in math class just filling in numbers at random based on how we felt about the problem, or our personal, creative interpretation of it. -laugh- )

It's silly to call the "imposition" of any reality a "taking away of personal freedom". Everything around us is simply what it is. Nobody gets mortally offended by the imposition of 2=2=4. Nobody is mortally offended when you tell them if they jump off a cliff, they're going to go down and not up. Why do we all get so offended suddenly the moment the topic turns to the truth about God? Or how do we pretend that in this department of reality alone, life is "choose your own adventure" and somehow disconnected from the body of other facets of reality?

In any case, God gave man a free will... so how is man without freedom if God is real? That free will gives us a very real ability to choose between right and wrong, and thereby to choose, upon our own moment-to-moment decisions and free actions, whether we would prefer spending eternity "flying or frying" (in so many words).

There never was, is not now, nor ever will be a freedom more real, more universal, more absolute, more valuable or more profound, than the God-given ability of every individual soul to decide by the way they live where they want to spend eternity, knowing that God will let them make that most absolute choice for themselves.

The convict on death row who has been charged with murder may argue that the law has "taken away his individual freedom" by either making laws against murder, or else by locking him up for doing it. But he had the freedom to choose whether to kill or not to kill. He chose death row in the same moment he chose the murder, but the freedom to choose them, or NOT to... was his all the same. We can choose heaven or hell, whichever we want. We are free to choose. And by our free actions, and our free will, we, like the murder, will choose the consequences even as we choose the actions... good consequences for good actions, and bad for bad. That's not a lack of freedom. But there are certainly a lot of people who can't bear the thought of freedom leading potentially to consequences. Like the murderer, they would much rather continue to pass the blame to the law and consequences themselves and say, "your law and your prison stole my freedom!"

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yorihiko View Post
It only takes honesty for the atheist to know he's doing something depraved.


"That's really rude. Good luck converting anyone with that attitude."

You don't think an atheist knows if he's doing something depraved? Wow... you give them less credit than I do then...

Originally Posted by juniper_silver

As for "The Truth", people have many views of this too. Is there really a Heaven or Hell, or afterlife...etc. Again, this is one of many "Truths".

If you are sane and not insane, then there is only one truth. It's this thing called reality, which is just out there, and just is how it is. Just like it's insane for people to pretend 2+2 can equal 4, and 14, and 36 and 99 and so forth, according to what everyone likes or wants or feels... it is an equally insane proposition to say that about anything else that is real... that anything you want to think is fine, because everyone's right, or there's no truth about it or what have you. That is crazy.

Anything that is real is not a matter of opinion. We can have opinions ABOUT it... but either we are definitely and really right, or else we are definitely and really wrong, just as we would be about a math problem, or about whether the world is round or flat, or anything else in reality. God is a part of that reality, and so, sanely and logically speaking, there can't be "multiple realities" about Him. The very idea of "multiple realities" is more or less to say, "well, when it comes to this or that, it's all right to be schizophrenic (out of touch with reality)." Nor can everyone be right about Him at once, unless everyone finds out what really is right and agrees upon that. (Which, incidently, is true unity... everyone acknowledging reality... as opposed to, "lets just not talk or think about it so we don't offend anyone" which is false unity... that which oppresses the truth because the truth offends anyone in error.)

There is no reason why anyone should have to suspend their sanity or reason or logic when it comes to the reality about God. Common sense says, if He's real, then, like every other aspect of reality, there is a truth which we can and must find if we want to know it, and not just be inventing things or possibly in error. That's sane. But "to each his/her own delusion" is nuts.

You should just let people be. If they don't want to hear there is a Hell or whatever, then they won't listen. Like I said with experiencing the faith themselves, let them experience whatever befalls them when they die.

Let them go ignorantly to hell? Where did charity go? Do we love our neighbor's body and not their soul, that we don't care if they go to hell? You can't force anyone, but there is a certain obligation to live and speak the truth, even whether or not people want to hear it, when circumstances demand it, and at least when the opportunity arises. If they go to hell then, at least you tried to save them. If they slapped your hand for it, well.. that's their choice.

Everyone has a belief or opinion on things, but it is wrong if you want to completely change them.

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It is certainly not wrong if you know the truth that would save their soul, and want them to have it too. That's true charity: love of your neighbor's soul first, then their body or worldly welfare. Everyone has a belief, but there is only one truth, one reality. Either they are right in their belief or they are wrong. But we have to get to heaven on God's terms, not ours, so if they are wrong, what favor are you doing them not to tell them so, just to spare their feelings or spare yourself their indignation here?

There is nothing wrong about wanting to know the truth, and wanting others to know the truth rather than errors. The truth will get us to heaven. The errors most likely will not. (Judging by everything else in reality where failure to comply with what is real typically results in disaster or mishap.)

One can't forget that true charity. God loves every soul. If we don't, there's something wrong.

Originally Posted by Yorihiko

You don't think an atheist knows if he's doing something depraved? Wow... you give them less credit than I do then...

Do I believe that an atheist believes that he is doing something perverted, wrong, dishonest, wicked (synonyms for depraved)? No, of course not. How is that not giving them credit? People who don't believe in God for the most part don't believe the Christian theology either. They don't believe that they are doing something sinful, you believe that they are doing something sinful. If someone was an atheist only to rebel against Christianity and be "sinful", I'm sure they could do a lot better than just being an atheist.

Also, the quotes got messed up for your next post. I didn't say any of that stuff, but it says my name at the top. But about that subject...the thing is that religion really boils down to needing faith. There are certain things that seem logical about different religions, but you can't rely on logic alone. So yes, there can only be one true religion or non-religion when it boils down to it, but we can't know through logic alone which religion that is. That's why there are so many different beliefs. So you shouldn't continue assuming that everyone else believes that your religion is the one true religion. (AKA, calling their beliefs deluded and your own pure). You can't or shouldn't force faith into people.

God isn't a figment of anyone's imagination.

The problem is - this is not a fact. This is a belief.

Personally I do not believe in god as many people, especially Christians, seem to believe- . . .

Do I think there is something more than this? Yes
Do I think it's an all seeing God who actually gives a shit what we do? No.

You can't argue with people about God under the assumption that he actually exists - because it is indeed not a fact