Flaose wrote:But that's the thing, if a person (let's say a Shiite) considers himself a Muslim, and the majority of the world would consider them Islamic, then who are the Sunnis to say that it isn't true? If Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons consider themselves Christians, and the majority of the world would consider them Christians, then who are a billion-or-so people to say otherwise?
Majority doesn't rule. And if the differences between the Shiites and Sunnis are big enough for them to kill each other over, can you really make the argument that they're the same?
Flaose wrote:Sure, you take issue with the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses, but the thing is all of their beliefs are rooted directly in the Bible.
Actually, no. All their beliefs are based on twisted interpretations of the Bible. A lot of times, they directly endorse the Bible, then blatantly contradict it. Anything that has an alternate view of Jesus Christ than what the Bible teaches can't be called a CHRISTian, since they're trying to redefine Who Christ is. What's the difference here between this and saying "I'm an Atheist, but I believe Jesus came and He was a nice person"? Can you really call yourself "Christian" just because you believe that Jesus Christ was a person Who existed?
Flaose wrote:Some passages may be interpreted differently than you think they should be, but Jehovah's Witnesses have made it their business to study (and I mean study, like a school subject) and understand what the Bible says.
...
Like Christians don't?
Flaose wrote:For example, the Sabbath, why do you still keep it (and on the wrong day, no less)?
Actually, we go to church on Sunday to celebrate Christ's resurrection, which happened the day after the Sabbath (Which would be Sunday). As far as keeping it vs. not, I thought we had gone over that.
Flaose wrote:You don't offer burnt offerings
No need to. Christ was the Sacrifice to end all sacrifices. That's why He came in the first place (As a side note, Jews can't offer sacrifices either, as Muslims built a mosque on top of the site of the temple).
Flaose wrote:you don't stone adulterers
Quite not. Did Jesus?
Flaose wrote:you don't (have to) get circumcised
Yep. Paul went over this in Galatians 6:12-16.
Flaose wrote:so why abstain from labour every seven days?
No idea. (tongue-in-cheek)
Flaose wrote:The New Testament speaks of early Christians getting together on Sundays, but it doesn't mention that they hadn't been fishing and collecting taxes all day.
I would tend to imagine that the early Christian believers got together for the entire day for the early church services, but that's just me.
RoboBlue wrote:There seems to be a lot of artificially produced anger towards these kinds of mistakes. If I stupidly call a Korean woman Chinese, does it help if I politely allow her to scream her head off at me for making a mistake that I had no understanding of? If I make an honest mistake, that does not give the victim good reason to punish me, and I honestly don't believe that we as a society should tolerate or sympathize with these types of outbursts.
Quite a good point. I apologize if I have come across as angry (vocal intonation and body language are hard to communicate over teh internets, and these comprise more than half of human communication!), because I didn't mean to. My major point here was to not try sticking different people in the same box ("Oh, well Mormons believe
this, so you must believe it too"), because that's clearly a bad way to go about things. I could go around saying "Oh, this neighbor of mine is a Democrat, that must mean she likes healthcare reform." In reality, I have a neighbor who is a flaming Democrat, and hates the healthcare bill with all her guts. Can you stick her in the standard "Democrat believes this" box? No indeed. If you stuck me in the same room with a Muslim terrorist for a few hours, someone wouldn't survive the encounter (probably me). Can you honestly say that Muslims and Christians believe the same things in this case? You're trying to stick us both under the same "religious" sign, and it just doesn't work. Everybody is different, so just let them speak for themselves.