-RRH-

I write a religious column for my university's student paper, called "Heaven and Hill." One subject I'm thinking of playing with is the way that religions can come up with a whole vocabulary of their own.

What words have you run into that you had to learn in order to discuss a topic with a religious person? I'd be very interested in words that were re-defined from the definition you already knew, but any interesting words would be good.

Paradisedreams2

RRH,
This is a very interesting inquiry! Gee I'll have to think on some good ones but can you give me an example of what your looking for? Are you looking for words that have been defined by christians that appear to represent their claims? Or what the bible supports? Or interpretations which can be tossed either way because it doesn't look like its shown clearly? How about definitions on how one should interpret things? Or what conclusions can be drawn as one reads it accurately according to what "it" the scriptures say verses the commonly held notion of what we may think it wants to speak on?

My biggest helper was finding out "how" God conveys something (found in Hosea) which I have been told about from the majority of scriptures called a "Similitude". The fundamentalist clash with the common sense of the aithiest on an appraoch to reading and understanding of scriptures which in itself are NOT biblical.

Some thoughts on how its read are expressed within its own text. So speaking a "christians langauge" (according to the truth of their own book) verses whats commonly taught and accepted by them are two different things.

Wasn't it the church herself who was in an uproar when Columbus who said the world was round and they did not believe it (calling it flat). When (what do you know) here all along its written in their own book they believe is Gods holy sciptures (in other words the truth and nothing but the truth). There have been many things like this and their own book stands in direct opposition to many of the stands they take.

What an awesome well thought out question. I have to think of a few of these (which shouldn't be too hard). But because I'm outside church circles myself its hard to know what their spouting now.

I'll be interested on what the others say here on this.

Anunnaki

I was confused by the term "apologist".

When I first heard the term "Christian apologist" I assumed that these people were apologizing (saying sorry) for all the horrors and utter stupidity associated with the church.

I was grossly mistaken!

Heleilu

Are you talking about specifically religious but common words like "soul", rare words like "transubstantiation", or words with different definitions like "saint"? I have to say I can't think of many of the last kind, not spending too much time around the religious fringe. "Energy" might be an interesting term to cover, too.

Grizzly

Here are some:

Justice: I used to think that this term meant fairness, punishments that fit the crime, and each person being judge by their actions. When dealing with religious people, it means being punished for the sins of others and killing woman and infants because God has commanded it. Justice is also synonymous with "whatever God does".


Mercy: this word used to be similar to forgiveness. It meant lenient or compassionate treatment. With religious folk, it means being tortured in Hell for all eternity for making a mistake.

Grace: I thougth grace meant charm or having some attractive characteristic. With Christians it means that even thought we are all disgusting in Gods sight, he will overlook our wretchedness and allow us to praise him forever (if we make it to heaven).

[ February 17, 2002: Message edited by: Grizzly ]</p>

Amos

[QUOTE]Originally posted by RRH:
[QB]

If the cross of eternal salvation is for sinners only sin is good.

If the laws were given to Moses for the conviction of sin the laws must be violated to sin (not civil laws).

If Jesus was counted among the wicked by the religious of his days, so must I be counted among the wicked by the religious of today.

If the first sin gets you to hell the second one is free.

If the thought of sin is already sin you'd be cheating yourself not to go through with it.

If we have to color our own heaven while on earth lets make it a colorful one now.

If Jesus died for sinners lets make sure he died for us.

-RRH-

I'm most interested in anything that causes communication troubles if you don't know the word. I'm hoping the column will serve the purpose of helping people understand what the hell someone from another religion is talking about.

David Gould

[quote]Originally posted by Amos:
<strong>That is pretty interesting, Amos. I particularly like number 4 and 5.

I guess only sinners will get to Heaven...

And as it is a sin to not believe in God, I guess i am going to end up in Heaven.

Hmmm. Do they play cricket in Heaven?

cricket

Words or acronyms I've had to learn for this board or (especially) for religious boards: Young-Earth, YEC, ID, c-decay, Creationist, 'Cretinist', weak atheist, strong atheist, weak agnostic, strong agnostic, empirical agnostic, NDEs & Ketamine, fundie, Jeebus, Invisible Pink Unicorn, IPU, Her Pinkness, objectivism, ad hominem and other debate terms, hmmmm... i'll see what else I can think of; I'm not sure if these are useful at all for an article.

ex-idaho

I have recently run into this one quite a bit.

Worship. I once thought this was the active participation in actually performing a religious ritual.

It seems that some of the more evangelistic churches have given a new meaning. Now it means to sing. Choir is now "worship team".

You go to church and it is broken into 2 parts praise and worship. Praise being the sermon and worship being the hour of singing insipid songs.