This just in

[donald]

Now I have to deal with this, What would be the best way of handleing it from a perspective of not offending the Church.

First approach this situation prayerfully. Then I would probably sit down with the Sr.Pastor, and advise him of the problem. How I proceeded next would depend heavily upon the Pastor's attitude towards this whole thing. If he was willing to mediate. I would ask the lady to a sit down. I would then ask her to back up her claims from scripture. Bearing in mind, that she is a child of GOD. Meaning that all due respect should be evident through out... If you are unable to come to a "good" ending. I can't really go beyond this advice. Alot depends on where you are in your walk with Christ. I know that if you approach HIM honestly. HE will give you wisdom. If I can be of any further help. Please feel free to PM me...

1stJohn1:9

 

[setboy]

This makes me Laugh. We have a Yon Dan at my dojo that IS Roman Catholic priest

 

[Ybot]

I think a lot of misunderstandings about Martial arts comes from the mystic created through martial arts marketing and movies. Many of the martial feats shown to the general public (who have little or no knowlage of martial arts) seem imposible to them. Almost magic. Christains (some, I suppose) have a problem with people calling on some sort power outside of God. They don't understand that Martial arts are very diverse. While some martial artists train their Qi/Chi/Ki (which may or maynot be compatible with christianity depending on interpritation. Is Qi a force of God or the Devil?), and believe in almost magical properties of it, others believe it's a load of crap. And don't forget the spectrum of martial artists that fall somewhere in between.

I'm sure the Dragons (which were already pointed out to mean very different things to different cultures) didn't help with the misunderstanding.

 

[Brandon Fisher]

She needs an education on other cultures. Also some serious diplomacy. I would not allow this person to teach my kids anything.

 

[terryl965]

Well I had a phone call today we are suppose to sit down on Monday and go over the whole incodent and find a solution to the problem. Will keep everybody updated afterwards. Thanks for all your support

 

[exile]

Have you heared the story of Daruma?

Are you speaking of the monk Bodhidharma? Who in legend developed a set of exercises which was supposed to give the Shaolin monks, sometime in the sixth century (maybe), improved physical conditioning so that they could better practice their meditation? To which was then attributed (again in legend) a zillion different CMAs, a few of which were taken to Okinawa and merged with indigenous fighting form, then was brought---well over a millenium after Bodhidharma---Japan, where it becam, in diluted form, karate, from where it was then brought Korea by a variety of Korean MAists in still more diluted form and mixed with a variety of native Korean systems, then standardized, given the name of Taekwondo, for training the Korean military in H2H/CQ combat? And this means that, fifteen hundred years or so after the legendary `fact' of Bodhidarma's visit to the Shaolin temple, TKD should be seen as "an art that was invented to improve your Budhism"??

Is this what your query about Daruma is intended to suggest?

 

[Touch Of Death]

Are you speaking of the monk Bodhidharma? Who in legend developed a set of exercises which was supposed to give the Shaolin monks, sometime in the sixth century (maybe), improved physical conditioning so that they could better practice their meditation? To which was then attributed (again in legend) a zillion different CMAs, a few of which were taken to Okinawa and merged with indigenous fighting form, then was brought---well over a millenium after Bodhidharma---Japan, where it becam, in diluted form, karate, from where it was then brought Korea by a variety of Korean MAists in still more diluted form and mixed with a variety of native Korean systems, then standardized, given the name of Taekwondo, for training the Korean military in H2H/CQ combat? And this means that, fifteen hundred years or so after the legendary `fact' of Bodhidarma's visit to the Shaolin temple, TKD should be seen as "an art that was invented to improve your Budhism"??

Is this what your query about Daruma is intended to suggest?

Ask an Amish person what the difference is. If you are suggesting there is no religious tradition in Asian martial arts, you are studying a very Americanized version. If TKD has a non Budhist background that doesn't happen to be Judeo-Christian then what ever faith they had would still be an influance of concern. And don't try telling me there was no sprituality in ancient Pre-TKD arts; because, religion permeates everything, and I mean everything. To answer your question though... yes.
Sean

 

[Bigshadow]

So the question is... Is Budhism a religion or philosophy? I believe it is a philosphy and not a religion, although, a religion was made from it.

 

[Touch Of Death]

So the question is... Is Budhism a religion or philosophy? I believe it is a philosphy and not a religion, although, a religion was made from it.

Your concept of God, gods, or lack there of guides your philosophy.
Sean

 

[exile]

If TKD has a non Budhist background that doesn't happen to be Judeo-Christian then what ever faith they had would still be an influance of concern.
Sean

Concern? About what? Is the idea that someone who learns a series of effective techniques for breaking an opponent's collarbone with an elbow strike, flowing into a followup knifehand to his larynx to put him on the ground isgoing to become spiritually contaminated, somehow, by the fact that these techniques represent the evolution of methods of self-defense forged in a non-Christian culture?

Well, sailboats with cloth sails and rigging systems were invented by the Egyptians sometime between five and six thousand years ago, and reached considerable sophistication under the Greeks, Romans and the Vikings. Modern sailing incorporates features of sailing technique and boat design discovered by these emphatically non-Christian people. Religion is in everything, you say---is the spiritual security of people who go sailing a matter of concern, then, given the pagan origins of sailboats?

 

[Bigshadow]

Your concept of God, gods, or lack there of guides your philosophy.
Sean

I remember reading someone's (I won't drop names) post on here that referenced circular logic or something like that referring to religion and this certainly sounds like an example of that.

 

[Touch Of Death]

Concern? About what? Is the idea that someone who learns a series of effective techniques for breaking an opponent's collarbone with an elbow strike, flowing into a followup knifehand to his larynx to put him on the ground isgoing to become spiritually contaminated, somehow, by the fact that these techniques represent the evolution of methods of self-defense forged in a non-Christian culture?

Well, sailboats with cloth sails and rigging systems were invented by the Egyptians sometime between five and six thousand years ago, and reached considerable sophistication under the Greeks, Romans and the Vikings. Modern sailing incorporates features of sailing technique and boat design discovered by these emphatically non-Christian people. Religion is in everything, you say---is the spiritual security of people who go sailing a matter of concern, then, given the pagan origins of sailboats?

The bible does allow for the stealing of technology from the Phillistines. I would avoid telling Christian skeptics that TKD is about breaking collarbones with elbow strikes. Push the physical fitness aspect.
Sean

 

[Touch Of Death]

I remember reading someone's (I won't drop names) post on here that referenced circular logic or something like that referring to religion and this certainly sounds like an example of that.

I took Cultural Anthropology & a philosophy class in college and it didn't seem all that circular when they taught me this stuff, but I may not be doing the subject matter justice. Its been a while. It sounded pretty cut and dry at the time.
Sean

 

[exile]

The bible does allow for the stealing of technology from the Phillistines. I would avoid telling Christian skeptics that TKD is about breaking collarbones with elbow strikes. Push the physical fitness aspect.
Sean

But look... if we're going to be honest about it, the MAs as taught and practiced by many people, particularly in the forms that we in the west first encountered them, are systems of structured violence, and their whole point is to incapacitate an assailant to the point where he cannot put you in physical danger. That's why you learn about the elbow strike to the collarbone and all the rest. They represent a system of knowledge, a set of means to bring about an end, and in that sense, they do constitute a technology (in the same sense that new computer languages, though non-material, constitute technology). It was the self-defense capability they added to your repertoire of life-skills which made you need and want to learn them, if you were an Okinawan villager in the early 19th century, say. I very seriously doubt whether that villager mastered tuite for any other reason than getting from one end of a dark nighttime road to the other in one piece.

Sure, as demanding physical disciplines, MAs teach you a lot about focus, concentration, elimination of distraction, awareness and so on... but so does alpine skiing! If you happen to believe, as I do, that the core of TKD, karate or the CMAs are their forms---repertoires of self-defense techniques whose brutality has been deliberately disguised---then the meaning of that core, given what we have been discovering about the bunkai implicit in those patterns, is the efficient application of violence to a dangerous assailant.

Not everyone practices the MAs this way, but that's what they in effect started out as. Why would they not then constitute `stealable technology', as per your post? Anything further, any religious or metaphysical content, is as far as I can see strictly an add-on. It would a very tough job convincing the Sells, for example, that their missionizing evangelical Christianity was compromised in any way by their sky-high dan-level TKD expertise... or persuading any of the Jewish, Islamic or atheistic practitioners of TKD or any other MA for that matter that there was a religious content to that art that jeopardized, or was incompatible with, the spiritual convictions of any of those practitioners...

 

[Rich Parsons]

If you believed that you were facing eternal damnation for not accepting God or Jesus as the only God and "shall not put other gods before them", why would you study an art that was invented to improve your Budhism? If you want to see this type of thinking in action and want exact biblical quotes the people use to support their thoughts and actions, study the Amish or anyother strictly orthodox faith. Islamic people don't even believe people should paint nature. Taking an art class to open up their "creative" side, would be an affront to the religion, pure and simple. They respect our culture (for now) but there is a limit to immersion in our way of thinking. Some Christians have stricter limits than others.
Sean

Yes, I know what some do. I now of a guy who was convinced to get married, he was 50 and she was in her 40's and could not physically have children anymore. They were happy together just living. The church told them he would go to hell gave him quotes as the gospel and then gave him a deadline. they got married. She was then one of the most unhappy people I have ever seen. Just short of three years she asked for a divorce and they are getting one.

Oh by the way the church he belonged to kicked him out anyways.

 

[Rich Parsons]

Rich,
I would not exactly say ignoring would be the exact word but the Bible does talk about not compromising do to being influenced by ideas which are not compatable with Gods. Ex. God asked the Israelites not to spare/bargain with the tribes across the Jordan in the promised land because He knew they would compromise their beliefs, they did not follow Gods commands and intermarried with them and after a while Baal worship became a problem then God had to send the prophets to get Israel to repent. Paul, in the New Testament writes alot about not marrying an unbeliever "unequally yoked", eating sacrificed animals, and being in and around non-christian things and people. This was not because of the people or things it was because the weakness of the believers who would end up compromising their beliefs and causing other believers to "stumble" in their faith.
To get back to the original question I think the Sunday School teacher took a point and generalized it to all things. Whether she was making a reference to comments about the dangers of "Dungeon and Dragons" type role playing games of years ago, or the statements by people who see the danger in the Eastern Relgious influence of many martial arts, or maybe she has taken the dragon to be an Occultic symbol, who knows but it seems with the information Terry gave us and alot of our own experiences her heart was in the right place just not her facts.

Thank you for quoting the New testament.

So, I guess I should not compromise in my belief's either.

I gues those of other religions should not compromise with their belief's either.

I think we should all just continue to teach discrimination (* of other religions *) and just let all of us continue to kill each other.

Sorry but that is my feeling on this. When Religion gave guidance to those who needed it seems to work. When Religions make politics and you have wars, then I have a real hard time believing that those interpretation of "GOD's" words are correct.

 

[Tez3]

....... then I have a real hard time believing that those interpretation of "GOD's" words are correct.

You would actually be correct in that assumption. The 'Bible' was originally written in Aramaic then countless translations into countless languages along with the translators' bias and thoughts of the day mean what you read in English is not was was written as God words. and then of course you get the intepretations eg the law about blood tranfusions that the Jehovahs Witnesses use is actually taken from the laws on diet and food. those laws themselves were very sensible for people who lived in a hot climate, they still are good basic hygiene rules.
When it came down to it, God gave only one law that whether we believe in Him or not is the one worth living by " Treat everyone as you would be treated yourself".

 

[Cirdan]

When it came down to it, God gave only one law that whether we believe in Him or not is the one worth living by " Treat everyone as you would be treated yourself".

I only hope he does not forget this law the next time he conciders another flood, infecting us with boils, turning rivers into blood or any other kind of general godly nastiness. :anic:

 

[Tez3]

I only hope he does not forget this law the next time he conciders another flood, infecting us with boils, turning rivers into blood or any other kind of general godly nastiness. :anic:

We'll negociate with Him! I'm a Jewish mother, I don't believe in God, I know he exists so my faith if you like, tends to be a very practical one. I think Jewish people are probably suspicious of piety and praying too much when one should be out actually doing something and we don't actually think twice about arguing with God. I wouldn't want to criticise any one elses religious beleifs but sometimes I do think God must sit with his head in his hands and wonder 'Why me? I gave man a brain, intelligence, opposing thumbs, freewill and always they whinge, God do this, God do that! and as for blaming me for everything....!'
Really common sense must come in things a lot more! Instead of seeing devil worship everywhere it would be much better to look for the good in things!And if they're not goo? change them. that's why God gave you a brain, intelligence, opposing thumbs and guess what? Free will!

 

[SFC JeffJ]

You know, I'm not being very PC here, but I don't really have any respect for this Sunday schools teachers belief. Just because it's a religious belief and her convictions are strong are no reason to give it any credence.

Jeff