I think the biggest difference is that people here are interested in Dialogue, not debate.
I mean dialogue as a conversational exchange between two or more people, and I see debate as people trying to convince each other of their own point of view.
I am always interested in hearing what moves people, but that doesn't mean I have to adopt their view. I likewise believe that others have no business with my point of view unless they ask about it.
So, a dialogue I am always interested in. And if we can do that in a free athmosphere where everybody can talk uninhibited an freely because they know that their opinion can be given without expecting someone to bite their head off, all the better
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I have heard a lot of discussion about wether or not Christians should practice meditation or not.
Most of them mean meditation as dictated by the Transcendental Meditation or TM movement. I would have to agree that it doesn't mix well with Christianity, because the founder of the TM movement did in fact mix a lot of Hindu beliefs into his meditation program.
But the word meditation has it's origin in the Latin Bible:
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From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditation: The word meditate comes from the Latin root meditatum, i.e. to ponder.[9] In the Old Testament hāgā (Hebrew: הגה), means to sigh or murmur, but also to meditate. When the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek, hāgā became the Greek melete. The Latin Bible then translated hāgā/melete into meditatio.[10] The use of the term meditatio as part of a formal, stepwise process of meditation goes back to the 12th century monk Guigo II.[11]
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Meditation has always been a way to contemplate, to search within, for Christians.
But we are discussing the method of meditation, not the meditative state. The meditative state is a natural state of the human body, or we wouldn't be able to.
Every religion has it's own method.
If you strip the technique of meditation from all the beliefsystems, you end up with a practical meditation practice like the one offered by this site for free
