Which religions seek to actively convert people (besides Christianity & Islam)?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Jews actually did prosyletize and seek converts up until about the 15th century.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I suppose Wicca should be mentioned as well.

Oh and of course: Scientology.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

You know, I just realized that Hinduism would count, if you count Tulsi Gabbard's sect as Hindu (some Hindus wouldn't.)

Not only do are they virtually exclusively made up of western converts, they had their own "scene" for a brief period based around some NYC bands that had some guys who converted and then some other people in the scene thought it was cool, like a parallel Christian hardcore. Actually it even predates Christian hardcore come to think of it.

One of those things that's just so hard to believe when you hear it, but is absolutely true.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

...that doesn't make any sense. At all. I can't quite figure out that process of thought in worshipping that religion's God but not converting.

Actually kind of leads into why I'd never be a member of a non-prosyletizing religion, it violates my logical standards. If something is true for me it must be true for everyone.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It's simple logic. There can't be laws of thermodynamics and gravity that only apply to certain people. Therefore if it's a fact that God exists and that one religion is the true revelation of God, that is a FACT. It is true for everyone. And if it's not true than said religion is utterly pointless.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It's simple logic. There can't be laws of thermodynamics and gravity that only apply to certain people. Therefore if it's a fact that God exists and that one religion is the true revelation of God, that is a FACT. It is true for everyone. And if it's not true than said religion is utterly pointless.

Metaphysical statements cannot be "true" in the same way statements about the material world are "true" (which is not to say they're less true). I find it baffling that you can't comprehend this idea.

Uh, why? Either God exists or She doesn't.

...that doesn't make any sense. At all. I can't quite figure out that process of thought in worshipping that religion's God but not converting.

Actually kind of leads into why I'd never be a member of a non-prosyletizing religion, it violates my logical standards. If something is true for me it must be true for everyone.

That's stupid, you can try to have people agree with you and your religion, while not trying to get them to convert.

Um, no? What type of person believes Jesus was the Son of God but isn't a Christian?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

There's plenty of theories about physics and astronomy that haven't been proven and that we don't fully understand yet, but that doesn't mean that competing theories can both be true. Eventually some will be proven true and some false, just like so many theories in the past. Hence why any religion that holds that it's only true for certain people makes no sense, and why I could never be a part of one.

...that doesn't make any sense. At all. I can't quite figure out that process of thought in worshipping that religion's God but not converting.

Actually kind of leads into why I'd never be a member of a non-prosyletizing religion, it violates my logical standards. If something is true for me it must be true for everyone.

It makes perfect sense.  Traditional Jewish logic is that the Jews have a contract with God in which they perform extra obligations in return for a special status (with brutal severance terms for the Jews if they don't hold up their end of the bargain: see Deuteronomy...like all of it). Non-Jews are outside of the contract. They're welcome to worship and follow God (and even in the Bible you find pagans like Balaam who end up worshipping God) but none of the obligations of Jewish law apply to them because they are outside of God's deal with the Jews.

That sort of thinking and the notion that there are special rules binding on me but not most people would quite frankly horrify me. That definitely confirms that I'd convert out of Judaism if I was born Jewish.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

There's plenty of theories about physics and astronomy that haven't been proven and that we don't fully understand yet, but that doesn't mean that competing theories can both be true. Eventually some will be proven true and some false, just like so many theories in the past. Hence why any religion that holds that it's only true for certain people makes no sense, and why I could never be a part of one.

...that doesn't make any sense. At all. I can't quite figure out that process of thought in worshipping that religion's God but not converting.

Actually kind of leads into why I'd never be a member of a non-prosyletizing religion, it violates my logical standards. If something is true for me it must be true for everyone.

It makes perfect sense.  Traditional Jewish logic is that the Jews have a contract with God in which they perform extra obligations in return for a special status (with brutal severance terms for the Jews if they don't hold up their end of the bargain: see Deuteronomy...like all of it). Non-Jews are outside of the contract. They're welcome to worship and follow God (and even in the Bible you find pagans like Balaam who end up worshipping God) but none of the obligations of Jewish law apply to them because they are outside of God's deal with the Jews.

That sort of thinking and the notion that there are special rules binding on me but not most people would quite frankly horrify me. That definitely confirms that I'd convert out of Judaism if I was born Jewish.

If you were born Jewish you wouldn't be you, but if you were you you'd almost certainly be Reform or Reconstructionist.

I could easily be born Jewish from the same environment. There is a Jewish community in Bismarck you know.

Also there's approximately zero Jews in my scene who are more religious and/or observant than Bernie Sanders or Lena Dunham.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

There's plenty of theories about physics and astronomy that haven't been proven and that we don't fully understand yet, but that doesn't mean that competing theories can both be true. Eventually some will be proven true and some false, just like so many theories in the past. Hence why any religion that holds that it's only true for certain people makes no sense, and why I could never be a part of one.

...that doesn't make any sense. At all. I can't quite figure out that process of thought in worshipping that religion's God but not converting.

Actually kind of leads into why I'd never be a member of a non-prosyletizing religion, it violates my logical standards. If something is true for me it must be true for everyone.

It makes perfect sense.  Traditional Jewish logic is that the Jews have a contract with God in which they perform extra obligations in return for a special status (with brutal severance terms for the Jews if they don't hold up their end of the bargain: see Deuteronomy...like all of it). Non-Jews are outside of the contract. They're welcome to worship and follow God (and even in the Bible you find pagans like Balaam who end up worshipping God) but none of the obligations of Jewish law apply to them because they are outside of God's deal with the Jews.

That sort of thinking and the notion that there are special rules binding on me but not most people would quite frankly horrify me. That definitely confirms that I'd convert out of Judaism if I was born Jewish.

If you were born Jewish you wouldn't be you, but if you were you you'd almost certainly be Reform or Reconstructionist.

I could easily be born Jewish from the same environment. There is a Jewish community in Bismarck you know.

Also there's approximately zero Jews in my scene who are more religious and/or observant than Bernie Sanders or Lena Dunham.

The point I'm making, and the point everybody's been trying to make for years, is that "your scene" is not the long and the short of you, and ending up in it is not some sort of inevitable fate. No, not even inevitable for people from Bismarck.

I say you'd probably be Reform or Reconstructionist because I think it's unlikely, admittedly based on my experience as a damn dirty Northeasterner, that anybody from a non-Hasidic/Haredi American Jewish background is going to look at any form of reasonably Nicene Creed-compliant Christianity and think it's more "all liberal, all the time" than Reform or Reconstructionist Judaism. I believe you that there are Jewish converts to hipster Christianity in "your scene"--I know Jewish converts to Catholicism and even Orthodoxy; why wouldn't I believe you?--but I'd be willing to bet they were looking for things at least marginally more theologically specific than "all liberal, all the time" in a religion. "Almost certainly" was too strong, sure.

There's zero chance I'd ever be a Reconstructionist Jew, since I see "religions" that you don't even need to believe in God to follow to be completely pointless (if that wasn't clear from my previous comments.) If I didn't believe in God, I'd be "None" regardless of my upbringing.

Being Jewish in North Dakota is actually not much different than being a non-Jew there. I can attest this thread is pretty accurate (although outdated, there is a synagogue in Bismarck now): http://www.city-data.com/forum/north-dakota/154965-jewish-life-nd.html Notably this quote:

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(Incidentally that's a big part of why I find the concept of "cultural Catholicism" so impossible to understand and a foreign and alien concept, because being Catholic or not is not any type of dividing factor or thing that anyone really cares about. The idea that it's the ultimate dividing factor in whatever your culture is and something inescapable in such an environment strikes me as weird as most Atlas posters would for people who vote for parties for reasons that have nothing to do with ideology.)

Also the majority of Jews that I know have tattoos. (which is why I had such a perplexing reaction to being told even secular Jews don't get tattoos, I basically thought WHAT. THE. F[INKS]?!)

As far as the "all liberal all the time" bit, you know I didn't start saying that until a few years ago? And if that was indeed my standard wouldn't that disqualify me from going to a church that has said things about abortion that mine has or plays Hillsong songs? If I actually wanted "all liberal all the time" then I'd be a Unitarian Universalist or something.

(Incidentally it's interesting how people in "the scene" COMPLETELY shed all cultural aspects they are raised in and becoming entirely separated from their upbringing. The perfect example of this is some of the Hmong I know who are in it. First generation in the US and they are already culturally indistinct from white people who grew up in affluent Twin Cities suburbs or a guy from North Dakota.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Anyway I'm bumping this because despite the claim of some to the contrary, from what I can see Baha'i is definitely a proselytizing religion.