Any one here religious?
- Thread starter AllanD
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Aaron Smith
Envisage Audio
SocialNumb, you've brought up a lot of good points so I feel like the most appropriate response for me is to address them individually, hopefully without eating up a ton of my time. I have a record to finish 
I'm not a fan of religion either. We agree on something! Christianity is often referred to as a religion for the sake of categorization, but it is fundamentally different than all other religions.
My pastor makes some great comments in this video, contrasting Christianity against religion:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spMYzsLeJog&feature=channel[/ame]
The Catholic church as an institution has definitely deviated from scripture. The whole idea of a papacy and church leaders being holier than the average person, the fact you can't talk to God directly to confess your sins and instead must go to a confessional booth so that someone else can talk to God for you, and many other things ...this is all entirely un-biblical, and any time someone deviates from scripture, it's a bad direction to be going in.
Subdivisions within the Christian faith are not irreconcilable differences, so much as they are just different areas of Christian faith that for one reason or another the founder of that subdivision found to be particularly meaningful and wanted to keep in focus. This is drastically different than there being 30,000 fundamentally different versions of Christianity (assuming your number is accurate). Adherence to scripture is the key...so if one of what you call "subdivisions of Christianity" has some extra doctrines they've added, or have taken out parts of the Bible and decided them to be irrelevant, then they are no longer Christian. Make sense?
As far as the "movement with clear goals to convert us all into what I label as slaves"...
To be honest dude, I've been a Christian for most of my whole life, and I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't know a single Christian who is all about trying to take over government so we can live in a big Christian theocracy. The Bible says nothing of the sort, that Christians should rule entire countries. Rather, a Christian is supposed to be in relationship with God, so as to be open to God's will for their life. If there are Christians out there who are seriously convinced that God can be best glorified by Christians taking over the government, then they obviously aren't reading their Bibles, and they have certainly lost touch with some aspect of their faith.
This presents a huge conversation in itself which will be huge and fruitless on this forum, so I don't want to get into it in great detail. But, I have been saying all along, that the scientific and physical truths about the realities of our universe were authored by God, so there is no reason that science has to be at odds with God. It's not like physics and science already existed, and then God created the universe within the confines of some preexisting rules that which he had no control over... God created the framework for physical existence, and then he created physical existence.
My reason in saying all this, is that a Christian who just flatly denies scientific evidence as being in any way relevant, is being ignorant. To be honest, I have absolutely no idea how the universe was created... The "Christian" idea that everything was created only 5,000 years ago is not necessarily correct and is certainly not the only thing a Christian can believe. I think it's entirely possible that God could have used the mechanism of evolution as a means of creating life. I've read extensively on many ideas (young earth, old earth, etc), and the only conclusion I can come to is that I don't know what the answer is, but I know that whatever it is, God is responsible for it. By the way, the whole "young earth" idea is a very new idea, and there were many prominent Christians throughout history who warned against taking certain parts of scripture too literally, so as to make Christians appear foolish against scientific study....so in case you were gonna go this way, I am not some weirdo lone-star Christian struggling to hang on to the final threads of my faith in order that I might reconcile it with almighty science... In Christianity there are open-handed and closed-handed issues, and the exact mechanism God used for the Creation on the earth is one of the open-handed issues that does not make or break your salvation. If this whole idea intrigues you, there is more information and a lot of great commentaries and essays here: http://biologos.org/
You are talking about an absolutely tiny, minute handful of people who make up about 0.0000000001% of all who profess to be Christians. And it should be plainly, painfully obvious to you, that a "Christian" who kills gay people is obviously not obeying the Bible and is certainly not paying any attention whatsoever to the sin in his own life.
Funny you mention this, as I just read this article the other day:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100308/wl_afp/nigeriaunrest
I haven't heard about Christians killing witches, but again, it should go without saying...if a "Christian" decides that it is up to him to go commit murder, he is so far removed from what Christianity is supposed to be that it's nearly irrelevant to the conversation. The bottom line is that if a person is in relationship with God, and is being influenced by the Spirit and not by their own ideas, these kinds of things will not happen. You can't pin it on Christianity.
I'm not a fan of religion either. We agree on something! Christianity is often referred to as a religion for the sake of categorization, but it is fundamentally different than all other religions.
My pastor makes some great comments in this video, contrasting Christianity against religion:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spMYzsLeJog&feature=channel[/ame]
The Catholic church as an institution has definitely deviated from scripture. The whole idea of a papacy and church leaders being holier than the average person, the fact you can't talk to God directly to confess your sins and instead must go to a confessional booth so that someone else can talk to God for you, and many other things ...this is all entirely un-biblical, and any time someone deviates from scripture, it's a bad direction to be going in.
Subdivisions within the Christian faith are not irreconcilable differences, so much as they are just different areas of Christian faith that for one reason or another the founder of that subdivision found to be particularly meaningful and wanted to keep in focus. This is drastically different than there being 30,000 fundamentally different versions of Christianity (assuming your number is accurate). Adherence to scripture is the key...so if one of what you call "subdivisions of Christianity" has some extra doctrines they've added, or have taken out parts of the Bible and decided them to be irrelevant, then they are no longer Christian. Make sense?
As far as the "movement with clear goals to convert us all into what I label as slaves"...
To be honest dude, I've been a Christian for most of my whole life, and I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't know a single Christian who is all about trying to take over government so we can live in a big Christian theocracy. The Bible says nothing of the sort, that Christians should rule entire countries. Rather, a Christian is supposed to be in relationship with God, so as to be open to God's will for their life. If there are Christians out there who are seriously convinced that God can be best glorified by Christians taking over the government, then they obviously aren't reading their Bibles, and they have certainly lost touch with some aspect of their faith.This presents a huge conversation in itself which will be huge and fruitless on this forum, so I don't want to get into it in great detail. But, I have been saying all along, that the scientific and physical truths about the realities of our universe were authored by God, so there is no reason that science has to be at odds with God. It's not like physics and science already existed, and then God created the universe within the confines of some preexisting rules that which he had no control over... God created the framework for physical existence, and then he created physical existence.
My reason in saying all this, is that a Christian who just flatly denies scientific evidence as being in any way relevant, is being ignorant. To be honest, I have absolutely no idea how the universe was created... The "Christian" idea that everything was created only 5,000 years ago is not necessarily correct and is certainly not the only thing a Christian can believe. I think it's entirely possible that God could have used the mechanism of evolution as a means of creating life. I've read extensively on many ideas (young earth, old earth, etc), and the only conclusion I can come to is that I don't know what the answer is, but I know that whatever it is, God is responsible for it. By the way, the whole "young earth" idea is a very new idea, and there were many prominent Christians throughout history who warned against taking certain parts of scripture too literally, so as to make Christians appear foolish against scientific study....so in case you were gonna go this way, I am not some weirdo lone-star Christian struggling to hang on to the final threads of my faith in order that I might reconcile it with almighty science... In Christianity there are open-handed and closed-handed issues, and the exact mechanism God used for the Creation on the earth is one of the open-handed issues that does not make or break your salvation. If this whole idea intrigues you, there is more information and a lot of great commentaries and essays here: http://biologos.org/
You are talking about an absolutely tiny, minute handful of people who make up about 0.0000000001% of all who profess to be Christians. And it should be plainly, painfully obvious to you, that a "Christian" who kills gay people is obviously not obeying the Bible and is certainly not paying any attention whatsoever to the sin in his own life.
Funny you mention this, as I just read this article the other day:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100308/wl_afp/nigeriaunrest
I haven't heard about Christians killing witches, but again, it should go without saying...if a "Christian" decides that it is up to him to go commit murder, he is so far removed from what Christianity is supposed to be that it's nearly irrelevant to the conversation. The bottom line is that if a person is in relationship with God, and is being influenced by the Spirit and not by their own ideas, these kinds of things will not happen. You can't pin it on Christianity.
Zack Uidl
Member
SocialNumb, you've brought up a lot of good points so I feel like the most appropriate response for me is to address them individually, hopefully without eating up a ton of my time. I have a record to finish
I'm not a fan of religion either. We agree on something! Christianity is often referred to as a religion for the sake of categorization, but it is fundamentally different than all other religions.
My pastor makes some great comments in this video, contrasting Christianity against religion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spMYzsLeJog&feature=channel
The Catholic church as an institution has definitely deviated from scripture. The whole idea of a papacy and church leaders being holier than the average person, the fact you can't talk to God directly to confess your sins and instead must go to a confessional booth so that someone else can talk to God for you, and many other things ...this is all entirely un-biblical, and any time someone deviates from scripture, it's a bad direction to be going in.
Subdivisions within the Christian faith are not irreconcilable differences, so much as they are just different areas of Christian faith that for one reason or another the founder of that subdivision found to be particularly meaningful and wanted to keep in focus. This is drastically different than there being 30,000 fundamentally different versions of Christianity (assuming your number is accurate). Adherence to scripture is the key...so if one of what you call "subdivisions of Christianity" has some extra doctrines they've added, or have taken out parts of the Bible and decided them to be irrelevant, then they are no longer Christian. Make sense?
As far as the "movement with clear goals to convert us all into what I label as slaves"...
This presents a huge conversation in itself which will be huge and fruitless on this forum, so I don't want to get into it in great detail. But, I have been saying all along, that the scientific and physical truths about the realities of our universe were authored by God, so there is no reason that science has to be at odds with God. It's not like physics and science already existed, and then God created the universe within the confines of some preexisting rules that which he had no control over... God created the framework for physical existence, and then he created physical existence.
My reason in saying all this, is that a Christian who just flatly denies scientific evidence as being in any way relevant, is being ignorant. To be honest, I have absolutely no idea how the universe was created... The "Christian" idea that everything was created only 5,000 years ago is not necessarily correct and is certainly not the only thing a Christian can believe. I think it's entirely possible that God could have used the mechanism of evolution as a means of creating life. I've read extensively on many ideas (young earth, old earth, etc), and the only conclusion I can come to is that I don't know what the answer is, but I know that whatever it is, God is responsible for it. By the way, the whole "young earth" idea is a very new idea, and there were many prominent Christians throughout history who warned against taking certain parts of scripture too literally, so as to make Christians appear foolish against scientific study....so in case you were gonna go this way, I am not some weirdo lone-star Christian struggling to hang on to the final threads of my faith in order that I might reconcile it with almighty science... In Christianity there are open-handed and closed-handed issues, and the exact mechanism God used for the Creation on the earth is one of the open-handed issues that does not make or break your salvation. If this whole idea intrigues you, there is more information and a lot of great commentaries and essays here: http://biologos.org/
You are talking about an absolutely tiny, minute handful of people who make up about 0.0000000001% of all who profess to be Christians. And it should be plainly, painfully obvious to you, that a "Christian" who kills gay people is obviously not obeying the Bible and is certainly not paying any attention whatsoever to the sin in his own life.
Funny you mention this, as I just read this article the other day:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100308/wl_afp/nigeriaunrest
I haven't heard about Christians killing witches, but again, it should go without saying...if a "Christian" decides that it is up to him to go commit murder, he is so far removed from what Christianity is supposed to be that it's nearly irrelevant to the conversation. The bottom line is that if a person is in relationship with God, and is being influenced by the Spirit and not by their own ideas, these kinds of things will not happen. You can't pin it on Christianity.
Well said bro!
colynomial
Member
I should like to add that one of the recurrent criticisms of the Christian worldview that has been brought up in this thread is with respect evangelicalism. That said, there seem to be far fewer "Jesus fish" than flying spaghetti monsters in signatures around here. I don't want to get into a tit for tat kind of thing- I'm just pointing out that for all the "don't jam your religion down my throat" talk, I'm not sure it's as one sided it's being made out to be.
EDIT: Nor am I suggesting all professing Christians are innocent of this charge either.
EDIT: Nor am I suggesting all professing Christians are innocent of this charge either.
Aaron Smith
Envisage Audio
What needs saving? I'm enjoying the conversation...
This is really great insight! This is precisely the issue the Bible addresses. The entire book, from start to finish, is a giant love story, with the overarching theme of God's love for us and his redeeming of a human race which is depraved and in need of a savior.
All of these religious problems that people like to mention are not the fault of God, but a the direct result of man's own sin nature. Jesus is the only way to solve the equation.
This is really great insight! This is precisely the issue the Bible addresses. The entire book, from start to finish, is a giant love story, with the overarching theme of God's love for us and his redeeming of a human race which is depraved and in need of a savior.
All of these religious problems that people like to mention are not the fault of God, but a the direct result of man's own sin nature. Jesus is the only way to solve the equation.
Glenn Fricker
Very Metal &Very Bad News
Could have fooled me. It's a ripoff of the Egyptian sun god Ra, who performed miracles, died, and then was resurrected three days later.
On the most fundamental level, it's the same as any other religion on several fronts:
1) Don't kill each other, unless the religion needs it, then have at it! (see Ireland for confirmation)
2) Christianity is the one TRUE religion, the only path to God. All other religions are false. Wait... doesn't every other religion say the exact same thing?
3) If you don't believe in Jesus, you'll suffer for eternity. But he loves you.
I fail to see the significant difference from the other Abrahamic religions. All require obedience without proof. All require money from the follower.
Glenn Fricker
Very Metal &Very Bad News
Every hear of Pat Robertson?
A religion should be judged not only by the scriptures is professes to be as revelations of the almighty, but by the actions of it's followers.
John_C
formerly Skeksis268
God loves us all, but it's pretty tough love, and you won't be seeing much of the nice end unless you do things his way!
I'd say the new testament can just about fit the bill for a love story, where the old testament reads more like a horror story, or in parts a comedy!
John_C
formerly Skeksis268
This is an important point, and it applies to atheism too, indeed any philosophy that affects how you live.
If a philosophy is used to justify to sanction horrendous acts, then that philosophy is not a good one to spread! It doesn't matter how great the philosophy is in theory, it's how it actually works out in practice, with all of us real, flawed, unstable people that matters
Glenn Fricker
Very Metal &Very Bad News
Are you kidding me? Did you actually read this love story?
Here's a wonderful example of love, Christian style:
Book of Deuteronomy said:
Here's an interesting reply from CJ Werelman:
CJ Werelman said:
(I'm taking a sample from CJ Werelman's "God Hates You, Hate Him Back)
I've ordered this book. Can't wait till it shows up.
GarethSE
New Metal Member
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Oh I accept the good it's done and I applaud the people behind it, but the bads outweigh the good to me.
K Odell
\=/Varnisher\=/
haha Gareth when does the bad not outweigh the good with you? Look for negativity and you will always find it.
Just watch some Al Jazeera and you can see what good religion has done for the world... I've been watching it and its getting me fucking pissed off at the everything, you see fucking children and their families blown up to shit, fucking bombs going off everywhere, and the photos I've seen, its just fucking dicked up. Where the fuck is their god? What the fuck good has "god" ever fucking done for these people? God hasn't done dick for them, or any of the countries in the world that are in a shit state. If there is a god, then how come the world is so fucked up, and why can't "god" stop some of the fucking bad that goes on in the world? I don't believe in shit at the moment because what's there to believe in? A god that lets the world get this fucked up?
K Odell
\=/Varnisher\=/
JeffTD
Senhor Testiculo
I don't want to delve too deeply into this, but I think it's worth mentioning that religion is 100% the product of man, and to criticize it too heavily is to ignore the real issue that - people are ultimately fucked up, depraved creatures, and some just happen to gravitate to institutions that help them deal with and/or perpetuate this, be it a religion, a political party, a club in highschool, the boyscouts, etc...
I know the counterarguments: "We shouldn't take pity on the KKK, National Socialist party, the ACLU, the NAACP, etc... just because they're ultimately men and it's not their fault they're fucked up." On a scale as large as religion, though, it's kind of hard to attack like 70% of the world and leave human nature out of it.
I'm not trying to propose a solution because I don't think one exists (it'd be fighting human nature), but arguing that religion is what's wrong with the world is like arguing that guns kill people - they do, but really only if people let them do it in the first place. Even if you think that human nature is positive and altruistic, not selfish and self-serving, everything about us is a product of the environments we grow up in - environments created by man.
I don't know if any of this makes sense to anyone else - I'm just saying humans continually fuck each other up just as a byproduct of our own inherent shittiness.
Sure, this is all true, but Buddhism is also painfully annoyingly vague on the three 'big' questions in life (according to Stan ) - Where are we from? Why are we here? Where are we going? Annoying enough for me to not be able to take it seriously as a viable religion or even cultural doctrine.
I know the counterarguments: "We shouldn't take pity on the KKK, National Socialist party, the ACLU, the NAACP, etc... just because they're ultimately men and it's not their fault they're fucked up." On a scale as large as religion, though, it's kind of hard to attack like 70% of the world and leave human nature out of it.
I'm not trying to propose a solution because I don't think one exists (it'd be fighting human nature), but arguing that religion is what's wrong with the world is like arguing that guns kill people - they do, but really only if people let them do it in the first place. Even if you think that human nature is positive and altruistic, not selfish and self-serving, everything about us is a product of the environments we grow up in - environments created by man.
I don't know if any of this makes sense to anyone else - I'm just saying humans continually fuck each other up just as a byproduct of our own inherent shittiness.
Sure, this is all true, but Buddhism is also painfully annoyingly vague on the three 'big' questions in life (according to Stan
) - Where are we from? Why are we here? Where are we going? Annoying enough for me to not be able to take it seriously as a viable religion or even cultural doctrine.
John_C
formerly Skeksis268
Sure, this is all true, but Buddhism is also painfully annoyingly vague on the three 'big' questions in life (according to Stan
That fact is why it's the best choice. It doesn't pretend that we have the answers, it leaves science the space to get specifics while providing a general spiritual, moral overview.
JeffTD
Senhor Testiculo
It's not the fact that they're vague about it - that's one thing... it's this "it's not important, you don't need to know, don't worry about it, just do these things so you can acheive this Nirvana thing that we really won't tell you about what/where/how it is" notion that really bugs the crap out of me.
It's one thing to say "we don't have the answers and we can't know" - it's another thing to say "you don't need to know so just ignore it and don't think about it."
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