Well.... this is a rather tricky subject for me to breach, but I'll try. I was raised Christian and still am to some [very relaxed] degree. It's funny to categorize myself this way, because REALLY, I'm not religious at all, but if I had to say I was something, it would be Christian. I don't usually SAY this, strictly BECAUSE of the negative connotation, but I'm comfortable enough with y'all to share and I'm confident that you know enough about me to NOT associate me with THAT impression of the religion.
Now, with that said, I will also say that I am actually really interested in religion as it is... I love learning about OTHER religions, and even about Christianity. I still have MANY questions about Christianity, so anyone who can logically [and calmly] answer these questions interests me. I REALLY don't like the people who try to cram it down my throat. Like you guys, its not that I don't want to know about it, just that I want to discover on my own choice.
I can identify with this to a point, because i too was raised in the christian church. but in my case (as well as my mother's) we began to question...and it was a natural progression...my mother was still in the midst of pursuing her higher education (going from a master's to a doctorate) and at that time....(if you can believe this) the pentacostal/apostolic christian church didnt ENCOURAGE "high education". hmmm i wonder why? and as for myself, i just began to feel that "christianity" was too rigid and condemning. I didnt fit into it and i didnt WANT to fit into it.
I grew tired of being told what to believe, what to do and how to live...or risk going to hell if i dared deviate in someway...and half the people who did the telling or the preaching or the witnessing were just as "sinfull" when not at the church as anyone else who never had BEEN to church.
titania said:
I find that many Christians are good people but they ARE extremely closeminded, and this is interesting in the fact that they aren't accepting of other religions or sexual orientations, etc, but the Bible professes that God loves EVERYONE [as they are-- is there really any other kind of love?] This would mean that he is quite accepting to things modern day Christians aren't.
that's because today's christians are more concerned with being political and posturing than they are about being "true" to what "god's word" actually says. MOST people (even those who are the LOOSEST form of christian) will quote/use the bible to promote their own platform (including rationalizing the abusing of their wives , children etc) .
I'm not sure, as I haven't heard the story in a LONG ASS time, but the biblical story of the Tower of Babel has always been fascinating to me, and I LOVE to question church folk about it after they start foaming at the mouth about OTHER religions.
i once asked a "devout" christian why he thought he and his religion were so persecuted when other religions that were OLDER than christianity were given more consideration and respect? he said because "that's how the devil wants it to be"
I think it has MORE to do with the fact that other religions like budhism do not make an INDUSTRY out of promoting their religion and saturating the public consciousness with it. NO WHERE in the bible does it state to have church in a building that could very well pass for an entertainment venue of a major performing artist. christianity in america today is multi million dollar INDUSTRY and if you visit some of these mega churches you have to wonder what happens to the MEMBERS...those who are not on some board or possessed of some title in that church. are their spiritual needs REALLY met or is going to church on sunday the equivalent of going to a small scale concert?
titania said:
In THIS story, all the people of the world worked together to build a tower to heaven. God observes humanity in this project and resolves to strike the tower down and separate the singular cohesion of a universal language. This is interpreted by MOST to describe our differences in language, race, and [it would logically follow] religion. I always ask these type of people to explain to me WHY God himself would do this-- and why he would give different languages that would inevitably form variations in religion. do our religions NOT all represent the same thing? A higher power is a higher power-- our LANGUAGE and RACIAL differences give this power difference in appearance, gender, name, etc. This usually serves well to quiet those who are more 'rabid'... and only the most deranged continue on past this... which usually indicates to me that they are saying things just to listen to themselves propagate, and nothing that they say can be truly representative of a religion.
good luck with getting a definitive answer. i was told that if i couldnt argue against the bible WITH scripture, then my argument against christianity was not valid. NEVER MIND what HISTORY ITSELF has shown and that the bible was written by MAN. if i cant bear out what i say with SCRIPTURE than my arguments and questions are irrational and unfounded. THIS is the kind of crap that drove me FROM christianity. i'm supposed to have blind faith in the bible and not be able to reconcile it with history or any other source of information? i'm NOT supposed to think for myself?
titania said:
A problem I sometimes have with Christianity is the people who STILL try to tell me that evolution is not correct.... and other nuances of christianity.
christians that i have talked to about this cant even give place to a simple idea....that while God (if this is what you believe) CREATED living things...those living things STILL had to EVOLVE into what we see TODAY. even STORM, a frickin COMIC BOOK character once said "Creation is but the FIRST STEP...evolution comes over time"
history and science have shown that MANY species of animals EVOLVED from some less sophisticated ancestor and NOTHING started out as we see it TODAY...what is so hard about understand that? even IF something was "Created" ...with the passage of time, change of envrionment and the need to ADAPT....ALL living things had to EVOLVE.
titania said:
It frustrates me that people are STILL adhering so closely to a book that was written by MEN thousands of years ago. I'm sorry folks, but the Bible did NOT come by fax from heaven.
but didnt you know? the ORIGINAL manuscripts from the bible were found, therefore its PROOVEN that the bible is 100 percent perfect and accurate and is infallible.
Furthermore, MANY stories in the book are STORIES, originally intended to either explain things BEYOND understanding [at the time, how humans came to be here and why we should hold ourselves to a higher moral standard than beasts, among other things] or they were METAPHORICAL and meant to teach morals. I myself have found that reading the bible as a STORY and gleaming from it the lesson it was intended to teach is the best route to go. If we can look at it and NOT take it so literally, its easy to see that it WAS meant to teach the people of THAT time a sense of awareness of right and wrong, and it has many good stories that, when taken metaphorically, are valuable moral lessons.
try telling that to today's christian in american and watch them call you everything from a blasphemer to a heretic as you DARE to minimize and discredite "god's word."
what about the discrepenices between the old testament and new testament? for example in same passages of scripture of the old testament, vengeance and justice are promoted where in others in the new testament they are condemned.
this makes me think of something - people use a scripture found in the old testament as justification for condemning gay people, saying they are doomed to hell. but if God, by definition is all knowing, all powerfull etc...then surely he KNEW that gays would be among the human population. if he did not want them..if it was that serious..why didnt he simply destroy them early on and prevent them from returning again? stories of the great flood proove that if god gets tired of something, he'll do away with it and before anyone falls back on "soddom and gamorah"...god DIDNT destroy those cities because of the gay people, he destroyed them because Lot could not find at least 10 righteous people....something completely unrelated.
titania said:
the problem today is that this book is SO outdated in many ways. Way back when, the Bible said that people were NOT allowed to eat animals that chewed their cud. This included COWS. We were also not to consume their BYPRODUCTS. My my, where would we be today if that were still adhered to? No milk, no butter, no cheese, no hamburgers, to start with. The TRUTH is that in those days, people probably got SICK from consuming these things, so it was necessary to put this in the bible. This is only ONE example... there are many more.
The point I'm driving at is that it would be LUNACY to follow the Bible literally, and even if we tried to, it would be BEYOND difficult, because there are different interpretations AND in some cases, it seems to contradict itself, especially if more than one person is teaching it.
i said the same thing on another board and was told that i had no basis for saying it...and yet i've known this for years. growing up in the church and having been preached to or read throughmany passages of scripture....i can CLEARLY see contradictions all through the bible.
titania said:
Karl Marx once said "Religion is the Opium of the masses." I think he was quite on the money. Religion is wonderful in that it explains things we don't understand and it helps us to personally determine what our moral standards are.... but we need to be careful not to overdo it. We have discovered scientific explainations to SO MANY things that more and more we must be able to fuse science with religion and interpret the bible less literally in order to appreciate it fully. I think a lot of people who are strongly religious have a problem with that, as do a lot of people who are strongly scientific.... so we get the problems we have now.
not everything can be defined by one or the other completely. somethings are BEYOND the realm of science and some things are beyond what the bible contains...there's NOTHING in the bible that speaks on dinosaurs...but does anyone doubt they existed due to the SCIENTIFIC evidence that has been found?
the bible doesnt beaer out any possibility of extra terrestrial life...but many people believe in the possibility just the same. there are MANY things that exist or have occurred throughout history that the bible doesnt speak on and yet they are there just the same...just as there are things that have taken place that SCIENCE couldnt define..and yet people believe in them.
titania said:
TODAYS world makes the separation of church and state PARAMOUNT, even more than when this idea was originally introduced. Most especially in a country like ours, which allows for so many religious beliefs. We simply CANNOT afford to put the two together, for the most obvious reasons. It creates alienation amongst those who beliefs are NOt in office... and while I strongly hold that everyone is entitled to their own belief, I do NOT think that people in a position of power should share their belief with the rest of us [read: they should try not to broadcast it, especially when they feel the need to apply it to an issue that involves everyone].
AGREED!! and we've SEEN the damage that can be done with a religious agenda is pushed through our political arena...just look at the 2004 elections and the damage that has been done to our country over the last 6 years. some of these same officials who were supposedly champions of christian faith/values are now being indicted for perjury, fraud, corruption and other VERY serious legal matters..not to mention the state of our country at this moment.
