Christianity and You!

[Cliff_m85]

*please, read my whole post before you make a reply... some people might reply before they see my point*

I'm a Christian and here's my opinion on atheists:

They're misinformed, judgmental, elitist, hypocritical, closed-minded, and patronizing. They make a lot of rampant generalizations about Christianity and then that's that. What's worse is that they've also killed millions and yet they throw so much at Christians for the crusades and all that. Atheists are horrible, horrible people who have committed so many atrocities yet continue to point fingers.

Do you see what I just did there? Do you? Tell me you're smart and reasonable enough to see what I just did there.

I just put all atheists in the same place as Stalin and Hitler. Both of those were atheists and the two of them killed more people on this planet than any single religion. Put's a hell of a lot on atheism doesn't it?

What? You don't like it?

Neither do I

So stop generalizing Christians. It's not fair and I'm not sure at all why you're allowed to get away with it.

Yes, men posing as Christians have committed atrocities in the past. The crusades were a horror. But did you that since then the church has changed? A man named Martin Luther wrote 95 thesis against the church back then and ever since, modern Christianity has taken its shape. Those are not the same people. We just happen to share a name and I'm ashamed of that.

And then there's Westboro. I swear to you... those people simple cannot worship the same Jesus that I do. The Son of God is a man of mercy, compassion, humility, and servitude. He warned his followers of persecution and told them not to persecute. Does that sound like Westboro? They're hypocrites and I refuse to be put even in the same league as them.

I'm sorry for all the horrors that Christianity caused. They were wrong and I can't support them. But please, please... stop harassing and judging a group you clearly don't understand.

I would love to answer any questions about what a real, Biblically-based Christian believes.

Gott mit uns. (Worn on every belt for every Nazi soldier)

As a real Biblically based Christian, what do you think about homosexuality and the old testiment's claim that a rapist who rapes an unmarried virgin gets to marry said virgin and pay a fee of a few silver pieces? Biblically based, ofcourse.

 

[Pimppeter2]

Stop taking Christianity so literally. It's a set of guidelines on how to be a good person

 

[Donbett1974]

The way I see it both believers and non-believers are wrong seeing no one can know for sure. The most logical path is agnosticism it says I don't know and I can admit it. My take on Satan if real is that he serves god because if you go by the stories god gives Satan a kingdom and an army that is more powerful than his/her/its makes me say hmmm.

 

[Cliff_m85]

There is no way to sit down and talk when you can't do so rationally. Everyone here is using naturalistic scientific progress to type out their messages, but some are still ambly worshipping that which is standing in the way of further progress. When someone says "But I have faith...." the argument is over. It's a way of saying "I'm not skeptical of it though I have no hard evidence, and if you have any hard evidence against it I care not to hear of it".

I've used that a lot in arguments on such matters but it gets nowhere, when it comes to research and the newly "we don't support abortion, even in cases of rape" i object, but only when rationality has gone out of the window.

Ofcourse it gets nowhere. If someone makes up their mind and then firmly shuts it then it won't progress anywhere. I love being able to say "I don't know", but we have people putting in fillers for those in the way of "God/Allah/Thor/Whatnot" and then fighting to keep the answers from being found out. In America there is an honest movement to add nonscientific Creationism to the science class of every public school. We can tell that truth is just not enough because the Creationists manipulate the arguments as well as quote-mine.

 

[Cliff_m85]

The way I see it both believers and non-believers are wrong seeing no one can know for sure. The most logical path is agnosticism it says I don't know and I can admit it. My take on Satan if real is that he serves god because if you go by the stories god gives Satan a kingdom and an army that is more powerful than his/her/its makes me say hmmm.

Agnosticism answers if we can know. Do you know if there is a god? No. Absolutely not. Everyone who is sane is an agnostic.


Atheism answers if we believe. Do you believe there is a god? Me: No, not enough evidence.

 

[Rajin Cajun]

Gott mit uns. (Worn on every belt for every Nazi soldier)

As a real Biblically based Christian, what do you think about homosexuality and the old testiment's claim that a rapist who rapes an unmarried virgin gets to marry said virgin and pay a fee of a few silver pieces? Biblically based, ofcourse.

Wow talk about historically ignorant. Gott Mit Uns was worn on every Wehrmacht Belt buckle for a long time before the Nazis. I believe it first saw service in the First World War. The Wehrmacht specifically the Heer does not equal Nazis. Nice fallacy and try though. In fact Nazi Soldiers or as close as you can get the Waffen-SS even though you didn't have to be a member of the NSDAP to serve wore on their belt buckle, Mein Ehre Heiss Treue which means my Honor is Loyalty. Nice use of Godwin though even if used incorrectly.

 

[dontworryaboutit]

Yeah, I never got the whole point of Christians saying you're going to hell. Loving God and hell don't add up. Am I right?

Yes you are. Why would god send his supposed children to a place of eternal torment? What kind of twisted father does that?

I personally think God must be a Darwinist in that sense. If you can't cut it on your own, you fall and go to hell instead of heaven. Survival of the fittest.

I've always gotten a bit of a laugh out of that one.

 

[Cliff_m85]

Gott mit uns. (Worn on every belt for every Nazi soldier)

As a real Biblically based Christian, what do you think about homosexuality and the old testiment's claim that a rapist who rapes an unmarried virgin gets to marry said virgin and pay a fee of a few silver pieces? Biblically based, ofcourse.

Wow talk about historically ignorant. Gott Mit Uns was worn on every Wehrmacht Belt buckle for a long time before the Nazis. I believe it first saw service in the First World War. The Wehrmacht specifically the Heer does not equal Nazis. Nice fallacy and try though. In fact Nazi Soldiers or as close as you can get the Waffen-SS even though you didn't have to be a member of the NSDAP to serve wore on their belt buckle, Mein Ehre Heiss Treue which means my Honor is Loyalty. Nice use of Godwin though even if used incorrectly.

That's interesting. I honestly did not know that. Thanks for sharing that with me.

 

[Rajin Cajun]

Gott mit uns. (Worn on every belt for every Nazi soldier)

As a real Biblically based Christian, what do you think about homosexuality and the old testiment's claim that a rapist who rapes an unmarried virgin gets to marry said virgin and pay a fee of a few silver pieces? Biblically based, ofcourse.

Wow talk about historically ignorant. Gott Mit Uns was worn on every Wehrmacht Belt buckle for a long time before the Nazis. I believe it first saw service in the First World War. The Wehrmacht specifically the Heer does not equal Nazis. Nice fallacy and try though. In fact Nazi Soldiers or as close as you can get the Waffen-SS even though you didn't have to be a member of the NSDAP to serve wore on their belt buckle, Mein Ehre Heiss Treue which means my Honor is Loyalty. Nice use of Godwin though even if used incorrectly.

That's interesting. I honestly did not know that. Thanks for sharing that with me.

No problem. Carry on though as a Christian myself I laugh at the hypocrisy of a lot of Christians and I absolutely abhor Christians that use their faith as a reason to get gain or power over others.

 

[historybuff]

Oh, geez, this again.

 

[darthzew]

Gott mit uns. (Worn on every belt for every Nazi soldier)

As a real Biblically based Christian, what do you think about homosexuality and the old testiment's claim that a rapist who rapes an unmarried virgin gets to marry said virgin and pay a fee of a few silver pieces? Biblically based, ofcourse.

This is something that a lot of people get mixed up. Those old laws were meant for an old Jewish nation called Israel (which I see as different from modern Israel). When the new testament of the Bible came out, everything was changed. We were no longer bound by those old laws. Yes, we should respect God's will be it's important nowadays to look at it more by intent rather than taking it all literally.

This leads to my point on homosexuality. Both of these laws pertain to my view on gay marriage. They basically say that God wants marriage pure. He wants sex to be kept within marriage, for which there are very good reasons (I don't really want to argue about this), and that it should be between a man and a woman. I don't condemn homosexuals. It's not place. I don't like homosexuality, but it's not my place to judge. I'm actually told, in the Bible, to love sinners.

However, I'd much rather them no touch marriage. I believe there could be a compromise here, such as a civil union. But there needs to be more reason on both sides.

 

[Skreeee]

I guess my identity with religion right now could be best summed up as 'apathetic agnostic', but I was raised in/practiced Roman Catholicism up until last year.

My knowledge of why Christianity got popular in the first place is more or less along the lines of what's already been stated above somewhere, so I won't reiterate that. Why is it popular today? Probably because Most Western cultures are swimming in it already, and thus the religion itself, as well as it's artifacts such as the Bible/prayers/hymns/etc. still carry an immense amount of cultural currency. It manages to seep into everything, from references in movies and TV, to novels, political debates, and even rehab centers and prisons. When a person feels so lost that they think they can't be saved, they'll accept almost anything as absolute truth.

But personally I have no beef with it, or any other religion, even though my own reasoning says there logically cannot be a God (or at least not one who gives two shits about all of us milling around below his paradise). Though I have left my religion I can still see the value in it. For example, I greatly respect Jesus of Nazareth as a philosopher, but do not believe him to be my personal savior just because he was unjustly crucified.

Logically viewed, religions are nothing more than a series of philosophies, canonized morals, and lifestyle choices rolled into one with a proverbial sticker of approval from someone's role model/deity of choice. As long as people don't try to force me into worshiping their gods (making it more of a cult than a religion in my opinion), and don't warp the teachings of chosen religion to serve their own selfish or insidious needs, I have no problem with it or them.

 

[Captain Blackout]

Now to get this out of the way, im Atheist and this is no hate thread, this is just everyone's opinions (no fighting please, debating, fair enough, but no fighting).

I'm a very logical person who always looks on both sides of an argument, taking both opinions and ideals into consideration while developing a conclusion of my own; so i ran through my head "why is Christianity so famous?" And personally as a religion i find it so bland, "there is a single god, called god and his son called Jesus" at least in Ancient Egypt there religion had about over 20 gods all with a backstory and a such, even the Norse people had just below a dozen. All of which are very interesting, on how they influenced the lifes of the followers. With Christianity, its just so basic, in the library of beliefs it comes under "baby's first religion" "this is a god, worship him, be a nice guy."

With all its simplicity aside, it did give way to keeping some human values intact such as no rape, murder etc. which was brought on before, but it helped during the dark ages. But now or days it seems so...unnecessary, now i don't mind Christians; some of them its hard to tell they even believe in god, but its the ones who throw it in your face about how your going to hell and that god is still forgiving and bleh (FYI: Satan is more appealing, 1. he has killed far less people, 2. he takes the bad people and punishes them, while being made out to be evil, commitment much?).

Because i would write about 19 pages on my own, i think i'll just leave it at that, my point is put across and my opinion is it.

Whats yours?

Just to get this out of the way, I'm a Taoist Christian who loves hate threads because I love the conflict but I'll try to be nice here.

Christianity is famous because of a guy named Constantine. He was emperor in Rome, maybe more than once. In 313 A.D. he passed an edict that removed all penalties for being Christian. Shortly after that he slowly drained resources from Pagan establishments. He was the founder of the Holy Roman Empire. Emperors after him went even further, persecuting Pagans and establishing the concept that Christianity through force of arms was ok. As one of the worlds most successful theocracies it's effects are present even now, hundreds of years later and Christianity is a popular world religion. Currents levels of evangelicalism go a long way towards keeping it popular.

I highly recommend you read the Dune series by Frank Herbert if you haven't. After you finish all 6 books (and to truly get to the meat of Herbert you need all 6) you'll have to tools to look at real world religions and understand their flow better.

 

[Cliff_m85]

Gott mit uns. (Worn on every belt for every Nazi soldier)

As a real Biblically based Christian, what do you think about homosexuality and the old testiment's claim that a rapist who rapes an unmarried virgin gets to marry said virgin and pay a fee of a few silver pieces? Biblically based, ofcourse.

This is something that a lot of people get mixed up. Those old laws were meant for an old Jewish nation called Israel (which I see as different from modern Israel). When the new testament of the Bible came out, everything was changed. We were no longer bound by those old laws. Yes, we should respect God's will be it's important nowadays to look at it more by intent rather than taking it all literally.

This leads to my point on homosexuality. Both of these laws pertain to my view on gay marriage. They basically say that God wants marriage pure. He wants sex to be kept within marriage, for which there are very good reasons (I don't really want to argue about this), and that it should be between a man and a woman. I don't condemn homosexuals. It's not place. I don't like homosexuality, but it's not my place to judge. I'm actually told, in the Bible, to love sinners.

However, I'd much rather them no touch marriage. I believe there could be a compromise here, such as a civil union. But there needs to be more reason on both sides.

I'm not sure I understand. So what you're saying is that at one point, before God sent Jesus, he thought it'd be decent to allow rapists to pay only a slight fee for rape....and then force the victim to marry the rapist. But then Jesus came and that rule doesn't apply.

But at one point it did, and God found it necessary to put in the Bible the rule rather than.....say......a description of antibiotics?

If you don't like homosexuality, you've already judged it. Not that that's wrong, because judging is the only way humanity can survive. We can judge if a plant is poisonous. We can judge insane murderous people so as to avoid them. We can judge if meat is spoiled. Etc.

A dig civil unions as a Libertarian, but there is a smack of 'seperate but equal' to the argument. If a church wants to marry homosexuals, that church should be allowed to.

 

[Spirultima]

*please, read my whole post before you make a reply... some people might reply before they see my point*

I'm a Christian and here's my opinion on atheists:

They're misinformed, judgmental, elitist, hypocritical, closed-minded, and patronizing. They make a lot of rampant generalizations about Christianity and then that's that. What's worse is that they've also killed millions and yet they throw so much at Christians for the crusades and all that. Atheists are horrible, horrible people who have committed so many atrocities yet continue to point fingers.

Do you see what I just did there? Do you? Tell me you're smart and reasonable enough to see what I just did there.

I just put all atheists in the same place as Stalin and Hitler. Both of those were atheists and the two of them killed more people on this planet than any single religion. Put's a hell of a lot on atheism doesn't it?

What? You don't like it?

Neither do I

So stop generalizing Christians. It's not fair and I'm not sure at all why you're allowed to get away with it.

Yes, men posing as Christians have committed atrocities in the past. The crusades were a horror. But did you that since then the church has changed? A man named Martin Luther wrote 95 thesis against the church back then and ever since, modern Christianity has taken its shape. Those are not the same people. We just happen to share a name and I'm ashamed of that.

And then there's Westboro. I swear to you... those people simple cannot worship the same Jesus that I do. The Son of God is a man of mercy, compassion, humility, and servitude. He warned his followers of persecution and told them not to persecute. Does that sound like Westboro? They're hypocrites and I refuse to be put even in the same league as them.

I'm sorry for all the horrors that Christianity caused. They were wrong and I can't support them. But please, please... stop harassing and judging a group you clearly don't understand.

I would love to answer any questions about what a real, Biblically-based Christian believes.

Well i respect your opinion, but your the kind of Christian i hate, and the one who gives Christians bad names, the one who says everyone else is wrong, oh and quickly, Hitler was Christian, and if you want to put it nicely Christians have killed FAR more people then atheists, Jews, Islamic or any other religion on the planet, so NEVER try to take the high horse on that front.

And i am quite a patient person, but don't ever generalise atheists the way you do, and just for reference atheists don't come under a religion, so this "atheists caused millions of deaths" doesn't really count, because atheist is a simply a term for someone who doesn't have a religion, Christians however choose to be.

I'm getting angry for no reason i think, so I'll try and put this calmly, don't demean someone for believe different, never lie about and make false accusation while sugar coating what your religion done in the past.

 

[MasterSqueak]

I'm fine with Christians as long as they, Do not attempt to convert me.

I can forgive it though, if they are capable of sending a sniper round through a guy's scope and into his eye.

 

[Cliff_m85]

Technically, even if Atheists did mass murder events they would only have one thing to say...."I chose to do it".

If a Theist does a mass murder it's easy for them to say "God told me to _____" and get a slap on the hand occassionally.


Add that theists do tend to get more rights. For instance, imagine that every once in awhile I cut a male babies weiner and then suck on it. That sounds horrible and horrifying....right? Well, what if I told you that I was a Jewish Mohel and it was part of a religious rite? Not so bad now, eh?

Sadly many babies have died due to this rite and it's been protected in New York for some time.


How about the American Indian tribes that can take peyote while the rest of America cannot? Or the Catholic priests that have gotten slap on the wrist punishments for molesting children that no other person ever could've?

 

[Donbett1974]

The way I see it both believers and non-believers are wrong seeing no one can know for sure. The most logical path is agnosticism it says I don't know and I can admit it. My take on Satan if real is that he serves god because if you go by the stories god gives Satan a kingdom and an army that is more powerful than his/her/its makes me say hmmm.

Agnosticism answers if we can know. Do you know if there is a god? No. Absolutely not. Everyone who is sane is an agnostic.


Atheism answers if we believe. Do you believe there is a god? Me: No, not enough evidence.

Agnosticism is also the belief in absolute truth so that mean (come a little bit closer) there can be more than two options when it comes to the belief in god but don't tell any one don't want it to get out.

 

[Asaito]

My basic view: Believe what you want to believe as long as you are making an effort to harm no one in the process. Christianity, Islam, Judaism; not evil. It is usually the followers who turn the religion into what it is. Religion is a construct of man, made up in order to explain what they cannot even begin to understand. That saying, this may be god, or simply a natural order they do not comprehend. There will never be an easy answer. People will always believe what they've been taught to believe or what they have found to help them through life. You can't rationally blame an entire religion for the problems of mankind. Each person is an individual with a separate mind. In the end, you can only blame the individuals, not the community.

Personally, I'm Neo-Wiccan. "An ye harm none, do as you wilt," basically sums it up.

 

[Cliff_m85]

Technically, even if Atheists did mass murder events they would only have one thing to say...."I chose to do it".

If a Theist does a mass murder it's easy for them to say "God told me to _____" and get a slap on the hand occassionally.


Add that theists do tend to get more rights. For instance, imagine that every once in awhile I cut a male babies weiner and then suck on it. That sounds horrible and horrifying....right? Well, what if I told you that I was a Jewish Mohel and it was part of a religious rite? Not so bad now, eh?

Sadly many babies have died due to this rite and it's been protected in New York for some time.


How about the American Indian tribes that can take peyote while the rest of America cannot? Or the Catholic priests that have gotten slap on the wrist punishments for molesting children that no other person ever could've?

Source for Mohel claim: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/545756_print