christianity

[Windwalker]

What is your opinion on Christianity? Do you like this religion? Personally, I find it weird and I'm trying my best to understand it. It's a complicated religion.

As an exoteric religion, a religion of forms and rules and beliefs of the mind, it's a mishmash of contradictory positions held by its various interpreters, the fruits of which are less than spiritual. As an esoteric religion, a religion of the heart, it's quite simple and it's fruits are known through love.

The entire religion itself can be fulfilled in only two fundamental practices, "Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And love your neighbor as yourself." That alone is the core of Jesus' teachings. It is perfectly simple, and profoundly rewarding to the whole world. But hardly anyone does it. So it fails, because most love their religion first, not God. "By their fruits you shall know them," not by their theologies.

 

[syo]

'Christianity' is a very broad label. I wouldn't call it a "this religion".

well, that is true.

 

[syo]

Christians shouldn't cuss, or be sexually or ethically immoral. Or be selfish, or a lover of money. But it seems the world wallows in these behaviors.

Winner. Christian ethics are not compatible with how our society works. And that's sad.

 

[TravisW]

As an exoteric religion, a religion of forms and rules and beliefs of the mind, it's a mishmash of contradictory positions held by its various interpreters, the fruits of which are less than spiritual. As an esoteric religion, a religion of the heart, it's quite simple and it's fruits are known through love.

The entire religion itself can be fulfilled in only two fundamental practices, "Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And love your neighbor as yourself." That alone is the core of Jesus' teachings. It is perfectly simple, and profoundly rewarding to the whole world. But hardly anyone does it. So it fails, because most love their religion first, not God. "By their fruits you shall know them," not by their theologies.

I think that goes along with The Book of James, which I believe is closest to the actual time period of Jesus. It’s core message is one against a faith that’s determined by belief alone, “You show me your faith, and I’ll show you my faith by my works.”

In a sense, I get a major denial of a faith practice that’s based on just “believing the right list of things”, and then being unwavering on them. Instead, I see an advocation of faith based on how you’re treating others, if you’re loving God and in turn accepting God’s love to then go and love others.

 

[Windwalker]

In a sense, I get a major denial of a faith practice that’s based on just “believing the right list of things”, and then being unwavering on them.

That is exactly correct. I'd say they deliberately, at least on a subconscious level, equate the word faith with belief. The more stubborn and unwavering in their beliefs they are, they hold forth to themselves as some badge of honor that they "strong in faith", justifying themselves. Nothing could be more completely opposite. Faith is not a cognitive belief. It's not "faith in an idea".

Faith is a knowledge of the heart, when the mind utterly will fail you. Faith says, everything I believe may be wrong, but I know I live in the hands of God. That's very different. A lack of faith holds tenaciously to a belief, because it is a cheap substitute of this knowledge of the heart, which rests solely in the Unknown.

I have heard many Christians cite the verse that says you shouldn't trust the heart because it's "deceitfully wicked", as a rationalization for their own ignorance of truth in themselves. It's based on fear, and fear is the opposite of faith. The "true believer" then, is devoid of true faith. Belief is clinging. Faith, is letting go.

Instead, I see an advocation of faith based on how you’re treating others, if you’re loving God and in turn accepting God’s love to then go and love others.

I would add this to that. If you are accepting of God's love to yourself, if you allow it to fill your very being as you surrender all clingings to this world, including your religious beliefs, then out of the abundance of your heart, that same love will be extended from yourself to all others without exception. If you don't have that Source in you, if it's external to you, then that love cannot authentically flow. Anything short of that, is our egos.

 

[j1i]

I had to get all my christianity from the catholics, and then later the kjv 1611 bible. If you just read the bible all by itself, i dont see that it makes any sense. I do not see the harmony from genesis to revelation.

The first thing i learned from the bible is eternal torment prepared for the non believers. Sounds pretty darn cruel to me given the nature of reality.

I really do not know how people warm up to the book nor the religion. I find people make of it exactly what they want it to mean and they cherry pick verses to make it sound profound and rosey.

There must be a million different Jesus's according to how people interpret the book.

The notion of loving your enemies is very radical. Praying for those who persecute you is also radical. But i see that the book means war against those who refuse to accept it as truth and reality.

If you cherry pick verses there are some very profound insights. But if you are a christian you gotta take the book as a whole, and i find that to be very dissonant, very incoherent.

So i have decided to give a modern english version a try, just to see if it makes any more sense. But if all its going to do is make enemies of non believers, and preach eternal torment, then i gotta say its a big waste of my time.

It sounds awfully irrational to make people take the book as literal history.

And i did not enjoy growing up under its gauntlet of conditions in order to be saved.

Saved from what. Who knows? The book has concluded that all are sinners deserving of hell, and repentance is the only way.

I cant justify christianity. And the more i am exposed to science and nature, the more i get an icky feeling about christianity.

But of course wouldnt ya know it Christianity has a million different flavors, each one claiming to be the way.

I noticed that much speaks of eternal torment
It is important to know that the components of the human body alchemy are unable to adapt to difficult conditions such as fire or excessive cold, or the taking of deadly toxins

Man is obliged to live in conditions that suit his physical structure

The mind must also live in conditions that are viable, without deviance from the Lord and without the desire to do immoral acts

immoral acts destroys the human mind, like what happens to the body

You do not feel the destruction of the mind, but you are committing human violations against yourself in doing immoral things

So you are like a player in football stadium and there is a rule
You must respect yourself and play safely, and if you do commit fouls, you will be punished and Expelled from the stadium

This is a very small and clear example of how to punish violators
People accept the idea of punishment in the games in order to create an opportunity for fair play

Measure on that stadium sports earth, where you live, I mean the globe
I want to ask you honestly
If you were a policeman and raped a girl under 18, would you have a chance to work in the police again?
If you commit a first degree murder, and you are sentenced to life imprisonment, is this punishment deserved or is it harsh?
It is also the right of God to punish you in a workplace and you must be honest in your life
It does not require cameras to document violations, simply the angels are watching you
Therefore black dots are calculated as well as white
Rejection of faith in God is a crime in the Heavenly Criminal Court
Like you are a US citizen and do not swear allegiance to America, but you declare betrayal to her like Snowden


with respect

 

[Sunstone]

Those competing strains vary greatly in size and influence, though, and that makes us able to make general statements about Christianity as a whole that are generally correct.

By number of adherents, "Christianity" is about 3,000 times more Catholic than it is Quaker, so our opinion of "Christianity" should be weighted accordingly.

Just like it's accurate to generalize that all engineers are socially awkward?

 

[Faithofchristian]

What is your opinion on Christianity? Do you like this religion? Personally, I find it weird and I'm trying my best to understand it. It's a complicated religion.

Christianity it's self is not complicated, it's the people in Christianity that makes Christianity complicated.

 

[tayla]

What is your opinion on Christianity? Do you like this religion? Personally, I find it weird and I'm trying my best to understand it.

The Bible is fiction. The teachings of Christianity are untrue.

Look at the way Christians view the world, life, and reality and you will see its dangers. I wasted 30 years as a fundamentalist, evangelical Christian. This was before the internet where the only source of information available to me was from Christians claiming to be unbiased scientists, archaeologists, scholars, and philosophers.

I recommend YouTube videos of Bart Ehrman, Richard Carrier, William Propp, and Richard Friedman.

 

[Faithofchristian]

The Bible is fiction. The teachings of Christianity are untrue.

Look at the way Christians view the world, life, and reality and you will see its dangers. I wasted 30 years as a fundamentalist, evangelical Christian. This was before the internet where the only source of information available to me was from Christians claiming to be unbiased scientists, archaeologists, scholars, and philosophers.

I recommend YouTube videos of Bart Ehrman, Richard Carrier, William Propp, and Richard Friedman.

So by who's word, is Christianity untrue yours.
So your recommending to watch a YouTube Video, That is nothing more than their agenda.
You can't be Serious.

 

[Windwalker]

The Bible is fiction. The teachings of Christianity are untrue.

The Bible is a parable, a metaphor, not a book of science. The teachings of fundamentalism are untrue. However, the teachings of Christianity are for the most part true. "Love your neighbor as yourself," is not a false teaching.

I wasted 30 years as a fundamentalist, evangelical Christian.

I see fundamentalism as its own thing which has nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus, like a festering boil that needs to be drained. Just look at the support of Donald Trump by the majority of white evangelicals. How does that square with who Jesus was and what he taught? It doesn't in any possible way. The religion is just a smokescreen for something far less than Christian in nature. Jesus referred to those like them as hypocrites. Rightly so.

This was before the internet where the only source of information available to me was from Christians claiming to be unbiased scientists, archaeologists, scholars, and philosophers.

Anti-intellectualism is not part of any spiritual path. Christians who do this, haven't really started that path yet, and are using religion to hide and justify their fears behind. They have yet to encounter an actual faith in themselves. It's purely ego seeking to justify itself, and nothing spiritual at all.

I recommend YouTube videos of Bart Ehrman, Richard Carrier, William Propp, and Richard Friedman.

I agree with this list. I'm particularly fond of Carrier myself. I would also add those such as Burton Mack to that list, personally.

 

[Glaurung]

It is a beautiful, if sometimes demanding religion. I find great peace in the prayers and devotions of traditional Catholicism, particularly in the older forms of the liturgy.

For the more low church/evangelical strains of Protestantism I have little affection. No doubt many in those churches are sincere in their love for God. Nonetheless I find their conception of Christianity to be historically and theologically truncated. Emotionalism is a weak foundation for a faith.

 

[j1i]

Christianity it's self is not complicated, it's the people in Christianity that makes Christianity complicated.

All religions are easy to exercise are like horses that everyone can ride
But these horses do not all lead to the right way

I do not find Western governments implementing the Trinity in governments because the idea is a failure
There will not be three presidents in one state at the same time

respectful ^_^