NationStates Jolt Archive

I was baptized. I had First Communion.
Why wouldn't I be Christian?Do rituals make you Christian?

the whole jesus-god thing is confusing...
if jesus were god, then god died as the sacrifice to appease himself with death for sins he knew his own creation would commit before he created them...

It's worse than that...

if jesus were god, then god didn't actually die, being god as the sacrifice to appease himself with death for sins (despite allegedly being 'sinless', which makes no sense when 'death' is the 'wages of sin, he knew his own creation would commit before he created them...

Science, i.e. the process of finding out and making sure, did not randomly appear. It's human nature. Or at least intelligent humans' nature....

Science appeared because of Christianity, not despite it. In Christianity we are encouraged to LEARN about God, about the world HE created FOR us, it is in the nature HE created. Just look at where the most scientific advances have been madein the past 200-300 years. Where did the Scientific Revolution take place? Christian Europe.

I am Christian because I want to be one.

the whole jesus-god thing is confusing...
if jesus were god, then god died as the sacrifice to appease himself with death for sins he knew his own creation would commit before he created them...

Its not so much as God exists in time... God created time. Its difficult to explain but he exists in all time at once, its not like our existence, we have to live in one time at a time (in Chronological order), God exists in all times at once. Picture it as if we and all of creation are a giant picture, all parts are in Chronological order, but He exists seperately and sees it all at once.

Science appeared because of Christianity, not despite it. In Christianity we are encouraged to LEARN about God, about the world HE created FOR us, it is in the nature HE created. Just look at where the most scientific advances have been madein the past 200-300 years. Where did the Scientific Revolution take place? Christian Europe.roflol

Its not so much as God exists in time... God created time. Its difficult to explain but he exists in all time at once, its not like our existence, we have to live in one time at a time (in Chronological order), God exists in all times at once. Picture it as if we and all of creation are a giant picture, all parts are in Chronological order, but He exists seperately and sees it all at once.what are you talking about?

I am Christian because I want to be one.

I believe the implied question of the post is "Why are you a Christian and not (insert religion or lack thereof here)". This answers that question only a little better than the answers that boil down to "I'm a Christian because I am".

I am Christian because I want to be one.I thought, the word because implies that you are supposed to give a cause. :confused:
Why do you want to be a Christian? For what cause?

For me it's a combination of the first and last ones. I grew up in the church, and then decided to keep going. It works for me, I definitely believe that there is a spiritual aspect to life, that is all too often lacking in modern life.

Oh no, not 'Mere Christianity', again. This argument has never been effective, because it is insupportable.

Just for starters - can you even prove that 'the Bible' was not written by Satan?

There are dozens of alternatives other than 'madman' or 'messiah'. The fact that you choose to ignore them, doesn't make your argument any stronger.

The Bible was not written by Satan anymore than it was written by God. It was written by humans INSPIRED by God. That is not to say that God was whispering in their ears but they felt moved to write about Christs life and about God. The Bible was not written all at once and was not meant to be one book. The Bible wasn't even in existence as we know it today until the 3rd century, Christianity was passed on by the Church through sacred oral Tradition. We know through all the collaberating evidence that Christ promised that He would be with the Church for ever and that he gave the Church infallibilty. The Church (infallible) decided then which churches were truly inspired and those which were not. Therefore we know those books which are in the Catholic bible (the protestants which do not have any authority promised by Christ to be infallible, do not usually use the true Bible because they removed the Deutoronical texts) are the inspired truth of God.

Please point out any other points which are not supportable.

roflol

This is not a reply, please show me where that is wrong? You can't because no other culture has gone through a scientific revolution except that western culture which was built by christianity.

This is not a reply, please show me where that is wrong? You can't because no other culture has gone through a scientific revolution except that western culture which was built by christianity.
What the hell is your idea of science?

what are you talking about?

The second portion of his confusion.

The second portion of his confusion.I sense only one confusion here...

This is not a reply, please show me where that is wrong? You can't because no other culture has gone through a scientific revolution except that western culture which was built by christianity.when did western culture begin?

roflol

If a scientific revolution was to attempt to happen today the supposedly more 'tolerant' society of today would destroy it through its dogmatic presuppositions.

What the hell is your idea of science?

Science is the desire to know more about the natural world which surrounds us, and the desire to create and be inventive. God made us in His image, God creates and since we are in His image it is only natural for us to desire to create.

If a scientific revolution was to attempt to happen today the supposedly more 'tolerant' society of today would destroy it through its dogmatic presuppositions.roflmao

Science is the desire to know more about the natural world which surrounds us, and the desire to create and be inventive.Then science has been around since very ancient times. Christianity on the other side, has been around for less than 2000 years.

God made us in His image, God creates and since we are in His image it is only natural for us to desire to create.How do you know that with the certainty to display?

when did western culture begin?

There are three big bulks to Western Culture, The Pagan (Greeko-Roman) which held some aspect of truth and built through Philosophy and the Desire to know more about the natural world though many of the best philosophers such as Socrates denied the existence of many gods for 'the god' which was why he was executed.

The second was Christian which rebuilt society after the fall of Rome and monastaries which had means of commmunicating and sharing information and techniques (by having synods) helped rocket forward technology especially in farming, genetics, technology, and astronomy. Many architects have found remnants of vast furnances which could have been prototypes of creating large amounts of steel 200 years before the Industrial Revolution. This society culminated in the Renessaince and also led to the Scientific Revolution as well as the American and French Revolutions and the Democrization of Europe.

The third is post-modern where anti-religion and disbelief in god has seen and caused more deaths related to war and murder than any other time in history and is seeing a slowdown in the economies of the world and scientific revolutions. This society is less moral than the previous 2.

The third is post-modern where anti-religion and disbelief in god has seen and caused more deaths related to war and murder than any other time in history and is seeing a slowdown in the economies of the world and scientific revolutions. This society is less moral than the previous 2.

Nice.

You started with the "correlation implies causation" fallacy and ended with utter lunacy.

On Jesus being God, which Grave doesn't seem to agree with:


Jocabia and Grave, both of you as I continue to read the things you say prove to me that you're too narrow-minded to even understand what I say. It's frustrating, to say the least.

Amusing. You realize that one of us is an atheist and on a Christian. The only thing we have in common is that we both genuinely wish to explore our beliefs and that you think we're narrow-minded. It seems you're the common thread ther.



Both of you, I notice, stereotype an entire religion based on personal beliefs you have developed. Each and every person has their own interperatation, and it doesn't mean that they are wrong just because they don't perceive things to be as you have perceived them. I notice Grave in particular doing this, with his interperatation of Jesus being "less God" than God, among other things.

Stereotype an entire religion? Pardon? You do realize that I'm a Christian who believes in a personal religion, a personal relationship with God, no? How could I possibly stereotype an entire religion, when I don't hold the same beliefs as many who are also Christians? Wouldn't I have to first forget I exist?



Jocabia as well, you tend to make assumptions that don't necessarily have any grounds with my own beliefs. You like to bring up unrelated issues that only succeed in causing confusion in people than proving any point, and when they give the "wrong" answer to your trivia you try to use it against them as being wrong.

I don't make assumptions. I read the Bible. I'm asking you how you can claim what you claim using the reasoning you're offering without considering these questions. It's unfortunate that offends you. God gave us science AND reason. I doubt it was his expectation that we not use them.


I do believe I'm done with this thread. You're causing more hostility than finding answers.

Being asked questions about your faith makes you hostile? Doesn't seem very faithful. We're not attacking you. We're analyzing your beliefs and how they fit into science and reason. Some of the things, like the things you say about science, are provably false. If finding this out makes you angry, then perhaps you should ask why you came in the first place? were you hoping to preach or were you hoping to have an honest discourse about the faith? If it's the latter, then this is exactly what you're getting. If it was the former, well, I think you'll find a lot of threads are going to turn out this way.

Then science has been around since very ancient times. Christianity on the other side, has been around for less than 2000 years.

How do you know that with the certainty to display?


True, but God has been around for forever and so has the belief in Him, Christianity is simply the perfection of Gods plan, the end of it, redemption as He planned it after mans fall. Because He told us. We are the greatest being on earth and God is the greatest in all existence, thus we must be made in his image, we know generally what God is and he is much like us. He created us thus since he is much like us we were made in his image.

Nice.

You started with the "correlation means causation" fallacy and ended with utter lunacy.


So Soviet Union, no belief in God and the death of millions of people.... intresting.

Nazi Germany... no belief in God death of millions of people and the beggining of a world war.... interesting....

Communist China.... no belief in God death of millions of people... interesting...

The West no real belief in God... death of millions of innocent children a year... interesting...

True, but God has been around for forever and so has the belief in Him, Christianity is simply the perfection of Gods plan, the end of it, redemption as He planned it after mans fall. Because He told us. We are the greatest being on earth and God is the greatest in all existence, thus we must be made in his image, we know generally what God is and he is much like us. He created us thus since he is much like us we were made in his image.
Are you Edwardis? :rolleyes:

I thought, the word because implies that you are supposed to give a cause. :confused:
Why do you want to be a Christian? For what cause?

why do i have to give a cause?

So Soviet Union, no belief in God and the death of millions of people.... intresting.

Nazi Germany... no belief in God death of millions of people and the beggining of a world war.... interesting....

Communist China.... no belief in God death of millions of people... interesting...

The West no real belief in God... death of millions of innocent children a year... interesting...
South America .... Catholicism arriving, the ultimate belief in God...death of millions of people

North America .... Protestantism arriving ... death of millions of people

Crusades ... for the belief in God ... death of i don't know how many people

Northern Ireland.... C against P ...death of i don't know how many people

There are three big bulks to Western Culture, The Pagan (Greeko-Roman) which held some aspect of truth and built through Philosophy and the Desire to know more about the natural world though many of the best philosophers such as Socrates denied the existence of many gods for 'the god' which was why he was executed.

The second was Christian which rebuilt society after the fall of Rome and monastaries which had means of commmunicating and sharing information and techniques (by having synods) helped rocket forward technology especially in farming, genetics, technology, and astronomy. Many architects have found remnants of vast furnances which could have been prototypes of creating large amounts of steel 200 years before the Industrial Revolution. This society culminated in the Renessaince and also led to the Scientific Revolution as well as the American and French Revolutions and the Democrization of Europe.

The third is post-modern where anti-religion and disbelief in god has seen and caused more deaths related to war and murder than any other time in history and is seeing a slowdown in the economies of the world and scientific revolutions. This society is less moral than the previous 2.

You forgot the part in the second where Europeans became powerful through genocide and enslavement justified using Christianity.

Scientific progress hasn't slowed down. It's sped up. However, the economic dominance of the "Christian" countries is waning because they are no longer willing to do anything, absolutely anything, to have a good economy. If you attribute this to being anti-religion then I'd say you have a much poorer view of Christianity than even most atheists do.

Apparently the sudden blossom of human rights, refusal to commit genocide, refusal to accept slavery or cultural or economic imperialism are things you believe in conflict with Christianity. Say you don't.

This is the reason for the current evening effect occurring in the world. Not too oddly, people have a tendency to get up off their knees when you stop shoving them down and stepping on their necks.

True, but God has been around for forever and so has the belief in Him,

Um, no, it hasn't . . .

There are many religions older than Judaism. Judaism is the oldest religion to worship the deity worshiped by Christians, Jews and Muslims. Therefore belief in your god had not been around forever.

why do i have to give a cause?the question "why" is asked to gain information about cause or purpose.

So Soviet Union, no belief in God and the death of millions of people.... intresting.

Nazi Germany... no belief in God death of millions of people and the beggining of a world war.... interesting....

Communist China.... no belief in God death of millions of people... interesting...

The West no real belief in God... death of millions of innocent children a year... interesting...

I'm sorry, but I collapsed in a fit of laughter at this one. You ever heard of manifest destiny? Percentagewise, probably the most murderous belief ever held by mankind, and if you include casualties...

why do i have to give a cause?

See above, re: point of the whole damn thread. We're curious.

See above, re: point of the whole damn thread. We're curious.

the question "why" is asked to gain information about cause or purpose.

I looked at a lot of different religions and Christianity was the only one that made sense to me, I guess the best way to describe it would be that it felt right.

I'm sorry, but I collapsed in a fit of laughter at this one. You ever heard of manifest destiny? Percentagewise, probably the most murderous belief ever held by mankind, and if you include casualties...

Not to mention the fact that Hitler=Christian (well in name anyway, definitely not in practice).

I looked at a lot of different religions and Christianity was the only one that made sense to me, I guess the best way to describe it would be that it felt right.

Now we get somewhere. What made sense about it? What felt right? In the spirit of reciprocation part of the reason I'm polytheistic is because this world looks to me more like it was designed by a committee.

Not to mention the fact that Hitler=Christian (well in name anyway, definitely not in practice).

um no. Hitler was not a Christian, he sent them to the death camps with the Jews

I looked at a lot of different religions and Christianity was the only one that made sense to me, I guess the best way to describe it would be that it felt right.So you do not have a rational approach? It's only the emotional comfort?

Now we get somewhere. What made sense about it? What felt right? In the spirit of reciprocation part of the reason I'm polytheistic is because this world looks to me more like it was designed by a committee.

well I am not polytheistic, but I could agree with you about he committee part, but that in my mind would be the 7 spirits of God.

I am sure how do describe it, it just felt right...i guess a little like after doing a long math problem you get finished and you just know its correct..you may not really know why but you know its right. Its hard to put in to words

i guess a little like after doing a long math problem you get finished and you just know its correct.....until you come to class the next day :p

btw, Antikythera, I love that nick... that's the greek island where that 'machine' was discoered, right?

So you do not have a rational approach? It's only the emotional comfort?

I do not see my faith as an emotional comfort.
As for the rational approach, I am not sure how much or how well a faith can be rationalized, in a way i think that that is part of the attraction, being able to say," i don't know." but when i looked at the sciences andt really every part of the world and life i was left with the conclusion that their had to be some thing more.

...until you come to class the next day :p

btw, Antikythera, I love that nick

lol indeed, especially when it comes to me and math :p
but you get the idea,it was the best example I could come up with, i guess it was sort of an Aha moment,I just knew that it was right.

aww thanks:)

Science appeared because of Christianity, not despite it. In Christianity we are encouraged to LEARN about God, about the world HE created FOR us, it is in the nature HE created. Just look at where the most scientific advances have been madein the past 200-300 years. Where did the Scientific Revolution take place? Christian Europe.

Someone else has probably mentioned this by the time I reply...

Education, of a sort, was perpetuated through the church schools of Europe, during the Dark Ages. This was a 'good thing'.

On the other hand, the sciences were practically outlawed under the rule of Christian theocratic rule. Indeed, most of our knowledge of anatomy, or medicine, for example - only exist because we 'imported' that information from Muslim scholars, who were recording such scientific information while Christian Europe was 'religiously' forbidding such interactions with 'God's sacred design'...

um no. Hitler was not a Christian, he sent them to the death camps with the Jews

"Adolf Hitler was brought up in his family's religion by his Roman Catholic parents, but as a school boy he began to reject the Church and Catholicism..."

"...Hitler advocated a "Positive Christianity", a belief system purged from what he objected to in traditional Christianity, and reinvented Jesus as a fighter against the Jews..."

"...Among Christian denominations, Hitler favoured Protestantism, which was more open to such reinterpretations. At the same time, he made use of some elements of the Catholic Church's hierarchical organisation, liturgy and phraseology in his politics..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler#Hitler.27s_religious_beliefs

Raised Catholic, he claimed to be Christian, and 'witnessed' a bastardised version of Christianity which emphasised a 'Passion'-style view of Jews.

"Adolf Hitler was brought up in his family's religion by his Roman Catholic parents, but as a school boy he began to reject the Church and Catholicism..."

"...Hitler advocated a "Positive Christianity", a belief system purged from what he objected to in traditional Christianity, and reinvented Jesus as a fighter against the Jews..."

"...Among Christian denominations, Hitler favoured Protestantism, which was more open to such reinterpretations. At the same time, he made use of some elements of the Catholic Church's hierarchical organisation, liturgy and phraseology in his politics..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler#Hitler.27s_religious_beliefs

Raised Catholic, he claimed to be Christian, and 'witnessed' a bastardised version of Christianity which emphasised a 'Passion'-style view of Jews.

that may be, but i dont think thatt he was

that may be, but i dont think thatt he was

Errr... okay. So... what? Your opinion is worth more than any amount of evidence?

Errr... okay. So... what? Your opinion is worth more than any amount of evidence?But doesn't that text say that he was not Christian? Or does the reinvented Jesus count?

Get ready for it, but I think I got come down on the side of UB. Hitler is probably as Christian as Jerry Falwell, but the point, that there must be point where there is a differentiation those that follow the Christ and those that just completely make up another guy and call him the Christ, stands.

But doesn't that text say that he was not Christian? Or does the reinvented Jesus count?

Replying to both you and Jocabia simultaneously. It's an efficiency thing, rather than deciding you each warrant only half a response... :)

I, personally, have big problems with the idea of Hitler being 'Christian', because I think he tried to make the 'message' follow him, rather than the other way around.

On the other hand - if he believed Jesus was 'messiah', died for our 'salvation', was resurrected by will, and is god incarnate - most populist definitions of 'christianity' would probably be compelled to 'allow' him.

You can argue he took Jesus' ministry objective of 'admonishing' the errant Judaist a little far, of course....

"...Hitler advocated a "Positive Christianity", a belief system purged from what he objected to in traditional Christianity, and reinvented Jesus as a fighter against the Jews..."

Yes. Jesus hated Jews and tried to fight against them... Even though he was one. I'm sure that Hitler was a real Christian... in his mind.

Hell, he was even a real artist... IN HIS MIND.

Just because you say that you are Christian doesn't necessarily make you one.

Yes. Jesus hated Jews and tried to fight against them... Even though he was one. I'm sure that Hitler was a real Christian... in his mind.


Curious that you should seem to deny Jesus could be counter-Jew, because of his genes. I'm sure you are aware the Hitler - the leader of the German Nazi party, nationalist and militant anti-Semite - was of an Austrian Jew lineage?


Just because you say that you are Christian doesn't necessarily make you one.

The very argument I have made. Contrarily, of course, just saying someone is not a Christian, doesn't stop them being one.

Curious that you should seem to deny Jesus could be counter-Jew, because of his genes. I'm sure you are aware the Hitler - the leader of the German Nazi party, nationalist and militant anti-Semite - was of an Austrian Jew lineage?

The very argument I have made. Contrarily, of course, just saying someone is not a Christian, doesn't stop them being one.

Both true. I just don't find Hitler to be a man that would willingly accept a sort of religion that doesn't believe in murder. Even if Hitler had either overlooked Jesus' genes or found them to be cause to kill more Jews.

Damn... times like these I wish I would've read more of Mein Kampf... soo.... boring.

Both true. I just don't find Hitler to be a man that would willingly accept a sort of religion that doesn't believe in murder. Even if Hitler had either overlooked Jesus' genes or found them to be cause to kill more Jews.


If Hitler 'used' the Christian mythos to perpetuate a campaign of intolerance, mistreatment and violence... it would hardly be out of character for political leaders or for the Christian church.

As for Hitler 'willingly accepting a religion that doesn't believe in murder'... one could quibble several parts of that assumption... the 'willing'-ness... the assertion that Christianity 'doesn't believe in murder'... If he was raised 'Christian', 'willingness' might be irrelevent - he'd just be looking for a comfortable place within the allowable framework of his religion, perhaps. And, certainly, 'murder' in the biblical scriptures is subjective... the text displays clear double standards on the matter... and some 'killing' isn't 'murder'.

Both true. I just don't find Hitler to be a man that would willingly accept a sort of religion that doesn't believe in murder. Even if Hitler had either overlooked Jesus' genes or found them to be cause to kill more Jews.

Damn... times like these I wish I would've read more of Mein Kampf... soo.... boring.You read Mein Kampf? For what?