Can you tell me some things about Christianity?

For Fapstronauts who are disciples of Christ

  1. JoeinUSA

    JoeinUSA Fapstronaut

    Here goes...

    Can you tell me why people should worship God?

    Because God is the Source (pure existence, goodness, holiness, infinite, beautiful) who created people (male and female), gave them life and existence and a world of natural beauty to live in, and wants to impart his own divine attributes upon people who freely choose him with love; for these reasons, God is rightly and justly one we should worship and even adore (even out of simple justice) and give him love and gratitude (out of both justice and simple loving reciprocation to God's own love for us). It's like asking why should you love a good mother or a good father, but times infinity.

    Why do people need to submit to God?

    God created the human person in such a way that man possesses an interior soul that is only complete when God himself fills it with Himself. Like St. Augustine says, our hearts are restless until they rest in God - it's in the very fabric of our creation. Inside we're like a glove that needs to be filled, but only God alone is capable of filling such a space, as He created it for Himself. And the choice to reciprocate our love has to be free on our part or it would not be real love at all. When we freely reject the divine capacity to fill us as was meant to be by our very creation, we then need something else to fill that void - like money, other people, sex, addictions, drugs, PMO, demons, self-godhood, superstition, New Age, whatever. When we don't submit to the "Infinite" who alone can make us happy, then by default we automatically submit to anything "finite," which is always limited and never can fulfill us. For those who do chose God but are also weak in not choosing him perfectly at every moment (mea culpa), they too may become slaves of finite things and addictions until they turn most fully to God and God alone. God has sympathy and compassion on those struggling to seek him, even imperfectly; it means they are trying to love, at least. It's all a journey and the very reason for our life here on earth. We do not live in this world without submitting to something or to ourselves, even if we don't like the word "submit" or "subjugation." But ultimately we submit to something; it's in our nature, as we were created. There are a certain kind of people in the world who don't mind being subjects or submitting or even being enslaved to another (no, not masochists, that's just a twisted form of the same defaulted yearning). They are called "Lovers." Even in the natural world when we look at two people in love, they are always clasping hands, hugging, grasping the other, one sitting in the other's lap, etc.; they would not even object to their hands being bound together by handcuffs, if they could ensure always staying together that way. It's the same with being "subject" to God by my own loving free choice and to God who is nothing other than Infinite Love. It's not a subjugation like human slavery, unless you mean the highly desirable "slavery to love" as with the lovers. Ultimately, we will be a slave to something in this life. Being a slave to anything finite always brings failure, unfulfillment, depression, and even despair, but being "slave" to someone who is Infinite Love brings infinite fulfillment, joy, and happiness to our creation. This is the real meaning of being free and having freedom, ironically. Real freedom only exists when seeking out something with no boundaries - the Infinite! Yes, "Can I have more of that slavery?" is the real question to be asked, as any "real" lover would.

    Why is God right?
    Because God is by his very essence Being itself, Goodness itself, Oneness itself, Truth itself, and Beauty itself. He cannot be other than these things. He cannot not exist or be such opposites - existence is His very essence (I AM WHO AM), along with the other transcendental qualities of being as mentioned, i.e., trancendental good, oneness, truth, and beauty. From God's very essence of these things, he imparts such qualities in his creation, which share these attributes. Hence, nothing else possesses existence by its own essence, even people. We know this because there was a point in time where a person did not exist but had to be born, etc. The same with things; they come and go out of existence - it's not in their essence to exist. However, God always existed, but not in time per se, but in eternity.

    What is his purpose?

    God doesn't have a utilitarian function, so to speak. He is perfection and complete in himself. His raison d'etre, so to speak, is being Existence itself in a Trinitarian interrelation of persons in the one essence (a revelation of faith on this point). He's eternal and outside of time. All of time, from our point of view - past, present, and future - exist in God's present and presence in one eternal moment. In our world of time dimension, we understand God, in relationship to us, as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Those might be considered his purpose in relationship to us.

    How do we know that the bible is true?

    First, as a foundation, let us say that "Knowledge" (capital "K") embraces an understanding of all things that exist and are real and are true - basically everything. Only God has this Knowledge, as well as knowledge of every other possibility that could have existed if he so chose. This total encompassing of reality is a profound set (as a mathematical concept), and we know that man does not know everything that is in existence. Empirical science (e.g., biology, chemistry, physics) is really just one sliver (knowledge - lowercase) of the pie, the pie which we call "Knowledge." Empirical science is very limited in understanding all of reality, and it admits more of what it doesn't know than what it does know. What it doesn't know, it takes on theory, which is a kind of an educated and sometimes even biased, political guess, but not proven fact. Sometimes this kind of science even falsifies or lies for personal gain or to distort God's Truth. But giving it the benefit of the doubt, this scientific theorizing is much like "faith" but a natural faith of things not known or proven yet in this world. Faith and knowledge (or reason) are compatible, because faith can lead reason/knowledge/science to try to understand or know things that are not yet known but just believed. Conversely, reason/science/knowledge can assist faith by giving some rational intelligibility to things that seem mysterious or endless. Also, reason can expose things that cannot be true or believed by faith under any circumstance - like, there cannot exist a "square circle" (law of contradiction), etc.

    With that said, Christians understand the Bible as written by human persons that have been inspired by God to convey God's own message, as well as a human message alongside. Hence, there are things about the Bible that we know to be true - such as, each sub-book was written in a certain period of time, by a certain person or persons, in a specific culture and historical context, and for the purpose of explaining a people's understanding of the unfolding of their salvation history of God in their own midst, as he has revealed himself in time. There are also aspects of the Bible that we take on faith alone - as in God being the Divine author and inspirer of the writing. Again, faith does not mean myth or something is not true; it just means that the human mind in its own limitation cannot know it on its own, which is the reason that God reveals certain things that man needs to know, especially for salvation. With human reason, we can discern even how objects of faith are rather intelligible, reasonable, and make sense in the context of everything else we know to be true.


    Who created the bible?

    Again, different men wrote portions (books of the Bible) under the influence of the God's Spirit. Before the time of Jesus, various Hebrew or later Jewish groups had different collections of the books of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) that they held as the inspired texts. Not all groups agreed on the same collection. After Jesus, the Catholic Church made a definitive proclamation based on definite, wise, and specific criteria which books belonged to both the Old and New Testaments, when the matter came under heightened question and heated debate around the third century AD.

    How did God come into existence?

    Again, as above, God didn't come into existence. He always existed - but not in a timeline or a dimension of time (which is why this truth strains our mind) but in an "eternal now" moment in eternity. When God creates the world, he also creates a time dimension for that world to exist in.

    How do we know God is real?

    Because if God were not real, then nothing else that we perceive in existence would be real or even exist or stay in existence (if it happed to exist by itself, which it couldn't). We know that created things didn't always exist; the act of existence was imparted from a Source, who himself did not require another source to exist, because God is existence itself by his very nature or essence. If God needed another source to exist, and that source needed another source to exist, etc., and such progression went infinitely backward, then we would never exist here today, since an infinite line of progressive causes would be impossible to cross to get down to us. Thus, we know [and this is not a faith statement, but reason/knowledge/philosophical knowledge (another slice of the Knowledge pie, not just enjoyed by empiracal knowledge] that we were born of parents, who were born of parents, who were born of parents, but that this cannot be an infinite regression backward, for reasons mentioned above. We would never be born, then. Hence, there has to be one point where there are some first parents who themselves came from a first source, who in himself does not need a source. And, this is what we call God. We know that God is real, and for those who cannot grasp the intelligent argument of the reality of God, they can believe it, since it is also revealed by God in faith through revelation. The latter is necessary since all men need to know God, whereas not all can do so with reason alone.

    How can we believe without seeing him?

    Yes, we can have "faith" without seeing God. We can believe in a doctor's prescription of medication (and not poison) without seeing his history of education, etc. We can have "faith" that God exists. But, we can also "know" that God exists by the "first mover/first principle" argument just stated. I'm sure you are already sensing how cerebral and erudite these principles can get. So, faith is also needed, even when some can "know" God's existence without faith. In addition, there are also mathematical proofs of probability of God's existence, which need elaborate explanation. In a nutshell, however, mathematicians can basically calculate that it is astronomically against probability that anything that we have in creation could have been arranged, put together, and even exist by pure chance alone. It's mathematically proven that the odds are infinitely zero. It would be like taking a pile of dynamite and including all the material needed to make a Rolex watch, cause an explosion, and then find a perfectly assembled Rolex watch that is ticking (we even made a concession here in providing the needed material). How many times might we duplicate the experiment before the event actually happens by change - a million times, a trillion times, a zillion times - the probability of such order coming from chaos is absolutely zero. The same is true of every ordered and elegantly designed working thing in creation. It itself proves the existence of an intelligent creator, and not by faith, but by empirical mathematical demonstration. Our limited human mind may never be able to grasp "what" God is, but it can fully grasp the truth "that" God is. It would be like my walking into a jungle and hearing a rustling sound in some bushes. I would know "that" something was there in the bushes, without necessarily know "what" it was. "What" God is rests more in knowing what he is not, e.g., he's not finite (infinite) or what is revealed by him in self-revelation to people throughout salvation history: articles of faith for us, but received by human witnesses originally, many of whom were willing to suffer much and even die over such revelation, which men don't ordinarily do for things that are not true. Some even received such revelations with great difficulty, as it demanded great reversals in their lives, something a person would also not ordinarily undergo for something that wasn't true, either. These may be considered other rational proofs from the science of psychology and human nature, per se.

    What is the ultimate purpose of belief?

    1. To find fulfillment in our creation as only the Creator can give us, since He created us in such a way that can only be filled by Him. 2. To find redemption in His son Jesus since our first parents freely rejected God by sin and thereby also lost for all their progeny the original paradise of union with God at creation - Regretfully, we were born on the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak, which wasn't meant to be. We can get partial paradise back in this life and fully in the next by redemption. 3. To become sanctified and made holy so that we can be in union with God in this life and in eternity, since only what is holy and pure can exist with God -"Blessed are the pure in spirit, for they shall see God."

    What is the outcome of believing in Christianity?
    Fulfillment and joy in this world even amid its turbulence and struggles and eternal life and final fulfillment of what God intended for us in creating us both in this world and when we leave the dimension of time and join him in eternity.

    What are the consequences of not believing in Christianity?

    It depends on one's conscience as judged by God at death, and more especially, one's "informed" conscience. In other words, if I know or believe the reality of God and with full freedom reject that God anyway, the consequence is that God will permit my free act of being separated from him in eternity. This is what we call Hell, since the absence of God's goodness, beauty, oneness, and truth is such an existential, profound void that results is pain, angst, despair, confusion, hostility, and hatred of every one, including God. There is no friendship or community among those void of God, for instance, because love is absent by free choice.

    For a person who doesn't know God or never had the occasion to believe God and thereby didn't even consciously reject God freely, that person is not necessarily separated from God in eternity, so long as he dies with charity in his soul - because there are natural standards in this world, at the very least, by which we know good and bad, even if we don't believe in God by no fault or choice of our own. Basically, whatever our highest ability is in knowing good or bad and living according to what we were given or not is how anyone will be judged that does not know God. The measure by which we measure will be given back to us, and to whom has been given more, more will be expected.

    Then there are shades in between. Ultimately, we said that the consequences of not believing in God depend on one's informed conscience. If I am given some semblance of God's reality, and I consciously and fully choose not to inform my conscience further nor seek out the truth, then that in itself can be a free rejection of God, since it is a rejection of the human impulse to search and discover truth, of which God himself is truth. So, if one holds the reality of God in conscience and rejects him or if one might have known better to inform one's conscience of the truth of God but rejects doing so, such free evil choice can have eternal consequences of being separated from God in eternity, since that is what we chose and wanted with our free will in the first place. God respects our free will. He has to (law of contradiction). He cannot force anyone to love him, and he didn't want to create us as androids who had no free will capacity to love. But, giving man free will so that man can love God was an infinite gamble worth taking on God's part, so that the highest form of existence for man can be possible, that is, God loving him and he returning his free love to God. Such infinite good for so many souls outweighs the negative consequences for those who don't want this.

    These are all questions I am just to find the answer to, not to offend.
    No offence taken. I'm just sorry that I myself am very limited and cannot express such things the way many masters can. God bless!
     
    Last edited: Oct 17, 2020
    fredisthebes likes this.
  2. Amen, well written
     
  3. AtomicTango

    AtomicTango Fapstronaut

    As someone who is not a Christian, observing threads like this, I always see Christians offering detailed explanations of their beliefs like you have now, only for smug atheists to try and discredit all of it with a baseline (mis)understanding of the beliefs. In my head, its like watching a debate between these two people.

    [​IMG] [​IMG]
     
    ADMG and brilliantidiot like this.
  4. AtomicTango

    AtomicTango Fapstronaut

    You've completely misunderstood what I meant. I was just alluding to how Christianity and its believers are looked down upon and scoffed at yet they can provide detailed explanations for their beliefs (like you did), but the people who scoff at them cant do the same because they dont understand the source material as much as they think they do. I'm not criticising you at all, in the two images I jokingly posted, the Christian is the scholar, this is not an insult, quite the opposite.
     
  5. JoeinUSA

    JoeinUSA Fapstronaut

    Sorry, I misunderstood. I see now what you mean indeed. It is sensitive revealing one's beliefs. I guess I was anticipating backlash, as truth (as I see it anyway) tends to bring. But, what I really want to know is how do you get two pictures side by side here. I never seem able to do that. Or, text beside a picture. Is it one of those two-column tricks, like shift enter, or some combination?
     
  6. AtomicTango

    AtomicTango Fapstronaut

    I think because both images are relatively small it was just a case of posting them both on top of each other and then backspacing till they occupied the same line.
     
  7. !mkj!

    !mkj! Fapstronaut

    I got to a place in my seeking where I had obtained a lot of knowledge reading books, etc. At one point I came to a mental pause where I was tired of having all the answers (or nearly all) for questions regarding my faith. It just seemed like it was too academic and I was seeking something more. I decided I wanted to know what I really believed and surprisingly I didn't care where it led me. I just wanted to be genuine. Without going through the details of the process here I'll just say I arrived at a basic understanding of what motivated me in life. It was two things - truth and love. Truth, I realized, I could only understand according to the limitations of my mind (at least academically), but I knew, and still know, that I'm willing to take radical steps to defend anything I really believe is true, perhaps even death if the truth was that important in my estimation.

    Love on the other hand was and is more tangible. I mean genuine, self sacrificing love for another person simply because it's the noble and right thing to do. For example, movies where someone sacrifices their life for the survival of others, maybe falling on a hand grenade to shield others from the explosion, moves me passionately. I would like to think I'm capable of doing that. To have that degree of generosity is something valuable, something beautiful.

    From that point in my life those two passions have been the compass I follow. I was raised Catholic and have become more or less an All Denominations Christian now, in the sense I can find those two guides of my life in all of them, at least in those people who are sincerely trying to do it right. It was pretty easy to see, in my mind at least, that Jesus is the personification of those two things. I can also see evidence of them outside of Christianity in people of other faiths and of no faith. They are not restricted to a set of doctrines, but for me they have formed doctrines. They are the things I now pledge my life to follow, even if I do it less than perfectly. I keep trying to live them out better.

    The reason I am still Christian is because, as I said above, Jesus seems to be the personification of truth and love. I don't believe in truth and love because Jesus says I should. I believe in Jesus because my perception of truth and love point to Him as the embodiment of them in my mind and heart.
    Every once in a while I've been given a little demonstration of His presence, of the effect of Him being present and active in my life. For example, a few weeks ago my wife dropped one of her favorite earrings on the floor beside out bed. She reached down to pick it up and accidentally pushed it under a space between the molding of the baseboard and the floor. (the earring was round and rolled easily under there) The two of us tried several things to retrieve it including scooting it to the side and out with a toothpick, pushing some packing tape in there for it to adhere to so we could pull it out, using a small pair of scissors to grab it a pull it out. It seemed odd to me we couldn't eeasily get it out. After awhile my wife resigned herself to it being gone for good. We didn't think any more of it for a couple of days. Then one day when we were sitting on our couch, Betty took her shoes off and slid them halfway under the lower shelf of the coffee table in front of the couch. A bit later she reached down to pull her computer charger off of that shelf. As she pulled the charger off the shelf something came along with it and dropped into one of her shoes. She nudged me in the shoulder and said look. It was her earring. Lost in the bedroom under a baseboard and found falling into her shoe in the living room. It was not an earth shattering miracle like an unexplainable cure of cancer or something, but it sure was undeniable empirical evidence of a supernatural event. We figure God just wanted to let us know He cares even about the little things in our lives.

    More important than miracles (of which there have been a few) is the mental and emotional improvements that have occurred in my life, and then, when I had come to a place where I resigned myself to probably never being free of pmo someone prayed over me for a healing and the pmo urges disappeared 21 days ago after over 60 years of struggling against it. I know it's a short amount of time and things like that seem to happen here and there with folks, but I have never come from a state of failing once or more a day and then had zero urges like I do now. I'm not successfully fighting against urges. I don't have any. Temptations to lust and fantasize still assail me, but they have lost there ability to draw me into pmo as they always have before and i'm able to go through them without giving in to the lust. Time will tell of course if this is a permanent or temporary thing, but I'm living a miraculously free life right now.

    I know that was quite a long post. I hope some of it spoke to someone.
    God bless ya'll
     
    Last edited: Oct 17, 2020
  8. skibum71

    skibum71 Fapstronaut

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    Interesting and highly entertaining talk from a former pastor who lost his faith:
     
  9. Branchman

    Branchman Fapstronaut

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    I was going to take time to answer some of these questions, but I saw there are other who already did. So I should say, you have mind, you can reason by yourself, use it. Learn to question or doubt (I mean to think it) the information you get. Not just simply believe what the others tell you. You also have the hability to choose, so at the end the decision will be yours.
    I recommend you to read the book "More than a carpenter" by Josh McDowell, who was atheist.
    Do you know that there are more copies of the books of wich the bible is made, than copies of phylosophists scripts (for example Socrates, Platon) and that makes the Bible much more reliable than other scripts and copies. The Bible is the book that has been translated to more languages than any other book. Tell me, is it worth to die for something a book says? Because there have been a lot of people who have given their life for this Truth.
     
  10. skibum71

    skibum71 Fapstronaut

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    Fascinating debate into the nitty gritty of the NT gospels...well argued on both sides. If you claim to have ANY understanding of the gospels you need to hear what these guys have to say. The issue for Christians is this - when you claim they are the "word of God", which book are you talking about? The original text? Well no, it cant be that, because we dont have any copies. So it must be the oldest manuscript we have? No, it cant be that either because that is different from the original text and if the later version is the word of god then what was the purpose of the earlier/original version?
    Anyway this is a fascinating watch:
     
  11. SickSicko

    SickSicko Fapstronaut

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    You got it right, but people still fight over wich sacred text, and it's mostly literal interpretation is the right one... a sad fate for humanity.

    God said, I am who I am..., to what I'll add, what it have always been and always will be, because basically beyond that any explanation will be inaccurate as god is beyond human's words...
     
  12. newstartolife

    newstartolife Fapstronaut

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  13. Warrior254

    Warrior254 Fapstronaut

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    God is the Creator, being infinite and eternal, He existed in eternity past long before he brought the universe into existence, He planned all things and decreed all that came to pass, His word ( the Bible) are words of his mouth through his servants. He knew perfectly well that man would be tempted and fall in Eden, thus providing His Son to be atoning sacrifice for their sins and to be righteousness for all who would be believe in him, shall be saved, It is the office of the Holy Spirit to confirm and show us all truths.
     
  14. fredisthebes

    fredisthebes Fapstronaut

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    Some great answers so far. I think that, although religion is of course a communal activity for the most part, it is made up of people who have a very personal faith, and a very personal relationship with God.
    If you want to have a relationship with God than your route towards it will most likely be different from other people's.
    You might encounter God through careful study of the Bible and other religious books. You might encounter Him from watching sermons online or in person, or by learning to pray (yes it is a technique that you must learn and practice!). Some people feel closer to God when they are in nature, walking in a forest or swimming in the ocean. You can encounter God at the most rock bottom moment of your life, equally you may discover Him only when you have 'shed your demons' and made a commitment to a better life already.

    Some people have a dramatic 'conversion' moment, but most people come into faith very gradually over time. There is no right or wrong way.

    I should also add that people lose faith for just as many different reasons.

    To answer your specific questions, I think I would have to know a bit about your problems with Christianity, what belief (if any) you have at the moment and whether you have had any in the past, and the extent of your knowledge about Christianity/God. But briefly, and personally for me,

    Can you tell me why people should worship God?
    Because my faith is greater than my doubts. The God that is written about in the Bible is worthy of worship.

    Why is God right?
    God is right almost by definition, God is good and God is love. If it isn't right, it isn't God. At least, not in the usual Christian understanding of God, anyway!

    What is his purpose?
    A hard question for me. As I follow the Christian idea of God, and as somebody already stated, we didn't create God with a purpose but God created the world with a purpose, so perhaps a better question to ask is 'what is our purpose?' However I don't find that question any easier to answer, perhaps that is one for our prayers...

    How do we know that the bible is true?
    We don't. Christians typically read the bible to discover the history of their faith, the teachings of Jesus, and to discover God in a personal way. Be very wary of people who cherry pick quotes out of context, and use it to justify draconian attitudes. The Bible was written a long time after the events depicted, and it has all been translated (sometimes several times over), meaning some subtleties have been lost. It is complex and worthy of proper study and research. So avoid a simplistic reading of the Bible.

    Who created the bible?
    It's a collection of writings over a lengthy period. Some of the authors are beyond dispute, others are a bit of a mystery.

    How did God come into existence?
    Nobody knows. Usual answer is that He is as 'old as time' or 'begotten not created'. But that's maybe avoiding the question? It may not be relevant if God is as 'eternal' as we believe.

    How do we know God is real? How can we believe without seeing him?
    We don't. We need faith, or we are called to make a 'leap of faith' and live according to His will, as though we didn't have doubts about it. Not a very satisfactory answer I'm sure. But a greater understanding of God will (probably) lead your faith to be stronger than your doubts, which never really go away.

    What is the ultimate purpose of belief?
    To discover God's purpose for us, which may be quite different from those of other people. or it might not. A sincere attempt to answer this question might be enough.

    What is the outcome of believing in Christianity? What are the consequences of not believing in Christianity?
    I don't think anybody really knows the answer to these questions, ultimately, at least not until after they die.
    Believing in Christianity might make you reassess your life and what is important to you, it might put you in contact with a lot of moral and sincere people, it might help you overcome your vices and improve your life in countless ways, both spiritual and material. Depending where you live, it might even get you persecuted. It's dangerous to be a Christian in many parts of the Middle East (etc).
    Religious people in general are usually happier. But sometimes it can introduce anxiety into your life where there wasn't any before. Religious ocd is a real issue, and I wish it was addressed more in Church etc. So it really depends on your character, who introduced you to faith, and your understanding of the nature of God.
     
  15. lukeman3000

    lukeman3000 Fapstronaut

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    I was born into a very conservative Christian household and grew up in a Baptist church. For many years I believed in the Bible (in that it was the inspired, inerrant word of God) because that was simply what I was taught to believe. I of course came up with other reasons along the way (usually using the Bible, itself, to justify my beliefs), but over time my faith eroded and I could no longer support such a belief system.

    I think a lot of what had to do with my exodus from Christianity was when I ostracized my gay friend who came out to me when we were teenagers. There was definitely an anti-homosexual sentiment in the air at my church (and in my family/extended family as well). It wasn't necessarily explicitly discussed but it was there. As such I was very confused when I learned my best friend was gay, and my answer was to essentially shut him out of my life because I couldn't reconcile his existence with my belief system.

    And for a time, my belief system won that fight. But over the years I began to realize that my friend was an innocent human being who was simply existing just like I was - he didn't "choose" to be gay anymore than I chose to be straight. And so I began to question my beliefs and read content from authors like Bart Ehrman and Dan Barker (Misquoting Jesus and Godless are two excellent books, btw).

    And finally I was able to shed my Christian belief system and adopt a different set of ideals which I feel are much more congruent with who I actually am (or rather, who I want to be). Christians who read this generally will not understand it because they think that "God is love", and that they are very loving people, and they would never look down on someone who is homosexual, for example. And to be fair many Christians are very nice, loving people. But I think that when one adopts a more literal interpretation of the Bible it can produce some pretty negative subconscious biases which the individual is not even aware of. For example in my case, I had no thoughts of hating or even disliking people who are gay. But, because of my beliefs I knew that they were "living in sin" and I associated sin with evil, and so therefore the jump is not that far to go from homosexual, to evil. As much as Christians may say "hate the sin, love the sinner", I'm afraid that it just isn't that simple (speaking from personal experience).

    Of course there are many denominations and flavors of Christianity and some less literal than others. I could've opted for one of the more allegorical brands of Christianity but I saw no point; I feel like I can be the kind of person I want to be without needing to put my "faith" in any given religious text or belief system.

    That said, religion and belief in god likely does a lot of good for people. Belief in a higher power, belief that "everything happens for a reason", that suffering is not without purpose (this doesn't require religion btw), and certainly not least of all the belief that you will live forever and see loved ones again someday. These are are incredibly powerful reasons to believe in something like Christianity, and it's hard to let those things go even when you are morally conflicted (like I was).

    You will get a hundred different answers to these questions. At the end of the day, even the experts disagree. Very intelligent people on both side hold very different opinions on the issue. Just take a look at the field of textual criticism. There are very smart people on both sides of the fence who disagree vehemently on certain subjects. At the end of the day, you have to decide what you want to believe. Many people don't even get to that point, only believing what they were originally told to believe and never really questioning it, but that's all we can really do. I didn't want to believe that my friend was inherently evil simply because he was born being gay, and so I no longer believe that.
     
    Last edited: Oct 29, 2020
  16. Lillercoaster

    Lillercoaster Fapstronaut

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    Atheism is the answer! Just watch Matt Dillahunty, Christopher Hitchens, Aron Ra, NonStampCollector, DarkMatter2525 on YouTube. All christian arguments and creation pseudoscience like the flood are being debunked!
     
  17. SickSicko

    SickSicko Fapstronaut

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    If you want to end up being a nihilist yeah, it is the answer, otherwise is nonsensical bullshit, regards from a former hardcore Atheist.
     
  18. Lillercoaster

    Lillercoaster Fapstronaut

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    I have a lot of purpose in this life! I do not need a supernatural explanation. I do not have to worry about hell and sin. I can sin all I want without feeling guilty. Which god is the real god according to you? Yahweh, Zeus, Allah, Thor, Osiris?
     
  19. SickSicko

    SickSicko Fapstronaut

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    None of those is god, the real god has no name, although everyone will give a name to it.
    Also, when you sin, are you sinning according to wich religion? :emoji_kissing:
    There are no sins, but there are things that damage us, wich are the inspiration for sins in most religions.Other were invented to control people, it depends on the religion..
     
    Lillercoaster and mouton1998 like this.
  20. Branchman

    Branchman Fapstronaut

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    Where you atheist?
     

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