What's your Religion?

I`m 46 yrs old and I have been a member of the Church of Christ since I was made the decided to put Christ on in baptism in the fall of 1978. Read and study to show youself approved. Beleive in God and his Word The Bible!

 

1)No I'm not
2)I'm 'great' in God's eye's.
3)yes they are, I've witnessed some of them. Key word, 'witnessed'.
4)I have and I'm still not sceered.
5)1,2 and 3 above are opinions. That's a fact.

Thanks for the respect John, the feeling is mutual. EDIT: Not anymore. He knows nothing about respect therefore can't earn it.

Merry CHRISTmas.

 

yes! u hit the point that ive always been loooking for.

all these races separated by language and distance. all invented their OWN ways of feeling comforted about dying. they all have the same idea. be good=heaven. bad=hell. which means they can try to frame an idea, a set of rules so people act better.

european religions back in a.d 100 or whatever just wanted to be morally good.

the asian races developed a race around nature and peace within them selves.

arabian community needed people to do things, so they get these religious fanatics that based their race around necessity for god. so whatever needs to be done it will get done.

 

are you saying this applies to Christianity as well?

 

I was raised Catholic also,and had to take e few thrashings from nuns. Looking back now I believe the Catholic church is basicly a leftover from the dark ages when the average person couldent read or write. Everything was based on what they were told. Martin Luther changed everything and the Protestant church was formed.It's not good to critize God or whats written in the Bible if someone has never read it themselves. Things seem complicated at times but truth really is absolute. The subject of religion tends to get volatile because everyone puts their faith in something and want to believe they are right. These are just a few rambling thoughts, there are solid answers if a person is intent on seeking the truth.

 

i think it applies to every religion. every religion at one point says "if you follow these guidlines, you will get this"

 

Great posts Hoosier, I completely agree with you 110%.

 

I'm a Christian. I'm not religious, just have a relationship with God. It's not about which church you go to, or even if you go, it's about what you believe.

 

correct me if i'm wrong but i dont think god wrote the bible. i'm pretty sure it's a collaboration of stories supposedly documenting the era of his life.

 

It was written by men who God spoke through. God is still alive, just not on earth in human form. The Bible covers the time Jesus was on earth as wall as before and after.

 

so i'm pretty right then. he didn't write it. so the men "he spoke through" could have added their own words to essencially put their own spin on what "god was saying".

 

Actually, it's a combination of a bunch of stuff, written by men that were supposedly divinely inspired.

First you had the Old Testament, which is basically the Hebrew Bible. That's where Judaism and Christianity diverge - basically hinges on whether or not you believe Jesus was the messiah and therefore whether or not the New Testament is valid. Jews argue that he wasn't, because the Old Testament lays out a very specific set of criteria for the messiah, and Jesus missed on several.

Then you have the New Testament which was basically Jesus's teachings as recorded by his followers. Originally in their native languages, and then re-translated over the centuries into and out of who-knows-how-many languages with who-knows-how-many contextual errors by yet other human beings. Fun fact: in the original scriptures, Mary is never referred to as a virgin. The hebrew word for virgin and young woman was the same, and it's meaning in usage depended on context. In the original stuff, the context never meant virgin. That part was added later by followers/translators to make the ol' virgin birth seem quite a bit more miraculous. Hence Roman Catholicisms continued emphasis on Mary alongside Jesus, and of course the Pope. Amaze your friends with that nugget of trivia.

Of course, the part that is rarely mentioned in church is that who decided what parts of the Bible were canon (read: relevant) and which weren't was largely arbitrary. Jesus's followers didn't just write what's in the Bible. There are many other writings concerning Jesus and his actions that were left out, because the powers that be in the church decided they weren't canon. Whether or not they were divinely inspired when doing so remains to be determined by a vote by the viewers of American Idol.

Fast forward to the 1500s, and Protestantism rears its head. Essentially, a bunch of people decided the Pope/Orthodox Catholicism was full of shit and that each person communes directly with God, no middle man required. Thus you get Martin Luther nailing his resignation note to the door of his local Catholic church; likely a meaningless statement to the people in that institution, but no doubt it felt good. The Bible was tweaked to their liking, and they all set out to produce their own denominations. Not content to simply argue with the Catholics over who's hair-splitting was correct, they also felt the need to argue with each other.

At some point in there, Henry VIII decided he wanted to be the Pope and formed the Church of England.

From then on, things were pretty quiet until the arrival of modern Southern Baptists/Raging Fundamental Evangelicals, which are essentially this hemisphere's equivalents of radical islamists, with two key differences:

1)Their great Satan is secular lifestyle, not any particular country or nation-state.

2)They're white.

And there you have it...a completely incomprehensive history of Christianity and the Bible.

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Here’s my take on it; Christianity is about faith, if you believe God is who he says he is then it's not hard to believe he wrote the bible, through men. If you don't believe there is a God or he's not who the bible speaks of, then you also prolly believe the bible was just written by some crazy people a long time ago. Basically if you don't believe in God, then me tilling you that God (who you don't believe exists) wrote the bible is pointless.

 

First af all thank you for the post.
Secondly this pretty much explains the reason why i think the way i do about religions in general. who is right? who is wrong? And who is to say who is right or wrong? what are the parts that were omited? and whose opinions are being expressed as fact.

 

Well, now you know why I'm agnostic - same thoughts.

I'm not ruling religion out, because to my mind that's making the same leap as ruling it in - you can't prove either position objectively. At the moment.

Therefore, I sit on the fence, much to the chagrin of camps on either side.

 

ya that's another thing holding me back.

for example

person A is catholic
person B is muslim

Person A believes with all his heart and soul that his religion is true and person B's is not, and they are wrong.

but the exact thing vise versa is a weird thought.. ?

 

Only in the West.

Remember, those nutjobs in Al'Qaeda truly believe we're every bit as bad as we say they are. And they point a lot of our own reasons for calling them terrorists back at us. It's all about perspective - where you were raised, by whom, and what you were taught to believe.

 

I apologized to myself for wasting "my own time." You probably quoted it.

I've noticed that you aren't really thoughtful with your answers and you have a large amount of typos and poor grammar.

Also, your anger toward me is really out of place. I asked you a question and you did nothing but pretend to be insulted. I found it to be pretty weak minded, you didnt even read what I wrote! You could have at least read it, and responded to the best of your ability.

Maybe that's what you did! Aaaaawwww that's so cute. You'll get it.

 

yeh we are pretty much the black sheep here huh?