A Christian is anyone who follows the preachings of Jesus.

I used to be Christian but I often questioned the wisdom of a 2000 year old book written by old Jewish men. Then I got around the "born again" christians and that completely ruined any hopes I had of accepting Christianity as my religion. There are too many unanswered questions and the bible has been re-written so many times it's hard to trust anything that's in it.


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[quote=Keeper of the Light™]Really.

I don't believe in God. I find the idea of God as an absolute a fundamental implausibility.
I really don't want to debate this but I'll just say that idea of God is no more implausible than the universe just appearing out of nowhere. Neither theory can be proven nor even reasonably explained.

[quote=Keeper of the Light™]I believe that Jesus, while dying for people sins, and an enilghtened *man*, was not the son of god. I believe that he existed, but thats the extent.

Hence, in regards to that, and to Godspeed's last question: The answer is "No". You could belive in Jesus, and God, but not be a christian...after all, I believe a lot of Jews do both.
Jews and Muslims believe in Jesus. They don't believe he was the son of God. That's why in my definition of a Christian I included that Jesus was the son of God.

[quote=Keeper of the Light™]Just a question, Labotomi:

Wouldn't part of being a christian mean that if you break something of the doctrine, that you do feel that you sinned and pray for forgiveness?

I mean, Godspeed, Hahaha, etc. on this site i consider christians, but i know they aren't perfect christians...and if they do tresspass, then I'd like to think they would ask forgiveness...

My point: if Jesus died for our sins, then shouldn't part of being a good christian be trying to act like a good christian, and when you faail to do so, you feel remorse for not and ask forgiveness and try to be a better one, rather than saying you aren't a good one unless you do all of these things and never fail?

Granted, i'm not a Christian, don't really care to be one, so i'm just asking here...
If you're asking if you have to be perfect to be a good Christian, I guess it would depend on who's definition of good you are using. I doubt that there's anyone who never sins. Someone who tells a little white lie isn't automatically labeled a bad Christian. I wouldn't even label myself as a good Christian, but I'm progressing in that direction (slowly).

Personally, I tyhink that in order to be a good Christian you must recognize that you are not perfect, and niether is anyone else. You cannot be perfect, but you must try.; That is the teaching, reach for the unatainable perfection, strive to be like Christ, just know that as long as you are flesh, you are flawed. Accept that in yourself and in others.

Of course believing in the tri-une God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) is a prerequisite, but it doesn't stop there.

PAX

[quote=Keeper of the Light™]Really.

I don't believe in God. I find the idea of God as an absolute a fundamental implausibility.


So what's the plausible alternative?

[quote=Keeper of the Light™]
I believe that Jesus, while dying for people sins, and an enilghtened *man*, was not the son of god. I believe that he existed, but thats the extent.


Well, that's like saying you believe George Washington existed. Jesus' existence is proven historical fact.

[quote=Keeper of the Light™]
Hence, in regards to that, and to Godspeed's last question: The answer is "No". You could belive in Jesus, and God, but not be a christian...after all, I believe a lot of Jews do both.


For such a linguist, you're getting tied up in your own words. I'm shocked! If you believe in Jesus, you're believing what he preached. That is different than believing he existed, which is what you meant.

[quote=Keeper of the Light™]
The ney on religion is that there's more than *just* Christianity and all it's flavors, Judaism, Islam, Satanism, Agnosticism, Atheism, etc. There is a whole slew of them...


Atheism is a religion?

What's funny about the religions you all mentioned, is that they are related. They all worship the God of Abraham. Many of the stories of the old testament are in the Qur'an. A large majority of the world's population follow some common basics, not only in idealogy but in story.

[quote=Keeper of the Light™]
To me, if you claim a religion, you must in some semblance practice it--try to adhere to it. a lapsed christian might be a christian, yes. But what about those that sin and expect no one else to?


Those are called hypocrites. Hypocrites are addressed in all major religious texts.




---

^^^my point exactly...

Labotomi...don't take the example of what i beleive as the start of a debate, i was trying to use it as an example of how someone could belive in something, but not be adhered to it. Granted, i must have missed where you said "believe Jesus is the son of god."

And yes, the "good" christian is subjective, after all, no one could know what Jesus really wanted nowadays--especially with the uncertainty within the bible. We have an Idea, but that's it.

My point is this...the so-called "catholics" that bomb marketplaces are no more catholic than the muslims that invoke acts of terror--and I think Many would back me on this.

Just like the so-called "witches" that engage in animal sacrifice...they aren't wiccan.


Goodbye Callisto & Skaði, Hello Ishara:
2022 Kia Stinger GT2 AWD
The only thing every single person from every single walk of life on earth can truly say
they have in common is that their country is run by a bunch of fargin iceholes.

Used to be Christian. Played the drums on our praise team, even taught youth group bible study.

Not any more. Life has an interesting way of turning on you, especially when all those people you thought loved you turn away, instead of helping.

I'm not depressed or anything, but when you devote SO much of yourself, so much time and effort to God only to have things thrown in my face time and time again...it really makes you wonder why you were ever devoted in the first place. I am not Job, my faith was evidently not as strong as I would've liked it to be.

But it's OK. Even though I lost every thing in my life that was important to me...I haven't given up on me, just given up on the idea that God will provide.

Fiend wrote:I'm not depressed or anything, but when you devote SO much of yourself, so much time and effort to God only to have things thrown in my face time and time again...it really makes you wonder why you were ever devoted in the first place. I am not Job, my faith was evidently not as strong as I would've liked it to be.

i can commiserate 100% on that. it sucks when there's no real result from your work.


i know little of the Jewish faith, but a Jewish friend of mine explained something to me(and i'm not sure if this is just her, or if this is part of their belief system)...she said that the way she was raised, you live for today. don't expect to get this ultranice afterlife if you're good now...there's no guarantee of that. just be a good, loving, HAPPY person now. don't make your own life hell in the hopes that you'll get some sort of uber reward later.

that's probably one of the best things a religious person has ever said to me.




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^^^ Jews don't believe in hell... That's one good thing of the religion.

Fiend:
The difference (I'm not a bible thumper, and never have been) is that worshipping God is one thing, dealing with people is another. I think faith is more personal... well, that, and people really suck sometimes.




Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.

GAM (The Kilted One) wrote:^^^ Jews don't believe in hell... That's one good thing of the religion.

w3rd...glad it wasn't just my friend talking.




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GAM (The Kilted One) wrote:Fiend:
... well, that, and people really suck sometimes.

Tell me about it. One of those people that turned their back to me after loosing my wife was my Pastor...go figure.

Well, not much of a pastor then is he/she??? Christ came for the lost, not the faithfull, he taught compassion and understanding.

You were let down by people, not by God.

PAX

christians = ....

sheep?

I'll start this from the beginning:

Agustin, i'll take yours one at a time:

The plausible alternative to me is that all that is, was and will be, but not necessarily in the form that it all exists in today. In essence, nothing is created, nothing is destroyed--it just changes. Take your children--they aren't "new life", they are a change of existing life--basically, your life and their mother's. Her egg cell and your sperm cell were indeed alive, thus there's no "new" life--just a change of existing life.

Further, the simplest response to this is, "If God created the universe, then what created God?" Further, if we define the universe as everything we know, then musn't God be a part of it? I've offered more in-depth explainations of this in the past, so i won't repeat myself, All I'm saying is that I find it a fundamental implausibility that an omnipotent, omniscent, and onmipresent deity created everything, and moreso, is what the Christians claim it is. It doesn't mean i'm right, it's just my take on the matter.

However, You did point out a flaw in how i explained the "believe in Jesus", I used it in the context of "Believe in magic", "Believe in the Tooth Fairy", "Believe in God", "Believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster". Not so much believe in the regards of what they stood for, but rather their existance was real. I don't dispute Jesus existed (although there's no shortness of people that don't believe he did). Where I stand on what he was, it's iffy--my impulse is that he had some great ideas, but his followers corrupted them, and continue to corrupt them for pwersonal gain, and since I don't have a time machine, I can never be certain of this. However, I should have been clear on the context in which i took "believe in".

Atheism is a religion, and so is Science. I can get ultra-philisophical on this point and invoke some huge relative conjectures on things...but I won't unless you like reading a novella on the subject . I will distill it down to this: Religion is the deep personal method in which you use to explain the universe to yourself. That religion is based upon faith that the system you perceive around you works in the way you percieve. As such, Atheists have that as their religion because to them, if all of a sudden a god was proven to exist, how they see the universe would be completely unraveled--Same with Christians--if God was proven to not exist, or if a scientist found out that the definition they held of, say, the number one was incorrect. When it comes down to it, a religion is the operating system in which you asses the data known as the universe.

And i just pulled a few reigions out for atempting to be brief. if you wanted to get down on it--you also have the norse pantheists, the roman pantheists, the greek pantheists, shinto, buddhism, hindu, voodoo, wicca, druids, all the flavors of paganism (some of which are aforementioned), Australian aboriginaical religions, and all of the native american religions from both North and South America.

But you do pull a valid point--many religions, even totally different ones, do share common threads; most people are too blinded by the "i'm right and your wrong" mindset to see it.

And for the hypocrites, unfortunately, you don't see the so-called "leaders" doing much to stop them. Why? because some people beleive that numbers adds credence to the religion, when really GAM pointed it out--it's a personal matter, not a evangelical matter.

But again, I will make full circle on 2 things: 1) This is my take on the universe. I may be wrong, but there's little you can prove to me that would make it so, and I may be right, and there's little I can prove to you to make it so. And 2), since this is glossed over all the time, I don't believe the universe "sprang" from anywhere...all that is, was an will be, just perhaps not in a form that you may recognize .


Goodbye Callisto & Skaði, Hello Ishara:
2022 Kia Stinger GT2 AWD
The only thing every single person from every single walk of life on earth can truly say
they have in common is that their country is run by a bunch of fargin iceholes.

The one thing I can't stand is people saying things like:

"If you don't do this, you're going to hell"
"If you don't believe in this... you're going to hell"
If you DO do this, you are going to hell"
"If you don't think the way I do, you're going to hell".


I personally believe, going on the assumption that there is a higher being/deity... I think the main ACTUAL purpose would be to find your own path to said higher being/deity... whether it be Christianity, Catholicism, Islam, Judaism, Hindu, Buddhist, or Flying Spaghetti Monsterism. I think the ACTUAL purpose is to be the best person you can be, and try to do good things, help others, etc.

I do not believe there is ONE and ONLY ONE true way to "Heaven", or whatever it is that awaits us after death. But I DO believe that we are here for a purpose, whether it is to learn certain things, do certain things, or whatever. And I DO believe that if Heaven truely does exist, that if we do not accomplish those things or learn those things in which we are supposed to do... we get the privalige of trying it all over again.

I do NOT believe in hell... or an "evil being" that is here to make things bad in the world. I believe the "devil"/"Satan" whomever, was "created" by people in order to have something to blame the evils on in the world.

Face it. We are human... we have free will... we WILL make mistakes in our lifetimes. The important thing for us to do is realize this and accept what mistakes we have made and do our best to not to them again... to learn from them.

People in today's society, and in past society, find it easier to blame someone or something else for their mistakes and errors, than to accept the blame themselves for screwing up... and that is quite evident. (example: woman suing McDonalds for spilling coffee on herself; parents that sued the makers of GTA because their kid went out and stole a car and killed people; Columbine; someone farts and blames it on the dog). It is much easier for people to blame another being, thing, or deity for the "bads" in life than it is to accept that we are human, and we make mistakes.

Nothing and no one is perfect, and it is important for us to realize this. We have to find our own path in life. I don't think HOW we find our beliefs is as important that we find our own path... and try to be the best person that we can be.

I have a hard time believing that if "God" loves all of his children, that there is only one path. If say Christianity was the one and only true path, billions of people would be doomed to "hell". So like I said before, I think the main thing of importance is to find the best path for us individually, rather than collectively, if that makes any sense...

[quote=Keeper of the Light™]

Further, the simplest response to this is, "If God created the universe, then what created God?" Further, if we define the universe as everything we know, then musn't God be a part of it?

Back at you...if god didn't create the universe then what did? Or rather how did it come to exist forever and always? You can't prove your stance anymore than religious people can prove theirs. It's all based on faith, whether in God or in the ever present universe as you suggest. I respect your stance even though I disagree with it and I hope you (and others) will respect the opinions of the people who choose religion as theirs.

As to the second statement. I believe God exists outside of the universe and outside of time as well. Not that I could explain how this could be, it's just my belief.

BTW, I'm a very logically oriented person who has always thought that there is a reason for everything that happens which is based on steadfast laws of nature/science. I don't really know how I've come to become a Chistian later in life. It's just something that I've come to terms with over many years. The logical side of me still looks for answers and questions my beliefs almost continuously, but now I'm looking at everything from a different viewpoint than when I was younger.

ill give you my examples cause thats the only experience i have lol

a guy at work is a born again , before he left for a new job we would debate weekly religion. i personally am stuck in a rutt in my job i see people die daily young old black white death holds no boundries ! the guy at work would sit there and preach to me about how i was going to hell because of the way i live my life (tattooed , pierced, many other things thrown into the mix) and that used to get me rilled up just for the simple fact that every religion thinks there right ! granted there is documentation about christians being the original religion however who is to know that is all made up or it isnt ? honestly i dont judge anyone by there religion however dont throw it in my face cause "you think" i am going to hell i dont want to hear that. you have your views i have mine. however i think its humorous when you see someone that is truelly into there christianity and have a god tattoo , despite the fact it is totally against the bible.....

To further that, Labotomi...I have never said that my statement is any easier to prove or disprove, it just fits my view of the universe. So, I'm not in any means saying you, Agustin, or anyone else is wrong, per se...I'm just saying your model for the universe as you see it desn't work with the way I think...just like my model for the universe most likely doesn't fit with your thought processes.

Again, though, even if God exists outside of space and time, God had to have came from *somewhere*, unless God was always there to begin with. And if that was the case, couldn't it be logical as well to say that if God could have always been there, then the universe always was there as well? It doesn't seem like that far of a stretch to be plausible--it's no more implausible than the existance of God. Either way, you run into the problem of creation to infinity, existiance spanning to infinity in both the past and future directions, or, in my mind, the most plausible case, time runs in a circle, and thus, tomorrowhapens both in the immediate future and many Æons past.

Really, as I stated, my idea is that all that is, was and will be, but not in the same form as we know it--we're limited to our senses. There is much we can't percieve, and we have seen such a small slice of time in what we call "existance" that we can't really know.

So, just use whatever works for you. You can't define how someone else should think. They are just as right and wrong as you are.


Goodbye Callisto & Skaði, Hello Ishara:
2022 Kia Stinger GT2 AWD
The only thing every single person from every single walk of life on earth can truly say
they have in common is that their country is run by a bunch of fargin iceholes.

To me being a Christian is being Christ like. You know.........WWJD

And right now Im not very Christ like in my daily actions.


I am all that is man

jason rubito(beatz) wrote:ill give you my examples cause thats the only experience i have lol

a guy at work is a born again , before he left for a new job we would debate weekly religion. i personally am stuck in a rutt in my job i see people die daily young old black white death holds no boundries ! the guy at work would sit there and preach to me about how i was going to hell because of the way i live my life (tattooed , pierced, many other things thrown into the mix) and that used to get me rilled up just for the simple fact that every religion thinks there right ! granted there is documentation about christians being the original religion however who is to know that is all made up or it isnt ? honestly i dont judge anyone by there religion however dont throw it in my face cause "you think" i am going to hell i dont want to hear that. you have your views i have mine. however i think its humorous when you see someone that is truelly into there christianity and have a god tattoo , despite the fact it is totally against the bible.....

Actually the contrary is true... Christianity was NOT the original religion. I don't think that there is evidence of THE very first religion, but the first religions to be documented were pagan based religions. Pagan based religions and beliefs WERE in existance LONG before Christianity ever came to be... just an fyi

[quote=¤§Fallen Angel§¤]

jason rubito(beatz) wrote:ill give you my examples cause thats the only experience i have lol

a guy at work is a born again , before he left for a new job we would debate weekly religion. i personally am stuck in a rutt in my job i see people die daily young old black white death holds no boundries ! the guy at work would sit there and preach to me about how i was going to hell because of the way i live my life (tattooed , pierced, many other things thrown into the mix) and that used to get me rilled up just for the simple fact that every religion thinks there right ! granted there is documentation about christians being the original religion however who is to know that is all made up or it isnt ? honestly i dont judge anyone by there religion however dont throw it in my face cause "you think" i am going to hell i dont want to hear that. you have your views i have mine. however i think its humorous when you see someone that is truelly into there christianity and have a god tattoo , despite the fact it is totally against the bible.....

Actually the contrary is true... Christianity was NOT the original religion. I don't think that there is evidence of THE very first religion, but the first religions to be documented were pagan based religions. Pagan based religions and beliefs WERE in existance LONG before Christianity ever came to be... just an fyi thats what i thought but i was told by 3 christians that christianity was the first religion . i stand corrected.

It is only reasonable to assume that the first religions focus on natural forces, primarily the Sun and Moon. Cave man wakes up to the sun everyday and the Moon replaces it at night. Of course the first religions were pagan.

PAX

First religion?

Find the fist instance of self-awarness and figure out what it believed in...

Assuming there is a first and time isn't circular


Goodbye Callisto & Skaði, Hello Ishara:
2022 Kia Stinger GT2 AWD
The only thing every single person from every single walk of life on earth can truly say
they have in common is that their country is run by a bunch of fargin iceholes.

hmm, the first self-aware or the first that recognised the possiblity of non-existance?

jason rubito(beatz) wrote:granted there is documentation about christians being the original religion however who is to know that is all made up or it isnt ?

if christians were the "first religion" then how was Jesus a Jew?


...yeah, in other words, you're dead wrong there kiddo.



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