Christianity: Saving the world, or bringing pain and suffering to the world?

[LDGM 0]

i'm a christian, but Anglican.

the pope or the papacy does not fit into my system.

a man being at the head of a religion makes the people think that it is a people's religion and they can change it, which has led to violent religious wars or 'Jihad'

although we don't see many Christian suicide bombers, there's no way of confirming any religion as peacful, thus in the end it will come down to religion versus religion...

[The Minish Link 1]

How exactly are we hurting people? Am I hurting people? I didn't think so.

[Prince of Twilight 0]

No disrespect to any christains here but your faith pretty much says that the god you follow is mean and unmerciful! You cant sneeze without sinning! LOL! Where my god in spiritualism is an all merciful all loving all forgiving god. Where no matter what you do he will forgive. The christains will have you believe there is a hell and satan, to scare you into following their laws and rules! Well alittle secret for all you christains there is no hell there is no satan so don't be afraid anymore!

[The Minish Link 1]

By chance, Have you actually READ the bible? It doesn't say that anywhere. You must hallucinating.

Old testament, maybe. But CERTAINLY NOT New testament.

Lemme ask a question: Why would a guy die to save the world, if he just wants to destroy it?

[ZuZu 10]

By chance, Have you actually READ the bible? It doesn't say that anywhere. You must hallucinating.

Old testament, maybe. But CERTAINLY NOT New testament.

The bible (both testaments) is not a proven truth.

[AarghZombies 0]

I have no problems with moderate beliefs. If it gives people hope, strength, etc. it can only be a good way to live. Part of Chrisitanity is helping others, Christian Aid being a case in point.

BUT, the problems arise when members of a religion, Chrisitanity or not, believe that what they believe is the be all and end all. Extremism I suppose. If you do not think what they think, you are going to hell. Even if you are a devout member of another religion, that is still utterly wrong.

Chrisitanity teaches understanding and tolerance, but not when you take the Bible literally (again, extremism). It was written a thousand years ago or so, and society has changed. Take the life lessons certainly.

That said, I've met an extremist atheist who thought everyone who even nearly believed in God was a total idiot. I can't stand people like that.

TL, DR: extremism is the problem.

Edited 31 May 2008 by AarghZombies (see edit history)

[Sahaqiel 1232]

:/ I tried being Christian once; it felt too much like 'feeding the beast not to get eaten' sort of thing... then I went lesbian, just because I thought... well... girls are beautiful to me. <3 Iunno, I can't get into guys.

How is that a sin? I mean, that's when I saw Christianity as hypocritical. Can't we LOVE who we wanna love? After all, it's better than just hating everyone. ^^; Isn't God supposed to be about love? Then what's wrong with this love? If it's just because of the sex... uhm... why? Don't we have enough people in the world...? Give those kids in orphanages a home, first. D<

Plus, Christianity's Bible has been changed SO much. We've turned it into a human's religion...

I don't hate Christians.

I disapprove of the ones that try to change me.

Yeah. I suppose I believe in a higher being, but I can't honestly follow Christianity without feeling self loathing.

I believe the Bible's been edited over the years, (Hey, it's been over 2000) by prejudiced people. Jesus was most likely dark-skinned individual. As my friend says, a "mocha" color. But he's always portrayed as a pale guy. Adam and Eve came first? They were also white. But we've proven that the first humans were of African decent. It also says that homosexuality is a sin. (Only described as sleeping "with another man", which just reminds me of the hypocrites who say gay people are bad and then go wank to lesbian porn or something) I also recall something like, "Women are the weaker vessels", and that little kindergartener-like statement created a lot of sexism over a long period of time. It's a total acceptable possibility that the Bible was corrupted. Either that or it was messed up to begin with.

I mean, the teachings are all right. One of my favorites is to love your enemies and forgive. But come on...

Apparently God forgives all sins, but He[/sexism] will send you to Hell for sinning.

Also, God's gender. God's always referred to as a "He". Which also brought up a lot of sexism. It's said that we were created in God's image. OK, we all look like God.

So God must be an extreme hermaphrodite.

I dunno, God, if I were you, I'd get one removed or something.

But why would God do that? God is perfect! God wouldn't need one removed, but then God would also technically not be a full fledged man!

Another thing is that it tells you to be nice to people. One nicety of life is not to deliberately frighten people, which the Bible openly does. It wants you to fear God. God, an apparently all-forgiving man[/sexism] who forgives all of your sins by asking Him to do so. There have been people that literally are in paranoia of God, who carry a cross, and every time something bad happens, they sit there for three hours holding the cross and praying. That isn't right. That's psychological torture. And God apparently is supposed to love all people. But ignorant people beg to differ, contradicting the Bible yet trying to spout knowledge from it at the same time. The statement, "God hates fags" makes me want to punch them in the face. The sad thing is that I have heard that statement more than once. It's awful.

I follow a kind of bizarre mix of Christianity, Catholicism, and some other stuff I believe. But not because I fear a higher being... Because I want to.

And that's the best moral I can think of.

Sahaqiel

[Vivica Todd 0]

Bravo, Saha.

[Umbreon 0]

I'm only a kid, but I still have a view of things and right now I am anti-religous. I'm not atheist, but I have no religion. My reason is religoin causes so much hatred, and so much loath. Not to offend any Christian, but at times they kind of think their religion is higher and better because there aren't Christian extremists. Like that's true. What was Hitler? So I think having religions at all is bringing the world down.

[Knuckle 484]

Christian extremists are everywhere, though. In fact, when you see a christian saying something controversial or hateful, chances are high the're biased and and extremist. The same can be said, in fact, with any religion. I hate it when people judge a religion like Christianity or islam by it's extremists and denounce it, because it isn't fair to ignore the good-intentioned ones.

[Prince of Twilight 0]

By chance, Have you actually READ the bible? It doesn't say that anywhere. You must hallucinating.

Old testament, maybe. But CERTAINLY NOT New testament.

Lemme ask a question: Why would a guy die to save the world, if he just wants to destroy it?

Accually believe it or not I have read the bible and I have one question to all of those that have why is most of jesus' life not followed by the bible. The one book that is supposed to be about a religion for him won't tell you that he traveled to differant countries to learn all the religions. If jesus was alive today he would be a follower of spiritualism (he was back then too!) not christianity! He didn't believe in churches, he would never condone a church taking money from its followers, never! in the bible and I quote "Turn a log and you will find me, lift a rock and I will be there." What he means by this is you don't need to go to a church to practice faith you could be in the woods (log) or in a field (rock). Plaese can someone explain to me why untill the last few hundred years did the christian/catholic church burn ALL books and kill all people that tried to bring Jesus' true word to the people, why most of Jesus' life is stricken from the bible! So you ask me if I read the bible, YES I have, you? If you have you would see all the discrepencys it has, all the times it says one thing and then totally turns around and says another! So I ask again have you read the bible if not read it cover to cover then come back and tell me why when Jesus was 14 he dissappears from the pages and doesn't return until around 30. I will tell you why. If you all knew what he was doing, what he was following there would be no christain or catholic faith. And here is a little secret for you all to yell at me for, ready here it is, Jesus didn't die on the Cross, nope he didn't. He even had kids! Have you heard about all those secret societies like the Freemasons (and more that I can't remember at this time of the morning but I will add them when I can remember) that had secrets about Jesus' life well those secrets were about his bloodline. And what happened to them? The catholic church had them exicuted!!!

[Padraig! 103]

FOR F*CKS SAKE!

JESUS WAS A F*CKING JEW NOT A F*CKING SPIRITUALIST!!!

IT.

SAYS.

SO.

IN.

THE.

BIBLE!

/rant

Jesus didn't have kids.

FACT.

Jesus died on the cross.

FACT.

If you were to actually read the bible from the begining to the end, THEN I'd listen to some arguments.

The only parts I havent read were the "begat" parts.

[Knuckle 484]

Accually believe it or not I have read the bible and I have one question to all of those that have why is most of jesus' life not followed by the bible. The one book that is supposed to be about a religion for him won't tell you that he traveled to differant countries to learn all the religions. If jesus was alive today he would be a follower of spiritualism (he was back then too!) not christianity! He didn't believe in churches, he would never condone a church taking money from its followers, never! in the bible and I quote "Turn a log and you will find me, lift a rock and I will be there." What he means by this is you don't need to go to a church to practice faith you could be in the woods (log) or in a field (rock). Plaese can someone explain to me why untill the last few hundred years did the christian/catholic church burn ALL books and kill all people that tried to bring Jesus' true word to the people, why most of Jesus' life is stricken from the bible! So you ask me if I read the bible, YES I have, you? If you have you would see all the discrepencys it has, all the times it says one thing and then totally turns around and says another! So I ask again have you read the bible if not read it cover to cover then come back and tell me why when Jesus was 14 he dissappears from the pages and doesn't return until around 30. I will tell you why. If you all knew what he was doing, what he was following there would be no christain or catholic faith. And here is a little secret for you all to yell at me for, ready here it is, Jesus didn't die on the Cross, nope he didn't. He even had kids! Have you heard about all those secret societies like the Freemasons (and more that I can't remember at this time of the morning but I will add them when I can remember) that had secrets about Jesus' life well those secrets were about his bloodline. And what happened to them? The catholic church had them exicuted!!!

I sometimes have doubts about the church, too. However, most of the supposed secrets of the church were rumors created by people who wnated the church destroyed. The freemasons claim to have answers, but theyre nothing more than the adult-only version of boy scouts and don't really know much. I have read the gospel, and know that Jesus' adolescence is left out, but I don't think there's any real reason behind it. Perhaps it's left out because nothing happened to jesus during that time. Furthermore, Jesus was a Jew with the intent of modifying Judaism, not a christian. Finally, I see no proof form you about how he traveled to different countries to learn all religions, let alone the fact that this isn't a big deal at all anyway.

[Prince of Twilight 0]

FOR F*CKS SAKE!

JESUS WAS A F*CKING JEW NOT A F*CKING SPIRITUALIST!!!

IT.

SAYS.

SO.

IN.

THE.

BIBLE!

/rant

Jesus didn't have kids.

FACT.

Jesus died on the cross.

FACT.

If you were to actually read the bible from the begining to the end, THEN I'd listen to some arguments.

The only parts I havent read were the "begat" parts.

Ok so in other words because its in the bible means it is the truth?! Um NO! The bible is a fictional book! Come on do you really think we ALL came from Adam and Eve? Do you think Noah really have EVERY animal on a boat to save them? I challenge you to find the book The Secret Sayings of Jesus Christ. In that book are his teachings HIS word, not the word the church wants you to believe! Mark my words in the next 10 years the will be scriptures found under the Sphinx that will disprove the whole Christain/Chatholic faith! Please print this out keep it some where and when it is found take this forum out and read it! Also get the book The Secret life of Jesus by Silvia Brown! Read it then ask yourself why the bible doesn't tell you about these years. Before you talk please read these books. Better yet read the bible and see all the discrepicys. I was baptised, communion and confermised in the Catholic faith, I have read the bible cover to cover! Have you! I am not asking anyone to believe in my faith not at all, I just challenge you read about other faiths, read about spiritualism really know about all religions before you try to understand your own! I did and that is why I am no longer catholic. I found that faith to be the least correct! Spiritualism was the very first religion the true religion the way Jesus Christ himself wanted us all to think and act. So please read these books and the bible before you try to do the Catholic thing and try to change the opinion of others. I don't want you guys to just take my word for it or believe what I belive, find out for yourselves!

[Sahaqiel 1232]

Chill, Paddymac. Nothing can be 100% proven fact in history.

BECAUSE WE'RE NOT THERE.

From what I know, the Jews did not really kill Jesus on the cross, the Romans did. (Spear of Longinus. A soldier threw it at his side. Then an eclipse happened and then an earthquake, but that was a geological coincidence because earthquakes are more likely to occur under an eclipse from the small gravitational tug.)

It's a total possibility the man had a wife and children. There's an effing BLACK HOLE before his prophetic days and after his childhood, which just could be because of Prince of Twilight's explanation.

Sahaqiel