Has Christianity finally been debunked?

[kamikazi89]

it's definetly a choice, when it's not..then it becomes slavish devotion

[spicoli]

Originally Posted by verklingen

i can't speak for ziplock, but i have also incorporated the ideas of many beliefs into my own before i came to see life and the world as i do today. you see, that's all a religion is doing. . . giving a method for considering existence. the problem with organized religion, though, is that often this method includes denying the verity of other religions and methods, and this serves not to explain existence at all but instead serves only to explain its own explanation.



you always have the choice to believe whatever you wish. you say it doesn't feel like you've ever made a choice to believe in this way, but actually you decide moment by moment to maintain it.

since you consider yourself a christian i suggest you read jesus' words, stop displacing your responsibility for choice, and find out how powerful that responsibility actually makes you.

I understand completely what you are saying, perhaps I explained myself all wrong. It is a choice to believe, or not to believe, yes. I suppose what I meant to say was that it no longer FEELS that way.
I can remember as a teenager when I really began to contemplate life, love, God, and the universe. I do remember sitting around with my brothers and friends listening to everyone's point of view, taking it all in, and realizing my choice was to believe in God. It was a very easy choice, so easy that it didn't feel like a choice. Does that make a little more sense? It was a core belief. Deep inside my soul, I believe.
It's like looking at the sky and knowing that it is blue. (please don't come back with the whole 'you-only-think-it's-blue-cuz-someone-told-u-that argument, please.) I look to Jesus and know that He is my Saviour. I know He will save me if I ask Him to. That is all I meant. I don't displace any responsibility for choice. I embrace my choice.
Now, I don't follow the flock on a lot of things...I do not hate gays, or discriminate against them, and I do not judge others for their beliefs. I feel strongly about my morals and I do relate them to my faith, but those that do not follow the same path don't get hate or judgement or pitty from me. They get compassion from me because we are all just human. So I guess I should eat my former words about picking and choosing certain aspects of any given religion. Love

[kamikazi89]

dude, i totally feel ya..only for me..it's nina simone
..and syd
1peace:

[ziplock]

Ah forgot about this thread.

Originally Posted by spicoli

I don't feel the need to convince anyone of anything. Just like you said, I'm me. You CHOOSE not to commit to any one thing, and pick and CHOOSE what you like out of each, and discard what you don't? That, to me, doesn't make much sense, either.

Why not? What doesn't make sense? When someone comes up to you and starts telling you about anything do you immediately believe 100% everything they say? And no, the process is quite different from picking and choosing what I like and discarding what I don't. It's about taking an idea, any one, Jesus being the son of God for instance, and putting that idea in every possible environment you can think of and see how it survives. You continue to rationally and logically attack that idea. If it holds up, you bring it along with you for a while and look for another opportunity to test it. If it doesn't, you adapt it, revise it, until it possibly has no resemblance of what it once was. THAT process makes sense to me.


When you were 2, were you Christian? Did you know Jesus was your savior? Did you even know who Jesus was? Prior to you being exposed to Christian related material, did you even have an awareness of it? I didn't. I had to learn about Christianity, what the Bible is and what it says, who wrote it, why it's seen as important, who Jesus was, etc. That all took time and effort to learn.

I went kind of backwards I suppose. Prior to Christianity I had looked into (in great depth mind you) MANY other things. Philosophy ranging from the modern to the ancient. I looked into Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Sufism, etc, etc, etc. Christianity was one of the more recent ones I've looked into in depth. It and Islam really.

In this sense, I see so many schools of thought attempting to define and describe a universal phenomenon. That is life, existence, our relationship and place within it. To think that any particular one has it right is ludicrous to me. To say that Christianity is the right one makes no sense when many of the fundamental concepts and principles contained in it is contained and touched on in SO many ways in SO many other schools of thought. The very subject, the relationship between humanity and life, is so vast and so complex, our own perspective so limited in it's view of it, that it takes an INCREDIBLE stretch of the mind to think that we can be so sure of something as to dismiss everything else.

Originally Posted by spicoli

And I suppose I don't see my belief in Chrisitanity as a choice. It's just what I believe. It just doesn't feel like the 'choice' to believe, it's part of who I am inside. I guess it wasn't ever a choice for me, it just was, and I trusted it, and I still do.

You are an instrument of experience. Life passes through you like breath through a flute. Christianity is but one note that has been chosen to be included in the melody that is you. That choice was made by the one who plays the instrument. It's carried only so long as it's played. You can really stop playing it whenever.

People's identification is a funny thing. It's tragic and beautiful in a sense. I should take the time more to show my respect for it. I don't want one to feel under attack for their beliefs. Beliefs can open up doors and give you great power. I just do not believe that belief should suspend critical thinking and skepticism. It's about establishing a sort of "trinity" between the 3.

[spicoli]

Very eloquent and well thought out. But you missed my last post. I did eat my words for picking and choosing different parts of different faiths, beliefs, etc...Because, although I am a Catholic Christian, there are certain aspects of my religion that I do not agree with, so I am a hypocrite.
For example, I do not believe that in the end all gays will go to hell. I just don't. And I KNOW there are TONS of Christians that would pounce on me for even thinking that. I have a few very close friends who are gay, and are such GOOD people, that my God would never turn them away. He is loving and compassionate, and can and will see the good in those who love him.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, which happens sometimes (hehehe), but I never said that Christianity is the ONLY way. I believe, for MY Salvation, that this is the path I must follow. I'm not sure what that makes me. Ignorant, maybe. But like I have said in posts prior, I believe we are all praying (those of us who pray) to the same God, He just has different names and different customs for all the cultures of the world. So in some strange way, I believe that we are united in our faith.
I do not dismiss other beliefs. I just do not subscribe to them.
There are some different religions that I just simply cannot imagine a sane person believing in, and I recognize that some folks feel the same way about Christianity. I am not an evangelist, I do not preach the Word, or stuff it down other people's throats, because I detest that.
So, that's that.

[kamikazi89]

yea, it's all about individuality now..so in that sense christianity as a dogmatic world view has significantly changed with the times(esp. in europe)

[ziplock]

Originally Posted by spicoli

Very eloquent and well thought out. But you missed my last post. I did eat my words for picking and choosing different parts of different faiths, beliefs, etc...Because, although I am a Catholic Christian, there are certain aspects of my religion that I do not agree with, so I am a hypocrite.

Thank you And I don't find it hypocritical, I find it smart and natural. We all personalize our beliefs, regardless of the "brand" associated to them. Considering this I find it makes sense to simply personalize all your beliefs and discard the "borders" we erect between one belief and another. Walk freely.

Originally Posted by spicoli

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, which happens sometimes (hehehe), but I never said that Christianity is the ONLY way. I believe, for MY Salvation, that this is the path I must follow. I'm not sure what that makes me. Ignorant, maybe. But like I have said in posts prior, I believe we are all praying (those of us who pray) to the same God, He just has different names and different customs for all the cultures of the world. So in some strange way, I believe that we are united in our faith.
I do not dismiss other beliefs. I just do not subscribe to them.

The salvation or savior aspect of Christianity seems to be a big selling point. I've never really bought into it as I haven't found a need for a savior or for salvation. I also have a deeply, perhaps intuitive, belief that the one who is to play the role of my savior is none other than my self. That may simply be egotistical musings but who knows.

Originally Posted by spicoli

There are some different religions that I just simply cannot imagine a sane person believing in, and I recognize that some folks feel the same way about Christianity. I am not an evangelist, I do not preach the Word, or stuff it down other people's throats, because I detest that.
So, that's that.

Very good I'm glad you do not do that. It's not the most charming aspect of a devout follower.

[kamikazi89]

when Jesus performed miracles, He was demonstrating His power over Nature.

lol

[BeTheChange]

Originally Posted by citizen abuse

I admit right up front that I don't have a religious bone in my body - OK, I'm an atheist. But I've always respected and accepted people of faith and their right to worship their various faiths. However, in recent years I've become increasingly fed up with the constant onslaught of attacks directed at people like me, and others, by a very vocal segment of the Christian community. Just a few months ago the pope equated all athiests to be evil like Hitler and Stalin.

Recently a friend who was privy to my feelings told me about an explosive new expose that tries - and does a pretty good job of doing so, I might add - to finally debunk the foundations of Christianity. Upon reading it, I was stunned by the piece's validity. I want to point out that it is only for general information that I post the link to it here. I also understand that there's a possibility that some might want to tar and feather me for doing so. To those people I say before you go attacking me, you might want to try to dispute the arguments made in the piece. There's no question that the issues raised are valid and open to mature debate:

The final debunking of Christianity

I dont believe this shit for a second! It looks like something some random guy wrote. I mean, I dont believe in religions either. But I have been searching on my own and know for a fact that the bible/torah is true, but people have been interpreting in incorrectly and using it as a means of gaining control of people.

If you were to really look back into the history of everything, you would see. The bible was written by the semites, who came BEFORE the hebrews. The hebrews adopted it as their own, but misinterpreted it. It is full of symbols.

Have you thought about evolution? See how we have competely STOPPED evolving? This is due to our minds and where they have taken us. We have seperated ourselves from nature; we have broken the single rul of the earth, and this is what the bible is about. It all ties together, and i figured this all out. How does the government and the higher levels of religions tie in? Well, they are nuts with power, and all they care about is spreading and consuming. People are insane, but the bible is amazing AND true. But not in the way you have always known or always been taught... look deeper into your lives. There is so much potential, but we must give up this world we have always known. It is not real, and it is destroying the planet and ourselves. If we dont go back, we will be destroyed.

Marissa

[SweetSativa]

From what I can see, EVERYONE picks what they like or what they feel they have to from one or many systems of belief. Every sermon from every church that I have ever been to has represented a subjective interpretation either of written word or of assumed Laws of God. I base my beliefs in a subjective way to... I pick the things out of the bible that make particular light to me. If they produce dark, I assume that they are not really relevant to the reason(s) that I may have decided to pick up the bible. Fortunately, it seems to be one of those books (although it's not a single book, of course) that I can pick up and open up to exactly what I need to read when I feel drawn to do it. For me, a personal relationship with divinity is more important than any single belief system. I live within the Bible Belt and I see allot of bullshit. I was going to say that I see allot of fundamentalists but I don't even believe that this is true. I would rather say that I see a great many hypocrite crusaders who want to save me so badly, are so afraid for my soul that they have taken their own salvation for granted. They're working their asses off to get me to 'sign up'... I'm a nice person and they hate to see me end up in hell . So anyway, they're so involved in the cause of leading the sheeple to God that they have forgotten where they're going. They're so busy seeing sin and seeing evil that the love that was once in their hearts has been pushed out by an addiction to fear and drama.

Anyway, I don't think any 'religion' will ever be 'debunked'. Looking at the Bible, the collection of books that make it up... some parts of that may be. Just read what's in the red.

[kamikazi89]

Originally Posted by BeTheChange

I dont believe this shit for a second! It looks like something some random guy wrote. I mean, I dont believe in religions either. But I have been searching on my own and know for a fact that the bible/torah is true, but people have been interpreting in incorrectly and using it as a means of gaining control of people.


Marissa

Radiocarbon dating - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[citizen abuse]

Originally Posted by BeTheChange

I dont believe this shit for a second! It looks like something some random guy wrote. I mean, I dont believe in religions either. But I have been searching on my own and know for a fact that the bible/torah is true, but people have been interpreting in incorrectly and using it as a means of gaining control of people.

If you were to really look back into the history of everything, you would see. The bible was written by the semites, who came BEFORE the hebrews. The hebrews adopted it as their own, but misinterpreted it. It is full of symbols.

Have you thought about evolution? See how we have competely STOPPED evolving? This is due to our minds and where they have taken us. We have seperated ourselves from nature; we have broken the single rul of the earth, and this is what the bible is about. It all ties together, and i figured this all out. How does the government and the higher levels of religions tie in? Well, they are nuts with power, and all they care about is spreading and consuming. People are insane, but the bible is amazing AND true. But not in the way you have always known or always been taught... look deeper into your lives. There is so much potential, but we must give up this world we have always known. It is not real, and it is destroying the planet and ourselves. If we dont go back, we will be destroyed.

Marissa

I've got news for you. If you believe the Bible is true, then you believe in Christianity.

Do you believe that every word in the Bible is true and therefore none of it can be questioned?

[spicoli]

^^I'm not gonna speak for BTC, but much of what is written in the Bible is interpretive. We aren't supposed to take it all literally, and that's where many Bible thumpers get into trouble, imo.

[Parallax]

how can one tell that evolution has stopped? the changes from one generation to the next are so minute that they are pretty imperceptable.

[citizen abuse]

Originally Posted by spicoli

^^I'm not gonna speak for BTC, but much of what is written in the Bible is interpretive. We aren't supposed to take it all literally, and that's where many Bible thumpers get into trouble, imo.

All I know is that there's a significant number of Christians who adhere to the position that every word of the Bible is true and, therefore, none of it can be questioned. This was highlighted during the Republican primary debate that was sponsored by Youtube. A questioner sent in a video asking all the candidates if they believed that every word of the Bible is true. The question was clearly meant to intimidate.