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  1. #13

    Re: What are your doubts about religion/Christianity

    Quote Originally Posted by OhThePossibilities View Post
    Where I saw people lose sight of the basics was when they became more concerned about how they could get to heaven and used faith in Jesus as a get out of jail free card. And when they used other people's lack of belief in Jesus or belief in another religion as a division that allowed them to look down on others and disregard them. Hell, even within Christianity people squabble over who is more right in their practices.

    This is my main beef with organized religion. That its divisions only build walls between various peoples of the world. It really only tends to be a problem the more fundamental and hardline the sect is though.
    Quote Originally Posted by NCRAVEN View Post
    Understood. But that's not quite how it works. Look at Paul's letter to the Roman's 5, 6. Faith in Jesus doesn't mean a free pass to do as you please.
    I think it's not necessarily fundamental or hard-line. It's the Once Saved Always Saved crowd. They've go this wrong idea in their head that if you are concerned with what will happen to you in the after life, well then you simply don't believe properly, cuz once you are truly 'born again' then your are 'saved' forever.





  2. #14
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    Re: What are your doubts about religion/Christianity

    Quote Originally Posted by wickedsolo View Post
    What I will say is that having kids and getting older, I have been thinking about my own mortality a little and I would love to think that there is something after this world/life so that when I'm gone, it's not equivalent to turning a light switch off in a room. It's scary and sad all at the same time to think about. But what are you going to do? That's life.
    Interesting. I too think about my mortality a lot more since having kids but come to a much different conclusion. My kids have only reassured my belief there is something more out there. My love for my kids, more than anything else, have shown there are things out there that are very real but unexplainable.

    I'm more convinced than ever that there's more to it than just flipping a light switch and it's done.





  3. #15
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    Re: What are your doubts about religion/Christianity

    Quote Originally Posted by wickedsolo View Post
    What I will say is that having kids and getting older, I have been thinking about my own mortality a little and I would love to think that there is something after this world/life so that when I'm gone, it's not equivalent to turning a light switch off in a room. It's scary and sad all at the same time to think about. But what are you going to do? That's life.
    This is what made me doubt everything altogether as I was wondering... do I just want to believe because I don't want this to be the end? But after "investigating" and looking at all the evidence, I can't come to any other conclusion other than Jesus was who he said he was.

    Quote Originally Posted by wickedsolo View Post
    I have a lot of doubts about Christianity, but I feel the same way about any religion

    As HR said, religion was a way for uneducated people (by no fault of their own) to understand the physical world around them.

    "Why does the sun come up?"

    -God said, let there be light.

    -Apollo rides his chariot across the sky every day.

    "Why are there different seasons?"

    -Persephone travels to the underworld to live with her husband, Hades, during fall and winter. Then, during spring, she comes back to earth from the underworld where she can be with her mother.
    When the bible says "and God said let there be light" it was referring to the creation of the universe. I agree with the others that those are mans attempts to explain those things

    Quote Originally Posted by wickedsolo View Post
    Re Jesus, I don't believe that he was the son of God because I honestly am not even sure such a thing exists. I do believe that Jesus, the man, existed. I believe that he was likely a highly evolved and intelligent man. I also believe that he was well versed in multiple cultures (which was unheard of at the time) and there is evidence to suggest that he traveled around the middle east and Mediterranean. But I don't think that there was anything supernatural about him. I just think that one needs to consider that a vast majority of people at that time were uneducated and inexperienced outside of their small bubble, so when someone like Jesus comes along and he knows herbal remedies for ailments, he knows how to brew beer and make wine ("turning water to wine"), he knows how to talk to people, he knows how to organize and accomplish social desires. In a sense, Jesus was not all that different than other revolutionaries throughout history. It's all relative, but if you were to take someone with a highly evolved sense of being and a high intellect and put them in a group of uneducated and unworldly people, that someone is by default going to look supernatural. We saw this during World War 2 when American GI's would land on a remote Pacific island with primitive tribes that had no idea of how big the world actually was off their island. Those tribes truly believed that the American GI's were gods because of their clothes, ships, and aircraft. To them, it was supernatural that American GI's could fly (in an airplane).
    Turning water into wine wasn’t he knew how to make wine, he was at a wedding that ran out of wine and his Mother asked to help. And he turned jugs of water into wine. I can expand on this if you want but that’s what that was about.

    Regarding him being supernatural, I guess it depends on if you believe he was also the David Copperfield of his time (joking) and tricked people or he actually turned water into wine, walked on water, made a paralyzed man walk, raised a man from the dead and was resurrected etc. Based on the eyewitness accounts (The gospels) and sources outside the bible, I do. (happy to talk about those if you’d like)

    Quote Originally Posted by wickedsolo View Post
    I also think that there are so many differing opinions on God, faith, the afterlife...who is really right? Is anyone right? No one knows and I think that telling someone that they're wrong because they believe something different is a terrible thing to do.
    But saying no one is right isn't much different. All that's really saying is everyone is wrong.





  4. #16
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    Re: What are your doubts about religion/Christianity

    Quote Originally Posted by NCRAVEN View Post
    But saying no one is right isn't much different. All that's really saying is everyone is wrong.
    Pretty much, yes.





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    Re: What are your doubts about religion/Christianity

    Quote Originally Posted by HoustonRaven View Post
    Pretty much, yes.
    Come to think of it, it's really not different at all. Saying everyone else is wrong is saying your right!





  6. #18
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    Re: What are your doubts about religion/Christianity

    Quote Originally Posted by NCRAVEN View Post
    This is what made me doubt everything altogether as I was wondering... do I just want to believe because I don't want this to be the end? But after "investigating" and looking at all the evidence, I can't come to any other conclusion other than Jesus was who he said he was.



    When the bible says "and God said let there be light" it was referring to the creation of the universe. I agree with the others that those are mans attempts to explain those things



    Turning water into wine wasn’t he knew how to make wine, he was at a wedding that ran out of wine and his Mother asked to help. And he turned jugs of water into wine. I can expand on this if you want but that’s what that was about.

    Regarding him being supernatural, I guess it depends on if you believe he was also the David Copperfield of his time (joking) and tricked people or he actually turned water into wine, walked on water, made a paralyzed man walk, raised a man from the dead and was resurrected etc. Based on the eyewitness accounts (The gospels) and sources outside the bible, I do. (happy to talk about those if you’d like)


    But saying no one is right isn't much different. All that's really saying is everyone is wrong.
    But what if everyone is right?


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    Disclaimer: The content posted is of my own opinion.





  7. #19
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    Re: What are your doubts about religion/Christianity

    Quote Originally Posted by wickedsolo View Post
    But what if everyone is right?


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    Ideally, that'd be great. But not possible. All other religions say "this is the way". In Christianity Jesus says " I am the way"





  8. #20
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    Re: What are your doubts about religion/Christianity

    Quote Originally Posted by NCRAVEN View Post
    Come to think of it, it's really not different at all. Saying everyone else is wrong is saying your right!
    No. It's saying we don't / can't know the answer.

    Finite beings trying to understand something that's infinite, by definition, is an exercise in futility.





  9. #21
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    What are your doubts about religion/Christianity

    Quote Originally Posted by NCRAVEN View Post
    Ideally, that'd be great. But not possible. All other religions say "this is the way". In Christianity Jesus says " I am the way"
    But that's just it. Everyone believes their way is the right way. I see no reason to believe that all Judeo-Christian sects are not basically about the same guy (or, is God a woman?). Maybe Buddha and Jesus were the same guy? Why not?

    I actually went to a youth group when I was in high school and I brought this very topic up. The youth leader goes "ok, well for Paul, we'll say that our god is the 'Big G' and all of the others are 'little G's'..."

    I never went back.

    That's not faith. That's arrogance and elitism.

    Re the Bible - it's a book. It's a collection of stories. I know that probably makes me sound like an asshole to those who believe it to be the word of God, but I don't see it that way. I'm no Bible expert, but there are great ethics guidelines on just being a decent person. However, realistically, the Bible is a collection of stories that were voted on and assembled for political reasons (Council of Nicea).

    To go back to your comment that Jesus turned water to wine at a party, I logically cannot take the literal interpretation of that story seriously. What I can take seriously, because of logic, is that Jesus taught people how to make wine (which uses water as an ingredient). You can make wine in as little as 10 days and a lot of ancient recipes for beer and wine used a lot of honey to offset the flavor and increase fermentation activity.

    The point is, how easy would it be for the story of Jesus teaching folks to make wine for an upcoming celebration to evolve into he waved his hand over water and turned it into wine at a party? Sit 20 people in a circle and play the game telephone where the first person says a sentence and by the time it gets back around, it has completely changed.

    Here's the thing, I'm not saying that Jesus didn't do these things. However, I think literal acceptance of what the Bible says is illogical and does more harm to spreading Jesus's morals and messages than it does to help that.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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  10. #22
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    Re: What are your doubts about religion/Christianity

    Quote Originally Posted by HoustonRaven View Post
    No. It's saying we don't / can't know the answer.

    Finite beings trying to understand something that's infinite, by definition, is an exercise in futility.
    Word.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    Disclaimer: The content posted is of my own opinion.





  11. #23
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    Re: What are your doubts about religion/Christianity

    Quote Originally Posted by HoustonRaven View Post
    No. It's saying we don't / can't know the answer.

    Finite beings trying to understand something that's infinite, by definition, is an exercise in futility.
    So no one can be right?





  12. #24
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    Re: What are your doubts about religion/Christianity

    Quote Originally Posted by NCRAVEN View Post
    So no one can be right?
    No.





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