Misconceptions about Christianity ;+)

Originally posted by Emily_Cragg
Teller, you be careful you don't think more of yourself than necessary. It's God who holds us up, and not we ourselves.

LAst time I looked it was my legs holding me up and they ARE part of ME!!!!
So you are wrong once again.
I believe there is no such thing as A god. I believe we are all part of some god, so therefore I am god,as well as every other human wether good or bad.
Never mind better the devil you know, better the god you know, he could be you.

Hi. I'm new, I'm only 15, I probably have a lot of misconceptions (don't we all), but I HAVE studied religion by myself for nigh on 5 years. Please correct me if you feel that I have a misconception or am out of line.

Christianity sprang from Judaism. It came up with it's own holidays, but some historical evidence does point to Christianity changing its holidays' dates to coincide with pagan ones, making them easier to convert.
Never once did Christ say that he wanted to form a new religion, he came to REFORM Judaism.

The bible is, I'm afraid, riddled with contradictions, even when these are taken in the correct context. I don't believe that this disproves the bible, it is merely human error due to the fact it took centuries to translate the bible from Hebrew into Latin. It's hard to grasp what an enormous task that must have been.

Now, Judaism itself sprang from the Mesopotamian religion, when a group of exiles were expelled from that land (I'm not sure of the exact details, such as who occupied Mesopotamia at the time, and what reasons they were expelled for. For more information read about the troubled history of Mesopotamia, a once great land and possibly the birth place of civilisation.)
The exiles then combined the many facets of their previous gods and created an all powerful god that they named YHWH (Known as Yahweh and Jehovah). They even had a vote on whether they thought that part of their prophecies should contain a Messiah or not. (The previous statement may be invalid, I am going by heresay from my Social Studies teacher on this one.)

So what we get is a derivation of a derivation. Christianity has its roots in Judaism, which has roots in Mesopotamian mythos. Christianity also 'stole' holidays from pagans. However, the truth of the matter is, i am not saying that this means that the religion is faulty.

I myself am a Wiccan, with many devout Christian friends. My religion was cobbled together from pagan practices, ancient mysticism and new age hoo hah, and yet it resonates deeply on a spiritual level with me. Borrowing things from other religions does not make my religion or Christianity any less valid. It is rather like the process of a scientific theory, in which some beliefs are kept, others removed, and it is a never ending search for a truth that will always evade us.

And at the very end, it isn't the truth which is important, its the searching .

Also, me being the idiot I am, I didn't realise that what I had viewed of the conversation was only the first page, so by now my arguments have probably become irrelevant, and I'm too lazy to read the rest right now. Sorry!

Great Jak, too many ignorant conclusions on Christianity on this board. What do you expect from a conspiracy board though? There are people here who believe in Reptilians yet find it somehow fallacious to conclude that Jesus Christ was the son of God and that Christianity has preserved it's teachings throughout the ages (well, a core group of believers of course, I'm not talking about the super church system which is rotten to the core obviously). I'm really disappointed with a few people on this board, who prefer to "go with the flow" in Christian bashing.

ps: Don't feel guilty if you believe in Reptilians, as Hamlet said to Horatio in Shakespeare's play:"There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy". People should keep an open mind instead of arrogantly condemning others while etching the very surface of what their source of scorn believes in.

[edit on 28-12-2005 by Nakash]

I seen it before. The unsuspecting Christian comes on board and shares his thoughts about God. Suddenly, the religionists jump in and start to complain that Christianity is a hodge podge of mixed religions. The dates were changed. No! it can't be that Christians actually worship a Jewish Messiah who is Himself a Jew.

Then come the unbelievers who finish the work of picking the flesh from the bones of the unsuspecting Christian saying "There ain't no God caus I hasn't seen him..." "The Bible was written by world population control freaks that vote for republican evangelical presidents..."

Lured and caught in the trap, the unsuspecting Christian starts to get a little upset and angry that he just got his mind kicked in by a bunch of worldly storm troopers posing as intellectual geniuses. Science has declared God is dead and so that should be the end of it, but no, I see movement! Wait!!... I think he's getting back up.. yes, the unsuspecting Christian has gotten to his feet again!! Now it's time for round Two, three, etc...

But the unbelievers never understand how the believers just keep getting punched out and keep coming back for more of the same. I really think they are enjoying it more than they let on.

But, as I said before, It's all about God and his Son Jesus. Not about religion and evil people who claim to be Christians. Just Jesus.

Jakko, I commend you of the worthy struggle that you have risen to. But I will say to you, be calm. Take a deep breath. Relax..... It's hard, I know, but all viewpoints are welcome and even though they don't let on, they are listening to you as you are to them.

So if we can all just put all the religion stuff aside and get to the part about God and Jesus, if we start there we would do well. Religion after all is man's attempt to reach God, but Jesus is God's atempt to reach man.

Is it time for another round? Let's go...!


Fromabove

From the Book of Genesis:

Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made.
____________________________

This could be another good thread

Fromabove

Originally posted by Jakko
You are mixing something up here.
Jesus was never hostile towards the pharisees, but the pharisees on the other hand, were quite hostile and even vicious towards him.
Jesus never attacked or questioned the pharisees, yet the pharisees questioned and attacked Jesus and eventually make the death of Jesus possible.

Err, actually YOU'RE WRONG...

Taken from: www.lastdays.org.uk...

Throughout His ministry, Jesus was openly opposed to the Pharisees. He denounced them publicly for their hypocrisy, spiritual blindness, and evil ways. The Pharisees had been entrusted with the guardianship of the Torah which was God's gift to Israel.

The law was intended to enable the Israelites to live righteous lives. But the Pharisees had corrupted the law. Disregarding any ethical considerations and being devoid of mercy, they imposed an intolerable burden of legal observance upon the common people. Life for the Jews became slavery to the legal precepts invented by the experts of the law.

Jesus condemned the Pharisees for being careful to appear righteous on the outside, while inside they were full of greed and wickedness. In the "Dictionary of the Bible" D. Eaton says,


"That which defiles a man is the evil condition of his own heart (Matthew 15:11ff, Mark 7:14ff). No action is of any moral worth unless it is the expression of the inward disposition."
Jesus called them blind guides who had shut the gates of heaven so that neither they nor the people could enter. He constantly attacked them for hypocrisy, calling them fools.


"But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in...
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these things ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee...." (Matthew 23:13, 23:23-26)

However it must be said that not all Pharisees were hypocrites. There were some who were sincere righteous people. When Nicodemus genuinely sought the truth, Jesus gave grace and instructed him in the way of Salvation (John 3: 1-21).
In "New Testament Survey" M. C. Tenney says,


"Not all of them were hypocrites. Nicodemus, who earnestly sought out Christ during His earthly ministry and ultimately shared with Joseph of Arimathea the responsibility of burying Jesus' body was a Pharisee,"
But to the self righteous, Jesus spoke in parables so that they would not understand (Matthew 13:11-15). On many occasions Jesus made reference to His Divinity, and asserted His authority over the Pharisees (John 10:33, Matthew 12:8).

Referring to their plans to kill Him, He compared them to tenants of a vineyard who wanted to kill the owner's son, in order to steal his inheritance (Matthew 21:38). Finally He declared that He was the Son of God, knowing the consequences.

This was too much for the Pharisees to bear. How could this man be the Son of God, a man who broke their Sabbath laws and ate with sinners? To their minds it was inconceivable.


"This is blasphemy!" they said.

"Crucify Him!" the people cried.
Throughout His ministry, Jesus had told them the truth.

Such was their blindness and hardness of heart that, when God came to them, they did not know Him.

Originally posted by Jakko
A lot of people made it their hobby to find contradictions in the bible and slam christians with them. I have seen too many of those kind of arguments before, and I have not seen one where the christian-slammer had a good point.

1. I'M A CHRISTIAN but even I can see that the book is NOT infallible.

Here's some good sites:

www.islamway.com...
www.bringyou.to...
www.infidels.org...

The literal coincidences prove that the bible was written by several people, spread out over a wide area who amalgamated their beliefs and theories into one book at a later date (or maybe someone else did it for them).

I'm positive there is a God, and I read the bible, but I don't take it completely at face value because its quite obvious humans wrote it. If God wants everyone to know what to do, then its been 2000 years, he could give us a new book quite easily, or made things a LOT clearer in the old book. There are so many religons that tie in with Christianity that its hard NOT to see the similarities.

I'm wondering that that site you keep posting a link to has blinded you somewhat to the truth of the matter, and I mean that in a concerned way. You should be allowed to question and judge works based on your OWN knowledge and mind, not have to research back to one single site over and over for the answers. If you're that concerned, then read the bible more, if you feel it isn't infallible, there should be answers to all your questions in there, rather than some website that might be far more biased than a '2000' year old book.

Originally posted by saint4God
Where is it written in the Book that Jesus is God?

www.biblehelp.org...

It's... not about Religion and Evil people who claim to be Christians. Just Jesus.

BINGO - we have a Winner!

[edit on 24-8-2007 by Seraphim_Serpente]

Originally posted by Seraphim_Serpente

It's... not about Religion and Evil people who claim to be Christians. Just Jesus.

BINGO - we have a Winner!

ok, it's about a person who may have no existed and was supposed to be god and perfect in every way but had no problem with sexism, racism, and slavery....... and had no problem with the genocides that were committed by the command of the father who is supposedly god...

and honestly, all the good stuff he had was said well before his supposed time