Christianity is the most popular religion in the world today, with an estimated two billion followers around the world, and is the predominant religion in the two American continents, Europe, Australia and sub-Saharan Africa. Thus if a person’s spiritual orientation is actually NEUTRAL, then he is most likely to be Christian because there are simply more Christian families in the world than those of any other religion. However, there are people who, even if they are raised in a non-Christian religion, may be unhappy with their family’s faith and may decide that Christianity is a better one for them. This blog entry is for them as well as for others that may be looking for a “true” version of the Christian faith, whatever their original background.
- Remember that Jesus, said to be the founder of Christianity, was a JEW, as were his early disciples. Therefore anyone who is a genuine Christian would also love and respect the Jewish religion and people. Anti-Semitism should have absolutely NO place among Christians.
- Jesus himself wrote nothing that survives to this day; what you read about him in the Christian Scriptures (commonly called the New Testament) are second-hand accounts of what some people thought he said. Do not take those quotations at face value. Do not believe that the Bible or any part of it is the infallible Word of God. That is actually an insult to any real God that may exist. Remember that one form of idolatry is attributing God’s glory to anything man-made, including books that have references to God himself in them.
- The many references in the Christian Scriptures to the coming of the kingdom of God were interpreted by many Christian leaders as referring to the literal coming of Jesus to conquer the world and directly rule it afterwards. This is absurd; if that was the case, it should have happened while the generation that lived in the time of Jesus still was around. They have all been dead for over 1900 years. Those prophecies must already have been fulfilled with the rise of Christianity to take over the formerly Pagan dominated Roman Empire. Writers like Hal Lindsey who claimed otherwise were lying to us.
- Remember that the Apostle Paul, who wrote about half of the Christian Scriptures that were later accepted by the early Christian community as valid, was not even an original disciple of Jesus. He led some of the early Christians, including many from non-Jewish backgrounds, in a very different direction from the groups that consisted mostly of Jews. The Jewish groups eventually faded away, leaving the non-Jewish ones. The result was a badly distorted faith. After all these centuries, we simply have no way of knowing if Paul was a legitimate Christian leader or not.
- In most cases, you must be a CHRISTIAN and nothing else. Do NOT claim as your primary religious identity any subdivision within Christianity, such as Roman Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Mormon, or anything else. You would be a Christian who might go to a Baptist or Catholic church, but that’s it. Reject as necessary or justified any division within the Christian community that claims to be the one true religion. It is only CHRISTIANITY itself that ever should have made that claim. Not Mormonism, not the Jehovah’s Witnesses, nor any other such radical “reformist” or “restorationist” group within Christianity. These are simply additional divisions that do more damage to the credibility of Christianity itself.
- There is one exception to this: if you are also a member of a religious group that is actually multifaith, like the Unitarian Universalist Association. Then you should distinguish yourself from non-Christian UUs, but also celebrate the UUism you have in common with them. Check out this website: http://www.uuchristian.com/ Also read this:
Christian Voices in Unitarian Universalism
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I think any religious nutbucket needs a check up from the neck up and the fanatics need a ticket to an asylum. The first thing that stood out to me when I was young and impressionable and getting this crap rammed into my brain was it appeared that Paul the fake apostle, after trying to wipe out Christians, infiltrated and basically did what he could to destroy them from the inside. I thought who can simply fake a vision of Jesus and voila!? Only in the bible is such nonsense acceptable. Paul writes a lot of what is in the Big book of Superstition, and repeatedly contradicts himself and if that isn’t enough what about all the scifi gobbledygook? How can anyone not understand what a huge mess of nonsense the Bible is? It’s 2018 for crying out loud! Closed minded fools running about in this day and age baffles me, when everything one needs to know about religion and how/why it was created is readily available to research.
The whole thing is out of control but you have to admit it is fascinating. I read that modern day psychiatry is now labeling religious myth believers as mentally ill, the insanity of full grown adults believing such nonsense suffer from psychosis. Then there are brilliant people like Chuck Missler, I mean what is his excuse? I always want to know if anyone I have to associate with is any kind of religious weirdo, simply because i cannot trust their logic and cannot and do not want to know them. To me, they are insane. Now about those crazy Jehovah Witness freaks that won’t stop banging on my door.. The ones that let family members die because of their sickening interpretation of some garbage passage in the Big Book of Stupidity…
Thanks for your rant, much appreciated.
You are very misguided.
#1 Christ was not the “founder” of Christianity. The Christian church came into being after Christ died. The Jewish people were the ones who had Christ crucified (although the Romans actually put Him on the cross). The Jewish people abide by the Law and that was Christ’s purpose to fulfill the Law and to be a unblemished sacrifice. So, most Christians don’t hate the Jewish religion, but they do not agree a Law based faith.
#2 The Gospels were 1st had accounts. The disciples wrote the Gospels. They were there an witnessed the miracles themselves. The fact that they were written at roughly the same time, kinda rules out collusion. They were very much geographically separated, but were able to write their accounts without contradicting one another. And not sure what you mean, but imost Christian’s and Biblical scholars believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, meaning that God had them write what he wanted them to write (i.e. men and a few women wrote it, but it was not “man-made”), there is no idolatry involved.
#3 The Jews thought that the Messiah was going to give the kingdom on Earth back to them, but Christ himself in Acts 6 said that was not his purpose. When Christ comes back, He is to rule the world.
#4 While true that Saul (Paul) persecuted the early Christians, he became a fervent believer based on what he witnessed, converted, and then renounced everything that he did prior. He didn’t distort anything. He completely changed and turned his ways. You are distorting what happened to Paul.
#5 Christianity is a religion, the Baptists, Lutherans, Catholics, etc. are denominations. They still believe in Christ and they follow His doctrine, but they have slightly different beliefs that do not change the core belief in Christ. Some believe, for example, that baptism has to be done with total immersion other that sprinkling of water is enough. I won’t get into why the two you used are especially bad examples, but pretty much all the other churches get along well and they don’t proclaim “that if you are not x, you are going to hell!”
Reply to John:
#1 You are the first person ever to claim to me that Jesus himself did not found the Christian religion. So the Sermon of the Mount and all those other speeches he made are not part of Christianity? Of course they were. And did you know that Jesus in that sermon said that his followers must obey the Law completely?
Matthew 5: 17-20: 17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
#2 We do not really know who wrote the Gospels; the traditional attributions to their authorship are unfounded. And as for lacking contradictions:
It is clear that both the writers of Matthew’s Gospel and Luke’s Gospel made up details about Jesus’ early history to make him look greater than he was. Neither of them are credible. And the Gospels of Mark and John lack such things completely, as I think they should.
#3 That is merely a rationalization to explain why Jesus failed in his mission. You don’t think the concept of the Messiah as the Jews understood it is right? What arrogance you have!
#4 You believe what Paul and his followers claimed about him. I don’t and even some early Christians that were of Jewish background never accepted him. A thousand years from now, would Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, be considered a true Christian leader too by nearly all other Christians? Same difference!
#5 You should have seen what was happening during the Protestant Reformation, when the Catholic Church and the Protestants were literally trying to destroy each other’s communities. Only when it was clear that would not happen without mass extermination of the peoples involved did things settle down. Then the concept of separation of church and state was established to prevent more religious wars among Christians. That is a SECULAR concept that Christians have no right to claim.
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