Over in the Cafe there is an interesting thread about C.S Lewis and the Narnia books, on that thread I mentioned I hated said books partly due to the Christian moralizing as I hated and feared Christianity.
As predicted I then had a few responses giving their opinions. I have decided to start this thread in the hope we can all have a sensible discussion of our various opinions.
** While I hate and fear Christianity itself I do not hate Christians. I would like to make it clear from the start I admire anybody who has the strength of mind to believe in something entirely without question. I am not trying to have a go at Christian people or members of any other denomination **
It has been my experience that Christians who have total belief tend not to think about things to much, they tend not to ask philosophical questions, where did God come from? Is he a fallible being? Does he really care if we all get drunk on a Saturday night? (Wales is a Methodist Country).
I fear Christianity because there are people who believe in an omnipotent being from whom they can ask anything so they ask him for they handsome guy on the bus to ask them out, they ask him that their partner won’t find out about their affair, they ask for the dying to live. They ask things only for themselves.
My own personal philosophy is that there is a God or Being or Logos, I don’t believe in him and I will not worship him. I Believe you should take and do what you want in this life but you will pay for it, in one way or another.
I think it is pretty silly to hate and fear Christianity. I’m also unsure how you can do that but not hate or fear Christians in general. If I said I hated and feared homosexuality but didn’t hate homosexuals I’d be laughed at. What you’re saying is “hate the sin but love the sinner” and that just doesn’t fly.
How could you admire anyone who believes in something that you hate and fear? I hate communism and fascism and I’d be pretty scared if they weren’t currently so toothless. I certainly don’t respect anyone who is a dyed in the wool pinko or who wears a brown shirt. (Especially both at the same time. A lack of fashion sense is what I hate and fear the most.)
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Then you have a pretty narrow view of Christians. There are plenty of philsophical clergy and laymen. There are of course plenty of others who don’t really think very much but that isn’t limited to Christians. If I had a nickle for every fuzzy thinking pagan I met I’d be a rich man.
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Why is your fear and hatred limited to Christians in specific? Just about every religion I know of involves prayer of some sort. They’ve got temples and shrines devoted to gods or spirits on every continent except Antartica.
I’m not sure that this is a fair, accurate or comprehensive assessment of Christianity and how Christians express it.
Assuming that you think it is a fair, accurate and comprehensive assessment, I’m not sure whether you think Christianity is unique in this regard, or whether you are using “Christianity” as a synonym for “theism” or “religion” or something else.
(The big one.) Assuming that you think your assessment is fair, accurate and comprehensive, and that it does relate to Christianity, I’m not sure why this makes you fearful. How does the fact that other people engage in selfish rogatory prayer affect you? What exactly are you afraid of?
I suppsoe the OP has never heard of St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Sir Thomas More, and so forth, just to mention three from one denominition, and the distant past.
I find this statement hard to understand. You believe there is a God, then you turn around and say you don’t believe in Him and refuse to worship Him? How can you believe in Him and not believe in Him? You say you should do what you wantt but yet you know you’ll pay the consequences? We all take the consequences of whatever choices we make. That reminds me of someone saying well, I’m going to walk off this cliff because I think I should be able to do what I want, but I know I’ll pay the consequences.
What is there to fear about the loving God who sent Jesus to die for your sins so you could have eternal life? You either accept or reject, what’s to hate about it? Have you read the Bible at all?
And yes, rejection of God’s provision does have consequences.
Incidently, for some odd reason, I find this question about the affair rather ludicrous, don’t ask me why? A few of the other ones strike me as strange too, but hey that’s just me. :rolleyes:
I fear all the large, institutionalised religions, but I don’t hate nor fear individual religious people. This is not the same as “hate the sin, love the sinner”, because I don’t fear the belief, just the institution. Does anyone see the distinction here?
There are certain formulations of Christianity–of any living religion, for that matter–that make me gibber, but I don’t fear them–I merely worry that the people who hold to them, who are the real source of force (catchy), will gain more temporal power. Those people and the relationships between them comprise a multitude–occasionally a legion–of individual forces. Luckily, schism effects tend to produce an anarchists’ football team effect–all that force running in umpty different vectors.
Er, Christians are encouraged to think for themselves and to ask philiosphical questions. It is the people running the church who doesn’t want the ‘flock’ under them to think too much. This is why I tend to dislike churches.
Christanity at its core emphasis a personal relationship with God. Without going into too much details (Bible verses and what-not), a Christian’s relationship is between himself and God, and God says different things to everyone, so blindly following the orders of someone is not going to help. If anyone is interested, try finding the book “Ordering your Private Life” by someone named Gordon Macdonald, chapter 8 & 9.
It is good for Christians to ask difficult questions - because not everything in Christanity is as clear-cut as it seems to be (to believers, I mean). IMHO, the Christian who have asked himself difficult questions and resolve them have a much firmer belief than those who never asked or questioned what they believed.
In another thread on prayer, Christians don’t haggle and demand things from God, like a vending machine or what-not. It’s not like summoning Cthulhu, you know, find the right parchment, scarifice the right number of virgins (or what-not), dance the right dance and wait for the stars to be right. There is no way a Christian or any group of Christians could force God to do something which He doesn’t want to do.
The reason they ‘pray’, or ask God, is because from the percpetive that God and Christians share a ‘personal relationship’ (like a good friend or a good father) and they are ‘sharing’ to God like they would share to any other good friend. It doesn’t increase the chances of anything happen.
The last statement is quite woefully wrong. Jesus and the apostle Paul encouraged Christians to put others’ interest ahead of themselves, and this I believe translates into praying for others as well.
I fear fundamentalist of any religion, including my own. Any scripture can be selectively quoted to support one’s argument, purposely possible by the Divine Author IMHO. This divine ambigulity separates those who read to learn what their religion is about from those who quote to teach others what the religion is about.
Unless you believe Jesus died for your sins and accept him as your personal savior, in which case you go to heaven with zero consequences for your actions on earth no matter how inhumanly evil.
Oh my, my, another person generlizing. How shocking. Why, I feel as though I’m an personally responsible for all the naughty things done by anyone calling themselves Christian since 1 A.D.