All day, I read and hear about what athiests have to say about "Christian hypocrites." About how Christians "pick and choose" out of the bible. And in respose to this, Christians get angry and retaliate in anger. Speaking up against the non believers.
But me? I do things that a lot of Christians dont like.
As many of you know, I stepped out of my Christian upbringing and decided to, for myself, figure the whole religion thing out. However, I still have found myself having to argue the Christian side of things to people that I talk to. But here is the thing I noticed
As a Christian, I had certain beliefs that werent popular with other christians. However, these beliefs were bible based. I wrote two blogs that had to do with them. 1. Halloween: For Christians, and 2. Its true, Im an Adventist.
What sucks about these blogs is, I get little support from either side and it seems to me that EVERYONE is contradicting themselves.
A. The non-believer normally says: Christians are such hypocrites. They pick and chose what they want out of the bible and it doesnt even go with how they live thier lives.
So here I am, trying my best to NOT pick and chose out of the bible. I come to the conclusion that Christians should not celebrate halloween (from my biblical and historical research). But the non-believers (and this isnt just in my blog, this is in everyday life as well) attack me because of the fact that I dont agree with the holiday that they love so much. But really, Im doing the thing that they critizise Christians for NOT doing.
B. The believer normally says: I will defend my God, i dont care what sacrifices I have to make. The bible is all true and inspired by God. I believe every word.
So here I am, presenting the WORD and there is next to NO christian support. You know why? Because it is something against what most Christians are taught to believe. But if you tell them that they are wrong, they suddenly dont believe in certain parts. All of a sudden, their support for the bible has disappeared. No positive Christian response that was "anti-halloween". No positive Christian response about "The sabbath"...Christians are happy celebrating halloween. Christians are comfortable doing whatever they want on the Sabbath. But when it comes to something like Gay marraige...Oh, the bible is thier friend!! It almost makes me sick.
This is one of the reasons why I had to rethink religion. Because as a Christian, I wasnt even backed by my own. Christians didn't have my back when I was defending THIER book. Where was the Christian support for me? Where was the support for some one who really tried to follow the bible in its entirety?
I doubt I will get support on this blog either. Oh well, Im used to it. I dont think I can please anyone unless I write about racism or something.
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Church is about support, or criticism from your fellow Christians.
Being a follower of Jesus Christ is about loving God with all of your heart. If the behavior of anyone including people that call themselves Christians is a reason to 'rethink religion' then you probably should.
"Christians get angry and retaliate in anger."
Consider this vs. how Jesus taught them to act.
No one is a perfect ideal, but the teachings are an ideal. That ideal is one of repentance to the truth, love for your fellow man including your enemies, and forgiveness. Reread this post with those core values in mind.
You are criticising both believers, and non-believers where is the forgiveness? The point of not celebrating Halloween is cosistant with old testament teachings, if by celebrate haloween you mean placing faith in the powers of witches and evil spirits. Since this is a candy day for most observers you look a little foolish placing much importance in it. Giving candy to people is as Christian as church on suday no matter how they dress.
Literal interpretation of the bible leads in many sometimes conflicting directions. Every word of the bible was written by men. Jesus was a man. When people tried to call him good he refused the title saying it belonged to God alone. Our God created the entire universe, and all natural laws are his laws.
God bless you, and may he guide you to greater love, forgiveness, and understanding.
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much."
Oscar Wilde
Christianity is not about picking sides. Its also deefinitely not about pleasing non-believers. This is why Jesus was crucified, because he outraged the non-believers with his claims.
Christianity, to me, in its truest form is similar to Buhddism. Our faith is about finding a personal relationship with our lord and savior. It even has nothing to do with attending sunday service. Your faith should be that; yours. As long as you have a strong personal relationship with your God, and you stay true to that relationship, then it doesn't matter who backs your arguments or who is against you. You will have salvation.
This is why I rarely comment about religion. Its a touchy subject.
"my first name must be, "He aint sh@t", cause everytime I come through, yall be like "He aint sh@t"!....I'll be dat" --Redman
"Anything that can go wrong, Will go wrong"----Murphy's Law
What alot of non-christians fail to see (sometime on purpose) is that while a christian will spout out morals, they may not live by them.
Not because they're trying to oppress and deceive, but because we're not perfect. We're humans and sin and make mistakes.
That we struggle to be good doesn't change what is true or untrue.
I think that Christianity or religion has to do with you and your relationship with God and your faith and belief in him. It shouldnt matter if you have support from others. There are many people out there who call themselves Chritstian but do not live the life and we see that in every religion. That is probably why they can be so hypocritical. But the fact that others around you are being that way should not deter you from believing in the word or in God. I think that you should just find your beliefs and stick to it no matter if you have support from others in that religion or not. As long as you are good with God.
Every Christian who follows the Bible chooses certain words as wise words to follow and others as either ``not applicable,`` metaphorical, ``outdated`` uninspired, mistranslated or even nonsensical...even if some say they don`t. It would be impossible to follow all the words as if they`re advice from Above, since even Jesus did not agree with some of the ideas that we find in many areas of the Bible, even before we consider factors such as mistranslations and political decisions that have affected what ends up in any given version.
There is nothing wrong with a Christian looking at the advice of the ancient superstitious tribes who believed that haircuts were a sin and that they should murder their own children if they swore, and then comparing their ideas with the ideals of Jesus and saying, ``This part makes more sense to me.``
What I find annoying is those fundamentalists who insist that the whole thing is divinely inspired and to be followed to the letter, and then use that theory only when it inconveniences others.
For example, Jesus doesn`t say a word against homosexuality but he does speak against divorce and remarriage. And yet my Mormon friend`s dad, who is divorced and remarried, has practically disowned his son because of religion. It`s easy to tell his son that he should spend his life without love, but the dad sure ain`t gonna be celibate just because the Bible says so.
Or they want prayer in public schools and the Ten Commandments in the public square, even though Jesus said to pray in private and not make a production out of it.
But a simple commandment like not working on the Sabbath is too inconvenient for them to support on their own. I mean, they could refuse to mow the lawn or do housework on Saturday. They could quietly stay home and avoid supporting industry on Saturday by not going to any movies and restaurants, and malls. But actually following such a commandment would be inconvenient.
It`s so much easier to make a big production out of being righteous than to follow what they are saying they believe in. It`s so much easier to yell at others that they`re not religious enough or to demand laws to restrict the freedom of others than it is to just exercise their freedom to actually follow the religion themselves.
Jesus had a lot of great ideas but many of his self proclaimed ``followers`` drive others away from Christianity through self righteousness and inconsistency.
Put Your trust in Your Heavenly Father and nothing else maters. For he will show you the way and not the ways of men. Amen
I know how hard it is when it seems like you are the only one fighting for God and no one else speaks up in your defence. Just remeber that you have God's word, which is the truth and that you can put your full trust in him.
I think that it is good that you are making decisions for yourself and not following a crowd like most christians seem to do. As for support, the only support that you should need would be the support that you would recieve from the lord. If you cant stand up on your own then go out and find someone that has the same belief as you. With the world today there are so many definitions of a christian, and there are so many people that call themselves christian but are far from it. I think the term christian is a bad classification. I dont know what else we would use, but the word christian definatly does not have the same meaning to it anymore.