I recently read a blog about religion, and it got me interested, and I decided that it would be a good thing to talk about. I don't want to start a fight, or anything like that, I just want people to know what I think, and hopefully understand my point of view.
The author made some generalizations that I would like to talk about. She said that "I really really don't understand some people's need to convert every single person they see into their religion." Someone responded to that with "If someone genuinely believes their religion is true, then they will attempt to convert others out of a sincere concern for their welfare." This is completely true. Most people care for others. They care that some people will be eternally separated from God. To some of you, this might not seem like a bad thing at all, but it is. I care about my friends, and even about people that I don't know. This may seem a little selfish, but I don't want to spend eternity away from my friends, people that I only knew a little bit, or even people that I didn't know at all, especially if God could have used me to bring them to Him, and I was too shy, or embarrassed or busy to talk to someone. God can use anything to show Himself to people.
Another concern was the question "Am I going to hell for not believing in God from time to time and for using His name in vain constantly." God is forgiving. I believe there is only one thing that God can not forgive, and that is the constant rejection of His free gift. God cares for us, and paid the ultimate price to have us with Him forever. We made our mistakes, and sinned, and hated, but He was the one who died. He died and rose again. That is the most amazing thing. How many people can say that they were dead for three days, then brought themselves back to life? That is what Jesus did. He paid the ultimate price.
Although I believe that my religion is the true religion, I do have to say, after studying other religions, and going through some hard things, that there are other religions that are much easier to live by, and to believe is true. Religions that give false hope, and tell half-truths that are much more pleasant than the truth that Christianity presents. Those religions are not based in fact, or logic as Christianity is. Most of Christianity has historical proof to back it up. If not historical proof, then an absence of denial. Never has there been a major movement to prove that Jesus was still in the grave. Never has there been a body. Many things don't make sense in the claim that Jesus didn't rise again, historically, or logically.
My religion is better than yours?
By Readingkt6 - Posted on March 11th, 2008
forewarning: This comment has strong anti-religious views in it. If you are easily offended, please do not read, or read at your own discretion. These words reflect only my opinion on the matter, not any factual sources, or any statistics
the level of arrogance that Christians seem to have is absolutely astounding. let me start
first off, you say that since you believe what you believe to be true, you want to, for the welfare of the person you are talking to, convert them to what you believe? Ok, how is that any different from a satanist trying to convert you to praying to the satan? You both believe your beliefs so strongly that you think it would be an injustice not to try to make people see the "truth."
I know that i am not going to be able to convince you that god doesn't exist, and i'm sure you would agree with me. However, someone that doesn't believe in god has the same capacity to not believe as you believe. Just because you put a diety behind your belief system doesn't make it any stronger than any other belief system. To be frank, i see Christianity as nothing more than primitive man's stories to try to explain stuff that they couldn't. We have science now, so less and less people need religion, but lets not go into that
I'm not even going mention your paragraph about what Jesus apparently did for me.
Ok, so for the coup de gras, Christianity is built around more logic than every other religion? And what logic is that sir? In the bible there are demons, angels, dragons, lots of smiting. sounds like a role-playing game. Adam and Eve ate an apple that god told them not to, and so we all got screwed? Why did god put that tree in the garden of eden anyways.
Let me tell you something (now this is based on opinion, not any facts i can site, or any graphs or stats i can quote) your religion, and your god is exactly the same as the god of those who go to a synagogue and wear those funny hats, and the same as those who scream out allah and blow themselves up.
Now, as far as historical facts to back your religion up. For every one there might be, there are about 100 scientifically proven facts to repute it. Oh, and jesus's body might not be there for several reasons... maybe they burned him.. maybe he did't even exist, and the people who wrote the bible just wrote a story book to entertain themselves, and some people found it, and saw it as a sign from the god that the book described. maybe he never even heard of Christianity, and was just a peasant farmer.
Now, don't get me wrong, i respect your beliefs and opinions. But please don't try to justify trying to shove your fairy tales down my throat by saying its for my own good, and don't try to justify your beliefs by saying the other ones don't make sense. Ill be frank again, nothing about any religion makes any logical sense.
Let me tell you something (now this is based on opinion, not any facts i can site, or any graphs or stats i can quote) your religion, and your god is exactly the same as the god of those who go to a synagogue and wear those funny hats, and the same as those who scream out allah and blow themselves up
It is all the same God. You're correct.
I don't think your comment was offensive. At all. I have my own blog on Christianity if you'd like to read it. It's somewhere on my signature link below. :-)
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/sawaboof
"...There is a crushing guilt that comes with being a Catholic. Whether things are good or bad or you're simply... eating tacos in the park, there is always the crushing guilt."
-30 Rock-
**JOKE**
If my religion was not better than yours, why would I continue to practice it?
"I hate this church! I have no I idea what is going on and I have no emotional attachment!"
"See you Sunday?"
"Of Course"
Read and learn. http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/simmons
I don't believe in religion really, but I think this blog was very well written, and not overtly offensive (but the first response was). I really just see religion as a ritual that people cannot get away from. Why is that people have different religions? Because the have different opinions. And what you said about wanting other people to convert because you like it so much goes the same for anything. I feel very strongly about chocolate, and when I find out people don't like chocolate I push my opinion on them and tell they should like it. Honestly though, chocolate is the best thing created. Now somebody might say that about their god, but some will say no my god is better, just as somebody will say no I like licorice way better then chocolate, you are wrong. So really this ALL has to do with ritual, NOT religion.
its easy to take the point of view of the person who is pushing the idea. If the licorice guy was yelling at you, and berating you for not liking licorice, i have a feeling you would feel different.
I admit, i was a tad bit offensive in my post, but trust me, it was not unwarranted
You think you are doing other people a favor. You are trying to give them an eternity of absolute bliss. So why is it that they react like the people above?
The reason is they (and me for that matter) think you believe absolutely ridiculous crap, ... so ridiculous that we cannot take your message of hope seriously. So ridiculous that your well meaning attempt to give us an eternity of bliss looks to us like obnoxious babble.
Let's look at these examples:
So is that a YES? Are we going to HELL for not believing in God? You didn't even answer the question you asked?
Really? And what price was that? Impregnating a virgin so that he could be his own father for the purpose of conning people into tacking him up to a piece of wood until he dies because this allows him to forgive sins for those who believe it? Yeah sure, that makes a lot of sense.
See comment above.
And you know this how?
Only people who aren't telling the truth. If I am sure that a person claiming that is not telling the truth, then why should I believe the bible when it claims that?
And you know this how?
But for the sake of argument, let's pretend that Jesus did die and come back to life. You guys are great at claiming that Jesus' suffering was atonement for our sins. In other words, Jesus is supposed to be paying OUR price for having sinned. Well, our price for having sinned was supposed to have been an eternity in HELL. Now if Jesus was spending an eternity in HELL then perhaps you would have something in your claim that Jesus paid the ULTIMATE PRICE for us. But Jesus isn't paying THAT price is he? Isn't he in Heaven at the right hand of himself? Doesn't that sound pretty good? So how can that be the ultimate price?
Oh yeah? And what other religions have you studied? And by "studied" what do you mean?
Just blew Diet Pepsi out my nose on that one.
Damn, did it again.
No, it doesn't.
What does that even mean?
Never has there been a major movement to prove that Jesus ever was in the grave in the first place. In fact, there are two potential burial sites for Jesus. Why is that? They both can't be true. That means at least one of the sites must have been made up. In fact, the claim for each site stems from the time of Constantine, about 300 years after Jesus died.
But if as the bible suggests, that Christianity began in Jerusalem immediately after his death by his disciples wouldn't they have known where the real site was? Why did this site not become a shrine for the religion? Why don't we know where it is?
The earliest Christian writings are the letters of Paul. Why doesn't he ever mention the empty tomb? Paul bases his belief on the ressurection not on an empty tomb but on post-death appearances by Jesus, including one to himself. But if we believe ACTS Jesus' appearance to Paul was not a bodily one, it was a vision. So too perhaps were the other appearances.
Nothing makes sense in the claim that he did rise ... historically or logically.
Cheers,
DB
===
If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France
It is poor etiquette to 1) Not link to the blog you are responding to in the first place (which, for all of you interested, can be found here) and 2) not to answer questions from your original comment in that blog. There were a few comments, namely my own, which challenged many of the ideas in this post of yours, posted nearly a month ago.
But, allow me to restate my objections to your post in particular.
Judaism has been around a whole lot longer than Christianity. Therefore, it does have the historical basis Christianity does. As for the logic, many people will argue that Christianity isn't the least bit logical, and no religion actually is logical, so I'm not going to even bother discussing that.
Therefore, how can you say that Judaism as it currently exists is wrong, and Christianity has it right? What about Hinduism, around a lot longer than Christianity.
There are also a number of religions that are much more difficult to follow than Christianity (namely Chadistic Judaism and Islam), so that definitely shouldn't be used as a criteria to determine 'truth'.
I, like DB, am very interested to know exactly what religions you did study, and what you did to actually study them.
Pretty much everything else I have objections to have been stated above, so I won't bother with those.
~C
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I would never, never worship a god who sent people to hell simply because they didn't hear about him. Never. That is not a forgiving god, nor a loving one, nor a moral one.
Should I even respond???
My goodness, it is Christians like you that make me embarrassed that I used to be one.
There is this great quote from Gandhi, " I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ."
If you care about your friends and strangers so much, how about respecting their beliefs?
Jesus didn't say Christianity was the true religion. You did.
Much like the Bible. Jesus didn't write it. People like you did.
Well, at some point people like you wrote it. But then it was changed and switched around and parts omitted to benefit the political agendas of the time.
So what you're reading now, there's really no telling what interpretation has been squeezed into your revised annotated travel size King James Bible with apocrypha and pictures.
And as for what ever religions you "studied", all I can say is "study" harder. Because if you really honestly believe that all other religions "give false hope, and tell half-truths", then you are way more ignorant than I thought.
Here is what is interesting about philosophy ( a reference to philosophy and not religion), that you can have two opposite beliefs still be true. Just because you believe Christianity is the "true religion", that does not make all other religions wrong. In fact there are other religions out there that believe we all have paths to being with our god and each person is going to take a different path to get there. Your path is Christianity. Someone else's may be Hindu, Islam, (insert whatever religion you wish). That does not make them wrong. It just means if God is a mountain, then some may hike, some may swim, some may fly, some may go around, some may go straight up, some may take breaks along the way, some may start from farther away. To tell someone that their way up the mountain is wrong seems pretty silly. As long as you get to the mountain, what does it matter how you get there?
* (Clause for those of you who do not believe in God) Then there is no mountain for you. It's that easy. And with that, then I guess you can get there any way you darn well please.
Doing what you love, is merely loving what you do.