Common misconceptions about Christianity.

[sapphi_snake]

garvey0 said:

NKAJ said:

kaneada said:

thanny said:

There are a couple of things that have been mentioned in the creation thread (and also, things that i have heard before in quite a few places) that i think need to be cleared up. I am sure that many of you are aware of this, or do not care. I am also sure that there are some people that need to learn some more before they argue about Christianity.

One thing is that many seem to think (and i can see how they get that impression) that Christianity is a religion based on deeds; ie, following all the rules of the bible so you are good enough to get into heaven. This is what every other religion i have studied is based on, but is not what Christianity is based on. Christianity is the belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God, and believing in him is solely sufficient to have eternal life in heaven.

This of course brings up the question 'Then why do good things if you are a christian'. The answer to this is that if you truly believe in God, you will love him, and wanting to do good things will stem from this. A simple example is that if you really love your wife, you would not treat her badly every day, but instead work to please her and make her happy.

The other thing is that many people condemn christianity and christians for the laws of the old testament. By this i mean the arguement of 'You can't believe in some of the bible and not all of it'.

The old testament is the law before Jesus Christ.

God cannot be near sin. This means that for a person to be with God they must be completely without sin. This is why the old testament has many laws or whatever about animal sacrifice. The sacrifice pays for the sins, and thus the individual can be in the presence of God. Jesus Christ dying on the cross was a sacrifice for the sins of everyone, making these laws obsolete.

The arguement that can then be brought up following this is that there is no reason to, now, follow the ten commandments as a christian. This is not the case, because while Jesus essentially rewrote the laws of how we should live, he completely covered for all 10 commandments with 2 laws: Love your neighbour as yourself, and love the Lord your God with all you heart, soul and mind.

Ultimately, if you actually read the bible, this stuff is pretty clear. Also I would be happy to try and explain anything else like this if anyone is actually interested. I do not want to, however, argue about whether or not God is real. This thread isn't intended be any sort of Christianity V Athesiam debate, nor am I attacking anyone.

I'm not sure how up on the Bible I am, but I can state that it has all been said long before the Christians claimed it. A simple intrepretation of Plato's early philosophical statements will demonstrate that he was the first written realization of the majority of the beliefs in monotheistic relgions. So in short to believe in any God I would have to believe in Plato, which I wholly disagree with.

Being 1/3 existentialist and 2/3 objectivist I could go rounds with you all day long, especially on the evil of sacrifice (i.e. doing good deeds to justify ones self in the eyes of others), but I'll leave that one alone. I'll also leave alone the idea that religions are self referencing.

The only truth about God is, I don't know and neither do you, which is my biggest problem with religion; the people that claim they do.

for me that last bit(highlighted) says it all.

I understand, but consider this: If there is a being who is responsible for creating this earth and for creating the life on it, isn't it reasonable to think that this being might try to communicate with human beings at some point or another?  And isn't it also reasonable to search out the writings of those who claim to have received such communication to try to draw conclusions about which amongst these people (if any) were telling the truth about their encounter so that we can learn more about the Creator?

How can you tell which are telling the truth and which  aren't? These people could very easily be lying or possibly be schizophrenic.There really is no way to determine which, if any, have had authentic encounters.

Plus the quest for knowledge regarding the Creator is pointless if the existence of such a being is itself questionable. First one would have to absolutely be sure such a being exists before setting out to learn about him.