Jesus, Christians, and the world

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What about all his followers?

There is no rooting for its destruction. The point is it's destroying itself with its own evil.

The Biblical references are not to the planet, but rather to self-centered, mean-spirited human nature.

Sylkat

The world didn't hate Jesus. When he was alive (assuming that he was a real person), the vast majority of the world was entirely unaware of his existence. The only people who hated him were the religious leaders of his country, who compelled the Roman authorities to arrest and execute him. According to the gospel stories anyway.

I find this quite ironic considering that Jesus' followers subsequently became the religious authority in large parts of Europe, and did the exact same thing to millions of innocent victims that are rarely ever talked about. Which was probably not what Jesus had in mind. But unlike the gospel tales, this is recorded history. During the Middle Ages, Christianity was "the world" in the Western hemisphere, and it ruled with a merciless iron fist that crushed all dissent.

Nowadays, Christianity is the majority religion on this planet. Luckily, it has lost a great deal of political influence. Otherwise Western nations would still look like Middle Eastern theocracies or Christian countries during the Dark Ages. But many Christian groups seek to regain political power and impose their way of life and their intolerance of minorities on everybody else. And when we speak up against them, they pull out their persecution complex and paint themselves as victims of discrimination and persecution. Which is as laughable as the notion of reverse racism, or the idea that gender equality constitutes reverse sexism.

This thread is a prime example. In another thread, people have criticized you for your intolerant view of women (which is derived from your "holy" book, I might add), and now you turn this justified criticism into "the world hates us like they hated Jesus". But the world isn't out to get you. You guys are the overwhelming majority in large parts of the globe. It is time to lose the faux victim mentality, realize that nobody is trying to feed you to the lions, and own up to the countless crimes against "the world" (read: humanity) in the past and present that were enabled by and justified with your belief system.

Last edited by CrazyCatLord on 11 Apr 2012, 5:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Those weren't the only people who hated him. And He was speaking of worldly people, who have the spirit of the world, and these people are spiritually the same everywhere on the planet.

Dear CrazyCatLord, Beautiful cats, by the way, the gray one is a Scottish Fold?
Anyhow, as you said, '...not what Jesus had in mind' and 'belief system'.
He said "Love one another as I have loved you". Any person, church , organization, political movement that claims to act in His name, yet abuses the people He loves, was called 'workers of iniquity' and told 'depart, I never knew you' by Jesus Himself.
What was ruling with an iron fist was not Christianity, that was just a front, a justification,for power and cruelty.
The religious authority figures and organizations who controlled so much of Europe for so long were no more 'Christian' than Warren Jeffers is a Mormon.

Sylkat

This is an extreme black-and-white and us-versus-them world view. People either have the spirit of your brand of religion, or they have the spirit of the world, which is evil, sinful and immoral and deserves no consideration. The latter are an extremely broad group that probably includes feminists, atheists, liberals, all the other world religions, and ultimately anyone who might disagree with your personal opinion.

If someone criticizes you, you can simply dismiss their input as wordly and ungodly, or even as inspired by Satan. I know this closed mindset altoo well, because I was raised in it. There is no need for you to examine people's views on an individual basis. You know that all your pet beliefs and forever unchangeable points of view must be right, because you can justify them using the Bible (which can justify just about anything, from love and tolerance to gender oppression and witch burnings). That's awfully convenient, and you get to feel morally superior to boot.

I don't know why anybody would want to think like that. It is a dead end. It is tragic what faith does to people

Yes, she's a Scottish Fold and a total darling



I understand where you're coming from. But the problem is that there are approx. 38,000 Christian denominations in the world, which all proclaim to follow the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. Which of these thousands of denominations is the real, true Christianity? And how can I as an outsider possibly dismiss any of them as non-Christians or false Christians? Especially large organizations such as the Roman Catholic Church, which was the only Christian church for a long time and the one that decided which content made it into the Bible.

If being Christian means to follow the teachings of Jesus to the letter, there is not a single Christian person on this planet. In my opinion, being Christian means to subscribe to a Christian, Bible-based belief system. Since the Bible is a very contradictory book, Bible-based dogmas can turn out very different and range from moderate Protestantism to mouth-foaming, gay-hating fundamentalism. And I've found that it's very hard to attack the latter, or to criticize the problematic parts of the Bible that intolerant fundamentalist beliefs are based on, because this tends to offend extremists and moderates alike.

At some point, moderate believers who hate to be thrown in with the crazies will have to take a radical and logical step, change their name from Christians into something different (it's too bad that Jesuits and Messianists are already taken), and compose a new holy book comprised of the unproblematic and inoffensive parts of the Bible, mainly the gospels. Until then, I can't view them as separate from the rest of Christianity, which includes such controversial figures as Pope Ratzinger and the current president of Uganda.

Why would there have to be exactly one? Why would any particular denomination, even if it were more theologically correct than any other, have an exclusive claim on being the "real" Christianity?


IIRC, those decisions were made prior to the split of Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, so at that time, the RCC didn't yet exist.


I really don't think it's unreasonable to expect that you understand that not everyone in such an enormous group will agree with each other. It is unreasonable to label every one of us with the worst views you've ever heard from anyone claiming to be one of us.


The problem with this is that these things aren't justified by my belief system. In fact, they're prohibited by said belief system.

I don't think it's at all reasonable to blame me for something I not only didn't do, but disapprove of as well.

The world isn't evil.......end of story.

What is so wrong with the world...or being worldly, what the hell does that even mean.

Dear CrazyCatLord, As you said, Bible-based: "By their works you shall know them"...I also think that ' live by the sword, die by the sword' is broader than it seems. Not just mercenaries or Mafia hitmen, but the cruel, unforgiving, hateful who will, as written, "...reap what they sow"

Sylkat

Being worldly literally means being attached to the things of the world. For modern times it's fast food, TV, trendy clothes and cars, consumerism in general, and owning things we are pained to get rid off. Think back to when Native American tribes dwelled in North America. Although they lived lives directly dependent upon the fruits of the Earth, they were not very worldly, and some were even tricked into trading large tracts of land for beads and trinkets.

Worldly can also be like modern day corporations, were destroying peoples lives is "nothing personal, just business".

Like Shrox said.

Sylkat

Jesus is a commie.