Christianity and AS

Post Reply New Topic

Relevance?

I'm a non-evangelical christian.

Evangelists have to remember the parable of sowing the seed. There's the fertile ground, semi-fertile and stony ground, so the responses you get from people are going to equate to something like that.

I tend to think god can make anyone he wants a christian.

Your beliefs are your own so that's fine, as long as you don't try to turn people yourself.

Well the world consists of people trying to covert you to their ways, a certain type of clothing, a certain style of music, a certain type of sex, everyone 'evangelises' what they enjoy or feel to be cool or 'right'.

Can you stop all those type of people trying to convert me to their ways?

If a person is in danger of being lost in a place of torment forever, is it wrong for me to warn them?

Last edited by Capriccio on 31 Jan 2008, 5:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If that's what your going to use as an excuse, advertise in the way they do. Only problem is your product has no use for most people so a lack of support/funds means you can't pay for it like they can.

Your entitled to believe what you've been told to, but leave others to find out for themselves. If someone wants religion they'll find it easily enough, you don't need to take it to them.

Sounds to me like you're preaching about a non-existant place. I certainly wouldn't appreciate someone telling me I had to follow a load of meaningless practices and rules or I'm going to burn in hell (or whatever else bad may happen in their religion) as this is nonsense to me. If I'm quite honest it'd likely lower my opinion of them to quite a degree.

The existence of hell is another debate, but we're talking about something else here. If this place called hell exists and I know it, and if you are not in Christ you are going there, am I not responsible to warn you?

Well you can't really know can you? Therefore it's only a belief, which shouldn't be thrust upon others. If they're interested, give them all the information they want but beliefs should be decided by the person themselves.

Whether or not hell exists is an entirely different debate, but we're talking about something else. If I am 100% convinced that hell is a real place, and a friend of mine is living his life in a way that is going to land him there, is it wrong for me to warn him?

Ok, I'll tread you're narrow path. What do you consider a warning?

.....

Last edited by Microban on 06 Feb 2008, 6:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

What is so hard about understanding mythology?

"I've done everything the Bible says - even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff!" -Ned Flanders

Hmm, I wonder if having AS makes it harder to believe in a religion, due to our desire for logic and concrete proof. I used to completely believe in Christianity (I was raised Christian), but now I have my doubts about most of it.

I've wondered this too. In fact, I thought that was going to be what the thread was about.

Last edited by Mikomi on 31 Jan 2008, 7:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

My feeling on this is this: I was raised in a Christian environment and for years and years struggled to come to terms with what I saw as contradictions between what I was told to believe and how I actually experienced life. I kept getting frustrated because I was asking questions that no one could answer. It took a long time before I realized that the reasons I was not getting any answers was because I was asking questions that Christianity (and other religions) really weren't equipped to answer.

To make a long story short, it was not until I stopped going to church, stopped getting involved in Christian activities, and turned to the "secular" world of the sciences, that I actually started getting some meaningful answers to why certain things were happening in my life. Looking back I can see areas in my life where Christianity actually crippled me. At a time when I most needed to start expanding my horizons and come out of my shell, I ended up getting too intensely involved in a Christian group which discouraged such thinking. The fact that I was withdrawing even more and more from life did not seem to bother them as long as it was a withdrawal into the Bible and church! Unfortunately, it's the churches that stress such strict separation that are the most active at recruiting. I don't mean to offend anyone's beliefs by this, but I would say that what I have learned is that while individual Christians or even whole congregations might be very very nice people, as a whole they do not and cannot have my best interests at heart, simply because they are not Aspy and don't face the issues I face.

So I have been on both sides of the fence, and now that I am on the outside looking in, I see a lot of things that disturb me. I know what it is like to lose friends because I would not adopt their beliefs, and just because I understand why they feel the need to make the world over in their image and likeness does not mean that it is right for me to be remade into that image nor does it make it the less painful to do so. All too often I have seen Christianity used as a barrier. I have enough barriers in my life, and don't wish to add any more. Besides, the older I get the more I wonder why people would find Christianity's central teaching--that only the "saved" go to heaven and the rest of us poor slobs go to hell--attractive. I mean, it must be a terrible burden to think about all those perishing souls . . . this is supposed to be a joyous religion of love?