Anyone want to talk about Christianity

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1. What denomination are you, if any, of Christian?

just normal Christianity really, like pentecostal

2. Do you think it is okay to go to a church that doesn't necessarily fit your beliefs if there is a not a better church? Do you have a moral duty to try to import the better church?

have tried in the past but its not worth it. Id just go and not argue anything now.

3. What historical churches are you interested in

just the early church

4. How did you find your faith

religious experience,

I’m an atheist.

If I was a Christian, I’d be tempted to go with Catholicism for the obvious reasons: the art, music, and literary history/tradition rock.

I wouldn’t want to support them monetarily because of the widespread child abuse coverups, not that I’d want to support any church. I’m on Team Satan.

My interactions with Christians have turned me into an atheist.

I can see that. There are a lot of Christians, including myself, who don't act as good Christians

Hobbies aren't the only walk of life that people may consciously decide. Though actively choosing a religion is probably unusual, given that upbringing and environment are the strongest known predictor of religious affiliation. And I see your point that belief isn't a choice, though I've read stuff by religious people who seem to think people do make an active choice whether or not to believe a thing, and they've been known to suggest that anybody who doesn't believe in this or that religion is somehow just being stubborn about it. Me, I can't really do faith. The moment I realise I could be wrong about something (and I usually could be), complete belief in it becomes impossible. I can't understand how other people can appear so certain of things. I can see how ignoring small shadows of doubt is important (otherwise we'd never get anything done), but I don't see how anybody can think that those doubts don't exist.

As for the questions:
1. What denomination are you, if any, of Christian?
None.
2. Do you think it is okay to go to a church that doesn't necessarily fit your beliefs if there is a not a better church? Do you have a moral duty to try to import the better church?
Not surprisingly, the only church that would "fit my beliefs" would be one that didn't do religion, and didn't have any doctrines or core beliefs that I was expected to follow. It's the same with political parties - I have my own ideas and it's very unlikely that there's any package deal that would fit me 100%. Especially as my ideas change and evolve over time. Maybe one day I'll join a scientific group if they embrace the notion that scientific assertions are always open to question. I guess they wouldn't mind me unpicking their assumptions.
It's fine by me if somebody wants to go to a church that doesn't fit their beliefs. I would imagine most people disagree with at least some parts of whatever they're being taught in any particular establishment. As I don't go to church except very occasionally to avoid hurting the feeling of some religionists I care about, I'm unlikely to have the opportunity to import my own values, and I usually prefer to let these institutions be what they want to be as long as they're doing more good than harm.
3. What historical churches are you interested in
I like some of the architecture of the older ones. I'm also interested in why people believe in religion and why they don't believe in it. And I'm interested in the older ideologies and the way the ancients must have thought, which was probably rather different to the modern evidence-based way, otherwise they'd never have taken those old scriptures and superstitions so seriously.
4. How did you find your faith
My "faith," if it can be called that, was just a gradual result of looking at things and thinking about them until practically all my suspicions that we may have immortal souls, deities and afterlives fell apart. There's still a tiny shadow of a doubt, because it's impossible to prove that a thing doesn't exist, but it's about as negligible as the possibility that I'll be killed tomorrow morning at 11am by a tangerine. I can't completely rule it out but it doesn't scare me.

You know something? I've come to the conclusion that Christianity really isn't so bad and that it has a right to exist like every other religion in this world.

Baptized and confirmed Roman Catholic but have a very different cosmology now, you could say absolute idealism with a biology-oriented way of looking at the cosmos.


I actually did this as a kid. My parents didn't push me too hard with my Catholicism, in my early teens I didn't understand why people made such a small place in their life for faith if any of the claims were true, and if they claims weren't true why were people doing it. That made me more open to go to church or conventions with more 'fiery' nondenominational types. We had neighbors two doors down who introduced me to the wide world of Christian rock and rap (went to a DC Talk concert in my mid teens along side Billy Graham) and later when I took another momentary run at it when one of my buddies was living with a chapter of the Korean University Bible Fellowship.

Different divisions of Catholicism and Protestantism will take shots at each other's metaphysics, even claim that if you're in a different division you're 'gawna hail' but at the ground level I think most people realize that if everyone's uplifting the figure of Jesus Christ and not splitting hairs as a top brass / leadership member of a particular subgroup it doesn't make any sense - ie. the person of Jesus and 'accepting Jesus into your heart' is common among these and for what the bible is it's really difficult, especially with just how frighteningly unruled the New Testament is (we won't tell you what will get you into hell... but... love the Lord your God with all of your heart, mind, and soul and love thy neighbor as I have loved you - that's pretty much all you have to go on, no technicalities), to think that you'd get skewered by St. Peter at the gates of heaven for not having been baptized into X parish.



I really find the Orthodox churches fascinating, and I remember there being an iconography class taught by a Byzantine Orthodox priest that I wanted to attend to try the craft (although these days I'd probably be applying that to Thelemic and alchemical deities rather than Christian). I believe some of the Orthodox faiths actually have initiations and initiatic levels of teaching, which is the sort of thing I'd find interesting being that I was in a few esoteric orders and I really like a faith that caters to its nerd herd well.


I was born RC, my current Darwinian idealism / panentheism came from years of study, careful comparison, and a lot of analysis of both my own mystical experiences and those of others.

The good news at least - if you had a great relationship with Jesus - you're probably going to see him when you die. Other people may or may not, just hopefully for most of them they have similarly nutritive symbols and high ideals that will meet them at the threshold. As Mark Stavish I believe borrowed from Jean Dubuis - as you are when you dream so you will be in death (part of why Mark emphasizes the importance of lucid dreaming and 'body of light' work as much as he does).

That's good

I'm happy not to discriminate against it as long as it doesn't discriminate against other ideologies. Trouble is, it's kind of written into its constitution for it to do that. Fortunately not all Christians obey the constitution in that respect.

1. I was raised Catholic, sortof continued going in college, then in graduate school spent some serious time in a United Methodist grad student group and went there. My now wife is a converted Catholic and I went with her a lot until one day I told her I no longer believed. I consider myself an agnostic/Deist. I believe in God/Creator/whatever but I think anyone that thinks they know what God wants is trying to get something from you. I still am willing to attend Mass with my wife, but I mostly stay at home with our kids who are significantly ASD with speech apraxia (nonverbal autistic).

2. I am agnostic so I am willing to attend any religious service as long as my non participation is not an insult. I do not intend to insult real religious beliefs. Except Scientology. I could not attend whatever they do without laughing out loud and going, "you guys are all idiots, you know that right?"

3. I find all religion interesting. However, if I could time travel and I had to go to a historical church, I would attend Mass in Rome in the year 1000. I visited a Monastery when I was younger and I liked their simple Church. It made me think how I'd love to attend Mass in the "heyday of Catholicism," but mostly as a tourist and not as someone who wants to go to Latin Mass regularly.

4. I lost my faith, so to speak. The evidence is that the human species has developed a "kill switch" on logic when it comes to processing our own death. It must be necessary for survival because otherwise we'd obsess about it. Its the curse of being intelligent enough to realize we will die someday, and to ponder non existence for effectively forever. Our experience of the universe after death will be much like our experience of the universe before our existence.

Anyways so as a result of this kill switch, our brains process death as something that happens to other people. We do mental jumping jacks to not think about it, and one of those things is the creation of religion to make us feel better about the whole thing.

I don't judge people who believe this and my wife is one despite being an intelligent person. I think she is a positive person and wants to believe in good things; I am an analyst by training so I give it to you like it is regardless of the impact on my mental health. The reality is I wish there were heaven and hell - I'd gladly submit myself to eternal judgment if that also meant that Adolf Hitler faced it as well.

Its proven that narcissists often think they have a special connection with God, and religious leaders are more likely to be narcissistic people. Ego drives both the founding of religions and the acceptance of it. However, almost every major religion has gotten to this point not by convincing a lot of people, but by threatening people with death if they did not convert. You threaten the first converts with death and then their grandchildren will see it as part of their culture to continue the religion and not question it. Thats how the world religions got created.

Anyways, thats how I lost my faith - I was molested once by the husband of a prominent Catholic when I was 5 so that left me with a deep distrust of religious people. I think religious people unwittingly trust each other more than they should and as a result give a lot of predators their prey without checking.

I went to years of Catholic Mass, went to years of Catholic "Sunday school" education (it was often on a weekday night), and I went to a lot of Bible study when I was trying United Methodism. I can't get over verses like Numbers 31 and can't get over the fact that Jesus, for all his "divinity," had morality that was squarely a product of its time. He never said anything about slavery and was apparently totally ok with what Moses did in Numbers 31. I've come to the conclusion that my morality is superior to Jesus. So I don't even consider him all that great of a dude, he a was a product of his time.

If believing in it gives your life meaning, purpose, and lessens your fear of death then that is great. But my problem with Christians is that they often flex their political power and they are the main reason why pot legalization is slow. Its always the Christians against it, and they show up to vote. I don't want to toss them in prison for what they do, but the fact that they want to ruin others lives for smoking pot tends to make me dislike them as a whole.