christianity

Post Reply New Topic

so i've been apart of a little christian community online for about two years now. I'm not a Christian but it really interests me.

naturally, these people are always trying to "show me God". But I seem to be just caught up in the details of it all, always asking questions about it that do not matter. It doesn't make sense to me how you could accept something like that and not know every know-able little detail about it. When they try to tell me that I don't need to know everything, that I just need to know that Jesus died for my sins etc etc etc, the thought of it overwhelms me and just makes me confused and asking more questions.

my question is, is everyone like this is or this an aspie thing or am I just simply too stupid to comprehend the "bigger picture" of Christianity? Currently I do not believe in Christianity but then again I don't know if I should or not. As a child I was also always interested in Christianity because I wanted to obey all the rules and I thought in order to do that you had to obey God too-- guess that isn't relevant but I'll stop my rambling now. =]

Oh, and what are your reasons for believing in Christianity / not believing in Christianity?

If your heart isn't in it, you are wasting your time. If you do not have genuine faith, you can either keep searching or pack it in. Waiting for a spirtual awakening or just waiting for everything to make sense in your head?

Last edited by slowmutant on 19 Jan 2009, 1:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

"Believe or believe not. There is no 'doubt'." - Pastor Yoda, New Force Church of Christ.



(A sigworthy quote if I ever saw one! )

I agree with Pastor Yoda.

BUt many non-believers have had dramatic spiritual awakenings.

But how does someone obtain genuine faith????

Gach! If I knew that, I'd get all these fundies off my back!

Let me know what works for you

Oh. Hmm. I'm just worried if Christianity is true, I'm going to be in a lot of trouble simply because of this. And the though of believing in a God does sound nice but I guess it just wouldn't be genuine if I tried.

delete

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 19 Jan 2009, 2:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I believe in parts of the faith but not all of it.
For instance, I do not believe in hell . I might believe in christ but I'm not shure . Still pondering that one.

I can tell you what little I know but I have only spent a few years learning about that faith.

I think they should answer the questions you have. If they do not answer your question then they may not know what there talking about.

People in my old church were like that. The only answers I got were in bible study and I asked about alot of the details. They SHOULD answer your questions . If they don't then you need to go elswere to find the answers you seek.

Alot of stuff in the bible is very vauge and they say you need to read a passage and ask god to help you understand its meaning.

Hope that helps.

Feel free to pm me with any questions and I will try to answer them , but I'm no expert.

Umm... it is more likely that they are too stupid to teach it.

In any case, seeing the "bigger picture" of Christianity would be hard anyway, the reason being that Christianity makes markedly different assumptions about the world than most people are used to, and grasping assumptions markedly different than your own can be difficult.

Really though, I do put a lot of blame on the people you are dealing with because they are trying to treat you like a child and trying to avoid a lot of the issues that a more mature believer could be intellectually interested in. I mean, have they taught you anything about the soteriological(soteriological having to do with methods of salvation) divisions in Christian thought? I would doubt they have taught much, and that what they have taught is relatively cursory, perhaps just a simple choice model of salvation.


Interestingly, that matter is one of the divisions in Christianity. Certain denominations and groups emphasize the laws of God, these groups often being conservative Protestant groups. However, other groups tend to believe that these laws are less important than a heart thing, which is where more liberal protestants tend to fit in. I don't know anything about Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy, however, I am pretty certain that they would fit in the middle between these groups.


Not necessarily, Blaise Pascal actually talked about believing due to efforts to believe, and I would think that Catholics and Orthodox groups would consider faith to be a work, and I also think that most Protestant groups consider the Bible a call to faith. Thus meaning, that saying "Oh, I don't have genuine faith, thus I should move on" seems somewhat unChristian, as I think only bad conservative denominations and hyperCalvinists would think the same way. In any case, buryuntime is curious about the faith, not necessarily going to join and certainly claims to have problems understanding the bigger picture, which seems necessary to believe in something.


And many believers have never had those.


That is actually one of the major questions in Christianity. Calvinists tend to think that God gives some people genuine faith based upon his goals for the workings of the world. Arminians, Open-Theists, Molinists, Catholics, Orthodox and etc I think usually believe that God offers genuine faith to all people, they just have to try to get it. In any case, genuine faith is usually believed to involve God's power.

My advice is to keep asking questions. The answers you get will help you make up your own mind. I was put off Christianity at a young age because believers and even religious education teachers etc could not answer my questions or they said things which were clearly nonsense.

Also never accept "because I said so" or "because it is in the Bible". People in other parts of the world use those parallel arguments to instil Islam (because it says so in the Koran) or it says so in Chairman Mow's little red book.

A big part of the problem is that you are expected to swallow without question the same beliefs as the people around you where you grow up. Hence Christian children become Christians, Muslim children become Muslims, Hindu children become Hindus. Jewish children become Jews. Each believes their own religion is the true one . And worse than that each believes their own particular sect or church is even more true than the others.

If you have a keen intellect and a the desire to really ask for yourself, you may find the truth for yourself.

No they never really teach me anything but the basics. They used to patiently answer all of my questions and let me join them but they just recently told me they wanted me to leave because I "badly represent them" and one member said that he got aggravated with me because he thought that I'd start believing by now.

Well, a major issue is that belief is meant to be centered on love of God. In any case, one could possibly will themselves to believe, it would just take time and immersion into the culture, and this is why Pascal's wager exists, because Pascal believed that people could honestly do this if they tried, and to be honest, I don't think Pascal's psychology is necessarily wrong.

If you are concerned about the truth of Christianity, I would do some research on their apologetics. I think there are 3 major branches: classical, evidential, and presuppositional. Just do research on those 3, and see what you think afterwards, and whether the evidence of Christianity is enough to justify the religion. Many here will think it isn't, but each person has their own epistemic standards.

That is a function of self-discovery, as far as I can tell. It comes to you when you look inward, really seek out your personal truth. What is your personal truth, buryuntime? I encourage you to explore the answer to this question.

Hmm.... what did they teach you? Just that Christ died for the sins of man, and that man fell into sin due to Adam eating the apple in the garden of Eden, oh and some ethical issues?

Yeah, it sounds like they are being somewhat selfish there, but I am not certain. However, actions like that do not sound like they reflect the ideas of Christ that much it seems.

People like you have all the information and none of the experience.