Christianity

[Silent_Wolf]

I've had some pretty bad run-ins with people of many religions of the monotheistic type. Jehovah's Witness, Christians, Catholics, and even a couple Methodists (which is my family's religion). There's still a girl at my school who will walk right up to me and start spouting off on how I should be a Christian and not a Methodist (which I'm not really obvious about) and when I roll my eyes she screams that exorcisms are my way to go because I appear to be possessed.

And yeah, I really do think she's serious.

Except for psycho-zealots like that, I'm pretty mellow about religion. I just live and let live. Well, until you start shoving your beliefs up my nose, then I tend to get a little annoyed. I have a very close friend who is of the Latter Day Saints religion and we can actually discuss a ton of religions without getting into a full on argument. ^_^ It's awesome.

On subject, I don't think I'd convert to Christianity as I've seen enough of the crazy zealot types getting up in my and my RL friend's faces. However, I do know that not all Christians are like them.

[Miranda_]

I'm an atheist, with LaVeyan Satanist leanings. I don't believe in God, or Satan, or Heaven or Hell. I believe that when we die, we rot in the ground and feed the worms, so you have to make the best of life.

Also, if early death and illness is caused by sin, how do you explain the long lives of people such as Klaus Barbie? Committed many atrocities, and only died at the age of 77 of leukemia. Or conversely, the short life of Grace Darling. A Victorian heroine, who bravely, along with her father, participated in a maritime rescue. She died of tuberculosis at the age of 27.

That to me is a short sighted way of looking at things, as is saying that if you break the rules of a book written thousands of years ago, and probably only meant as a metaphor, you go to Hell. So many wars have been fought, and crimes committed, in the name of God; the hypocrisy of some so called Christians is unbelievable.

For the record, my mother is Christian and I have Christian friends. I was raised a Christian; however, I was allowed by my mother to make up my own mind and believe what I liked. She did not try and force me to go to church when I didn't believe, or castigate me for nonbelief.

[delly1]

Originally Posted by Miranda_

I'm an atheist, with LaVeyan Satanist leanings. I don't believe in God, or Satan, or Heaven or Hell. I believe that when we die, we rot in the ground and feed the worms, so you have to make the best of life.

Also, if early death and illness is caused by sin, how do you explain the long lives of people such as Klaus Barbie? Committed many atrocities, and only died at the age of 77 of leukemia. Or conversely, the short life of Grace Darling. A Victorian heroine, who bravely, along with her father, participated in a maritime rescue. She died of tuberculosis at the age of 27.

That to me is a short sighted way of looking at things, as is saying that if you break the rules of a book written thousands of years ago, and probably only meant as a metaphor, you go to Hell. So many wars have been fought, and crimes committed, in the name of God; the hypocrisy of some so called Christians is unbelievable.

For the record, my mother is Christian and I have Christian friends. I was raised a Christian; however, I was allowed by my mother to make up my own mind and believe what I liked. She did not try and force me to go to church when I didn't believe, or castigate me for nonbelief.

I totally agree with Miranda here. I as well do not believe in heaven,hell,satan, or god and that we all just die. Luckily we dont necessarily have to rot in the ground if we wish to be cremated instead.

But about the cult thing. Heres a table to differentiate between the two as they are quite similar. I had a write a paper on the differences a while back so I still have some of my information.

Rocketship_ just out of curiosity, how is science anything like religion? Just kind of confused by your statement there.Have you ever heard of creation vs. Evolution? creation being religious views how we came to be and evolution being sciences how we came to be. They are two different looks at the same thing that always contradict one another.

[Singergirl0911]

I am currently looking at the Pagan religion. I personally am not fond of the Christian religion. I believe that some can be a bit pushy and hipocritical with their religion. I personally believe in free will and that all religions will bring you to 'heaven'. I don't really think there is a 'one true god'.

I've had several run ins with Christians who think that they are better than everyone. My aunt told me that my mother was going to burn in hell for being ***. My dad's step-father and his wife told me that I was going to burn in hell for not being a Christian. I really don't like spending time with my dad's side of the family.

I do know that not all the christians can be pushy and hipocritical and I do try not to have post-judgement, but I know I somewhat do judge by religion. Like my best friend is christian and we get along fine, but she also understands me more than most people. I try not to let religion be my sole basis, and I am pretty good at it. I just watch my back more around them.

[TheHayleyDoll]

I actually don't know many Christians that would yell at me for being an atheist. It may be because Canada's propulation is mostly atheist anyway, so we've grown to all just get along.

Christianity doesn't make much sense to me. Why is there no proof of almost anything that is said in the Bible? If there was really a great flood, the earth wouldn't dry up so quickly and be back to normal. We've all seen the damage done by flooding with the New Orleans thing, haven't we? They're still damaged today. And how would Noah fit two of EVERY species of animal onto the arc? There are BILLIONS of speices, so it would VERY VERY hard to fit all of them on the arc. And, if he had, many of them would have eaten each other. That's what animals do.

People die. Not because they sin, but because everyone ends up dying. Our bodies aren't made to live for centuries. Everything dies. Plants, animals, etc. Did the plants and animals commit sin too? No, they just couldn't support their needs any longer.

My opinion people. You die, you're dead. End of story.

I was reading this thing at school and it said that to relieve stress, I needed to be a spiritual person... Does music count as a religion? xD

[Silver_Wolf_Kitty]

I was raised in a Christian household and converted to Wicca at a young age without the knowledge of my family. They are really strict about that sort of thing and would actually disown me if they knew about my change in religion. I wouldn't necessarily say the religion is the reason why I changed, that had moreso to do with my experiences with one boy, but it played a big part. I found everyone very pushy and intolerant of other ideas, something that I refused to associate myself with. I know that not all Christians are like this and have a lot of friends who are Christian, but my experiences in general have involved very controlling and preachy people.

While I do worship the Christian god and other holy people from the religion, I am not strictly a Christian because I worship other gods too(I believe they all really are one god and goddess in many different forms). I can't give into that faith because I don't believe in what the Bible says, which is contradictory and cruel, and I feel organized religion is meant to exploit the people. Nothing against the religion, I just feel very strongly against it.

[Doctorwho_gal]

It seems to me religion is more based on what your parents tell you when you are young than a personal faith. I think religion should be a spiritual thing, which you discover yourself instead of something you have to belive of you will be sent to the 'fiery depths of hell'. I mean, if someone tells you at a young age that if you don't do what the bible says you will burn for eternity in hell, of course you will belive it.

[Rocketship_]

Mmph, to me, Hell is NOT that big of a deal. I'm more interested in getting to be closer to God. I'm not afraid of Hell, I know I am not going there; so why worry? It doesn't rule my opinion over my religion.

TheHayleyDoll: When they put two of each animal, it was actually a certain type of animal. Like..... hooved animals, and such. You mustn't forget that it took Noah over a hundred years to build that thing, so it was incredibly large.

And, evolution to me, makes no sense. If we 'evolved from apes' then, why are there still apes? Two atoms couldn't just suddenly appear, and make an entire universe. Where did those two atoms come from in the first place, then?

I really hate how some Christians act. They are only giving the term 'Christian' a bad name. Such people as Rev. Green, and that woman who killed her children so they wouldn't go to Hell, are downright INSANE. Religion has nothing to do with it, because their minds are obviously out of whack.

Miranda: That man died of cancer, you say? That means he had bitterness. Bitterness is the root of cancer. A woman gets brea'st cancer, equals her having bitterness towards another woman. All of this is the cause of 'evil spirits' or 'demons'. You let them in, they reek havoc on your body....

So, yeah..... I hardly ever go deep into this subject, because if people don't want to know, then they don't want to know. I'm not going to tell you about Jesus, or crap like that. You want to know? Then you know who to come to.
(:

[Silent_Wolf]

Okay, on Breast Cancer, I'm gonna stamp my foot on that one because my stepgrandmother has it and it's made her life a living hell. She's lost her hair, she's sick all the time, and she's among the sweetest women I know. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY except the sickest people in the world, deserve cancer as a punishment.

[Miranda_]

The point is, he died of cancer at 77 and Grace Darling died at 27. He was bad, yet lived longer than a heroine, which is the point that you're skipping over.