I have a few questions regarding your perspectives on the church and Christianity..

**What are the big problems/issues you see in the Christian church today?

**Is your perspective of the former question from the inside (ie, your background was in church) or that of an outsider looking in? What took you away from church, if your background was church?

**What do you think about the person Jesus Christ? Is he real, historical person? Faked?

**What is the point or purpose in your life? What do you live for?

I'm especially interested in your responses to the first question!!

And you are ?

(August 19, 2015 at 7:24 pm)jiffy Wrote: I have a few questions regarding your perspectives on the church and Christianity..

**What are the big problems/issues you see in the Christian church today?

**Is your perspective of the former question from the inside (ie, your background was in church) or that of an outsider looking in? What took you away from church, if your background was church?

**What do you think about the person Jesus Christ? Is he real, historical person? Faked?

**What is the point or purpose in your life? What do you live for?

I'm especially interested in your responses to the first question!!

1) Define church. There are about 40.000 different denominations. I Haven't got a problem with the church - see 2.

2) The church is nothing but a medium or a building. It's the people who create the problem. If they are radicals or if they want to force their believes on society at large.

3) How would I know if Jesus was real. Noone knows. There's no evidence for his existence and at the same time you can't prove a negative.

4) I am the purpose of my life. And everyone and everything that is important to me.

(August 19, 2015 at 7:33 pm)abaris Wrote: 1) Define church. There are about 40.000 different denominations. I Haven't got a problem with the church - see 2.

Great clarification. Church as used here is the people that make up the church. Let's narrow it a bit and specify an evangelical fundamentalist for the purpose of this question.

(August 19, 2015 at 7:36 pm)jiffy Wrote: Great clarification. Church as used here is the people that make up the church. Let's narrow it a bit and specify an evangelical fundamentalist for the purpose of this question.

I hold evangelical fundamentalists in the same regards as muslim fundamentalists or jewish ones.

Everyone feeling the need to force their view on others or on society at large is despicable. And I gladly extend the courtesy to secular ideologists also.

What are the big problems/issues you see in the Christian church today?


It is full of people who believe in God.  Clear that up, and I'll have no problem with churches.

Is your perspective of the former question from the inside (ie, your background was in church) or that of an outsider looking in?

I used to be a nominal Catholic, never took it to heart.

What took you away from church, if your background was church?

I learned how to read.

What do you think about the person Jesus Christ? Is he real, historical person? Faked?


Neither.  I tend to view Christ a myth-figure. ('Faked' implies that there was a deliberate conspiracy to invent Jesus out of whole cloth.  I doubt that was the case.)


What is the point or purpose in your life? What do you live for?


Some might say that 'The purpose of life is to live a life of purpose,' that that comes off as fatuous, and not intended to give a real answer.  So I think I'll stick with it.

Boru

Hello there

Problems with Christian church: morally bankrupt death cult, indoctrination, religious agenda in politics, divisiveness, devalueing of human life, special treatment such as tax evasion.

My perspective is as a lifelong atheist.

To me, Jesus is most likely a mix of a few historical figures (5%) and made up garbage (95%).

The main purpose of my life is to look after humans and animals as best I can, and to try and enjoy myself while doing so.

(August 19, 2015 at 7:36 pm)jiffy Wrote: Let's narrow it a bit and specify an evangelical fundamentalist for the purpose of this question.

Welcome to the forum, Jiffy. Nice to meet you.

**What are the big problems/issues you see in the Christian church today?

Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, hypocrisy, propaganda, and telling children they're going to hell if they don't do what they say scarring them for life.

**Is your perspective of the former question from the inside (ie, your background was in church) or that of an outsider looking in?

I was brought up in a Pentecostal church, and for a while I went to a baptist one. Pentecostals have better music.

What took you away from church, if your background was church?

When they started going on about Obama and Muslims more than focusing on their own teachings. Muslims convert in prisons? So do Christians. Big fucking whoop!

**What do you think about the person Jesus Christ? Is he real, historical person? Faked?

He might have been real. Doesn't mean he was the Son of God. For all we know he was a teacher/healer ahead of his time who knew how to treat illnesses no one else did since our understanding of medicine and the likes back then would have been shit, and then people exaggerated the stories (what we can do now would be considered magic to them) and made him a religious symbol. Or, it's just as likely he didn't exist at all.

**What is the point or purpose in your life? What do you live for?

Friends, family, and my passion to write reviews on the video games I play. I live a simple life.

(August 19, 2015 at 7:24 pm)jiffy Wrote: I have a few questions regarding your perspectives on the church and Christianity..

I'm especially interested in your responses to the first question!!

**What are the big problems/issues you see in the Christian church today?

There's no such thing as the church or even Christianity as a whole.  There is the Roman Catholic Church, various protestant churches including evangelicals, fundamentalists, Amish, Mennonites and others, the Mormons, The Jehovah's Witnesses, The Eastern Orthodox Church, The Anglicans (who are mostly Catholics without the pope), and many I'm sure I'm forgetting.

As an outsider my problems with some churches include:  racism and homophobia claiming to be a virtue; anti-feminism; the desire to inflict prudish views about sex, liquor, and drugs on others; denial of scientific theories; denying children proper secular educations; the proposition that human life begins at conception; terrorism; preaching abstinence but not birth control or disease prevention; denying children proper medical care; rewriting history and faking archeology; shunning; attempts to create a christian state or nation; protection child molesters from the law; claiming exemptions from employment laws; tax exempt status; collections for charities with closed books; indoctrination; and general intolerance of others.  And those are just the biggies.

**Is your perspective of the former question from the inside (ie, your background was in church) or that of an outsider looking in? What took you away from church, if your background was church?

I can't remember ever believing, but I was raised in a very actively Christian household.  First Presbyterian, than Lutheran.  Neither church believed in factual biblical inerrantcy, though both believed in spiritual biblical inerrantcy (a nonsensical idea but better than factual inerrantcy I guess).  Neither was waiting for the rapture.

**What do you think about the person Jesus Christ? Is he real, historical person? Faked?

Jesus was a real rabbi who preached around Nazareth and was crucified for sedition in Jerusalem.  He probably preached the coming of a real kingdom of god on earth within his lifetime which is why he was crucified (the Romans would not have crucified him for violation of Jewish religious law).  Most of what is written about him in the bible is myth which grew out of telling and retelling orally as well as doctrinally motivated additions and subtractions.

**What is the point or purpose in your life? What do you live for?

There is no purpose to my life in the sense, that my life was not begun for a purpose on any cosmic level.  I live to enjoy living which generally means to do interesting and useful things (not merely wine, men and song) and to provide joy, companionship, aide, and comfort to family and friends.  I hope to leave a few beautiful things behind: