(May 23, 2022 at 12:25 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Are you really trying your best? I want to make a point here so that you sit for..what, 60 seconds? Not too much - and think about that.
Divergent from what christ thought? Certainly, absolutely, and inarguably. The man in the book was a man of his time. You might feel compelled to assert that jesus is the good leader in your good leaders>anarchy>bad leaders.....but....he (allegedly) held and espoused views that would get a bitch canceled today - if not thrown in prison or executed by SF. The thing that's interesting, is that contemporary christians in the US, by demographic weight, do not. Contemporary christians do not agree with jesus on this..and many other issues
Is this a benefit of a more hands off approach to morality? The approach you advocate for.
As to the other thing. The book of acts is fiction, even bible thumping bible scholars recognize that the book of acts is pure invention........but that doesn't really matter to me. We can assert for the absolute lulz that the book of acts is true, and that changes nothing about my life. Your religion is evil, that's why I'm not a christian. That's more relevant to me than the fact that your god does not exist. Welcome to Af. I hope I'm never so unfortunate as to be so unwell that I cut chunks out of myself while babbling about an abrahamic god and his ghostly buddies, by any description.......? Attend a local bible study? I'm from the deep old south. Would you wager you immortal soul on knowing more about what's in magic book than I do? Are you wholly committed to this line of reasoning that must assume that any divergent view, catholic or atheist.... is a product of ignorance and infamiliarity?
Perhaps I'm extremely knowledgeable about christian views..past and present...and I'm asking you this question because of that. Is what so many contemporary christians deride as the moral death or moral decay of society a product of a more hands off view...leveraging what a person might simply notice or discover, absent rigorous moral misinstruction by christians? Is that a possibility, for you? Maybe there was never any way..as a singular and pure and original thing..in the first place? But even if there were would you expect a more hands off approach to round up or down to whatever that way is...and...if so...why has the majority of the world..and even the majority of the christian world, missed whatever that is?
My ultimate reasoning, as you try to feel it out......some christ being a flawed bedrock. Well, yeah...vicarious redemption..... when's the last time you purchased a blood diamond for your loved one(s)..? Never? Yeah, me neither.
"Judge not that ye not be judged."
My hands off approach is more how I would handle things if I were a governor or a president who has been given a chance to reform education. The Bible would be one of the books that kids would be able to check out at the library and write book reports on but it wouldn't be forced on them. The hands off approach is so that kids can form their own identity and understand why they believe what they believe. Ultimately you can't be a follower of Christ if you never put the net down and choose to follow him. God doesn't just want your mind, he is far more concerned about your heart as well as your actions. This is why you can't force any religion on anyone and every attempt to force religion on kids is immoral IMO. You either get a mindless zombie who recites the songs and the prayers hoping that their parents will praise them for it or you get a rebellious and violent kid who hates religion for the way their parents pushed it on them.
When you say that Christ taught things which modern Christians don't agree with (or would get cancelled for) I would be interested as to what you are referring to specifically. No I wouldn't wage my immortal soul on who knows more about this supernatural book. As for the Catholic church I know this is a massive issue but for the most part, as I understand it, the entire protestant movement was sparked by William Tyndale and King James as they made it their mission to translate the Bible into the common language of the day and distribute it to as many people as possible. The Catholic church was Rome's way of dealing with a spiritual rebellion which rejected their gods and had people no longer willing to make sacrifices unto them. Their first solution was just executing Christians but due to their resilience the gospel only spread further and wider as stories of these brave men and women who were willing to die for their God spread across Rome.
So The Roman government figured, "If you can't beat em join em," and that's when Constantine formed the Roman Catholic Church as a way to re-unite Rome and combine the Roman mythology with Christian practices. The goal was simple, create a Christo-Roman hybrid religion that has pagan gods wearing saint-like masks so that both the pagans and the Christians can attend church together. This was a much more successful way of slowing the move of god than just chopping Christian's heads off. The term "protestant" means that you are one who protests the Catholic church. I had a friend in college who liked to call himself a protestant atheist for this very reason given that he was raised Catholic.
I don't think that Catholics (especially in the modern day) are ignorant of the Bible, I don't think this of atheists or any other division of the body of Christ either. Knowledge of the word is one thing but action is a far more important act of worship than belief or argument. I do hope I never spoke with you, or any other person on this forum, as though they are ignorant of the most common book on earth. I know you guys have reasons for why you've chosen not to believe as I myself have gone down the atheist YouTube rabbit hole myself and wound up challenging my own beliefs as a result. But after I had heard just about every argument for atheism I just simply wasn't convinced.
When it comes to moral decay I think that is a result of the church separating itself from the Holy Spirit which should be its primary sustainer. Most modern churches you walk into today don't just lack the Holy Spirit but also the fruit thereof. How many Christian leaders strike you as peaceful? or Joyful? or Patient? or Kind? at a glance the New Testament is full of loving and encouraging words written by the apostles to the church groups that they helped start. But how often do we see Christians building each other up with encouragement? As someone who was raised in a Church and am still in attendance I can tell you that Christian fellowship is a fairly rare thing in these United States, most of the time all you get is a judgmental reading of the book followed by people judging themselves, their country as well as each other, endlessly analyzing themselves and those around them for flaws. You probably wouldn't choose to be friends with someone who is like this, would you? And yet we are told, by our savior, not to judge unless we ourselves are pure enough to make a judgment. But more importantly we are called to be a light or a beacon to this perishing world, a city set on a hill. In my home church there are many intellectuals who have gone to seminary, who know a fair bit of Greek who can argue and reason their position to you for hours, but what we lack is compassion towards each other. My church was very charitable, but what they lacked was a sense of compassion for those who had been with them for a long time.
After I had gotten my heart-broken at the ripe old age of 17 I went into the worst downward spiral of my whole life. I felt lost, I felt like no one knew how to empathize with me, I felt like I was abandoned by everyone in my family. Sure, they did take me to some pill salesmen and I did end up finding a good counselor, but as I spoke with this counselor I realized something, I like him because A. he listens to me and B. he acts like whatever I tell him must somehow be significant. My insurance was paying him $50/hr just so I could have a real friend. My parents only listen from a standpoint of pious superiority and so they will hardly ever acknowledge their own weaknesses in front of me. Most people in my Bible study group are similar, because I was struggling to find purpose, meaning and acceptance I was treated as an outcast. Because I needed the church that I went to daycare in they treated me like a vagabond. I felt like I didn't have a home or a family, and I've felt this way for quite some time now. They have brain knowledge of the word but, asaide from being good citizens who work hard and cross their T's and dot their I's they're too wealthy to care for the poor in spirit.
For the most part I think being hands off is about allowing someone to come to their own conclusions as well as challenge your deeply held beliefs without you asserting that your mind is divine and that they are a sinner for questioning you. I'm confident that through prayer and action Christians can do a wonderful job actually demonstrating their religion without being overly preachy or judgmental as though they are above you looking down on you from their lofty seat at their self-appointed throne. The Pharisees were those who considered their interpretation of the law to be law. They saw Moses 1,600 laws and thought to themselves "that's not enough, we need more laws, more judgement, more condemnation for the congregation." and so they sought to outlaw anything which might lead to a law being broken, establishing a strict code that forbade everyone from entering the kingdom of God. This is my view of those who value Judgment over compassion. You have to show people the love of Christ before they will ever accept his judgment.
We worship a man who once described himself as gentle and lowly, does this description match your local pastor? Do the values of humility and kindness seem evident in the way that your local church congregation acts towards one another? Or do they seem austere and Judgy?
