So what do you Christians like about your god belief/religion?

[Whateverist]

Victory over sin. Christ gives me the power to overcome my weaknesses.

What stops you overcoming them yourself, or with the help of family/friends?

Oh he does.  But he is free to give all credit to God if he wants.

[houseofcantor]

What stops you overcoming them yourself, or with the help of family/friends?

Oh he does.  But he is free to give all credit to God if he wants.

I'm not offended. If I see him in ICU thanking god, however, I may pull a plug. 

[Drich]

Plus direct access to God is a big plus especially in answering you 'good' people.

I don't think you've got anything I don't have there.  I don't call it God but I also have direct access to something beyond my conscious mind .. provided I can remain interested and humble enough to tune it in.  What I have has shown itself to be more brilliant and insightful than i alone.  It too has a stake in my success .. defined on its own terms of course.  There is plenty of mystery left in the world even after the death of the literal God.

But, I still have absolutes.. Unchanging right and wrong. In order for most 'new age'/old ideas spirituality to have freedom one must lower the 'moral bar' so to speak, to include the 'sins' that you find ok, and still indentify the ones that do not appeal to you/society.

I/Christianity still has sin, their status has not changed. what was wrong before is still wrong today. We are simply are no longer defined as being righteous (or not) by our ablity to keep the Law.

That certainly sounds like an odd sort of freedom.  Freedom from the law by means of toeing the line?  I guess.  Knuckle under and you are free!   How exhilarating.  

You married right?

Did you get married and are required to show love to your wife as apart of your contract?

Or

Did you get married because you loved her?

We don't toe the line for salvation. we toe the line because we want to. we want to show love to God.

[vorlon13]

The flexibility in doctrine has to be a tremendous positive for Christians. With 40,000 varieties of Christerism to select from, negotiating with God about which sect to join to accommodate virtually any lifestyle is a very compelling feature.


- - PLUS - -


most of those 40,000 varieties allow scripture cherry picking, so there will never be any restriction or inconvenience or contradiction between ones personnel life and their professed faith. The individuals faith can also be precisely 'fine tuned', should 40,000 variations on Christianity be insufficient, just ignore anything undesirable in whatever version of the Bible your faith suggests, and if needed, make up any additional scriptural imperatives as desired.

Allowing the followers to be in charge of their religion is just so damn convenient, other faiths have to be jealous.

[Whateverist]

There is plenty of mystery left in the world even after the death of the literal God.

But, I still have absolutes..

That's nothing to be ashamed of.  Got to remember that your belief system was essentially hijacked at an early age.  Keep thinking and you may yet get those pesky absolutes out.  

Unchanging right and wrong. In order for most 'new age'/old ideas spirituality to have freedom one must lower the 'moral bar' so to speak, to include the 'sins' that you find ok, and still indentify the ones that do not appeal to you/society.

I/Christianity still has sin, their status has not changed. what was wrong before is still wrong today. We are simply are no longer defined as being righteous (or not) by our ablity to keep the Law.

Not sure why you think this is a selling point.  I've never needed to think "that is evil always and forever" in order to feel justified in my moral reactions.

That certainly sounds like an odd sort of freedom.  Freedom from the law by means of toeing the line?  I guess.  Knuckle under and you are free!   How exhilarating.  

You married right?

Did you get married and are required to show love to your wife as apart of your contract?

Or

Did you get married because you loved her?

We don't toe the line for salvation. we toe the line because we want to. we want to show love to God.

Touche'.

[Drich]

The flexibility in doctrine has to be a tremendous positive for Christians.  With 40,000 varieties of Christerism to select from, negotiating with God about which sect to join to accommodate virtually any lifestyle is a very compelling feature.


- - PLUS - -


most of those 40,000 varieties allow scripture cherry picking, so there will never be any restriction or inconvenience or contradiction between ones personnel life and their professed faith.  The individuals faith can also be precisely 'fine tuned', should 40,000 variations on Christianity be insufficient, just ignore anything undesirable in whatever version of the Bible your faith suggests, and if needed, make up any additional scriptural imperatives as desired.  

Allowing the followers to be in charge of their religion is just so damn convenient, other faiths have to be jealous.

Wow, when did we gain the other 10000 forms?

About a year ago it was 10,000 then I've seen as high as 30K in some of the articals posted here in the last few months.. At this rate with in this decade we will have more forms of Christianity than people living.

Even so, to a degree you are correct. We do have the freedom to Worship God any way we want. The litmus is not in a set of religious Doctrine or rules as most suppose, it is in the greatest command we have. We are to love God with all of our being, and our neighbor as ourselves. the first part of this command would have us Love God with all of our hearts mind Spirit and strength. Now because we are all different this worship to this degree will look different from person to person depending on what God gave us to work with..

This means a very intelectual person would find a very hard time trying to worship God with all of his being when in a church who dances and sings most of the time/who preaches sermons on physical things/feeling etc.. Like wise the charasmatic believer would not be able to follow our greatest command in a lecture style sermon/church. That is why God never issued a list of Doctrinal commands in Christianity as He compiled one with the Jews.

Hate to burst your bubble but Jesus only see 7 different classifications of Churches meaning your (50,000 churches can be/has been condensed down by Christ to only 7 truly different and unique classifications.) The idea of multiple churches all containing the Gospel truth of Christ is also reflected in the various books of the NT. Each book was unique to s specific region/culture. Each region had it's own way to worship and therfore needed indivisual attention, which is why their are books written to specific regions and not just a blanket book of doctrine written to the church as with all other religions. And if you actually ever read those books Paul makes no qualms in pointing out that certain people had to have rules of worship other did not have to have. Why? again because we have freedom in so far as it does not keep us from living out our greatest commands.

We are supposed to be different. Christianity as a Religious movement repersents stages of Interaction with the Holy Spirit/God Himself. The Stronger your relationship the deeper the awaking/understanding that the rules do not makes us Holy. Jesus Made us holy and in doing so made us free from the rules as a way to define our holiness. Meaning we can worship God any way we want.. The only question then becomes, will what we do bring glory to God?

[Crossless2.0]

The idea of multiple churches all containing the Gospel truth of Christ is also reflected in the various books of the NT. Each book was unique to s specific region/culture. Each region had it's own way to worship and therfore needed indivisual attention, which is why their are books written to specific regions and not just a blanket book of doctrine written to the church as with all other religions.

Yes, each book was specific to a region, and your take-away from that is not that there were competing views of Christianity in those early days but that each represented the True Faith with a little local color thrown in, courtesy of God's broad-minded concern for regional differences. Cute story. How did that work out for the various Christian communities who were declared heretics and whose books were banished to the dustbin of history? I assume you are aware of how the NT canon was decided upon, no? Hint: the promptings of the Holy Spirit was the veneer of respectable bullshit the people who voted on the question used to justify their very political decision.

[Drich]

But, I still have absolutes..

That's nothing to be ashamed of.  Got to remember that your belief system was essentially hijacked at an early age.  Keep thinking and you may yet get those pesky absolutes out.  

That's the thing.. without absolutes everything is a measure of compromise. right now pop culture says everything is permissble if no one gets hurt.. how long before we change the defination of 'everyone' (again?)

In the 1930 German pop culture changed the defination of 'everyone' to only include Ariens.
The US is not immune either. In the beginning of this country we too only included Ariens in our pop culture defination of 'everyone,' and even after the civil War we shifted our hate to exclude 'indians.'

Why? because 'we' had no true absolutes. We selfrighteously held on to the laws (and in some cases fanatically so) and ignored others.

So again, how long before the sands of time sees another shift? Or put another way How many buildings have to come down by terrorist, or cities have to be dirty bombed and rendered inhabitable/abandoned, or ecconomies crash because of multi generational wars of fighting? before "everyone" no longer includes people of a certain faith of origin?

When you base something as critical as your "moral Standard" on the uncertainty of popular culture and it's defination of morality, then you are certain to follow whatever evil culture collectivly decides is 'right' for them at that time.

Or do you think ALL Germans were Evil who wore that particular uniform? No, they thought the were doing the right thing because they followed what the people/culture told them was right.

It is only from the benfit of an absolute that one can see evil creeping up in the culture as one compromise is made after another and another. Wanting a fair wage, and a place to live is a long way from putting Jews into ovens, and it did not happen over night, but with in a decade of one compromise after another, millions of jews were being marched into those ovens. (again The same exact thing happened in this country the same exact way. Hitler even cited what we did here to the "Negro and the indian" as the model for what He did.

The only time an absolute becomes a bad thing is when you are wanting to change the absolute.

Unchanging right and wrong. In order for most 'new age'/old ideas spirituality to have freedom one must lower the 'moral bar' so to speak, to include the 'sins' that you find ok, and still indentify the ones that do not appeal to you/society.

I/Christianity still has sin, their status has not changed. what was wrong before is still wrong today. We are simply are no longer defined as being righteous (or not) by our ablity to keep the Law.

Not sure why you think this is a selling point.  I've never needed to think "that is evil always and forever" in order to feel justified in my moral reactions.

When one looses sight of Evil, he is endangered of being over taken by it.

Again the first thing Hitler did was get rid of the church that identified Evil in what he was doing, and replaced it with one that was close in every respect except that it would not identify Evil as the bible identified it. then things like changing the status of a whole section of Humanity with in the population becomes easy almost second nature.

again with out an absolute/some unchanging land mark, it is easy to get lost and loose your way. 90% of the German people were this way. The just simply followed where the 'crowd' took them to a fault. Unfortunatly the other 10% knew how to blind the crowd and lead them.

You married right?

Did you get married and are required to show love to your wife as apart of your contract?

Or

Did you get married because you loved her?

We don't toe the line for salvation. we toe the line because we want to. we want to show love to God.

Touche'.
[/quote]

[Drich]

The idea of multiple churches all containing the Gospel truth of Christ is also reflected in the various books of the NT. Each book was unique to s specific region/culture. Each region had it's own way to worship and therfore needed indivisual attention, which is why their are books written to specific regions and not just a blanket book of doctrine written to the church as with all other religions.

Yes, each book was specific to a region, and your take-away from that is not that there were competing views of Christianity in those early days but that each represented the True Faith with a little local color thrown in, courtesy of God's broad-minded concern for regional differences. Cute story. How did that work out for the various Christian communities who were declared heretics and whose books were banished to the dustbin of history? I assume you are aware of how the NT canon was decided upon, no? Hint: the promptings of the Holy Spirit was the veneer of respectable bullshit the people who voted on the question used to justify their very political decision.

I am not disputing the consolidation of the church durning the 'dark ages', but again is that where the church remained?

So it started out as a handful of truly different churches and in the Last of the last days (The book of Revelation) It all goes back to that same model...

Hmmm.. Look like it ends up the way it was supposed to be.

Besides that (Speaking to those deemed as heritics) 'we' do not get to decide who is and who is not saved/Who is and is not 'Christian.' Jesus in Mt 7 Speaks on this directly.

[Whateverist]

Jesus Made us holy and in doing so made us free from the rules as a way to define our holiness.

Confused here. Jesus had a hand in our creation? How does that work? Or maybe you're saying he turned a knob to fix us up along the way?

The only question then becomes, will what we do bring glory to God?

Is God lacking in glory? What exactly is it we're doing for God that means so much to Him?