What Is Christianity Based On

[connermt]

Many claim god is love and thus, that's what christianity is based on - LOVE. But is it really?
While love is taught in the NT (the OT seems to be about war, death, consequences, etc), there is also much conflict going on - particularily with the political powers of the time. Some scholars even see the NT books as politically motivated works and nothing more.
The RCC hasn't been the 'loving-est' establishment throughout history - particualirily if you were a Jew, Muslim, independent thinker, the current ownership of Temple Mount, etc.
Looking around at the state of today's christianity, we see the same type of thing:
many believers complain people like Joel Osteen (sp?) is preaching too soft; sinners aren't welcomed in many churches (though only certain sinners); the legalization of beliefs based off of fear and guilt instead of letting an example be the focal point of the issue; etc.

Christians like to hide behind their beliefs/god: 'god said XYZ is bad so it's bad' or the like.
So is christianity hiding their need for conflict behind "love"? Is christianity all about conflict or truly about love?

[Joab]

The reasonable thing for you to have done would be to point out non-Christian charities

I did that in post 15, still waiting for a response.

[connermt]

[Replying to post 20 by The Me's]

And I'm the one on probation.

No idea what that means so I can't answer it

You actually think that it's "civil" to pretend that all Christians can be compared to Nazis and child molesters?

I didn't compare anything - simply stated a fact that TRCC, a christian organization, supports(ed) some priest who were/are child molestors and helped the Nazis during the war. Both are verifiable facts. Rather or not you consider facts "civil" or not.....?

There is no moderation at this web site.

Untrue

Instead, you openly smear all Christians by comparing them to Nazis and child molesters, and comments like this are allowed to stand as "reasonable" in a debate format.

The fact that you consider negative facts as "smear" points to an underlying problem IMO.
I simply asked if you're going to say "look at all the great things done - we are awesome!" that you can't ignore the negative things 'you've' done (you've meaning the church you're a part of).

You've done nothing but express naked hatred and bigotry. A normal human being can at a minimum acknowledge goodness and generosity and allow it to inspire them. Our generosity as a religion seems to rob you of humanity.

What would jesus say...?

[dianaiad]

[Replying to post 16 by The Me's]

Very nearly, yes, I am.

You can measure by $$, by number of unpaid volunteers, or by any other means.

Great
Then we can also go through history and measure the evil actions the church has done and see what the "net goodness" is, yes?
Child molestation
Codemning knowledge
Helping the Nazis kill Jews
Helping the Nazis escape justice
How much are these things worth? Or are christian charities just a means to balance out these evil actions of the church and its churche members?
Are you trying to buy your way into the afterlife if you're a charatiable christian?
I guess one CAN put a price on the lives destroyed by the church and its "goodness in the name of its god".

And I'm the one on probation.

You actually think that it's "civil" to pretend that all Christians can be compared to Nazis and child molesters?

There is no moderation at this web site.

The reasonable thing for you to have done would be to point out non-Christian charities, such as the Red Crescent (Muslim), Hindu volunteer hospitals, or undocumented charities within China assisting their over 200,000,000 homeless and migratory population.

Instead, you openly smear all Christians by comparing them to Nazis and child molesters, and comments like this are allowed to stand as "reasonable" in a debate format.

You've done nothing but express naked hatred and bigotry. A normal human being can at a minimum acknowledge goodness and generosity and allow it to inspire them. Our generosity as a religion seems to rob you of humanity.

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[The Me's]

[Replying to dianaiad]

In my experience, the moderators at this site don't make a substantial effort to deter anti-Christian comments.

All of us, as adults, have a moral imperative to identify societal poisons such as bigotry and racism to prevent it from becoming something worse. I for one will not allow anyone to dissuade me from this imperative.

If this contradicts forum rules, please delete my account.

[otseng]

In my experience, the moderators at this site don't make a substantial effort to deter anti-Christian comments.

That's true. People are free to attack Christianity on this forum. But, what is not allowed is to attack posters and call them bigots or racists.

I will add that we don't make much effort to deter anti-gay, anti-Jew, anti-anything here. Any belief system can be challenged. But, it must not cross over into attacking a person.

If this contradicts forum rules, please delete my account.

If you still wish to have your account deleted, post a request here.

[The Me's]

If this contradicts forum rules, please delete my account.

If you still wish to have your account deleted, post a request here.

This is sufficient.

I don't think you need directions to another forum and a reposting of the request.

This is supposed to be a debate forum. Prejudicial comments serve no objective purpose in any debate. They're cowardly, and they debase any attempt to have a discussion.

If the rules don't seek to curb prejudicial comments, then the rules are inappropriately designed for a debate forum.

I for one will not allow something as trivial as an internet web site to modify my behavior to begin tolerating prejudice. In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that I have no intent to modify the way I post here.

[Divine Insight]

What Is Christianity Based On
Love or conflict?

It's not based on either.

Here is an outline of what Christianity is based upon:

1. A faith-based belief that humans fell from grace from their creator.

Christianity proclaims that this fall applies to everyone without exception. And there is no one who has not fallen short of the glory of God.

This is a faith-based believe based upon ancient Hebrew or Israelite folklore.

2. All of humanity has sinned and deserves damnation in the eyes of God.

Again, this is a faith-based belief, and it stems from the ancient myths of the story of the Great Flood in the Old Testament. Supposedly every thought of every human was a though of evil. Even Noah was not without sin, but God decided to have grace on Noah and his family for some unexplained reason. Possibly to save the animal kingdom from a supposed world-wide flood.

3. Humans were given a second chance to do right in the eyes of God through Noah and his family.

However, it is the Christian faith no human was able to attain this status on their own merit.

4. Finally God sent his only begotten son to earth as a demigod born of a virgin mortal woman for the express purpose of offering us salvation.

At this point the Christians begin to place their faith in the idea that no human is even capable of achieving grace in the eyes of God without direct intervention and approval of Jesus as the Christ.

5. The only way to achieve salvation at this point is to confess that we are not capable of attaining salvation on our own merit and surrendering to the Christ to be "saved" from something that we supposedly were never capable of saving ourselves since the dawn of time.

And all of this is believed as a matter of pure faith on the part of the Christians.

~~~~~~

My question to any and all Christians, is why?

Why place your faith in such a hopeless dismal picture?

The whole religion proclaims that you never had a chance for salvation on your own merit from the very beginning. Yet the religion demands that you are the one who has chosen to be in this totally hopeless and impossible predicament.

So it demands that you are completely responsible for something that it simultaneously also demands that you have absolute no control over.

Why in the world would you ever care to place your faith in ancient fables that proclaim that you are guilty and responsible for something that you supposedly have absolutely no control over and couldn't even remedy on your own merit even if you wanted to?

How can you be guilty of something you supposedly can't even remedy on your own merit? That is an impossible situation that you could never be held responsible for, IMHO. This is why, for me personally, this religion can only be totally a devious and underhanded religious scam. It was invented by a culture over many years and slowly evolved from it's earliest beginnings to become a religion cult that proclaims there is no way to escape damnation short of joining and supporting the cult.

And we are being asked to believe in this impossible situation on pure faith? ;-K

Moreover, it's not even acceptable to accept the offer of salvation from this demigod Jesus on your own. If you do not also join and support the overall cult your claim to accept the offer of salvation from the demigod Jesus will be proclaim to be a false claim and you will be branded as a "Heathen" with respect to the other organized cults of this religion.

In fact, this major cult known as "Christianity" has itself already broken up into countless disagreeing cults known as "denominations". And each one of these individual cults does precisely the same thing. They renounce the validity of your relationship or acceptance of the demigod Christ unless you actually join their particular version of the cult and support their specific dogma and beliefs.

Christianity is not even about the demigod named Christ. It's about joining a cult named Christianity and supporting the religion bigotries and dogma of that specific cult.

I proclaim to everyone that Jesus the Christ has totally embraced me and filled me with his holy spirit and he has assured me and guaranteed my place in heaven sitting on a throne right next to him. This has been guaranteed and assured to me by Jesus Christ himself in spirit.

Do the Christians accept this?

No they do not. On the contrary they will all condemn me in the name of Jesus as their Christ. They will proclaim that I am a heathen and a 'non-believer'.

Why? Because I refuse to join, or support their religion beliefs and dogmas.

I refuse to join or support the religion cults that they have built up around their fallacious claims to own the patent rights on Jesus as their Christ.

I refuse to allow them to take ownership of Jesus.

For this they condemn me as being a heathen who knows nothing of Jesus, or "Christianity"

But I say unto you this day, when they enter the pearly gates of heaven they will find me sitting in throne at the left-hand of Jesus. Assuming that they make it into heaven at all.

[NancyDL]

[Replying to post 1 by connermt]

Certainly the OT is full of a lot of stuff that contradicts Jesus' basic teachings. To me, this is irrelevant. With his teachings of forgiveness, non-judgment and love, Jesus made the OT irrelevant. There's no need to keep revisiting it.

[NancyDL]

What Is Christianity Based On
Love or conflict?

It's not based on either.

Here is an outline of what Christianity is based upon:

1. A faith-based belief that humans fell from grace from their creator.

Christianity proclaims that this fall applies to everyone without exception. And there is no one who has not fallen short of the glory of God.

This is a faith-based believe based upon ancient Hebrew or Israelite folklore.

2. All of humanity has sinned and deserves damnation in the eyes of God.

Again, this is a faith-based belief, and it stems from the ancient myths of the story of the Great Flood in the Old Testament. Supposedly every thought of every human was a though of evil. Even Noah was not without sin, but God decided to have grace on Noah and his family for some unexplained reason. Possibly to save the animal kingdom from a supposed world-wide flood.

3. Humans were given a second chance to do right in the eyes of God through Noah and his family.

However, it is the Christian faith no human was able to attain this status on their own merit.

4. Finally God sent his only begotten son to earth as a demigod born of a virgin mortal woman for the express purpose of offering us salvation.

At this point the Christians begin to place their faith in the idea that no human is even capable of achieving grace in the eyes of God without direct intervention and approval of Jesus as the Christ.

5. The only way to achieve salvation at this point is to confess that we are not capable of attaining salvation on our own merit and surrendering to the Christ to be "saved" from something that we supposedly were never capable of saving ourselves since the dawn of time.

And all of this is believed as a matter of pure faith on the part of the Christians.

~~~~~~

My question to any and all Christians, is why?

Why place your faith in such a hopeless dismal picture?

The whole religion proclaims that you never had a chance for salvation on your own merit from the very beginning. Yet the religion demands that you are the one who has chosen to be in this totally hopeless and impossible predicament.

So it demands that you are completely responsible for something that it simultaneously also demands that you have absolute no control over.

Why in the world would you ever care to place your faith in ancient fables that proclaim that you are guilty and responsible for something that you supposedly have absolutely no control over and couldn't even remedy on your own merit even if you wanted to?

How can you be guilty of something you supposedly can't even remedy on your own merit? That is an impossible situation that you could never be held responsible for, IMHO. This is why, for me personally, this religion can only be totally a devious and underhanded religious scam. It was invented by a culture over many years and slowly evolved from it's earliest beginnings to become a religion cult that proclaims there is no way to escape damnation short of joining and supporting the cult.

And we are being asked to believe in this impossible situation on pure faith? ;-K

Moreover, it's not even acceptable to accept the offer of salvation from this demigod Jesus on your own. If you do not also join and support the overall cult your claim to accept the offer of salvation from the demigod Jesus will be proclaim to be a false claim and you will be branded as a "Heathen" with respect to the other organized cults of this religion.

In fact, this major cult known as "Christianity" has itself already broken up into countless disagreeing cults known as "denominations". And each one of these individual cults does precisely the same thing. They renounce the validity of your relationship or acceptance of the demigod Christ unless you actually join their particular version of the cult and support their specific dogma and beliefs.

Christianity is not even about the demigod named Christ. It's about joining a cult named Christianity and supporting the religion bigotries and dogma of that specific cult.

I proclaim to everyone that Jesus the Christ has totally embraced me and filled me with his holy spirit and he has assured me and guaranteed my place in heaven sitting on a throne right next to him. This has been guaranteed and assured to me by Jesus Christ himself in spirit.

Do the Christians accept this?

No they do not. On the contrary they will all condemn me in the name of Jesus as their Christ. They will proclaim that I am a heathen and a 'non-believer'.

Why? Because I refuse to join, or support their religion beliefs and dogmas.

I refuse to join or support the religion cults that they have built up around their fallacious claims to own the patent rights on Jesus as their Christ.

I refuse to allow them to take ownership of Jesus.

For this they condemn me as being a heathen who knows nothing of Jesus, or "Christianity"

But I say unto you this day, when they enter the pearly gates of heaven they will find me sitting in throne at the left-hand of Jesus. Assuming that they make it into heaven at all.

Most of what passes for Christianity these days is really just a device for us to make ourselves special, to put ourselves above others. This is our "original sin"- the part of us that gets us into trouble over and over. It's a form of greed, and it's what we really need help with. And, because we need help with this, Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit.

[connermt]

[Replying to post 1 by connermt]

Certainly the OT is full of a lot of stuff that contradicts Jesus' basic teachings. To me, this is irrelevant. With his teachings of forgiveness, non-judgment and love, Jesus made the OT irrelevant. There's no need to keep revisiting it.

If the OT is irrelevant, then we should discount the 10 commandments yes?
Shelfish issues, slavery, the flood - genesis even?