Hey, at least it's not Judaism. That said, I haven't read the Bible, so I don't think I can really respond in any reasonable capacity. I suppose one thing to keep in mind is that the Bible isn't really a book, but a library (hence the name). It's made up of various books written by various people across many ages, with various translations of varying quality, then analysed and reinterpreted in various ways in at attempt to resolve the contradictions and archaic language.

Regardless, Christianity is generally one of the more chill religions compared to some others. But you always get the sects that do things a bit differently. They way you describe Christianity is akin to saying that Islam is a religion of terrorism. Both religions call for the persecution and death of non-believers if those parts of their respective scripture are interpreted as such, but it's rather unfair to draw such a wide brush stroke.

    14 days later

    I understand your deep frustration and skepticism toward Christianity, and some of your language reflects genuine engagement with serious philosophical and theological questions. These aren’t new objections and Christians have wrestled with them for centuries. I’d like to offer a different way of approaching these topics, I am not here to convert not convince you but would like try and correctly address some of these issues.

    1. God intends human to be in communion with him, not to coerce them. Mankind is given free will, and part of that reality includes the possibility of evil. We must not think of God as a physical thing that exist in a literal observation of us. The Christian faith is one that comes from revelation, and there are things that cannot be easily grasped with our modern interpretation of ancient scripture. Evil exists and it is necessarily permitted to exist. Seems a little unsatisfactory of an answer but there's a lot more that we could go into on this topic. It's a bit hard, but maybe it's not so hard to understand that there's a lot more to be understood within a holistic paradigm.

      Heaven is not something that we really understand or really know to exist in this moment. Maybe some liberal depictions have created a little bit of a misunderstanding. That being said making some hypothetical argument about sin not being able to enter heaven and jerking it in hell doesn't give much to talk about. We really don't know what heaven is nor what it entails truly, we can read the Book of Revelation, but the problem is that we're prone to understand in a literal way. Christianity and the understanding of scripture has suffered a bit to modern interpretation.
      You can actually go and read what the early "Church fathers believed and how the scriptures were understood" unfortunately picking up a Bible and believing what you understand of it is not always conducive to is intended meaning.

    2. More on heaven. Again, we cannot actually know, even if someone claims to have had a vision or a near-death experience Christianity teaches that you cannot always trust what you feel, likewise what you may have a dream about. As we are man, visions can come from either three places. From ourselves, demons, or God. It would be foolish to claim to know the difference no matter how convinced we may be. You are totally right, such things are incomprehensible. We understand that we must all answer to God when the day comes. What day exactly? We don't know, there will be signs of the times but Christ comes like a thief in the night. (paraphrasing scripture) Communion with Christ is totally a choice, and it's a little difficult to follow the example of being "forced to marry" Again, I can see you're trying to abstract concepts in literal way, but this is really a fault of modern interpretation.

    3. So nobody knows who actually goes to heaven, the Christian paradigm provides us with a good guide of how we should live and %100 percent makes the knowledge claim of being "true" but it does not tell you who will indeed go to heaven. Christ provides an excellent example and teachings to us that we may live as good Christian. You can "cherry pick" whatever you want to say "yes it does!" but I'd argue that you are misunderstanding something. Just how you could take some phrases and claim that you "must do this to be saved" and spin it to mean whatever you want. (of course this would be wrong)

    In Christ/God there is life, but probably not the way you understand. The fall of man (Garden of Eden) is what caused death.. but not as you may understand it entirely. Christ came as the word incarnate to fulfil a new covenant to give us life/regeneration. Christ came to destroy death, and descended into Hades to preach the Gospel. (yes this is in the scripture) "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" John 3:16. But is it that simple? No, not really, simple "belief is not what being a Christian is about. There are also the things you do.

    1. As I had stated before, physical death is not the end of life. Death is to be without Christ, not to literally die as you and I know. That is what it means to not taste death, but of course those who died before Christ had been crucified indeed would have tasted death.

    Many "churches" are really just cults. People will till the end of times as we know it use the word of God for evil. Churches do take money to run, and are community driven efforts. I think it's pretty easy to see in the example of "Mega Churches" how corruption occurs. Some more on that note real quick. Google "Timeline of Church history" and you can see how apostatised many "Churches" really are.

    Yes, Christianity does discourage engaging in many things especially not marrying another Christian. You can definitely hang out with non- Christians, it would be awfully silly to ostracize somebody over that though I'm sure it could happen. So it's also not true that you cannot be ethical without being a Christian, but where do you suppose morals come from? Common sense? Evolution? Science? We could begin to suppose that it could, but it's gonna fall short for a true justification as to why that may be the case. Morals cannot be subjective, as that would mean that they could easily change.

    I can totally see how Christianity cannot seem logical, but I think you might be demanding a simple answer to something a bit more complex.

    I'm sure I didn't give a completely satisfactory answer as I'm not looking to convince of anything but I am completely open to try and answer what I can. Hope this reply find you well, my intention is not to provoke so I hope we can keep it civil and avoid egregious insults.

    a month later

    Just wanna put my 2 cents in here. If you think Christianity is psychotic please look into the Talmud. I'd argue out of the 3 abrahamic religions, christianity has the least offending stuff to people's lives. The current modern chrisianity that christians believe in doesn't seem very harmful. I'd like to mention that while the bible has a lot of contradictions, I think that people can pick and choose what to believe. For example, when some kid asked the pope if his non believing father was in hell, the pope said no. I'm not an expert on this so please don't come at me for not knowing stuff. And islam.. Your post was long, but I think if you read the Quran and the Hadiths your post could have a reading length of 7 hours. I.E. What kind of prophet marries at 6 year old!??!?!

    I'd like add since it came up, comparatively on a philosophical Christianity is a solid as it can get. I do want to also say that I'm not of the belief that the bible in anyway contradicts its self. The old testament is largely an account telling of the many times people transgressed the laws of God, and how they suffered subsequently. A recurring theme is how the prophets were continually chosen and how eventually people would stray from God. So something that may be used out of context would be like saying "God allows or tells you to have slaves." This would be a good example of taking something out of context. There are indeed guidelines that teach you how you might treat a servant, but that does not really equal to out modern understanding of slavery. I'd add to that God did not tell people to have servants either, this would totally be a result of freewill. (it was Christian nations that would also put an end to servants while Muslims still practice it to this day) There are also themes of sexual violence and child sacrifice in the bible but it's pretty clear that the bible says they are not good things.


     Since I glossed over it I want to go back to the Talmud briefly and then the Quran. Modern Judaism is not the same as it was before Christ. The Jewish people back the, while many did not, rejected Christ as the messiah and had him crucified via the Roman. Fun fact when the bible refers to the nation of "Israel" or "the new Israel" this is in reference to those who would come to be Christians, not to those who would rejects Christ as Jesus specifically foretold that the old temple would be destroyed. Modern Jews believe that Christ is burning in feces and that non Jews are like cattle. (just like Muslims) It's in their books if you really want more on that. 

 The "prophet" Mohammed came something like 600 years after Christ and claimed that he had received the world of God and would go on to make the absolute abominations of a religion called Islam. Making claims that Christ was not divine (like the Jewish people did) and that he did not really die on the cross. Islam also teaches you not to question the faith while Christianity encourages one to reflect upon and  meditate on the word of God. Neat fact is that the bible actually had already addressed something like this. Galatians 1:8:"But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed". 

I'd totally look into these things though if you are curious rather than just take my word for it. I used to be more than critical of Christianity until I came to terms with the fact that I didn't actually know as much as I thought about it.


      3 months later

      I remember when we had a similar thread like 7 years ago and I don't wana go back and read what I wrote but I've grown as a person since then. I completely agree with you. For some reason i hesitate to call myself an ex catholic but i'm sure I will start soon. I went to bible school and was confirmed and everything. Looking back, I am sure something sinister was going on back then, at the time as a child I didn't feel that way at all but. There were many times we were alone with those adults. It's creepy looking back and thankfully i think nothing bad happened to me but it could've to others. Suddenly the priest was replaced with no warning and the congregation continued as nothing happened. I wonder why...

        COUPLED There definitely is something off I tend to feel when around organised religion. The way I see it, I can be into the faith, but the idea of priests and stuff I find a bit... cringe?

            COUPLED Yeah, I suppose so. I wouldn't say that hierarchy is always bad, but I suppose for me it's mostly the idea of this one person supposedly having the authority to speak for God or Christ. That said, it's been a very long time since I had any exposure to the Church, so much of the impression I have of it was from when I was an angsty teenager. Maybe I'll visit the Catholic Church in my town someday...

                malmon Too many people I know that's had something bad happen to them have turned religious and into a different person. Not that change is bad but it can be

                    a month later

                    mauhs Nothing that I really want to voice on this forum - ain't the place for it~

                      mauhs Actually, now I'm curious, why study the Talmud if you're an atheist?

                        mauhs Well then you're certainly more mature than I was back then ^^'7

                          I'm going to try to finish the bible today

                          Saoru
                          Erm actually in Zechariah 13-3 "And if any one again appears as a prophet, his father and mother who bore him shall pierce him through when he prophesies."But they kinda go back on it in Malachi 4-5 "Behold, I will send you Eli'jah the prophet before the great day comes" and Jesus was confused to be Eli'jah when crying to God while crucified so I guess that is Jesus

                              Saoru

                              frenchfry

                              Which Bibles are you guys reading?

                              Zacharias 13-3
                              And it shall come to pass, that when any man shall prophesy any more, his father and his mother that brought him into the world, shall say to him: Thou shalt not live: because thou hast spoken a lie in the name of the Lord. And his father, and his mother, his parents, shall thrust him through, when he shall prophesy.

                              Malachias 4:5
                              Behold, I will send you Elias the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

                              Galatians 1-8
                              But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.

                              Wasn't Elijah some centuries before Jesus? Or is the interpretation that Jesus was a sort of reincarnation of Elijah?

                                  I am not christian, but I would regard it as an adaptive thing to be a cristian.
                                  Being a subject of higher power or a servant is paradoxically empowering to a person's life;
                                  and the example of Jesus divinity is something anyone could conceivably achieve and i feel that cultivating towards something above humanity is something necessary for a society and/or people , and Jesus in particular is probably the best example for divinity to follow.
                                  Believing and internalizing that every good act will be rewarded, and evil one punished is good for a society ;
                                  I regard a shame-based society as inferior to a guilty-based one.
                                  heaven is supposed to be the earth we are living on right now, so it implicitly pushes you to care for the place you live and nature.

                                  a society made of me would probably be more psychotic than one made by christians.
                                  For example, I don't have any moral problem with eugenics I mainly just dislike the people espousing the idea;
                                  Entertaining eugenicism, I feel gets you closer to psychopathy rather than morally rejecting the idea outright.