How can I beleive in christianity when the christians cant even agree with themselves

[Locutus]

Hi All
I have always wondered something about religion. Why is their so many interpretations of the same book. We have the Catholics, beleive this, the Pentacosts beleive that, we have the jehovas beleive something else, and so on. They all say the other is wrong. We have a zillion different ideas. We have priests that beleive in Evolution and Scientists that beleive in God, We have those who say the world was created 4000 years ago, and that all those fossils ore dated wrong. Hell the chinese culture dated back about 6000 recorded years doesnt it. Thats ignoring the ultimate incestual relationship of Adam and Eves kids populating the world. And the logistics of fitting all the animals on earch, in pairs in the one boat.
My first experience with religion was as a 6 year old kid watching a fire and brimstone preacher on Sunday arvo TV... Here is what he said...

Imagine a solid steel ball the size of the sun. Every 10,000 years a sparrow flies out from earth and set off toward the steel sun. When it arrives its wing brushes against the steel ball. When that steel ball wears away to nothing, that is when you will be released from hell.

I goto tell you, i was one scared shitless little kid. I am not kidding this bloke cost me much sleep and many tearfull nights as a little boy.

You contrast this to a religion like Bhudism. They quietly spend their time trying to develope their spiritual selfe in harmony with the world. No Burning at the stake, no witch hunts, no inquisitions.
I would like nothing better than to go to bed knowing in my mind that God will save me if im good. It seems like a hell of a lot more than faith to me. It seems like total blind to all the discrepancies, all the contradictions faith.
I guess what i am saying is, how can we beleive in something that is so incredibly inconsistant, full of holes, contradictory and just so darn illogical.

Well thats my introductory post.
Cheers All and glad to be here...
Locutus

PS//
oh dear, no spell checker. My most humble appologies in advance to all for all future posts and their inherent spelling mistakes. If it wasnt for my spell checker I probable couldnt talk.

[kingjust]

Quote by: Locutus Hi All I have always wondered something about religion. Why is their so many interpretations of the same book. We have the Catholics, beleive this, the Pentacosts beleive that, we have the jehovas beleive something else, and so on. They all say the other is wrong. We have a zillion different ideas. We have priests that beleive in Evolution and Scientists that beleive in God, We have those who say the world was created 4000 years ago, and that all those fossils ore dated wrong. Hell the chinese culture dated back about 6000 recorded years doesnt it. Thats ignoring the ultimate incestual relationship of Adam and Eves kids populating the world. And the logistics of fitting all the animals on earch, in pairs in the one boat. My first experience with religion was as a 6 year old kid watching a fire and brimstone preacher on Sunday arvo TV... Here is what he said... Imagine a solid steel ball the size of the sun. Every 10,000 years a sparrow flies out from earth and set off toward the steel sun. When it arrives its wing brushes against the steel ball. When that steel ball wears away to nothing, that is when you will be released from hell. I goto tell you, i was one scared shitless little kid. I am not kidding this bloke cost me much sleep and many tearfull nights as a little boy. You contrast this to a religion like Bhudism. They quietly spend their time trying to develope their spiritual selfe in harmony with the world. No Burning at the stake, no witch hunts, no inquisitions. I would like nothing better than to go to bed knowing in my mind that God will save me if im good. It seems like a hell of a lot more than faith to me. It seems like total blind to all the discrepancies, all the contradictions faith. I guess what i am saying is, how can we beleive in something that is so incredibly inconsistant, full of holes, contradictory and just so darn illogical. Well thats my introductory post. Cheers All and glad to be here... Locutus PS// oh dear, no spell checker. My most humble appologies in advance to all for all future posts and their inherent spelling mistakes. If it wasnt for my spell checker I probable couldnt talk.

Basically, if you believe then you believe. If you don't, than you don't. But my honest opinion from experience is that when we are young, there is no inclination of religion, GOD, or Jesus. But as we grow older we are only told parts for convenient purposes, ie joining the religion, or fear. Either way, it boils down to the infamous word,....FAITH. Because in reality, you may or may not agree, we don't know shit about the past, just bits and pieces. But I wonder why alot of people would rather believe the easy answer than trying to find the true <---if that is even possible,.. answers to the universe.

[Locutus]

I would rather truth any day, and it is the faith thing that really bothers me. Isnt it strange to have faith in
something that is so very contradictory. Faith would be fine if there was only a couple of thisngs a bit lost in translation. But boy, the old christianity thing if full of it. I would love one on our religios folk to instead of just say it is faith. Explain to me the Ark thing, i just did a quick net search and found there seems to be about 1.8 million names species on earth. half of which are insects, with over 300,000 species of bettle. Now add to this all the other animals on earth, then ignore the fact that the law of the jungle shows that it is OK at anytime to eat your nearest neighbor. Then you have to feed them all for what was it, 40 days and 40 nights. Um, how do they fit on this boat ?
The Bible seems to be full of this kind of nonsense. Yet the only answer i have ever seemed to get is, ahhh you just have to have faith my Son ??? No one ever seems to address these giant leaps of faith.
Cheers
Lo

[PatrickHenry]

Faith in God doesn't mean a literal interpretation of every Bible passage, Locutus.

I am a faithful christian, but the Ark story only makes sense to me as a metaphor.

[Starboy]

Quote by: PatrickHenry Faith in God doesn't mean a literal interpretation of every Bible passage, Locutus. I am a faithful christian, but the Ark story only makes sense to me as a metaphor.

I think that was Locutus's point. All that methaphorical interpretation has resulted in thousands of different versions of what claims to be a single take on reality. It is all very fishy. Dang four or five variations is fishy, thousands is outright fraud.

Starboy

[Locutus]

Quote by: Starboy I think that was Locutus's point. All that methaphorical interpretation has resulted in thousands of different verions of what claims to be a single take on reality

Exactly and to take it all a step furthur, who decides what is metaphore and what is literal. Even the most ardent christian cannot deny the churches habbit of selective deception, and hypocracy. How much has been conceled because it does not suit the churches purpose at the time. How can the church be so strict in some doctrine yet throw away the next passage in the bible as metaphore. Then 10 20 or 100 years later some church official, will then say, no no this particular church law is now obsolete, it was only metaphore anyway. Assuming God exists, assuming he caused the bible to be written, fire and brimstone preachers have been yelling for eons telling us we will go to hell if we don't follow the rules of God, and yet there is hardly 2 churches on earth that can agree an those rules for more than 5 mins at a time. It almost is fraud, if this behaviour was exibited anywhere other than the church we would all throw it out as poppycock. So my questions are, who decides what is metaphore and why cant you all agree on the same book. Doesntit bother you that given the rules change from generation to generation faith to faith, you might actually have it wrong. Don't all these contradictions bother you ?How can you base your lifes beleifs on this and say.....ahh you just have to have faith ?
Cheers
Lo

[Technosoul]

What if Noah had really taken along two domestic animals of each kind from his farm? It would seem logical to take along some livestock.

So here is the answer my fundamentalist friend told me - the different churchs debate about small detials but they all agree on the most important or major ideas of the Christian doctrine - which is common to them all. He said the only important thing is belief in Jesus and all the other details are not important so they can be debated and you still remain a Christian as long as you believe in that one thing that is important - which they all believe in. Make any sense?

Religion doctrine is like a used auto pick-a-parts yard. You don't have to buy the whole junkyard just to get a transmission for your car. That is my "saying" for today.

[Flip Jackson]

Locutus, after reading your littile experience with the "fire and brimstone preacher, " I feel terribly sorry for how that has to feel to anyone when they are young. It kinda makes me want to go deck a preacher. But hey, that probably won't happen. It really bothers me when people try to convert each other through fear. What a horrible way of doing things. Fear should never be a motivating technique.

As for different interpretations of the Bible, there are a ridiculous number of them. Not only the Christian's many views, but the Jews' interpretation of the old testament, the Catholic view of Christianity, and many other ideas stem from the Bible. I account for this with the idea that people are different. They see things differently. Even in a single sect of Christianity, people will interpret things differnetly. People also interpret the meanings of poetry, movies, and books differently, but I have never seen anything like a movie ridiculed for its different interpretations. While I may not completely agree with many people, I realize that they see things in a different way than I do.

Keep in mind that most people have good intentions. They do and say what makes sense to them. You ask a good question about how you can accept Christianity with its many interpretations. Well, I will not try to convert you to my form of belief, as I believe in a setting like this I would accomplish very little except for bringing ridicule upon myself. I will say this. Technosoul had a good point. Christianity agrees on many of the same points. Most importantly I wouldn't worry about an eternity of damnation.

You asked why you couldn't be "saved" for being a good person. Many people claim you have to be Christian. I say that you try as hard as you can to be a good person and try to not let fear motivate you. I think as long as you try to do waht is best for you and others people, you have nothing to fear. Try to be open-minded as well, that always helps. :)

That's my little snipet.

[Starboy]

Quote by: Flip Jackson You ask a good question about how you can accept Christianity with its many interpretations. Well, I will not try to convert you to my form of belief, as I believe in a setting like this I would accomplish very little except for bringing ridicule upon myself. I will say this. Technosoul had a good point. Christianity agrees on many of the same points. Most importantly I wouldn't worry about an eternity of damnation.

Again I think you are missing Locutus's point. Everybody is suspicious of any story if there are several different versions of it, let alone thousands. This very fact throws the entire thing into disrepute.

Secondly I think you are being overly generous about your claim that "Christianity agrees on many of the same points". It is not the points that explanations agree on that makes them questionable. It is the points where they disagree that does it. Sure your bank can send you several statements with differing amounts but hey .... they all use numbers! So who should care? Such a justification is just silly. It is not a justification that anyone would accept in any other circumstance. It is just another example of a double standard.

You asked why you couldn't be "saved" for being a good person. Many people claim you have to be Christian. I say that you try as hard as you can to be a good person and try to not let fear motivate you. I think as long as you try to do waht is best for you and others people, you have nothing to fear. Try to be open-minded as well, that always helps. :)

You work on that new covenant with god. If you need help on the negotiations let me know. I drive a hard bargain.

Starboy

[Prometheus]

You know what Locutus, I agree. Because scientists disagree, I will disregard science too.

[PatrickHenry]

This is about the spirit of man in relation to God. And you want uniformity? Join the effen military...

[Inquisitor]

Locutus Hi All I have always wondered something about religion. Why is their so many interpretations of the same book. We have the Catholics, beleive this, the Pentacosts beleive that, we have the jehovas beleive something else, and so on. They all say the other is wrong. We have a zillion different ideas. We have priests that beleive in Evolution and Scientists that beleive in God, We have those who say the world was created 4000 years ago, and that all those fossils ore dated wrong. Hell the chinese culture dated back about 6000 recorded years doesnt it. Thats ignoring the ultimate incestual relationship of Adam and Eves kids populating the world. And the logistics of fitting all the animals on earch, in pairs in the one boat. My first experience with religion was as a 6 year old kid watching a fire and brimstone preacher on Sunday arvo TV... Here is what he said... Imagine a solid steel ball the size of the sun. Every 10,000 years a sparrow flies out from earth and set off toward the steel sun. When it arrives its wing brushes against the steel ball. When that steel ball wears away to nothing, that is when you will be released from hell. I goto tell you, i was one scared shitless little kid. I am not kidding this bloke cost me much sleep and many tearfull nights as a little boy. You contrast this to a religion like Bhudism. They quietly spend their time trying to develope their spiritual selfe in harmony with the world. No Burning at the stake, no witch hunts, no inquisitions. I would like nothing better than to go to bed knowing in my mind that God will save me if im good. It seems like a hell of a lot more than faith to me. It seems like total blind to all the discrepancies, all the contradictions faith. I guess what i am saying is, how can we beleive in something that is so incredibly inconsistant, full of holes, contradictory and just so darn illogical. Well thats my introductory post. Cheers All and glad to be here... Locutus PS// oh dear, no spell checker. My most humble appologies in advance to all for all future posts and their inherent spelling mistakes. If it wasnt for my spell checker I probable couldnt talk.

Locutus, you assumption that Christians cannot agree between themselves is incorrect. In fact Christians agree on every concept and idea that together make The Dogma of The Church. They who are against The Dogma and try to "improve" on it are in fact not Christians but heretics. Yes, all these catholics and evangelicals and pentacostals and mormons and baptists etc, etc.( Mk 5:9 My name is Legion: for we are many. ) are heretics.
I hope the fact that heretics cannot agree among themselves doesn't surprise you, does it? You see the most important attribute of a heresy is an idea that The Church got it wrong and he ( pope, Martin Luther, Joseph Smith etc. ) knows better, but it was said about them ( Rom 1:22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, ).

I understand that the words Dogma and Church have negative connotation to many. Yet, if one truly understands these great words he is immune to all lies. The Dogma is not something corrupt priests invented in order to manipulate uneducated masses, far from it. The Dogma is The Truth as it was revealed to apostles and saints and confirmed by the blood of martyrs ( hense it is unchangeable). The Church is the spiritual body of The Christ, not priests or bishops who are only people and may indeeed sin or fall into heresy. Once you understand these concepts you may set out to find The Truth. It is not that hard. Look out for them that preserved faith as it was, look out for them that don't preach on TV or street corners, look out for them that say salvation is hard labour and daily feat of arms.

[Locutus]

They who are against The Dogma and try to "improve" on it are in fact not Christians but heretics. Yes, all these catholics and evangelicals and pentacostals and mormons and baptists etc, etc.( Mk 5:9 My name is Legion: for we are many. ) are heretics.

Wow, now thats a brave statement, but does not your very statement indicate you are in disagreement. Wouldn't representitives from each of these faiths nearly choke in their rush to defend their faith. Of course their is common ground between the faiths, who argues over aspects of anything that you are in agreement with. My problem with the whole notion of "Christianity" is the fact that it is inconsistant. The churches ask that we beleive in God and Jesus and to be honest I am OK with that. But if I embrace one religion, i am expected to follow the guidance of the Bible in the manner dictated by the hierarchy of that particular faith. the only thing is, if i could step back in time 1000 years I am sure the rules would be different, interpretations different. It all seem to change through the ages to suit Politics, Personal and Governmental agendas and so on. What is Ok today was herecey yesterday. What is herecey today will likely be ok tommorow. Then we have so much corruption, and wars all in the name of God. And that seems to be the pattern with all the various flavours of christian religions. Their is no consistancy. Yet, the church asks that i close my eyes to all the killing, burning and corruption. All the lives lost and cultures destroyed by missionaries in the name of GOD, all the lies and the horrible horrible things that have been done and say....Ahh my son, you just have to have faith and let God into your heart. I just find that a tough call is all. I think as a ball park rule of thumb, the christian principle is a pretty good way to treat your fellow man, but hell their is a lot of stuff you have to ignore. Now i wan't to make a comparison here and I am sure it will get the dander up of a few people but I wonder if anyone has ever made andy statistical comparisons between the cost of lives as a result of Nazi Germany and the church. Their is no getting round it Adolf Hitler was one sick puppy and if there is heaven and hell I recon I would not like to be in his shoes for the next few eons.
As a result of his doctrine an awful lot of peole died. he was pretty horrible. but I wonder if someone much better qualified in history than I has ever tallied up the lives lost in the name of Christianity. The old church has a pretty dodgy past if you like to look. With all the religious wars, the burnings, the people killed as heretics over the ages. It might be pretty scary to add up all the lives lost in the name of the Church. Now to try and deter the people i have just offended i will say that i know the church is one hell of a lot different to the nazi thing. and please I am NOT in ANYWAY comparing christians to nazis, not by inferece, not by comparison not by anything. What i am trying to say is, just that the church is so far from squeaky clean it is not funny, yet christians line up at the door without a thought to history and ignore everything that has been done. I just can't think of too many organisations in the world that could do half of what the church has done and not be held accountable for it.

It has often been said that the end does not justify the means. Someone said in another thread something about the loudest voice not always being the right voice to follow. The church is pretty powerful, and pretty loud. But you remove the word church and call it something else, and look at its past, their is an awfull lot of evil shit happenedin the name of god.
Cheers
Lo
PS//
sorry for all the spelling mistakes, I am quite obviously a horrible speller. But i don't seem to see a spell checker on this forum , and I can't be bothered cutting and pasting in and out of star office or word. :( I am probably giving all you purist pulpitations and raising your blood pressure just by reading my posts.

[Starboy]

Quote by: Locutus sorry for all the spelling mistakes, I am quite obviously a horrible speller. But i don't seem to see a spell checker on this forum , and I can't be bothered cutting and pasting in and out of star office or word. :( I am probably giving all you purist pulpitations and raising your blood pressure just by reading my posts.

Copy/paste your posts into word first. Fix your mistakes and then copy/paste back to the volconvo post page.

Starboy

[Locutus]

I just had a quick search on the Crusades and the inquisition. It is pretty scary stuff, this is a small part of the history the church wants us to ignore...

Crusades
The Crusades were expeditions undertaken, in fulfillment of a solemn vow, to deliver the Holy Places from Mohammedan tyranny.
The origin of the word may be traced to the cross made of cloth and worn as a badge on the outer garment of those who took part in these enterprises.

It has been customary to describe the Crusades as eight in number:

* the first, 1095-1101;
* the second, headed by Louis VII, 1145-47;
* the third, conducted by Philip Augustus and Richard Coeur-de-Lion, 1188-92;
* the fourth, during which Constantinople was taken, 1204;
* the fifth, which included the conquest of Damietta, 1217;
* the sixth, in which Frederick II took part (1228-29); also Thibaud de Champagne and Richard of Cornwall (1239);
* the seventh, led by St. Louis, 1249-52;
* the eighth, also under St. Louis, 1270.

Thats about 20 years of Bloodshed over about a 175 year period.

ref http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04543c.htm

Another website estimates...
The total number of deaths due to the crusades had been estimated at around nine million,
at least half of which were Christians. [1] Many of these were simply innocent civilians caught in the carnage.

ref http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/crusades.html

A Quick look at the Inquisition

I just had a bit of a look around at the nature of the Inquisition, here is a quote
from... http://www.geocities.com/christprise...sitions-3.html

In The Dark Side of Christian History, Helen Ellerbe provides a baseline on the 300 year period of witch hunting from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, in what R.H. Robbins calls "the shocking nightmare, the foulest crime and deepest shame of western civilization," that ensured the European abandonment of the belief in magic. The Church created the elaborate concept of devil worship and then, used the persecution of it to wipe out dissent, subordinate the individual to authoritarian control, and openly denigrate women. The witchhunts became an eruption of orthodox Christianity's vilification of women, or "the weaker vessel," in St. Peter's words. The second century St. Clement of Alexandria wrote: "Every woman should be filled with shame by the thought that she is a woman." The sixth century Christian philosopher, Boethius, wrote in The Consolation of Philosophy, "Woman
is a temple built upon a sewer." Bishops at the sixth century Council of Macon voted as to whether women had souls. In the tenth century Odo of Cluny declared, "To embrace a woman is to embrace a sack of manure..." The thirteenth century St. Thomas Aquinas suggested that God had made a mistake in creating woman: "nothing [deficient] or defective should have been produced in the first establishment of things; so woman ought not to have been produced then." And Lutherans at Wittenberg debated whether women were really human beings at all. Orthodox Christians held women responsible for all sin. As the Bible's Apocrypha states, "Of woman came the beginning of sin/ And thanks to her, we all must die."

Doesn’t that make Christians shudder just a little bit. I won’t get into events of our century but I wonder how we will all be judged by our great great grandchildren when looking back at the 20th Century.

How can all you “Christians” just ignore this, this is part of your history, it is the ancestral roots on which your modern day faith as been based on.
I really don’t understand how all of this is just ignored.

Let us assume for a moment that God does exist, and in some way he did cause the Bible to be written, and that he did send Jesus down here to teach on his behalf. Surely your history is not what he had in mind. Surely his original intention is much more noble.than this. So who else could we blame for the perversion of his original intent than the Church itself.
It just seems like a great big generic security blanket that can be used to just sweep under the carpet anything the church wants to do. A security blanket that lets us kill and mame in the name of God and justify it by saying, ahh the lord works in mysterious ways. I am a good Christian; I am just doing Gods bidding.

Cheers Lo

[Jack]

Locutus, you assumption that Christians cannot agree between themselves is incorrect. In fact Christians agree on every concept and idea that together make The Dogma of The Church. They who are against The Dogma and try to "improve" on it are in fact not Christians but heretics. Yes, all these catholics and evangelicals and pentacostals and mormons and baptists etc, etc. are heretics.

Not only is the illogical and self-contradictory, but you've just made Locutus' point for him. Somehow I don't think that was your intent.

[Athena]

Christians agree with each other? Now let's look at that.

The only way to heaven is through the Pope, because Jesus gave the keys to St. Peter and the church has had held these authority ever since.

No, it is through the grace of God that people go to heaven and the Pope and the Chatholic church are not the authority we must submit to. The bible is the word of God and Authority of God, and it should be interpreted literally, not rationalized as does the Pope and Catholic Pope rationalize the bible.

Wait a minute, if we intrepret the bible literally we would accept Jews can own slaves and Jews are the only people who can not be slaves Leiticus 25. And about all those rituals God told the Jews to do, are we sure we should ignore them? The New Testament doesn't explain this very well. And what about the things in the bible that science has proven wrong, such as the earth is not the center of universe, why would a God say differently. Maybe we should read the bible abstractly and rationalize it as the Catholics do? No, I can do that? I have to accept Adam and Eve and demons literally? How can I accept demons make us sick and can be seen coming out of people's bodies, when I have no experience of such things? Should I fear being possessed by the devil, and should we be buring witches?

How about predistination? Are all things predistined by God? Christians have argued both sides of this argument.

How about the Book of Mormon and the idea that God turn people's skin dark because they are sinners? Mormon believe Jesus is the savior. Are they Christians? Do all Christians with the book of Mormon. How about KKK that leenched and persecuted blacks. They are associated with Christianity, do all Christians agree with them.

I stand with Christians in peace demonstrations and hear is it the Christian right that re-elected Bush, surely Christians do not agree that our prisident is doing the will of God.

What agreements?

[Locutus]

How about the Book of Mormon and the idea that God turn people's skin dark because they are sinners? Mormon believe Jesus is the savior. Are they Christians? Do all Christians with the book of Mormon. How about KKK that leenched and persecuted blacks. They are associated with Christianity, do all Christians agree with them.

I had to laugh when i read this, it reminded me of something that I watched on TV the other day.
It was talking about evolution and the origins of man. There is one theory that suggests that mans origins were actually from the African continent, and that skin color is predominantly due to climate. I wonder what all the KKK and white supremist will say when they realise that our darker skinned neighbours may have been here before all of us. So why isn't God portrayed as an African. ???
Poetic Justice for the racist bigots I say. I am happy to say I have hope for our children, i m 44 years old, here in Australia when I went to school, it was prominatly white Australians. Someone from another culture with a different skin color was a big deal in those days. I won't say I am a racist because I hope I am not. At least I try with all my might to be unbiast. But sometimes cultural differrences cause discomfort and it could easily be misenterpreted as racist. it is something I strive to understand and teach my kids accordingly. But i noticed something really nice a little while back. I worked at that time with a big company that offers PC support for big corporations. I dropped into work on my day off to do a couple of things and took my youngest son with me, he is 7. I dropped by my bosses office and she is from India and her skin colour is very dark. She stopped and had a talk and joke with my son and we left. On the way out I passed and said hello to a couple of wormates. One very Asian in appearance and another very very dark skinned. When I got to the car I expected all sorts of questions about why they looked different and so on. And you know what, i don't think he even noticed. He asked me about work, commented on the computers and so forth but did not even notice the differences that to me were so obvious. I was so very proud of my son and immediatly thought. Perhaps in a generation or two when our kids become our leaders they will see the differences between us all as much less important than our generation of leaders have.
I think many of us, myself included could take a lesson from little blokes like my son.

How can we do this with religion. Here in Australia Religious education is not compulsary but it is part of our primary schools. Their does exist in many schools a basic RE program as part of the corestudies. I object to this. The arguments for and against religion are many, the school says that it is there to give the kids choice. Rubbish I say. Kids look at teachers as the knowers of all things. If a teacher says 2+2=4 then it is. So if a teacher says God say this and that then to a kid, he did. So I find myself ina position of do i pull them out.. or not. I don't wan't to influence them to not beleive, buut i don't want to force them into a RE program either. I hated being in that position. I as a parent do not force in any way my views on God or religion. I make a point of this. SO why does the damned church need to recruit like this. It really annoys me. My solution was at first was to pull them out. You know what, they were the ones that were segregated, they had to leave the class and sit a side doing other work. now how is that fair on kids. In the end I let them return as I did not want them singled out. How can we istill tolerance and understanding for peoples religious beleifs when every other day the mormons knock on my door, then the leave and do a tag team with the Jehovas, so I lock the door and turn on the TV and find The evengelists on Sunday TV. How is this self type of brain washing any different or better than when we see on the news the protesting middle eastern countries. You know the scene, i have seen it often enough. The camera flashes across the crowd to see a 9 year old on his dads shoulders waiving an AK47 obove his head shouting Kill Bush Kill Bush
Our brain washing is asbad as everyone elses. Who are we to force our beleifs and hatrids on our kids in the name of Christianity.

Cheers Lo

[Inquisitor]

The churches ask that we beleive in God and Jesus and to be honest I am OK with that.

Firstly, The Church is only one.
Secondly it asks nothing of you for the true Christianity is not recruitment but selection of worthy. So you can be sure if a "church" asks you something it is a false "church". When it comes to True Church, one comes to it and humbly begins labour of his salvation.

But if I embrace one religion, i am expected to follow the guidance of the Bible in the manner dictated by the hierarchy of that particular faith. the only thing is, if i could step back in time 1000 years I am sure the rules would be different, interpretations different.

I assure you The True Church hasn't changed in the past 1000 years. Even language is the same.

And again you fail to differentiate between Christianity and numerous heresies that hide behind the name of "christians". Chances are you have hardly even come accross true Christians. America is not a country where there are many nor is Australia.

Locutus I just had a quick search on the Crusades and the inquisition. It is pretty scary stuff, this is a small part of the history the church wants us to ignore...

Both cruisades and inquisition were the product of catholic church. I did specifically listed catholicism as heresy.
So all the evils you listed ( though largely inflated) are not the product of Christianity, but the product of perversion of The Dogma of The Church.

Jeber Not only is the illogical and self-contradictory, but you've just made Locutus' point for him. Somehow I don't think that was your intent.

I was under impression that I made myself perfectly clear. What Locutus sees as disagreement among Christians is in fact disagreement among heretics who call themselves " christians". Can I make myself more clear? I shall try. Majority of people who refer to themselves as christians are in fact not Christians.

Athena The only way to heaven is through the Pope, because Jesus gave the keys to St. Peter and the church has had held these authority ever since.

Heresy of primacy.

[Jack]

What I am saying is that your statement, "Majority of people who refer to themselves as christians are in fact not Christians." answers the question in the topic title. Christians do not agree among themselves what constitues a Christian. It's your opinion that those other groups are not, but to those of us outside all your groups, you are indeed similar yet constantly at war among yourselves over who's orthodoxy is the right one. And since you all lay claim to absolute truth, in the end it appears none of you truly posses it.