Christian brothers and sisters,let's gather here!

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But what is Christianity? Is it just a bunch of communism.

Source: http://www.skeptictank.org/files/american/prison.htm

Also quite interesting:


Source: http://www.nairaland.com/121066/predomi ... west-crime

Just saying.

Ni hao, so, you still live in China.

It obviously costs a lot more to be a Christian in China. It is a privilege to meet you.

A lot of Chinese people are shocked at the morals when they come to the UK, and I am not just talking about Christians. They are shocked to see girls of 13 having children and the state having to pay for unmarried mothers. They are also horrified to see divorced people who want sex but have no intention of getting married. Of course the rejoinder to that is that Chinese society these days is corrupt, as if the west isn't. The UK is pretty well secularised, although we officially have a state church.

It may strike you as odd but I actually get on with Chinese people better than the English. A friend said to me that the English she met were very nice, but superficial. She felt that being Chinese she was kept at a distance. I laughed and replied, oh they are like that to everybody. I had to assure her this was an English thing.

LORD, You will establish peace for us, Since You have also performed for us all our works.

Hiya. Yep, you're pretty much right in your assessment. There's some areas of USA where churchgoing is more commonplace, say, in like, Florida or other places down South, but once you get to New England and stuff, yeah.

It's good to hear that you're Christian, especially in PRC. Lots of people need to see extremes like PRC to come to their senses about the effects of atheism. Especially state atheism. Your country now has more men than women due to the policies of state atheism. For all the crap people give Christian societies, and Christian societies have never been perfect, Christian societies at least on the whole eliminated exposure of infants and abortion. Unfortunately it seems we're heading back in that direction as society becomes more secular.

Unfortunately threads like this usually get atheists coming in and disturbing us Christians, so I'm glad for your effort making this thread, but yeah, that's 99.9% likely going to happen. Then you're gonna have 10 pages of religious debate with atheists instead of a nice discussion with fellow Christians.

Me, I'm Eastern Orthodox Christian. Right now, I feel like a kinda crappy Christian, I wish I could be like "on fire" like I used to be, I hope God can help me with that. I left my old Charismatic church as I had some disagreements with the theology and a particular leadership person there, but also it was very very social demanding, almost cultlike especially in the way it attempted to evangelize people. Basically "love bombing." But, after my switch to the Orthodox church, it seems like my old church has sorta proclaimed like an anathema against me or something.

The Orthodox Church, basically, it's the church Christ started. It's endured to the end, so it seems. What happened was, there used to be just the Catholic church, and all Christians were Catholics, with the exception of Arians, Manicheans/Gnostics/etc. But then in 1054 there was a split between the Catholics and Orthodox over changes in the Nicene Creed, and the Catholics throughout the ages changed more stuff, whereas the Orthodox Church remained more or less the same. IE, Papal Infallibility, for example, wasn't dogma until the 1800s. The newest one is the Assumption of Mary, which says Mary went to Heaven like Enoch did. They sorta just make up more stuff as time goes on to be dogma. Theologically, if you read, at first you might be like "well that's weird" as it might go against everything you've been taught your entire life (well actually, that might just be me/most Americans, as I was raised Fundamental Baptist) with the invoking of saints and Mary in prayers, kissing icons and all that, it is sorta weird at first. Basically, I read the lives of some of the Saints, and you can see God working marvelously through them. They seemed to deliver upon the promise of "You shall do mightier works than me," that Jesus said. The other thing too, if Protestants are right, that would mean there was no Christians for over 1000 years after Christ, and you can't reasonably say God would let his Church fall into apostasy for a thousand or more years.

That said, being in PRC, you might not have access to an Orthodox Church near you, and honestly things aren't perfect at the Orthodox Church. On paper, yeah, we have the best theological understanding of things, but partially from persecution (IE, the Russian Church was under Communism for a few generations) and partially from stagnation and stuff, we're not the most like, "active" churches anymore. But, just saying, to consider for the future. Right now, you're probably going to a smaller kinda housechurch thing, right? That's how my old church started out, all churches sorta do start like that. Don't get the cathedral overnight, haha. God can and does work marvelously in churches like that, though. The only thing I'd tell you to watch out for, in Charismatic/Pentecostal circles, is not all "spiritual gifts" are of God. St. Paul says "Don't be hasty in the laying on of hands." So many times I've heard stories of Wicca practitioners going to churches and offering prayer via laying of hands, scary stuff really.

Lastly, China does have some spiritual heritage actually.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangdi

Can you really trust the stats as to who is a Christian and who is not. If we go into hospital for surgery they ask for details of the nearest and dearest and religion. A person my write C of E and not know that means Church of England. It may be a time for hedging bets. I wonder how many people will write atheist against their name. Anyhow, we all know the Mafia are confirmed Roman Catholics.

Nowadays,due to widespread Atheism and secularization,the moral standards all over the world is falling very quickly and many social problems began to appear.Let's discuss these things.

lol, Religion does not make someone a better person

Besides, if someone's more likely to do the "right" thing just because of threat of eternal damnation, does that make them a better person, or just a coward? I'm perfectly capable of treating people decently and trying to be a good person WITHOUT believing in fairytales.

And I fully support the rise of atheism and secularism (btw, not the same thing)

How come only Christians and Jews are "welcome" in this thread? Why not Muslims, for example?

For the simnple fact that you believe that just because we are religious that it makes us think we are better then non theist is nothing more then a fallacy.

I practice my faith as part of my life family and culture you need to expect the fact that their will always be thiests in this world that we live in btw I find some things atheists believe as faiytales like the big bang theory that is a fairytale in my opinon what we have here is a double standard good sir.

I never said ALL religious people believe that. I was responding to the thread in general. A thread which was started by someone claiming that moral standards are falling becuase of atheism. Clearly that person believes religious people (or at least Christians and Jews ) are morally superior to atheists.



You are seriously comparing scientific theories to religious beliefs? The difference is evidence. Scientists do not just randomly come up with a load of crap and believe it without testing it out or looking at the evidence. Religious people believe whatever they have "faith" in. Faith = believing in something without evidence.

Nowadays,due to widespread Atheism and secularization,the moral standards all over the world is falling very quickly and many social problems began to appear.Let's discuss these things.

Yeah, it is the "rise of atheism and secularization" that is responsible for the problems that are apparently brand new and never before have occurred in the perfect past where religion dominated every aspect of people's minds. Truthfully, looking at the fundamentalist Christians and Muslims, and how it is dawning on them that their time is coming to an end, I am reminded of a cornered rabid weasel trying to get as much blood as it can before its inevitable death

also the big bang theory hasn't been prooven the only real theory that is unprooven is evouliton which by the way I am not against what I am against is when a members of a group will single out the other.

I share similar views with many methodists but you share a lot with people like Charles Dawkins who by the way stated and I quote.

Called religion a sciencfici theory so in a since if he says that then you can compare the two.