Are you Christian?

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I meant are you A christian?

no, i am an atheist...

it is my opinion* that religion seems to be responsible for a high proportion of horror and atrocity. i believe that religion uses fear of the unseen and unknown, fear of missing out in the afterlife, fear of a "superior" being or beings (for the polytheists) as a tool to manipulate and in some cases breed fanaticism... fanaticism is not something that is unique to any one religion. in saying this, governments have long abandoned secular ideals and promote religion and religious doctrine, governments use religion as religion is able to manipulate the masses.

religion appears to have hijacked morality, and i challenge this hijacking by saying that one does not need religion to maintain a good moral code... and that acts of unconditional kindness and generosity performed without a conscious or sub-conscious fear of what lies beyond, without fear of who or what is judging, hold more weight than those performed through fear or desire to please one's deity (or deities).

furthermore, i feel that we (as all humanity) should give and do for the sake of doing, not for the reward that may or may not be... and not for the sake of fear.




*as stated, this is my opinion... if what i have written offends i offer sincere apology and can only ask that you appreciate that we are all entitled to our individual opinions.

I can understand why tektek is an atheist. I agree with almost everything he says!

This highlights my problem. Should I call myself a Christian?

I would suggest that there is an enormous difference between the Christian RELIGION and the Christian FAITH - and enormous difference between what is taught by the differing denominations and what the Bible actually says.

I first asked the question publicly in 1966 (over 40 years ago), "What is the purpose of life?" The immediate response of the Vicar was, "Peter, you can't ask that, it's the 64,000 dollar question (a lot of money in those days). Let's go on to the next question". With hindsight that was the beginning of my journey away from traditional Christianity - a journey I have been on ever since!

hi, OldPete. i appreciate your comments , and it is certainly interesting to see you (as a Christian) draw a distinction between religion and faith.

i think that, purely on a human level, religion can offer good guidelines for being a decent human being - providing core moral values and an understanding of ethics, which are important.

in saying that, and as an atheist, my questions are these; why can't we just be good and decent without all the fire and brimstone, and without fear? why can't we be trusted and trust each other to do the right thing? because we can... because being good is a reward in itself.

furthermore, i think that faith in one's self is critical and it is something that is often overlooked in favour of placing faith in an external force... placing faith outside ourselves (from a distance) looks disempowering and almost represents a denial of faith in ourselves - by embracing a process that appears to discount our own capability... why would that be a good thing?

as intelligent beings is it not right that we should be our own responsibility? it seems strange to handball the tough situations and tougher decisions elsewhere and to expect answers and solutions to materialise. can't we make good for ourselves? i know that we (as all humanity) are capable of creating mess!



as i stated in my earlier post in this thread, i am expressing my opinion - that is all... offending anyone is the furthest thing from my mind, and i apologise sincerely if i have done so.

This may sound strange but I find it much easier to respect the views of many atheists than I do of 'Christians' who see the purpose of life as obtaining a 'get out of hell free card'.

I just do not believe that anyone goes to hell when they die. This was really one of my starting points of understanding the difference between religion and faith.

There was one article in particular that I found very helpful. It is entitled "The Battle over Hell". There is a link to it on my web site but I haven't posted enough on this site to include a link. There is a link to it on my blog.

The last thing I am going to do is to try and persuade anyone to become a Christian - I've been asking questions all my life - especially "What is the purpose of life?" I have some tentative answers for myself and I'm happy to encourage others to think for themselves by considering some of the questions I have been asking myself.

I've been known to make jokes about the "get out of Hell free card". I saw something to that effect on someone's bumper sticker and thought the guy had the same sense of humor, but judging from the other stickers he was being entirely un ironic. I look at my mother who is an elder in her church and has many books on theology but does not discuss religious matters to anyone outside her church. However, if you asked her if she believed in the immaculate conception or the the virgin birth or the bodily resurrection she would say no. Technically that makes her non Christian. She just believes in the principles expressed by the man Jesus about how to live in harmony. She is a Universalist meaning she doesn't believe Heaven is restricted to anyone. The thing that bugs me about Christianity among many other things is the smug assumption by some Christians that Christianity is the only faith that offers a guide for life. Every religion has some form of the Golden Rule but that's never acknowledged. I think this born again business is a misinterpretation (one of many) and has done a huge amount of damage. The message is it doesn't matter how you conduct yourself as long as you belong to the club and get your get out of hell free card. It bugs the crap out of me.

Some Christians are on the opposite end. They think you believe garbage to.
....

Anyway, I want to be Christian, because I like what Jesus teached. I'm not doing a terribly good job at it though.

I'm an atheist, open to the possibility of there being "something" but highly skeptical that any of the known religions are even close to determining what that "something" is.

(Nice avatar )

I think Leck's avatar is of the actress who played Teyla in Stargate Atlantis,

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNP7ib0id0Q[/youtube]

I am Catholic, but more open-minded than most Catholics "should be."

Christians should do good works because they want to. No one, including Christians, is good enough to enter Heaven. It is only by the grace of God through Jesus' death and resurrection. And there should be no fear if we trust that Jesus has died for our sins. When a person becomes a Christian, they undergo a transformation from the inside and they do good things because they would want to do it.

I'm semi-deist, so close enough.

I'm very proud to say that I am a Christian.