Question For Fellow Christians

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I don't care which branch of the Christian faith you follow, but what are some misconceptions and/or stereotypes that you view as very annoying?

For most of my miserable life, it was literally beat into my head that if you weren't a Southern Baptist, you were destined to hell. Even though I've been a Lutheran for the last 37 years, I still struggle with the worst of 5 point Calvinism, Arminianism, and classical dispensationalism, pre-determinism and pre-destination that I grew up with.

That we all have over-developed senses of entitlement and exceptionalitism.

Another myth is that we all should express treacly-sweet opinions of everyone, no matter how heinous their crimes may be.

That you have to be "Christian" to be a believer/follower of the Messiah. He wasn't a Christian, and Christianity doesn't own Him. "Only believe...." No religion needed in order to have a relationship with your Messiah/Savior.

That people who believe in God, discount science; and, that it is idiocy to believe in something that you can't see, but science is alot of believing in things that you can't see, as well, like sub-atomic particles.

Catholics are closed-minded "Jesus freaks."

All Catholics don't cuss.

Catholics are required to be walking, talking, perfect images of The Lord.

{I am Catholic, and the stereotypes mentioned annoy me very much. }

More myths:

Catholics don't acknowledge the validity of Protestant doctrines.

Protestants don't acknowledge the validity of Jewish traditions.

Baptist don't acknowledge the identities of other Baptists in porn shops.

All Catholics must remain virgins until marriage.

Catholics are required to be social towards other Catholics.

I have questions for you fellow Christians. What is a rational argument for the existence of God? If the Bible was a perfect book written by a perfect being how come it states that if a women is monogamous before she is married she must be stoned to death by the men of the city? If God is omnipotent, omnibenevolent and omniscient then if evil occurs he must know since he is omniscient since he is omnibenevolent he is obligated to stop that evil and since he is omnipotent he has the power to stop the evil. There is evil, therefore God doesn't exists quot era demonstrandum. How do you feel about this a priori proof? Unlike most ontological proofs, the axioms are all reasonable.

First, this Missouri Synod Lutheran will flat out state that the interpretation of scripture is NOT perfect. The Word is perfect, but was written by man, who has screwed up the message beyond all recognition. Why do you think there complete retranslation of scripture every few generations? Second, in the early church there was much discussion on what was real and what was heretical. Why do you think the Council was convened in Niacaea? The Bible wasn't even codified until then, and even to this day, the decisions of what books were included remain controversial.

Second, evil exists in this world because of original sin. Satan exists because he (the angel Lucifer) set himself up be an equal of JHWH. If you look at the Ten Commandments, JHWH states that he is a Jealous being, and there should be no other gods before him.

Finally, you should read the book of Job. I doubt that it or I would convince you there is a God, but that entire discourse should get you to think.

This is probably the most damaging misconception for Christians, that the Bible is meant to be read literally as history and fact when it is a motley collection of parable, half remembered oral tradition, correspondence, prayer, poetry and polemic and meant to be understood as such. It certainly isn't the Christian version of the Quran. Yet when public debates are held on this topic, it's always Mr. Reasonable Atheist vs. Professor Fundy Nutjob with a Phd. in Young Earth studies who waltzes onto the stage riding a dinosaur, Bible in one hand, assault weapon in the other.

It poisons the debate, leading to a general "understanding" that if you don't believe something in the Bible, you aren't really a Christian, which just polarises people towards one extreme or the other. Young newcomers, who, thanks to our terrible education system come to the fray without any real education in Christianity or it's enormous impact on our civilisation, absorb this myth, read the first few chapters of Genesis, think "well this is nonsense" and throw out the book wholesale and wonder how anyone could believe it.

Continuing for the omniscient teenage atheist:

Yet Christians aren't running around stoning women to death. Seems on the whole they don't believe the Bible is the perfect and unalterable Word.



This doesn't prove God doesn't exist, you've just found a logical hole in one (lazily put together, limited and probably flawed) vision of God. Without wishing to delve greatly into the problem of evil, the most obvious response is to ponder what benevolence means for God and what morality, if any, a being like God would follow. In this instance you wish to impose on God a duty to erase evil, because you, a human, would do so, if you were omnipotent and omniscient. Perhaps the problem is not as straightforward as you might think, there is always a price to pay to change something. If evil no longer exists, can good exist too? Maybe erasing evil causes worse things, maybe for God to eliminate all evil, he must eliminate all humans.

That might be something of a dilemma for God who supposedly loves us. Now maybe the price is not so severe but we are all too aware of unintended consequences in our temporal lives, recall we once tried to alleviate the suffering of morning sickness, and in return we got a horde of Thalidomide babies. It's possible God in his omniscience has decided that taking obviously authoritarian measures or drowning everyone (again?) is the not best course of action. If you ever ascend to Godhood, drop me a line and maybe I can advise.

Catholics believe that they are better than everyone else, even better than other Christians.

Catholics believe that acting like snobs is a normal behavior.

Catholics feel that their needs will always be granted by God.

The idea that we all reject science. (The overwhelming majority of Christians do not reject it. Even among evangelicals, it's in the 10-15% range).

Being painted as mentally ill/deranged.

I'm tired of people thinking Christians are perfect and "holier than thou." Christians make mistakes too.

I also don't like it when people online automatically start trash talking someone or discrediting their accomplishments when they find out someone is a Christian.

I can't stand it when people think Christians hate anyone that isn't like them. I don't hate people because they're not Christian, some people rub me the wrong way. Not everyone can get along with each other without bumping heads.

In regard to my own Lutheranism:
That, because Martin Luther in the last few years of his life, when he was wracked with physical illnesses that took a toll on him mentally, he had written some pretty disturbing and indefensible Antisemitic things, we modern Lutherans are supposed to be automatically Antisemitic.