A few questions for Christians

reply to post by Melissa101


Isn't the Church of Rome, the Vatican, build right over, and based on the Church founded by Peter, of the Bible? I believe it is, in fact, Peter's Church in still there, under the Church of Peter, I have read.
www.newadvent.org...

Peter started the Church of Rome, didn't he?

The answer provided by Simon Peter set in motion the formation of the Catholic Church by Jesus. "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." With this answer, Jesus established the Catholic Church with Simon Peter designated the first Pope.

www.ourcatholicfaith.org...

reply to post by jmdewey60


You do not understand the bible. And it appears you refuse to accept anything other than what you currently believe.

If you are from God the word is written on your heart. The word is love. Follow that which is loving and you will return to God.

I only wish you could open your mind and your heart to the true, not the churches, interpretation of the bible. This wisdom leads to a much easier path than the one you are on. May peace find you and God's will be done.

my favorite assumption because it is the most absurd is that without religion people have no morals and dont value life. as if religions made up the ideas of right and wrong and without it we just default back to killing each other for no reason.

without religion i have more respect for other's lives and well being because i understand how fragile this life is and that it is all we got so the best thing i can do is just not get in the way of anyone elses happiness. all i gotta do is love everything and im set.

reply to post by xxblackoctoberxx

What, then, do you use for the bench mark for morality?

reply to post by sacgamer25

Follow that which is loving and you will return to God.

This is coming from a person who believes killing people you think are inferior to you is OK.

reply to post by Gibborium


basically the good old rule, do unto others as you would like have done unto to you.

if it hurts me physically to get punched in the face, then im not going to go punch someone in the face. and if it hurts me emotionally when someone says something bad about me, then i wont say bad things about them.

i don't want to die because im enjoying my life right now and i don't see why for any reason anyone is allowed to cut my life short so likewise im not going to go out killing people for no reason. even if it did make me feel good to do it, just having empathy, i know its not something that they would particularly enjoy.

though i am not religious, i would say my philosophy is along the lines of some eastern religions. basically don't hinder any other creatures life.

i don't need religion or a god for this thought, just having empathy and a respect for life itself is enough for me



and i just wanted to add a little thought. i think the fact that alot of people (especially christians) say that, without religion we'd all just go around killing each other, just reinforces my feelings that the need or want to believe in a higher power comes form a fear of dying and not having led a purposeful life

Originally posted by Athin
I have a few questions for all you Christians out there.

The books in the Bible were written by various prophets, apostles and disciples yet the Bible itself was put together by a council of men. Why do you follow a book that was put together by men who decided what to put in and what to leave out? The specific book I'm talking about is the book of Enoch. Not only did it used to be in the Bible, other books in the Bible make reference to it. The dead sea scrolls also make reference to it. Yet most of Christians have never even heard of this book. To those who have I'd like to know what you think about it.

I regularly hear Christians say "all life is sacred", the majority of the time referring to abortion. My question is if you really believe this then why do you follow a religion that led to the slaughter of millions of people? This religion was directly involved in the killing and slandering of Pagans and Paganism. The Inquisition was feared because they would torture or kill any opposition to the Church. So much so that the famous prophet Nostradamus had to word his quatrains extremely carefully or face severe repercussion.

My final question is probably the most important one. To be a 'true' Christian you have to follow every word in the Bible. Let's look at a few verses:

If a man cheats on his wife, or vise versa, both the man and the woman must die. (Leviticus 20:10).
People who have flat noses, or is blind or lame, cannot go to an altar of God (Leviticus 21:17-18)
Anyone who curses or blasphemes God, should be stoned to death by the community. (Leviticus 24:14-16)
If anyone, even your own family suggests worshipping another God, kill them. (Deuteronomy 13:6-10)
If you find out a city worships a different god, destroy the city and kill all of it's inhabitants... even the animals. (Deuteronomy 13:12-15)
Kill anyone with a different religion. (Deuteronomy 17:2-7)

Why do you follow a religion that basically says "all life is sacred unless that life doesn't believe in your God"?

Youre blaming christianity for what christendom has done, the two are not the same and are mutually exclusive. This is tantamount to saying all muslims are extremist terrorists, or that all jews are racists, youre making a stereotypical comparison and you are wrong. The Spanish Inquisition didn't target pagans, by the time the Inquisition began all of europe had been converted to Christendom (catholic version christianity). The Inquisition targetted my dead brothers and sisters who were protestants because they refused to bow down to the pope and kiss his ring as if he were Christ and because we refused to worship the mother of Christ like she was a Goddess.

If you were a christian you would know that the laws of moses were fulfilled by Christ and that the wages of sin is no longer death because he paid the price for us. The Book of Acts explicitly says as according to the Apostles James, Paul, Barnabas and Peter that the gentile nation of Christians were not to be bothered with the laws of Moses because they didn't want to hang a yoke about our necks like their forefathers had that they couldn't bear and we are not held by the covenant of circumcision because the second covenant established by Christ made a new covenant which is our belief in him. According to the Book of Acts all we are required is to abstain from pollutions of idols, abstain from consumption of blood, abstain from sexual immoralities and abstain from consuming things strangled.

The jews follow the old covenant. The christians observe the old testament but we mainly use it as a cross reference to the new testament since the old testament is the history of the israelites and the new testament is the beginning of the history of the christians.

reply to post by xxblackoctoberxx

i think the fact that alot of people (especially christians) say that, without religion we'd all just go around killing each other, just reinforces my feelings that the need or want to believe in a higher power comes form a fear of dying and not having led a purposeful life

Wrong. Christians are some of the most selfless people in the world because our king and messiah commands it of us. We do not serve him because we fear death, it is the fate of all things to die. We serve him because we love him for without him we would have no hope. He brought us light in our darkest hours and for that we would die for him if it was required of us. You cannot love something you fear, not with all your heart,soul,mind, body and strength. You cannot buy that kind of love. He saved us when no one else could or would and that spawns a love that can never be broken between us and him, our King and Messiah Yeshua ha Meshiach (Jesus the Christ).

This is something you can never possibly hope to understand unless you surrendered all of yourself to him, body and soul, spirit and will. Muslims serve their Allah out of fear, Jews serve their YHWH out of fear of his wrath, but we serve him because we love him for he alone saved us in his physical incarnation of Christ.

reply to post by xxblackoctoberxx

Thank you for your heartful answer. I appreciate the empathy you express and that you seem to be a good all around person. However, you do realize that your bench mark is subjective. That is good for you. And the next guy may feel the same way, but he might feel that there is validation for the aspect of "an eye for an eye" where by, he feels it to okay to punch someone in the face if they do something to offend him.

By allowing a subjective bench mark to be the standard for morality, who is to say whether his or yours is the viable standard? Today, there are many good people that feel the way you do and live by many good moral platitudes as a basis for living. But, there are so many more whose morals are far from the same, IE: pedophiles, rapists, thieves, etc. They can justify their actions as being moral or non harming by using the same subjective bench mark.

With that said, the God of the Old Testament and the Christ of the New Testament have placed a solid and unchanging objective bench mark. It does not change. It has stayed the same for centuries. This bench mark of course is known as the 10 commandments in the OT and as the Golden Rule in the NT. (The greatest of the commandments) I would think placing ones faith in this moral bench mark would be better for all people rather than expecting/assuming/hoping that the next guys morals are the same as your own.

This is only an observation and not an attack upon you personally. It just seems reasonable to have a moral bench mark that won't change.

reply to post by Gibborium


but thats the thing, life is subjective. its a bunch of individuals with intertwining existences who all experience life differently.

i see your point about how some people may feel validated in their actions even if i feel those actions are wrong but i don't think just because someone is religious that would change the way they process certain feelings. i know that this is arguable and everyone will say otherwise but when it comes down to it, if someone is a dick then thats just how they are.

ive met christians, jews, atheists, agnostics etc.. who are all dicks. i was just answering the question to me about my moral benchmark, but of course in the big picture it is all subjective.

all im saying is that it doesn't take religion to have morality and values.

the 10 commandments are just a set of common sense morals with a little added religion in the mix. (sabbath, gods name in vain, graven images) i don't need to read the 10 commandments to know not to steal or kill. (stolen from louis ck but) why doesn't it include things like rape or child molestation? i don't think a benchmark that teaches you not to use god's name in vain but says nothing about rape is a very good, all around benchmark.

Originally posted by lonewolf19792000

Wrong. Christians are some of the most selfless people in the world because our king and messiah commands it of us. We do not serve him because we fear death, it is the fate of all things to die. We serve him because we love him for without him we would have no hope. He brought us light in our darkest hours and for that we would die for him if it was required of us. You cannot love something you fear, not with all your heart,soul,mind, body and strength. You cannot buy that kind of love. He saved us when no one else could or would and that spawns a love that can never be broken between us and him, our King and Messiah Yeshua ha Meshiach (Jesus the Christ).

This is something you can never possibly hope to understand unless you surrendered all of yourself to him, body and soul, spirit and will. Muslims serve their Allah out of fear, Jews serve their YHWH out of fear of his wrath, but we serve him because we love him for he alone saved us in his physical incarnation of Christ.

" The LORD is a jealous God, filled with vengeance and wrath. He takes revenge on all who oppose him and furiously destroys his enemies!" (Nahum 1:2-8 NLT)

if i believed in your god, im pretty sure that kind of stuff would make me afraid. i'd make sure to stay in line and not oppose god and i'd probably constantly fearing that i may have sinned and am going to burn in hell for an eternity.

and how exactly did he save us and what from? there is and has been terrible things plaguing mankind for thousands of years. but, you're right, i will never understand what you do because i will never "surrender" myself to anyone. you seem so confident in your assertions that muslims and jews are fearful and therefor not the right choice, so why is your god any better? there is alot in the bible to make one fear your god or fear denying your god.

reply to post by xxblackoctoberxx


You have no need to fear him if you are not his enemy. If you are his child then you have no worries. Jesus told us not to be afraid when the great tribulation begins, we have no need to fear our King, only those who oppose him need fear him. The Lion of Judah will come again and we wait for that day with great joy. When he returns it will be a glorious day.

Originally posted by xxblackoctoberxx

 

" The LORD is a jealous God, filled with vengeance and wrath. He takes revenge on all who oppose him and furiously destroys his enemies!" (Nahum 1:2-8 NLT)

Lets break this one down into mans terms.
You are a loving dad; your child opens his laptop and tells you the laptop is his dad. Are you a little jealous? What if I then took you to the nuts house who was teaching the laptop is your dad. I would be angered and filled with vengeance that someone taught my child such nonsense.

So god is jealous, but only out of love. God is filled with vengeance and wrath not with you, but with the one who deceived you into believing a lie. A lie that makes it hard for you to reach him. When you realize God is love and lives in you, thus allowing you to love, then it becomes easy to reach him. Because he lives in you just as he promised he would. So you see you only need to understand the word of God to know, God can only be love.

Are you opposing God? Are you purposely trying to lead people away from God and you know that God is real? Satan is doing just that.

If you have love you teach love, therefore you teach God because his word is love.

reply to post by xxblackoctoberxx


You are like a brother who has been so poised by the word of man that the word of God is lost somewhere inside you. It is there but you have listened to the so called teacher and pastors teach you the laws required to get to God. 13 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. [14] 15 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are. Mathew (23 13-15)

The pastors and teachers of today are doing the same thing to people today. They have made it impossible to reach heaven.

You have listened to love, the word written on your heart, so you have rejected their message. This does not mean the book is wrong, it means the pastors and teachers have not understood the message.

I promise none of the claims you make against the bible, that are outside of love, are true. You have simply been poisoned by false teachers. Remember the deceiver Satan hides himself as an angel of light. If the message is not love it must be from the deceiver.

reply to post by sacgamer25


well thats all fine but the main teacher i've learned from is life experience.. so if this life that god supposedly gave me which, through my experiences, led me to believing what i do, is all poison and lies then what am i supposed to do?

i am 100% content, there is nothing i could add to my life that wouldn't take away from the whole unless i was faking it.

Originally posted by sacgamer25
Lets break this one down into mans terms.
You are a loving dad; your child opens his laptop and tells you the laptop is his dad. Are you a little jealous? What if I then took you to the nuts house who was teaching the laptop is your dad. I would be angered and filled with vengeance that someone taught my child such nonsense.

So god is jealous, but only out of love. God is filled with vengeance and wrath not with you, but with the one who deceived you into believing a lie. A lie that makes it hard for you to reach him. When you realize God is love and lives in you, thus allowing you to love, then it becomes easy to reach him. Because he lives in you just as he promised he would. So you see you only need to understand the word of God to know, God can only be love.

but my answer is no, i wouldn't care. my kids are their own beings, free to do and believe whatever they want. i have no need or want to give them any set of beliefs outside of what can be proven with tangible evidence. so god is jealous.. but, i am not. i don't care that much and i don't have that much of a vanity problem that i would get mad if my kids wanted to believe something different than me.

reply to post by xxblackoctoberxx


You would not be mad at your children. Again you are using the logic of man. You would be angry at someone that was lying to your children. If someone tells your children loaded guns are safe and they kill themselves would you be angry at that teacher?

God is not mad at you if you try to follow love. He is angry with Satan who teaches you that there is no god, and even if there is he is not there for you, and also teaches you that you will likely never be righteous enough for God.

God not only loves you he lives in you and he expects you to do nothing to be saved from your sin. This is the message of the bible. This is the love that God has for you. You do not have to accept it but accepting this makes your life much less burdened. Weather you accept it or not the gift is yours.

If you feel love in you than God lives in you. Only God is good, and love is good so it must belong to God. If love lives in you and love belongs to God than you belong to God, because God lives in you.

well, i think we've taken this as far as it can go without starting to go in circles so, you win. your god loves me even though i don't think he exists. so either way i'm good

Originally posted by Athin
I'm not an Atheist so I don't know why you would use that term when talking about my post.

Why is someone asking questions about Christianity automatically an Atheist?

Your arguments are atheist propaganda, even if you are not one. I didn't call you an atheist. I called your arguments atheist propaganda.

Originally posted by Athin
Can you direct me to a source that would show me this evidence? Other than out of the Bible I mean. In my eyes the Bible is not fact.

You are not reality police. You do not get to decide what is or what is not a fact. Reality doesn't care about your opinions. Reality is. But sure, I can point you out to sources, like this book.

Originally posted by Athin
Enoch is very much part of the Bible as there are references to it in numerous places in the Bible. Just because it isn't in YOUR version doesn't make it any less part of someone elses Bible. It's obvious that "You're right and everyone else is wrong", but try and do some research. You wouldn't come off sounding so ignorant on the issue.

Citations are irrelevant. There are multiple citations of books on the Bible that are not part of it. I am not one coming off sounding ignorant on the issue, and I am not the one that needs to do research. You simply do not know how the canon was formed. Your arguments are irrelevant and frivolous. Citations were never the criteria by which the canon was established.

The Book of Enoch was never part of the Bible. Christians are not responsible for the killings of millions of people. The Inquisition did not torture or kill any opposition to the Church.

There is nothing factual in your questions. They're atheist propaganda created in order to evoke an emotional response on people.

Originally posted by bluewaterservant
please define christian in your terms. the roman catholic church is the church that killed millions of people during the dark ages, and still is!

The RCC did not kill millions of people during the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages are called Dark Ages because there were very few records of that age until recently. There have never been any kind of retrogression that is claimed to have happened according to atheist propaganda.

Originally posted by WeRpeons
Over the years I've realize how hypocritical religion truly was. The wars and killings in the name of religion has really changed my perspective on religion.

Less than 9% of the wars that happened since records started being made are considered to be even remotely related to religion, and only TWO wars are historically considered to have happened because of religion.

Religion is a minor historical factor as a cause of wars.

Originally posted by JunoTheGreat
I'm not atheist.

I LOVE God.

Then stop buying atheist propaganda. Truth will set you free, remember?

Originally posted by jmdewey60
Do you realize this is not a normal way to think and to me indicates a cult type brainwashing.

Why? Because he disagrees with you?

Originally posted by jmdewey60
I hope some anti-terrorism agency is tracking you because you think murder is acceptable behavior.

Murder is defined as unjustified killing of human beings. God is the giver of life. He is always justified when He kills.

Originally posted by jmdewey60This is a racist justification for genocide.

This is a cop-out answer from a person that has no arguments and is merely making appeals to emotion. You fail.

Originally posted by jmdewey60This is an absolute lie and more racism. The exact opposite was true, where Moses was a lawless renegade flouting all international laws, norms of behavior, and rules of warfare. He was an international war criminal and committed countless crimes against humanity and a menace to world peace and the general welfare of the people of the world and is rightly judged the most evil person to have ever lived.

International laws? Rules of warfare? Crimes against humanity? Are you insane? The concept of international laws did not exist until the founding of the League of Nations. The concept of rules of warfare did not exist until the Geneva Convention. The concept of crimes against humanity did not exist until Nuremberg.

Are you seriously accusing Moses of violating laws that did not exist, and would not exist for thousands of years from his time? Don't you know that the UN Chart of Universal Human Rights preclude you from accusing him of any crime that did not constitute crime when he did it, that is, law cannot be applied retroactively?

Originally posted by autowrench
Isn't the Church of Rome, the Vatican, build right over, and based on the Church founded by Peter, of the Bible? I believe it is, in fact, Peter's Church in still there, under the Church of Peter, I have read.

Peter started the Church of Rome, didn't he?

No, he didn't. Peter was merely the first bishop of the Church of Rome, the same way that John was the first bishop of the Church of Smyrna. They did not have the concept of "popes", back then. Peter wasn't considered to have any greater importance or authority than any of the other apostles.

Originally posted by xxblackoctoberxx
my favorite assumption because it is the most absurd is that without religion people have no morals and dont value life. as if religions made up the ideas of right and wrong and without it we just default back to killing each other for no reason.

It is not an assumption, and you don't understand the argument, at all. It is probably why you don't agree with it.

Originally posted by xxblackoctoberxx
basically the good old rule, do unto others as you would like have done unto to you.

if it hurts me physically to get punched in the face, then im not going to go punch someone in the face. and if it hurts me emotionally when someone says something bad about me, then i wont say bad things about them.

Obviously, if I like being punched in the face, according to your rule, I am free to go around punching anyone in the face. Or, bringing it to the extreme, if I would like someone to kill me, I am now free to go around killing anyone I feel like killing, according to your rule.

Bet you didn't think of it this way, did you? You actually justified psycopathy.

Originally posted by xxblackoctoberxx
though i am not religious, i would say my philosophy is along the lines of some eastern religions. basically don't hinder any other creatures life.

Yes, we, religious people, are aware that non-religious people borrow their morals from religion all the same, even though they claim that they don't need religion to dictate their morals.

Originally posted by lonewolf19792000
Youre blaming christianity for what christendom has done, the two are not the same and are mutually exclusive.

Neither Christianity nor Christendom has done any of the things that he claims that it has done. Calm down. No need to defend Christ from things that never happened.