What does it mean to be Christian?

Being a Christian is simple. **** the poor and brown people. Don’t you libtards read?

 

T&P when bad things happen to other people while you do nothing to change it.

 

I can see this thread won't be an utter train wreck.

 

Im reading the Bible for the first time right now actually. Amazing made me realize how I don’t remember anything as a kid. Different kind of read at 30. Plan on reading the Quran next

The older I get the more it just seems right. Hard to explain it.

Not gonna lie. When I quit drinking, quit watching p*rn, eat healthy, exercise, and activity reading the Bible I literally feel unstoppable with no fear of the future. It’s pretty wild

 

I read them cover to cover when I was a teenager. In saying that any philosophy that is most meaningful to me is Buddha’s teachings.

 

To oversimplify it, Christianity is the belief that God sent his only son Jesus to live among us, and die for our sins. As a religion you read several of the approved versions of the text (King James is the most common) and are supposed to model your life after the teachings of Jesus.

The reality though is you have quite a few different denominations that teach kinda whatever they want out of the text, some having different versions of the text, cherry pick the parts that they want that fit their narrative etc. Many churches rarely mention Jesus anymore because he’s kind of a “woke” character and they strive to be more like Paul’s character or old testament focused. The character of David too is a central Christ like figure in many churches where their politics are the driving focus and want to idolize figures like Trump.

So what is Christianity???… well in the US I would say we’ve kind of lost our way on this question and we’ve tolerate too many perversions of the text which is EXACTLY what John and others warn about towards the end of the New Testament. The biggest threat that the authors of the Bible saw were faith and political leaders who would take this faith and use it to manipulate in order to serve their own.

 

It’s worked for billions of people across millennia for a reason.

it’s the cool and edgy thing to hate religion these days. No **** there are bad Christian’s, Muslims etc.

 

It's also worked against billions of people across millennia.

 

I think this goes to a general breakdown in institutions and faith in institutions. For the Catholic Church and other long established denominations the focus on dogma and tradition just doesn’t work with modern culture. At the same time scandals and how institutions like the Catholic Church and other denominations covered them up and even abetted them has greatly reduced faith in those institutions.

There are still a lot of people who still want the message of Christianity just not the institutions behind it.

 

Right which is as I mentioned very much misinterprets the worst sin (in their books) of blasphemy or taking the Lords name in vein.

In a Calvinist church like the Baptist one I grew up in, they literally tell kids they can go to hell just for saying the words “God Damnit”. However the reality of the text is the authors were really warning against a polician like Putin or Trump who use Christ as a platform for their own power.

Trumps most egregious sin was recently shown when he professed that his hush money payments to a p*rn star indictment was worse than what Jesus Christ had to endure. This is blasphemy of the tallest order and evangelicals and Calvinism so-called Christians instead of rejecting it as blasphemy, almost all embraced it.

How many faith leaders came out after that statement? None that I saw. Not Followill Jr. Not Joel Osteen. Not even the “woke” Pope had the balls to go there. When a political figure can have basically the entire so-called “Christian” population turn a blind eye to blatant blasphemy and antichrist-like rhetoric, you know that the Christian religious is in a very bad place.

 

I think if you asked 50 different "Christians", there would be 50 different answers, or maybe only 30, but follow up questions would eventually lead to 50 different answers.

 

To be fair to Trump though, the Russian Orthodox Church and Putin’s abomination of the Christian religion is by far more deserving of condemnation across the Christian church and faith leaders. Trump doesn’t understand what he’s doing really, and has probably couldn’t even tell you want John 3:16 says. Putin on the other hand wields immense power with total control of the Russian Orthodox Church, and uses their “anointing” of him to kill, and literally kidnap thousands of children.

If there is pure evil in our modern day society in terms of what the Bible warns about over and over again, it is realized who Vladamir Putin is.

 

Its amazing how much they were just making **** up back in the day at places like the Council of Nicea and whatnot. The Bible is not very good as a clear, direct set of instructions for behavior.

Christianity has been flexable at various times and places in the past. Its is at the same time both a strength and a weakness.

 

It’s doubtful Trump really believes in Christianity. He frequently breaks several of the commandments and as noted frequently blasphemes. I am more critical of Christian “leaders” and politicians for enabling and defending Trump than Trump himself. He’s exploiting them for his gain and they are happily going along with it becaus
In exchange they get judges. The problem with that is so much of their rhetoric is about character and principle but we seen them engage in the most blatant moral relativism when it comes to Trump.

Bill Clinton cheats on his wife and lies about that is an unforgivable sin. Trump brags about grabbing women by the p***y and he is the Christ’s tool on earth.

 

It's a quintessentially American question that has been asked well before our inception. Set aside the baptists, Presbyterian, methodists,etc... Don't like protestantism? Goto Penn and be a quaker.

Quakers think you're a sinful heretic? Get shipped to Rogue Rhode Island.

You had a dream god told you the world would end in x years, y days, and z hours? Be an SDA, Jehovah's Witness, etc...

Is the book of mormon the Third and final testament? Let's revise Pascal's Wager and baptise your dead relatives.

Initially, I wanted to reply that we're shifting to a "European" phase where bible teachings become allegories of our humanity against the unknown (the Gospels as our pathway for God to exhibit the best of Him through his son as man and God as "Love" rather than a bearded dude who suspiciously looks like Zeus ), but it really isn't in our puritanical DNA.

We want literal answers and will submit to an ideology, theory or creed that will produce the best or emotionally positive outcome. Explorations of paradox or ambiguous meanings can feel uncomfortable or wastes of time, yet those form the core of most established religions in their seminary trainings.

A pope once remarked that "Christianity is not a la carte". He was warning of the new agey denominations popping up that fit in this topic (Gospels only...diy liturgy). It's convenient that he didn't address the north-south schism catholicsm has where the "South" is more faithful the the word and dogma of the church.

Our distrust of organized religion is as deep as our need for spiritual belonging. A guy like Joel Osteen thrives despite (in spite of?) this. I think we subconsciously know that to be spiritual is to trust, and with that trust we form bonds and community. Religion is culture and vice versa, but culture evolves while religion tends to stay relatively rigid over centuries.

In this post-truth, and soon to be post-trust, age what will American Christianity, let alone our spirituality, become?

Join the Nakamoto cult because the code can be trusted and his coin-looking wafer Solves Everything? Deconstruct Judeo-Christian religion in postmodern form and distill it into your personal assistant for daily contemplations through a monthly subscription?

The latest meditation craze has mostly been marketed as a way to fine-tune or hack yourself into being the most operational or productive American possible. It's no wonder your employer is more likely to subsidize it in the name of self care.

Interesting times. More of the same but also with newer twists.

 

I remember back in the early 2000s when every internet forum in existence was ablaze with 'Christianity vs atheism' flamewars.

Then it just kinda... stopped.

The atheists won. But the Christians, at the core, were right IMO. Humanity needs religion to keep **** on the rails. Our dumb monkey brains ain't ready for life without it.