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Goodbye Jesus

Christians Have No Real Morals


sithprincess

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Almost all of us here, especially those who went to church for a long time, have seen this scenario play out before:

 

Christian parents raise their children in a super-strict Christian home, with all the appropriate

morals. Kids reach high-school age, or maybe older, and go nuts - drugs, underage/too much

drinking, overblown promiscuity, you name it...

 

It seems to me that when kids are raised by a book, or even when adults are taught by a book and immersed in that book's religion, they never develop morals of their own. I can even see some of that in myself, even though it's getting better. People are just so programmed to follow a code, that without it, everthing seems to be okay and acceptable. Like after having years and years of "NO SEX UNTIL MARRIAGE! ABSOLUTELY NO FOOLING AROUND! YOU MUST REMAIN PURE!" being drilled into one's head, when that individual realizes that it's NOT wrong or dirty, I think they are more likely to see all sex as being perfectly healthy, i.e. a one-night-stand every weekend with people they just met. That's just one example.

 

Many atheists, agnostics, and adherents of other religions seem to have better morals than the followers of the text-based religions, and I think it's because they develop them naturally, instead of depending on a book or code that governs every detail of their lives.

 

And that's my theory about why Christians are, in some ways, more immoral than other people... :)

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The immoral behaviour is the result of looking under the bed and realizing that there really isn't a monster there.

 

And the result of all those unanswered prayers.

 

And the result of being told that one is a sinner from birth. I mean, what could you possibly do to make such a situation worse.

 

But mostly it comes from observing the hypocritical behaviour of others in the same faith community. Morals are best taught by example, not by lip service.

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I don't agree that most of their precepts are moral anyway. Denying yourself something isn't moral, neither is blindly following authority nor treating women as lesser than men. If Christian morals are the standard I must be far from normal.

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I call it the 'Preacher's Daughter' syndrome (or the Catholic Schoolgirl syndrome). If you want to raise a hellion, just crack down on them and try to micro-manage their lives with religion. Sooner or later, all that pressure's going to blow a gasket.

 

And then, around puberty...

 

:vtffani::party::68::dance::beer::blowjob::3some::Sheep::crazy::fdevil:

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I think the problem is that the kids are so overprotected that when they do get some freedom; they go overboard instead of being moderate. They have never had any control over their own lives or made their own decisions and have been told all of their lives what is best for them. They make poor choices because they have no idea how to make the right ones.

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Not much to add to what's been said so far. Indeed, if you get it drilled into your head that morals come from the outside for years, how can you be expected to develop any sense of morals of your own? :Hmm:

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From personal experience, I went on a bit of a sex/drugs/booze/partying binge when I left xianity. The pendulum definitely can swing a bit too far the other way, but now I'm starting to come back to my own sense of right and wrong based on the consequences of my actions as opposed to what the Lard says.

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They're not following rules to be moral; they're following rules for the sake to doing so, just so they won't make God angry.

 

They should stop. EVERYTHING makes him angry.

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I think what has been said so far is certainly true. I think another part of it is that the Christian religion also comes with a get out of jail free card of a sort. It doesn't matter what you do bad because you can get forgiveness. Atheists and agnostics have no such pass. If I hurt someone I can't just say "Gosh god I am really sorry I did that" and think it is all okay. There are real consequences to my actions, and I know that. No invisible friends to put a band-aid on my conscience.

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I must be an exception to the rule then. I was brought up in a christian home (3rd generation Christian) and never really rebelled as a teenager. Only two of my friends were christian (catholic) and didn't really believe anyway.

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But funny thing the Christian morals are still different from Bible Gods morals. It is just something that Christians invented mostly. It is more of a conservative approach to it. ( Just be glad they don't actually do half of the stuff God says or we would be dead) Just read my sig.

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I think the problem is that the kids are so overprotected that when they do get some freedom; they go overboard instead of being moderate. They have never had any control over their own lives or made their own decisions and have been told all of their lives what is best for them. They make poor choices because they have no idea how to make the right ones.

 

I use this same argument in relation to the drinking age. In the US, drinking is considered taboo and the legal age is 21 (19 when I was growing up). Kids sneak alcohol and abuse it and then when they turn 21 they really binge. All of this is unhealthy and many even die from it.

 

In Italy, by contrast, there is no drinking age. Kids often drink a bit of wine or even liquer with their parents. Drinking is part of everyday life and not considered taboo. As a result, I rarely met an Italian who even got drunk. In fact most Italians think that Americans can't handle their alcohol when they allow themselves to get drunk; it's just uncouth. I suspect the same would be true with drugs. What we know about Holland seems to indicate this.

 

Extrapolating from this argument, you could then make a quite bold statement that xian values contribute to many of the social, moral, and health problems that face the US today.

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I think the problem is that the kids are so overprotected that when they do get some freedom; they go overboard instead of being moderate. They have never had any control over their own lives or made their own decisions and have been told all of their lives what is best for them. They make poor choices because they have no idea how to make the right ones.

 

Agreed. How can kids learn to make the right choices if they are never given the ability to make choices when they grow up, or even when those choices become so distorted that reading books like Harry Potter and listening to normal music on the radio is seen as uber evil?

 

I use this same argument in relation to the drinking age. In the US, drinking is considered taboo and the legal age is 21 (19 when I was growing up). Kids sneak alcohol and abuse it and then when they turn 21 they really binge. All of this is unhealthy and many even die from it.

 

In Italy, by contrast, there is no drinking age. Kids often drink a bit of wine or even liquer with their parents. Drinking is part of everyday life and not considered taboo. As a result, I rarely met an Italian who even got drunk. In fact most Italians think that Americans can't handle their alcohol when they allow themselves to get drunk; it's just uncouth. I suspect the same would be true with drugs. What we know about Holland seems to indicate this.

 

Extrapolating from this argument, you could then make a quite bold statement that xian values contribute to many of the social, moral, and health problems that face the US today.

 

I don't disagree. Someone once posted a statistic about Christian countries having more incarcarated people than non-Christian ones. Anyone remember where that post was?

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  • 1 month later...
Guest MothandRust

But funny thing the Christian morals are still different from Bible Gods morals. It is just something that Christians invented mostly. It is more of a conservative approach to it. ( Just be glad they don't actually do half of the stuff God says or we would be dead) Just read my sig.

Didn't Jesus pretty much say with his, ten virgin story that is was pretty much ok to have 5 or ten wives? He have a parable about the bride groom coming for his virgins. Shouldn't Christians then believe it's ok to have a wife or 5 extra?

 

None of them have answered me on that yet.

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I don't think it's because of the book, it's because Christianity is a religion that encourages people NOT to think. That's the whole premise that Christianity is based upon, that if you follow the rules it will save you from stress and worry having to figure this all out yourself.

 

This can happen for any reason in any culture though.

 

The Buddha also taught "Don't kill, don't steal, don't perform sexual misconduct, don't lie, and don't drink." But he emphasized very strongly "Don't take my word on it, think it over and try it out. Decide for yourself whether it works for you."

 

Yet, if you go to Japan, a country with a high Buddhist population, this is a nation of people still SO repressed by their culture that when they finally get the chance to let loose...they go NUTS. Look at how extreme their pornography and drinking rates are.

 

Morality is must be born from within through thought and reason, otherwise you're just following a bunch of rules.

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I must be an exception to the rule then. I was brought up in a christian home (3rd generation Christian) and never really rebelled as a teenager. Only two of my friends were christian (catholic) and didn't really believe anyway.

 

I never really rebelled either, but as a teenager, I was dealing with a ton of stress and never had the chance to rebel. My mother passed away when I was a junior in HS. She had cancer.

 

So dealing with that took up most of my free time, plus I was under stress at school because I didn't really fit in anywhere.

 

In my senior year, I went to Germany as an exchange student, and that was the first chance I had to actually start figuring out who I was. Didn't actually rebel, so to speak, but had real fun for the first time in my life.

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I don't know if it ties into religion or not, but one thing that bugs me is that a lot of people seem incapable of learning from their own mistakes, and of great annoyance to me, they cannot learn from the mistakes of others.

 

Why is a mistake of educational value only if you make it yourself? What is it about people that makes them think they are so "special" that even though they watched their friend make an obvious mistake and saw the consequences of that mistake, that they can go and make the exact same mistake and apparantly expect a different result (due to their "specialness" I guess) because they seem genuinely surprised when the resulting consequences are identical or nearly so to that of their friends!

 

Isn't that the very definition of insanity or something? To do the same thing repeatedly and expect a different result each time?

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Guest rumpelstiltskin

I don't think it's because of the book, it's because Christianity is a religion that encourages people NOT to think. That's the whole premise that Christianity is based upon, that if you follow the rules it will save you from stress and worry having to figure this all out yourself.

Are you serious? I'm a Christian and I've always been encouraged to think. Where do you get these ideas?

 

 

 

R

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I don't think it's because of the book, it's because Christianity is a religion that encourages people NOT to think. That's the whole premise that Christianity is based upon, that if you follow the rules it will save you from stress and worry having to figure this all out yourself.

Are you serious? I'm a Christian and I've always been encouraged to think. Where do you get these ideas?

 

 

 

R

 

 

I agree. Can we please make a distinction between the fundamentalist Christian faction and the rest of Christianity?

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I don't think it's because of the book, it's because Christianity is a religion that encourages people NOT to think. That's the whole premise that Christianity is based upon, that if you follow the rules it will save you from stress and worry having to figure this all out yourself.

Are you serious? I'm a Christian and I've always been encouraged to think. Where do you get these ideas?

 

 

 

R

 

 

I agree. Can we please make a distinction between the fundamentalist Christian faction and the rest of Christianity?

 

No.

 

It is to be understood via "common sense" that we are generalizing here. That means that we equally comprehend via common sense that there will always be exceptions and not everyone fits the mold being described.

 

For a thinking person to actually believe we really mean each and every christian on the planet falls into this catagory is ridiculous.

 

To concede to political correctness would make posts a pain in the ass to read, and really doesn't represent the reality of actual human conversation where sweeping generalizations are abundant.

 

We know that the OP doesn't apply to each and every christian. We also know that it applies to enough of them that we have seen examples in Real Life of what the OP is talking about.

 

I was once a thinking christian too, and I would have to say the OP did not apply to my life then either. But I'd be a damn hypocrite if I wasn't also very aware that there were a lot of people I used to know who DID fit the parameters of the OP.

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Isn't that the very definition of insanity or something? To do the same thing repeatedly and expect a different result each time?

 

From quoteland.com:

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

-Albert Einstein

 

http://www.quoteland.com/search.asp

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snip

 

Well, clearly it wasn't obvious or rumpelstiltskin wouldn't have responded as s/he did. And no, not everyone is familiar with the ultra-fundamentalist (and small) sect of Christianity, and add to that I've seen a lot of anger towards Christians and Christianity on this forum, so it wasn't clear to me whether the OP was talking about all Christians, all evangelicals, or just some s/he'd met. And it wasn't clear to our resident Christian. So. I think we need to be careful in how we word our posts. That's just my suggestion.

 

And, you're right, the OP doesn't apply to every Christian. In fact, it applies to very very few. Most Christians, like most non-Christians, and I'm including evangelicals/ fundamentalists, are good people. I think the title of this thread is pretty alarmist tbh.

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Are you serious? I'm a Christian and I've always been encouraged to think. Where do you get these ideas?

 

The statement is made along the vein of this particular thread. The OP used the example of Christian children raised strictly by the book and having them end up rebelling in the craziest ways possible with a distinct lack of morality. This, as I pointed out can happen with ANY religious culture with any religious text.

 

BUT, Christianity is one of the worst offenders of this occurance. This entire forum is chalk FULL of examples where member's families and friends have opposed them reading, thinking, watching, hearing, or asking about things that contradict the Bible. Especially questions about the fact the Bible contradicts itself constantly. Basically, telling them "don't question it, just believe in it."

 

I apologize for the generalization that all Christians are incapable of thinking and developing their own morality; that wasn't my intent. Still, I must distinguish that I was also making reference that the religion on a whole at times has no real basis for it's moral laws other than "because we said so." Examples to support that view include topics like homosexuality, abortion, and marriage, most of which the "moral" opposition is based solely in ontological belief (which admitedly isn't just Christian, but I have to stay on topic here), and not on reality.

 

Again, I'll distinguish and say that I don't intend generalize every Christian individual, and I'm fully aware there is a wide variety of beliefs among Christianity.

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I'd call religious-based morality an artificial device. External devices can never be a proper substitute for internal, deep-seated character development.

 

Start children very early in life to respect themselves. To have a strong sense of self-worth and self-esteem. Develop in them the belief that they are worth something. That they are special in their own way. That human nature is basically good. Children brought up like that seem to always be able to take care of themselves when they get older. You won't see too many waste-oids who are brought up like that.

 

Christianity teaches that all people fall short. That our natural inclination is towards the dark side. That, if left to our own devices, all of us would be utterly depraved. This religion leads people to see themselves as unworthy, sinful, lustful, carnal. It's only Jesus that can save us from ourselves.

 

Children raised in such an environment, (coupled with total repression of natural desires), often go crazy when they are finally given the freedom to call their own shots.

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Well, clearly it wasn't obvious or rumpelstiltskin wouldn't have responded as s/he did. And no, not everyone is familiar with the ultra-fundamentalist (and small) sect of Christianity, and add to that I've seen a lot of anger towards Christians and Christianity on this forum, so it wasn't clear to me whether the OP was talking about all Christians, all evangelicals, or just some s/he'd met.

 

Yes there is a lot of anger here. As I understand it, this is one of the few places on the internet where anger towards religion is given the opportunity to be let out. Anger is just an emotion. What one actually does with such anger is what makes that state of mind positive or negative. I prefer people come here and just textually "explode", vent, and express themselves as strongly as they wish; as opposed to bottling up and leading to health problems, or worse expressing rage physically in real life.

 

 

BTW welcome Rumplestiltskin.

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