The Fruits of Christianity

[white_raven23]

And.....HOW old is Hinduism?

 

Hinduism traces its roots to the Indus valley civilization about 4,000 to 2,200 BCE

 

From: http://www.inquiry.net/ideals/faiths/hinduism.htm

 

Kinda makes Christianity the younger pup on the block.

[Kryten]

Pug,

 

Did you mean to say that GOD is going strong after 2000 years, or did you mean "God, after 2000 years it's still going strong" like you said?? That's like saying, "Wow, after 200 years it's going strong". In other words you just used the word "God" as an exclamation. Won't you fry in hell for that?

[Vixentrox]

He's a REAL young earther to only credit his god with 2000 years. Most give him at least six or seven thousand.

[Kryten]

God created Adam, placed him in a garden with the Tree of Knowledge right near the center, then told him that he is not to eat from it. God also allowed a serpent to visit the man's wife and convince her that if she WERE to eat the fruit, she would be like her daddy. Knowledge must be a good thing or God wouldn't have created the tree in the first place, right? Otherwise the whole setup would be some kind of sick trap. By definition, Adam and Eve did NOT know right from wrong, so there is no reason to hold them accountable for any actions that we would consider wrong. Everything the serpent said was true. So after they ate the fruit, God got angry and sentenced every human that would ever be born to eternal torture by fire. The only way out is to HEAR the gospel, believe the stories, and devote your life and mind to Jesus. All others will be sent to hell.

 

That isn't exactly true. Hell didn't even exist in the OT, it isn't mentioned anywhere. Sheol was the "land of the dead," and was basically a place that everyone went when they died, kind of an underworld type of place. It wasn't punishment, it wasn't reward, it is just what happened according to the cosmology of the people's who scripted the books.

 

Hell was invented in the NT, and started out as a reference to punishment from god, and most likely it was a reference to giant trash dumps that were always burning. People compared it to the dumps...and eventually the idea of hell came about.

I know that hell was an unkown concept to the OT writers. My point is that the basic doctrine of why we need salvation comes from an illogical source.

There are thousands of different denominations all stemming from the same book.

Funny...this didn't happen until power was given to the people...the Reformation. Yes, there was a schism between the Eastern and Western churches...but in general, there weren't so many denoms.

 

I think it was a result of people being able to read the bible for themselves. For the first few centuries, reading was not encouraged, nor were copies in their native languages readily available.

Genesis is so full of crap that it boggles the mind that anyone actually believes it.Yes...but that book was probably constructed for several other stories floating around...and it was never meant to be taken the way that modern people take it. It was an ancient cosmology that compares quite nicely to other cosmologies written around the same time period. It probably made loads of sense in 500 BCE.

I agree.

What is worth admiring? Really, in regards to the genuine basics of the religion and the kinds of societies it has encouraged, nothing. A religion is only as good as the ethics and lifestyle it encourages; when it encourages harmful beliefs and practices, it needs to go.

 

Ever heard of the concept of "we create God in our own image"? I think that is what you could be addressing here. Fact of the matter is that the Bible and religions it has "inspired" pick what makes the most sense to them from the available scriptures, and use what they need to/want to. Is that a conscious choice? Who knows...it may have been in times past, and it may be now. The problem is interpretation, and there is no way to standardize that without a centralized authority, which is why I commented on the Reformation earlier. Do I think that the church pre-Reformation was good? Not really. But they had consistent beliefs...and those beliefs were enforced.

I agree-- man did create God.

Anyway, I don't think that you can talk about Christianity as if it is one BIG thing. There are lots of Christianities, and some of them are much better than others. What about liberation theology? South American Xns fighting for the human rights of the most poverty stricken people and those that are persecuted by their governments? What about peace-working Mennonites? What about liberal Christians in this country, who think that God loves everyone and creates them all to be exactly what he wanted them to be, whether straight, gay, whatever? Mormons have some of the lowest rates of heart disease and obesity, among other health problems, because according to their religion they are commanded to care for their bodies. So...lowering health care costs for the rest of the nation?

The point I'm getting at is that none of these strands of Christianity is perfect, but you cannot simply write off an entire group of people, lumped together for no reason because they may not have anything in common. Yes, there are definetly bad points to each of these traditions. But, in general, there can be good things too. Social justice is important, and I don't care what inspires people to work for human rights worldwide, as long as they do it.

Yes, but besides making the point of it's utter lack of consistency/unity, we can still blame the belief in Christianty for many of the attrocities throughout history. I'm sure there were good, decent, and kind-hearted Nazis, too, but we can still judge the group by its fruits.

 

I don't think that social justice is a product of any religion. It's a product of humans living together and deciding what is best for the group. Social justice according to Christianity has produced much INjustice (torture, burning people, demonizing others, and wars). Real social justice would be more fair without any religion.