Problems With Christianity

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_KimberlyAnn
_Emeritus
Posts: 3171
Joined: Thu Mar 22, 2007 2:03 pm

Re: Problems With Christianity

Post by _KimberlyAnn »

It seems I have a song for every situation. Music speaks better to my feelings than I do myself, usually.

Boy With A Coin keeps repeating in my mind as I review my thoughts on God.

Boy with a coin he found in the weeds
with bullets and pages of trade magazines
close to a car that flipped on the turn
when God left the ground to circle the world

Hey--- Oh----

Girl with a bird she found in the snow
that flew up her gown, and that's how she knows
that God made her eyes for crying at birth
then left the ground to circle the earth

Hey--- Oh----

Boy with a coin he crammed in his jeans
then making a wish, and tossed in the sea
then walked to a town that all of us burned
when God left the ground to circle the world

Hey--- Oh----
Hey--- Oh----


I love the song. I clap and stop around the kitchen in my own maladroit way when I listen to it. But in my imagination, I'm just like the Flamenco dancers in the video.

KA
_richardMdBorn
_Emeritus
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Joined: Sat Oct 28, 2006 3:05 am

Re: Problems With Christianity

Post by _richardMdBorn »

from archaelogical evidence that shows the development of Jewish and Christian myths over time by borrowing from neighboring myths
It’s hard for me to see how this is a problem (see Peace Child by Don Richardson for a modern example of this). Christianity is often accused of being exclusivist. Now people are complaining that it is agreeing with some concepts from other religions and cultures.
to fossil records to cosmic radiation, etc, that shows things such as the creation of the world
Please explain what the contradiction there is with Genesis and the Big Bang.

Now to some of his more major points:

Supposedly, a person must accept Christ or they go to hell.
No, people must have their sins forgiven or they will go to hell. However, the only way to have your sins forgiven is to repent and believe the good news.

3) I think it is rather sick and twisted that instead of just forgiving humans for sinning when they repent, god sent his son to suffer excruciating pain and be put to death in a rather gruesome way. The Christian god is all-powerful, so he did not have to set up that gory experience, but did anyway. (The Mormon god is not all powerful, so he had to have someone suffer to pain for sins in order to save his other children from suffering, because the universe demands justice).
This is a version of R.C. Sproul’s phrase that people believe that man is not so bad and God is not so mad. C.S. Lewis’ essay “God in the Dock” may be of interest.

More later (year-end close time for me at work).
_huckelberry
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Re: Problems With Christianity

Post by _huckelberry »

The list of problems in Christianity is introduced with the observation that though not all Christians will believe each problematic belief somewhere there is somebody who does.

The demonstration that I see is therefore Christianity does not supply a pure source of divine understanding clarifying the thought of all who are touched by it. Instead it rather obviously is something understood differently by different people. It is obviosly somethng which leaves many questions unanswered and contains a tradition of a variety of specultive partial answers such as different view of what hell is who might get there.

Is it workable to start into a disscussion of whether all people who do not believe in Christ end up in hell? I do not believe any such thing. But the opening post cares only that somepeople believe that, not whether there is good reason to believe that.

I was amused by the Sarte quote list above, hell is other people. It reminds me that even if I do not believe in God, the Bible, or the Missouri synod the problem of hell may not be solved.

It is entirely possible that people wondering about hell started well before the Bible. Curious that the Bible spends so little space speaking of it.

My experiece in leaving the LDS church is that I was slow to give up the assumption that the directness of revelation producing pure doctrine was a primary quality of a real religion. It was easy to see that because the rest of Christianity obviously stumbles about with human thought about problems and experience instead of getting pure revelations published by God in heaven then those churchs are not worth much. They do not measure up to the high standards of LDS revelation. Now I cannot pretend that LDS are the only people with this kind of concept of revelation. It is attractive to all people. Plug in and have your world view cleansed of confusion and error. I do not think it works that way. If one gets past that expection it is at possible to see other things happening in faith. I do not think God is interested in providing us with the sort of revelation that will give us lots of answers. I tend now to think God is instead more interested in asking questions of us.
_harmony
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Re: Problems With Christianity

Post by _harmony »

huckelberry wrote:If one gets past that expection it is at possible to see other things happening in faith. I do not think God is interested in providing us with the sort of revelation that will give us lots of answers. I tend now to think God is instead more interested in asking questions of us.


Interesting premise, the one about God being interested in asking the question, rather than giving the answer. That has been my experience, on more than one occasion, yet it is completely outside the world view of any practicing Mormon. According to the church, God answers; God does not ask. Makes me wonder if God was asking Monitor, Beastie, and the others who felt they didn't get an answer. Maybe because he was asking, not answering...?

(Welcome back, huck. Missed ya.)
(Nevo, Jan 23) And the Melchizedek Priesthood may not have been restored until the summer of 1830, several months after the organization of the Church.
_huckelberry
_Emeritus
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Re: Problems With Christianity

Post by _huckelberry »

Moniker wrote:I think that Jesus is the good part of Christianity. The rest I can scrap. I went through cog-dis for about 6 months and that sooo sucked, yet, yanno, I worked through it fairly well and am sort of thankful I didn't have to fool with being indoctrinated with a silly fantasy belief system that took 33+ years to get over.

CK, I always knew that God wasn't a personal God. I just thought I'd give that a go about a year ago 'cause other people were telling me that's what God was. They were wrong! I just gave it a shot, yet, knew they were wrong anyway. They also said I could choose to believe. Well, the thing is I can't choose to believe in something that is bs. :)


No personal god. I wonder if I believe in a personal god, I am not quite sure what the difference is, a personal god or otherwise. If God is the creator of the universe God must be quite a bit different than the persons I know.

I certainly sympatihze with your doubt about just choosing to believe. I cannot imagine what it would be like to just choose to believe, unless it just means not to believe but say you do.Well maybe somebody has a better meaning for it than that. It sounds immoral to me.
_GoodK

Re: Problems With Christianity

Post by _GoodK »

Christianity is like Mormonism just less specific and with more doctrinal wiggle room.
_KimberlyAnn
_Emeritus
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Re: Problems With Christianity

Post by _KimberlyAnn »

I'd like to add my "Welcome Back, Huck!" to Harmony's.

It's nice to see you here, Huck. I always enjoy your thoughtful posts.

Kimberly
_huckelberry
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Re: Problems With Christianity

Post by _huckelberry »

Hi Harmony,

I find it easy to imagine God and Beastie being on much better terms than Beastie views the relationship. But the subject has a problem. I cannot actually speak authoritively for either party in that relationship. I can easily imagine atheism as a step in a learning process which is not always abhorent to God. In fact I can imagine God leading people into such views. Athiest can be good critics of phony religiosity and related things which I suspect God finds more distastful than human doubt and skepticism..
_John Larsen
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Re: Problems With Christianity

Post by _John Larsen »

huckelberry wrote:Hi Harmony,

I find it easy to imagine God and Beastie being on much better terms than Beastie views the relationship. But the subject has a problem. I cannot actually speak authoritively for either party in that relationship. I can easily imagine atheism as a step in a learning process which is not always abhorent to God. In fact I can imagine God leading people into such views. Athiest can be good critics of phony religiosity and related things which I suspect God finds more distastful than human doubt and skepticism..

What does the step beyond atheism look like, in your view?
_KimberlyAnn
_Emeritus
Posts: 3171
Joined: Thu Mar 22, 2007 2:03 pm

Re: Problems With Christianity

Post by _KimberlyAnn »

An aside to John Larson: I would like you to dance!

Yes, we're going to a birthday party. Birthday! Birthday!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztoSUhbNntQ

Kimberly Ann
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