Religion, what's the point?

Once again: you don’t have to believe in something to know about it

I’m sorry, but it absolutely is controversial in a theological sense.

Case in point, a BBC commissioned study in Britain in 2017 found that “a quarter of people who describe themselves as Christians in Great Britain do not believe in the resurrection of Jesus”.
They believe in something though.
 
I suppose if Christians hadn't put people to death for a thousand years or more for not believing certain parts or misinterpreting other parts we might all be a bit more relaxed about it.

You can be angry at historical events without believing that the only way to be a Christian is to accept the infallibility of the Bible, I think.
 
Yeah, but Christianity ain’t it, bud… the resurrection is basically the lynch pin of the whole faith.
Maybe their faith isn’t as strong as they would hope, still doesn’t mean they are not Christians maybe as they get older with different life experience they will change their thinking.
 
Maybe there faith isn’t as strong as they would hope, still doesn’t mean they are not Christians maybe as they get older with different life experience they will change their thinking.
Again, I’m sorry, but the resurrection of Christ is quite literally non-negotiable to be a Christian.

They might eventually accept that the resurrection happened, absolutely… and at that point, they’d have an actual claim on the title. But until then, they’re identifying with something they’re not.
 
You can be angry at historical events without believing that the only way to be a Christian is to accept the infallibility of the Bible, I think.

True,

It is probably hard to be a Christian if you think the whole thing is wrong though. So bizarrely we are currently being criticized for trying to find the parts Christians will stand behind. I mean other than the bits nicked from previous religions or generic vanilla interpretations like love each other which probably predates homo sapiens.
 
You can be angry at historical events without believing that the only way to be a Christian is to accept the infallibility of the Bible, I think.
Jesus throughout the Gospel basically asserts that it is exactly that.

Which would make sense, considering who he is supposed to be.
 
Again, I’m sorry, but the resurrection of Christ is quite literally non-negotiable to be a Christian.

They might eventually accept that the resurrection happened, absolutely… and at that point, they’d have an actual claim on the title. But until then, they’re identifying with something they’re not.
Well that’s what you are told when you are younger but ask an 18 year old me if I believed in the resurrection I’m not sure what my answer would be, still attended Mass and prayed, considered myself Christian but a 36 year old me would believe it yes.

The prodigal son was still considered a Christian by God even though he did not live his life as such, there are many exceptions to the rule.
 
True,

It is probably hard to be a Christian if you think the whole thing is wrong though. So bizarrely we are currently being criticized for trying to find the parts Christians will stand behind. I mean other than the bits nicked from previous religions or generic vanilla interpretations like love each other which probably predates homo sapiens.

I think you're (general you) being criticised for aggressively telling Christians what they have to believe.
 
Well that’s what you are told when you are younger but ask an 18 year old me if I believed in the resurrection I’m not sure what my answer would be, still attended Mass and prayed, considered myself Christian but a 36 year old me would believe it yes.

The prodigal son was still considered a Christian by God even though he did not live his life as such, there are many exceptions to the rule.
One key point to be made here regarding the Prodigal Son story… it is part of the three redemption parables told by Christ. It is read on the 4th Sunday of Lent, the Christian period of fasting leading up to… Easter. The celebration of the resurrection of Christ so that believers in his resurrection could be redeemed of their sins.
 
One key point to be made here regarding the Prodigal Son story… it is part of the three redemption parables told by Christ. It is read on the 4th Sunday of Lent, the Christian period of fasting leading up to… Easter. The celebration of the resurrection of Christ so that believers in his resurrection could be redeemed of their sins.
That’s because the Catholic Church want you to believe and accept the resurrection it’s in their interest to word it in that manner, but still doesn’t mean you cannot consider yourself Christian if you are sceptical.
 
That’s because the Catholic Church want you to believe and accept the resurrection it’s in their interest to word it in that manner, but still doesn’t mean you cannot consider yourself Christian if you are sceptical.
Easter isn’t just in Catholicism… so I’m not talking about a specific denomination here. I’m talking about the most important event in the Holy Bible.

Without the resurrection, there is no redemption of sin. Period. Jesus at that point was exactly what the Pharisees thought him to be… a false prophet.

You can consider yourself whatever you want… but ultimately you’re not the final arbiter of that if the Judeo-Christian god is real.
 
Moby (the poster who asked him about his childhood) made multiple posts about this very point last night… that a child would still learn of Jesus via the Bible because the storyteller would be quoting / paraphrasing it to them.

So, rather than basing religious doctrine on a codified ‘record’, it’s acceptable to plate broken telephone?

Good to know!
 
It's a point, maybe the Caf or modmins need to decide if this thread wants balanced discussion or a circle-jerk for atheists.

Seriously? As far as I can see you've been trolling this thread for days. Maybe it's the shingles but to me CR didn't come across as aggressive, dictating to you or any of the other things you accused them off. To me, it was you that came off as rude, arrogant and condescending as well as being obtuse at times in your posts.

My reading of the conversation was that they were trying to understand where you were coming from on this because a personal bespoke version of Jesus/The Bible, while it's your right to believe whatever you want, isn't a teaching of any church that I'm aware of.

Certainly growing up attending Catholic school this type of cherry-picking was seriously frowned upon.
 
As usual in these discussions I'm getting posts left right and centre from different folk. Makes it difficult to have a decent conversation as I'm having to reply to a different set of responses/questions.

It's the last few days of Ramadhan and I am pressed for time. So I will bow out for now.

@Wibble thanks for the discussion and not getting aggressive and being insulting. I will carry on with you, if you wish, at a later date.

@Dve same with yourself. If you wish also. The war notion is certainly interesting, albeit I think misinformed and wrong. But again more later.

Timing I can't say for certain. Just learned my cousin's 14 year old has been put on life support. He had leukaemia and had a transplant that hasn't worked. My auntie, said cousins mum, on her way out too so tough times ahead for the family.

Terrible news. I'm very sorry to hear that.

EDIT: Btw the flat earth line was mostly in jest.
 
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Easter isn’t just in Catholicism… so I’m not talking about a specific denomination here. I’m talking about the most important event in the Holy Bible.

Without the resurrection, there is no redemption of sin. Period. Jesus at that point was exactly what the Pharisees thought him to be… a false prophet.

You can consider yourself whatever you want… but ultimately you’re not the final arbiter of that if the Judeo-Christian god is real.
So do you not consider a Jehovah’s Witness’ to be Christian?
 
So do you not consider a Jehovah’s Witness’ to be Christian?
No. And neither do Christians, as JWs preach aspects of the Arianism heresy.

To add… Docetism was a gnostic belief of the 2nd century or so that rejected the resurrection of Christ. It’s been considered heretical by Christians for about 1800 years now as well.
 
Seriously? As far as I can see you've been trolling this thread for days. Maybe it's the shingles but to me CR didn't come across as aggressive, dictating to you or any of the other things you accused them off. To me, it was you that came off as rude, arrogant and condescending as well as being obtuse at times in your posts.

My reading of the conversation was that they were trying to understand where you were coming from on this because a personal bespoke version of Jesus/The Bible, while it's your right to believe whatever you want, isn't a teaching of any church that I'm aware of.

Certainly growing up attending Catholic school this type of cherry-picking was seriously frowned upon.
I appreciate that.
 
No. And neither do Christians, as JWs preach aspects of the Arianism heresy.

To add… Docetism was a gnostic belief of the 2nd century or so that rejected the resurrection of Christ. It’s been considered heretical by Christians for about 1800 years now as well.
Jehovah’s Witness are part of the BBC report making up the one quarter of Christians are they not?
 
Jehovah’s Witness are part of the BBC report making up the one quarter of Christians are they not?
Quite possibly, especially if a JW self described as Christian. That said, if they all self identified as such, they would make up 0.2% of the UK’s Christian population.
 
The last few pages were an interesting read. Rather hilarious when self-labeled Christians come off as condescending pricks without a single ounce of self-awareness.
 
The last few pages were an interesting read. Rather hilarious when self-labeled Christians come off as condescending pricks without a single ounce of self-awareness.
Considering this is the most ignorant post in the thread, I think it’s rich talking about self-awareness..
 
Give us time to get over the surprise while we queue ;)

I for one will be a little miffed if this happens.

I would try to be the bigger person and simply turn around and walk away. Not that keen on hanging out with a genocidal egomaniac who likes to watch his own children suffer needlessly in the guise of a "test".
 
Considering this is the most ignorant post in the thread, I think it’s rich talking about self-awareness..

I think MrMarcello might have been referring to Hall & Oates's derisive, condescending comments to completely logical difficulties posed by the idea of following a religion without believing the main 'evidentiary' text of said religion.
 
Seriously? As far as I can see you've been trolling this thread for days. Maybe it's the shingles but to me CR didn't come across as aggressive, dictating to you or any of the other things you accused them off. To me, it was you that came off as rude, arrogant and condescending as well as being obtuse at times in your posts.

My reading of the conversation was that they were trying to understand where you were coming from on this because a personal bespoke version of Jesus/The Bible, while it's your right to believe whatever you want, isn't a teaching of any church that I'm aware of.

Certainly growing up attending Catholic school this type of cherry-picking was seriously frowned upon.
How strange, I thought I only began posting on it yesterday. I'm the one dictating? :lol:

I'm not Catholic, why would I need to worry about such 'cherry picking'? Again, assumptions being made.
 
I listened to a podcast recently about their systematic cover up of sex abuse within their community and it ain’t good.

My wife has a childhood friend who was a JW and she had/has a terrible experience with them. She comes from a family that is part of the faith, she was born in to it. She wasn't allowed to marry someone who wasn't a JW but eventually met a man from different congregation, they married and had children.

Her husband was extremely abusive and after years of abuse she gathered the strength and courage to leave him and went to the police about it. The church didn't approve with her going to the police and wanted to handle the situation within the church.

Because she refused to let the church handle it she got excommunicated and her own family doesn't want to see her anymore, including her parents and siblings.

She now has the kids every other week, two girls around 5-7 years old. One evening the older girl told her she didn't want to come to stay with her anymore and when she asked her why the girl said that their pastor had said that she and her sister will burn in eternal fire for having contact with their mother.
 
Yes. This is something that I said at the very beginning of the discussion. We're basically going around in circles because I made a statement that we are Christians, not Biblians, that is maybe better understood if we could imagine a missionary visiting a tribe never seen before or met by 'civilisation' who lost his Bible at sea, or in the Jungle. The tribe had no hang ups about a book but could understand the central messages of the faith, maybe not word for word but the gist etc. This being one of the reasons not to get bogged down in the book. That in my opinion also the whole bible could not be relied upon to have remained intact over the years. It's confusing apparently.
In this post you explain it clearly.
The knowledge of religion through a person (making it clear that that person has studied the book, because there is a book!), by their actions, behavior following the message of Jesus
 
As far as I can see it's the BBC doing the lumping and someone else doing the quoting.

Yes I know, I just saw that someone was using JW to push an argument in their favor and pointed out that you really don't want Christianity to be lumped together with that lot.
 
Yes I know, I just saw that someone was using JW to win an argument in their favor and pointed out that you really don't want Christianity to be lumped together with that lot.
I took him to be pointing out that the BBC lumped all sorts of 'Christians' in the survey, it doesn't seem to see any distinction whereas we know that different branches, sects believe in different things.
 
In this post you explain it clearly.
The knowledge of religion through a person (making it clear that that person has studied the book, because there is a book!), by their actions, behavior following the message of Jesus
Yes, but in any case either reading of the whole book or doubting the veracity of some doesn't mean relying solely on the book or having had to read it at any age as a child?
 
I took him to be pointing out that the BBC lumped all sorts of 'Christians' in the survey, it doesn't seem to see any distinction whereas we know that different branches, sects believe in different things.

I thought they were discussing how the resurrection of Christ and the abolishment of sin was a cornerstone in Christianity. Because JW do not believe in the actual resurrection they were used as the "Christian" example who don't believe in it but are still considered Christian.

And that's why I made the comment I did.