Thoughts and Prayers: The Religion Thread

I really don't care what you would rather people say. The parts I find most questionable are the ones designed to manipulate people. Writing in things that basically tell people that they will suffer for eternity if they don't buy in is manipulative. That is the part of the Bible that was most likely to be agenda-driven rather than a real attempt to share the divine.

 

I'm sorry it has taken me a couple days to get back to this. Life happened, as they say, and I've been otherwise occupied.

Let me start off by saying that my view is from the standpoint of Christianity, at least in as much as I know, understand and try to live it.

Maybe I need to do some research that I haven't done on Jonas Salk, I don't know. But just taking the fact that he was a Jew, I would still say that, no, his being a Jew would not stop him entering Heaven or gaining eternal life, but that, yes, he'd have had to accept Christ as his savior if he was to do so.

But that is the case with everyone, and yes, it matters what we think and feel with regard to that. Outside of that, though, no it really isn't going to matter what we think as far as judgment goes. Absent some final last-ditch chance we get, or are given, by God when we stand before Him, we will have no say, really, at that point, in the Judgment, either of ourselves, and certainly not of others.

I have no idea whether Salk or anyone else has or will get to Heaven or have eternal life because I don't/won't really know, personally, where they ended up, or will end up, in their journeys of faith. Salk has been, and we will be, judged only by God, not by you, me, or anyone else. He will know our minds, our lives, and our hearts. Our own testimony, at that point, is likely to be over, because our lives will be over. God, or, if you prefer, the Bible, calls on us to be Christ-like in as much as is possible -- to love God, and to love one another as He loved us. It's a tall order, and none of us can or will ever fully measure up, which is why acceptance of Christ as our savior is needed, yes. In other words, Christianity is open to everyone, but it also isn't for just anyone.

My church -- yes, I do belong to one -- and my faith doesn't put praying to the right god ahead of living a good life or doing good works. For me, there is only one God, and prayer and living a good life and doing good, or trying to, anyway, tend to go hand-in-hand and together, not one ahead of the other. If someone is a Christian, there should be some evidence, some actual indication of that that goes along with it. Just saying you are Christian is not what matters. And, on Judgment Day, God will know your heart and your life, and He will make whatever determination is to be made. Not you, not me, and not anybody else who might have made a judgment about someone while they were on this earth.

While I do belong to a physical church, I don't believe Christians necessarily need to do so. The reason for that, according to Christian values, and again, the Bible, is that we -- those of Christian faith are, ourselves, the church, at its most basic and organic -- meant to be the hands ands and feet of Christ and spread the faith by sharing what Christ did, and why, and for whom, via both words and actions.

I suppose churches could use the concept that accepting Christ is the only way into Heaven to make sure people join up, as you suggest. But that implies that going to a church is the primary, maybe even the only, measurement of a person's Christianity. And it is not. A person's acceptance of Christ by no means automatically determines that he or she will join a physical church or a particular organized religion. That all-important individual choice -- the decision to accept Christ -- is usually made first, and made willingly, before and regardless of whether someone typically joins any church. Certainly, it occurs before someone becomes truly active in a church. There is a difference between a church attendee and an active, fully engaged church member. A person could make that choice to accept Christ, and yet never have need of or desire for a physical church, or any organized religion. Me? I see church as a place to be inspired and comforted, convicted and embraced (by God, at least, even whether or not any of it done by other people), not as a place to be controlled, or herded, either spiritually or financially, in any particular way.

Events like baptism -- particularly when the decision is consciously made by the individual Christ follower and not just done on an infant -- are intended to again emphasize for an individual the personal, intentional decision to accept Christ as their savior.

One other important thing: Your view of Christianity (or, maybe it is any/all organized religion?), it appears to me, is more than just cynical. It focuses on what I would call the community (or if you would prefer, as I think you would, the communal) aspect of it, seeing it as some sort of a herd or blind-sheep mentality. But not even considering the conscious decision to accept Christ, or to go through intentional acts like baptism and such, your perspective fails to take into account each follower's typically very personal, and personalized, experience of the faith that most have undergone. That individualized experience is often what really keeps someone in the faith just when they might otherwise be tempted to question it, leave it, disown it, or just plain let it fall by the wayside and into disuse. More on that later, maybe, but suffice to say that such an experience(s) can't be discounted and should not be minimized.

 

How convenient it is for you that the parts you don't like are also all the bad parts.

 

If that's what you got from my posts, you clearly didn't come close to what I actually wrote. I never dismissed personal faith. In fact, I have always argued that personal faith is what is most important.

Alma is the one who dismisses personal faith if it doesn't fit into his narrow definition of Christianity. He is quite insistent that anybody who doesn't fit into his narrow definition of a good Christian is going to Hell.

I'm simply questioning the reliability of the text. It is the human version which has been translated multiple times by more humans. There is just so much room for manipulation there and placing some horrible threat on anyone who dares not buy in absolutely feels like manipulation.

Churches can be places of inspiration and comfort. They can also be places of manipulation and control. Often, they are both.

I don't understand how anybody can fail to look at the Christianity, especially anything related to the Catholic Church, without at least some level of critical thinking. Look at the historical abuses of power. More importantly, consider the systematic protection of priests who abused the children entrusted to them. If ever an institution deserved to be viewed with a wary eye, it is the Catholic Church.

 

How convenient for you to take every word of it as perfect because it keeps you from having to think or question anything about your faith.

Here is the difference. Aside from the Old Testament parts, it is all irrelevant to me. It's not my faith. I have an opinion because I'm surrounded by it. That's life in this country.

By an accident of birth, it is your faith, yet you just follow along blindly despite the many reasons to doubt the words in that book.

 

The Catholic Church could end problems in Puerto Rico- just a place chosen at random- with one (1) auction of high-end art.

 

I realized after I finished my last post that I hadn't specifically addressed this aspect of out of place's post, and that it seems particularly important to him.

I'd say that yes, many people, even most, come by their particular faith by an accident of birth. At first.

You need to start somewhere, get some sort of background from somewhere, and no one exists in a vacuum, so that's the point from which they start. But, at some point, a decision of faith, to own a faith, to truly believe in and become active in a faith, and to grow in it, becomes that person's actual decision. Or, it should, anyway. The fact that you are born into something and so that is the thing to which you were exposed first, isn't necessarily, in and of itself, wrong, or a bad thing, or something that is binding and that cannot be changed (or not, as the case may be).

Everything -- everything -- about Christian faith is about free will. The faith is built on it, and that goes for the choice to accept Christ, any decisions regarding how to live, what faith to follow, and how deeply it impacts us, etc. If you're going to live it, at some point, you've got to own it. Or else you're not going to really live it, and/or it won't really mean much to you. And anyone on that path can be in that place of a lesser faith at some point. But that is OK, because it is also possible to grow in it, to take things farther, and to become more deeply rooted in it.

That often happens when someone actually joins a physical church, but that doesn't mean the church is being manipulative, at least not in the solely cynical way that you mean it. Such growth/change usually occurs because a follower is learning more, understanding more, getting answers to questions they have, and just generally gaining, in a positive way, from having taken each step along the way to a deeper faith. And each real step is usually an actual act of actual will at that point.

 

I won't speak for Alma, but I would say that neither Alma (nor I, or anyone else) knows who is going to Hell.

As far as the Christian text, if you question it, you question it, and the extent to which you question it is why you're not a Christian, and we are Christians. Alma is right in that if you're not going to accept certain premises, then that is the extent to which you are a Christian at that point.

And the part Alma cites is, indeed, the most basic tenet -- at least according to the Christian view that we espouse.

To turn things around a little bit: Why do you believe in the Old Testament? But yet, at the same time, you're unable to accept, to any extent at all, the New Testament?

Just FYI, I grew up in the Catholic church -- was baptized (as an infant), went through the rites of Holy Communion, Confession and Confirmation, etc., -- and yet, was still able to make my own decisions all along the way about what to believe, what to follow, how to live, and what to change to reach the point I'm at now. The Catholic church is not perfect. It isn't. Not by any stretch. But I still got some positive exposure to God and faith, and I grew, even in it, and had good experiences enough to hold on to and on which to build, until I found my current place of faith, which is deeper, stronger, more mature than it, or I, was back then, outside of the Catholic church.

It happens. We are not stuck, or doomed, or whatever, with only one way to be, or to believe, just because that's where we were born or first exposed. We could stay there, sure. But we don't have to, and not everyone does.

 

You're still missing the point. People don't choose a faith different from the one they were raised with unless something went wrong. I'm not talking about a switch in denomination from one form of Christianity or another. I'm talking about changing from Jewish to Muslim or Muslim to Christian. That just doesn't happen unless there is some major exterior issue in that person's life.

By and large, the faith people choose is rooted in an accident of birth. I know that troubles people of faith, but I do believe it is most likely that if you or Alma were born to a Jewish family or a Muslim family, you would not be Christians.

 

The reason I'm not a Christian is that I was raised Jewish. The reason you are a Christian is you were raised with it. I'm sorry that troubles you, but that is how people most often find their faith. You claim you chose your own faith, but you stuck with the religion into which you were born and raised.

 

Just to be clear, I left the Catholic church because it just didn't reach me deeply enough to keep me there. It didn't answer my questions of faith well enough, and was too-mysterious, ritualistic and hide-bound enough to be off-putting, or at least, un-compelling enough, in the end, to limit my knowledge, my growth, and my desire to engage.

I did not, and do not hate Catholicism, or hold any ill will toward it, at least not as far as my life is concerned. Some of the truest, best friends I had in my teenage and young-adult years were from within the Catholic church and our mutual activities there, and a few of them still hold special, regular places in my mind and heart, even though I haven't seen them in years. But I don't agree that the regimented, sometimes disconnected way in which Catholicism is practiced, and I don't think it is the way to go as far as building or growing a church or its members, so I eventually lost interest in it, and my connections to it.

None of that is to say that I am, or was ever, OK with the abuses of their positions by Catholic priests -- we actually had a case of it with one very popular youth-leading priest in the church I attended at the time, and it a much-reported, very shocking thing that ended in his arrest, and was an incident that I'm sure gave many of the church's members pause, and perhaps even good reason to leave.

I can't say that's what my primary reason for leaving was -- my reasons were more along the lines that I explained in the paragraph above -- but my doing so was my own decision -- one that I've not ever regretted.

 

It doesn't trouble me at all.

Are you saying you, or I, can't choose something -- whatever that may be? Hogwash.

I'd say you're the one saying people are blind followers, when they may not actually be such. I'd say that I'm not one. Certainly, I've tried not to be, and I have enough confidence in my own abilities, mind, heart and faith to think I have a good sense of what's right for me. I can read, I can listen, I can learn, I can analyze, I can change. And I have.

Or you (and I) can...not. (And that is still a choice, if it is made consciously).

I wasn't born Jewish -- yes, it is the one faith into which you are actually born in a real, familial way (again, that is according to my Bible-based beliefs). Jewishness is not just a faith/religion. But, because I spent some of my young growing-up years in New York, and because I've had a little exposure to the practice of that faith through friends, I know a little about it. Not a lot, but a little, and enough to understand and relate to at least part of it well enough to not dismiss or disrespect the whole thing out of hand. Just like I can do with the Catholic church, but decide to take another path.

I have much more trouble with Islam, but that is because of its very basis in violence and the lack of real knowledge and sharing that goes on, even among followers of the faith, because of translation/language/communication issues that can't help but lead to serious gaps of truly blind ignorance, even among those followers.

I'm sorry if I'm "too Christian" for you to think I can't have made up my own mind about it. Perhaps you should consider that maybe, just maybe, whatever decisions I've made have occurred for good reason, multiple reasons, that go beyond just the fact that I was "born into" it.

That doesn't matter because the fact is, I was, as Christians say, actually "born again." Officially, it happened Oct. 8, 2011. But it was a path. A journey. A decision.