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what is the point in following Christianity?

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an atheist friend and i were discussing Christianity and he said, "i dont see anything wrong with Christianity, but i dont see any point in following it either." ever since then, it bothered me. although i am a Christian and follow as faithfully as i can, which, i admit, is not as much as i should, i could not immediately answer him.
the first reason that came to mind was salvation from hell. however, if one does not believe in hell, why would one want salvation from it? it is like buying insurance for a house or car one does not own, or taking medicine for a disease one does not have. on the other hand, if there is nothing wrong with Christianity and since the Bible directly speaks of the existence and horrors of hell, would not one believe in hell and therefore desire salvation from it?
another possible reason i reflected upon was the comfort and support Jesus provides. whenever i feel troubled or stressed i find that turning to Him always relaxes me. also, during church retreats i experience this peace because all i need to think about is Him; worship always brings utmost joy that i never feel at any other time. perhaps this draws the most people to Him: He will always be with us, even though we may not feel His presence or even feel as if He abandoned us. no person can play that role in our lives. yet how can i explain this to someone who never experienced this? he would just say, "sure. whatever." and not believe me.
since this friend of mine only believes what concrete evidence and logical thinking proves, i find it difficult to reply to him. i do not have a vast knowledge on this subject. i feel what i feel, and i trust the conscience, friends, and family God gave me. how can i prove and explain why Christianity is worth the undeniably hard work?

Probably not the best forum to post this thread because of the many people who will do what they can to show you believe in a "sky pixie", or a phantasmagore, or that your belief is weak and unproven. First of all, you have the Truth and you know that.

So, the answer to your question is easy - study. Learn what it meant for a jewish boy, or young man, to follow a rabbi. Learn what they had to do to learn from him. Learn that Jesus called all of us to "Come, follow Me." Don't get discouraged just study and pray. "Ask...seek...and knock."

I personally believe in God, however I prefer to stay away from religion threads, precisly for the same reason that Kellyo mentions.

I respect every way of thinking, because that's the "pepper and salt" of this world we live in. But getting to your point, I needed to state that you must be thankful and happy with the gifts and love that God and Jesus gives you. If you want to show this great gifts to others, tell them how this makes you happy, the way those gifts that God gave you make you feel good, in your soul and concious. Share your happiness-

And if those people do not understand you, just let them aside, understand them and do not disrespect them talking about it again and again, because that is not the point, you will just increase the distance. They have to decide on their own. Not everyone reaches happiness by the same meanings. Search for friends that have similar beliefs to yours.

And, again as Kellyo said, study......search for the light of the truth.....you know it......now get deeper...because I study and search for my part, I read the Bible and analyze its words, and I also study other aspects of Christianism, even some themes that others fear....I am a theology amateur student myself....not a serious theologist but I try to understand the ways and existence of God Almighty...........search the truth.....seek for happiness, caring for others.....you shall recive what you give.......that is (for me, in few words) the meaning of being God-believer.

May the stars shine upon you ^^ Namarie (Elvish for "good-bye")

Tinbad

Tinbad

Cold Hearted

These are my opinions based on facts and speculation. please do not respond with flames or irrational arguements. And if you deeply religious or like to sleep well at night, then do not read or take this sincerely... Belief in something is peoples reason to live.

Well, to start with... The main reason in which any religion exists is because of fear. Most people have to believe in something or they will to insane.
And to bring up that whole point of hell being so horrible and such... According to Chrisanity if you acknowlage your sins and ect. ect. you gain salvation.
But then theres the fact that when you die the most likely possibility that will happen is that you will simply blink out of existance, or something like that. But if most people believed that then what would be the point in living anyways?
I no longer praying or believe in church, although I only had to and still have to go on holidays. I don't believe there is some "divine" being or such. Maybe something such as a particle or such that caused life.
When you apply all facts of science, the universe shouldnt exist. There is no cause for the effect of existance. some people find it hard to consintrate on this subject due to the fact it is beyond what anyone can comprehend. Sometimes people even force themselves to forget these facts, similar to someone who is in denile. So basically most people are in denile of reality.

kyokujitsu

kyokujitsu

Without Purpose

Sorry, but I have to argue. I don't think the point of religion is "fear", nor do I accept that people will go insane without religion. However, I do agree that religion is about belief, or faith if you will. Belief in a higher being that guides us, however subtly. To answer why you should follow Christianity, I think it is partly about things like salvation and stuff, but in the end, I don't think you can tell anyone why they should follow a religion. It all comes down to whether you choose to believe or not, choose to be open-minded and accepting about what religious people say, or choose, as I see it, to be stubborn and believe in nothing but your own abilities.

But for all people posting a negative view of religion in this thread, I think they should stop. It's not helping the threadstarter to answer his question, and though Tinbad says he doesn't want anyone to flame him or anything, it would be inevitable in a thread by a Christian asking how he can explain to an Atheist this question. Keep your negative comments to threads asking for both sides of a question.

"What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?"
- Dr. Robert Schuller

GoodTree - The homepage that supports charities ^_^

RubyDrg0n

Wanna-be-Drg0n

but if you do so.... it will stop the progress of your religion as well....

To truly understand your religion is to understand its advantage and disadvantage... so learn everything....good or bad... right or wrong about it... that is how ppl should believe in their religion.... if any ppl have any negative comments... think about it.... put some thoughts into it and understand why.... go through all the basis of the religion and human thoughts (dont try to use religion to answer everything coz it is only a moral thing)---> this part is about overcoming it by yourself, not running to God without really overcoming it...... only go ask God for help when you really needs it....

also one more thing... you should still be searching for the Eden of thoughts....(Eden here is symbolic... but it sound nice...)... dont stop on your religion but try others as well... its not about joining but about understanding...

*reminder: dont use your religion as a guide for everything because it is for morality only!

so when you truly understand all ... you can truly choose your believe and wat you think is right....

If God exists and it created you and everything else and it wants everyone to worship it and be Jewish/Christian/Muslim then you should worship it. That's my logic anyways, and as you said that you'll go to hell with eternal suffering and such.

However if God doesn't exist there's obviously no point in the religion unless you lack the intellect to be moral without someone telling you to be. So to the "non-believers" who aren't intelligent enough to be moral, time to convert to some religion that will force you to be moral or be damned to suffer forever. But as for intelligent non-believers, they will believe in Christianity if they are shown it is true. If you can't do that they have no reason to believe it. Hope this helps.

We're not supposed to beleive in God just because of the reward of Heaven. We are supposed to believe, because God created us. He is our Master and it is our duty to serve Him. God is not here for us, to help us, we are hear for God.
By the way RubyDrg0n "Religion" is not for Morality

eXDream2K5

eXDream2K5

the crazy band geek

Okay to sum it all up, we needed an explanation as to why we are here way back in the day. Back then, before science could prove otherwise, the answer was simple: God created us.

Humanity needs a superhero, basically. We need someone who is omnipresent, omnipotent, someone who will save us in the end. God is that superhero. No, people don't go insane without a higher being, but they lose something when they say, "There is no God." I used to say stuff like that, and I still challenge Christian faith, because all sects of Christianity preach ideals and beliefs that I do not agree with. However, since regaining my faith when I was 16, I've felt complete and whole. I can turn to God in my times of need and cry without feeling shame.

My dad's mother passed away a few days ago. I am grateful to God for allowing me the chance to say "good-bye" to the woman who helped raise me, because I never got to say "good-bye" to my mom's father before he passed away nearly three years ago. When Granddad (mom's father) passed away, it was a shock to me, because he'd seemed so healthy and because I'd never lost a loved one before. It taught me that the ones I love most could be taken from me at any time. With Mama (dad's mother), I knew she was dying, and that's made accepting her death much easier. It's still very hard, but God is with me to comfort me, to help me heal, and to guide me.

My apologies for making this a bit personal, but I hope I explained that well enough.

Labels are for cans. I'm not a f*cking can.

RubyDrg0n

Wanna-be-Drg0n

araszun: can you pls prove tat? pls dont disapprove me for no reasons... i have my own reasons to write that up.... and it is not simply "just saying"....so pls....:)

alexjohnc3: you seems very bias for your religion.... even if i am "intelligent"(judge me whether i am) non-believer... i would believe Buddhism more than Christianity.... i wouldnt "worship" a god even if he/she/it created me, who cant even help us rite..(look at the world....)... if he really wanna help us.... through Christianity.... we should all be born and become Christians... but we are not.... why? coz "evil" is too powerful for him to control properly?

sry for all artheist or non-believers or intellects out there... i use "evil" just to argue in their language.....

Belief is beyond reason. The whole point of belief is that there is no point.

RubyDrg0n, I think you should know that I was trying not to be bias. I am an agnostic atheist so don't tell me that I'm bias about my religion because I don't have one. Don't attack me, attack what I write...

If someone showed an intelligent atheist that the Christian god was real then that would be how they could get someone to become a Christian. As opposed to saying, "The Bible, which contridicts itself, says that God exists. Therefore God exists." If you personally feel that you would never become a Christian, even if the Christian god was shown to you to exist then that's you, but I'm not trying to anyone how to convert you to Christianity, I'm just trying to answer the question of this thread.

RubyDrg0n

Wanna-be-Drg0n

alexjohnc3... sry about that... didnt read the post really well... :P .... sry guys!

anyway... something to confess.... i am not really that arthiest.... coz i am an animist.... but i am trying my best to understand the world better.... coz i hope to archieve true believing....

i was born in a very Christian based community.... seen alot... and heard alot.... and disprove alot.... and made lots of "if" statement.... for this statement.... the one alexjohnc3 made.... if the Christian god really exist.... i would believe but not follow him.... coz he is not perfect as he is suppose to be, cant really help us (look at our world) and perfectly bias...(i am against animal killing for commercial purpose! i only eat meat for survival.... not as a desire)(c'mon... animal have spirits too!...umm.... animist talking here... so dont mind this)

also... to put something to think about following alexjohnc3's post.... why do we really have to follow the truth?..... is it because we want to manipulate it or we just want to be rite? or is it because it affect us and we will be disadvantaged if we didnt follow......(again.... i want to say that this have abit of a mental trap here... watch carefully about wat you say)

20cents...

There is no point... as a christian you have to make up your own point

What is the point? I suppose the point would be different for everyone. An easier question would be what is the reason. The answer to that is quite simple. People are sheep. They want to be a part of a group, they want acceptance from those around them, and they like having ideas that don't require too much thought or make them to deal with anything.

Oh I'm going to die? That's scary and I can't cope with that, so I'll extend my life forever by "believing" there's an eternal afterlife. I can't see my loved ones after they're dead? Well gee that sucks, maybe they'll be there up in heaven with me too since I'm already living forever. Oh I can't figure out the origin of life? Ok a supreme being did it, that's convenient! What's the meaning of life? To worship our supreme being and get into heaven of course. But most people just accept Christianity for the convenience of it. I don't honestly believe a smart, reasonable person could truly believe such stories. If you really thought your ETERNITY was dependent upon this blink of an eye life on Earth you'd drop everything and start working to be as good of a Christian as physically possible. But you don't. It wouldn't be convenient, and you probably settled on Christianity for the sake of convenience in the first place. And you'll still be afraid to die despite the fact that you "know" there's a heaven waiting for you in the afterlife full of eternal happiness and bliss (why the heck would you want to go there? I'd be afraid too!).

You're not sure what the point of Christianity is because you were born into the religion. You never really chose to be a Christian, the ideas were simply pounded into your head like a square peg into a round hole. If you had chosen the best path for you on your own then you'd have already known what the point of it was right?

kyokujitsu: "It all comes down to whether you choose to believe or not, choose to be open-minded and accepting about what religious people say, or choose, as I see it, to be stubborn and believe in nothing but your own abilities."

I'm not sure you understand what "open-minded" means. Here's a hint, it doesn't mean agreeing with your specific beliefs. You don't see the irony in your statement? (you seriously chose the word "stubborn"?) You say "believe in nothing" and I say "grounded in reality". I am open-minded. Most atheists are open-minded. He may be open to new ideas but that doesn't mean he has to blindly accept them. Blindly accepting things isn't open-mindedness, it's faith. You bring solid proof to an atheist that your god exists and he will have no choice but to believe it just as he believes in the rest of reality. Until then he's obligated to sort your god into the column occupied by unicorns and big foot.

eXDream2K5: "I can turn to God in my times of need"

There's another reason. It's easy to turn to a supreme being who's always on your side when you need help or comfort. But it's a double edged sword. Something goes wrong in a Christian's life and he turns to God to pray or weep. The atheist looks to reality and focuses on solving his problems. Guess which one gets results? But we don't always do what's best for us do we? Perhaps if we stopped telling everyone there's a perfect heaven after we die we'd get off our asses and start creating our heaven here on Earth.

joiboidadoughboi:

Of course I'm not naive enough to believe that every single person can choose to do the right thing on their own. Some need a God to keep them from doing evil and to keep them moral. So I guess that is the point of Christianity. It's useful to certain people. Is your atheist friend one of those people? Probably not, and that's probably why he's atheist.

RubyDrg0n

Wanna-be-Drg0n

plunkies: i agreed so much to your post... couldnt make a better one (!@#$% grammar and vocabs)

anyway... when ppl need a supreme being to be at their side mentally.... why must it be Christians? i see that other religions are also doing a good job on it.... but why Christianity is chosen so? is it becoz of Christians pushing the fear of eternal death in hell? or just keep emphasizing the bit about everything they say is real and true.....?....

People make their own points to following a religion, no matter what it is. I don't believe two people can have exactly the same motivations to follow a religion - I suppose people have to find out for themselves exactly why they follow what they do.

I think this quote sums up all I have to say about this topic. "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." (Steven Weinberg, Physicist)

Have any of you ever heard of the 'Pari de Pascal': Pascal's gamble? Just for information, Pascal was dealing with a bit of every possible science in the 17th century and invented a calculator. He was more or less christian. He once tried to convince two of his friends, both gamblers. His idea was:

You have two things to lose: Truth and the Good, and two things to be engaged: your Reason and your Will, your Knowledge and your Bliss; and your nature has two things to flee: the Error and Misery. Your reason is not more wounded by choosing one or the other, since it is necessary to choose. Here is an emptied point. But your Bliss? Balances profit and loss, by taking choice that God is. Let us estimate these two cases: if you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you do not lose anything. Thus choose that it is, without hesitating.

Sorry for the translation, but 17th century French is not all that easily translated... Anyway the main idea is that you have to choose whether you believe in God or not.

If you believe in God and God truly exist, then you may go to the paradise, with angels and so on. If God doesn't exist, then you simply die and that's it. If you say that you don't believe in God while God exists, you go to Hell. And if God doesn't exist, you die and that's it.

So, as a whole, you can take the risk to believe that God exist... at best you win everything, and you can't loose much.

Hans Jonas added a few things to this. He said that if you want to believe in God, then, so as to reach eternal life, you had to get rid of materialistic ideas. If you win, you win all, but if you loose, you have lost something really important. Now, if you choose to live as an atheist, then if you loose, you have lost something extremely important too: eternal Bliss. In both cases, the loss is extreme...

If you want to add more complexity to the debate, you can fish out other old theories:

- causality : "If the Universe is comprehensible then everything has a cause, the cause has itself a cause and so on. If the continuation is infinite then the Universe is not comprehensible, in the contrary case there is an ultimate cause which is caused per nothing and which one can call God." Read Aristote and Saint Thomas d'Aquin.

- morality: "The moral argument consists in saying that morals cannot exist without God, since it is Him which decides what is Good and what is Bad, and that it is consequently the ultimate base of morals. If it is supposed that God does not exist, one must conclude from it that the existence is stripped of moral value, and that there is neither Good nor Bad in our actions. To support the moral argument (read, for example, Dostoievski), it is to say that the atheists must accept that all is allowed unless they contradict themselves."

What is the point in following Christianity?

Well, if you don't believe in what the Bible says, then I suppose there is no point.

But if you do believe, then all the guidelines for living a clean and moral life are present in the Bible.
Plus, if you believe, then you know that there are consequences for not following the rules that God laid down.

the point in following christianity is the same for all religions to have a hope for somthing after life. if you read the bible all it says basically is to be a better person towards you fellow man......or woman, but any way there is no point to a religion all god is she/he is a thought created to make everyone think the same way so we can all be connected. some times be controled . like ."Donate money to the house of god or you will burn in hell". in short there is no point to any religion.................sorry to break it to ya

Ultimaninja

The Ultimate Ninja

I follow it:
1. I was raised with it
2. um...something else I suppose
But I like it because some, SOME!, people have cool level heads about the religion and can ask questions about it like:
If Jesus could breakdance to any song he wanted to, what song would he breakdance to?

Now, most people would be insulted with this and call me a heretic and yell at me...but I have christian friends who know me well enough to know that I joke like that...so really we follow a religion:
1. We want to believe in something afterwards
2. We want to be with others who share the same idea

This signature violates the signature guidelines, thus it has been removed.

gnoel: Pascal's gamble

Pascal's wager is terribly flawed. He assumes there is only one religion or nothing. There are thousands. Which would you choose? I could put forth the wager that you should believe in unicorns, and if you don't believe then one will trample you to death in your sleep. If you believe then you've lost nothing, but if you don't believe you could be killed! Better believe! And only a Christian would believe in eternal damnation anyway. You can't threaten an atheist into believing in a god (which doesn't exist) with hell (which is equaly non-existent). Basically it just boils down to if you're a Christian (someone who believes these things), then pascal says it's in your best intrest to believe in god. If god was all knowing and you only believed in him to cover your own ass rather than actually believing and having faith, wouldn't god be pissed? And as the great Homer Simpson said "Suppose we've chosen the wrong god? Every time we go to church, we're just making him madder and madder."

Here's a more reasonable wager for you....

"There is no shortcut to intellectual honesty. Atheism requires sacrifice - in that you sacrifice the illusion of immortality and the sense of transcendent purpose. But, religion requires the sacrifice of critical thinking, self determination, your time, your money, and logic."

causality

Ah, Occam is happy about this one. Occam's Razor basically states "Don't multiply entities unnecessarily". Here's another option for you. The universe is incomprehensible and was created out of nothing, it WAS the original cause. So the Universe must be God! We should worship the universe! Or more likely, there isn't an incomprehensible and complex universe out there, we just imagine it is.

morality

Wrong. Atheists can have morals just like anyone else. Quite possibly stronger, an atheist is a good person because he IS a good person while the equivilent Christian is good out of fear of god? (not saying they all are, simply making a point) Morality isn't about god. It's about acceptable (good) and unacceptable (bad) behaviour in society. Every Christian isn't moral, and every atheist isn't immoral. Atheists view morality as something created by humans, according to the way humans feel the world 'ought' to work, rather than seeing it as a set of rules decreed by a supernatural being.

Well, at least posting a couple of centuries old theories seems to have woken up the tiger is Plunkies ;)

First of all, it seemed to me that it was quite obvious to put an idea from a christian first in a thread titled 'what's the point in following christianity.' So certainly Pascal's gamble starts with the assumption that you are somehow familiar with christianity. You shall definitely not blame Pascal for not being familiar with Taoism, or even Mazdeism...

As for your wager, you shall certainly see some common points with H. Jonas point of view on the subject: in both cases the loss is huge, whether you agree to believe or not. And by the way, if you read a bit of Jaspers you may grasps ideas such as 'God [his definition of God may not be 100% Vatican approved] gave the human being the tools to understand him, but it's up to the human being to use these tools.' In this aspect, being christian does not mean that you have to let go of your mind, or even your self-determination. But I agree wholeheartedly that the christian 'structures' do not focus the necessity to think by yourself. Far from this, actually.

Study a bit of christian history and you'll see that it took some time before what we know think of as 'christian' to appear. ['Les origines du christianisme', coll. work under direction of P. Geoltrin] Don't forget that the first years of christianity were marked by power struggles between the different proto-christian communities. Were the followers of Jesus still jews? How should they deal with those heretics who wanted to learn more about what was still not called christianity? Some thought that it should remain a jewish sect, and tehrefore the followers should be jews before anything else. Others, including St Paul said that certainly christianity (if my memory is good he was among the first to use the name) should be open to everyone, more particularly to those deemed 'heretics.' And poor St Peter was stuck in the middle of this...

Anyway, In Alexandria, quite a good deal of proto-christians were definitely the theorists kinds. They used their brain to try understanding, to theorize and suchlike. For them, believing did not mean being blind, far from it! And if you had eyes, you had to use them!

It is only years later, in Rome that the christians caught the formalism of what would become the church. They certainly learned much from Mithra's cult. The main difference certainly being that Mithra's cult was a mistery religion, not a revealed one. A single word that changed quite a good deal of things. And certainly the christians at the time were not all that proud for taking so much from Mithra's religious formalism (structure, quite a good number of the mass elements,...). As a matter of fact, it seems that in the later part of the Roman Empire Mithra's cult was on the black list: temples systematically destroyed (actually few of them were converted into catholic churches),...

My point here is simple: don't mix the christian structure, or even what some people would to see as 'christian values' with the original message. An old priest once told me: 'The Bible can be summed up in one sentence: God loves the human being, but the human being has forgotten God; nonetheless God forgives him and loves him anyway.' He also added 'the New Testament can be summed up in one sentence: Love the others, just as yourself.' Quite different from all the strict hierarchy and sets of rules defined by some people in the Vatican these last 2000 years...

Being christian is not about being deferent to some ages old rules, more than often outdated. It is about being honest, respecting a few basic social ideas and so on... It certainly is more about following moral values than theologal values. But granted, it seems that some people make a huge profit by making people believe that these theologal values are the 'true path to salvation...' In that aspect, you'll note some common ground between the different religious fanatism 'ideas.'

Nonetheless, I would simply like to remember an old part of the Bible. I'm no good at quotations and I'm too lazy to try finding the correct references but I'm sure most people are somehow familiar with this. I'm speaking about the good samaritan's story. To sum it up: A man is in real bad shape in the gutter. A priest passed by, but didn't stop to help him. Same thing with a Levite (a 'good believer'). It was a Samaritan, a heretic, who stopped, helped the man. Now, the point is that the one who had the 'more christian' values (even though at the time the word was still to be invented) was without any doubt the heretic...

Once again, I'm afraid too many people forget how different it can be to BE christian (or muslim,...) and to PRETEND or even BELIEVE being one... And I'm sorry, but the christians don't have to be blind or deaf, they can and should use their mind! I think that we touch quite a big difference between our points of view here. Our definitions of 'being christian' are not the same. To me, it's not because you got your share of water and some greasy perfumed oil on the head that you are christian!

I guess my heart would not rest if I didn't added references to a really interesting set of open letters sent via some Italian newspaper between U. Eco and cardinal C. Martini. If you have time read it: 'Belief or Non-Belief?: A Confrontation', by U. Eco and C. Martini. Both of them ended up more or less saying that they could not convince each other that were was or was not a God somewhere. But they more or less ended up saying that being christian is about having 'Hope'. I'm afraid my knowledge of English is not to par with the correct word needed here, as 'hope' is a poor substitute. Being christian is not about being afraid, it should be about having hopes. And as a whole, being christian is not entirely about following theologal values, but more about following moral values... And once again there is quite a big difference between pretending being christian and actually being one.

So, to sum it up... Don't mix christianity as the people shout it on TV and christianity as you may discover it by yourself. Being christian is not about following blindly some doctinal stuff, it is about trying to walk your way in life with both eyes open and a clear mind. Just as many other religions... It is a set of basic social rules and maybe a few weirder stuff about God. But even then, you are free to think about this. Don't forget that most of the weirder stuff was actually developped well after Rome was set ablaze by the 'barbarians.' Being christian is not fear, it is about hope. Sadly enough, too many people (most of them thinking that they are christians) have forgotten this.

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