Why Are You A Christian?

I thought you were a hedonist.

 

Love...if the teaching is simply, "Love one another"...how can that be a bad thing?
I'm a researcher in life and in spirit. There is an "aha" moment for me when I just know that I know that I know. I can't see it, I can't prove it, sometimes I don't even feel it. But...I know it's there. It's like a part of me has always known.
I've had two or three really strong spiritual experiences that did not require substances. They just happened.
It's a shame when I try to just mention a verse or a Biblical character (old Testament or new) and people actually verbally attack me.
It kills my soul and it makes me cry.
They are hurting me because they are hurting a living being that loves me very much.
It hurts me because they are trying to take that away from me.
It hurts me because it hurts him (or it or whatever you want to call the energy).
I'm talking about LOVE: Agape, unconditional LOVE...
If people don't want that deep spirit love that's part of (what I believe is an inner trinity in every person) that is their personal choice.
But my soul aches from all of the haters who want to hurt me with their words.
Words cut deeper than any knife, hit harder than any bullet, strike like lightning.
Who doesn't want to give any and all forms of love a chance to coexist and circle us.
We only have a short time on earth. I wish all people would try to let love in.

 

That too. Nearly all of that has its roots in northern India.

 

I thought hedonism had its roots in Ancient Greece.

 

'To thine own self be true'. Words of wisdom I think. The way I see it everyone is really on their own unique journey, even if they are part of some formal religion, or not part of anything.
There will always be people who will try to tell you you're wrong - from a variety of motives, some thought out, others just a kind of emotional reaction, or plain trolling in the worst cases. But I think it boils down to either 'there's nothing spiritual, and it's all a delusion' or 'my path is better than/more correct than yours'. I can't be bothered to engage in all that.

On here, I've had some good conversations with more progressive Christian types, and I think they're pretty much OK. Easier to communicate with than most of the atheists, and actually more open minded in some cases.

The way things are in the Southern USA is probably what they were like here at one time. Back in the 70's I worked with an old guy who told me that before WW II he worked on a farm, and one year upset the locals by working on Good Friday, with the result that for 1 year nobody in the village spoke to him.Since the 60's though it's become the norm not to be a Christian, or to be one only in the most nominal sense. It's now more the other way round, where some people have been sacked from their jobs because they insist on wearing a crucifix at work for example. I find that a bit petty, and Muslim women can still wear a hijab, so it's not entirely fair. But generally we're past the claustrophobic kind of atmosphere you guys have to deal with.

 

Sometimes the ego likes to puff itself up by attacking others and getting a feeling of intellectual superiority and the feeling of some kind of 'victory' over the ignoramuses like us who tend towards the spiritual.
The idea of a Love wider than just the personal relationship is a concept many seem to to lack entirely. If they felt anything resembling that, maybe the world would not be in the critical mess we observe all around.

Hope you'll stick around on here

 

It's been a lot of places, like most other Eastern systems of thought. Probably, nobody in the known world has put hedonism into practice in a more intense and pure level than the ancient Greeks and Romans, but I have seen a couple of college frats make a quality effort to match them.

The Kama Sutra (older than Greek Hedonism) originated in northern India, but the sect that created it was eventually displaced by mainstream Hinduism, just like the original Buddhists. Sometimes I wonder if there was any important religious idea that didn't come from that region, including the messiah concept, which definitely came through Zoroastrianism. That religion was centered in what is now Iran during their peak years (a few hundred miles west of northern India), but not much is known about their early history, being one of the oldest religions on earth. We don't really know where they started. They ended up being pushed into India by advancing Islam. Zoroastrianism contains most of the fundamental concepts of Christianity, including the virgin birh, and many scholars believe that Abraham adapted these for his own people, after spending time in a Zoroastrian area (currently part of Syria).

The lack of authenticity and originality in Christianity makes it a lot easier for me to doubt its validity. A couple or three thousand years ago, religions were constantly stealing ideas from each other, especially in an oval shaped hotbed area from northern Iraq to northern India. I don't think any modern religion has any ideas that were not recycled from an older sect. Aerial pictures of northern India show vast areas full of abandoned and historically preserved temples, built by religions that no longer exist.

When a modern person reads something in the current Christian Bible and meditates on it and has a pleasant experience discovering how a spiritual idea or concept can be applied to their own life, they may think there is something really special and unique and magical about that experience, but this is actually something that has been going on for thousands of years all over the world, by practitioners of literally thousands of different religions. There's nothing unique about it.

Mix those experiences with human ego, and you have fuel for endless arguments and conflicts.

 

It's at its worst in the most isolated small towns, unless they happen to be coastal or mountain resort areas, or towns built around a university. Those people hate our larger cities for being too tolerant and multicultural. This is nothing new. I've found that sentiment in print as far back as 1850, when New Orleans was the only true big city in the South, and most Southerners considered it hell on earth because it was a true international city, maybe even more so than New York at that time.

I can think of spots not very far from here where you can drive as little as 30 miles and travel back at least 60 years in time, in terms of attitudes and values. They don't trust any idea that isn't based on a Bible quote.

 

It's also possible that the idea of God vs the Devil originates in Zoroastrianism. They were the original dualists in that sense as far as I'm aware.
In Hinduism there are gods and demons, but both are seen as necessary for the universe, and the demons all eventually get liberated, unlike the Christian devil who is consigned forever to hell. (the early Neo-Platonist Christian theologian Origen thought the devil would eventually be saved - but was declared an heretic).

The Parsis of modern India, of whom there are not many, are Zoroastrians. They are however quite a powerful group in Bengal, and are considered to be quite progressive in some ways. It was Parsis who brought in electric lighting in Kolkota for instance. And it's well known that Freddy Mercury was a Parsi. If that's good or bad would depend on if you like the music of Queen.

 

Christianity is about love?
Loving your neighbor?
A stranger?
Everyone?
Funny, I don't feel much of that here.
Must be my fault.
I have caught all the insults for nothing though.
Hmmm

 

I have a €5 minimum if people wanna insult me.

 

Can you point out to me where I made fun of her beliefs? In my post, I criticize her decision to hide her beliefs from public discourse. I was immediately called a swine (no offense) for doing so, in the words of that avatar of love, jesus.

Maybe explain to me slowly, because I'm just a barbaric atheist trying to spread my religion by the sword, how not wanting to discuss a metaphysics because it gets mocked on the marketplace of ideas is not an example of that metaphysics needing a good hard looking at?

Notice that I have not mocked a single idea in this thread, nor has anybody. There is a lot of butthurt going around. You christians "know" that you have the secrets of the universe figured out, and I'm just gently pointing out that maybe you don't have them as figured out as you tell yourself you do.

Maybe it's not a psychologically healthy state of affairs to hold ideas like these if you can't stand up for them. Or if they can't stand on their own.

Maybe it's easier to play the victim than it is to sit down with yourself and remodel your worldview, or ask really hard questions of yourself about what makes an idea good or true.

 

Sigh... Goddamn man. "you christians'.... This is the whole reason why people don't wanna debate with you about their personal beliefs that mean nothing to you but the world to them. You are always coming from a view you have about christians and try to get it out of the person you talk to if they are a christian like that or not. Most of them are not and don't feel like going into that with people like you over and over again. Very understandable.
Even if you left out a plain mocking, insult or ridiculing, it is still clear here you are very derogatory, talking about excuses, hiding, comfort zones, play the victim etc. etc. So if a christian in here doesn't feel like any of that applies to them how logical is it to quit catering to these kind of questions. This isn't about this thread in particular at all, it is about all the others on here (and similar confrontations irl.). People just get tired of it and we can't blame them. It's pretty much a miracle that you don't understand this. Or is it more a matter of not wanting to understand that? (maybe because you're on a mission )

 

What does that mean?

 

Don't take insults for nothing

 

I don't. I am still here.

 

Collection of clichés.

Yeah, it means the world to some people to feel special, to feel that they know more than anybody else. Whatthefuckever.

 

I just type out a long reply and erased it somehow so excuse this one for not being as articulate, I just want to get to my basic point.

1) I'm not a Christian so if your entire post full of "you Christians" and "you people" is directed at me you're mistaken.

2) no one called you a barbaric atheist so stop being dramatic.

3) if someone like Lynn tells you her beliefs are deeply personal and she doesn't want to put them out there only to be attacked why do you have such a hard time respecting that?

I already know your answer will have something to do with the damage large groups of religious people have caused in the name of religion so I'll go ahead and throw this out there too - Lynn and millions of other people around the world practice their religion quietly and peacefully every day. Religious beliefs aren't inherently hurtful just as being non religious isn't inherently peaceful.

 

Most people here are not interested in WHAT you believe or WHY, but just in proving you wrong, like you're some gullible idiot.
Mr.Writer's post about you christians and psychologically healthy just proves that.

 

Unfair to say that now, as the pound has gone down against the euro since they announced the in/out referendum.
In real terms it would have been cheaper to insult you a couple of weeks ago.
If the UK does leave, it'll be more like a weeks wages probably.

Would you consider taking bitcoin or another crypto? Might be cheaper for me in the long run.