h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The ones that immediately come to mind are in Isaiah 53, the whole chapter describes the suffering of the messiah, with obvious parallels to Jesus as described in the gospels.

what an interesting conversation.
i think i'm replying to all of you here
I'm supposed to be a christian but i find it very hard at times, a bit soft hearted perhaps: Its the "no one can come to the father except by the son" bit that gets me, I hate the thought of all those people who fear god being left out. I do think that god makes himself known to us in many ways. As christians our good works are a sign of our faith and our bad works just show that we are human too!
The cross was used originally as a sign of christs triumph over death, it slowly changed, with christ portrayed over it alive and then later on the idea of his suffering was used perhaps to strengthen the suffering masses.
As far as the church is regarded you could say that the rot started to sink in the moment the religion gain royal ascent from Justinian and thoedora quite early on 3rd or 4th century i think and the christians could climb out of the catacombs.

I was raised Southern Baptist, and am now an inactive Mormon convert. Nothing is so ingrained in both beliefs as the "through the Son to The Father" line. I, too, have a hard time with that thought....so you are not alone!

One thing that has always bothered me about the Christian religion is the fact that you...if lucky....have some 70-odd years to understand, and accept this belief or you are damned to an eternity in hell.

If you were born in the Amazon jungle....you're just screwed!

NM

"No way to the Father but through the Son." - So what about the people who lived before the son? What about people who don't get their 70-odd years? The more you think about this stuff, the more illogical it becomes.

Yep....If you listen closely to the dogma, you'll become an athiest!

It's the only logical outcome.

Shame is, I've never been terribly logical!

NM

I'm supposed to be reasonably intelligent and most of the time,yes, this religious stuff is a load of rubbish, but unfortunately i suffer from nagging faith as opposed to nagging doubt.Any one heard about the bai' hai faith ( I think its written like that) I often wonder what christ would say about it.

I'm often reminded of something Billy Graham said years ago.

If you go into an airport for a flight and are told there is a 10% chance the plane will crash, you'll by insurance. Do you think there is a 10% chance that God is real? Why don't you buy insurance?

Food for thought, anyway!

NM

That's just a restatement of Pascal's Wager, brought down to date.

Sorry...not familiar with Pascals' Wager. I'm just a simple country boy. "I takes intelligent thoughts from wheres I hears 'em!"

NM

"Welcome those who are weak in faith, but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions. Some believe in eating anything, while some eat only vegtables. Those wh eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgement on those who eat; for God has welcomed them." Romans 14:1-3

I know this isn't quite what the conversation is about at the moment, but in responce to the earlier point about people of other religions going to "hell" (I put it in speach marks because I know their is a theory that states that heaven and hell are the same place it's just that "evil" people see "evil" and pain etc, while "good" people see goodness and kindness. Something like that anyway) And anyway, I think that the whole thing about going through Christ to get to heaven just means that we should be like Jesus and it is quite possible to be like Jesus without being Christain. The way I see it, being like Jesus is to "love your neighbour", which is the most important commandment to a Christain anyway. You don't have to be a Christain to love.
Also, earlier you were saying that nothing has happened in the Christain faith for a long time and that Christ really seems to be getting quite late, but surely, Christ lives again in each of us?

Funny, I thought that Jesus was primarily Jewish, not the Romans.

But nevermind, fascists never seem to keep up to date with History.

Yeah, I always thought that Jesus was born a jew, something that tied in with the persecution of the time and one of the reasons that he was almost killed as a child....?

Ok so I made a mistake in my statement. I'm sorry, I really should have noticed, especially as I was just on my way to an RE exam. What I should have said was something along the line of that it is pretty hard to spot the diferences between some religions anyway, espesially at the points in history where new religions are formed. But really it strengthens what I was attempting to say in that in the Bilble it says stuff about how we shouldn't disregard someone because they believe something different to us. Personally I don't believe that someone would get "sent to hell" because they don't believe the right thing. But you never know, Christiaity might be the "wrong" religion and I might just be digging a deeper hole for myself. But I believe what I believe because, to me, it seems right and it's got me through life so far, and I've been through a bit. Mind you, almost everyone has had some kind of bad thing happen to them, so I'm sure I'm not the only one.

And that is as it should be!

Ones' religious convictions are a personal matter.(This is why religious discussions oft times get a bit heated!)

It is best for each individual to make their own peace with(or without)God. It is not for another man to judge, for it is the individual who must live....and die.... with these decisions.

Let me say, though, this does not make these discussions any less interesting or enlightening! Hearing others' views on such things often provides either confidence in ones' own beliefs or food for thought.

Both are good things, if one keeps an open mind!

NM

Defense against nonsense?

I'm curious as to which things you consider nonsense... (I suppose from your post there are many things, so just pick an interesting example, if you feel like discussing it)

What I meant by nonsense was the illogical belief system when taken as a whole. A brief summary:

God is all-powerful, all-knowing. He created the world in six days, 10,000 years ago, and then bent time so we could see stars billions of light years away. He also created rocks that would look older than 10,000 years, and seeded the earth with fossils to further confuse us. He did this because he loves us. God loved man so much that he gave him the most wonderful garden on the planet, and provided him with only one simple rule, a rule which any parent can tell you is one that absolutely no child can obey. For behaving according to his nature, which was created by an all-knowing God who HAD to know better than your average parent, his creatures were banished, and forced to endure all sorts of tortures for the rest of their days, because he loved them.

Then, God so loves his people that he drowns them all in a story rife with absurdities... these absurdities are there because he loves us. He chooses one particular people, the Jews, and goes out and makes terrible war on them. God himself participates in the slaughters, sometimes even hurling down fire from the skies. He does this because he loves us. This omnipotent being gets defeated once because he isn't stronger than iron chariots, though, but this setback doesn't last long, and soon his favorite people have a kingdom to call their own. After a series of tirades and threats, these chosen people are eventually abandoned to their enemies, and Israel is occupied by aliens, first Babylonians, then Romans.

After 8000 years' worth of people have lived and died, after God has abandoned the one tribe he preferred and slaughtered the rest, God suddenly decides he loves all creation equally. He finally opens the gates of heaven, but this all-powerful deity can't simply let people in. In order to do so, he has to send his own son down to earth, who tells them all to be nice to each other, and is then nailed to a pair of boards. The gates are now open, but the only way to get in is to believe in him, and ignore all the old rocks, the fossil records, and the visible stars from billions of light years away. Those who fail to ignore that stuff are doomed to join his fallen angel in eternal agony. He does this because he loves us.

......Great first volley, there, Colonel!

I just want to watch...if you guys don't mind!!!

NM

Heh - I've been told that the cross has been around since the invention of fire - the early way to get a fire started involved to pieces of wood, used in a cross shape. Fire being a wonderful thing, it got chalked up on caves around the world as a sign of reverence and grattitude.

On a side note - the lack of impartial evidence on early christianity is a source of some annoyance to me. Seems everyone has an axe to grind...

There is a line in the Talmud which refers to a Jesus who was killed for "sorcery" at around that time, by being "hung from a tree".

This may or may not be a codephrase for crucifixion - I'm looking into it at the moment (well, kinda )

I don't accept Fairly Strange's reasoning that we will never know about early christianity - we know quite a bit now, and are learning more. There may come a day when we can trace the exact evolution of christianity...