littlewing69 said:
2. If we do indeed "meet Jesus", my bet is that he's pissed at the Christians for being such dicks on his behalf. If God really wanted us to come to know him, he'd make himself more available, no?
3. Religion does cause problems. Check out, oh, well, ALL of human history?? And the 10C are by no means the only or even most important factors in Christian behaviour.
littlewing69, as a Christian, I actually agree with you. What most people perceive to be 'Christianity' has in fact been a filtered version of how we Christians believe it should be practiced, which is not necessarily the right thing; it fact, it has often been the wrong thing! And yes, if Jesus was here, he WOULD be pretty annoyed with how we've done things in the past and the present. The Inquisition, for one, was shameful. Colonisation in the name of conversion has done some horrible things that still affect indigenous populations of various nations today. The Crusades have caused many deaths on both sides of the battle. The war on Iraq, which has often taken on a religious slant (via George Bush), is still raging on and shows little signs of abating. Religious politics have again and again failed in their legalism. There are so many things that have been done in the name of God that are embarrassing, disgraceful, and should cause many Christians to hang their heads in shame.
There are many reasons for these things happening, but I think the fundamental reason for all of these is that we Christians have put our efforts into the wrong things, and have failed to do what we were explicitly told to do; to love our neighbours unconditionally and without fail. Yes, we believe in certain things and we shouldn't compromise those convictions, but in obsessing over certain rules we have ignored our main duty. We believe that abortion is a mistake but have we really tried to understand the situations of the women who choose to undergo the operation? Similarly with homosexuality; have we even tried to listen to their stories, to see them as individuals rather than stereotyped caricatures? Sadly, no. Instead we choose to ridicule these people, to carry on protests which have little impact other than showing the world the ugly, aggressive side of practiced Christianity.
That God doesn't seem available can be attributed to one reason; we Christians have shut ourselves exclusively in our churches, choosing to look inwardly rather than outwardly. We have kept God in a box and we're embarrassed by our faith. Rather than face those fears and rectify our mistakes we have chosen to obsess over trivial, inconsequential rules which don't matter as much as the most important one: to love God above all and to love others. As a result, the faith has become largely irrelevant, and frankly, irritating to the world.
The Christian faith in itself, at its most basic and most essential, is not a problem, but in my opinion is a solution. But you were right, littlewing69, in saying that RELIGION is the problem. I would distinguish this from faith. Religion is the ritualised, legalised, formalised version of faith. Radically, I'd say here that religion has wronged the faith. It has taken the focus away from its central notion of love, and placed the spotlight on pettier things. And for that, it is not only our public image that has suffered, but those who we're supposed to be helping out, who, more than anything, just need someone to sympathise with them, and to accept them as who they are, no questions asked.
In response to the thread, yes, God is real. But we Christians have ensured that no-one else besides ourselves really know that.
