some where along the line living my entire life in america I have genuienly begun to fear God
however, my conception of a ‘christian God’ is that of a dictator.
Rules a kingdom. with an iron fist. sending all those who oppose ‘him’ or incapable of appeasing ‘him,’ to hell, which I concieve to be worst than any concentation camp or gulag. and if God dies he comes back in three days, so there is no chance of replacing him.
I cant get through the day without questioning many of my simple actions.
so, to all the american christains, I am scared of your God. I think he is a dictator.
and I would like to reiderate that I cant get through the day without questioning many of my simple actions. am I making god angry? am I going to get ruffed up today for wearing these socks?
many people may say that it is my own fault for this, but that then decides the winner between nature vs. nurture.
so keep praising your dictator and daming the youth who do now what you did then but before you found Jesus
is this not a christain nation? if so…
where is the understanding? where is the love?
and I dont mean from your God or Jesus. I mean from you.
Not at all. winverawin sounds depressed. I hope he or she finds help. The essence of Christianity is Jesus and by all accounts he reached out to help people who were suffering. He befriended people who were cast out by the religious establishment. He conveyed a positive non-authoritarian image of God as loving and forgiving. He lived and preached helping the poor, peace-making and non-violence. Where Christianity fails to embody this spirit of Jesus, it misses the essence of Christ.
The “Church” is inseperably from the religion, IMO. You may think Christianity is one thing, and to you perhaps it is. But my experience has been that the religion as it’s actually implemented in practice is another beast altogether. Your idealized version of it has little traction in the real world. But I greatly admire people like you, Bob & Ucci that seem to hold the institution to a higher, more intimate & personal standard.
The hope of any institution is that its followers strive to emulate the best it has to offer. Those who abuse the system, no matter how heartfelt they may feel their beliefs are, are generally recognizable even to those on the outside. Don’t worry about them and don’t let the man get ya down: people tend to get their comeuppance, though generally not in the way we might like.
I thought the essence of Christianity was to accept the irrational belief that supernaturalism is real and that Jesus is the most powerful of all supernatural beings. If you do accept that belief, then what else you’ve done in life really doesn’t matter. For instance, Adolf Hitler who was at least indirectly responsible for the deaths of millions, theoretically, may be in heaven today.
But if you don’t accept that belief you’ll go to hell no matter how much good you do on earth. Take Gandhi, for example.
Martin Luther lived most of his life feeling just like winverawin, I think. Not that religion caused his suffering- some people are just put together that way. They perhaps feel too much.
Yes, the christian god is a dictator. That’s the root of why I’m no longer christian. My new god is actually benovilant, but also nothing else like the christian god. I hate using the word ‘god’ when speaking of my ‘god’.
I may be wrong but, a God can only have power if you give it power. If its a dictator you see then dicatator it will be. Change your perception of Gods and your fear will abate. Blind yourself to the messages of damnation and hell. Those are just tools to leash the fearful child in us and they are worn out, overused and out of control. Listen instead to the good the kind, the helpful. If you are a Christian then be the Christian that makes you feel worthy, good, happy and comfortable don’t sweat what you think others believe. Have faith in yourself above all else, then you can see your God in a light that is correct for you.
As I said above Jesus is the model and inspiration for Christianity. The systematizers have created a dogma around him and that’s what you are referring to. Biblical Chrisitanity is much more about living the kingdom of God in this life then about the hereafter to my reading.
The principle of the wheat and the tares is that in this life we can’t separate the authentic from the inauthentic with any certainty. The parable of the mote in the eye teaches that we should look at ourselves and not pass judgement on other people.
When John the Baptist saw some who thought they were God’s people he told them that God is able to transform stones into His people if He chooses. Maybe Ghandi is one of those stones. Did you know Ghandi credited Tolstoy’s book “The Kingdom of God is Within You” with inspiring his program of non-violence?
Ghandi found inspiration in many works, but let’s not get carried away so far as to attribute his program of non-violence to a Western book about a Western God. He was fundamentally Hindu and his indoctrination in non-violent resistence came from its long history in Indian philosophical and spiritual traditions.
I find myself mostly in agreement with Kriswest on here, that the OP can perhaps find solace in the fact that it’s up to each individual person to figure out god (who, oddly, apparently chooses to remain hidden to us people except through some telepathic communication with the “chosen” folks who, conveniently, happen to be the believers). So it’s quite logical to assume that it’s us that creates, not vice versa. And, coincidentally (?) this supposed power he/she/it exercises ends up being exactly what the human mind attributes to her/him/it. That’s why it’s sometimes described as so great and sometimes as so terrible. It’s about contemplating puppet and puppetmaster (including organized religion’s role in the deal) until one comes up with a workable understanding of how to go about one’s life (which, logically, shouldn’t be based on what one hopes will occur after it’s over).
It doesn’t necessarily always feel as warm and comforting as having a little angel sitting on your shoulder all the time, but that may be the trade-off to simply seeing the world as it is. Truth is, nobody could guarantee warm and comforting once you turned away from mother’s breast. Which, IMO, means that ‘warm and comforting’ is probably overrated.
There's plenty of people and places from which you can get the intellectual beating you have coming to you. Must you really drag it out into the streets, and involve innocent people? What of substance did you even attempt to post in this thread?
felix dakat is right, winverawin shouldn’t be motived from a fear of Hell if it’s real enough to him such that he does fear it. It should be enough to know that God loves him, and an understanding of what that means would set him on a trajectory that is not hellbound.
“Gandhi read Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God is Within You in 1894 and turned his attention to the concept of nonviolence. At the age of 25, it made a deep impression on him.”
“Commenting on its impact, he said: ‘Before the… profound morality and the truthfulness of this book, all the books… seemed to pale into insignificance.’”
“Gandhi and Tolstoy had much in common. They were no philosophers, but were teachers of humanity and practised what they preached. While Tolstoy is considered a prophet of the latter half of the 19th century, Gandhi belongs to the first half of the 20th century.”
“Tolstoy manifested independent thinking, profound morality and truthfulness. The ideals of ‘resist not evil’ and nonviolence struck deep chords with Gandhi. He began to mould his life according to the ideas of Tolstoy.”
Uccisore, sorry to have upset you but I agree with the original poster. Mainstream Christianity says that those who do not believe in supernatural beings and who do not believe that Jesus is the most powerful supernatural being of them all, will go to hell. All muslims, all Jews, all hindus, all any other non-Christians including agnostics and atheists are hell-bound according to conventional Christian theology.
You may not believe that, felix may not believe that, some other Christians may not believe that, but I think it’s fair to say that most Christians do believe it.
And what do most atheists believe? Are you really here to interact with the notions of the common man? You certainly seem to carry yourself, at times, as though you’re prepared to interact with more advanced material. Continue to interact with what you’ve declared to be ‘conventional’ Christian teachings as long as you feel it’s the hurdle that gives you the proper degree of challenge.
What should concern you, sooner or later, is what the founders and academicians in Christianity present, not the lowest common denominator that you can find to stick a knife in. I mean, far from me talking about a handful of bizarre philosophers, the idea of all non-Christians automatically going to Hell isn’t even a mainstream Catholic teaching. It sounds to me like when you say ‘conventional’ you mean ‘Baptist’.
