Chrisianity is Corrupt

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
1

Is religion outdated or just mis-interpreted

  • yes, it is outdated
  • no, it is mis-interpreted
  • neither
0 voters

“Religion originates in fear; in people’s powerlessness before nature, and later before their exploiters, men have defied these powers and petitioned them, finding in religion and otherworldly beliefs a consolation which their exploited and slavish existence could not afford them.” -Karl Marx-

 This qoute so perfectly supports my argument that religion was created by man to control man in a time where there was nobody to enforce laws, and does not in any way represent the views of some greater being.  Despite the countless morals that should represent our lifestyle, there are many pieces of the bible that were exploited by leaders such as King Henry VIII who completely changed the religion because he wanted a divorce.  These sorts of changes have constantly taken place, and over time the Bible has lost all accuracy.  In the present, people find themselves sitting in the pews every Sunday, but ignore the moral laws of their religion all week.  I have no doubt that jesus ever existed, nor that he was a good man, but the ignorance of the people of his time exxagerated his existence, and if some greater being does exist, then why would he choose humans as the most supreme of beings?  Our greatest accomplishments are all for solitary profit.
2

Long as we’re in that mode:

–Emma Goldman

That said, I think human beings can productively access the spiritual side of their brains and use it for inspiration, creativity, and suchlike good things. That they do this on their own and for their own reasons makes it a process I favor. That they allow others to do it, and then allow the group-mind to influence their feelings and thoughts, I find horrifying.

3

Every good is corruptible, and indeed every good may be corrupted too; but good remains good.

4

So in your opinion, personal lunacy in superior to collective lunacy?

5

No it just takes many years of corrupt and power hungry people to totally fuck a good thing up. Essentially Christianity is good so is most other religions but people just mess it up. People who take things and twist them a most recent example is Osama Bin Laden.

6

My point is that when this is done by individuals, they do not as a rule tend to take their formulations as holding for all people, or as in any way “objective” - whereas a religion will hold certain precepts as being “the truth” which means that anyone who disagrees with them is automatically mistaken, either accidentally or maliciously. Religious liberals take it as accidental, and so do not make themselves annoying or display any form of sanctimony, where conservatives and fundamentalists see it as their god-given duty to correct the rest of us. Yet both groups incorrectly hold that there is some unified, objective Truth to which they hold the key.

In other words, personal spirituality is the furthest thing from lunacy, where religion is nothing but lunacy. Getting in touch with my irrational, mystical-mythical side is the only way I can stay sane in this preposterous world.

“Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule,” says Nietzsche.

7

Christianity is corrupt is based on the noion that Christianity is a lie for the purpose of controling the mass. Christianity does control the mass, but whehter it is a lie is…

Christianity contains very powerful doctrines. Many believe in them. Some people try to control the doctrines to their advantage. I don’t see how you can judge a means by the ends.
I don’t know how you can judge the contents of a book, simply because the physical book was used to hammer someone to death.

8

if the nature of the book is such that it is specifcally capable of providing both wisdom and a sharp corner good for bashing, why wouldnt you try to invent a circular book that cant be used for bashing? i have one!!

its christianity, its no bullshit, its quakerism. you cannot possibly manipulate quakers because of their religion. if you are able to manipulate them, you could have done that to anybody. they dont listen to a retarded book unless they want to. they dont force you to do anything they just bring it up for discussion in church and you make your own decision.

i worked for the pope of north american quakerism. the quaker information center is one of a few national places you can call if you are curious about things such as “what do quakers think about abortion; hating fags; war in iraq”

“talk to your local meeting” is the only dogma they respond with. being the pope of quakerism really isnt a very big deal, she was just some nice old volunteer lady. compare that to other societal leeches spewing dogmas without reason.

if you sold all of the art in the vatican and stopped paying the hundreds of workers, how much money would you have for poor people? billions?
the quaker vatican, the Friends’ Center in philadephia is staffed by all volunteers, and their version of the sistine chapel does not contain any artwork at all, besides a standard looking design on the carpet, and a wood bench motif.

the one dogma that quakers DO follow? you guessed it, the golden rule, have you heard of it? has your super-god-man briefly mentioned it?

all humans are given the same amount of god at birth and it doesnt change. you cant go to a special building and listen to a special chant and become super-god-man and forgive peoples sins through super-jesus-power. you cant lie, and if you take an oath that means that sometimes you tell the truth more than others, so they dont take oaths since everything they say is an oath.

when they go to church every week, since they dont have a priests or crazy rituals, they just sit around and meditate and discuss current ethical issues. they DISCUSS them. can you believe that? the nerve of those people. like humans actually know anything about humans and their problems more than a super-jesus-book does.

christians, i want you to take this very seriously. what do you get from your religion that you cannot get from quakers? do you realize that the part of your religion that makes you essentially different from quakers is your susceptibility to dogmas and their manipulations.

why deal with dogmas and manipulations when you can join the likes of George Fox, Ben Franklin, and i forget the rest. cool ass peaceful pot smoking genius ben franklin types.

or join bush, jerry fallwell, and the mass of evangelicals who believes not only that the ultimate key to salvation lies in believing something that you cant possibly believe in the same way as reality, and who believes bush’s stance on gay marriage was more democratic and good than john kerrys. go ahead join them, wait and see what god has to say about the matter. either hes a crazy weirdo, or hes quaker. please argue with me.

9

Now, I may be no authority, but what you are talking about seems to be the taming of the Wild West and as far as I know, people say that the Colt 45 was the ‘Peacemaker’ of the day, not Religion.

You don’t seem to be sure whether you are talking about Religion or ‘chrisianity’ - or it was jus’ a long night. However, taking the Topic Name to be the subject, to be corrupt Christianity would have to be
a) Marked by immorality and perversion or depraved.
b) Venal or dishonest.
c) Containing errors or alterations.
d) Archaic, tainted or putrid.

When we talk about Christianity, are we talking about every single Christian on the face of the earth? Or are we talking about a certain brand of Christianity? Or are we talking about the neighbours down the road, or even perhaps the Christians in television? Or are we speaking generally about something commonly assumed to be Christianity?

I think that Christianity in it’s common form is a lot different to what Popes and other Church Leaders think it to be. The simple believer is much of the time an idolator but also frequently a saint, but one who swaps his position occasionally, trying to find a stance that is comfortable. Basically it is because the moral code of Christianity is the moral code of small close-knit communities who had a lot to be wary of. That could make it archaic - but is ‘corrupt’ the right word?

By canonising letters of believers and making it into ‘Holy Scripture’ we virtually conserved the prejudices of the age, even though we don’t always understand what was behind the statement. Just as letters can be misleading (and posts in Forums too) so too have many statements in those letters had detremental results for the Church. We could therefore claim that scripture is ‘corrupt’ - but is it?

Is the teaching of the church dishonest? I think that those who decide what is to be taught in the Church believe it, so it isn’t dishonest. The again, there are many churchgoers who don’t care whether the teaching of the church is honest or not - they are in it for the symbolism and the ritual.

But does that make something corrupt? I think there must be corrupt Christians, just as the are corrupt Moslems, Jews and whatever else we can think up. But does that make the Church as a whole corrupt?

Shalom
Bob

10

Christianity, I believe, has a moral code based around the teachings of Jesus Christ. So, ignoring any arguments as to the nature of Christ and using only His message as it appears in scripture, can anyone say that His teachings were evil, meant to corrupt?

Anyone who finds that has to be looking for it, and what you look for you find. So undoubtably some horrible people use the Bible to back their campaigns. Undoubtably there are stupid people (George W. Bush) who completely, and ignorantly, trample on the word of God.

But everything that exists can be corrupted. Gunpowder was originally used for fireworks, it took Europeans to turn it into a weapon. But left to its original purpose, or just left completely alone, gunpowder does not hurt anything. So what is corrupt, the powder or the people?

Christianity is not corrupt.

11

CHRISTIANS dont avoid it:

what do you get from your special brand of rituals that you cant get from quakerism? what is it? manipulation. what else?

alterations!?!? ding ding!! what about the church is not exactly the same as it was when jesus made it? ill tell you what: everything that makes christianity different from quakers.

i guess i really do have to spell it out for you…

[baptism, confirmation, first eucharist, fancy shmancy shit plastered all over the walls of your temples]–what is their purpose?
ill tell you: to solidify your membership into one church, their specific church. to prevent you from joining quakerism once you realize that the service is a lot more worth your time, since you already went through the hassle of these big annoying initiation rites.
christian explanation: god really DOES want to splash your head with water to decontaminate your original sin

[reconciliation, last rites, fancy shmancy rituals that are meant to give the illusion of directly contacting god, singing, making mass a regulated ritual instead of a meaningful interaction]–what is their purpose?
ill tell you: to make you feel that their church is offering you something you cant get anywhere else. to keep you coming back every sunday and to motivate you to give a little something back to the church in return for their ‘services’
christian explanation: god really DOES imbue you with grace when you eat crackers. he really DOES listen to you more when you are collected in a gigantically expensive building following specific patterns and not just chaotically saying words to him independently. he requires the structure of 1. say this chant 2. non-priest read from the bible 3. priests read from the special bible 4. THEN ask god for help 5. eat crackers. the order and sanctimony are neccesary.

[the sermon]–whats the point of that? its just regular old english words you could hear anywhere. who the hell wants to hear a dude talk. we came here to interact with GOD. i want to see some GOD ACTION NOW. i dont want to DISCUSS ethical issues,

i want them to be dictated to me by god himself so that i may righteously follow the rules no matter what sacrifice i need to make, no matter how much i help the government steal my money, no matter how much better quakerism looks and how much sense it makes in comparison. thank you god for presenting me with these temptations that i may resist them and be proud of my moral superiority.

come on christians what is it about regular old christianity that beats quakerism.

12

anyone who reads my screen name before reading my post will know that I am wiccan thus you will also know that I do not belive in the christian god however: unlike some of the christians i’ve met who seem to think that i am a child of saten, i respect the fact you do worship your god and have no wish to change you.

converting however seems to be somthing that some christians enjoy my friends are constintly trying to change me i have a frind who is an atheist and another companion of mine begane yelling at her “child of saten! the power of christ comppells you!” now this guy is just a basterd and i know that you are all not like that christianity in itself is not corrupt but it is just like every other religion in that no matter how good the religion in itself is there will always be somone like the aformentiond jackass who turns your in my opinion very butifull religion into a virus.

just like the savation army does. did you guys know that if anyone else that they help is not christian then they will try to convert them? not nice at all!

i like christians that are like my friends steven and liz who respect my religion.

i dislike christians that are like the pope or the jackass who i mentioned erlier.

13

Hi wap_wiccan_and_proud-

I too used to be Wiccan. I did learn alot from being Wiccan, and I learned that experience is an essential part of the path to knowledge, however subjective it may be. I understand your frustration mostly in due part of “Christian Crusading” prominent in many places. Unfortunately, many Christians see it as their obligation, or mission to convert people to their god or christ. The religion seems to be very narrow-minded and judgemental.

I reviewed the roots of Wicca. I see how Wicca is deeply rooted with the ancients in Old Europe. Yet, what many Wiccans miss out is that even their pagan ancestors commited acts that you may call ‘‘savage’’, or ‘‘barbaric’’. They sacrificed human beings for the fertility of the earth, had tribal wars, and even the matriarchal groups (lunar cults) castrated men from the patriarchal groups (solar cults) :unamused:

I believe every religion/‘‘spiritual movement’’ contains their dark history. I am Agnostic leaning towards Atheism.

14

I think the underlying principles/concepts have actually been preserved quite well through the centuries. It appears to me that it’s not the Bible that is inaccuarate, but rather individual/collective interpretation there of. Also man’s inability to live according to it’s statutes, gives the Bible an appearance of fallibility. These undesirable aspects of Christianity tend to illustrate a central point in the Bible…Sin has come into the world.

Our Christ is perfect, we Christians are not. We Christians need to become more like our Christ.

15

The purpose of ritual is not to hold you in one place, but allow you to fully enter into a community. Humankind has always had rituals to mark entry into a group. It helps to re-affirm a sense of belonging, a sense of shared history and common ground with those around you. These rituals can either be highly formalized (Orthodox being the most formal I have witnessed) to less formalized. Quakers still have a ritual and a way of affirming a sense of belonging and brotherhood, it is simply done in a less formalized way.

The mass, when engaged in the proper mindset, is meaningful interaction. It is regualted, yes, but if you are truly participating, joining your voice with hundreds of others in prayer or song creates a huge sense of fraternity. The main idea ebhind the mass though is to interact with God. Here, the rituals are meant to clear your mind of your worldly concerns and get you to focus on God, on speaking to him, and on really trying to understand his word as it was given in the Bible. Now, the mass does not provide this for everyone (which is why I haven’t attended in a long time), but to dismiss it outright for everyone seems foolish.

The sermon is meant to help people understand. That’s all. Here’s some readings, now let me try to highlight what I think are a few key points here, a few things to really think about. I am positive that any priest you ask would say that he hopes his congregation would go home after mass and really think about some of the issues brought up in the sermon and discuss them amongst themselves. In fact, there are always Church groups which allow people to do just that. But the Catholic Church (and various other, “traditional” Christian churches) has generally taken the idea that most people need something to start with before they can do it on their own.

Honestly, I think the Church has done alot of things to try to make Christianity more accessible to everyone. Reading the Bible and deriving your own meaning from it with no guidance is very difficult. Many find the language to be inaccessible, or are unable to discern what exactly all those crazy parables are saying. The Church has attempted to allow everyone to participate, to be a part of the worship. Yes, this means very ritualized services, but many people simply are not capable (in general or at some moment in their development) of having conversations and discussions about the Bible/God/truths of the world. They need (and often crave) some guidance. I believe that within the Church, there is an allowance for development of faith. There is a basic ritual open to everyone in which everyone (of almost any age, intellect, cultural heritage, etc.) can participate it. Beyond that, you can progress as you wish. No Priest is going to get unhappy because you are having a conversation outside of the mass about beliefs, or because you are really honestly trying to understand God/His word. If you are capable of going further in your faith than simply participating in the basic ritual, I think the Church welcomes that. It simply does not expect it of all people.

I guess in the end I see many paths to God. For some, ritual is incredibly beneficial. For others it’s not. But to dismiss any one path off the bat seems very hasty. Maybe you should go talk to some people who find that their relationship with God is improved through that path (whichever one you might be dismissing) and revisit the issue after doing so.

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first, youre right. the psychological effects of religion and its otherwise completely useless and world-dividing rituals should not be overlooked. if somehow you are able to believe that god loves to hear you sing in unison, then ill bet you get the spine tingles when you do it.

so what exactly is it about stained glass windows and golden chalices and a $5 trillion vatican that helps this psychological desire? shallow materialism that should have been destroyed soon after jesus opened his mouth?

is it possible to sing and to do all the catholic rituals in a building that didnt cost $2 million? are there poor people in the world who would have appreciated some of that money? ok good. traditional christianity, you lose. hurry up and die.

and they are always either irrationally hoping that a deity cares, or they served some purpose such as saying “hi my name is future man” instead of not saying anything and having water splashed on me.

i think you meant to say quakers do it in “a more efficient, cost effective, meaningful way”. i think those adjectives are ones that all actions should be described with. apparently not christians.

and science says god doesnt care about stained glass or gold. and jesus’ golden rule says give that crap to poor people in the form of food.

then why is the bible still written in such an archaic way that most people cant understand it? how hard would it be to find the important parts and re-translate them out of whatever crappy old sounding language they are in and have them make real perfect sense when they are read right out of the 5 page book. ive been to many a mass and very rarely do i understand the message behind the gospel reading before it is explained.

i think if it was translated into easy language, everybody would realize that the stupid church is doing a bunch of stupid, money wasting stuff that absolutely has nothing to do with anything written in the bible. and Mr.Popey-Platinum-Perversion cant have that

i was being sarcastic in my description of the sermon. i think this is the single only useful part of the whole experience, besides the softening up that singing will do. what i would hope if i were a priest is that people would raise their hand and say something about whatever the message of the day is, so that i may respond to them and more clearly deliver my message.

what the sermon actually is is an incredibly boring lecture that i almost always hated. there are of course those great priests who start asking the little kids questions. but they always keep it simple, they avoid real tough issues because they probably dont even know how to really combat them other than refering to some idealistic bible quote.

i see two options for christians. the quaker: sit around and talk and really get into the guidance hardcore. ask the priest questions and have them answered without direct reference to vague parables.
the catholic: read the vague parable, give an interpretation and sing and eat bread and look at pretty crap so that you may be distracted and lulled into false security.

what exactly do the rituals do for guidance? it seems to me that they are the exact opposite of guidance. seems like they are misleading, a false sense of security that allows members to think that ‘oh yes, if this is my building then that god better appreciate this check im giving up, because materials are gods awesome gift to the world and we are a shining example of materialism. la la halleluyah i love materials.’

catholic commandment #11: Thy lord loves expensive materials and so should you!

he SHOULD be unhappy that there exists people who go to church and who do not fully understand the anti-materialism of jesus’ message. ie pretty much everybody in the ridiculously expensive building.

yeah if you believe in a ritual then yes ritual makes you feel good, makes you feel like god loves you more, and that muslims arent as close to god, and that you should totally donate money to fund the construction and acquisition of gigantic beautiful ornaments.

fact remains, expensive stuff needs to be dismantled and sold to feed the poor, not prop up the ego and self-righteousness of suburbanites. if lying makes baby jesus cry, he is severely dehydrated and probably blind by now.

17

reviewed the roots of Wicca. I see how Wicca is deeply rooted with the ancients in Old Europe. Yet, what many Wiccans miss out is that even their pagan ancestors commited acts that you may call ‘‘savage’’, or ‘‘barbaric’’. They sacrificed human beings for the fertility of the earth, had tribal wars, and even the matriarchal groups (lunar cults) castrated men from the patriarchal groups (solar cults)

i have not heard of this matter but i promis i will look into it when i get a bit more time my answer may be giving you a differen’t opinion after i reaserch this but from know every wiccan i know has agreed with me that the only time any of them know of blood being spilled in one of the rituals is when a man acidently cut himself with his atham (for those of you who don’t know that is our ritual dager) also was the pearsone who told you this christian because many christians belive this to but i have never heared any not christian say that we have made blood sacrifices. and if there where wars so what if everyone was atheist would there be peace in the world? war will always be with us no matter what our fath is even wiccans somtimes have to fight.

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yah there’s deffinitly no blood sacfrice in pagen fath’s. some females use there mensturle blood for spells rituals and prayers but i’v i coulden’t find anything about taking the lives of humans or animals.

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Not the Wiccan religion per se, but the pagan times. If you look into the various aspects of paganism, such as ancient Roman and Greek religions as well as doing several comparisons on ancient forms of paganism and their modern counterparts. Examples of these are Wicca and Neo-Drudism. We explore the differences as well as the similiarities between the ancient pagan religions and their comtemporary forms. What I am talking about is the ancient times where ox, bears, tigers, lions, etc were sacrificed and voluntary human sacrifices were performed, specifically the Druids. Which is why there are plenty of myths that surround true events of human sacrifice in the ancient pagan times.

You missed the intent of my statement. Tribal wars were commited by the ancient pagans in order to gain land and ritual space.

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in case you have not read my screen name i am not a druid. also i have no idea what you are talking about because sacrificing humans and animals is against everything wicca stands for. i belive you are right about the ancient greeks and romans though but they where not pagen they worshiped gods like athena and zuse. they did not worship the goddes and the god like i do.