Why are you not a Christian

[BeBMan]

This has sooo much potential for copycats.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Geronimo


QFT. It's hard to accept that an omnipotent being is incapable of forgiving the selfish imperfection of his creations until after he incarnates himself and lets them kill him. wtf?

That's not hard to accept. What's hard to accept is that you should worship such a deity.

[quantum_mechani]

Re: Why are you not a Christian

Originally posted by Jon Miller
I have been wondering what the general response would be to this for a while.

Responses like "It is all BS" aren't all that useful, please say why it is BS, if you think so.

This is not suppose to be a debate thread, I will try my best not to debate with the nonChristians, and I would ask other Christians not to debate with them either (even if you know they are wrong). Rather it is suppose to be an informational thread. A discussion thread might come later

I think I know why some of you aren't Christians, but I am interested in why others of you aren't... and I am interested in knowing if I am wrong about those who I have hypothesis on.

The clearer, the better, of course. While we shouldn't debate you, presenting a reason why you aren't a Christian that was addressed 1000 years ago is a bit ignorant.

JM

Answers meaningful to both parties are rather hard to come by in this context. I could ask something like 'Why aren't you a Hindu?', and you could no doubt point to some aspects of Christian philosophy especially meaningful to you, or a piece of Hinduism you find objectionable. And most people, when put to such a question would eventually come up with something similar. And yet the fact that 90% of people born in one area are Christians, and 90% born in another area are Hindus, seems to suggest that such reasons aren't really the base cause after all.

So to try and answer the question, a lot of people grow up Christian by default, and it so happens I didn't grow up in such an environment. While I would like to think that I would still have the same basic beliefs if I had grown up under different circumstances, it might easily be otherwise, and I think most people being honest with themselves would arrive at a similar conclusion.

However, I get the impression you are fishing for particular dislikes, rather than a reason why people are, by and large, not Christians. As far as that goes, there are several things that bother me:

---An anthropomorphic god. A god that creates the something on the scale of the universe, something of the bizarre intricacy as the laws and properties of the universe, mucking about with micromanaging humans? Floods, commandments, changing his mind, being wrathful, it's all just a small step up from Zeus & Co as far as being anthropomorphic. Then there also the fact that all that heavy handed messing about just suddenly stopped after a bit... you'd think if anything would have gotten him riled up enough to interfere it would have been something like the crusades, right?

---In a similar vein, the idea of specifically worshiping a god. Say that we knew for a fact a god created the universe, would that make them worth worshiping? Yes, the universe is a pretty amazing place, and we have presumably benefited from it's existence, but I'm not sure that spells out worship. Obviously all his power in achieving such things is beyond what we can attain, so perhaps we could worship him for that. But then again, wouldn't he be responsible for what are and what aren't things we can attain?

The same argument also works for the more commonly put forward reason to worship such a god, his assumed absolute goodness. To sum it up, any way in which we are inferior to a God that created us can only be attributed to that God. In such context (and to be honest, any context I can think of) worship seems decidedly unnecessary and/or creepy.

---The odd stew of commandments and other moral imperatives strewn though the Bible seems ironically a recipe to invite poor ethics. Something as simple as to not do what you would not like done to yourself, thoughtfully applied to situations, avoids almost any immoral action I can think of. In contrast, the Bible advocates and denounces so many things, it seems as though almost all Christians just tend to stick to the bits they deem most important, and then many act as though they have a the moral high ground and a carte blanche in any other actions they take.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Blake


No, because Buddhism is the absence of faith.

But also, faith in logic, inference, reason. Blind faith in that kind of process, is abandoned too. Abandon it all, equally. Just observe what is there. Let go of the senses. Observe what is there. Let go of thought. Observe what is there...

That is Buddhism. The process of letting go and just being.

Where does faith come into letting go of things?

You mean that if I have faith that I can let go of something, that I don't need to desire that it fulfill me, that then I can let go of it? Probably. In the same way, that if I don't have faith that I can ride a bicycle, I wont be able to ride the bicycle, I wont even try, because I "know" I'll fall off.
But that doesn't mean you need faith to ride the bicycle...

Plenty of faith is required. A Buddhist path requires faith that all other paths will bring inferior satisfaction and quality of life. Even if a Buddhist feels that every step along the path has improved their life they have not really demonstrated that the path will lead to the ideal lifestyle.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


That's not hard to accept. What's hard to accept is that you should worship such a deity.

how is that not hard to accept? an omniscient omnipotent being is constrained in it's ability to forgive until it has incarnated and gotten itself killed? that doesn't seem to make sense no matter how I turn it around. Such a being might be deserving of something approaching worship if it were truly constrained into such a dilemma but such a dilemma precludes it being omnipotent.

[Geronimo]

Re: Re: Why are you not a Christian

Originally posted by quantum_mechani
---An anthropomorphic god. A god that creates the something on the scale of the universe, something of the bizarre intricacy as the laws and properties of the universe, mucking about with micromanaging humans?

Why does everybody assume that a boundless limitless omnipotent and omniscient being would have any meaningful sense of scale. We wouldn't be insignificant to such a being, everything would be insignificant to such a being. Either it would care about absolutely nothing and just sorta pass eternity in an empty meditative trance or, being omniscient, it would care about everything and being omnipotent have no difficulty micromanaging everything.

Just look at how much more complicated human culture is than, for example, the culture of insects and yet can we really say that humans care less about the simple things in life than insects do? if anything we probably care even more.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Geronimo


how is that not hard to accept? an omniscient omnipotent being is constrained in it's ability to forgive until it has incarnated and gotten itself killed? that doesn't seem to make sense no matter how I turn it around. Such a being might be deserving of something approaching worship if it were truly constrained into such a dilemma but such a dilemma precludes it being omnipotent.

Fair point, when put that way. But I was assuming not that Yahweh was constrained, but that He was a fickle, capricious bastard -- and impression borne out by His many colorful appearances in the Old Testament. It's not that he had to redeem the world through the passion of Christ; he could have redeemed it at any time, just by snapping his fingers or sending a burning-bush-o-gram or whatever. No, he chose that bizarre bit of sado-masochistic theater as the vehicle for redemption. I can accept that, because I can accept teh idea that, if therer are gods, maybe they don't think teh same way we do. But worship? It'd be like flies worshipping the boy who plucks off their wings for sport.

[Bosh]

Rufus: well the only way that the Crucifixion makes any sense at all is if you take a more Gnostic viewpoint and have Jesus being a Prometheus-ish good guy pulling a fast one on a legalistic ******* Yahweh. But then if you dig through Gnostic books there's plenty there that doesn't make any sense either, much of it stranger than the Crucifixion story.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Bosh
Rufus: well the only way that the Crucifixion makes any sense at all is if you take a more Gnostic viewpoint and have Jesus being a Prometheus-ish good guy pulling a fast one on a legalistic ******* Yahweh.

But the only way that makes sense is if Christ and Yahweh are different beings, like Prometheus and Zeus. Of course, plenty of gnostics believed that, but it has been Christian heresy since the early 4th century.

I guess it could also make sense it you think of Yahweh as someone with multiple-personality disorder. I like that idea, but it's not going to bring me back to church.

[Proteus_MST]

Officially I belong to the evangelical church of germany.

But I consider myself to be rather an unitarian universalist, believing that there is no one religion that contains the one and only eternal truth (with all other religions being erroneous), but that most religions contain a glimpse of the eternal truth.

If I believed in the literal truth of the bible I would also have to believe that the things writen within the Old Testament are true. Aside from the contradictions to science (concerning evolution, the flood etc. ) I owuld believe in a god that according to human moral standards would be absolutely evil, as he destroys whole cities (including the children) and personally orders the extermination of a whole tribe including women, kids and cattle.
In this case I would know no other duty than to resist god (and no, I don´t buy the argument that to god there apply other moral standards than to humans and that he could do (or order) things that would be considered "evil" in human terms while still remaining "the absolute good" in terms of "heavenly moral conduct".

So the only way for me is to believe the bible is writen by humans and that therefore must be taken with a grain of salt.
In summary I consider Jesus, like Buddha and many other people to be wise men and "prophets" in terms of that they had a glimpse of the "eternal truth", but I don´t believe in something like the things in which many christians believe, like some kind of eternal throne where god sits and where Jesus separates those who don´t bbelieve in him from those that do, throwing the first one into the eternal fire while puting the later ones to heaven no mater what evil they did in your life.
If there is an afterlife I rather believe that you create your own purgatory according to the "sins" you commited during your life and I also dn´t believe god to be na anthropomorphic personification but rather something that is inherent to the universe, maybe some kind of Ubr-Mind of which we all (all of the universe) are part of.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Blake
I reiterate. These things are not goals of the Buddhist path, and while they may be experienced, they are to be let go of and no special meaning attributed to them, they have no supernatural aspect, they are as natural as seeing green when your eyes are pointed towards a (typical) tree.

And, why should I pop a pill to achieve an effect on my brain which I can achieve with greater ease and control with the power of my mind alone?

The point is simply that visual and tactile hallucinations should not be occurring at all, and if they are, they speak to an underlying psychiatric or neurological problem worthy of concern.

Even if you can shut them down with the power of your mind alone, what's especially disturbing is that you attribute to them some supernatural significance for which Buddhist teachings can be thanked, rather than a mere confluence of biochemical reactions taking place in your brain. If that's not faith, I don't know what is, and yet out the other side of your mouth you claim Buddhism is the absence of faith. I'd like to see you try to resolve that contradiction.

Originally posted by Blake
No, because Buddhism is the absence of faith.

But also, faith in logic, inference, reason.

Aside from the fact that what you've said so far indicates at least a modicum of faith, it's especially silly that you sit here making logical arguments while at the same time claim your belief system involves a disregard of logic, inference, and reason. No matter how much your conscious mind might deliberately delude itself into thinking it's free of logic & inference, your subconscious is constantly banging out thousands of computations a minute that are strictly logical.

Hell, right now as an experiment just look at your computer screen, then reach out and touch it. As much as it might seem like "observing what is there" or whatever the hell you want to call it, in fact your visual cortex, motor cortex, and cerebellum calculated a great number of logical trigonometric inferences to make it possible. That's just a tiny microcosm of how your brain functions. To think that your conscious mind can somehow transcend the very real biological limitations that evolution left us with is truly the height of vanity.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST
If there is an afterlife I rather believe that you create your own purgatory according to the "sins" you commited during your life

Many Christians believe something similar.

[Dinner]

"Why are you not a Christian?"

Because religion is nothing more then fairy tales designed to pacify the masses.

[Jon Miller]

Some people have attempted to answer the question, thank you!

I am not debating, or discussing, but there are realms of Christian throught who don't think that Christ had to die. I do agree that that isn't traditional Chrisitanity though.

On another (Christian) forum, there was a thread on "Did Christ have to die?", maybe one here would be interesting?

JM

[Bosh]

I'm sure there's an explanation to the "did Christ have to die" question that makes at least some sense. There's a lot of very smart theologians and some of them must have addressed it, I just have never seen one. If you have a link to a good explanation of the answer to that from a Christian point of view I'd be interested in reading it.