sic-lorraine92:
I like the idea that there is a nice heaven, god, Jesus and angels, but if you asked my to back up any of my facts I could not, so I borderline of believing in it and not.
I consider myself barely borderline Christian and Atheist, although I might not tell my family this because they all grew…
Let me start by saying that I am in no way trying to shove my beliefs down your throat.
The old testament had been passed around from generation by mouth and THEN someone decide that they should write the stories down. So when Exodus, where the story of Moses is, was written, it had been hundreds of years since the events happened.
In fact most of the books were not written by the people they’re named after. Matthew was written by [most likely] one of his followers, as well as probably the rest.
There’s a book in the OT called Job (joe-b). When it was written, people thought that if you were a good person, God with reward you. But if you suffer, you are suffering from either your sin or your parents’ sin, whatever it may be. Job was very wealthy, had a family, and was happy. God basically takes it all away, but Job holds strong to his faith, despite people telling him that he had somehow sinned against God. The book doesn’t say why good people suffer, but shows that God’s intentions are too intricate to try to understand and sometimes we have to accept it.
Sucky, yes I know.
But we also have “free will” which allows us to do good or evil, to follow God or to go against Him, etc. Because of this, yes, good people may have to suffer because of someone else’s sin. Murder, rape, every evil act is possible because God gave us a choice. Another sucky thing.
It was really hard for the first Christians to preach when Jesus was hanging on the cross. “If he is the son of God, why is he dead?” But they kept doing it.
And I kind of agree with you on the lowering the standards thing. A lot of Christians ignore some parts because if they didn’t ignore those parts, then they’d have to change themselves. They wouldn’t have as many converts either. I am actually trying to ease myself into being a better christian. I’m getting rid of the little things and working my way up for the more difficult things.
It is good that you are trying to figure out what is true though. Kudos! I’ve done some of that but I keep going back to my religion, which is specifically Catholic. I am REALLY happy that the Church has said that evolution does not disprove God, since I’m a science geek and I don’t know if I could be religious with that restriction.
I know my answers might not have been perfect or good enough, but I tried. I hope it is useful but I suggest going to a theologian of some kind or different religions, because even though we all have the same book, we interpret differently.
The Catholic Church is actually changing a little bit so that what we do is more close to the original version of the bible. I’m going to a class this saturday. Erghh.
I hope you find the answers you are looking for.
PS I open this to any of my Christian friends to help me out. [:
