If you ever read the gospels, you know that the main earthly enemy of Jesus were the Pharisees. These were the high-ups of the religious tree, some of the most important and influential people of ancient Jewish society. Problem was, they often used their knowledge of scripture to meet their own ends, attempting to trick Jesus or show off how important and spiritually superior they were. The popular term for this is "holier-than-thou" or "self-righteous" and it's one of the main reasons Christians aren't taken seriously. It's widely practiced today by a lot of "Christians" who just want to put on a mask of superiority. Many of us want to do that anyway, but these are people who are exploiting something that really shouldn't be exploited: Jesus's teachings.
Some non-Christians also seem to like throwing the word "hypocrite" around, which , unfortunately, is warranted nowadays. As I mentioned in the Introduction, many people who call themselves Christians cheat, lie, or do something smaller that contradicts something that they are supposed to live by. The phrase "almost religious devotion" barely even holds ground anymore.
Christians: You are not perfect. Everything that you succeed at or accomplish, God is the real force behind it. If you want to be like Jesus, you've got to accept that He is the only perfect One and you are simply his creation that has been given the gift of a full life.
Non-Christians: Don't assume that all Christians think of themselves as perfect. While many of them do, they are only hiding behind their mask of insecurity and want more power than they should have. At the same time, do not think of yourselves as though you know everything. You are not the only sets of intellectuals in the world. Realize that you, as well, are not perfect and that you will help yourself and others along their way to be as good as you can be.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Introduction
So. You're a Christian.
No, you're an atheist.
No, wait, you're a pseudo-intellectual self-proclaimed agnostic who actually isn't exactly sure what that means, or what religion means, or why it's here, or why the mainstream seems to hate it, and why mainstream religion seems to hate being hated.
Here's a handy translation manual:
The basic truth of it is, Christians are not the most popular people in the world. It's mostly because of all the people who call themselves Christians while they curse, drink, or lie one day and be holier-than-thou the next. Because these are the "Christians" who want attention, these are the ones who are seen by the public eye, and so the public image of Christian is tarnished. All you need to do is pay a visit to nearly any video on YouTube or article on a news site, and eventually it will escalate into a religious argument. Somehow, someway, the laughing baby will become a furious debate on why God can't exist, or why the Bible says this or that.
It's because of the religious wars, bloody historical accounts of killing in the name of a peaceful God. For non-Christians, it's the intrinsic unbelievability of an omniscient deity, the shamefulness of lowering ourselves to worship something else (and yet, we always worship something, whether it's a god, power, or money). So both sides, Christian and non-, turn to degrading the other for its beliefs. Because both sides have a dogmatic frenzy, desperate to disprove the other. So many conflicting ideologies don't help to lessen the confusion, and when we're confused, we want to eliminate the confusion as fast as possible--usually by attacking it.
And yet most of us never think of bridging the gap.
Science can work with religion--it does, except for, of course, evolutionary ideas and the origin of the universe (but no one agrees on that. After all, no one was there to see it--except for one Guy who wrote a Book about it, but that's not politically accepted).
This site is here to try to help bridge the chasm between atheism and religion--specifically Christianity. It's a very small and naive attempt, probably, but at least it's an attempt. There's too much hate going around right now.
No, you're an atheist.
No, wait, you're a pseudo-intellectual self-proclaimed agnostic who actually isn't exactly sure what that means, or what religion means, or why it's here, or why the mainstream seems to hate it, and why mainstream religion seems to hate being hated.
Here's a handy translation manual:
The basic truth of it is, Christians are not the most popular people in the world. It's mostly because of all the people who call themselves Christians while they curse, drink, or lie one day and be holier-than-thou the next. Because these are the "Christians" who want attention, these are the ones who are seen by the public eye, and so the public image of Christian is tarnished. All you need to do is pay a visit to nearly any video on YouTube or article on a news site, and eventually it will escalate into a religious argument. Somehow, someway, the laughing baby will become a furious debate on why God can't exist, or why the Bible says this or that.It's because of the religious wars, bloody historical accounts of killing in the name of a peaceful God. For non-Christians, it's the intrinsic unbelievability of an omniscient deity, the shamefulness of lowering ourselves to worship something else (and yet, we always worship something, whether it's a god, power, or money). So both sides, Christian and non-, turn to degrading the other for its beliefs. Because both sides have a dogmatic frenzy, desperate to disprove the other. So many conflicting ideologies don't help to lessen the confusion, and when we're confused, we want to eliminate the confusion as fast as possible--usually by attacking it.
And yet most of us never think of bridging the gap.
Science can work with religion--it does, except for, of course, evolutionary ideas and the origin of the universe (but no one agrees on that. After all, no one was there to see it--except for one Guy who wrote a Book about it, but that's not politically accepted).
This site is here to try to help bridge the chasm between atheism and religion--specifically Christianity. It's a very small and naive attempt, probably, but at least it's an attempt. There's too much hate going around right now.
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