Paul

I'm a Christian as well. I've been on these forums for a few months now. It's alot of fun and very interesting at times. Just don't get upset if someone disagrees with you or says something kinda nasty. Remember that everyone is gonna have a different point of view.

Gettin' In Tune

I ask out of benign curiosity. What brings Christians to an Agnostic forum?

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"But to find the truth we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact."--C.Sagan

Tomasz

Maybe someone like Alister McGrath (Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford University) knows something about Christianity. In his debate with Dawkins he says more or less something like this :

In Christ we see something that demands explanation. ... God enters the world at its darkest parts in order to redeem it, to bring about its transformation. The worst that the world could do is rejection and punishment of Christ. In a figure of Christ God is demonstrating his love for us, making it possible to relate, return to him without a barrier such as guilt or sin. It's not about gloryfing torture or saying "Look what they did to Jesus". What it's saying is look, there's something wrong with human nature, Christ is therefore the source of the transformation. He actually changes people's lives.

So Christ to McGrath (and 99,99% of Christians) is a human incarnation of God. Christainity intelectually in practice compared to buddhism is standing on the shoulders of dwarves. How many Christians have heard of something that's called empirical rigor ? Dalajlama had a meeting with western neurologists and he said "if science prooves that some concept of buddhism is wrong then science wins" Can you inmagine the pope(or any other Christian leader) issuing such a statement ?

Your theoretical reflections on similarities between Buddha and Christ and message of Christ's life won't change minds of 99,99% of Christians who see it differently

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It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts - Sherlock Holmes

Og

I find it funny that you think that that quote somehow demonstrates a difference between budhism and christianity. The fundamental tenet of buddhism is that life is suffering. Just as you quoted him talking about life as sinful nature etc etc...

Christ demonstrates a way out.. And the second tenet of buddhism is that there is a way to end suffering.

If you think that science and buddhism are different either then you're mistaken. The buddha says "do not take what I say because you respect me as a teacher. Take what I say and test it for yourself and only keep what works for you"

The differences you're talking about are ethnic ideas. If the pope admitted that science spoke to truths about the universe and that this had no effect on the meaning of the message of christ, then christianity would NOT be in the state it is in today where most people are living with a 5000 year old cosmology.

What the buddhists get that the christians don't is that the stories are metaphors. The truth is there regardless. The stories point to a transcendent truth that has absolutely nothing to do with the literal life or facts about the holy person.

This is the kind of christian I am. The one that understands the meaning of christ's teachings. What most christians are are psychotic split mind individuals living with a dead religion that has not adapted the fundamental truths of the one religion of man to the modern human experience. That the church hasn't done this does not mean that jesus' message is not relevant today.

It just means that the organized church is not relevant today.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

Tomasz

That wasn't meant to show differences between christianity and buddhism, it was meant to show the difference between your views and what McGrath considers to be central ideas of Christianity.
As I understand you actually don't believe in God and the story of Jesus as actual events. Looking at what McGrath considers as Christianity, you're not a Christian. You must strech McGrath's definition somehow to be able to call yourself a Christian. For McGrath God and Jesus' life are real, for you these are methaphores. That clearly differentiates for 99,99% of Christians

__________________
It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts - Sherlock Holmes

Og

I don't see how my view's conflict with McGrath's..

The point is that the image of Christ is pointing to something in our lives and in the human experience and that the story has an effect on OUR experience.

I don't see how our stances are at odds. How is the literal nature relevant to the effect that the image has on our understanding of our own lives and our own nature?

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

Paul

I find it interesting to read other people's point of views, whether I agree or disagree. It stimulates the mind and forces me to reflect on what I believe, but more importantly why I believe it. Some of the things I believe I do not fully understand, and I probably never will, but instead of just going along with whatever my preacher or pastor says and not thinking anything different, I want to study it for myself and see what makes sense and what does not.

Skepticologist

Why people beieve what they believe has become a subject of some interest to me over the past few years.

Some 20 years ago, I began asking myself some of the same kinds of questions you seem to be asking yourself. I admit that my reason for doing so had a lot to do with disillusionment with the church I'd grown up in and attended for the first 40 years of my life. But that was simply a catalyst that led me to disregard my pastors' and the bible's warnings against questioning my faith.

With regard to why I believed in christianity, I realized that it had primarily to do with where and to whom I was born, which were respectively, a so-called christian nation and parents who were christians. Other fellow christians had come into the fold as a result of their relationships with christian friends and lovers. Not once did I encounter a fellow christian who had adopted christianity just because it made sense.

It was only at the point where I realized that my motivation for believing, while understandable, had nothing to do with whether my beliefs made sense to me; and where I had already begun to grapple with the implications of rejecting those beliefs on my familial and societal relationships, that I could truly take my blinders off and objectively consider my beliefs.

What I discovered was a series of very fundamental contradictions in bible scripture, and even more teachings that simply didn't square with my own knowledge and experiences. And my subsequent studies of other world religions convinced me that none of their texts were any more acceptable to me on an intellectual basis.

I hope you find what you're looking for. It may or may not be congruent with the conclusions I came to, but unless it's the product of sincere and open-minded reflection, you're just wasting your time.

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"I am an agnostic; I do not pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure of."

Clarence Darrow

jaej

Fundamental is an understatement.

If you can honestly say the reason you follow the religion you do is because of where you were born, you follow your fathers religion. And yet you can remain 100% certain you are right, despite how you admit if you were born half-way around the world, you would think Islam was right with the same certainty.

In retrospect, this is a pointless post.

Love the av, skep. Great band.

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duck

I agree. The whole idea of a free society requires that we have a multitude of outlooks and belief systems in place to truly become a diverse and vibrant society.

Unfortunately, here in America, we have an active element within the realm of christianity that would, through the legislative/electoral process, attempt to force a belief system on our society as a whole.

This would be including their passages of their bible to be the foundation of societal law, their morality of social interaction, their view on how the earth was created, and their vision of education.

No thank you.