Paul

I was just wondering what kind of questions people had about Christianity. What do you not understand? What are some things that bug you about it? I ask because I'm almost done with college and working on lessons that I want to teach as a youth minister. I'm new here so I'm mainly just looking for ideas, but if you want me to try and answer some of the questions you have then just ask me too. I'll try to check it often. I may know some and not others. Thanks for your help.

Also this is a good way for me to double check what I believe and why.

duck

Oh my. Mostly the smugness and the stupid blind faith. The literal interpretation of the bible which seems to be the du jeur approach now. The refusal to treat scripture metaphorically like it should be. Oh, one more thing. The bible is the work of man, not the word of God.

Paul

ok thanks.

duck

Probably not what you wanted to hear, but...

Sorry. But, you asked.

duck

Oh, and how about teaching youth something new and different? Why not teach that free will and choices are a gift from god that should be celebrated? That questioning all things is also a gift, and that is how god intended of us to learn?

I challenge you to teach those things. The world will benefit.

Paul

I completely agree with that. The Christians that check their brains at the door withough thinking through what they believe logically are not doing what God intended I believe. Like creation vs evolution or whatever else. Believe what you want, but have the integrity to study the other side as much as possible. Many times people spout off things that they claim to believe because they heard it from someone else and liked how it sounded, yet they have no idea what they are talking about. I could bash evolution till i'm blue in the face, but it makes no difference unless i've studied it and can refute it logically.

I have no problem with critisizm of my beliefs so long as it is not a personal attack. I figure, if I can't defend what I believe and why, then I need to study more and think it through better. Some things I may never completely understand, and I figure, one day I will be in Heaven before God and will have missed the point on some things.

Paul

No problem at all. Like I said, I'm just looking for ideas.

Astreja

Original Sin.

Substitutionary atonement.

Literalism.

Virtually everything that Paul wrote, particularly his misogyny.

The idea that the Apocalypse and subsequent end of the world is somehow a desirable thing.

Paul

What is misogyny? Sorry.

Literalism in reference on interpreting the Bible?

Thanks.

Og

Misogyny is woman hating.

My biggest pet peeve with christianity is that they really should be calling themselves Paulites. Most of the crazy stuff that they live by are from paul's letters.

Then there's the whole circular logic of the timothy verse on scripture being god breathed and useful for teaching (this makes me want to club people in the head when they present this as verifying the divine nature of the text).

Also, they don't recognize and celebrate christ's identity with the buddha story from 500 years earlier. Christian's could learn a lot about their faith by studying the stories of the buddha and his teachings in order to see the identity with those of christ.

If you want some really good material for a bible study based on Christ's teachings, I'd recommend the works of Anthony deMello. He was a Catholic Jesuit Priest in India who died in 1987 and did some very awesome works on interpreting the texts in eastern terms.

I recommend "The Way to Love" and "Awareness" by him. Great material to stimulate discussions in a bible study.

My final problem with christianity is another biggie. It is that the focus is on a historical interpretation of the events in the bible instead of a metaphorical interpretation. That the christians mistake what the bible says for what it's denotation is instead of what its connotation really just makes them idol worshipers where their ultimate idol is their idea of God.

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