Printable View
I think a large percentage of religious people are essentially praying to the same "God" with a different name, and reading a different book about him. Just look at how many religious figureheads were supposedly born on Dec 25th. If there is a supreme being, he probably understands that depending on what part of the world you were born in you give him a different name, and he won't hold it against you just because you were born on the wrong continent.
Maybe I'm an idiot, but I don't know what you mean by nominal Christian. I have only been to Catholic and Methodist (friend's church growing up) Church before. I know about the Mormon church (my brother's old GF was such). Otherwise I couldn't tell you the difference between Catholic and other churches.Quote:
Originally Posted by Uncle Mxy
The Catholic church is a huge institution, and (according to its own way of looking at things) it is older than the Bible. Therefore, the Bible is still pretty important, but the catechism of the Church is more so. Simply put, the Catholics teach that the Bible is a part of Christianity but it's not the whole shebang. Catholic countries are pretty much all of southern Europe and all of Latin America.Quote:
Originally Posted by WTFchris
The Orthodox churches were once a part of the Catholic church, but they split off in the early middle ages because they didn't agree that the bishop of Rome (i.e. the Pope) should be the leader of the entire church. Since then, history has split them even more over issues of doctrine and ritual, but even now they don't have a unified structure with one single leader like the Catholics do. Orthodox groups include Greeks, Russians, Armenians, Syrian Christians, Egyptian Christians, Serbians, etc. If you've a Christian, and you've got a unibrow, you're probably Orthodox.
The Protestants split off in the late middle ages, but for a different reason - they believed that the Catholic church had become corrupt, it had lost its moral authority and diverged from the core message of Jesus. They were basically religious purists who thought that the Catholic church had diluted Christianity. So they broke off and decided that the only way to really be good Christians was to pore over every tiny detail of the Bible, and interpret it as literally as they could. Protestants include Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and many other denominations. They emphasize the Bible as the utmost authority on everything. Generally Protestants come from northern Europe - countries like Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and England, but they also convert large numbers of people in 3rd world countries too.
The Church of England is a different story altogether. They split from the Roman Catholic church a long time ago, but only about a political issue. Since then, they've been influenced heavily by Protestant doctrines. They consider themselves both Catholic and Protestant at the same time, and they've been working for hundreds of years toward reconciling their church with the Pope. The Anglicans and Episcopalians are both part of the same group.
Mormons are a uniquely American religion, and it's hard to say conclusively whether or not they are really strictly Christians at all. They consider themselves to be, but their beliefs are very strange to the ears of most other Christians.
What group you belong to is usually a matter of what nationality your parents were, not what your beliefs are. But at least you can see how it all got started.
That's all well and good, but does the supreme being understand why those who "read a different book" don't seem at all averse to killing the shit out of each other in his name?Quote:
Originally Posted by UxKa
The problem with the "different book" theory is that if there is one "supreme being"--he has GOT to have one message and one message only--but we really do not, nor seem to want to, know what it is. Ultimately, in my opinion, that is THE problem with people who don't just believe in god, but feel the need to have big books read to them by people who take that shit and spout their BS as gospel interpretations--they ACT on the shit, pass on the lies and the interpretations, and forcefeed their own demonspawn this crap, which exponentially grows this crap enough that you WILL have enough misguided zealots to completely fuck life up for EVERYONE else. And it is all based on a being and a practice (worship and faith) that should do nothing but bring people together and give them hope.
There are crazy people in every religion who kill in their "God's" name. Obviously, they have misread the message. Whether we're talking about Christians, Muslims, whatever, the majority do get the right message from their preferred book.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zip Goshboots
Nominal means "in name only".Quote:
Originally Posted by WTFchris
There's lots of folks who I'd class as vaguely Christian. They say they believe in a God and Jesus mostly to shut up whoever asks the question, but otherwise don't really think about faith at all.
I'd say that is about 80% of christians. And I include the fucks who go to church just to say they go in that group.Quote:
Originally Posted by Uncle Mxy
Zip is who I would go to if I wanted to get the pulse of Christianity.
Belief in a supreme being is a lot like the appendix. There might have been a time in the past when it was a critical survival tool but now just a vestigial notion you can remove and never miss it. And like the appendix, the fact that it remains means it can get inflamed and cause death.
Now tell them how geometry+bridges = no god.