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I am religious and believe in free will

70 (27.6%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

113 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (24%)

Total Members Voted: 249

[Strongpoint]

Like what it boils down to-- why should I care about what the fundamentalists think of me for being myself, if my chosen sect is progressive and accepts me, and I consider it "the real Christianity"? 

It is not merely what fundamentalists think. It is what the Bible says. Just because you and your chosen sect chose to ignore certain parts of the bible (for the better), it doesn't mean that those words will disappear from the source material and that the next generations won't extract homophobia and other bullshit from that vile book. 

If you made the first steps and rejected parts of the Bible, why limit yourself and don't reject all of them? Because those are of your liking? Create a non-biblical moral code then. What stops you?

PS. What is being a Christian? How do you define it?

[MaxTheFox]

Actually the part about killing people for gay sex was mistranslated from the original. Originally it referred to "sex with a boy", i.e a minor. It was written against the Green and Roman practice of pederasty, which really was the only kind of homosexuality common in the time and place it was written in, and thus is not comparable to modern homosexuality. It's like the Old Testament prohibition of pork. Nobody's going to Hell for eating a hamburger.

What stops me from just rejecting it all is that I actually think most of the New Testament is alright. And I want to believe in an afterlife. Just feels right to me ya know. Of course nothing is stopping me from making my own religion or moral code. But I don't care enough to spend effort on doing so. This is good enough for me.

And being a Christian just means taking Jesus' teachings to heart. You don't have to follow the rest of the Bible word-for-word. Most fundamentalists don't do that-- and I have a hunch most of them haven't actually read the Bible and just follow what their pastor tells them, and he has his own agenda. Not much I can do about it so I don't feel guilty for having them in the same faith.

[Strongpoint]

Actually the part about killing people for gay sex was mistranslated from the original. Originally it referred to "sex with a boy", i.e a minor. It was written against the Green and Roman practice of pederasty, which really was the only kind of homosexuality common in the time and place it was written in, and thus is not comparable to modern homosexuality. It's like the Old Testament prohibition of pork. Nobody's going to Hell for eating a hamburger.

You are asserting a well-known assumption as a fact. I think this assumption is quite dubious.

What could Jew Paul, who was used to the expression "man lying with men as with a woman" mean when using a compound word arsenokoitēs where arsen = “male,” and koite = “bed”? Yeah, pedophiles look like the most likely explanation.

I see creative translations as an attempt to modernize the Bible, to make it fit in the modern word.

Also, "homosexuality is unacceptable" can be seen in the whole idea of the image of god and a "proper" family.

And outright rejecting Old Testament... let's say not that many people will agree that you are a Christian after that.

What stops me from just rejecting it all is that I actually think most of the New Testament is alright. And I want to believe in an afterlife. Just feels right to me ya know. Of course nothing is stopping me from making my own religion or moral code.

So you don't reject morals of the New Testament you agree with? Maybe... Just maybe... Your morals have nothing to do with the New Testament? Maybe it IS your own moral code?

Also, I'd love to have some form of non-stagnant immortality (Heaven looks awful), too. I'd love to believe it. I just don't. Wanting something to be true is not a good enough reason to believe that it is true.

And being a Christian just means taking Jesus' teachings to heart. You don't have to follow the rest of the Bible word-for-word.

Now that is an interesting definition.

Do you believe that Jesus is the son of God, our Lord and Savior who died for our sins, was resurrected, and will come again to bring the Kingdom of God? Not a wise man (some atheists believe that) not a prophet (Muslims believe that) but the bolded part.

[MaxTheFox]

Actually the part about killing people for gay sex was mistranslated from the original. Originally it referred to "sex with a boy", i.e a minor. It was written against the Green and Roman practice of pederasty, which really was the only kind of homosexuality common in the time and place it was written in, and thus is not comparable to modern homosexuality. It's like the Old Testament prohibition of pork. Nobody's going to Hell for eating a hamburger.

You are asserting a well-known assumption as a fact. I think this assumption is quite dubious.

What could Jew Paul, who was used to the expression "man lying with men as with a woman" mean when using a compound word arsenokoitēs where arsen = “male,” and koite = “bed”? Yeah, pedophiles look like the most likely explanation. "Arsen" could also mean boy, and again there was basically no non-pedophilic homosexuality at the time so they could have only meant pederasty. It just wasn't really a thing in their society. Hence the prohibition was to stop the practice of pederasty.

I see creative translations as an attempt to modernize the Bible, to make it fit in the modern word.

Also, "homosexuality is unacceptable" can be seen in the whole idea of the image of god and a "proper" family. "Proper" if you want procreation yes. The modern world does not have a drastic need for procreation unlike that era.

And outright rejecting Old Testament... let's say not that many people will agree that you are a Christian after that.  I don't outright reject all of it, I just hold it to higher scrutiny than the rest.

What stops me from just rejecting it all is that I actually think most of the New Testament is alright. And I want to believe in an afterlife. Just feels right to me ya know. Of course nothing is stopping me from making my own religion or moral code.

So you don't reject morals of the New Testament you agree with? Maybe... Just maybe... Your morals have nothing to do with the New Testament? Maybe it IS your own moral code? No, the New Testament basically lines up with my morals enough for me to not say I reject it.

Also, I'd love to have some form of non-stagnant immortality (Heaven looks awful), too. I'd love to believe it. I just don't. Wanting something to be true is not a good enough reason to believe that it is true.

And being a Christian just means taking Jesus' teachings to heart. You don't have to follow the rest of the Bible word-for-word.

Now that is an interesting definition.

Do you believe that Jesus is the son of God, our Lord and Savior who died for our sins, was resurrected, and will come again to bring the Kingdom of God? Not a wise man (some atheists believe that) not a prophet (Muslims believe that) but the bolded part.
Yes. But that is in addition to what I said.

See, I take most of it as applying literally only to the culture it was originally aimed at. The modern world does not need to prohibit homosexuality as there are equal, non-pedophilic gay relationships which are harmless. The modern world does not need a procreation-focused family when adoption exists (and eventually artificial wombs will exist). And so on, and so on. Common sense trumps the more restrictive stipulations.

[jipehog]

As for the historical Jesus, yes, it's quite likely he existed. The Jewish author Josephus wrote about him within a century of his death, though the narrative was likely corrupted/edited by subsequent Christian interpolators.

yes, in other words historical Jesus =/= Biblical Jesus.

Interestingly the Biblical Jesus, the monumental figure that achieve such extraordinary and awe-inspiring miracles, is not mentioned by any historian of his time and century later. Although there were several historians that covered Jewish affairs at the time, with several records of other proclaimed messiah who caused trouble and got killed by the Romans, couple of them even had similar story elements to the Biblical Jesus like making miracles and helping the poor.

Otherwise I believe that the story of Biblical Jesus and his teachings were created and evolved over a couple centuries later, by highly educated urban elites and had little to do with historical Jesus the Jewish man who was born and raised in Galilee with his fishermen disciples. At the time early Christians were few and poorly treated by Jewish communities, and were actively seeking to convert pagans (as in rural or non-Jewish folks) and had theological conversation with them. I believe that this process brought about many pagan influences and made Christianity more accessible and ultimately such a success.

[delphonso]

There's one theory that the only one who did exist around the time was Paul, who presented Christ similar to how channels present their...aliens or whatever they think they're talking to. The messiah claimants were common, as they still are today, so Jesus's story might be a conglomeration of several of them, after Paul's teachings got some traction.

[McTraveller]

Well yes there is interpretation and then there is Interpretation.  Let's take the "all people are made in God's image, therefore all ways people exist today are Good."  Even if you take the creation story as allegory, what you see there is the initial creation was Good, but that was before the fall.  And the fall wasn't "eating the apple" the fall was "putting yourself in the place of God."  They will also happily say "all people in this class are created in God's image, because we like that class" but they don't say "alcoholics and gamblers are made in the image of God!"

So everything we have is a corruption of the original state.  Even "hetero-normative" sexuality is corrupted.  When humanity tries to play god, we inevitably get it wrong - and this includes when we try to claim we know exactly what God is saying, through scriptures or otherwise.

There's a large number of folks that don't quibble about the specifics of "oh the text meant only this type of sexual perversion, not this one, so I'm justified".  In fact, the whole point of "we are OK to do this because..." is the actual debilitating sin - it's saying "we know better, we're the arbiters of what is Good and Evil, not God."

So "being" non-normative isn't the sin.  Having urges and tendencies isn't a sin even. Living your life pursuing those tendencies, and thinking that they're ok just because they are the things that make you feel good about yourself and the world, without considering if those align with a general right relationship with other people and a right relationship with God, that is the sin.  I believe you can be a non-heteronormative Christian just as you can be an alcoholic Christian, or a porn-addicted Christian, or even a murderous Christian.  At the end of the day the question is, are you serving yourself (or the world), or are you glorifying God?  Are you missing the mark?

And yes, Jesus did supposedly say that it wasn't just "acting" on things that is sinful, it's what's going on in your heart - the whole "if you think about hurting people, it's murder. If you lust after someone in your heart, it's adultery" stuff.  It's hard and and it doesn't often feel good - but it's not about our feelings. A big miss on modern (especially US) Christianity is it seems to put things too much on the individual - when it's a pretty easy read of the Bible (both Old and New Testaments) to see that it's all about the glory of God and the relationship of all of humanity with God - sure you have some individual benefit, but that's a side benefit, not the main point!  Jesus main message wasn't "you are individually saved" it was "the Kingdom of Heaven is here!"  A kingdom is corporate, not individual.

At the end of the day you either believe there is a standard outside yourself or only inside yourself. You believe it's either absolute or it is contingent on circumstance (social, cultural, situational, doesn't matter).

[Frumple]

And outright rejecting Old Testament... let's say not that many people will agree that you are a Christian after that.

Eh... huge swaths of protestantism does that to varying degrees, at a minimum? There's actually a lot (like, probably multiple hundreds of millions) of people that call themselves christian that reject some or all of the old testament's laws and strictures, and other parts of it to varying degrees as well.* Something something new covenant something.

Can't even say I blame 'em, with all due respect to judaism the old testament is incredibly fucked up on a lot of levels. Yeeting those writings (get rid of revelations while you're at it, it'll do you good) from your metaphysics drops a ton of really nasty baggage.

* ... not necessarily consistently, mind, but if you're expecting consistency from christianity (or any religion, for that matter) you haven't been paying attention, heh.

[Strongpoint]

And outright rejecting Old Testament... let's say not that many people will agree that you are a Christian after that.

Eh... huge swaths of protestantism does that to varying degrees, at a minimum? There's actually a lot (like, probably multiple hundreds of millions) of people that call themselves christian that reject some or all of the old testament's laws and strictures, and other parts of it to varying degrees as well.* Something something new covenant something.

Yes... but no. There is always stuff like "This and this from Old Testament no longer applies because (insert a long and convoluted theological explanation)" or "That part of the Old Testament is an allegory and should not be taken literally. It actually means..." but outright rejecting Old Testament as the inerrant word of God is not typical Christianity.

[Scoops Novel]

On death and consciousness:

Lights out is really simple for something that IS light.

[Rolan7]

I dreamed I was an angel again last night.  I've heard it's a common thing for some people.  Combines ideas of horrifying "beauty", alienation from humanity, and duty.  Plus who doesn't love metaphorical wings and extra arms?

[Frumple]

Depends on what the wings and arms are made of, really...

[Rolan7]

Extra eyeballs are so previous-cycle.  These wings were made of finely-resonating hair, sonar-mapping my surroundings while sending and receiving on various comm channels.

My "eyes" were just painted slits~  My entire head was no more than a terrifying visage and decoy target.
I actually only had the two arms this time, though.  I like my arms.

[jipehog]

its like you were raised by wolfs

[hector13]

That’s how you found empires.