fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #1544 ]

[ SECRET POST #1544 ]

⌈ Secret Post #1544 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

This conversation seems to come up a lot on F!S, and I'd love some opinions on this, do you think Christianity is intolerant?

I'm not talking about Christian people, we know Christian people can be liberal, give to charity, and be all around kind people. We also know they can be intolerant, cause a lot of harm to society and use their "church" as an excuse to hate.

But does the Bible support the former or the latter? Or both? What about Christianity's historical past, has it done more harm or good?

Must you be "Christian" to have a relationship with God and Jesus? Is it better to shed a label with such a negative connotation or is it essential to your relationship with God that you stay with the Church?

As far as I'm concerned, being a Christian means believing in Christ and doing what He said to do. You know, things like "Don't judge if you don't want God to judge you", "God will choose who He wants to forgive, but you should forgive everyone", "If someone bullies you into doing something, then forgive them and give them even more than what they asked for", and so on. And this was coming from the guy who broke supposed commandments left and right, made friends with all kinds of supposedly bad-life people, and politely told religious leaders to go get stuffed whenever they started whining that He wasn't doing things right.

Christ Himself was the epitome of tolerance. What people have done with His teachings, however, is a whole other matter.

But for many Christians Christianity is not just one big "What would Jesus do?"

For many Christians the Bible is kind of an important thing. And the Bible is profoundly intolerant, hateful and violent. And no matter how people pick and choose which parts of the Bible they actually care about, no matter how much they insist on certain things not being literal ... fact is they still base their religion on a book full of hate, violence and, yes, intolerance.

So, if being a Christian just means being a good person, what do you even need Christ or God for? Just be a good person, don't do what you wouldn't other people to do to you, end of story. The moment you bring anything divine into it, you bring the seeds of intolerance, of "my point of view is not just my own, but it's inspired/dictated by God/some other higher power, and therefore inherently more valid than yours". Every religion is intolerant in its doctrine and set of beliefs.

Christians who put other parts of the Bible above the Gospels don't understand what being a Christian means, as far as I'm concerned. Especially when they put parts of the Old Testament above the Gospels, when the heart of Christ's message was that He was putting an end to the old ways and introducing news ways. Way to miss the point, really!

The moment you bring anything divine into it, you bring the seeds of intolerance, of "my point of view is not just my own, but it's inspired/dictated by God/some other higher power, and therefore inherently more valid than yours".

Every religion is intolerant in its doctrine and set of beliefs.

EveryBODY is intolerant in their morality and set of beliefs. There, corrected that for you.

I totally disagree. There's no need to be religious to believe that your opinion is inherently more valid that someone else's. For example, how many people use arguments such as "It's just common sense," or "It's just human decency" to judge others?

Oopsie, mixed my comment up apparently. The last paragraph is my answer to the first quote. Sorry about that.

Different anon.

I totally disagree. There's no need to be religious to believe that your opinion is inherently more valid that someone else's. For example, how many people use arguments such as "It's just common sense," or "It's just human decency" to judge others?

I agree with you that everyone is intolerant to a certain extent, I mean, everyone likes to believe they are right in their morals.

But I also feel that in religion it is more DANGEROUS in it's intolerance. You can't argue with faith. No matter how many facts, or studies, or logic you try to bring into it, if someone simply states that is their faith- you can't argue with it.

That is the dividing line between religion and any other sort of "knowledge". You can believe literally anything when it's your religion, but when you're dealing with more real world problems you need to have some sort of factual evidence to back you up.

Have you ever seen the movie Dogma? One of my favorite quotes from that movie is when Chris Rock talks about how it's better to have an idea then to have faith, ideas can change, faith can't.

You can't argue with faith. No matter how many facts, or studies, or logic you try to bring into it, if someone simply states that is their faith- you can't argue with it.

... Wow. Hum, I'll be honest: I don't know how to answer this. I mean, Christianity has been NOTHING over the last 2000 years if not a long, sometimes vicious, always nitpicky, impassioned DEBATE about faith, what it is, how it should work, between both people who had faith and people who didn't. There have been entire libraries written about faith, how it relates to the real world, how it should relate to scientific evidence or philosophical concepts and so on. So... WHUT O.o ??

That's kind of what I am saying though, sure there's still debate, but that's because there can NEVER be any sort of resolution. It's faith, it's not tangible, it's not logical, and when you try to debate it you're essentially just going around in circles.

If I say I believe the Tooth Fairy is real, and you give me evidence to the contrary, then I respond with, "I have faith the Tooth Fairy is real." There is nothing you can do about it. Evidence will not sway me, because I have faith.

That is what I mean when I say you can't argue it.

Why SHOULD there be any sort of resolution, though? What does it matter to you if people are swayed by your arguments or not? It sounds to me like what you want is not so much a discussion, but a (reverse) conversion...

Because people start wars and die for faith? Because they use it to impose their beliefs on others? Otherwise a healthy discussion is great.

Then impose limits on what religious people can legally DO. But don't aim at changing how they THINK, because you have no right to determine how other people should think.

I never said I wanted to change how people think. But okay, if we're going there- why is it wrong to want to change people though? I don't want people to think homosexuality is wrong, so I'd love to change everyone's mind on that.

I wouldn't want to ever FORCE someone to think a certain way, but if I could open people's minds to a new perspective, why not?

why is it wrong to want to change people though?

Because any change that comes from the outside has to be forced upon someone, which belies what you say next:

I wouldn't want to ever FORCE someone to think a certain way,

If someone thinks a certain way, then the only way you could MAKE them think another way would be through forcing them. That's totally different from offering them a new idea and letting them free to choose how to react to it. Maybe they will change their own mind, maybe they won't; either way, it should be their decision, and theirs alone.

but if I could open people's minds to a new perspective, why not?

Because it's not up to you to decide what people think. People should always be sovereign over their own mind. Offering new perspectives is obviously fine, but forcing people's mind to accept those new perspectives would be abusive.

After all, isn't it exactly what intolerant religions do? They tell people that there's only one right way to think, and that they must change their own opinions to agree with that one right way...

Re: Is Chrstianity intolerant?

(Anonymous) - 2011-03-27 05:52 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Is Chrstianity intolerant?

(Anonymous) - 2011-03-27 06:26 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Is Chrstianity intolerant?

(Anonymous) - 2011-03-27 07:05 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Is Chrstianity intolerant?

(Anonymous) - 2011-03-27 07:29 (UTC) - Expand

I define Christianity as "believing in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, sticking to the Ten Commandments, trying not to be a shitty person." I interpret the Bible allegorically. I don't think God zapped the world into exactly what it is today, I believe in evolution and Creation at the same time.
Christianity itself is pretty darn cool, IMO, it's just the way that some people have chosen to interpret it and act on what they think is true that's been very very hurtful to many different groups.
I identify as Christian, I don't go to church, I am very liberal and tolerant and try to be a decent person. Christianity, in my eyes, is not intolerant. My relationship with God has basically nothing to do with the Church at all.

But if you don't go to Church, are you really Christian? This is an honest question, as I've been told going to Church is an important part of the definition of being a Christian.

I think it's great that you have a good relationship with God, but do you need that Christian identifier?

I think the question I'm also wondering about is- what makes your definition of Christianity right and other people's definition wrong?

Ehhh, I think I'm a Christian even though I don't go to Church. Others may feel differently, but I don't care, because my faith, to me, is very personal.
I am not totally sure what you mean by "other people" in the context of whose definition is right or wrong. Can you clarify?

If faith is personal, why put the "I'm Christian" label on it though? Because then aren't you automatically aligning yourself with a certain group that has certain ideas that you may not hold to be true? Can't you have your faith without the label?

For instance, people who may believe going to church is part of being Christian, what makes you right and them wrong?

The "I'm Christian" thing is because, in essence, it's what I am. Christ-ian. (wow that sounds ultra corny but whatever) There are different ways to be Christian, I guess, because essentially "Christianity" is following Christ in one way or another. I haven't seen anyone argue with that.
I don't feel the need to identify as something other than "Christian" because I know what I believe and being under the same umbrella as, say, those responsible for the Crusades isn't much of a threat because I know I'm not like that, and people I discuss my faith with know I am not like that. I'm not aligning myself with them automatically because there are so many Christians on the planet that nobody (well, nobody smart) can possibly believe that they are all exactly the same. "Christian" is the simplest way of describing myself and I'm just comfortable with it.
In regards to Church, I don't know that I'm right. I treat my Christianity as more of a faith than a religion. Religion is something that you do routinely, like brushing your teeth, whereas faith is kinda just there in your heart (WOW CORNY whatever). I think worshipping in a church is a personal decision. I just never thought it was necessary. If God is omniscient and omnipotent, what's the point? Churchgoers aren't wrong, and neither am I. It's a personal decision. I hope that answers your question.

Yeah thanks for answering honestly. I can see where you're coming from but I still don't think I entirely "get it". That's not to say I don't get you but I'm still unsure about the Christian label and Christianity as a whole.

But everything you said about your personal faith makes a lot of sense.

Yes, because after all the purpose of Church is only to fellowship with other Christians, but I don't have to dress up and listen to a preacher babble on for a hour just to do that.

Christianity is based on writings from misogynist, homophobic, very closeminded people in the distant past

I think it's safe to say in and of itself it's intolerant

Christianity is also based on the writings of people adverse to eating pigs and crustaceans. Doesn't stop most people from modernizing their beliefs to fit their more current views of right and wrong.

In response to your claim that the writers of the bible were 'misogynist, homophobic, very close minded'(close minded is 2 words btw), I have a point of information (my boyfriend is an atheistic Religion major).

The collection of all books that are called 'The Bible' are actually translations of Greek texts, which themselves were translations of old Arabic texts that are no longer in existence.

You might be thinking "so what", but lets think about what we know about the ancient Greeks. We know that ancient Greece was divided into city-states and that the city-state of Athens in particular was were lots of intellectual type people lived. These intellectual type people are more than likely the type of people who translated 'The Bible' from Arabic to Greek.
We also know that love between 2 men in Athens was actually praised and seen as a really good thing. Ancient Greek does not actually have a term for homosexual, and even if 'The Bible' specifically brought up the issue of homosexuality, the Greeks would not have written anything inflammatory or negative about it.

The only reason that 'Christians' site 'The Bible' as an excuse for homosexuality is because someone decided to take a Greek text and have its translation say something that it was never intended to say.

If you actually think about 'The Church'(s) that use 'The Bible', they all originated from the first church started by 'Christ's followers, and that organization long predates the Greek 'Bible'.

The first Christians were actually very open minded. They all converted to the hippie 'love your neighbor' Christianity from various religions (like the Greeks and the Egyptians ones) that had know concept of acceptance of fellow man, or that all men are equal under God.

Also keep in mind that the original Christians were all members of the Jewish faith, a faith that historically has been almost always been fairly accepting of women and people of other faiths in comparison to its contemporaries.

Based on these facts (which are published in non-secular, academic journals by world class historians), it is safe to say that your argument that 'Christianity' is intolerant is completely unfounded.

Any and all 'misogynist, homophobic, very close minded' traits that are attributed to modern day 'Christians' have little to nothing to do with the faith itself, and are based on 'modern' impositions of belief onto a pre-existing 'Christian' faith system.

I define Christianity as the belief in the divinity of Jesus. I might even define Christianity as the belief that Jesus was more special and important than any other human being ever. The idea that someone who believes in Jesus but doesn't attend church and picks and chooses what they pay attention to in the bible is somehow in a completely different religious space than a bible-literalist church-goer seems like craziness to me as someone raise outside the realm of Jesus-thought. While there is significant difference between various sects and branches of Christianity, it all boils down to the same core beliefs and tenants. In fact, Jesus's own words in the bible stress that private prayer and belief are far more important than the social structures of church, so for a bible-literalist would NOT think that attending church was wholly necessary.

The idea that someone who believes in Jesus but doesn't attend church and picks and chooses what they pay attention to in the bible is somehow in a completely different religious space than a bible-literalist church-goer seems like craziness to me

And yet there it is. American political parties work the same way, isn't that funny?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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Is Chrstianity intolerant?

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