this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2024
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I'm sorry that you were raised Catholic.
There shouldn't be a marriage of church and state, with that said, there are sects of Christianity that actually follow Christ's teachings and not the myriad laws and interpretations added over the ages though they are rare.
ok. 'original sin' is bullshit too. the thing is, you CAN be a good person without any of the supernatural stuff about "you must believe if you don't want to go to hell"
also, please name a sect of christianity for which one of the MAIN duties of the "good christian" is not to convert the world to christianity?
Greek Orthodoxy, Ethiopian Orthodoxy as well as the Coptic Christians
Much higher emphasis on taking care of people and being a caring person.
Not sure that's true. Christianity is pretty inherently evangelical. That's one of the big reasons why it spread so far.
If you want to have a historical discussion about this I would be more than open to that. I have spent many years studying abrahamic religions. The three sects of Christianity that I have mentioned are all prior to romanization of the church. The Catholic church is the foundation of almost all sects of Christianity, but the Catholic church is itself a splinter group from the original church that was a sect people who still thought of themselves as Jews and were not very open to outsiders. See the whole Jew versus gentile discussion in Acts. But the long of the short is that the Roman Catholic Church did not become a thing until roughly 200AD. And it was only after that point that it became the monster from the meme. Prior to that it was the religion of the poor and downtrodden because it promised a better life after you died. Which was in direct contrast to the Roman religions where you had to pay in to get to heaven.
I'm about to go to sleep, but that's not even close to correct.
Source?
The early Church would be gathering in people's private houses and back rooms with no admission fee and food and drink would be freely sheared in common.
For most popular religions such as the cult of Mars or Jupiter or even Judasim you were required to either give to the temple or provide sacrifices to the temple sacrifices are not cheap.
Goddammit. I'll elaborate when I wake up, but:
Roman religion did not have a clear or consistent view of the afterlife, much less a specific heaven. Everything from reincarnation, to lingering as a spirit, to oneness with divinity, to one common afterlife, to multiple places of the afterlife (Elysium/Asphodel Fields/Taratarus) was floated, and none of the views predominated, much less agreement on HOW one was sorted.
Sacrifices were very often done on behalf of the community, not as an individual matter, unlike "accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and savior". Religion was a public affair, not a private and spiritual one, some eclectic cults and philosophies aside.
Both individual and communal sacrifices were done to gain the favor of the gods for undertakings in the world of the living, not to curry favor for the afterlife
Mars and Jupiter were part of the Roman pantheon, and insofar as there were cults to them, they would not and should not be regarded as separate religions or sects
Christianity, and yes, this includes early Christianity, was very big on individuals giving up their worldly possessions to the Christian community.
Sacrifices and feasts were provided by most pagan religions to their communities. Christianity is not special in that regard.
You two seem to be talking past each other. They're merely saying history is complicated, and it is. There were far more peaceful Christian sects back in the day for the simple fact that there were A LOT more sects. Including ones that thought God was the bad diety.
They are correct in that many sects did not preach outreach and indoctrination, and you are correct in that most modern Christian sects are the dumbasses who did a lot of culling in addition to their "outreach".
Thank you for summarizing my thoughts
My main objection - and, in fact, in the original comment, my ONLY objection - was to their characterization of Roman religion.
I'm not discussing 'peaceful'. That was never on the board. I've not stated any position on whether Christianity, in part or whole, is peaceful. Evangelism means 'actively seeking converts'.
There's debate as to whether gnostics should be considered, in historical context, Christians.
Gnostics have not had a significant influence on the history of Christianity.
Gnostics still very much believed in proselytization.
Which ones? The Orthodox Churches, despite the other commenters claims, are far from opposed to outreach and indoctrination. The Coptic Church is only hesitant about outreach because of religious oppression in Egypt, not because of a theological difference.
wow, ok THREE even. do you belong to one of those sects?
Show me on the crucifix where the Catholics touched you. Greek Orthodox
LOL i was never catholic, i couldn't care less if you think your sect is superior to another-- it's ALL make-believe. santa claus for "grown-ups"
and you haven't yet addressed the core belief of original sin, which honestly, pounding that crap into kids' heads is child abuse if you ask me. here you are, a grown ass adult, genuinely believing that because you were born human, you and everyone else is paying the price for an equally make-believe storybook character's egregious crime of eating "forbidden fruit"
sure "it's allegory," whatever. the fall of man has to do with knowledge, somehow.
i really don't care about the details, because it's all bullshit anyway. and there's always someone there to preach about it. thank you for illustrating that point
Maybe you should have phrased it differently then because I didn't disagree when you said original sin is bullshit. Adam and Eve sined. That was their issue. You live your own separate life
Original sin is a Catholic teaching. So which flavor of Catholic are you? Were you a Methodist? A calvinist a Lutheran, a Baptist, a born-again or just generic American ist
and yet, because we are descended from that "original sin," we are subject to "sinful tendencies." whether our "sin" is an effect or a cause doesn't matter if sin itself is bullshit. which it is.
Again your Catholicism is showing. We're just people on a rock spinning through space as far as I was taught and the Orthodox Church is concerned.
Live your best life.
LOL what's the obsession with catholicism? and the obsession with "my christianity is best christianity"? ok fine. you win the prize for best sect LOL
i've been living my best life since i started thinking for myself and threw "god is true" out the window. it sounds like your life is already the best too. so kudos
You seem to have conflated Christianity and Catholicism. They are not exactly the same thing.
ok. all catholicism is christianity, but not all christianity is catholicism. so what? again, (and again and again), it's all bullshit. you're the one who can't stop bringing up catholicism, as if it's "not christianity"
if someone says "i'm christian," then that person is christian. there is literally nothing you or anyone else can do or say to refute that. that's how religion works. it's whatever the fuck you want it to be. that's why there's ~40,000 different christianities. someone was sitting in church and said "i don't like that" about some part of the sermon, and went off and started their own sect. this happens in all branches of all religions.
it doesn't even matter if you're waving around the same holy book as all the rest as "proof" of your beliefs. they're all bronze age fairy tales that someone pulled out of their ass and called it "holy scripture" or "divine providence" or the "word of god" or some other shit.
believe whatever you want. christianity is dying. ALL of them. and it's about fucking time the human species grew up and let their imaginary friends go