Religion: Christianity in the Spotlight...

[sport_122]

I went to a Christian college in TN where 2 of the core requirements were Old Testament and New testament, as unpleasent as it was, it was still good for me to finally figure out what "I" beleive.

For me to tell you that evolutionism is wrong would be overly provencial, as it would be to tell me that creationism ........i.e the christian "God", isn't real. I have had many heated discussions with many of my friends, usually ending with me arguing that God isn't real and that Evolution is undoubtebly the way we came about. But then I realized how crazy and stupid I sounded, not because I argued for evolutionism.......the fact that I was arguing about this made me realize that it wasn't my PLACE to argue, but to find the truth that made sense to me. It look back and realize that I just argued because I envied their(christians, muslim, etc.) stronger faith, because it made me feel that they had "found themselves" while I was still lost in a sea of confusion.

It is generally known that a true christian( or buddist, muslim, hindu)all have a high amount of faith in what they believe, for one reason or another. I actually had to take a step back and found that I frankly envy them, because I don't have that kind of faith in anything, unless I can see it, touch it, feel it, and or smell it. This is because I am a rational thinker, I can rationalize anything til it has been broken down to make sense in my mind. I don't fault myself for that, I just know that my faith is less, not weaker, than other people.

I sort of agree with you.

I guess the differences are that I believe that the Bible tells us that we are to be prepared to give reason for our belief and a denial of this very principle is why there are so many people who don't even understand the foundation of the relationship. Yes there is faith that is a part of it, but the faith that we should have should be made valid by the evidence that we can present for that faith. It doesn't mean that everyone will agree with it. It will mean that we are not stupid and blindly buying into something, but we are looking at what is provided as information and making a conscious effort to understand our beliefs. So I feel that believers are supposed to be able to argue their beliefs by the use of logic, science, and historical information and without those our beliefs become clouded and the truths associated with our faith get twisted because we can forget over time why we believe what we believe if we don't strengthen the core of our faith. And those who argue against faith are definitely going to twist our beliefs to make them seem archaic or invalid.

This is why I also believe it is very important to understand the history of the Bible and all of its translations. Mostly because it is not true to assume that the Bible has been passed along like a game of telephone. It hasn't. We still have almost all of the original texts in their greek/hebrew form and translations come from these, not from the last translation. The reason for the numerous translations, is because our language has evolved and in order to keep things current we have to be able to have the most accurate translation available because the Greek and Hebrew languages are extremely detailed languages and in many cases we can't directly translate into those languages as we could spanish or french. We just don't have the vocabulary for it. But most of the new translations come directly from the original texts, not a previously translated text. And we have to update translations because WE are changing all the time and we will have a huge disconnect if we did not.

I have always pushed myself in my beliefs, but the first thing I had to do was find out what was valid and what would be useful. If we write our faith off to just faith and ignore the history that is written (which we can't touch or feel, or ignore the philosophical information that cannot be touched with the senses then we will undercut the logic and rationality that really legitimizes the Christian faith. I personally don't agree with believers who say, its just faith, because based on the Bible we should be able to see and understand the evidence of its claims. Its not a book of science, but it is a book of progressiveness. As time goes on and we become more aware and we are allowed to investigate and gain understandings of those things written in the Bible. But we cannot do that if we feel that the Bible is made up of a people playing telephone. If I believed that then I would not believe any of it because there would be no way of telling what was made up and what was actually experienced.


BTW, where did you go to school? Covenant? Lee?

[highspeed]

I sort of agree with you.

I guess the differences are that I believe that the Bible tells us that we are to be prepared to give reason for our belief and a denial of this very principle is why there are so many people who don't even understand the foundation of the relationship. Yes there is faith that is a part of it, but the faith that we should have should be made valid by the evidence that we can present for that faith. It doesn't mean that everyone will agree with it. It will mean that we are not stupid and blindly buying into something, but we are looking at what is provided as information and making a conscious effort to understand our beliefs. So I feel that believers are supposed to be able to argue their beliefs by the use of logic, science, and historical information and without those our beliefs become clouded and the truths associated with our faith get twisted because we can forget over time why we believe what we believe if we don't strengthen the core of our faith. And those who argue against faith are definitely going to twist our beliefs to make them seem archaic or invalid.

This is why I also believe it is very important to understand the history of the Bible and all of its translations. Mostly because it is not true to assume that the Bible has been passed along like a game of telephone. It hasn't. We still have almost all of the original texts in their greek/hebrew form and translations come from these, not from the last translation. The reason for the numerous translations, is because our language has evolved and in order to keep things current we have to be able to have the most accurate translation available because the Greek and Hebrew languages are extremely detailed languages and in many cases we can't directly translate into those languages as we could spanish or french. We just don't have the vocabulary for it. But most of the new translations come directly from the original texts, not a previously translated text. And we have to update translations because WE are changing all the time and we will have a huge disconnect if we did not.

I have always pushed myself in my beliefs, but the first thing I had to do was find out what was valid and what would be useful. If we write our faith off to just faith and ignore the history that is written (which we can't touch or feel, or ignore the philosophical information that cannot be touched with the senses then we will undercut the logic and rationality that really legitimizes the Christian faith. I personally don't agree with believers who say, its just faith, because based on the Bible we should be able to see and understand the evidence of its claims. Its not a book of science, but it is a book of progressiveness. As time goes on and we become more aware and we are allowed to investigate and gain understandings of those things written in the Bible. But we cannot do that if we feel that the Bible is made up of a people playing telephone. If I believed that then I would not believe any of it because there would be no way of telling what was made up and what was actually experienced.


BTW, where did you go to school? Covenant? Lee?

I went to Lee University