Everyone, this is kum-ba-yah share thread. Let's keep the hostility to other threads and flame away over there. Thanks. ;)

"Let's be respectful of the choices of others."
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Come on people

@ yoink

"Your post reflected an affinity for Luther and the New Testament"

Luther posited that the Catholic Church was hopelessly corrupt, which during his time was an accurate statement. The Catholic Church was and continues to be the most organized Christian denomination. I believe that, in the case of organized religion, that level of organization is directly correlated with corruption of both God's message and the resources of contributing believers. My affinity for Luther is based solely on the fact that he was willing to stand up and say that the human-run Church was corrupt because it was spending too much money on itself, among other reasons (such as elaborate ceremonies that did nothing to further a churchgoer's relationship with God and preaching/teaching/Bible-writing in a language that common people could not understand)

My affinity for the New Testament is derived from my belief that it is the most pertinent part of the Bible as far as a Christian should be concerned. By definition, the main focus of Christianity is following the teachings of Jesus. To that end, we should devote the bulk of our energy to studying His earthly life/teachings in the New Testament (and other primary sources, if possible). The Old Testament remains relevant as historical context, but given a block of time in which I can devote to reading the Bible, I should allocate most of that time to reading the New Testament.

"[H]ow do you reconcile your personal faith with the New Testament picture of community?"

You are correct in that the New Testament depicts a picture of community, but I believe that a line is crossed when the Church begins spending resources on its own upkeep. Those resources should be redirected to the poor. As for Jesus' implicit/explicit instructions to form a community of faith, I don't believe he was talking about multimillion dollar megachurches.

Jesus never really preached from the inside of a temple (the megachurch of His era). Actually, the only time He ever went to a temple was to either argue with the Pharisees or to yell at people and flip a bunch of tables over (See: Jesus clears the temple). Jesus usually preached from wherever followers appeared, which was usually outdoors.

To that end, a very loose/fluid network of believers meeting on an ad-hoc basis (exactly how Jesus' original followers met) would be ideal for my beliefs. Also, I take issue with the idea that verbal/musical worship is necessary. Songs are great but they don't feed the poor or build houses for the homeless. I believe that Jesus would rather see us building houses and feeding poor people than sitting in a church and singing about how great Jesus is. Love for fellow men is the best form of worship there is.

@gunfighter Jesus did preach quite often in Synagogues, which I would compare to the "mom-and-pop"-church around the corner. Also, Lutherans as well as Reformed have a rather straight concept of church where the pastor is at the same level with the visitors. Most truly protestant churches build respect this (at least in Europe), but they also used former catholic ones with the more traditional structure, ofc.

I agree with you on the mega-church issue (and in particular on televangelists), which in my opinion are solely money-making machines. Their followers though chose these churches, so I guess they're fine with it.

Three cheers for the concept of 'Americanism' being used in the context of religion. I think money as your God, commercialism and/or capitalism are some of the most pervasive 'religious' / belief systems presently dominating our culture.

TrPrado:
"Aside from making more sense than Christianity, Islam DID offer a proof in favor of the existence of God that lays stronger than any proof against it."

Islam has a big advantage over Christianity in that its updated holy book is (so far as I'm aware) internally consistent. So it's perfectly normal for devout Christians to convert when faced with such a comprehensive update of Abrahamic monotheism.

Maybe I'm making an unwarranted assumption, but you shouldn't confuse internal consistency with logical proof. You said that you briefly lapsed into agnosticism. This tells me that you still wanted to believe in God, which makes sense, since when you lose your faith you become a different person. Perhaps your solution to keeping your face was to turn to Christianity 2.0, which could convincingly allay your doubts.

Not just logical consistency, but also proof. An actual proof. As in scientific, historical, and conceptual evidence.

Though, the logical consistency is also nice to have.

Whoops, replace that with internal on both. Don't mean to misquote you on anything there.

@ X3n0n

"Most truly protestant churches build respect this (at least in Europe)"

Not the case where I live, regrettably.

"Also, Lutherans as well as Reformed have a rather straight concept of church where the pastor is at the same level with the visitors."

I don't believe that a pastor is my spiritual "superior", I just don't believe that pastors serve a useful purpose in the context of my personal relationship with God. I will concede that they may be of use to others.

FWIW, I was christened a Methodist, but really brought up as Church of Scotland - my parents have both been Elders in the local church, and I was a Sunday School teacher.

I'd always had some doubts, but it was at University that I lost my faith. Came back for a bit, then left for good. I'm comfortably a strong agnostic variety of atheist, and have been for well over 20 years. I'm also comfortable with thinking that as long as others religious beliefs do not impact on others, what you believe is your choice

Jeff Kuta: You might find this thread interesting: threadID=641458. There are more personal stories.

TrPrado: No, that's alright. I was actually going to use the term 'logical consistency', but changed it because I thought 'internally consistent' was more true to what I was trying to say.

But it's interesting to hear that you are talking about "scientific, historical, and conceptual evidence." That sounds a lot like Roman Catholic doctrine with respect to miracles. Are you talking about miracles or something else?

Thanks for the response, gunfighter. I appreciate that you have thought about these things, and apparently at a fairly deep level. I understand and agree with much of your concern around mega churches. Unfortunately, many churches prioritize numbers over God, just like many Americans put money/security before him. To some degree this should be expected of sinful people getting together.

I do think Jesus's life reflects a need for some sort of community, but not necessarily a mega church. After all, he confirms Peter as the rock upon which the "church" or εκκλεσια would be built. That greek term is an intentional community of some sort.

Thanks, all, for the thoughts, and thanks for the support of the term "americanism"!

Wow, did I type conceptual? I meant contextual. And I'm not really familiar with Catholicism, but I don't think I'm talking about the same thing as miracles.

TrPrado: The Catholic Church attempts to prove miracles happened by ruling out scientific explanations for given events. The impossibility of real events is taken as evidence of God.

@JECE: Thanks for the link. Before my time here. I'll check it out when I've got a chance.

Oh, that's not at all what I was talking about, then.

TrPrado: I take it that you're reluctant to share your evidence?

I don't think religion and philosophy are actually different things, fundamentally. Both are theories on how humans should do things. With that in mind, I don't actually have a philosophy/religion, at least, not a described one. I do things, and I generally have reasons to, but sometimes not. I also don't do things, and I often, but not always, have reasons for that too. I try to have as many reasons as possible. Any more than that would feel like an arbitrary limitation to me, though I can't deny a rigid structure can be handy sometimes. I like reading about philosophies and religions, because they can provide reasons.

Yeah, I remember being told by some teacher way back in what must have been Elementary School that if I didn't have a religion I should still write down my beliefs as a reference for the future (so that my views wouldn't shift to the Dark Side at some point, I guess). But I've always been afraid to do that since there's always something you can forget, so that if you write down most everything else it's actually more likey that you'd completely forget whatevet you didn't get on paper.

Personally I'd be afraid it would slow down my changes in personal philosophy, which would be a shame. I remember what I was like when I was a kid, and I was a complete asshole, and if I kept myself to the same standards I did then, I'd still be a complete asshole, rather than the partial one I am now.

I'll quibble a bit. Philosophy and religion are different. Philosophy can simply be an exploration of thought and possibilities. Religions espouse moral behavior consistent with a belief system. Ethics is a branch of philosophy which deals with behavior, but philosophy as a whole is more expansive.

Good point, I guess that should have been Ethics. Also, standard definitions of a religion generally expect some form of executive power or a form of social element (armies, the power to cause ostracism, that stuff), though that's mostly based on Abrahamic religions, and there are things we call religions that don't actually have anything of the sort.