Welcome to the forum.

Do you believe in God? specifically Jesus is the son of God?

I wouldn't call Karl Marx pure, but Ayn Rand is pure evil. Anyway, welcome to the forums!

Welcome RedMenace! Thank you for taking the time to introduce yourself and hope you will explore the forums and participate in some of the ongoing discussions. Make yourself at home and enjoy the community.

TheRedMenace,

Welcome TheRedMeanace! Actually you make perfect philosophcial material, just when an individual thinks he/she has gotten it all figured out something comes along to knock it ass over apple cart. I am sure you will enjoy yourself here as others will enyoy you. Again welcome!! We are all pleased you have chosen to join us! boagie

I do believe in God as a force more than a guy in the sky. I believe who are we to limit the form of something so superior to something comprehensible to our eyes. I recently read this article that said of the known universe we are limited to the point that we can only detect 1% of it implying that there is 99% more universe in every object that we see than what we can see. My brother believes that is "the Force." My friend thinks it's ether. I believe it is God. My finding God was not exactly logical or rational and for that I have some discomfort but it hasn't matched up to the happiness I have found through it.

As to Jesus. I believe Jesus was the greatest philosopher in the history of the world. In addition he was one of the only truly enlightened man ever. I believe he was a man of God. Son isn't quite right. Prophet isn't right either. The theory that he was God incarnate seems closest to the truth. I don't believe he was God but something very close.

Yeah I guess nor would I call Karl Marx pure as a person but his ideals were something that can evoke purity in people. I still have a picture of him with his face blacked out just a small joke because you cannot witness the face of God and have your life be preserved. I consider him a teacher. Knowledge of things you have no ability to do. Doesn't quite know how to do something but he can teach you how to.

And Im glad we agree on our dislike for Ayn Rand who considers altruism to be the root of all evil.




Thank you. Sounds like I'll have a lot of fun on this forum.


Anyone know when I can post threads not the introduction?

Justin will flag you through if he has not already, give it a try he probably has already done so. Again welcome to the forum!!

Welcome aboard!! Where in Russia do you live?

oh yeah, welcome! im new too so im not sure if im qualified to be giving welcomes, but there's one all the same..

Out of interest, what makes you call yourself Christian (or sorry, what makes you move towards Christianity) As opposed to say, calling yourself a Buddhist, or joining Amnesty International or World Vision? I think Christianity has an overall fantastic message, and i can't agree more with "It's about caring for all as you would for yourself, being a servant to others, and about being willing to make a sacrifice for the well being of others.", but if you don't believe in the Holy Trinity as stated, it's not strictly Christianity..

Also (and i'm sorry to be doing this in your welcome thread, is there another place?), i think your definition of God is more logical, but at what point does it stop being God as described either in the Christian faith, or in the traditional tri-omni sense, and start being an as yet undiscovered chapter of physics? Am i right in guessing that God for you implies a supreme 'goodness' over and above the mystery?

actually this should be in another place, i'll make another thread.

Very good questions. It sounded kind of insulting when you said what makes you call yourself a Christian sounded like what gives you the right but assuming it wasn't intended to be an insult I will answer

I never said I didn't believe in the Holy Trinity. I was asked about how I thought of God and Jesus as His son and so I gave my beliefs of those two not the Holy Spirit. My belief of God is that He is not some guy with a white beard and a big white robe and He lives in the clouds. I think that is a very primitive image of God. My belief is that when the Bible says He made man in His image He made us with the ability to be pure. Our nature is in His image. He made us with that ability to follow His teachings. Also in His image in my opinion means He feels love and compassion and the ability to forgive just as He gave us the ability to do. I do believe God is conscious so He's not a force like gravity is a force. He's nothing like any force we can detect or describe. And God still judges man and still forgives and loves. The fact that God is conscious means He will never be just another chapter in the Physics books.

I love Buddhism. What keeps me from following it is that I don't believe in it. I looked into every religion. I actually looked at them so I had a better case against them. I liked some. Liking it didn't make me believe it. I initially didn't like Christianity. I thought they used fear of Hell as a weapon to make people behave. My friend, sweetest person in the world, always tried talking to me and I didn't start to believe. I started to become less stubborn. I was open minded and she offered to have me go to church. When i went to church and listened, truly listened, I felt God's presence and it was heavy. I felt a happiness inexplicable. An amazing feeling and became absorbed into the teaching. Found the communism in Christianity which made it so much easier to embrace. And that is why I did not choose other religions like Amnesty International or World Vision.

Accepting the Trinity is not a necessary condition for being Christian; accepting the Trinity is a sufficient condition.

Personally, I do not dogmatically accept the Trinity. If we are talking theology, I'll probably argue against the Trinity. However, I also find the Trinity to be a useful spiritual practice. I consider myself a Christian; I read Christian scripture. It's more accessible to me. But I also have read small portions of Buddhist scripture, and make a habit of reading books on Buddhism. I don't imagine that Christianity is 'true' and Buddhism isn't - they're both wonderful vehicles, as are many other religions.

Well I to an extent agree. I kind of feel under attack here. Agreeing with you allows me to love Buddhism. I've read Buddhist and Toa scriptures. You don't have to believe in something to learn from it. I've learned a lot from Buddhism and has lead to the person I am. But learning from something doesn't make you believe in it. I also learned from Christianity. I believe you can learn from a variety of religions. I simply believe in one. As far as one right and all the others wrong I don't think of it that way. I think most religions teach great things and make great people. I think religion is about the teachings more than the stories. Which makes most religion not false.

Thanks for replying TRM, yes please i don't mean ANY offence whatsoever, i find it very hard to not sound nasty sometimes because i have a very direct writing style that is easy to interpret as being offensive, and i don't hold back on asking questions. I think i make the mistake of treating a religious discussion like a philosophical one, religion is not philosophy. I think it might be impossible to ask questions about a religious belief without sounding accusatory, or belittling, whereas you could question my philosophical beliefs and i wouldn't bat an eyelid. Questioning religion by nature is offensive, and thankyou for your good-natured reply.

In explanation, i was brought up Catholic in a very strict Catholic school (well, strict by Catholic standards, anyway). And we were taught very specific beliefs, that Jesus IS the son of God, the transubstantiation, the ascension, the resurrection, basically everything in the Nicene Creed: English versions of the Nicene Creed in current use - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. It was very hard for me to reconcile these beliefs (and others) with my otherwise acceptance of Catholic teaching and its social stance, the general teachings of Jesus (love one another) etc. Personally, i don't call myself Christian because i don't believe in these core beliefs, and i don't believe in God.

The whole reason i asked initially is because in your original post it sounded like you might have been in a similar place, since you mentioned mainly the Christian social teachings and practice, not so much the stricter beliefs of the Creed. But Catholicism is very forgiving of belief in general, for instance Genesis was taught to me as a story, not a history, even much of Jesus' life was taught as much as a parable as the parables themselves. There was definitely an emphasis on the message of the bible, not the words of the bible, and there was very little mention of hell, in fact i think you have to work very hard not to go to heaven, and even then Jesus will forgive if you're sincere.

I also have to answer "what makes you call yourself a Christian" because that did sound bad, i'm sorry, that's not how i meant it.. I did mean it in the context of "in comparison to some other religion or group that has social teachings", perhaps a better question would have been "why did you choose Christianity.." But you answered it anyway, and it makes sense. I do have more questions, but this isn't the forum and it's not my place to question someone else's religious belief.

Sorry again, and again, welcome

You need not apologize. If I was certain you were attacking me I would not have said you were. I would have retaliated. I just was unsure if you were intentionally doing so. It's really quite alright.

I suppose I am not a true strict Christian in that I accept Christianity more so as a teaching than the stories of the bible. I do believe in the stories of the bible but I do not place an emphasis on them in my beliefs. I believe more stories in the bible are metaphorical than what we accept as true. For instance one story that most all Christians accept is Jesus walking on water. I studied Buddhism before I studied Christianity and when that came up it reminded me of a memorable Buddhist quote. "Man cannot walk on water because they walk on water as if they attempt to walk on water. The truly enlightened man can walk on water for he walks on water as if he were attempting to walk on land." Not exact quote I don't believe but very close and I believe Jesus walking on water was a metaphor for him being what he was. A truly enlightened man.

Do you believe in the stories of the bible? Isn't it essential to believe in God to be called a Catholic or Christian.

Is this a historical argument or is it an argument based on current practice and theology? Are there Christians in the world who reject the Trinity and aren't some recent 1 generation fringe group? If your use of the word Christian refers to those who meet that definition in AD 2008, that is a different denotation than Christian as referring to groups before, say, the first Council of Nicea.

Primarily a historical argument. However, I wouldn't call those historic Christians a fringe group - prior to Nicea, Trinitarianism was fringe and almost exclusively promoted by Athanasius and his Alexandrian camp. Even after Nicea, many of the Bishops returned to their homes to continue preaching as before - without adopting the Trinity. The Arian heresy persisted for many hundreds of years after Nicea, most notably among European barbarians.

Trinity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jehovah's Witness, Mormons and Unitarians are, apparently, modern examples of organized nontrinitarianism.

No i don't, Yeah i'm sure it is essential, and i don't call myself a Catholic or a Christian.

cool, another athiest who turned relgious. I don't see that a lot to be honest (then again, I turned religious even though I was an athiest child)
Karl marx was an athiest himself. He was a great fan of darwin and devoted his book Das Kapitas (the capital) to darwin. I like some of Marxs values, but some don't work, for example, extinguishing religion. Chuh? I thought religion was supposed to start wars? (I obviously dont believe that religion does start wars). I think when it comes to poliical thought, I quite like the practise of early christians. They were like communists, but they based a community on friendship and love. Maybe they were socialists. I think there are good and bad parts to communism and capitalism. I think that economies should be based somewhere in the middle of the two theories.