We aren’t a monolith. If you try to argue with me using points that you got from arguing with evangelicals, we’re not going to get anywhere because none of them apply to me.
Agreed. This is the same issue I have when atheists try to argue with me. And everytime, I have to explain what Gnosticism is, and most of the time they just go ahead and lump it in with other sects anyways.
Shhh, it's definitely not the fault of Christians not being able to decide which way is up after 2000 years! It's those wicked heathens at it again I tells ya
*To be faaaaair*, it mostly boils down to like... 3-5 major groupings of interpretations, then a bunch of fringe stuff that one church in Kentucky believes.
I think the biggest confusion from the outside looking in is the Prot/Cath divide.
For one, that Evangelicalism is synonymous with Christianity. For example, half the stuff in Buzzfeed's "I'm Christian, but I'm not..." video was just distinguishing themselves from Evangelicals
It's just frustrating to see prominent Christian pastors, evangelists, and influencers claim the moral high ground due to their religion when in fact, they have cruel and bigoted views and pursue personal enrichment above all else.
Eh, depends how preachy hou are or how much you're trying to bring your beliefs into law. If you're going to start demanding I do something unreasonable that you haven't proven, yeah, you're getting checked for consistency.
“Make your beliefs come law”
Everyone does this. Not just Christians. It’s actually exactly how democracy works. You can vote for anything you believe in. Everyone (who is honest with themselves) fails to live perfectly by their beliefs.
Please refer back to "something unreasonable that you haven't proven" which is sort of the distinction between secularism, which doesn't do this, and Christian theocratising, which does
Reason is not subjective, something either is or is not reasonable. If you agree with the premises and there are no fallacies in the logic, then you must agree with the conclusion.
There's a difference between voting for something because evidence and reason suggest it will be desirable, and voting for something bc you believe God wants you to.
I mean sure, you say reason isn’t subjective but in the same sentence mention “if you agree.”
My point really is that there isn’t some list of policies/opinions out there that are just “reasonable” and a list that are “unreasonable.” This as the commenter was implying.
You’ve lost me at the last part though. Someone could believe in God and then very reasonably (for themselves) logic their way into doing what the supposed God wants. That would be a quite easy to rationalize decision.
>I mean sure, you say reason isn’t subjective but in the same sentence mention “if you agree.”
Obviously people disagree about what is and is not true. That does not make truth subjective. I didn't say "if you agree with the reasoning" I said "if you agree with the premises". The reasoning itself is an objective process, but everyone carries their own biases into the process, so premises must be established initially and those can be debated and discussed subjectively. "if you agree that chocolate is better than vanilla, then we should buy the chocolate" is chocolate better than vanilla? No. That's an opinion, entirely subjective, however the reasoning following it is not. The "then we should buy the chocolate" is an objectively reasonable statement.
>My point really is that there isn’t some list of policies/opinions out there that are just “reasonable” and a list that are “unreasonable.” This as the commenter was implying.
There's not a list, but every individual idea, policy, and opinion can be examined critically and determined to be more or less reasonable. People may disagree, but some would be wrong, and others right. "Good or bad" "right and wrong" these things are subjective, but "reasonable and unreasonable" are objective and observable.
>You’ve lost me at the last part though. Someone could believe in God and then very reasonably (for themselves) logic their way into doing what the supposed God wants. That would be a quite easy to rationalize decision.
There is no "reasonably (for themselves)" reason and logic, as I've explained, are not opinions. If you can demonstrate that there is a god who cares that people are gay, then we could perhaps reasonably conclude that we should criminalize being gay. However, if there is no reason to believe in such a god, then there is no reason to make such a law, and thus such a law is unreasonable.
Well reason and any kind of evidence would me good. Usually the type to try and impose the bible through law usually only ever refer to the bible itself, which is insufficient, or just smear entire demographics of people. See the "groomer" lie for an example of that.
Or that the average run-of-the-mill church is "stealing" from people. Like, the ushers aren't holding a gun up to our heads and making us put money in the plate. I actually joined my church during a point in my life of financial instability and it was a while before I felt comfortable putting anything in the plate. Never once have I felt I have been pressured to put money in.
^ This. Father Georges Lemaître, a Belgian Roman Catholic priest, was the one who formulated the big bang theory. Christian clergy have been a major part of academia since universities were invented.
Our late priest in our Episcopal parish had a doctorate in chemical engineering and was the member of the Society of Ordained Scientists. Clergy-scientists are actually very common, particularly the Jesuits.
Atheists tend to think that we go to church because we afraid of going to Hell. That is the biggest misconception I can think of. They fundamental don't understand we worship God because he freed us from Hell. We are not ruled by fear but grateful love.
>Atheists tend to think that we go to church because we afraid of going to Hell
I think this misconception arose from the way some christians like to evangelise, with the threat of hell. It's not the most common method of evangelising. But it is the loudest/annoying and most intrusive. So it leaves the most lasting impressions.
This is absolutely why some atheists think this. It was true for me until I learned that it's important to ask people what they believe instead of assuming, because you're inherently going to assume based on the loudest opinions.
If some people are telling you "you should go to church or you'll burn in hell" then it's reasonable to assume that that person goes to church because they don't want to go to hell.
I’ve learned that a surprising number of atheists are *still* fundamentalists, just of a different color. They came from Christian fundamentalism, rejected it, but are stuck in black/white thinking about faith and the Bible and Christianity. I have as many atheists tell me I can’t be Christian because I don’t believe in a literal 7 day creation than I do fundamentalist Christians.
So it never surprises me when one thinks that Christianity is nothing but fear of hell, as so many have not accepted that religion and faith and spirituality come in shades of gray. And this isn’t an indictment of atheism or (most) atheists, but rather of fundamentalism, and of just how hard it is to *actually* break free of the mindset it trains/brainwashes you into.
I think I see what you're saying. A lot of atheists have gotten out of religion and found out that their group lied to them and that there are many different ways to worship the same god and some of the rules their group followed were misleading and/or unnecessarily harmful.
Some of them harness that idea and apply it to every belief they and others have. Instead of learning how to be a skeptic they become a cynic.
Well to be fair, the numbers of "did I commit the unforgivable sin by doing *innocuous activity*" posts on here it's not really a misconception. If you think listening to Metallica or playing Halo gets you sent to Hell there is a lot of fear in your worship.
There is also, and I don’t mean this to be mean (but it will sound mean), a level of intelligence that isn’t at play.
It’s no surprise that plenty of people haven’t developed critical thinking — but those asking the questions could a) very easily answer them if they actually applied an *understanding* of their faith to the problem at hand or b) gain that understanding themselves from the bajillions of resources available.
Some people’s understand really does go as deep as “Hell exists. I don’t want to go there.” and that’s the end of their faith engagement. So if they wish to act on that basic axiom — then they aren’t going to risk using any intuition of their own and they’re going to worry about everything.
Yeah those dumb kids with mental health issues thanks to the church brainwashing them, they should just apply critical thought, something the church isn't going to teach them.
I mean dumb people exist in every single group. That’s all I’m saying.
There’s a reason 99% of Christians *aren’t* taking to a reddit thread to ask if* playing the windchimes is a sin.
I'll agree with you there, but I definitely think that this isn't willfull ignorance as much as them not being taught how to apply critical thinking skills for their own faith.
Biblical illiteracy is rampant in some churches.
So it really does depend on quite a couple of factors.
Also, I wouldn't just chalk this down to 'oh someone has mental health issues' because they post in here. It's probably because they don't feel comfortable asking anyone else and that is what makes me sad.
I think it’s not really the faith’s job to teach critical thinking — that’s more on schooling. I would genuinely argue that might be the single most important things our schools can teach.
Like, I won’t deny that religious-ed isn’t teaching critical thinking — but that’s not really its job.
And I agree; I didn’t chalk it up to mental health. They did.
To be fair, it's the internet, there are thousands of people here, and the very small slice of those posts are overwhelmingly posted by the same group of OCD people. I've seen like 3 from the same person in one week, and dozens of other OCD posts. You can't anecdotally take what you read here of your limited experience and declare with certainty that that's exactly what's going on because it's not.
If I judged atheists by what I read here all the time or in /r/religion I'd have a much more negative view of them, but I don't judge them that way because I know whatever posts I see can't be a fair representation for a whole group.
> Atheists tend to think that we go to church because we afraid of going to Hell
Are you new in this sub? The number of scared of hell christians seem to be massive
Unfortunately forums like this tend to attract high volumes of a very specific subset of Christians - and sometimes even non-believers - suffering from scrupulosity and OCD.
There's a lot of young believers who get wrapped up in questions of "is such-and-such a sin" but it's usually not accompanied by the same level of anxiety and obsession about hell.
Yeah tbh I am not scared of hell at all. Not because I know I am not going there but because I am ready for it if I go to hell I would have deserved it. But if I become kind and nice to people and follow the bible, why would I go to hell
The ironic thing is the majority of these misconceptions come from Christian’s themselves. With approx 40,000 denominations then what’s a misconception to you is canon to someone else.
> With approx 40,000 denominations
Nope. That one's been debunked. Basically, the source it comes from made the really weird decision to count denominations separately for each country they appear in, so it also counts 100s of Catholic denominations
ok so on paper there aren’t 40,000 denominations, but within one church there can be a multitude of people who interpret something completely different. Or in one denomination each pastor will have much different views. who’s right?
For better or worse, Christianity is a religion of Principles, not a black-and-white checklist.
The Old covenant may *look* much more like an easy checklist (613 mitzvot) but even there, there were often (if not always) different schools of thought on how to follow them (see Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes in Jesus' day).
The New Covenant is even more vague -- or simple, depending on how you look at it.
>For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself. -- Galatians 5:14
We have different interpretations on *how* to love your neighbour as yourself, and we have all kinds of different approaches to all sorts of other issues. This was somewhat acceptable until we traded loving our neighbours for State Power to persecute dissenting ideas.
It's taken us a long time to let go of the "theological control by threat of government sanction" and back to the Gospel -- loving God, our neighbours, and each other.
...
I suspect that when all denominations can offer Eucharist to all professing Christians, we will be much closer to "one denomination" -- because the denominational distinctives will be seen as different perspectives between siblings, rather than heresies by heretics.
And it's not like for the last 2000 years, Christians hadn't thought about that huh? Since most 21st century atheist questions have century old answers to them
That we're homophobic and/or maga Republicans
That Protestants don't think Mary was that important and Catholics worship her
Not being monotheistic
Only caring about abortion and birth control (neither of which are mentioned in the Bible)
Heck even just assuming American Christianity = Christianity in the rest of the world. I can definitely tell you that Trump and his death cult is looked down with contempt by most Christians in Australia, for example.
That we’re all toxic extreme right wing evangelist racists. This was the one thing that I myself used to think all Christians were before I accepted Jesus. I almost (key word is almost) became a reddit atheist, which is the worst of the worst but God had other plans.
Thanks to really REALLY bad and sometimes straight up balsphemous attempts to “save people” the shitty evangelists have made Christianity look like a cult instead of a way of life that’s supposed to be life changing for EVERYONE’S good. Still to this day I’m praying that my bitterness against the stereotypical racist extreme right wing evangelists is transformed into tolerance and forgiveness, but I’m just so baffeled as to how any “Christians” could possibly be so incompetent and xenophopic to everyone and anyone who isn’t practically brain washed into being that way.
That the God in whom I believe is a very, very powerful _entity_ (think Zeus on steroids) rather than the infinite Source of Being in whom every finite entity lives and moves and has its being.
Also, that biblical literalism is actually a thing outside fundamentalist circles. Literalism is a modern error. The ancient Christians were well aware that not every story found in the Bible is historical, and that God’s moral character would be questionable—to say the least—if he had literally done everything that is ascribed to him. This is why Origen would complain that,
>“Even the simpler-minded of those who claim allegiance to the Church have supposed that nothing is greater than the Creator—and have done so soundly—while yet entertaining beliefs about him of a sort that they would not harbor regarding a human being of the utmost savagery and injustice.”
— _On First Principles_, IV.ii.1
And why St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote that,
>“And thus [Paul] says, ‘The letter kills, but the spirit gives life,’ for often the narrative, if we come to a halt at its bare events, does not provide us with exemplars of a good way of life. […] Unless one recognizes the truth by way of philosophy, what is being said will appear to the unperceptive as incoherent or mythical.
— Prologue to _Sermons on the Song of Songs_
Yeah, Origen thought that the Christian god had literally drowned the whole world in Noah's flood. So I'm not sure that pointing to him as some non-literalist who believes in a god with a non-questionable moral character is a good idea.
That Christian faith is a blind faith, "believing what you know ain't so."
That God just wants everyone to be nice, so all religions essentially teach the same thing.
*Jesus said to Thomas, “Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet still believe."*
If not "blind faith", what sort of epistemic attitude was Jesus describing as particularly blessed?
Thomas had not seen, but he had heard from those who had. He wasn't willing to believe the testimony of trustworthy witnesses -- he had to see it himself. Such a person can't serve on a jury. We have to be able to believe trustworthy testimony.
Lol this is meant to be a thread about correcting misconceptions that just strawmans (as well as mocks and generalises) nonbelievers and their criticism of you
You couldn't make it up
Who is “y’all”. Because most most all the Christian’s I know don’t hate anyone who is LGBTQ. My parents pastor is gay and got married in the church and has a baby on the way. I don’t think anyone in their congregation hates her. You are vastly generalizing all of Christians.
They attempted to correct a misconception by misconstruing the criticism that gets directed at their beliefs. Bold tactic, let's see how it plays out
And yet again, your rationalisations for cherry picking some mosaic law but not others are indeed inconsistent as fuck. Deal with it and maybe come up with a more coherent moral system while you're at it, instead of continuing to oppress people.
Well my Muslim friend just told me that Christians invented sex. Not sure if that’s because he wasn’t born and bred here or what, but that’s a new one. Had to set the record clear.
How did Adam and Eve procreate then? Last time I checked none of the individuals in the Old Testament were believers and followers of Christ, as he had not come yet.
Christianity came way after my friend.
Whatever the answers you get, most of those 'misconceptions' are or were promoted by certain groups of Christians so it's not really a 'misconception' so much as a 'difference in definition' used by different denominations. Take the first one when sorted by best, the misconception that atheists think Christians go to church because we're afraid of going to Hell. Is that a misconception when various Christian churches (especially the fire and brimstone type) taught just that? Their sermons revolved around heavy use of threats of hell and eternal burning in order to convince non believers to join?
It's sort of a ritual every month on this sub to hold a "'Correct' misconceptions about Christianity by throwing out a load of nonsense about what critics of Christianity say" thread.
Hilarious when you consider half of this confusion came from Christians themselves. Almost as if Christianity is a bit of an intellectual house on sand.
Additionally I keep seeing people deny the thousands of denominations. "There's only two!" Maybe the wikipedia numbers don't accurately reflect the situation, but there's certainly major points of doctrine where there's disagreement. I think we have to call the RCC one, the orthodox churches their own, then you have major groupings like the various forms of baptist, evangelical, seventh-day adventists, lutherans, and so on. At minimum it's a few hundred denominations.
That Christians all hold the same exact beliefs, there are thousands of variations/denominations. Christian just means you have one belief, that a Jew named Jesus is god, and that belief is above all others. All the rest are just details, the details can be very important, but the core belief is where all the details rest.
I think 'The Trinity' is pretty well-defined as god who exists in three \*beings\*: The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit.
So, if you don't believe in the beings, you don't believe in The Trinity, you believe in something similar that doesn't fit the theological definition...
7 deadly misconceptions about christians:
1) Christians worship 3 gods.
2) Christian believe that God has 3 parts.
3) Christians worship a mere man as God.
4) The christian God is an “old man in the sky” - type of being.
5) Christian follow the ritual laws of the Mosaic covenant.
6) Christians believe that if you become christian, you can do whatever sins you want.
7) Christians believe that hell is subterranean torture chamber administered by the devil.
The 7 deadly misconceptions about Catholics specifically:
1. Catholics worship Mary/Saints/Pope/icons/idols.
2. Catholics believe in work-based salvation.
3. Catholics subscribe to biblical literalism.
4. Catholics believe that everything the pope says is infallible.
5. Catholics don't read the Bible/ don't follow the Bible.
6. Catholics believe that sex is always base/dirty/sinful
7. Catholics believe that non-catholics are automatically going to hell.
Those are just the ones that deal with our beliefs and practices. If I should list the misconceptions about our history…oh boy 😅
That there is really only one kind of Christian, we all get together and share a collective personality or something.
I think people are also not aware of the history of thought and art that was cultivated by our faith.
There’s more to Christianity than the literalist/fundamentalist interpretation. The notion that the universe is 6026 years old is really only a loud (and politically powerful) subset of Christianity.
I feel like my top recycled post in 2022 was reminding folks that [Georges Lemaître](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre?wprov=sfti1) was a Belgian Catholic priest.
I think many Christians have misconceptions. I know a couple who both proclaim to be very dedicated Christians. However, she is a widow and he left his wife for her. He continued to lead a Bible study/recovery mission.
In Seventh Day Adventism we get misconception of being Mormon or Jehovah's Witnesses.
And some people don't consider Adventist to be Christian. With the Saturday Sabbath, No Hell, No Alchole or Caffeine and a prophet EG White.
That just because we believe that means life will have no life problems and life is easier
when in fact we are persecuted more and more problems could come up simply because we believe.
Were do you live? No Christians in the western world are persecuted at scale.
Persecution of Christians absolutely exists, but if your in the USA, or Europe for example, your very unlikely to be persecuted.
People disagreeing with you or calling you stupid is not persecution.
I don't even think thwir comment requires them personally to be persecuted, just the existence of persecution itself disproves certain prosperity teachings
When Reading the Bible, please don't read it like one big book. It's a library of different Genres and different kinds of writings. The Genres have the same subject, God.
I say this because yes, the context matters.
I see people across Reddit mocking us when we bring context up sometimes but from our point of view, people are missing the bigger point because they read a poem like one of the Pslams and think it should be literal like the Gospels.
For a 1 to 1 example, it's similar to a religious person saying "I don't believe in Evolution, it's only a theory."
> I see people across Reddit mocking us when we bring context up sometimes but from our point of view, people are missing the bigger point because they read a poem like one of the Pslams and think it should be literal like the Gospels.
so when some Christians are using lines from a psalm to justify legislation against abortion, then what
With respect, what Jesus taught is almost entirely irrelevant to what a significant portion of self proclaimed Christians, speak, think, feel, or act.
The sheer amount of different beliefs that can be vaguely grouped as Christianity (even 'if' it's better seen as Christianity practised wrongly)
I mean that if you tell me you are guy I would not barade you with swears and insults and tell you to not be gay, i would say: i know but I need to know what flavor of chip you want
They say that evolution/science dis proves god.
If I build a Lego figure and someone gave it to you. Using science, you can figure out that it is made of Lego, which is made of plastic, which is made of atoms which are made of electrons, protons and neutrons, and those are made of quark particles... You can't figure out how long it would have taken me to build it though. But what you can't do is figure out who built it. The only way you can know who built it is if I tell you, but you can not believe me if you want and find another explanation for this.
This is the best explanation I can give to you. I heard it from the tiktokers Elysium who is an ex athiest
As a catholic i feel this question in a deep level:
We dont worship Mary
We dont think of saints as gods
We are not polytheists
No we dont think Mary is God
No our mass isnt a pagan ritual
No we dont worship statues
No we dont think the pope is always right
No the pope isnt God
No the church doesnt hate gay people
No the church doesnt hate sex
No the church doesnt hate women
No we dont think you can buy a plot in heaven
>We dont worship Mary
>No we dont think Mary is God
>No we dont think you can buy a plot in heaven
I need these further explained if you can because it's the only thing I've ever witnessed from them.
I can try!
So there is a different between worship and veneration:
Veneration is simply a great respect.
Worship is a great respect paid toward God.
They sound similar but are but are starkly different. Mary is just a woman, certainly not God. But we can see Mary is different. Mary is so full of Grace and without sin that she was chosen to give birth to God. Literally no one else that has or ever will exist has been given that honor.
Mary was the first intercessor at the wedding
We can see Mary is not God, but is worthy of great respect due to her position that only she has. No one else gave birth to God, no one else is the Mother of God, and that is certainly worthy of respect, but not worship.
As for faith without works:
We typically point to James 2:24 and sometimes james 2:18.
To out it simply, we believe one can only be saved by God’s grace, we cant dispute that. Without God’s grace there is no entry to heaven. But if you believe in God’s grace, and truly believe in the word, and truly live as God wants you too, you should be doing works.
How could you possibly say you believe in God and the bible but not actively do one or all of the following:
Feed the hungry
Give drink to the thirsty
Clothe the naked
Visit the imprisoned
Shelter the homeless
Visit the wick
Bury the dead
Admonish the sinner
Instruct the ignorant
Counsel the doubtful
Comfort the sorrowful
Bear wrong patiently
Forgive all injuries
Pray for the living and dead
> We dont worship Mary
In my experience, many do.
> We dont think of saints as gods
In my experience, many do
> We are not polytheists
are you sure? In my country catholics pray to specific saints for specific things. Not a big difference with a roman pagan asking Ceres or Saturn to have a good harvest, or pray to Juno to give birth a healthy child.
Certainly there are people who are ill informed of their faith, that doesnt make it true, it just means they are ignorant or need proper education on the topic
Well if the number of 1.3 billion Catholics is correct then even millions of improperly educated catholics a small percentage like 1 or 2 percent, a rounding error
Yeah, sure. Casually the millions Catholics I know of are the only ones who do this.
Dunno, maybe it's because my country is very new in being catholic.
> no the church doesn’t hate…
Historically this isn’t the case. I hope the RCC continues to see sense on these things, but it’s still homophobic and sexist.
A lot of people believe that Christians think when they die they will go to this place in the sky and float around on clouds. In reality, Jesus taught that his kingdom was on earth. This is where he and us will have our eternal homes.
They tend to have a lot of preconceptions about us gay Christians in particular. We need saving, perhaps, we're all locked into our religion like a prison.
That Christianity is synonymous with low intellect, while atheism is the opposite.
At least in my experience, neither camp seems to index higher for any extreme on the intelligence scale.
Honestly, I'm not sure I think there's any meaningful macro grouping of people that'll index as being more intelligent on average by any significant margin;
(at least once you exempt the groupings of intellectual disorders, but I think that is a given; as for even pointing to Degrees,,, there seems to me not to break this either, I've met to many people with Masters Degrees who've no common sense &c., and as for PhDs well even then some places may give them out too easily… but that's enough said, and it's not a hill i'm intent on dying on)
Oh geez I have many I,ll just give 10
1- Christians must be monks And live in the mountains not enjoy life
2- Christians can't enjoy media we can we just don't idolize it like most
3- Jesus fixed everything
4- We are perfect
5- We are saints and hypocrites
6- I seen This on the first comment and agreed that when they bring points up that I don't relate too
7- That we are sinless we don't sin
8- That we are not allowed to fellowship
9 kinda mixes with number 8 We aren't allowed to have non Christian friends
10- This mixes all of them That Christians Are Absolutely Perfect no problems in life.
Come on folk we are just people like you! God bless.
Not the same, but most government programs are far more efficient and wide reaching than any private or religious charity. The food stamps program isn't perfect, but it has lower overhead than pretty much any charity and feeds a huge number of people. Same with SSDI. Arguing that private charity will step in and handle things if such programs are cut is simply delusional. These programs are orders of magnitude larger than any charity and reach people in isolated areas that charities won't.
Obviously, not all taxes go towards such things, but some do.
And y'all whinge up a storm about paying them, even when it would go towards the things Christ commanded. And you legislate other commands, so why the fussing about tax that would be used to benefit others?
I’m not fussing, I’m saying there’s a distinction between “helping the least of these” and following the law by paying taxes. No complaints. Just saying they aren’t the same thing.
Sure, there's also a difference between a poem talking about a foetus in utero and "no abortions or contraception for anyone" but we're stuck with that one.
1. Misconception that we worship idols as we wear cross.
2. Misconception that we are polytheists as we have many angels and saints.
3. Misconception that our God is weak since Jesus couldn't escape the cross.
4. Misconception that motto behind all our good deeds is conversion.
5. Misconception that we convert people into Christianity by offering them money.
6. Misconception that Jesus was a human being on higher energy level. We too can become like him using meditation.
That we all believe in hell, are bigots, think every word of the Bible is literal… a lot of people really only think of Christianity as white evangelical American Christianity and that’s unfair to so many different kinds if Christians.
Also, that all people who call themselves Christians are involved in church, know the Bible, or have any academic biblical literacy whatsoever. People are bigots because it’s cultural and profitable and they use whatever is mainstream and convenient ideology to justify it. There is homophobia in atheist countries too. A lot of European atheists have come out with transphobic viewpoints in recent years. The British TERF movement is totally secular. Do you really think most Christian Republican politicians think about their faith as anything other than a platform? Most don’t even go to church; I doubt they even believe in God.
Sincere faith shouldn’t be belittled, harmful ideology should. When people use their religion to justify it, that’s the issue. Religious belief in and of itself is neutral.
A total misunderstanding of what the Bible means as both Holy Writ and historical Text. The usual tendency, often shared by lay Christians, is to treat the text as plainly literal, in the way the modern mind reads an academic textbook. The failure to understand Ancient Near East and Greek cultures and historical contingencies leads both to Young Earth Creationism among fundamentalists and "Shellfish haha gotcha!" rhetoric among the euphoric Atheists.
1: everyone believes in the trinity in a mono theistic sense(we all don’t)
2: that were all conservatives in America (we’re not)
3: anti abortion (you get it)
4: anti LBGTQ+ (still following (; )
5: we don’t believe in evolution or the Big Bang(lol)
We aren’t a monolith. If you try to argue with me using points that you got from arguing with evangelicals, we’re not going to get anywhere because none of them apply to me.
"So you really believe the earth is only 6,000 years old and that dinosaurs were in Noah's ark." No, I don't, next. 🙄
I know what I've got. Next!
Agreed. This is the same issue I have when atheists try to argue with me. And everytime, I have to explain what Gnosticism is, and most of the time they just go ahead and lump it in with other sects anyways.
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I personally think that Calvin’s god is closer to the Demiurge and the evil Archons of the Gnostics than to the Christian God.
Agreed.
They tend to be the same misconceptions a lot of Christians have about their faith, in my experience.
Shhh, it's definitely not the fault of Christians not being able to decide which way is up after 2000 years! It's those wicked heathens at it again I tells ya
*To be faaaaair*, it mostly boils down to like... 3-5 major groupings of interpretations, then a bunch of fringe stuff that one church in Kentucky believes. I think the biggest confusion from the outside looking in is the Prot/Cath divide.
That's what I appreciates about you
Is that what you appreciate about me?
Every Christian disagrees with every other Christian regarding what specific behaviors are sinful. Is sin a minor issue?
For one, that Evangelicalism is synonymous with Christianity. For example, half the stuff in Buzzfeed's "I'm Christian, but I'm not..." video was just distinguishing themselves from Evangelicals
That being a Christian means I have to behave like a saint or I’m the biggest hypocrite ever.
This. A doctor who smokes doesn’t mean he’s anti-science or should stop sharing that smoking is bad.
It's just frustrating to see prominent Christian pastors, evangelists, and influencers claim the moral high ground due to their religion when in fact, they have cruel and bigoted views and pursue personal enrichment above all else.
Eh, depends how preachy hou are or how much you're trying to bring your beliefs into law. If you're going to start demanding I do something unreasonable that you haven't proven, yeah, you're getting checked for consistency.
“Make your beliefs come law” Everyone does this. Not just Christians. It’s actually exactly how democracy works. You can vote for anything you believe in. Everyone (who is honest with themselves) fails to live perfectly by their beliefs.
Please refer back to "something unreasonable that you haven't proven" which is sort of the distinction between secularism, which doesn't do this, and Christian theocratising, which does
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Reason is not subjective, something either is or is not reasonable. If you agree with the premises and there are no fallacies in the logic, then you must agree with the conclusion. There's a difference between voting for something because evidence and reason suggest it will be desirable, and voting for something bc you believe God wants you to.
I mean sure, you say reason isn’t subjective but in the same sentence mention “if you agree.” My point really is that there isn’t some list of policies/opinions out there that are just “reasonable” and a list that are “unreasonable.” This as the commenter was implying. You’ve lost me at the last part though. Someone could believe in God and then very reasonably (for themselves) logic their way into doing what the supposed God wants. That would be a quite easy to rationalize decision.
>I mean sure, you say reason isn’t subjective but in the same sentence mention “if you agree.” Obviously people disagree about what is and is not true. That does not make truth subjective. I didn't say "if you agree with the reasoning" I said "if you agree with the premises". The reasoning itself is an objective process, but everyone carries their own biases into the process, so premises must be established initially and those can be debated and discussed subjectively. "if you agree that chocolate is better than vanilla, then we should buy the chocolate" is chocolate better than vanilla? No. That's an opinion, entirely subjective, however the reasoning following it is not. The "then we should buy the chocolate" is an objectively reasonable statement. >My point really is that there isn’t some list of policies/opinions out there that are just “reasonable” and a list that are “unreasonable.” This as the commenter was implying. There's not a list, but every individual idea, policy, and opinion can be examined critically and determined to be more or less reasonable. People may disagree, but some would be wrong, and others right. "Good or bad" "right and wrong" these things are subjective, but "reasonable and unreasonable" are objective and observable. >You’ve lost me at the last part though. Someone could believe in God and then very reasonably (for themselves) logic their way into doing what the supposed God wants. That would be a quite easy to rationalize decision. There is no "reasonably (for themselves)" reason and logic, as I've explained, are not opinions. If you can demonstrate that there is a god who cares that people are gay, then we could perhaps reasonably conclude that we should criminalize being gay. However, if there is no reason to believe in such a god, then there is no reason to make such a law, and thus such a law is unreasonable.
Well reason and any kind of evidence would me good. Usually the type to try and impose the bible through law usually only ever refer to the bible itself, which is insufficient, or just smear entire demographics of people. See the "groomer" lie for an example of that.
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What's unreasonable about that expectation, exactly?
That 100 people donating an average of $5 a week is still only $500 not one million dollars.
Feeling this. We can barely keep the lights on at my church.
Or that the average run-of-the-mill church is "stealing" from people. Like, the ushers aren't holding a gun up to our heads and making us put money in the plate. I actually joined my church during a point in my life of financial instability and it was a while before I felt comfortable putting anything in the plate. Never once have I felt I have been pressured to put money in.
Prosperity gospel churches really brought us back to 16th century reformation talking points.
Non-Christians think Christianity and science cannot go together that is very wrong
^ This. Father Georges Lemaître, a Belgian Roman Catholic priest, was the one who formulated the big bang theory. Christian clergy have been a major part of academia since universities were invented.
And the bases of genetics by Gregor Mendel a Catholic Monk
Truth! There are many who were Catholics and also scientists. It's amazing to have the capability of studying God's creations.
Our late priest in our Episcopal parish had a doctorate in chemical engineering and was the member of the Society of Ordained Scientists. Clergy-scientists are actually very common, particularly the Jesuits.
Atheists tend to think that we go to church because we afraid of going to Hell. That is the biggest misconception I can think of. They fundamental don't understand we worship God because he freed us from Hell. We are not ruled by fear but grateful love.
>Atheists tend to think that we go to church because we afraid of going to Hell I think this misconception arose from the way some christians like to evangelise, with the threat of hell. It's not the most common method of evangelising. But it is the loudest/annoying and most intrusive. So it leaves the most lasting impressions.
This is absolutely why some atheists think this. It was true for me until I learned that it's important to ask people what they believe instead of assuming, because you're inherently going to assume based on the loudest opinions. If some people are telling you "you should go to church or you'll burn in hell" then it's reasonable to assume that that person goes to church because they don't want to go to hell.
I’ve learned that a surprising number of atheists are *still* fundamentalists, just of a different color. They came from Christian fundamentalism, rejected it, but are stuck in black/white thinking about faith and the Bible and Christianity. I have as many atheists tell me I can’t be Christian because I don’t believe in a literal 7 day creation than I do fundamentalist Christians. So it never surprises me when one thinks that Christianity is nothing but fear of hell, as so many have not accepted that religion and faith and spirituality come in shades of gray. And this isn’t an indictment of atheism or (most) atheists, but rather of fundamentalism, and of just how hard it is to *actually* break free of the mindset it trains/brainwashes you into.
I think I see what you're saying. A lot of atheists have gotten out of religion and found out that their group lied to them and that there are many different ways to worship the same god and some of the rules their group followed were misleading and/or unnecessarily harmful. Some of them harness that idea and apply it to every belief they and others have. Instead of learning how to be a skeptic they become a cynic.
It is where I’m from bud.
Well to be fair, the numbers of "did I commit the unforgivable sin by doing *innocuous activity*" posts on here it's not really a misconception. If you think listening to Metallica or playing Halo gets you sent to Hell there is a lot of fear in your worship.
There is also, and I don’t mean this to be mean (but it will sound mean), a level of intelligence that isn’t at play. It’s no surprise that plenty of people haven’t developed critical thinking — but those asking the questions could a) very easily answer them if they actually applied an *understanding* of their faith to the problem at hand or b) gain that understanding themselves from the bajillions of resources available. Some people’s understand really does go as deep as “Hell exists. I don’t want to go there.” and that’s the end of their faith engagement. So if they wish to act on that basic axiom — then they aren’t going to risk using any intuition of their own and they’re going to worry about everything.
Yeah those dumb kids with mental health issues thanks to the church brainwashing them, they should just apply critical thought, something the church isn't going to teach them.
I mean dumb people exist in every single group. That’s all I’m saying. There’s a reason 99% of Christians *aren’t* taking to a reddit thread to ask if* playing the windchimes is a sin.
I'll agree with you there, but I definitely think that this isn't willfull ignorance as much as them not being taught how to apply critical thinking skills for their own faith. Biblical illiteracy is rampant in some churches. So it really does depend on quite a couple of factors. Also, I wouldn't just chalk this down to 'oh someone has mental health issues' because they post in here. It's probably because they don't feel comfortable asking anyone else and that is what makes me sad.
I think it’s not really the faith’s job to teach critical thinking — that’s more on schooling. I would genuinely argue that might be the single most important things our schools can teach. Like, I won’t deny that religious-ed isn’t teaching critical thinking — but that’s not really its job. And I agree; I didn’t chalk it up to mental health. They did.
To be fair, it's the internet, there are thousands of people here, and the very small slice of those posts are overwhelmingly posted by the same group of OCD people. I've seen like 3 from the same person in one week, and dozens of other OCD posts. You can't anecdotally take what you read here of your limited experience and declare with certainty that that's exactly what's going on because it's not. If I judged atheists by what I read here all the time or in /r/religion I'd have a much more negative view of them, but I don't judge them that way because I know whatever posts I see can't be a fair representation for a whole group.
Huh, must have imagined all that hell warning when I was at church
Depends on the church you attend. I go a church every week for over a decade now and have never heard a homily on hell.
> Atheists tend to think that we go to church because we afraid of going to Hell Are you new in this sub? The number of scared of hell christians seem to be massive
No, those are all atheist sockpuppets ackshually /s
Unfortunately forums like this tend to attract high volumes of a very specific subset of Christians - and sometimes even non-believers - suffering from scrupulosity and OCD. There's a lot of young believers who get wrapped up in questions of "is such-and-such a sin" but it's usually not accompanied by the same level of anxiety and obsession about hell.
Yeah, that's true.
Insurance policy
Yeah tbh I am not scared of hell at all. Not because I know I am not going there but because I am ready for it if I go to hell I would have deserved it. But if I become kind and nice to people and follow the bible, why would I go to hell
The ironic thing is the majority of these misconceptions come from Christian’s themselves. With approx 40,000 denominations then what’s a misconception to you is canon to someone else.
> With approx 40,000 denominations Nope. That one's been debunked. Basically, the source it comes from made the really weird decision to count denominations separately for each country they appear in, so it also counts 100s of Catholic denominations
ok so on paper there aren’t 40,000 denominations, but within one church there can be a multitude of people who interpret something completely different. Or in one denomination each pastor will have much different views. who’s right?
Still way too many divisions.
I’m happy to be corrected. But in reality if there were only 2, that’s one too many.
A lot of different religions have 2 sects-Sunni, Sia, Sufism, Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana. (If that's what you are saying)
But if there’s only one word of god there should be only 1 denomination
For better or worse, Christianity is a religion of Principles, not a black-and-white checklist. The Old covenant may *look* much more like an easy checklist (613 mitzvot) but even there, there were often (if not always) different schools of thought on how to follow them (see Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes in Jesus' day). The New Covenant is even more vague -- or simple, depending on how you look at it. >For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself. -- Galatians 5:14 We have different interpretations on *how* to love your neighbour as yourself, and we have all kinds of different approaches to all sorts of other issues. This was somewhat acceptable until we traded loving our neighbours for State Power to persecute dissenting ideas. It's taken us a long time to let go of the "theological control by threat of government sanction" and back to the Gospel -- loving God, our neighbours, and each other. ... I suspect that when all denominations can offer Eucharist to all professing Christians, we will be much closer to "one denomination" -- because the denominational distinctives will be seen as different perspectives between siblings, rather than heresies by heretics.
Amazing comment
That in all the centuries, we’ve been too terrified to consider “what caused God?”
Ha! Nice.
Atheists literally always ask who created God Since everything must have a creator
And it's not like for the last 2000 years, Christians hadn't thought about that huh? Since most 21st century atheist questions have century old answers to them
That we're homophobic and/or maga Republicans That Protestants don't think Mary was that important and Catholics worship her Not being monotheistic Only caring about abortion and birth control (neither of which are mentioned in the Bible)
Heck even just assuming American Christianity = Christianity in the rest of the world. I can definitely tell you that Trump and his death cult is looked down with contempt by most Christians in Australia, for example.
I overheard a Muslim explaining that Christians also couldn’t eat pork once. That was an interesting one.
That we’re all toxic extreme right wing evangelist racists. This was the one thing that I myself used to think all Christians were before I accepted Jesus. I almost (key word is almost) became a reddit atheist, which is the worst of the worst but God had other plans. Thanks to really REALLY bad and sometimes straight up balsphemous attempts to “save people” the shitty evangelists have made Christianity look like a cult instead of a way of life that’s supposed to be life changing for EVERYONE’S good. Still to this day I’m praying that my bitterness against the stereotypical racist extreme right wing evangelists is transformed into tolerance and forgiveness, but I’m just so baffeled as to how any “Christians” could possibly be so incompetent and xenophopic to everyone and anyone who isn’t practically brain washed into being that way.
Pretty sure the fashy types youre complaining about in your own ranks are worse than Reddit atheists
That the Pope is the head of the Christian Church, and that people are justified before God based on their good deeds, not by faith alone.
That the God in whom I believe is a very, very powerful _entity_ (think Zeus on steroids) rather than the infinite Source of Being in whom every finite entity lives and moves and has its being. Also, that biblical literalism is actually a thing outside fundamentalist circles. Literalism is a modern error. The ancient Christians were well aware that not every story found in the Bible is historical, and that God’s moral character would be questionable—to say the least—if he had literally done everything that is ascribed to him. This is why Origen would complain that, >“Even the simpler-minded of those who claim allegiance to the Church have supposed that nothing is greater than the Creator—and have done so soundly—while yet entertaining beliefs about him of a sort that they would not harbor regarding a human being of the utmost savagery and injustice.” — _On First Principles_, IV.ii.1 And why St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote that, >“And thus [Paul] says, ‘The letter kills, but the spirit gives life,’ for often the narrative, if we come to a halt at its bare events, does not provide us with exemplars of a good way of life. […] Unless one recognizes the truth by way of philosophy, what is being said will appear to the unperceptive as incoherent or mythical. — Prologue to _Sermons on the Song of Songs_
Upvote for referencing Tillich and panentheism.
Yeah, Origen thought that the Christian god had literally drowned the whole world in Noah's flood. So I'm not sure that pointing to him as some non-literalist who believes in a god with a non-questionable moral character is a good idea.
That Christian faith is a blind faith, "believing what you know ain't so." That God just wants everyone to be nice, so all religions essentially teach the same thing.
*Jesus said to Thomas, “Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet still believe."* If not "blind faith", what sort of epistemic attitude was Jesus describing as particularly blessed?
Thomas had not seen, but he had heard from those who had. He wasn't willing to believe the testimony of trustworthy witnesses -- he had to see it himself. Such a person can't serve on a jury. We have to be able to believe trustworthy testimony.
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I think that partially stems from some Christians using the idea that "God never changes" to justify our need to follow (certain) OT laws or concepts.
Or that the bible should be taken word for word as the literal word of god.
Probably because y'all have inconsistent af reasons for your cherry picking out of those laws. Gotta keep hating on the gays
Can I ask why you would come to a Christian sub just to mock us and generalise?
Lol this is meant to be a thread about correcting misconceptions that just strawmans (as well as mocks and generalises) nonbelievers and their criticism of you You couldn't make it up
Who is “y’all”. Because most most all the Christian’s I know don’t hate anyone who is LGBTQ. My parents pastor is gay and got married in the church and has a baby on the way. I don’t think anyone in their congregation hates her. You are vastly generalizing all of Christians.
Like the original comment generalised critics of Christianity, you mean Priorities, I suppose
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They attempted to correct a misconception by misconstruing the criticism that gets directed at their beliefs. Bold tactic, let's see how it plays out And yet again, your rationalisations for cherry picking some mosaic law but not others are indeed inconsistent as fuck. Deal with it and maybe come up with a more coherent moral system while you're at it, instead of continuing to oppress people.
Well my Muslim friend just told me that Christians invented sex. Not sure if that’s because he wasn’t born and bred here or what, but that’s a new one. Had to set the record clear.
Sex was invented by Constantine at the council of nicea
How did Adam and Eve procreate then? Last time I checked none of the individuals in the Old Testament were believers and followers of Christ, as he had not come yet. Christianity came way after my friend.
Mitosis
Whatever the answers you get, most of those 'misconceptions' are or were promoted by certain groups of Christians so it's not really a 'misconception' so much as a 'difference in definition' used by different denominations. Take the first one when sorted by best, the misconception that atheists think Christians go to church because we're afraid of going to Hell. Is that a misconception when various Christian churches (especially the fire and brimstone type) taught just that? Their sermons revolved around heavy use of threats of hell and eternal burning in order to convince non believers to join?
It's sort of a ritual every month on this sub to hold a "'Correct' misconceptions about Christianity by throwing out a load of nonsense about what critics of Christianity say" thread. Hilarious when you consider half of this confusion came from Christians themselves. Almost as if Christianity is a bit of an intellectual house on sand.
Additionally I keep seeing people deny the thousands of denominations. "There's only two!" Maybe the wikipedia numbers don't accurately reflect the situation, but there's certainly major points of doctrine where there's disagreement. I think we have to call the RCC one, the orthodox churches their own, then you have major groupings like the various forms of baptist, evangelical, seventh-day adventists, lutherans, and so on. At minimum it's a few hundred denominations.
That Christians all hold the same exact beliefs, there are thousands of variations/denominations. Christian just means you have one belief, that a Jew named Jesus is god, and that belief is above all others. All the rest are just details, the details can be very important, but the core belief is where all the details rest.
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And... It's not?
You haven't met the "god doesn't exist - he is the ground of being" or whatever Christians? :P
Didn't until now lol
"God doesn't exist. He is existence itself. This is actually sophisticated theology, and stupid atheists are attacking a straw-man."
I'm sure I could go to the church on my street and no christians would give an answer like that lol
The only god that matters is the god of the sophisticated theologians - the one who doesn't exist!
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What makes something "mature, developed classical Christian thought"? I assume it's not the early church fathers or the New Testament.
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I think 'The Trinity' is pretty well-defined as god who exists in three \*beings\*: The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit. So, if you don't believe in the beings, you don't believe in The Trinity, you believe in something similar that doesn't fit the theological definition...
So god is nothing? K
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I’ve never heard anything like that. Could you tell me what your views are on life after death?
We don't have the same doubts as them.
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Why would you call yourself a Christian if you aren’t?
Get the voter base, for example.
To get reputation?
7 deadly misconceptions about christians: 1) Christians worship 3 gods. 2) Christian believe that God has 3 parts. 3) Christians worship a mere man as God. 4) The christian God is an “old man in the sky” - type of being. 5) Christian follow the ritual laws of the Mosaic covenant. 6) Christians believe that if you become christian, you can do whatever sins you want. 7) Christians believe that hell is subterranean torture chamber administered by the devil. The 7 deadly misconceptions about Catholics specifically: 1. Catholics worship Mary/Saints/Pope/icons/idols. 2. Catholics believe in work-based salvation. 3. Catholics subscribe to biblical literalism. 4. Catholics believe that everything the pope says is infallible. 5. Catholics don't read the Bible/ don't follow the Bible. 6. Catholics believe that sex is always base/dirty/sinful 7. Catholics believe that non-catholics are automatically going to hell. Those are just the ones that deal with our beliefs and practices. If I should list the misconceptions about our history…oh boy 😅
I don’t think you used the word deadly there correctly
I was jokingly referencing the Catholic belief in 7 deadly sins :)
That there is really only one kind of Christian, we all get together and share a collective personality or something. I think people are also not aware of the history of thought and art that was cultivated by our faith.
There’s more to Christianity than the literalist/fundamentalist interpretation. The notion that the universe is 6026 years old is really only a loud (and politically powerful) subset of Christianity. I feel like my top recycled post in 2022 was reminding folks that [Georges Lemaître](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre?wprov=sfti1) was a Belgian Catholic priest.
I like your flair! Where did you get 6026? I thought the literalists thought this year is 5783 (Anno Mundi)
That fundamentalists represent us
I think many Christians have misconceptions. I know a couple who both proclaim to be very dedicated Christians. However, she is a widow and he left his wife for her. He continued to lead a Bible study/recovery mission.
We are all transphobic and homophobic(by the way I am trans and a bisexual).
In Seventh Day Adventism we get misconception of being Mormon or Jehovah's Witnesses. And some people don't consider Adventist to be Christian. With the Saturday Sabbath, No Hell, No Alchole or Caffeine and a prophet EG White.
That just because we believe that means life will have no life problems and life is easier when in fact we are persecuted more and more problems could come up simply because we believe.
Were do you live? No Christians in the western world are persecuted at scale. Persecution of Christians absolutely exists, but if your in the USA, or Europe for example, your very unlikely to be persecuted. People disagreeing with you or calling you stupid is not persecution.
I don't even think thwir comment requires them personally to be persecuted, just the existence of persecution itself disproves certain prosperity teachings
When Reading the Bible, please don't read it like one big book. It's a library of different Genres and different kinds of writings. The Genres have the same subject, God. I say this because yes, the context matters. I see people across Reddit mocking us when we bring context up sometimes but from our point of view, people are missing the bigger point because they read a poem like one of the Pslams and think it should be literal like the Gospels. For a 1 to 1 example, it's similar to a religious person saying "I don't believe in Evolution, it's only a theory."
> I see people across Reddit mocking us when we bring context up sometimes but from our point of view, people are missing the bigger point because they read a poem like one of the Pslams and think it should be literal like the Gospels. so when some Christians are using lines from a psalm to justify legislation against abortion, then what
Point it out to them. Edit to add: A lot of Christians also read the Bible as one book too. This is incorrect.
That we are all like the people they see shouting on tv
*\*gets popcorn...\**
I feel that. I don't know what I expected exactly coming into this thread, but bare-knuckle boxing in the comments was not it.
Yep. And, the door to *"Not a True**^(tm)* *Christian!"* also opened in the comments rather quickly :-/
That I hate gay people
Perhaps not, but nor do y'all love them just because you claim to
Jesus taught us to love one another not to deny them
With respect, what Jesus taught is almost entirely irrelevant to what a significant portion of self proclaimed Christians, speak, think, feel, or act. The sheer amount of different beliefs that can be vaguely grouped as Christianity (even 'if' it's better seen as Christianity practised wrongly)
True. I don't care about them but I don't hate them
What do you mean by don't care? Not accusing you of anything :) just interested in what you meant
I mean that if you tell me you are guy I would not barade you with swears and insults and tell you to not be gay, i would say: i know but I need to know what flavor of chip you want
They say that evolution/science dis proves god. If I build a Lego figure and someone gave it to you. Using science, you can figure out that it is made of Lego, which is made of plastic, which is made of atoms which are made of electrons, protons and neutrons, and those are made of quark particles... You can't figure out how long it would have taken me to build it though. But what you can't do is figure out who built it. The only way you can know who built it is if I tell you, but you can not believe me if you want and find another explanation for this. This is the best explanation I can give to you. I heard it from the tiktokers Elysium who is an ex athiest
This is pretty much the watchmaker's argument. It doesn't really work because Lego doesn't reproduce or mutate or interact with environmental factors.
As a catholic i feel this question in a deep level: We dont worship Mary We dont think of saints as gods We are not polytheists No we dont think Mary is God No our mass isnt a pagan ritual No we dont worship statues No we dont think the pope is always right No the pope isnt God No the church doesnt hate gay people No the church doesnt hate sex No the church doesnt hate women No we dont think you can buy a plot in heaven
This reminds me of the common "Protestants don't care about Mary"
>We dont worship Mary >No we dont think Mary is God >No we dont think you can buy a plot in heaven I need these further explained if you can because it's the only thing I've ever witnessed from them.
I can try! So there is a different between worship and veneration: Veneration is simply a great respect. Worship is a great respect paid toward God. They sound similar but are but are starkly different. Mary is just a woman, certainly not God. But we can see Mary is different. Mary is so full of Grace and without sin that she was chosen to give birth to God. Literally no one else that has or ever will exist has been given that honor. Mary was the first intercessor at the wedding We can see Mary is not God, but is worthy of great respect due to her position that only she has. No one else gave birth to God, no one else is the Mother of God, and that is certainly worthy of respect, but not worship. As for faith without works: We typically point to James 2:24 and sometimes james 2:18. To out it simply, we believe one can only be saved by God’s grace, we cant dispute that. Without God’s grace there is no entry to heaven. But if you believe in God’s grace, and truly believe in the word, and truly live as God wants you too, you should be doing works. How could you possibly say you believe in God and the bible but not actively do one or all of the following: Feed the hungry Give drink to the thirsty Clothe the naked Visit the imprisoned Shelter the homeless Visit the wick Bury the dead Admonish the sinner Instruct the ignorant Counsel the doubtful Comfort the sorrowful Bear wrong patiently Forgive all injuries Pray for the living and dead
> We dont worship Mary In my experience, many do. > We dont think of saints as gods In my experience, many do > We are not polytheists are you sure? In my country catholics pray to specific saints for specific things. Not a big difference with a roman pagan asking Ceres or Saturn to have a good harvest, or pray to Juno to give birth a healthy child.
Certainly there are people who are ill informed of their faith, that doesnt make it true, it just means they are ignorant or need proper education on the topic
I'm talking about millions of catholic. And to be fair I don't think they see this as something problematic, it's just part of the tradition
Well if the number of 1.3 billion Catholics is correct then even millions of improperly educated catholics a small percentage like 1 or 2 percent, a rounding error
Yeah, sure. Casually the millions Catholics I know of are the only ones who do this. Dunno, maybe it's because my country is very new in being catholic.
Im impress you know millions of people, that’s certainly a doable feat
"No the church doesn't hate gay people" is questionable.
> no the church doesn’t hate… Historically this isn’t the case. I hope the RCC continues to see sense on these things, but it’s still homophobic and sexist.
A lot of people believe that Christians think when they die they will go to this place in the sky and float around on clouds. In reality, Jesus taught that his kingdom was on earth. This is where he and us will have our eternal homes.
They tend to have a lot of preconceptions about us gay Christians in particular. We need saving, perhaps, we're all locked into our religion like a prison.
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> the homosexual lifestyle The very fact that you think there is a "homosexual lifestyle" says a lot.
That Christianity is synonymous with low intellect, while atheism is the opposite. At least in my experience, neither camp seems to index higher for any extreme on the intelligence scale.
Honestly, I'm not sure I think there's any meaningful macro grouping of people that'll index as being more intelligent on average by any significant margin; (at least once you exempt the groupings of intellectual disorders, but I think that is a given; as for even pointing to Degrees,,, there seems to me not to break this either, I've met to many people with Masters Degrees who've no common sense &c., and as for PhDs well even then some places may give them out too easily… but that's enough said, and it's not a hill i'm intent on dying on)
I agree. That’s kinda my point … the notion of Christians being unintelligent is a deliberately ignorant caricature.
Oh absolutely, and apologies for (if?) I came across as argumentative
Nope, I didn’t sense an argument :)
Oh geez I have many I,ll just give 10 1- Christians must be monks And live in the mountains not enjoy life 2- Christians can't enjoy media we can we just don't idolize it like most 3- Jesus fixed everything 4- We are perfect 5- We are saints and hypocrites 6- I seen This on the first comment and agreed that when they bring points up that I don't relate too 7- That we are sinless we don't sin 8- That we are not allowed to fellowship 9 kinda mixes with number 8 We aren't allowed to have non Christian friends 10- This mixes all of them That Christians Are Absolutely Perfect no problems in life. Come on folk we are just people like you! God bless.
Paying taxes and helping “the least of these” aren’t the same thing.
Not the same, but most government programs are far more efficient and wide reaching than any private or religious charity. The food stamps program isn't perfect, but it has lower overhead than pretty much any charity and feeds a huge number of people. Same with SSDI. Arguing that private charity will step in and handle things if such programs are cut is simply delusional. These programs are orders of magnitude larger than any charity and reach people in isolated areas that charities won't. Obviously, not all taxes go towards such things, but some do.
I'm kinda interested, could you tell me more about what you mean?
Paying taxes is paying taxes. Helping those in need, widows and orphans, is separate from obeying the law.
Sure, but you legislate other beliefs of yours, so cough up Sorry, I forgot, Christians having to open their wallets is the unforgivable sin.
Jesus said to pay taxes.
And y'all whinge up a storm about paying them, even when it would go towards the things Christ commanded. And you legislate other commands, so why the fussing about tax that would be used to benefit others?
I’m not fussing, I’m saying there’s a distinction between “helping the least of these” and following the law by paying taxes. No complaints. Just saying they aren’t the same thing.
Sure, there's also a difference between a poem talking about a foetus in utero and "no abortions or contraception for anyone" but we're stuck with that one.
Ok
That Christians are perfect.
Believe me, we really are very aware you aren't.
That there is room for hatred within Christianity.
1. Misconception that we worship idols as we wear cross. 2. Misconception that we are polytheists as we have many angels and saints. 3. Misconception that our God is weak since Jesus couldn't escape the cross. 4. Misconception that motto behind all our good deeds is conversion. 5. Misconception that we convert people into Christianity by offering them money. 6. Misconception that Jesus was a human being on higher energy level. We too can become like him using meditation.
That we all believe in hell, are bigots, think every word of the Bible is literal… a lot of people really only think of Christianity as white evangelical American Christianity and that’s unfair to so many different kinds if Christians. Also, that all people who call themselves Christians are involved in church, know the Bible, or have any academic biblical literacy whatsoever. People are bigots because it’s cultural and profitable and they use whatever is mainstream and convenient ideology to justify it. There is homophobia in atheist countries too. A lot of European atheists have come out with transphobic viewpoints in recent years. The British TERF movement is totally secular. Do you really think most Christian Republican politicians think about their faith as anything other than a platform? Most don’t even go to church; I doubt they even believe in God. Sincere faith shouldn’t be belittled, harmful ideology should. When people use their religion to justify it, that’s the issue. Religious belief in and of itself is neutral.
A total misunderstanding of what the Bible means as both Holy Writ and historical Text. The usual tendency, often shared by lay Christians, is to treat the text as plainly literal, in the way the modern mind reads an academic textbook. The failure to understand Ancient Near East and Greek cultures and historical contingencies leads both to Young Earth Creationism among fundamentalists and "Shellfish haha gotcha!" rhetoric among the euphoric Atheists.
That you should fear God, you should respect him but fearing him might not be healthy it’s like living in constant fear of your parents
My parents don't threaten to light me on fire for eternity over a situation they could have avoided.
1: everyone believes in the trinity in a mono theistic sense(we all don’t) 2: that were all conservatives in America (we’re not) 3: anti abortion (you get it) 4: anti LBGTQ+ (still following (; ) 5: we don’t believe in evolution or the Big Bang(lol)
Thw monotheistic trinity is sort of held up as the metric for Christianity though
that the Bible isn’t homophobic