If you take the original bible, don’t take anything out of it, and read it you will see the real Christian…people have so twisted the Bible that everyone has their own interpretations.
There are many passages were it is very wise…read Song of Solomons or Proverbs…Man Proverbs is so true.
Today the radical enlightenment of the West has entirely enveloped and changed the ideas of teens. They believe that Stuff will make the world better and whatever pleasure you get is right.
Because the bible is inconsistent and easy for people to twist to their own ends.
Wow, there’s lotsa Christians on this board… not that anything’s wrong with that. Someone should do a P. Planet census poll… 
I’m supposed to be a Buddhist/Taoist who’s really an Agnostic. My mum especially is a ‘traditional’ Chinese who at least tries to make a trip to the temple every few months, usually dragging my reluctant siblings and I along. I don’t know how to do Buddhist chants and all that, so I just pray in English (in a conversational manner). I’m sure the Taoist gods know all languages. And besides, if God is everywhere, why must we only pray in a temple?
I read ‘Buddha in your backpack’ to see what Buddhism’s all about, and basically it’s just letting go of all material desires. Once you are free of all these ‘wants’ and ‘must-haves’, you’re “liberated from any cravings and attachments to worldly pleasures of all kinds”. It’s basically the ultimate solution to all human suffering.
I also don’t exactly buy the concept of worshipping the Buddha or other deities, not because I’m not devout or anything, but because Buddha himself wishes not to be revered. He was an ordinary man after all, a prince in fact.
I remember this story about the famous Chinese Ch’an master, Lin-chi I-hsüan, who even advises that if you meet the Buddha, you should kill him. Yup, that’s right. He even ascribes to killing our parents and teachers too. 
But far from suggesting we should become crazed mass murderers, his intention was to shock us into realizing that we ourselves are (or will become) Buddhas, parents, teachers and so on, and that we had no need to depend upon, mistakenly objectify, or inordinately revere figures external to ourselves. 
Just a little insight into Buddhism. Taoism is much more complicated, so I won’t go there. 
By the way, I share the same birthday (the 18th day of every month) as one of the Chinese deities, Guan Yin, so apparently she’s my ‘fairy godmother’, if you will.
Not if you use the original bible…it has loads of truth and isn’t as inconsistent as you think.
Through the years skeptics have said and pulled strings to make it inconsistent even though it has only brought doubt and not facts…people then naturally try to make it different just to soothe their own feelings.
Technically considered the ‘first’ bible was put together by a number of early church Fathers who decided what should go in to it and what shouldn’t, they excluded such books as: the gospel according to Timothy, the gospel according to Barnabus and the gospel according to Mary (Magdalene.) All of these were perfectly acceptable accounts of Jesus’ gospel and yet they were excluded from the Bible on the whim of the curch Fathers.
So I don’t particularly agree that the original Bible was any less twisted than the current versions, although I do agree that bears much more relevance in the original language.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a Christian, but I think you sometimes have to take the Bible with a pinch of salt.
I think they took those books out because the gospels of Mathew Mark Luke John were more then enough of the miracles of Jesus. If they added anymore into it then we would hear the same thing from different viewpoints…although if Mary had gotten her’s in we might not have the problem about the Virgen Mary…
So the story of the savior isn’t good enough to have as many books as Harry Potter? They were removed because those stories did not jive with what the church leaders wanted to bible to be.
Have you ever read the gospels side by side? It’s interesting.
I don’t understand how someone can believe in complete and total truth of every word of the Bible when the Gospel’s themselves are not always consistent. Maybe they just haven’t read it all?
Should every gospel in the bible be consistent…you may think they are inconsistent but i think that they are all unique and the better because they are conisistent. If they were to be the same then you would only need Mathew.
Also does the story of the savior need to have as many books as Harry Potter? Should there be a need for 100+ books just to say one message. What would be the difference of a one book bible to a 50+ book bible. The message is still the same.
The difference comes in clarification, the more we know about the theology of the Early Church the more we can learn about the essence of Christianity. The majority of what we today call ‘Christianity’ comes from the epistles of St. Paul, not Jesus himself, they are Paul’s way of attempting to explain the gospel to Gentile converts, and it is suspected that we don’t even have all of his epistles anyway, and some seem incomplete. With more of St. Paul’s letters we could build up a much firmer view of the Christian message.
But what more firmer view do we need??
Is there something that you want writen in the bible?
Don’t get me wrong i respect your ability to believe in Christ but i doubt that anymore could possibly need to be written to add to the bible. It states the purpose of it being here clearly and does not need IMO any editing or addition. We have already tried to add to the book and look at where it has gotten us…Mormons, Catholics, and this age of enlightenment.
Let me try and explain, I’ll use Paul’s epistles. In his earlier letters Paul advocates that when we die we stay dead until the second coming of Christ, the Parousia, we don’t rise to heaven until Jesus returns. However in his later letters, most likely written towards the end of his life whilst imprisoned, Paul knows that he is going to die soon and he says that when he does he will be with Christ in heaven.
Paul appears to have changed his theology to suit himself, he begins by saying all people will be ressurected together at the Parousia but later he says we are ressurected indiviually when we die. There are obviously many arguments and qualifications surrounding this, it’s a hotly debated subject.
However if we were to find more of Paul’s writings we might find that he hasn’t changed his theology at all, or that he has but this is the logical procession of his previous thoughts. With the Bible as it currently is, often taken as the immutable word of God, even though many books were written be people who did not know Jesus personally, can we ever truly understand a Christocentic Soteriology?
Obviously to me the answer is yes, you just have to take the Bible with a dash of logic, but to other people the hap-hazard arrangement of arguments in the Bible can be confusing.
I think you are seeing this passage in a different light. Paul means that our spirits aren’t sent to heaven until Jesus returns but until then we know that we will be with Jesus in eternity.
Paul says that he will be with Jesus. Not now but he knows in the future he will be in heaven. Paul doesn’t mean that he will instantly go to Heaven but will in the future be with Jesus.
I know i will go to be with jesus when i die…Future Tense.
When Jesus returns we will be raised and be with him forever…Present/Future Tense.
We will die and lie in the ground until the return of Jesus and then we will with the dead before us be raptured up into heaven with the living.
Personally I agree with you, I think that Paul means that once he is dead he won’t ‘remember’ the intervening time between death and ressurection, and so for him the ressurection will appear ‘instant.’
However you have put your finger on the crux of the issue:
the operative term here is ‘I think’, you do not know, the Bible was written so long ago that we cannot ever be 100% sure that what we take from it and how we interpret it is how the original writers intended it to be read. Certaintly Paul would never have expected his brief correctory letters to form the cornerstone of Christian theology.
I apologise for turning this topic into a biblical debate rather than a discussion of religious beliefs…
That’s okay i shouldn’t be continuing this discussion.
Anyhow…hopefully we will get back on topic now that i am finished.
Roman Catholic. Although I am active in my spirituality, I believe a person is made up of their uniqueness rather than to their affiliation to their religion. I don’t really give a stuff what a person’s belief is… that’s discriminatory and it does not make anyone less of a person if one’s person’s religion differs from yours, and that’s why I never, ever argue religion with other people, along with politics (moderate, BTW. Go figure.).
Reformed Southern Baptist here.
If you want an overview of my beliefs, read the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith.
Thank you!!! I was gonna say the same thing myself!
I dont relly believe anymore.
Although the rAMEN thing always gets me lol
God just helped me out with the installation of Premiere Pro CS4 the other day, despite my extremely high fever (about 39C degrees when measured with a ear thermometer). I hope he helps me out again with today’s exam.
Oh, and it’s Christianity’s God I’m following.
Agnostic Atheist.
I live in an extremely conservative town and yet I believe in evolution and I do not think that homosexual relationships are wrong (saying that is like a swear in our town.) I have no idea if God exists, but I ask, If he is really watching us, why doesn’t he fix what’s wrong with the world?
My parents are Lutherans, and I occasionally go to church activities with them. Lutherans are very accepting of others religion and they have no problem with me.