Seeker196

"I am a Christain and if you insult christianity you insult me."

I'm an agnostic, and you can insult agnosticism all you want without insulting me.

Scrutinizer

Kosh,

Indeed, you are right that these aspects of the Bible could be used in such a way to manipulate and control. On the other hand, they could also be reflecting genuine truth.

Assume for the sake of argument that Christianity in its basic form is true -- so, the following propositions are true:

1) God exists and is infinite, omniscient, just, omnipotent, loving, etc.

2) Humans are sinful, finite, limited in knowledge & dependent upon God for their existence.

If these two propositions were true, it is quite logical to assume:

1) God's ways are not our ways.

2) There will be some who hear but not understand.

If you grant human sinfulness & God's sovereignty, both Biblical propositions make sense.

So, it really comes down to whether the initial propositions I put forth are true. If so, the Biblical statements aren't manipulative but rather reflect truth.

Regards,

- Scrutinizer

emotional

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Oh my! Whatever happened to Mithras, Dionysus, Osiris, Bacchus, Orpheus and all those other crucified virgin-born saviours?

(I expect Meta to "tekton" me now...)

Christianity (and Islam too) has grown too large to be counted as a cult. Religions are cults grown to formality, just as languages are dialects waving a national flag (to quote Anthony Burgess' A Mouthful Of Air). Furthermore, anyone teaching Christianity as a cult is risking his career.

The earmarks of cults are present in Christianity if you just leave off your bias: infallible leader, salvation only through him, manipulation by carrot and stick, binary separation between factions (God/Satan, good/evil, Christianity/All Other Religions, Saved/Unsaved, Believers/Unbelievers), low view of the "outside group" (the exhortation to avoid being yoked with unbelievers - if that's not a sign of a cult then I don't know what is).

Christianity is a cult - the cult of Jesus, Paul &c. The difference between Christianity and Falun Gong is that Christianity is much more successful. Christianity is a cult become as dominant as Microsoft.

Scrutinizer

"Cult" has a negative feel to it, "religion" doesn't really. Whether or not Christianity is a cult is just a semantic game.

If Christianity is defined as a cult, then so be it. I'd just have to alter the negative "feeling" I get when I hear the word "cult"!

Regards,

- Scrutinizer

lpetrich

In effect, they had not only practiced socialism, they had also practiced Stalinism.

I'm drawing an analogy with the forcible collectivization of farms that Stalin had ordered; those who were reluctant to go along were sent to gulags -- or worse.