Jana,
You may have been in the wrong church for you. My understanding of Christianity and going to church is this. The closer we get to God, the more humble we are supposed to become. If a person really is hot on himself and talks like he has God's direct cell phone number to the exclusion of everyone else, then his profesion of being close to God is suspect.
It is when we are away from God that we get the big head and think how important we are. And how wonderful and perfect we are compared to others.
Being in a church in regular attendance and praying aind being close to God is supposed to bring feelings of humility, sacrifice, nonjudgement, compassion, giving, loving, inclusiveness, and a spirit of grace. Regular attendance in church and being close to God should not bring, being boastful, coveting what others have, judging others harshly, lack of compassion for others in trouble, hatred and a felling of exclusiveness as in we want others to come to the church and be like us. BE LIKE US!!!! Hell, who wants to do that. No, we want others to know that they can come into the presence of God if they aren't already and recieve peace. contentment as well as humility and the other things I mentioned.
Christianity is supposed to be about loving your fellow man. Not carrying around a gun shooting people or spreading hate by our actions.
I hope you understand what at least I believe Christianity is supposed to be about. I am fully aware that there are churches that are Christian churches that don't do nad teach what I understand the true Christian dogma is supposed to be.
You mentioned Gandi. He never was baptiised into a Christian Church. Gandi did hold Jesus in very high esteem. That doesn't make him a Christian in the western world sense of the word, but it does show that at least the Jesus that Gandi saw in the four gospels of the Bible was a man that Gandi admired. I talked with a Methodist minister from India and he said that Hindus in general accepted Jesus as one of the gods. I visited with a student from Napal who is studying here in America. I asked her how many gods there were in the Hindu religion. She said about 30,000.
Jana, there is concrete and universal truth. I don't believe in relativism when it comes to universal truths that span the ages. However, just which one of us is going to make the call on what is definitive truth? The only time a church is totally united and this happens occassionally is when only one person is there. As with me, we still aren't united when I am the only one there because I have mixed feeligns about some doctriines and such and bounce back and forth.
That is what being a human is about. All religions recognize that we are frail, limited in our knowledge, imperfect, prone to misjudge situation because we are clouded by prior konwledge and experiences, and we each suffer from a tendency to have specific frailties. For some it is covet. "I want your car, not one like it. I want yours and you not to have one." But not all of us have that imperfection. But we all have our fair share. None of us are lacking in that department.
However, God is still God. It is about humnas reconciling ourselves with God. That statement seems to be able to be said about ever major religion in the world. So unless you are atheist, it puts everyone in the need to find a religion that brings reconciliation between God and man.
And it is a hell of a job. And the bottom line is God does the reconciling. We do the accepting. Any person who want to brag and say he was able to reconcile himself with God without God playing a role is speaking out his ass as far as I believe. But if someone here believes that. Don't worry. I will be glad to carry on a great dialogue with you very cordialy, no anger at all. Me speaking with my mouth and you with your ass, but we will still be able to talk! Just kidding. But
We will make it.
Gosh, swimming down here in the DEEP END OF THE POOL is getting tiring. I tink I'll close this and go back up ot the wading pool. I can rest my feeble brain there.
Your bro.
Freddie
We're family you know.
Originally posted by madame_zora@Apr 25 2005, 06:17 AM
Okay, well I didn't send any pmms, so I guess it wasn't me, but I do want to clarify a few things.
When I was talking about a feeling of superiority, I meant something very specific- that the views I held as a Christian were "right" because I was a Christian, following the "right" path and suppported by the Bible as illuminated by my pastor. It is easy for me to understand that if a person had lived this way their whole life instead of just for five years, I would not expect that to ever change.
The original topic of this thread, which I have tried to continue on, was about how sex mores are treated differently wrt homos and heteros. When I said you can't expect someone to honestly assess their own culpability, I meant specifically that. A man can be bonking his secretary right after church and still look down his nose at a gay man, and I think that's horrible. I wasn't saying that anyone in an organised religion was stupid. I even said I know that some people prefer to stay on the inside to affect change from within. I am not strong enough to do so, but I do respect those who can.
DMW, I can't possibly know what the Pope means to you as a person, but my mother's family was Catholic and I did attend Catholic mass up to the age of nine. That in no way compares with the comprehensive study and dedication to the church which you have undertaken, but I'm not a complete outsider either. I understand a need for a call to unity, that is obvious. It is my opinion (and only that) that I wish a more open minded person had been chosen for that most delicate roll. I said in an earlier thread how influential the Pope is, even to non-Catholics because I believe it to be true. Unfortunately, only Catholics will be privy to the Catholic traditions and know the differences between Papal infallibility and personal opinions. Non-Catholics will take verything he says as gospel, and I think that was GBO's original point. If we are going to look at his words on homos, why is no one looking at the directions to heteros. I have the same complaint with most pastoral interpretations of the Bible, no one really looks very hard at the things that affect their own lives, because then they personally would have to change. It's far more convenient to rally against those eternally damned queers because then our own sins are less apparent. My complaint is against those who don't look first to themselves, I think this is stupid.
I've attended many different churches and different faiths, and I found the good to outweigh the bad in most of them. That doesn't dismiss the issue of being judgemental- if one must judge, then start with one's own life and see what improvements can be made there. Why sit in judgement of our brothers as if God were not fully capable of handling that job himself? I am not calling the members of any whole group or religion stupid, but I am calling a certain mindset that. I am not calling the Pope evil, although I find some of his word choices to be less than Godly. Once again, only my opinion. The only reason I bothered to state it at all is because of the political climate in which we find ourselves currently. I am deeply in fear for my own rights to live my life, and yes-that makes me angry. I don't feel this Pope will do much to help our situation of hatred here in the states.
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), but even they are enduring an ugly split over the consecration of the gay bishop. The fact that even they are so homophobic rules them out as a serious option for me; I should mention, though, that it was a massive scandal here a few years ago when a local church chose a woman for pastor. The earth fairly shook and folks were sure God would strike everyone dead. That sort of thing does more harm to their cause than good, I think. 
