/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

>>800273

>Sure, the bible but they still ignore some parts of the bible

Could you elaborate? Do you mean parts of the Old Testament, things like the Mosaic Law and so on? The latter was fulfilled by Christ. We use the OT to put many things into context and without it, Jesus's sacrifice wouldn't make too much sense to most people… But all of the NT is perfectly "valid" and meant to be taken with absolute seriousness.

> Do you give more importance to the words of your minister or the vatican or do you give more importance to how you yourself interpret the scripture.

There is obviously a rift between Catholics/Orthodox and Protestants. Despite popular belief, Catholics and the Orthodox do have Bible studies, but they tend to stick to the official interpretation of Scripture proposed by the respective Churches whereas Prots have more wiggle room here; that's why there are thousands of protestant churches, with every single one having their own interpretation of the Bible.

>So how do you internalize your christian values as a person?

In my case, through drawing rational conclusions as to why Christian values are good and trying to apply them in my personal life. Many people came to the Christian faith through reason. The fact that I'm a sperg may have something to do with it.

Start with God. Read Socates' Apologia for a hint at what we mean by God.

Aquinas said all human life if a journey towards God. God wants you to understand Him and will infuse faith in you if you let Him.

>>800273

>We ignore bits

Common misconception. Usually it so happens that the principles of the faith as it is lived align with sanity. Sometimes though decisions must be made and this can make those decisions look odd from an outsiders perspective. There aren't really many people who strongly identify with their religion and compromise on it as you can imagine. I don't know how this meme got started but it's fairly trite when you start looking at people's real motivations.

>Internalizing Christian values

I tend to sort things according to importance; there is at the height of importance the Great Commandment "love your neighbor as yourself and love God etc." The rest of the Bible to me is an iteration of all the things that the Great Commandment means, and Christ's origins (the old testament is not about history and the world's origins per se, it is primarily about Christ's origins). This seems strange, but it actually makes perfect sense.

At any rate, it sometimes leads to odd conclusions; for instance some people seem to have this attitude where they say "you claim to worship the prince of peace, so why is it that you Christians never give anyone any peace?" But the fact that we tend to intervene is based on the belief in the idea that morality is an eternal truth. This doesn't mean we're primarily seeking to be annoying, but it does lead to upset and a degree of mistrust. This is probably why people started the meme that we ignore bits of the Bible; if we're hypocrites we can be safely ignored.

This is also why the creationism debate is so harmful on our end, if we go in for young earth creationism the world can deride us for stupidity, and so our values can be ignored, yet if we don't fit into that narrow framework, again hypocrisy, so equally worth ignoring. Consequently I follow the old approach where everything in the Bible is ultimately about elucidating the nature of Christ as God, rather than being a primarily historical account.

So overall, I ignore no parts, but if for instance you told me about the bit where God tells the Israelites to genocide the Canaanites, and to not make peace with them or allow them to live, I interpret this as being essentially God's Machiavellian way of ensuring future peace. In other words, if you have an enemy, it is immoral not to neutralize that enemy, because if you do any less, you are just giving hardship to your children.

Anyway, these are just my thoughts on some popular questions.

http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2014/05/pre-christian-apologetics.html

This is a great article going in depth on the rational approach from a good philosopher.

Basically, rationally the steps he breaks it down into are

I. Metaphysical prolegomena

II. Natural theology

III. Philosophical anthropology

IV. Natural law and natural religion

V. Christian apologetics

You might check out this authors book responding to new athiesm called the last superstition or if you want something more in depth his book five proofs for the existence of God.

I grew up athiest/nihilist with no exposure to Christianity and this is just sort of the rational approach to take, his blogpost goes in depth into the reasoning.

You first need to correct bad metaphysical misunderstandings, then your misunderstandings about what God is, then your misunderstandings about what you are, then your misunderstandings about what religon is, then you can investigate the claims of different religions like Christianity.

Most Christians don't follow this and there is plenty of things I indicated above, just presupposed errors, in your thing that'd take a while to correct, highly rec reading it.

>>800273

>what christians usually use as a basis for their faith

If you're asking why I believe, then it is simply because I saw some social science data saying the religious are generally more happy and well adjusted people. I take this to be evidence of God conferring his blessings upon the faithful. As for why I am a Christian specifically, admittedly, some parts of it are because of convenience and my own heritage, but Christianity does contain a logic that causes it to make more sense to me than other religions, You'd have to look into it more to understand.

>but they still ignore some parts of the bible

The new covenant does not require us to perform the ceremonial and civil laws of the Old Testament. Nonetheless, the moral principles and teachings in the Old Testament still bind us. Christians who see their faith as more than a social club take all the laws in the Bible seriously, even the ones that are politically incorrect. Now there are, of course, many liberal Protestant sects that play the rationalization game with the Bible, but don't count on those having any significance in the long run. Such parishes generally empty out quickly. If people get from their church the same thing they get from watching CNN, there isn't much point in the church, is there?

Also i realized you probably misunderstand what faith acutally means

this lecture goes into detail and is very interesting

>>800273

>As an athiest I wonder what christians usually use as a basis for their faith.

The Lord revealed himself to me, after I picked up the phone.

>Sure, the bible but they still ignore some parts of the bible

I don't. The Bible is God's word and true in its entirety.

>>800524

>Picked up a random phone call one day, it was from phone number 7777777, curious.

>Hallo?

>”I am the Lord your God, on the other side of the phone”

Honestly, I would have been scared witless or probably burned to ashes along with the phone itself by His Holiness because I am pretty much a really nasty sinful person.

>>800528

Can you get an email from the Lord? Will reading it turn you to ash? Are the web servers of the Vatican blessed? So many questions, no wonder the religion is in such disarray.

I could have sworn i posted here, but now it's gone.

>>800530

Same here, looks like the mods cleaned up a couple posts they didn't like. No censorship at >>>/christianity/

>>800528

That number usually connects to a pizza delivery service or the local taxi company

>x-flies.mp4

>>800529

cringe

>>800528

I wasn't joking, the Bible is God's "phone". I picked it up and He said Hello. You can even add Him on your smartphone: just download the Bible app.

I was just using simple figurative language to get my point across.

>Honestly, I would have been scared witless or probably burned to ashes along with the phone itself by His Holiness because I am pretty much a really nasty sinful person.

Sin was the first topic we had to discuss after making the connection. God forgives, if you repent and accept Jesus Christ as your savior.

>>800646

I was that poster, I thought you mean in literally and thought you must really be pure of heart and so lucky and blessed that one day you picked up your phone and it was our Lord speaking with the voice that trembles across the universe and all your senses instantly recognised that this is God on the other side of the phone.

>>800663

I got blessed with strong faith over night, after picking up God's "phone", even if it wasn't a literal phone (The Amish couldn't talk to God then.)

Sorry, I didn't intend to confuse you.

>>800273

>As an athiest I wonder what christians usually use as a basis for their faith. Sure, the bible but they still ignore some parts of the bible and I'm not quite sure to what parameters they use to do so.

The bible. Everything makes sense if you read it fully in context.

Atheists think that we ignore scripture because they intentionally misinterpret God's commands to a particular group of people. It's similar to how the media lies about PDP being a Nazi.