Serious question about Christians?

A different point of view is one thing. My Mother is a die-hard, fundamentalist Christian, so am I. I've read the God, Delusion and other religious materials that had nothing to do with my faith, I researched evolution and was taught that it was true my entire life. for the sake of learning, That's fine. Should a Christian watch entertainment that is full of sex, blood and murder , not recapping actual historical events, but a bunch of sensationalized sin? NO. It's not different perspectives we are cautionary about, it's that sort of thing. Christianity is a lifestyle, not a pick-apart label or something you just tack onto your social media accounts. When you become a Christian, it isn't that life is one thing and God is another. You align your will and actions with those of God and LIVE that way.

It's very characteristic of religious movements that are insular. They regard the outside world as a threat.

There is some biblical support for this attitude.

Salomon is said to have been lead astray by his foreign wives into absorbing their foreign culture and that this ultimately caused Israel to lose God's favor.

(Not in Solomon's time but later).

But I do think Christianity allows us to rise even above that.

I tend to regard Christianity as going way beyond the Jewish story and having an originality of its own. Christ is God made man.

Jesus makes a very radical promise; that he can wash someone's heart.

And he also says that only if we become like children (i.e., open) shall we reach the kingdom of God.

Christianity has a very deep sense of fearlessness in its message. For it is written: "'He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully;:", Luke 4:10

I don't see an endorsement for isolationism there, and certainly not one for superstitious revulsion at different cultures.

Most Christian faiths only tell their adherents what to believe, without teaching why what they believe is true, if indeed it is. The result is that these adherents are in no position to defend their faiths to others - or even in their own minds.

To such ill-equipped adherents, misinformation and persuasive arguments are serious threats; thus the use of mind-control tactics on them, and their mystification when faced with decisions for which they are not prepared.

My mother was like this, She lived a life of fear and a guilt inspired life. Her faith told her not to do most things that humans do like dance, play cards and so on. Yes dancing to her was a sin. Personally I love to dance.

We of faith are part of a culture and we don't sin when we do things like dance of listen to music that isn't totally Religious. I often find that kind of music offensive to my own personal beliefs.

God gave us an incredible world to live in.

You don't need to live a life in guilt and fear of not being totally religious.

Don't tell me -- you're an American who treks through North Korea, Russia, and Iran and comes back to educate us, right? No wonder with all the courage and all...

8^)~

you make christians all sound like conservative hermit like people. Don't generalize and I don't think you asked a question

It surely does seem that way, doesn't it? After all, God gave us brains, right? Even the bible talks about how important critical thinking is: "let him who has wisdom," and "let us reason together," etc. Human beings are created with a deep curiosity, and curiosity is no sin, as Professor Dumbledore is fond of saying ;) There are no questions that should not be asked, even though there may not be satisfactory answers for them.

Believers who blindly believe are in danger of allowing themselves to be deceived by those who might have less than virtuous motives..televangelists begging for money so they can buy multimillion dollar jets come to mind. They might even be in danger of not actually being "saved" in the first place; Where in the bible does Christ EVER teach that it's okay to hate ANYBODY?? Yet you see many if not most Christians espousing a doctrine that, at its base, can only be described as hatred. Jesus came along to bring EVERYONE to a knowledge of God, so how is it that many if not most his followers actively employ practices that cause people to turn away and even HATE God, and not only this, but then to teach others to do the same?? Somehow, I do believe that the salvation of such people should be called into question, as it seems that they're actually believing a lie and spreading it around. Jesus himself warned his followers of this happening.

I think, if you look at this phenomenon as a whole ('willful ignorance" among some groups of people), I think a large part of it has to do with the fact that existence is COMPLICATED. Life is DIFFICULT. There's pain and suffering in the world, probably a lot more than happiness and joy...at least it seems so. There's so much going on in our universe that even conceiving of it is overwhelming, much less trying to understand it all. Thus, many people seek to simplify things so they can wrap their heads around it. This provides such people with a sense of order and comfort and probably most importantly, CONTROL, in their world. Of course, this is a false sense of comfort, and deep down they probably know this, so they fight tooth and nail against any ideas or evidence which might contradict this comfortable yet false worldview.

You might note this isn't just true for religious types. Scientists are also guilty of this, as are atheists, politicians, and actually people in general. When a scientist claims that evolution "disproves the existence of God," s/he is violating their own scientific method, as one simply cannot prove a negative, at least not in this universe where it's not possible for even a fraction of the "truth" to be known, much less the whole thing. Perhaps one day humanity will indeed come to know everything there is to know, but right now, such conclusions as "this or that thing does NOT exist" are premature at best and absolutely deceitful and foolish at worst. You could say the same thing for atheists: What evidence does the atheist use (who is so fond of using evidence as a basis for rational thought) to definitively say there is no God or at least some sort of higher reality? There is no evidence that God does NOT exist... If there is, why don't they trot it out for the rest of the world to see, other than saying that there's no evidence FOR the existence of God, which may or not be true, but is not actually an objective thing: How one person interprets evidence can be quite the opposite for how other people interpret the same evidence. The rational believer says there IS evidence for God, the rational nonbeliever will say there's NO evidence for God's existence. The problem is that there is no truly rational and impartial arbiter of who is right. Indeed, if such an arbiter DID exist, one could conceivably call such a thing GOD. Paradox there ;)

For myself, I choose to interpret many of the things I see as evidence FOR God's existence. And not just fuzzy-wuzzy cuddly-snuggly things like beautiful sunsets, or baby panda bears, or the vastness of the universe and the awesome beauty I see in so many things. To my mind, it takes just as much faith, if not more, to believe that such complicated structures as an individual cell, much less a whole human being, came about through nothing more than a series of random accidents. That being said, I also believe quite firmly in the evolution of new species as a mechanism for the production of new life forms. The evidence for this is pretty incontrovertible. But, for me, evolution is merely one mechanism BY WHICH God creates living things, and indeed everything in this universe (and possibly others). Finally, the ultimate in fuzzy-wuzzy things: there is LOVE in the world. No scientist can every truly explain where love comes from, oxytocin be damned. I'm talking about the force that can cause one human being to actually die for another, or even millions. Altruism at this level has not yet been seen in animals, but this has occurred thousands of times among humans.. Biology cannot to explain it, certainly not physics, math or chemistry. There are still mysteries which science, as it currently is, has no hope of ever explaining.

since many christians know more about evolutionism than Atheists, that can hardly be the case