Another Big Big Thread of Religious Discussion

[Frostatine]

yeah but everyone in the church listens to the preacher, and therein lies the problem. What he says comes directly from "god" and nobody would risk questioning him. While this also means that the people of the church beleive mostly the same thing, it's not entirely their beleifs;Rather that they have been spoon fed by another man who is their equal. Honestly if a church was just a group of people listening to the views of one another with equal attention disarray and argument would shortly follow.

One man of god to 30-100 christians is the only thing preventing the christian faith from turning into wicca.

And i mean that as in a primarily privately practiced religion.

Wow say that 5 times fast.

[Bob The Mercenary]

Originally Posted by Frostatine

yeah but everyone in the church listens to the preacher, and therein lies the problem. What he says comes directly from "god" and nobody would risk questioning him. While this also means that the people of the church beleive mostly the same thing, it's not entirely their beleifs;Rather that they have been spoon fed by another man who is their equal. Honestly if a church was just a group of people listening to the views of one another with equal attention disarray and argument would shortly follow.

My pastor never claims that his sermons come directly from God. He continually refers back to the Bible which is understood in Christianity to be the inspired word of God. But, most of his sermons consist of personal experience, and when he refers to his own opinion he makes it clear that it is so. And it's also considered healthy to question your preacher. If you hear something that sounds a bit off, there's no risk in inquiring about it. Hell, we get together a lot for drinks on weekends and I ask tons of questions to him, mostly brought to me from this forum, and we have a friendly conversation about it.

What do you mean by "spoon fed" though? I hope you don't think we're just drones who systematically go to church every week only to listen to what the preacher says and go "yes sir, here's our money". Everyone is intelligent enough to interpret what they want how they want.

[Frostatine]

Then why go to church at all? If you are perfectly capable of following your own path in christ why must you have someone lead your own worship of god?

It just doesnt sit right with me, the whole being dependantly independant thing.

[Bob The Mercenary]

That's why it's called communion. Worshipping on your own at home is all fine and good, but it's more engaging when other people are with you.

Another reason people go to church is to get their "weekly kick-in-the-ass" as I call it. We don't spend every second of every day thinking about our religion, and faith weakens over time, which is another reason used for problems in our life. Church is there to restore and maintain faith, to keep people from straying from "the path". Sure, pastors aren't necessary. But, I always hear something new that I would've never deduced by myself. Plus, as I said in my last post, pastors exist to answer questions. And as we can see by this thread's size, there are plenty of them.

[Edit] Wish I could stay for more, but I have to get on the road soon.

[Archbio]

Ryanderman,

The term Fundamentalist is really misused these days. Those the media(or culture, whatever) describes as "Fundamentalist Christians" really aren't, because their beliefs, which lead directly to the actions they take that tick off the rest of the country, are not the Fundamental beliefs of Christianity. Fundamental Christianity would lead one love your neighbor, be kind to strangers, treat others as you'd want to be treated, all that stuff.

The media or society?

You do go to some lenght to avoid one very obvious complication to your statement. They disagree with you on what the fundamentals are*. My experience is too limited to allow me to recall if they still use the term fundamentalism to describe their religious doctrine, but it seems to me that they did and that it's possible that they might be credited with the invention.

Quick consultation of a Webster dictionary reveals that the first definition has to do with the literal interpretation of the bible, which is most often believed to include the Old Testament. By experience, a lot of Christians find it convenient to cite the Old Testament in order to deflect things implied by the New Testament*, that you think they are true fundamentals or not.

Or that they call themselves fundamentalists or not. In essence, they are.**

The second set of definitions is a general one. That is, generalized to any movement or attitude. It seems that 'true Christian fundamentals' are even less relevant there.

I wonder if your statement doesn't fall under the No True Scotsman fallacy.

Bob,

That's why it's called communion.

I think the term comes from the sacrament.

---

*I'm just noting an existing (and somewhat rampant) attitude, not venturing to call it credible, honest or faithful to the spirit of the New Testament. After all, I've come across it, for the most part, when attempting to point out where supposed Christian behavior went against Jesus' teachings. There never was a lack of scriptural arguments against my objections.

**That the general use of fundamentalist is justified (and includes 'evil' behavior), which seems fairly undisputable, actually makes a statement like TheSpacePope's excessive, since fundamentalism could refer to any set of principles, which obviously can't all be automatically conductive to malice or theocracy. I would say that 'all fundamentalism is bad', however, as I think the notion of basing one's behavior on a litteral interpretation of an ancient text can't intellectually healthy by any means. But that's different.

[Bob The Mercenary]

Originally Posted by Archbio

Bob,



I think the term comes from the sacrament.

It does. I'm just a moron. I meant another word which escapes me at the moment. I'll use "fellowship" as a placeholder for now. >.<

[Edit] Congregation!

[Frostatine]

But what is it do you think that holds this congregation together? Without the preacher, there can be no church. You may hear power to the people, but in reality it's power to a few people. The rest of us are expected either to rise above or to follow someone.

To some degree this will always hold true, religion isnt special.

[P-Sleazy]

Originally Posted by Frostatine

yeah but everyone in the church listens to the preacher, and therein lies the problem. What he says comes directly from "god" and nobody would risk questioning him. While this also means that the people of the church beleive mostly the same thing, it's not entirely their beleifs;Rather that they have been spoon fed by another man who is their equal. Honestly if a church was just a group of people listening to the views of one another with equal attention disarray and argument would shortly follow.

The only person I've heard of claiming to be speaking from god is the Pope when he claims infallibility, and he can only claim infallibility on official church doctrine. All othertimes he's only "gods representative on earth" meaning he knows isn't God and doesn't claim to be him, but speaks FOR him, not FROM him. And as we all know, representatives are occasionaly wrong, which is why they only have Infallibility on Church Doctrine and not on Faith.

Also interesting note, the name for the sacrament of Communion/Eucharist comes from the greek word Eucharisti (or something like that, not entirely sure on the spelling, I also forgot what it means but I think it was something like Giving but that might have been the latin word my priest used a week later to explain something else in the bible, but I'm fairly sure it was Eucharisti that meant giving.)

[I_Like_Swordchucks]

Originally Posted by Frostatine

But what is it do you think that holds this congregation together? Without the preacher, there can be no church. You may hear power to the people, but in reality it's power to a few people. The rest of us are expected either to rise above or to follow someone.

Actually, I've attended several churches where its done in a forum format, and everybody speaks equally. So yeah, there can be church without a preacher.

However, on that some note simply having a leader doesn't make the leader God or the voice of God any more than it makes a high school teacher... well... God. The leader is just somebody who studies the thing for a living, has been trained, and probably can offer some insight into the field of theology that those of us ewho don't spend our lives studying wouldn't have otherwise. A good minister, however, will tell you that what he/she says is his/her interpretation, and will tell you that a wise Christian will compare what is said over the pulpit to what he/she reads in the Bible and what makes sense in his/her own head.

I'm sure I could teach a biology lesson to many of the people on this forum, but it doesn't make me Biology Incarnate. It just means I spend a lot more time studying it than the rest of you, therefore I'm relatively more of an authority in the area. People who've studied it longer know more than me, in the same way an older minister might be wiser than a younger minister. Its just a job like anything else.

And to your earlier comment, most sincere Christians consider themselves completely a privately practiced religion. Most of our faith comes from our own studies, our own prayer, our own readings, our own research. What we're told by the minister makes up a very small part of who we are and what we believe. Heck, I'd say I agree with only about 50% of what my minister says.

For you to claim that all Christians blindly follow their minister (some do, I'll grant you that) is a massive generalization and shows a clear lack of understanding of what being a Christian is about.

[Frostatine]

First of all the role of a priest is not simply a job, becasue you literally hold the faith and principles of life of many of your followers in your hands.

Most jobs have very little effect on how you spend your eternity.

If we have to compare and contrast everything a pastor says on the pulpit to what is in the bible, why even bother listening to him at all?

It just seems to me that it would waste a tremendous amount of my time if I ran a check on everything I've ever heard from a holy man.

Not only is it the scripture itself, but how you interpret it, meaning that although what a priest says does check in with the scripture, it may be entirely different from how you interpret it.

You can't really make any ground aside from saying "hmm I see your point, maybe Jesus wasnt really the son of god in a literal sense" but what someone else says isnt really going to have any bearing on your own personal faith.