I was talking with a non-christian the other day (I'm christian), and he mentioned how christians are always one-sided and always refute the facts to preserve their faith. I can't help but get irritated when people say this to me because I know it's not true. I think there's this stereotype in our society about the christian faith.

I'm christian (and quite religious), but I don't fit this "pattern" at all. I'm not against science at all. I love science, I love genetics and research of how the human body works. It amazes me just as much as anyone else. I'm for stem-cell research, provided the cells are harvested from tissue that isn't a baby (i.e., umbiblical tissue). I consider my self a republicrat, as I agree with some democratic ideas, as well as some republican ones.

And it's not just christianity either. Muslims all over the world are being persecuted for being religious extremists, when their actual religion is just twisted and used by the terrorists to justify their evil deeds. I'm not saying I agree with muslim theology, but they aren't the horrible blood-thirsty terrorists some people make them out to be ("Infidel" anyone?).

The solitary acts of a few twisted people shouldn't be represenitive of any religious group as a whole. Am I completely off base here, or do I have a point? What do you guys think?

Wow 2 religous based threads

But i sorta agree.

Hmm this sounds familiar, like I saw it on some other site .

But yes, Christians do normally get a bad wrap, but really the people to blame are 'Christians', and televangelists. They are the reason these stereotypes got started (in addition to the whole idea of missionaries, but that's another story) in my opinion. But yes most Christians are seen as close minded and very dismissive when it comes to any issue regarding their faith, sadly not unlike most people when you insert science, belief or any other thing for faith.

I know that personally a lot of Christians I hung around were all cool, until you started talking about things involving their religion. Then they got uptight and accusative (my Mom also being one of those). So most of the time you just end up agreeing to disagree and never bringing these topics up with them again, sadly. So I won't pretend this doesn't happen with other subjects and is only true with religion (politics is another big one that comes to mind), it's just always seemed to me that most Chrisitans I've met will refuse to listen to your arguments and even consider them to have the possibility of being true, if said argument would shatter any of their beliefs. So not much different from other subjects with other people, but some Christians just seem to be very vocal and accusative with confronted with these debates, and will also try to guilt trip you.

So while it's not right, we do often use what the group has done to initially judge a person, especially if that person exibits behavior similar to our held stereotype. It's a hard thing to treat every person differently, as then you have to remember each nuance of every person you meet, and be able to easily recall those. Immediate memory is limited, so it can be difficult to hold all these relationships, and access them easily, so a lot of times we lump people together unfairly. Not a justification for it, more an explanation of why it happens. But I think you will find if you present your argument logically (or with some semblance of thought process) people won't care about who you are, they will listen to the argument (this is the nirvana state of debate, where only the ideas are question, not the creator). And if you don't think they are, call them out on it, most people who do it on accident or didn't mean to will apologize, or give a neutral explanation for their opinion.

Sadly as the saying goes, that's life, and old habits die hard. As a follow up, how many Christians do you think, think of each muslim as a terrorist, and would you not be a little scared if one of them walked up to you in tattered clothing? So the reality is we all use stereotypes from time to time, and sometimes the stereotype is correct and we can move on, and sometimes we really offend someone and must apologize. While we all strive to be these super accepting people, the reality is sometimes we get lazy, or just don't think in depth enough (maybe we're having a bad day, or just never think that what we said could have not taken into account the individual). So the only thing to do at that point is hope we can apologize and really try to understand the other persons point of view.

But of course we also can't take offense to everything said or then we end up with a society of people being afraid to say anything meaningful, for fear of offending one person (or even a group of people). So I say, as general advice to all, just lighten up and take things in stride, and if you get really upset or offended, let the offending party know about it, in other words, embody the coolness.

If he said "sometimes one-sided" instead of "always one-sided", would you be able to agree with him, respect his opinion, and not get irritated?

Most of the Christians that I've talked to do not necessarily refute the facts, but when you ask them to reconcile the facts with their theology, MANY say it just comes down to faith, or do not answer the question.

Yes, a lot of the OP I stated over at the pavilion, but the "non-christian" I was talking about wasn't anybody over at thee pav, nor here at the mag. It's a real-life person.



Belief in God is all faith, the existance of God cannot be proven. God works in everyone's lives to make them see him individually. One person's spiritual turning point (if you will), won't be the same as the next.

ummmm....Bo...are you saying that if I told you most of my beliefs as a christian are due to pure faith, that that would be a cop out answer?

Because I'm sorry...All religions are a matter of faith.....there is no proof for them to be held by anything else. If any person gives you the basis of their religion as faith then I think that's the best answer they can give.

I hate steriotypes like this. I'm a Christian, but I, like Phoenix, am totally open to scientific explanations for stuff. In my mind, God is the one who created all those scientific laws. A solar system forming from a gassy nebula due to a nearby supernova doesn't disprove that God didn't make our world and the worlds around it, it just shows that God decided to create the world in a more interesting way than just "poof". This, of course, being my belief. I say go ahead and believe whatever you want, as long as it doesn't involve harming others.

I totally agree. And I'm one of those atheist-borderline-christians that can't agree with the poof theory or the budding universe theory. More like can't have one without the other.

Regarding faith, I'm saying that many Christians try to say that their beliefs are logical and then when you analyze all logical links they say that it fundamentally comes down to faith. I have no problem with faith as a basis so long as the individual is not trying to simultaneously argue the belief is logical. Logical comprehensivity lies in agnosticism.

My other point is that like logic, the scientific method is perfectly valid to many Christians regarding many areas but once potential conflict arises with theology, as for example regarding evolution, the same individual Christian might also find the scientifc method all of a sudden unreliable. My point was that when I press on the inconsistency, I hear, "faith" or no response.

Stereo types, I can come up with a couple.

1. A religious group whether its christianity or another that will judge you for not doing something and always say you're going to hell unless you listen to them. Sort of what a cult does.

2. The hustling preacher talking about giving money to the collection plate since he's making money from it. Only focus's on the collection plate, talks about god is good and never really reads from the bible.

3. The sexual priest, the ones who are cheating on their wives; promiscuous through out their entire relationship. Can use the people's faith in him to easily forgive his sins but the wife or ex wife becomes the outsider. The outcast who was just a whore to him. Its like she was at fault for his adulterous ways.

Logically speaking, it's unlikely that the world and all life on it was able to be randomly created to such a huge and very specific extreme. But I can't prove Intelligent Design, so I have to take it at faith value.

Logically speaking, the existence of an Intelligent Designer begs the question because the ID too is highly unlikely. It would require sufficient probability that the original ID was always there or came from nowhere, either scenario, logicially speaking, in low probabiltiy.

You have another alternative. You can claim agnositicsm.

The fact that you fall back on Intelligent Design implies a logical bias. If it were faith that you were relying on, you wouldn't need to assert a logical inconsistency with the proabality of random processes, as they would be irrelevant. You would simply recognize the faith and go with it instead of bothering to follow logic until it hits a point that seems unlikely ONLY THEN to plug in faith.

I have no idea what you said.

Sorry. What I’m saying is assuming you believe that logically speaking it is unlikely that the world and the life on it could be due merely to random processes, instead of saying it must therefore have been an Intelligent Designer, you could claim AGNOSTICISM and say “I don’t know, because NO possible scenario seems likely. Maybe I am presently incapable of asserting a proper answer to this question.â€

I say I didn't quite understand, and he replies with a longer post.

Well here's some more logic. The stuff in the universe had to have come from somewhere. Unless this stuff, too, did exist in negative infinity. And if all the makeups of the universe could exist in negative infinity, a being of ultimate power could also have existed in negative infinity. If the universe didn't exist beforehand, then something had to come around to create it. Quite possibly, that something is that being of ultimate power. Intelligent Design. Again, this means that something had to exist in negative infinity.

But, again, I cannot prove that this is the case, and there could be possibilities that doesn't involve Intelligent Design. Thus, I have to take it by faith. Logic and faith can co-exist. I am using this logic to help fuel my faith. Faith alone isn't easy to keep, especially when people use logic against faith. So, I merely use my logic to counter opposing logic. Just a way to say "I'm right and you're wrong"? Not at all. There are opposing logics in non-religious fields, and like in this case, it merely results in a stalemate. An instance of "let's agree to disagree".

Sorry about the lengthy reply

I'm fine with competing logics, but I don't understand why you "HAVE" to take it by faith. You could maintain that all scenarios are equally logically plausible or equally logically implausible so that you have faith in ALL OF THEM EQUALLY or in NONE of them.

Why you are concerned with keeping faith? If you have faith then fine, but if you don't then just as fine, right?

Personally I what I believe is that God existed first, in negative infinity, and wound up creating the universe with his ultimate power. And the reason that faith is so important to me is because the alternative is very depressing.

Draygone wrote:


.... I have been thinking the same thing. Since we cannot prove either way to be the gospel truth, isn't it better to just go ahead and believe in us humans having been created out of love in the image of a superior being, rather than just having monkeys as our predecessors and life having come about by pure accident in the first place and there being no life at all after death? (Not trying to hate on monkeys, but, come on ....)

I think god created us so we can have universal war with Satan's human race.

one.. well yeah lots of christians would refuse to listen to people who try to bash their religion because they're probably sick of it and have heard it all a million times. not so much being afraid of having their faith shattered as having to fight for their own right to believe what they believe all the time.

two.. people start bashing the religion because they're sick of hearing about it and getting pamphets shoved at them all the time about it. but all they see of the religion is the people who are out there lecturing on the street corners trying to convert the world and wasting trees.

fact or fiction - they're both missing Tolerance. So arn't we all useless?