One question for Christians and one for Muslims neither can answer

I understand what you are saying.

The only thing I would say to this though is that it goes back to my distaste for organized religion. The key words I'm looking at is social construct. I just hate it when people call my actions sinful simply because I did not go through the motions of religion. That now includes weddings in addition to baptisms and communion. What could be more natural than two people who come together and promise to love each other. There is no need to have permission from a third party (well maybe your parents, but not somebody speaking for God).

When it comes to religion, what could be better in developing a personal relationship with whatever higher power you believe in with simply following the golden rule and occasionally praying and/or meditating? No need for specific rituals. Why not? Because those are man's ideas on how they believe we should appease the higher power. There is no evidence that is what the higher power demands.

 

Let's start with this:

"I just hate it when people call my actions sinful simply because I did not go through the motions of religion."

Dude, we don't give a damn. And I don't believe anybody else does. This is 2018, in case you haven't been keeping track, people have stopped being shocked by other people living together. Your complaints sound more like a guilty conscience than anything else.

"When it comes to religion, what could be better in developing a personal relationship with whatever higher power you believe in with simply following the golden rule and occasionally praying and/or meditating? No need for specific rituals."

Well, guess what? That's a ritual. It may not be what you call a ritual, but it is a ritual, and I've got news for you, there are millions of Christians who do just that every day. Furthermore:

"The only thing I would say to this though is that it goes back to my distaste for organized religion."

So you prefer disorganized religion?

 

Which Bible verse(s) are you referring to

 

Your basic assumption is that god is a vague notion to be developed based on each persons human sensibility - basically each person makes up their own religion which suits their worldly desire. Effectively that means there is no god, its all in each persons mind.

If you take that approach, then you can do whatever society allows you to do, and with no accountability to God.

That's not the Christian (or muslim) belief. In Christianity, the Bible documents the evolving relationship between man and God and provides the "users manual" which allows an individual to best live in this battlefield of a world. Think of the world as a game, there are competing forces and various objectives, and the Bible is a guide to best navigating through the game. Since it was written by God - who stands outside the game and understands the forces and objectives better than any human - the guide is the best approach to life.

 

Sorry, the Bible was written by many MEN.

 

It was penned by men, inspired by God.

 

Sure. If that is someone else's belief, it's not a problem.

The problem emerges in societies where state and religion are not firmly severed. For that I need not say more. The second problem emerges when members of your family and friends and even acquaintances start thinking less of you and hence treat you differently because you start thinking you can play by a different set of rules than they do in life (not including state/civil law of course). For that the most extreme examples are cults but it does not have to be just cults. And all because a belief system does not fit your world view (There's better words for what I'm trying to express here, but it's just not on me right now). True story: the first time I refused to participate in communion, I had to threaten my wife and mother that I would be shouting in church that I'm there against my will to get out of it.

That leads me to another thought. The reason atheists have a problem with the idea of hell even though we don't believe in it is because it dehumanizes us in the eyes of our religious friends and families. (Got that from a great atheist Youtuber I might recommend you see with a new thread).

 

That excuse doesn't work. All religions use it.
You don't know what inspired the writings.
Power, sex, control of the masses, peer pressure, any one, or several numbers of things,

 

You'd be surprised. A have a friend who was kicked out of his Baptist church when his wife divorced him. He was the innocent party, but out he went. Divorce is still a big deal in the Catholic church, too. I agree that he has a guilty conscience, though.

 

Hell doesn't dehumanize atheists, it presents a challenge to believers to try to save your soul. They're trying to save you from the consequences of your sinful life and beliefs. You should be grateful. Okay, that's probably too much to ask, but you should give your religious friends and family a break, they're only trying to look out for you.

I'm curious why you call her your wife rather than your live-in girlfriend or significant other or some other euphemism for living together if you didn't marry her.

 

I married her in 2006 when I was still a believer. Now I don't believe in marriage anymore and we are estranged.

 

Yeah, I would be surprised; the only reason I can think of for getting thrown out of a Baptist Church is that he might have threatened his ex or someone else in the Church. And I'll tell you something else: in the 21st century, even here in the Bible Belt, Baptists don't even call themselves that any more, they may have affiliation with some Baptist synod, but they are usually more like community Churches. You'd never guess the denomination by sitting through a service.

Even in the Catholic Church divorce is not a cause for excommunication, remarrying after a divorce is, which is why Catholics have to get annulments before remarrying. Otherwise, in the eyes of the Church he is still married to his first wife.

 

It sounds like you don't believe in her anymore.

 

A persons religious belief (and I include atheism as a form of religious belief) is fundamental to how a person lives. You cannot separate a persons life into independent facets. You have a set of beliefs which manifest in how you live your life, in how you relate to other people, how you do your job, deal with responsibility and honesty, who you vote for.

To a Christian, the entire purpose of existence is to live according to Jesus (God) teaching, and to spread the Gospel. That cannot be set aside when that person enters the public arena.

That does not mean the government should be a theocracy. Under the Constitution, there is no conflict between a religious person living their belief and the government. In fact, the Constitution as originally intended and understood allowed individuals to live their religion (or atheism) by keeping the govt hands out of religion.

So you feel uncomfortable when you are exposed to people with beliefs that you don't share. That's life and you cannot change it. People in a group (religious, political, professional, academic, military, etc) are going to treat each other differently than they treat people outside the group.

Again, that's life. But "dehumanized" is too strong a word and is inaccurate. Maybe "looked down upon" is a better phrase.

A good analogy is the Titanic. The world is like the Titanic after it hit the iceberg, its going down and nothing will stop it. The job of the Christians is not to play music so everyone feels good, but to get everyone into the lifeboats.

If you are an atheist, then to a Christian you are going down with the ship. The Christians job is to explain God to you so that you save yourself (get in the lifeboat). And it is "save yourself", nobody can force you to have the right relationship with God, all people can do is explain the situation to you.

 

Most of the authors that we know of were poor, they did not use the Bible to gain worldly wealth. Some were slaves. Some did have power and wealth (such as Soloman) but they did not gain that wealth and power from their writings.

 

Just the fact they could read and write, puts them in a different class, from the common people.

 

Actually many of the authors could not read and write. Much of the Old Testament books were passed orally for many generations before they were actually recorded. Some books it is pure speculation who wrote it.

 

Not in the Jewish world. Jews were required to be literate, that's a main purpose of the bar mitvah and bat mitzvah, to show the person could read and write. Every Jew was expected to be able to read the Torah, understand it, and be able to discuss it.

 

Lets not put the cart before the horse. We are talking about people who wrote it, not reading it at a later time.
When written languages were developed, the first thing people wrote about, was their Gods.

 

The first thing people wrote about was how to make booze = https://www.npr.org/sections/thesal...7/5-000-year-old-chinese-beer-recipe-revealed

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_beer

 

Then if treating people differently based on belief is unavoidable, let's agree to the following:

If someone tells you of their religion and then says that your lifestyle is wrong, you will not invite them over as a guest to your house. Simple enough.

Second, if someone tells you of their religion and proposes you join them and also says that you are living in sin, you can tell them to either shut up or get out of your sight. If they stay and keep telling you that you are doomed, then things can get physical. Also simple enough.

But what happens if it is a member of your family? Is shunning justified if one party keeps making moral judgments on the other that the other party does not agree with? Do we really have to put up with the breaking up of a family?

 

Depends upon where you are and how you and he act. In your house, or on your property, you can demand he leave and if he refuses you can take further action. On public property, its not as clear as you both have a right to be there and to speak - until one of you crosses the legal line by becoming violent or harassing the other.

The major element is tolerance, you tolerate his right to speak in public, he tolerates your right to walk away or to speak out with an alternative message. Just because you don't like what he is saying does not give you the authority to physically assault him.

I have friends who are muslim, some are atheist, and a lot are simply undecided. We all get along, I have some very good conversations particularly with the muslims. I don't hide my religion at all but I don't harangue them. Just because we disagree, I don't discard them.

You can get along with people if you and they are willing to get along.

You can always walk away. It happens all the time, and not just over religion. A teenager doesn't get along with the parents and leaves the family as soon as she turns 17 or 18. Some parents are domineering, some children want a radically different lifestyle and the parents can't accept it, some people are irresponsible or rude or dishonest. Family members may go their separate ways over abortion, or politics (try being a black conservative).

As a Christian, I want everyone in my extended and immediate family to be a Christian not because I want them to agree with me but because I love them. There has to be some sort of positive relationship in order to communicate, its counter productive to harass the non-Christians and drive them away, but I'm not going to tolerate certain behaviors - and they all know that so if they come into my house then they know they have to follow my rules.

For example, if an unmarried couple are living together then I have no problem with them coming to my house but they are not going to stay in the same bedroom. If the subject of living together or premarital sex comes up, they are very likely to get my opinion on it. But all of them know that, if they are ok with it then they come over, if they don't like it then they don't come over.

 

They were borrowed from older civilizations that wrote them down.

 

If you want to have some fun when that subject comes up you can simply tell the other person that you did some ancestor research and discovered that 5, 6, and 7 generations ago your ancestors were bastards so that you are barred from entering the religion per Deuteronomy 23:2 (AMP) = "A person of illegitimate birth shall not enter the assembly of the Lord; none of his descendants, even to the tenth generation."

 

The answer is simple: If love is involved in the decision to have intercourse, it's NOT a sin. Love in any form is a positive thing. Consensual sex (especially between two adults who love each other) is an expression of love through a physical format, and is a positive event. . .not a sin. If a baby results, the response of the couple toward that fact will be a measure of the love involved. If the pregnancy results in a marriage, then love was involved and it wasn't a sin. If the couple splits, then lust, not love was involved and it was a poor choice to have intercourse, but life is filled with poor choices by all of us. Still not a sin.