(06-02-2013, 11:40 PM)bbbrad Wrote: [ -> ]Same goes for any other duo-religion like that. Christians would laugh their asses off at a Buddhist Christian too.
Of course they would, I was raised a Christian actually. I guess my thing with Christianity is that it doesn't really follow all of the Bible. Whatever church picks whatever part of the Bible they want to. It's not even an interpretive thing, where some Christian groups interpret this different or that different. It's more a "yeah, well...we don't like that part, because it doesn't fit in our doctorine that our founders came up with". If that makes any sense...
I disagree. Yes, Christianity as a whole doesn't follow the whole Bible; otherwise we'd be stoning gays and adulterers to death today. Many Christians however indicate that the New Testament is far more important than the Old, in that 1) Jesus is in the New one, and 2) the contrast between the Old and the New shows evolution of morality in that Christ basically told people not to sacrifice lambs and to stone gays/adulterers to death because it is unnecessary (or, at the very least, far less practical or easy than to follow his word, which would replace the more brutal practices of the time).
That being said, many Christians often say that Judaism is NOT a false religion since it's implanted in Christianity's roots (unlike Islam).
My dad basically says that the Old Testament was first to adapt to Jewish communities at the time of the writing of the books in it, and to "prepare" a more advanced people to the New Covenant. In other words, Judaism was originally adapted for a more primitive people and Christianity was revealed when humanity had matured.
So yeah, Christianity doesn't explicitly follow the entire Bible to the brim (and I don't expect people to even be able to do that either) but I definitely disagree that all churches are Cafeteria Christians.
(06-03-2013, 12:03 AM)JoelCarli Wrote: [ -> ]So yeah, Christianity doesn't explicitly follow the entire Bible to the brim (and I don't expect people to even be able to do that either) but I definitely disagree that all churches are Cafeteria Christians.
Cafeteria Christians? Not really. But there's a reason there's so many variations between Christianity, and it's not really Biblical for there to be so many variations.
I do agree that the amount of variations in Christianity is a bit fishy.
![[Image: 220px-Ichthus.svg.png]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/85/Ichthus.svg/220px-Ichthus.svg.png)
However, there are historical reasons for it (mainly having to do with the reformation), but to be fair, the non-Protestant denominations vary very little, and the whole point of Protestantism is to stride away from orthodoxy. In other words, you'll find so much more variation in Protestantism than in Catholicism and Orthodoxy, which in themselves aren't that much different.
(06-03-2013, 12:16 AM)JoelCarli Wrote: [ -> ]I do agree that the amount of variations in Christianity is a bit fishy.
However, there are historical reasons for it (mainly having to do with the reformation), but to be fair, the non-Protestant denominations vary very little, and the whole point of Protestantism is to stride away from orthodoxy. In other words, you'll find so much more variation in Protestantism than in Catholicism and Orthodoxy, which in themselves aren't that much different.
No, I understand most of that. I was actually raised Lutheran.
hrug:
It's just disturbing to me how it all is right now.
(06-02-2013, 06:27 PM)Mr Maps Wrote: [ -> ]So basically Paganism is just any non-Abrahamic faith? Or is it just western pre-Abrahamic faiths?
Most paganism is a belief in gods and goddesses. Or nature. But even Wiccans believe in a god and goddess. Be it Norse. Celtic. Wicaan. Finnish. Rus. Eygptian. Hindu. Even Shamanism and more.
(06-02-2013, 06:27 PM)Mr Maps Wrote: [ -> ]So basically Paganism is just any non-Abrahamic faith? Or is it just western pre-Abrahamic faiths?
Most paganism is a belief in gods and goddesses. Be it Norse. Celtic. Finnish. Rus. Eygptian. Hindu. Even Shamanism and more.
Sorry, but Hinduism is not classified as a Pagan religion
I think she meant anything around India that is pagan.
The ideas of dharma and karma and the likes sound relatively pagan-ish to me though.
Karma's kind of more a philosophical idea that's also embraced by several Indian religions, each of them interpreting it differently, of course.
(06-03-2013, 03:37 PM)JoelCarli Wrote: [ -> ]I think she meant anything around India that is pagan.
The ideas of dharma and karma and the likes sound relatively pagan-ish to me though.
The thing is Hinduism isn't technically polytheistic since all of the Gods are all various forms of Vishnu, so in actuality Hinduism has 1 God.