I'm convinced that possibly a majority of Christians don't truly understand what they believe in. It is the outcome of indoctrination and socialization. There is no objectivity in what most believe and they seem to believe it just because that's what they believe. But they really don't know why and they immediately are offended and close their mind/thoughts completely to anything that could call any aspect of what they believe into question. Some can blindly believe in their heart and never question. I wish I was one of those people. I would make life so much more simple when it comes to faith. Unfortunately however, I am not one of those people..
I believe Christianity is on the decline because the Western countries are mostly developed at this point. However the religion has not evolved such as it has in the past. I think that's a product of science and understanding having come at us so fast that the religion has not had the chance to catch up. Maybe to take that a step further it hasn't even really tried. There is a culture to remain steadfast in the face of insurmountable odds. To me that is what will lead to Christianity's demise as a dominate religion in the world.
Christianity evolved when the Roman's adopted it. It was written by people who believed the world was flat, that there were dragons, that if you were sick you could cut their arm and they could bleed out the illness,.... I could go on. That is undeniable. They had no idea there were dinosaurs, no concept of old the earth really was, no concept of evolution... this was not a modern civilization or privy to modern science. There was no running water, no electricity. I think we loose sight of that. We are beating on the scripture every Sunday but we don't dare call anything into question. We are afraid we'd be labeled as some sort of Heretic. We'd be shunned by our fellow church members and thus we don't discuss it. It is viewed as that thing.... Shhhh! Don't say that. Nobody talks about that.
Within the Church itself there was also varying opinion and interpretation and that still exists today. Prior to 396AD Saint Augustine, who was one of the main scholars of the early church believed in Predestination among other things that we no long believe today. He was a Catholic scholar and one of many. There were also Protestant Scholars and Secular Scholars. That's why we have different sects within Christianity. "Baptists" as a group were not even around until the 17th century and rooted in the English Separatists movement. Until the 1600's Baptists didn't even exist. But we believe today that every word was written by the hand of God and that this is the absolute truth word for word and that there is only one interpretation. That interpretation is whatever we individually believe and it varies significantly. Well... this type of viewpoint.... it wasn't always been that way. From one Christian to another we don't even believe exactly the same points. If you don't understand that you might want to look into that a little bit. Because in my opinion you don't fully understand what you believe in.
That being said I attend Church believe in God and in Jesus Christ, have been Baptized in the name of the Lord and I honestly think I could teach a College level course on either the Old or New Testament. I'm not calling anyone's faith into question. I'm simply concerned that there seems to be ZERO deeper understanding of our faith.
Last edited by Goatkiller; 02/20/18 11:35 AM.
