I was confused by the Matthew 15:22 bit, but this made quite a lot of sense to me. That said, as a Christian, I am probably predisposed to believe things that defend my faith.
I've always wondered about certain things though, such as the admittedly dumb rules regarding women. There appears to be a shift between Old Testament rules and New Testament rules though - after all, Jesus did stop people from stoning an adulterous woman (the reason given being that we should not judge others unless we are ourselves without sin.) But this raises new questions: did God change His mind about these issues? God is supposed to be right about everything all the time, isn't He?
Some parts that I don't agree with though, are things that are the fault of Christians but not necessarily by God. It's true that Christians were (and still are, in some cases) very intolerant, as with the witch hunts. But I believe this was the fault of the individuals, not the religion - the people, including the religious leaders, used religion as an excuse for their intolerant behaviour and questionable morals. The same thing is happening now with terrorists calling their actions "Jihad" - we may reject that as a reason for terrorism, but neither should we blame all Muslims or call Islam as a whole false.
Another thing is the question of why God allows bad things to happen. In my church at least we are taught that the bad things that happen to us are trials for our faith. This sort of makes sense in some cases (I hear many testimonials about how people lose their jobs but they cling to their faith and then they end up finding better-paying jobs) but not in others (how is dying from a horrible disease as a child a trial for your faith?)
The way I resolved this in my mind is that God is working towards a greater good, not good for each individual (although ultimately it is the salvation of the individual that matters), and we can't really judge from our points of view what is or isn't for the greater good. As cruel as this sounds, a child's death could save a parent by making them turn to God, and the parents could save a bunch of other people, resulting in more people being saved overall. I also refuse to believe that God will persecute children who die before they have a chance to be saved, although I won't be able to defend this theory using the Bible, since I am hardly an expert D;
Oh, and I've always known about December 25th being some kind of pagan ritual day. No one said it was Jesus' actual birthday; it's just the day we celebrate his birth, and we celebrate it on that day precisely because Pope Julius I decided to set Dec 25th as the day. The Mithra thing sounds scarily the same, though, but isn't 6 BC close enough to Christ's birth that they could actually be talking about the same person?
It is interesting to note that the purpose of the BC / AD dating system was to make the birth of Jesus Christ the dividing point of world history. However, when the B.C. / A.D. system was being calculated, they actually made a mistake in pinpointing the year of Jesus' birth. Scholars later discovered that Jesus was actually born in around 4-6 BC, not 1 AD. - from here.
I've always wondered about certain things though, such as the admittedly dumb rules regarding women. There appears to be a shift between Old Testament rules and New Testament rules though - after all, Jesus did stop people from stoning an adulterous woman (the reason given being that we should not judge others unless we are ourselves without sin.) But this raises new questions: did God change His mind about these issues? God is supposed to be right about everything all the time, isn't He?
Some parts that I don't agree with though, are things that are the fault of Christians but not necessarily by God. It's true that Christians were (and still are, in some cases) very intolerant, as with the witch hunts. But I believe this was the fault of the individuals, not the religion - the people, including the religious leaders, used religion as an excuse for their intolerant behaviour and questionable morals. The same thing is happening now with terrorists calling their actions "Jihad" - we may reject that as a reason for terrorism, but neither should we blame all Muslims or call Islam as a whole false.
Another thing is the question of why God allows bad things to happen. In my church at least we are taught that the bad things that happen to us are trials for our faith. This sort of makes sense in some cases (I hear many testimonials about how people lose their jobs but they cling to their faith and then they end up finding better-paying jobs) but not in others (how is dying from a horrible disease as a child a trial for your faith?)
The way I resolved this in my mind is that God is working towards a greater good, not good for each individual (although ultimately it is the salvation of the individual that matters), and we can't really judge from our points of view what is or isn't for the greater good. As cruel as this sounds, a child's death could save a parent by making them turn to God, and the parents could save a bunch of other people, resulting in more people being saved overall. I also refuse to believe that God will persecute children who die before they have a chance to be saved, although I won't be able to defend this theory using the Bible, since I am hardly an expert D;
Oh, and I've always known about December 25th being some kind of pagan ritual day. No one said it was Jesus' actual birthday; it's just the day we celebrate his birth, and we celebrate it on that day precisely because Pope Julius I decided to set Dec 25th as the day. The Mithra thing sounds scarily the same, though, but isn't 6 BC close enough to Christ's birth that they could actually be talking about the same person?
It is interesting to note that the purpose of the BC / AD dating system was to make the birth of Jesus Christ the dividing point of world history. However, when the B.C. / A.D. system was being calculated, they actually made a mistake in pinpointing the year of Jesus' birth. Scholars later discovered that Jesus was actually born in around 4-6 BC, not 1 AD. - from here.
Reply
Leave a comment