Something small and round

[Rhyfelwyr]

Christianity continues judaism, does it not? If it is as pure as you claim it to be; it has a really odd starting point.

In the OT, God is shown to have given the whole ceremonial law to the Israelites because of their rebellion against him with the golden calf etc. That is why Paul etc describe the law as a curse. In other parts of the NT (most notably Hebrews 7-11), the symbolic significance of all these ceremonial elements are shown to have been fulfilled with the coming of Christ, and they were always designed to point the Jewish people towards him. In other words, ceremonial laws are an abberation from the norm, which is a more direct relationship with God.

BTW, I regard Judaism as part of that Covenant with God which all Christians are a part of, and so in this respect I'm actually pretty tolerant *shock*, in that I regard Jews as being 'saved' as we say (being saved in the same way as all the OT saints were). It is just that God has his own special covenant with ethnic Israel.

If all religions but Christianity are tending towards being more ritual, as you claim it, wouldn't then Christianity contradict with human theistic tendencies?

Also, how does human inclination justify a choice anyway; if humans are flawed? You mentioned the word 'fornication'; and since this is a human inclination; shouldn't then "the right religion" include this rather than outlaw it?

I said our tendency to believe in God is natural, but not all our practices are. This is because although we believe in God, we can't accept that it is our own sin that seperates us from him, and so we come up with our own gods and build idols etc in place of the real one. In this sense, Christianity is the natural form of human theistic tendencies, and all organised religion is a diversion from that.

Of course, human inclination is not what makes Christianity right. However, our belief in God is something natural, in that the first humans would have held to it. On the other hand, our sin and fornication etc was something that came later leading to the fall of mankind etc. Hence why we are right to believe in God, but wrong in the way so many people corrupt these beliefs.

How many "different types" of Christians are there?

Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, Jehova, etc, etc.

All of them attribute their truth to God and say that the other "truths" are mistaken.

With what authority does one type of Christians say that their version is the right one and the others are mistaken?

Catholicism, the Orthodox Churches, and many denominations of Protestantism are simply not purely Christian churches. Christian worship and beliefs changed dramatically with the legalisation of Christianity in the Roman Empire, and during this period pagan elements merged with the Christian aspects to form a whole new belief system. The Protestant Reformation was largely about returning to the true Christian roots and the belief system of the New Testament. Of course, they extent to which this was achieved varies from denomination to denomination, but generally speaking, Protestant beliefs tend to be closer to the purely Christian originals.

A second reason why these churches diverge is that being large institutionalised churches, they had to have a belief system that could appeal to their followers, whether or not they are actually Christians in that they have been made regenerate through Christ. And so we get all these doctrines that are designed to appeal to the hearts of men, even if they clearly contradict what the early Christians believed. One example is the Orthodox Churches... in order to keep their traditional understanding of our free will, they deny that Christ died for anyone's sins!

As for the authority to say what is right... all I know is what God has taught me. I can't take the credit for it and so I have nothing to boast about, but at the same time I trust in the Lord to guide me. If you think this sort of confidence is un-Christian, just look at the NT. Even atheists seem to like Jesus as a guy, but he was really stubborn when it came to his belief system. As for more concrete proof of why the beliefs I hold to should be seen as correct (at least regarding Christian in-fighting), 'The Death of Death in the Death of Christ' by John Owen has never been refuted some four centuries aften it was written.

How humble is it to claim that you are the one who interpretes Gods' word right and the others are mistaken. If you do so, then you are claiming to know what God meant. That's not humble, that's arrogant. Only God knows what he meant, not humans. Sure, you can be convinced that you are right, but you have no right to tell others they are mistaken.

That's also why I don't understand the intolerance towards other religions.

After all, the only one who truly knows Gods' message is God himself, not humans who have to rely on text written by humans and interpretations given by humans. For all we, humble humans know, text and words are probably not sufficient to get Gods' message across.

It is not a case of me interpreting anything, it is about God telling me what I need to know. You say all I have is words from other humans, but that's from an atheist point of view - you don't factor in the whole spiritual regeneration/born again thing we have in Christianity.

And so I should be humble of myself, but confident in what I believe, knowing it came from God.