Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox?
 

For you Christians out there, either practicing or family, what is your background?

Are you protestant, catholic or Orthodox? Or Neither? Explain! As them say, testify!

I was having an interesting reasoning with my mother on the history of the Baptists, she being devout as can be, and I being a convert to Orthodoxy. We have many parallels, but also stark differences of opinion and interpretation of history. Essentially, the difference between these manifestations of Christian faith are not religious at all, but socio-cultural/historical.

please, testify or discuss :)

I'm Church of England, I think.

My family, like most Mexican families, is Catholic. I however am agnostic because well.....I don't really have an opinion on Religion.

Not a Christian anymore, but I was raised Catholic with a hint of Pentecostal from my father. Speaking in tongues...what phooey.

My dad was an Episcopal priest. That is the american version of the anglican church/church of england. it turns out to be the church of all the rich fucks in the USA.
and Bishop Tutu.

we were raised Episcopal. Episcopal church is protestant and Catholic all in one.

i'm catholic but agnostic now

What do you mean by 'orthodox'? In my understanding its more of an adjective than a religion.

I think pretty much all popular religions have perverted God (with a capital G).

Me, I'm a lapsed Roman Catholic now more of a pagan/pantheist/atheist. I believe there is a god but its role in the universe is limited. Lucas' Force is as good a description as another.

The reason I think there is a god is because things like The Big Bang and black holes (at least were) called Singularities. By definition, you can't tell what happened before. Has this changed? I think that LHC was designed to tell us about pre-Big Bang conditions? Or just bring us closer to the moment of the BB?

My sister and brother in law do that. Scary shit if you ask me. They are in a Charismatic Catholic (Roman) community.

And where did this shit that the Bible is the literal truth come from? For thousands of years, it was a bunch of stories. Now, for some, it is literal? Huh?

i haven't been baptised or taught any kind of religion.

Catholic background. Two members of my family converted to Jehovah's Witnesses, and my eldest brother converted to buddhism a couple of years ago.

My father was raised Catholic, my Mother was raised Greek Orthodox. They both converted to a non-denominational evangical christian church...I used to belong to it, then I stopped going.

Now I'm a bit of the black sheep

Which makes me agnostic

what do you get when you get when you cross a dyslexic, an insomniac, and an agnostic?

Haha, you got me, what?

"Alex" from "A Clockwork Orange" is Church of England.

the good thing about church of england is that there is no way someone would take that seriously.

Sadly, the fact that anyone still takes any form of religion seriously is disturbing.

i usually keep my scorn for religion quiet until the god people start shoving their religion onto my face.

at that point i really like dishing it out. getting the attack dogs off the leash can be fun.

seriously, i'll re-quote myself from the previous page


isn't that old enough to realize that the bible makes no fucking sense at all? sure, it provides comfort to some, so let it be, but come on, while it's a nice symbolism, at times, and it has provided plenty of material for literature, art and philosophy over the ages, it's really really annoying when people start stuffing religion into every hole of the turkey that is everyday life.

mmm... turkey...

Then you are in the best shape, your mind and heart are free from the cultural and historical baggage which most people disguise as their religion. Religion is a feeling of the heart, not a matter of the intellect, and in this regard, your heart is free as your mind is not cluttered with thousands of years of other peoples' bullshit ;)

Same for you ;) people like me need to spend a lot of time systematically dissassembling all the bullshit I have inherited in order to see past my mind, and feel with an open heart.



Orthodox Church is the original Church from the second and third centuries, and is generally the ethnic church of Slavs, some Romanians, Armenians, Georgians, Russians, Coptic Egyptians, Syrian/Jordanians, Ethiopians, and also of course the American Orthodox (which is non-ethnic).

I especially agree with you belief in God based upon the sophistication of the Big Bang and other cosmological arguments, after all, the Goldilocks Principle is very convincing from a scientific perspective, all religious sentiments aside.

The purpose of this thread was to see where all of the SYG folks are coming from across the spectrum of Christianity, and perhaps for us to have an opportunity to discuss these things with each other.

Essentially, much of what we call religion, is in fact socio-cultural baggage, prejudice and even bigotry.

For protestants, God is in the Bible. For Catholics, God is the Church. For Orthodox, God is in the heart, but in reality, can God somehow be limited to any of these places or any place in particular for that matter? Is God limited by any of our own weaknesses?

I wish Christians would get it together, and fellowship as one communion, rather than let our mutually exclusive cultural, sociological and psychological histories corrupt our ability to see each other as equals.

Ironically, I have MUCH better religious discussions with self-proclaimed Atheists and agnostics, because unlike religious people, they are not so close-minded as to believe they know anything at all, let alone everything. Where as Christians in particular tend to be bitterly close minded and fragmentary..

The true heart of Christianity is that we are ALL equal in our sin. We all are fallible, weak, petty, arrogant, in a word, sinners. We are all equal to each other in that we will all fall short of anything near perfection. The problem, is that many Christians, in a wave of self-righteousness, tend use the concept of sin, not to build bridges of mutual equality, but rather divisions and separations and judgment...

What are any of your experiences with this problem? What affect do you think that particular nuances of your religious denomination's baggage has had on these experiences?

why only christians?

Not only christians, but ALL people, however in actuality, most Christians are precisely the problem in the first place. So as they say, first things first ;)

it's almost as if you're saying you wish everyone could be christian.

that's not what he is saying at all knox.

I do actually, but that they could be united as Christians, not divided by pseudo-Christianity which in actuality is just a bunch of historical and cultural baggage which we are carrying around. God is active. If Jesus is God, he is not limited to some musty words in an old book, or the piety of some elderly priests who can be as dusty as those books.

God is active. If he Allah, if he is Kristna, if he is Nameless, if he is Jesus, then the least we could do as people who claim to follow God is to do just that very thing, follow God in our hearts and not the teachings of men and their books. As Rastafari people say, "Who feels it knows it y'all."

But in regards to Christianity, of all the religions in the world, it is very much become the dominant force, and it should not be a forced at all! So therefore, it is important to reform Christians first, so they stop fucking with the other people and build love and unity, rather than division and in-fighting :)

Equality is a democratic value.
I don't recall the word being used in the bible, especially in the gospels, not even once.

lord -> sheep

every sheep is equally fucked by the lord

hence, equality :D

I don't care, the distinctions are retarded. I'm barely a Christian anyway

Quit purposefully reading stupid shit into his posts, Knox. Also, if he did think that, there would be nothing wrong with it. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, and most atheists I've met are at least as militant about their nonfaith as fucking redneck christians are about their so-called faith.

not to bible thump (cuz I just explicitly posted that God is not stuck in the pages of some musty old book) but you asked specifically :)
2 Corinthians 8

"Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality.


But my friend, that is entirely the point of this thread to begin with! thank you for posting something so obvious that many people miss it altogether

Before subscribing to agnosticism, I used to be an altar boy at an Anglican church when I was 12.

I see you mean well but honestly it seems you are being bias.

It´s important that people learn how to tolerate their differences rather than having their beliefs unified.

Infinitemusic: ''I am a retard who makes fuck all sense, but I'll make fuck all sense louder than you, and pepper it with fucks for more retarded effect''

Everyone is entitled to their opinions, so it would be wise that they would wish to keep it that way rather than wishing everyone else would think like them?

It's funny because I said the same thing about some atheists somwhere on this forum and it was a long discussion, and now you assume I am one of them.

my friend, if the Christians can't even get their shit together, how could they STOP fucking up the world? I will concede whole-heartedly that so-called Christians have fucked up A LOT of shit in the past 1500 odd years of their religion being legitimized. For Christ's sake, its not even Jews or Arabs who cause all the problems in the mideast, it is Christian Zionists instigators who believe the Bible should dictate international politics :(

what you misunderstand, is that what I am seeking is the very tolerance you are asking, because amongst Christians, there is TOO MUCH needless division based upon ignorance, bigotry and intolerance, and if you can't keep your own house in order is it a wonder that you go around fucking up everyone elses?

I understand what you are saying, I just don't think unified christianity is the answer.

my mother was raised catholic, my father raised protestant.
i've been brought up without any religion and i'm not baptised either.

i believe in science and evolution and i've never had any longing for religion or spirituality, yet i wouldn't call myself an atheist. i'd say i'm agnostic. not because i believe that there might be a god or anything, but because i could never prove his non-existence either, so i have no reason to deny his possible existence or hold any claims to the absolute truth... people who do so are exactly the ones who'll annoy the hell out of me in religious discussions.

(p.s. why does the thread title only address christian denominations?)

because it is a survey/discussion on Christianity. I did not want to have a religion thread specifically, if anything i didn't want to talk about religion at all, rather the cultural and historical bullshit we self-servingly masquerade as religion :)


unification of ALL people is the answer to the problem of fragmentation and division amongst man and man. If people draw lines in the sand with each other, they are divided. We must simply stop drawing these lines, whether it be an 'atheist' dividing from religious, a Jew/Christian dividing from Muslims, a Muslim dividing from Hindus, or Baptists dividing from Catholics, Pentecostals dividing from Orthodox. We need to come together, not splinter away. The more we splinter, the more we divide, means the more we will fight and suffer.

The reality is as I said before, most people profess not a religion, but a system of cultural and historical baggage. Throw out the baggage that divides, and open up you heart. Stop thinking, start feeling.

Amen.

Like I said, I understand exactly what you are saying. Personally, I think the answer to that is to effectively guarantee everyone's rights to individuality and choice, separating religion from laws and politics completely.

To a certain extent, it would be better if all of us would see religion as a personal thing that doesn't have to interfere in the way we treat each other as citizens.

For that we need more education and tolerance, and perhaps making religion more unified and strong would actually go the opposite way.

It has been happening. A lot of progress the "democratic" world has achieved in terms of freedom and equality has been cancelled lately due to the growing power of certain "churches" and their mix with politics.