Christianfreak's Journal: Practical Christianity

I don't know why a suddenly feel compelled to write this, maybe just something to point the countless trolls, that always twist one topic or another into christian-bashing, to.

Before I go on let me state that this is in no way intended to be a 'convert' type article. Personal beliefs are just that personal. It is however an explaination of what I believe stated to dispell the countless myths about what other people think I believe. If what I have to say compells you to think about Christianity or ask questions about it by all means feel free to contact me at my above email address or reply.

• Myth 1: Christians believe in Creationism and therefore think all science is bunk.

  Completely untrue. Some Christians believe in a 6 day creation and make some silly arguments for it. They get wrapped up in little details that in the grand scheme of things simply don't really matter because they don't open themselves up to larger view. That doesn't mean that everything they say is wrong nor does it mean they should be flamed. I think that if people weren't so adamently opposed to them they would probably go away.

  I personally believe that God created the world and how he did it is not important. I happen to believe that the Creation story in Genesis takes that approach and is simplified because it was by and for ancient people. If God chose to use evolution to create the world which the evidence suggests, I don't have a problem with that.

• Myth 2: Christians don't think for themselves and do only what their leaders tell them to.

  This is such a strange argument because there are people in all walks of life that do just that, not just people who call themselves Christians. Here on /. there are people all the time that complain about the 'masses' always doing what the media or Microsoft tells them to do. Such generalizations over any group of people are false. There are some people in Church that just do whatever they are told, these type of people don't make very good Christians as a Christian is supposed to hear and follow God by reading (and interpreting for themselves) the Bible, through prayer, and through going to Church. The idea is that if a Christian does those things they will know when a preacher or anyone for that matter tells them something that goes against God's teaching.

• Myth 3: Christians believe the way they do because that's how they were raised.

  This is somewhat true but there comes a time in everyone's life that they question the things they were taught when they were young. I personally went through such a time and I seriously questioned why I go to church and why I believe that Jesus came to save the world from itself and why I believe that he rose of the dead. I came to the conclusion that I really believe those things, not because of evidence, not because someone told me to but because of faith. My parents are Christians, this is true and they taught me a lot about it, but my beliefs are my own now, in fact many things that I believe my parents disagree with.

There are many more things to dispell but for now I shall stop there. I'm sure if anyone reads this I will be given the oppurtunity to directly respond to those that disagree :)

comments

[pjgeer]

1: It is indeed hard to believe in a 144 hour creation when the sun wasn't even created until "the 4th day" (Genesis 1:16-19 [biola.edu]).

2: There are some people who always do what they are told who can make very good Christians. They are called children (Matthew 19:13-14 [biola.edu], Colossians 3:20 [biola.edu]).

3: It would be possible for someone to pretend to believe something merely because s/he was raised to believe it. If someone lived in a country where, say, 2 out of 3 [cia.gov] people call themselves Christian, there is a benefit to pretending. Free canned goods, free wedding venue, free meals, people patting you on the back every time you turn around, etc.

But a parent cannot instill a conviction [virginia.edu] in a child. The child will either accept it as true until disproven or go along with it to make his/her life easier. Consider the laughable answers given to the child's question "Where do babies come from?" Consider Santa Claus. A conviction is a belief so deeply held that a person would be willing to die to uphold it. Not many die for their faith in Santa Claus. Many [middletown...church.org] died for their faith in Christ, the first one being Stephen (Acts 7:51 - 8:2 [biola.edu]). To those who have claimed that every professing Christian on Earth is merely going along with it to make his after/life easier, read this [persecution.com].