Is Christianity any better than pagan religions?

Question

Which one is right? Should we believe in a capenter that lived 2000 years ago, claiming to be the son of God? Should we believe in various deities with miraculous powers? Should we put all our faith in a single god? Who is right? How do you know? Why should we follow the Christian church instead of a pagan way of life?

Answer 1

It is not my place to try to convert anyone, nor to tell them what I believe is right and they are wrong. NO ONE KNOWS!! I have been a practicing witch for over 40 years and have NEVER felt the need to do that! I will try to educate them on what I believe and why. But it boils down to religion being a personal choice, free will, as it were. But it would be nice if people stopped trying to convert me, especially those who have only been alive less time than I have been a witch!
If you want to follow the Christian path, go for it, I will not follow. If you choose another path that is fine with me. It is your life and as long as you "Do as thou wilt and in it harm none" I see no problems. I will deal with my Karma, you will have to deal with yours.
BB
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Answer 2

Whether or not a religion is better than another is a matter of opinion. You can't prove that kinda thing. You can't prove that there even is a God. If his existence were out in the open and we all knew he existed, then there would be no reason to have faith. The very definition of faith is to hold onto something you don't know. You can't know. That's what makes faith actually mean something. God doesn't want us to know he's there, he wants us to believe he's there. This is of course provided there really is a God. I believe there is. But I don't for one second believe any one religion is any closer to God than another. If God came to us in only one form, then only people who know of that form can have a relationship with God. Why would God, who knows how complex his creation is, lead us astray like that? I believe he comes to us in different forms to reach different people. However, he doesn't just come down from heaven and say, "here I am!" He speaks through us, and not just a few key religious icons, but all of us. (God is the infinite consciousness that created everything, including the devil. So it's safe to assume that since the devil came from God, the devil is a part of God.) But with people at the helm, we f*** up. Our brains are too limited to even fully understand what God is telling us so our perceptions and words distort his messages. This is where the bulls*** and contradictions come into play, not to mention the people who rewrite these scriptures to advance their political powers over time, or the modern version of those people, who just want a lot of money and/or attention.

Answer 3

In my honest opinion, no religion is better, more right, or more important then any other.

Religion and belief are very personal, private things. There is no less validity believing in the Judeo-Christian God, and that the son of God physically walked the earth and performed miracles then there is believing in deities so numerous and varied that one could spend an entire lifetime coming to know them all in only the smallest of ways.

No one can ever prove anything, spiritually speaking- no matter how much historical evidence anyone has (No, no.. nothing from the Dead Sea, and don't throw Stonehenge in here..). We may come close, but I doubt we'll ever read "Zues spotted over local airport Tuesday!" or "Jesus has returned, and he loves Taco Bell!" in the morning papers. :)

I, myself, am your run-of-the-mill eclectic pagan, but I spent my childhood years as a Catholic. I left the religion because I felt spiritually unfulfilled, and had found something that seemed to be more in tune with who I am as a whole.
I don't hold any animosity toward Catholocism or Christianity in general, but I know it's right not for me. And that's, really, what it comes down to.

What's right for -you-, for the individual, for your own spiritual growth.

Belief is something you have to find on your own, and no one- not a coven or a church- can tell you what you should believe.

Answer 4

I assume by your name that you are most probably of the Wiccan way? I am A Druid. I follow the path of the Ovate. My thing if I may call it that is that of a healer and judge, as well as to learn as much as I can about everything I can. You cannot make a decision/judgement without knowing both sides of the storey as it were. A coin has 3 sides everyone forgets the edge.

So from this....
Why does someone always have to be right and someone have to be wrong? If you look at the base theme through all religions, are they not all the same? Example If you are Wiccan you will understand this. The number one rule for both Wicca and Druidry
"Do as thy wilst , as long as thy harmst none." Translate to Christianity of example, one of the commandments - "Thy shalt not kill".

As long as people believe in a higher power, it matters not by what name they call it, as Long as they believe.
And as long as they have a good moral code, and they don't go around killing, for instance.
What we need is respect and tolerance.
Blessed be
In light and love
Oracle

Answer 5

That's the reason why I lost my faith in religions. They just create divisions. People wage wars against each other to proclaim to the world which religion is more peaceful and should be followed.

Personally, I believe there is an invisible god and a devil. I just don't know how to picture an image of god, but the devil has one image right? Evil.

Answer 6

Personally I prefer to believe in deities who revel themselves through nature as opposed to one who's only revelation is through a book. There are written sources which are useful to us because they contain much of our lore in the form of myths and examples of right conduct, but I do not accept them as infallible or inspired documents. Any religion which does this is deceiving its members about the purity and precision of the written word. The various competing factions of Middle Eastern religions are proof of this. Their conflicting interpretations can not all be correct!

There are two real sources of holy truth, and neither expresses itself to us in words. One is the universe around us, which is a manifestation of the underlying divine essence. The other is the universe within us, passed down from our ancestors as instinct, emotion, innate predispositions, and perhaps even genetic memory. By combining these sources of internal and external wisdom with the literature left us by our ancestors, we arrive at religious truths. This living spiritual guidance is better than any dusty, dogmatic "holy book", whose writings are often so ambiguous that even clerical scholars disagree and whose interpretations change with the politics of the times.

Also, I'm a polytheist because I see it as being much more natural. I don't worship any one God or Goddess, I give honor to a variety or Gods and Goddesses. Monotheism has too many flaws and it very unbalanced. Monotheists tend to only worship a male deity, and completely ignore the female. They also run into the omnipotence paradox.

Answer 7

nicely, you're appropriate relating to the bogus nature of the Christian faith. all and sundry who has carried out a splash common learn would be confronted with the certainty just about each and every element of "Christian" mythology and formality has its precedent in some in the previous pagan faith. The earliest Church patriarchs have been compelled to admit this, yet attributed it to the planned deceit of devil; some present day "Christians" nonetheless have faith this, mutually as others argue that the pagans would have been those to thieve from the Christians, it fairly is a confusing sell, via fact the pagan cults are easily in the previous. See the rites of Dionysus, Mithras, Attis, Adonis, Osiris, Sol, and so on and so on. in many them the god is born of a virgin, performs miracles with wine and fish, will improve the ineffective, is barbarously slain on a tree, is resurrected 3 days later, and so on. the finished Christian calendar is stolen from pagan nature faith, the Crucifixion happening on the Spring Equinox, and the Nativity 9 months later on the wintry climate Solstice; all the ceremonial dinner days of the saints are basically the feasts of the previous gods. once you assert "Please persist with purely the solid teachings of Christ," however, it begs the question 'that are the solid teachings?" we've no solid potential of determining which of the sayings attributed to Jesus are even certainly his, no longer to show that are worth of following. as quickly as you have knocked the floor out from under Christianity, you will desire to rebuild the case for following Jesus as a human "prophet."

Answer 8

hard to say but i tell my kids that you have a 50 50 chance and concidering the end result i lean towards the lesser of the evils.and i have had some experiances that lead me to believe that there is some truth to the bible.we all must believe in something even if its nothing for nothing is something to.choose to be good leave religion out of it follow your heart and when you have a choice to make try to be selfless.it all comes back around.

Answer 9

before any other Christian says that they don't "contact the dead" what do you call praying to a saint? Ain't that contacting a dead person to show favor on you.
the best way to find out which one is better is to do the research and figure out for yourself because both sides are going to tell you what they want to say even if it means throwing slanderous remarks about the other. so for you benefit please figure it out for yourself ok.
And before I get called one or the other yes I believe in some of the pagan believes, and I was raised in a Christian family, but I am nether, I believe in Druidry.

Answer 10

I don't believe Christianity is any better or worse than Pagaism, or Islam, or Judaism, or Buddhism, or Belief in the FSM.