Is it time to completely reconstruct Christianity from the ground up?

Question

Obviously those 1700-year-old priests did not gather up the most peaceful and harmonious ideas. They didn't even pick the best manuscripts to go in the Bible. If the religion is ever going to disassociate itself from bloodshed, it needs to scrap rotten carry-overs like "original sin" and become something with a more benevolent view of a Supreme Being.

Answer 1

If you want to invent your own religion, go right ahead, many have, but it wouldn't be Christianity.

Answer 2

First off, let me say this straight up......"reconstructing" Chrisitianity won't change anything, friend. All of it's followers will still use the same old, time conditioned beliefs, even if a new form of it took over....that's just fact.

Secondly, you need to do a bit of research. The original books of the bible were not gathered by priests in the 1700's. In point of fact, they were actually gathered during the Nicene Council meetings during the 3rd century (the source of the Nicene Creed). Constantine wished to form a collaboration with Roman, Greek, and other followers of early Christianity that would simplify the belief system. From that meeting, everything since spawned.

Then, in the 1600's, King James of England made some rather extreme revisions......claiming it was for the moral upkeep of the people, but only to serve his own nefarious purposes. He had removed several books of the bible (now known as the Apocrypha...you can find it online or in any Christian bookstore as a seperate tome). This action, while supposedly for the people, was in actuallity simply to allow the King greater license with his frivolities.....the parts removed would have placed him at odds with the church.

Be that as it may, rewriting the Bible, or any other instrument of it's nature, would have very little impact on Christianity as a whole. People believe what they want......they follow, without reason, what they have been taught all along. Changing the rules, or attempting to "brighten" the Christian faith would be treated with distrust by these people, and they would just continue on as it was before.

That's the problem with sheeple.........they simply do what they are told, rather than think for themselves. It's a shame, really.

Answer 3

The original sin was not a carry over from the Old Tradition. That original sin you were talking about was only addressed to the generations of the Jews since the fall of Adam and Eve. It was done and made over after the Jews were extracted from Egypt through the works commissioned to Moses. In the Book of Deuteronomy 24 as Moses wrote it, God already removed that original sin you are talking about and He said that only those who sin shall die. It was later made an stronger statement by Ezekiel 18:3-32.
Now that carry over thing that were talking about were just invented by the Christian religion because at the early stage of their deceptions, they never allowed the people to read the Bible so they could only pick to tell the congregation what they want to say so they can control the mind.
Before you try to insinuate that God of the Old Testament is a malevolent one instead of being benevolent, you better read the Bible once again from the very beginning and digest everything that the Book was saying against what the Christians have deceptively presented. They do not need any overhaul or reconstruction, they need to be completely demolished and rebuilt for the truth.
Do not create a God that caters only to your human concept of an understanding God because the truth is He created us for His own purpose of glorifying Him not Him glorifying us. Therefore we shall follow His commands to obtain the grace He promised to give and if not, His curse will lead us to destroy ourselves ( He is not going to destroy us personally, we will destroy ourselves just like what we are doing now and He will just turn His back to save us because we never cared about His commands).

Answer 4

No, it doesn't need "reconstruction". Christ did it just fine. Trying to alter the Bible so it fits sinful humanity better is a sin in itself. God rightfully punished the ancient Israelites for disobeying His Law, as well as punishing the surrounding pagan socieities for serving Satan and leading the Israelites astray from time to time.
The Textus Receptus (which the KJV is based on) IS the "best manuscript" to use. There are older ones, but they are bad copies, which is why they survived - they were never used.
Although "original sin" is a purely Catholic belief and not a particularly Christian one, we are definitely all sinners in need of a Savior. All you have to do is look at the bloodshed and violence going on in the world today and know that we are sinners.

Answer 5

Man has used religion to justify war and bloodshed since the beginning of time. Priests and evangelists cloak their sins with religious authority while continuing to reap the benefits of their stations. They do us more harm than good--they make it hard to believe in a God who is all-knowing and all-loving.

Organized religion is not the same thing as God. It sounds like you're Catholic--if you don't agree with the teachings of the Church, there are plenty of other ones out there to choose from. I have been to several different ones, and I'm still looking.

I don't think God will hold it against us if we don't go to church every Sunday. I do think it's important to honor God on the Sabbath in some way, and church is one way by which we can be reminded to do so. More importantly, we should honor Him daily with the way in which we live our lives.

I do think God WILL hold it against us if we don't do unto others as we would have them do unto us. That simple tenet if upheld universally would put an end to all the war and strife in the world. That is the reason Christ was sent to us--to make it simple. The Golden Rule is a summation and simplification of the Ten Commandments. It should be applied to all of our interactions with one another, and as long as we are doing so for the love of God, we don't need to worry about original sin or any of that other obscure dogma.

I also believe that there is one Supreme Being. He is the same for everyone on Earth, even though He is called by many different names which man has given Him over the centuries. Your task is to find Him any way you can, but don't stop seeking.

Answer 6

People have done things in the name of God...that wasn't His idea, nor did he bless it.

Blame people for what they have done, they need to take the responsibility...putting the blame where it belongs is the right thing to do.

As for the Bible being put together, you can disagree all you want but when the council was going over the original manuscripts, the books chosen were the ones closest to the Jews history and the teachings of Jesus Christ. Two of the gospels were from men who knew him personally. They walked, talked, prayed...with Jesus of Nazareth Himself. John was on of Jesus' closest friends. John was in the inner circle of Jesus' closest friends. Matthew was a tax collector hand picked by Jesus.

The gnostic gospels were written hundreds of years later by people that knew someone, that knew someone that had a friend that knew someone (I'm sure you see where I'm going.)

Paul who wrote about 2/3 of the New Testament was a staunch believer (once he encountered Jesus) and did all that he could to glorify the living God and His kingdom.

Almost 1/3 (32%) of the New Testament is quotes from the OT.

I believe the Holy Bible is the Word of God.

Answer 7

If what you are saying is that the churches should stop teaching lies and nonsense, then I will agree wholeheartedly with you;
but I study in the original manuscripts, and they are the Word of the Living God. Although people think it was man who decided which Books to be in the Bible,
man once again fools only himself.
"original sin" is not in the manuscripts.
Its a tradition and teaching of man.
The downfall of man is his lack of knowledge.
The information in the manuscripts describe
God as he is; if he is too violent for you, then the doctrine of Satan should be just about right for you; satan is coming pretending to be Christ, and will order love and tolerance and peace for all.
So peaceful...so "holy"...so politically correct. And people just like you will flock to him and serve and worship him.
Unfortunately, they will all be worshipping no other than the devil.
Peace and love are beautiful ideas, and certainly should be taught and lived by whenever possible. In the really real world its not always possible.
Do you suggest we speak to the terrorists kindly? Serve tea, perhaps?

Answer 8

I hear what you're saying, but it seems to me that the concept of the Supreme Being is at the center of all these problems that arise. People are willing to kill, abuse and die to defend their ideas about God. Someone will read what I am writing and think, "Yes, I'll do anything to show my support for God." Huge numbers of people don't see any irony between claiming to worship a loving God and the encouragements of war in the Bible and in the modern governments that are religiously influenced.

In my view it's the concept of the Supreme Being that needs to be revisited.

Answer 9

Not completely reconstruct, but go back to the basics, and read from the original text (or, a good translation of the original texts). Then decide the rest based on the text.

Answer 10

Sure, isn't that what the Christians and the Muslims did with the original Jewish religion?

Answer 11

No. I think if you simply take an already present religion and make changes to suit the new circumstances you are defeating its purpose. Not that everything is accurate now...but if we can simply change things to suit ourselves, what would be the point of a religion?