Christian? Why or why not? Seriously.?

Question

Serious answers please...not "God isn't real" or "Get some Faith" Just please tell me why or why not you are/aren't a Christian. It can be ANY reason, like "never thought about it", "raised that way", "boring", "no proof", "sounds logical" anything at all, I am just curious to understand the world around me and why people have the perspectives they do.


I know that by these simple answers I can't understand why people perceive things the way they do, but it can help. Thanks for you answers!

I'm giving a thumbs up to all who answer seriously. Thanks for the honest answers.

Answer 1

I was a born again christian for a long time. I went to church every time the doors opened. I went to camp every summer, I went to lock-ins on weekends I did not have school. I have been filled with the holy ghost(pentecostal) many times, I have many reasons to believe God does exist. It was in the 8th grade that my belief in him started to waver, I was put in a situation that for me, at the time, made my question his love for me. I was always taught that he would protect me, and keep me from harm, i thought that since he did not protect me from the person, who had hurt me, that he was punishing me. I thought that maybe it was because he thought i did not believe in him like he thought i should, so i started going to weekly bible studies at as many different churches as i could, i was going to one almost every day, trying to prove to him that i really did have faith, then my home church youth paster took me into there office to talk to me about going to so many different churches, he told me that i had to choose one, and i would have to go to only that one, so for the next few weeks i tried to decide the one church i would go to, it was hard, i was a freshman in high school, most of my family went to the same church, but instead of choosing that church, i chose another, but i still had to go to church with my family, to watch play, and stuff, on day i went to watch my sister in a play, when i walked into the classroom with all the people i before thought were my friends, all eyes turned to me and they all went silent, i thought of how weird it was, so i asked them what was wrong, no one would speak to me, after class one of my "friends" walked up to me and pulled me aside, where no one could see us and told me that no one was allowed to talk to me because i was not pure, that i had, had sex with some one else in the youth group and that if anyone was cought talking to me, they would be shuned to. That is the last time, i ever went to church anywhere, and i rarely talk to anyone from my "christian life" i is then that i started to be an athiest, 2 years later i met an amazing girl who interduced me i paganism, and i have been ever since. Pagans don't judge you like christians do, they are alot more forgiving.

Answer 2

I'm not a Christian because I understand the history of the bible and how it was written. Knowing that it is a fictional work written by bronze age people prohibits me from taking it seriously as some kind of divine revelation.

If god were to give people a divine revelation, wouldn't you think he might include some information that WASN'T known at the time it was written? Don't you think he might have some more useful advice regarding, oh, say, germ theory or quantum mechanics?

Instead, what you get in the OT is stuff about how to make pleasing sacrifices to a barbaric god. In the new testament, you have stories about the supposed incarnation of god whose miracles consisted of feeding some people, raising one dead man, and walking on water. How useful is that to humanity?

In fact, I became an atheist because I studied religion and realized that it was all man-made. There is no evidence FOR a god and a lot of evidence AGAINST anything like the Christian god.

See the link below for a very interesting discussion of this question. I think it will tell you what you want to know about atheists.

Answer 3

The whole universe is filled with design. The physical laws of the universe are perfectly designed. Life is perfectly designed. Life does not come from dead chemicals even after billions of years no more than a small snail can come from the same sized nail just by laying it on the floor and seeing if it will come alive after billions of years. Wherever you find design you must have a designer. That's just logical and common sense. Who could design a universe. You can call that entity anything you want. Call it a ghost if you want. I call it God. Only a God could design a universe like ours.
The big bang theory says that the big bang is the start of the universe(the beginning of the 4 dimensions, 3 dimensions of space and one dimension of time). About 95-100% of scientists believe in the big bang. But the law of cause and effect(which Einstein called the most reliable of all the physical laws of the universe) says that anything that has a beginning needs a cause. Therefore, the universe, according to 95% of the scientists must have a cause. Let's take a look at this cause. The effect is never greater than the cause. If the effect has a certain attribute, the cause must also have that same attribute. You simply can't give what you ain't got. Let's see what attributes this effect(the universe) has. The universe has intelligence, because humans have intelligence. Therefore the cause must have intelligence. The universe has personality because we have personality. Therefore, the cause has personality. The universe has emotions because we have emotions. Therefore, the cause has emotions. The universe has will because we have will, therefore the cause must have will. Now let's see, the cause has will, intelligence, emotion and personality. That sounds a lot like the christian God to me. You can call it a ghost if you want. I call it God. You might object that the universe didn't have these attributes at its beginning. Where did they come from? Don't tell me they just evolved. Ask any information scientist if information can come from dead chemicals. We have enough info in our genes to fill a stack of books from here to the moon and back 500 times. It didn't just come from dead chemicals. The animals don't have emotion, personality and for the most part, intelligence. They also lack a recognition of morals. The lion doesn't kill and eat the gazelle and then start feeling guilt about what he did. Where did morals come from? The only answer that makes sense to me is that there's a God up there that created all this and put these attributes in this universe. I believe that God is the Christian God. Why?
The Bible has the signature of God attached to it in many ways. One of those ways is Bible prophecy. The old testament has 333 prophecies about the first coming of Jesus Christ and 456 specific details about his life(all written between 400 and 2000 years before he was born). The 4 gospels in the new testament(Mathew, Mark, Luke & John) tell the story of Jesus. Had those 4 gospel writers chosen to not write their gospels, we could still have re-created the whole life of Christ just from the old testament(all written before he was born). In fact, that is how the christians preached the gospel in the first 20-30 years after the death of Christ. They preached it from the old testament because the new testament had not yet been written. The story of Christ is all there in the Old Testament including some details about His life that are not even mentioned in the New Testament. Man sees history like a person sees the Rose Parade sitting in the stands. The floats that have already gone by him are like the past. The floats in front of him are like the present. The floats still coming are like the future. These prophets in the old testament who wrote about Jesus Christ seemed to be able to see history the way you would see the Rose Parade from a helicopter. They seemed to be able to see the end from the beginning. That tells me that though they were writing these things down the info was not ultimately coming from them but from a higher source because man simply doesn't see history that way. Also, the bible has amazing knowledge about many scientific principals long before these principals were discovered. Seventeen times in the old testament the bible says that God is "stretching the heavens". For thousands of years bible scholar struggled with what that could possibly mean. Then in 1929 Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe was expanding. The bible told us that long ago.
No other religion or Holy Book has this kind of knowledge. All this tells me that these prophets in both the old and new testament were not nutcases but true prophets of God.

Answer 4

My mom and dad are devout Seventh-Day Adventists. I was loved and well taken care of as a child. Not to say that I didn't, and still don't have questions about the nature of God, or my soul, but I respect that my parents are good people and do the best they can.

I've done a fair amount of research into differing beliefs, both christian, and non-christian. I've never found ANY belief to have all the answers, and as long as I can't find anything "wrong" with my parents belief, I'll continue to believe as a Seventh-Day Adventist.

I once heard that to a child, mother is god. It would kill my mom if I were to denounce the faith she raised me with. If there's nothing wrong with her faith, why would I hurt her by professing my belief in something else, when believing in ANYTHING is so purely subjective?

Answer 5

For a person to be "Christian" they must accept the divinity of Christ. A Christian must accept the testimony of the Bible as it relates to Jesus. Anyone who does not accept the implications of Jesus's words: "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." should not be considered Christian.

I was having a debate with a friend of mine who is a Catholic. She was telling me about the message from the Virgin Mary delivered to a woman in Medjugorje Yugoslavia. The woman said the Virgin Mary told her if a prayer was spoken for a person on their death bed (to the Virgin Mary) then that dying person would go to heaven. The woman from Yugoslavia was made a saint and Catholics are now accepting her testimony. I told her that it didn't make any sense because a person does not gain salvation through the prayers of another. Under the Christian belief a person must accept Jesus Christ as thier personal lord and savior. She disagreed and our debate stagnated as I tried to point out, over and over, that Jesus's own words contradicted the supposed word of the Virgin Mary.

Later on I found out she was right, and that Catholics really do accept this woman's story and really did make her a saint. It is clear to me now that many people who consider themselves Christian are not. It seems that most Catholics believe in some sort of hybrid of Christianity mixed with contradictory nonsense handed down from the Vatican. These people are abandoning the central tenant of the Christian religion by accepting testimony that contradicts that very same tenant.

I happen to be an agnostic and a former Catholic. In the aforementioned debate I was trying to explain why I believe Christians worship an evil god. My entire arguement was based around the the core belief of Christianity: A person must accept Jesus to be granted salvation. The implications of such a belief are staggering since the majority of people die without accepting him. True Christians believe in a God that sends most people to hell to burn for eternity.

Answer 6

I believe in a god (supreme being/creator) but I do not claim to be a christian. I have more and more reasons everyday but the base root of my reasons is because I am a very "prove it" to me person. As I have gotten older I have been posed "What if..." questions both as a christian and even more so now that I am not. I started asking those questions of myself, and started trying to find my own answers. I even did what the bible and other christians say to do...apply it to your life. Indeed the bible is a beautifully written book of wisdom and consoling, but so are the works of Shakespear, Homer and Thoreau. I can find peace, love and beauty without having to use them to justify my every action (or reaction). Who ever first created human kind created them with a free will, or so we are have been taught to believe. Whoever gave it to me, gave it to me. I chose to use it free as intended. I question everything and if it is important enough to me to know an answer, I will find the answer.

In searching for a "faith/religion" I found I don't need one. I live my life to the example I feel is best for those around me to see. I do not murder people, cheat on my husband, steal etc. To put it simply, I am a good person. Any Christian will tell me being a good person won't get me to heaven. I don't listen because I don't chose to believe in the heaven that the bible, or any other religious text, describes.

I look at it this way. I'm going to believe the way that I believe. I'm going to set the example I would like to see in others, and I'm going to make the changes in me, that I would like to see made around me. If however, when my death comes, I do go to the "pearly gate" and have to face a judgment and the only question posed to me is "Why didn't you believe". I will be able to answer in all honesty "I had to make sure I was right (or wrong) on my own terms and no one else."

Faith is nothing more than someones opinion of what's right or wrong. Opinion's, despite all controversy are neither right nor wrong, they just are. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, unfortunately many religious doctrines do not see fit to allow others to have an opinion, other than the one they think is right. No where else in our lives would we follow what someone told us to do so blindly. When asked why it has to be done this way they are told "Because I said so or I'll kill you." So why do so many fight for their right to believe the way we want to, but at the same time follow something "just because they were told to do it." People start wars over words like that.

Answer 7

I am a Catholic/Christian, though some would say that is not Christian.

I am because I don;t believe that everything that is can be perceived by the senses (our senses are limited and can be deceiving).

I believe that there is something transendent, beyond this existence that binds us all together. I call this something God.

I do not believe in the ultimate irony that man evolved and developed a brain simply to ponder the reason of it all without there being some universal answer. Which would be a cruel joke of evolution and genetic if it were the case.

I believe there is a greater reason and purpose beyond my small self.

Answer 8

I'm not Christian, nor was I born Christian. For myself, religion is only a guideline for people to follow. I have my belief in god. I don't need to believe in a master plan, a book, I don't need rules as long as I am a kind person to others.

(...Although, I have had people think that I was Christian before...)

As long as a person is kind and has faith within their own heart I beleive are on the right path. So I guess while religion wise I am not Christian, I am not any other religion either...

Answer 9

I am not a Christian, even though i was raise din a Christian household. There are various reasons but I think the biggest reason it that Christianity is an interpretation of other peoples beliefs. The Bible has been edited over the years to adhere to religious leaders ideals. Also, at christian churches believers are guided by priests who interpret the religion in their own way. I prefer a religious path that allows me to worship the way I feel comfortable.

Answer 10

Christianity is just one of trillions of possibilities to explain the core of our existance. The fact that more and more of the bible seems absurd in today's modern age, it can be easily inferred that it likely wasn't written by "god" and was simply written by men of 2000 years ago. I won't dismiss it completely though as it hold 1 of the 1,000,000,000,000 possibilites to explain human existance.

I'm agnostic by the way. It's not possible to know if there is or isn't god or gods or divine spirits of any kind. I keep an open mind if any possibility that seems feasable. I don't think any organized religions are all that feasable and so I hold them in lower esteem. I also hold atheists in low esteem, because they read a science book and claim to know the mysteries of the universe. It's no different than readig the bible and claiming to know the same.

Answer 11

Seriously?

I have absolutely no interest in religion whatsoever. It is, in my humble view, simple mythology. I am not Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or any other religiously prone -ism. I do not need, want or desire a higher power. I take responsibility for myself and my actions without any prodding, reward or fear of reprisal.

Growing up an Atheist in a devout Baptist home - you can rest assured I know exactly what I've rejected as false. There was never a believing time for me.