To find the Christian faith difficult to understand?

[redshinyshoes]

Firstly, I am not looking for a fight, trying to upset anyone and I can see why this may sound ignorant but I am genuinly curious. I was brought up in a very atheist household where anyone religious was treated with suspision but as an adult I have a few Christian friends and would consider myself agnostic. I want to know (but don't feel I can ask my Christian friends as don't want to offend) whether Christians believe the bible word for word or see it as more metaphorical? If it's word for word, how otherwise down to earth intelligent people can fathom a virgin birth, the Earth only being a few thousand years old and the sea parting?

blimey that was long

and don't forget that the bible was written as a collection of passed-down re-tellings of the works of God and Jesus.
before someone had the bright idea (or education) to write it down, it was just told from one generation to the next.

So even the original Greek isn't necessarily accurate...

FairPhyllis - that was beautifully written. But if its all myth,history, poetry etc and interpreted so differently by everybody - why do you believe in God - why do you believe any of it.

I dislike religion (bet you never guessed) - but have a lot of Christian and deeply religious friends and they all talk the same beautiful twaddle.

At least with Koran it is read in the original language and is seen as a guide to a way of life.

nickel - I think the only reason some people find it hard to understand is the thee's, therefore's 'ths (as I call them - you know "leadeth" "maketh" etc), wherefore, and slightly outdated ways of putting sentences together.

For many a modern reader it just doesn't "flow" iykwim?

I know what you mean! but most of the wording in NIV is more confusing!

It odesn't flow if you try to read it like you would read something modern, but if you read it like you'd read poetry, it flows much better.

It's good for teaching children to say TH instead of FF as well
(which is interesting in itself - DH says ff in his normal speech, but when he's reading he says th. - he doesn't even realise this when i point it out to him!)

nickelbabysnatcher - the original was mostly in Hebrew

But the Koran on its own isn't enough and needs to be read longside the hadiths

Being a Jewish book and all

It is not just christians who struggle over interprtations of the bible.
Muslims agree over which hadiths are true or wrongly interpreted. So even though the koran is read in its original lanuage they still find things to squable over.

the new testament was written down in greek iirc. the old testament was hebrew.
sorry, i should have put new testament in my post.

i also realised i've missed bits out of my creed-

"he ascended into heaven, and is sitteth at the right hand of the father. whose kingdom hsall have no end "
"I believe in the Holy Ghost, the lord, the giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who with the father and the son together is worshipped and glorified. Who spake by the prophets ."

whopps should say muslims disagree

''But the Koran on its own isn't enough and needs to be read longside the hadiths.''

I agree, but also it has not suffered the trauma of translation and the selective editing that the Bible has - and it is seen as ' 'the truth and word of God'' - Its more authentic twaddle

Except for fundamentalist Christians - christians seam to think they can pick and choose what they like and dislike and gloss over the genocide and slavery and misogyny because it has a nice ''essence'' and community spirit

There is a lot of debate abotu the Hadiths - some say that they were just Mohammed's postulations and therefore aren't to be taken too seriously, but others say that Mohammed spoke with God's permission (ie that God put the owrds in his mouth) so that beign the case, the Hadiths are just as valid as the Koran. FGM is a big part of this debate, because Mohammed said do it in his Hadith.

How is it more authentic. Neither was written by mohammed or even written during his life time?

Cornflakegirl, the thing is we all have different ideas about what following Jesus Christ means.

Because it was written and is read in Arabic - it has a '' cleaner'' history - but still twaddle

And can I add, I do believe religion has much good to say and many tenants of both Islam and Christianity are valid.

After the death of mohammed the moslim word was in disaray with no clear leader and different factions split. More than 2000 years later you still have sunni and shia killing each other over their differences.

Who is to say any of the hadiths are true or even that mohammed was a true prophet?

That is where faith comes in. A muslim has faith that it is true and that mohammed was the last prophet where as i dont accept this as it conflicts with my beliefs.

I think all christians (and all religious people) have selective amnesia to varying extents, depending on their level of education.

They will say these things but their mind will just forget that they are impossible. Or they will believe impossible things over things like evolution, because religion sets up barriers in the mind that stop you questioning certain things.

Another way to think of it is like a fairytale that is repeated over and over, and so becomes intergrated into culture - like father christmas. Everyone just says they believe it, to maintain the culture and to fit into society.

Gotabook -

I'm glad my twaddle is at least beautiful .

"But if its all myth, history, poetry etc and interpreted so differently by everybody - why do you believe in God - why do you believe any of it."

Well firstly I suppose my view is that the fact the Bible is a mix of genres doesn't necessarily make it any less true. We tend to think that histories are the only kinds of things that can be factually true, but poetry and myth can express truth too - we've all experienced the sensation of how a poem seems to say something which we know to be true. You just have to read poetry etc. in a different way to a history.

And if different people interpret it differently that doesn't necessarily make any part of it any less true either. It just means we think different things about it. Some of those things will be closer to the truth than others. This is partly why I said it's not a good idea to have a fixed idea of God, because you'll certainly be wrong about something. It doesn't make a difference to me if someone else believes something different to me, because that is between them and God.

But the Bible isn't why I believe in God. It wasn't my starting point and I would never recommend reading it as a way to convince someone that God existed. I actually find it terribly difficult to see how anyone would become a Christian or believe in God just from reading the Bible (although I'm sure some people have had that experience). For me, it was much more experiential: I used to sing in a church choir (despite being agnostic) because they needed singers and I liked the horrendous Anglican musical drinking culture the music. I sat in that church for six years singing and none of it made any bloody difference to what I thought until a friend made a throwaway comment which suddenly made it all become real for me. I think music has a lot to say about God as well.

I think what you want is a knock-down logical proof - but it doesn't exist. This is why I find it a bit puzzling when atheists try to dismiss supposed proofs of why God exists, because in practice no Christian believes because of a "proof." The only proof is found in the experience of living it - the experience of living as if the Bible is true.

This thread is so interesting. I've never had my young children baptised - I just had a service of thanksgiving for them because, although I felt like I believed in god, dh and I never went to church as we wasn't exactly sure if we did believe in god or not and we knew we would never end up taking them to church or teaching them about how to be a Christian. We didn't want to be hypocrites!

But then more and more recently I've started thinking that I do believe more but I also do believe that most of the bible is metaphorical. Again though, I've been thinking about whether to actually take the children to church and perhaps get them christianed properly. But then I think "but I don't believe in most of the bible so I wouldn't be a proper Christian and then once again I'm being a hypocrite!"

As silly as this sounds, I never realised there were so many Christians who just think of the bible as mainly metaphorical

So that's quite an eye opener to me ! Think I'll take them along Sunday

The thing I find very difficult about Christianity is the concept of original sin and the need to accept Christ to be saved.

It seems to me to be strange for us to be asked to accept that we are intrinsically flawed and need a particular outside agent to correct this.

I became a Buddhist some years ago because the Buddhist way of thinking is that we have all the answers locked away inside ourselves and need to know how to access them - i.e. we do know inside how to be ethical/good/enlightened/kind etc. but need to listen.

higgle i think most modern (anglicans) have rejected the idea of original sin.

You need to accept christ to be saved, that basically means that you need to recognise what you've done wrong, why it was wrong and not do it again (or promise to try not to). It's easier to do this with Jesus' backing. He's our helper and guide, if you like - he gives us the strength to be better people.

we have to recgonise and repent of our sins in order to be let into heaven. In order to be saved at the end of our lives and to be given the eternal kingdom.

and it's lovely that this thread has made you think about going to church MrsPenny :)
we've got a chat thread in religion if you want to join it: here

I treat the bible as a tool of reflection and a guide to the truth and all that is good. Not AS truth as such.