The end goal of Christianity should be to love as God loves everyone, and to will for the salvation of all men, to have no enemies.
I just wish Christians would actually follow Christ’s teachings.
Exactly! We are failing to do so - collectively.
Amen
Meanwhile in reality, Christians continue to be the most hateful people…
I’d say a third of people never enter a place of being very reflective about what they are doing and what they have done. I think they are either dumb or calloused, and they do not want to be NOT calloused because their callouses hold together their fragile mental life.
Another third of people only enter this place of reflection until a significant amount of their youth is over, or even a signifcant amount of thier life is over.
The last third of people are naturally quite reflective, and they tend to try to avoid slighting others and are quite empathetic. However, they receive more pain from this - they feel a deep sense of injustice because they are surrounded by it, and they may become calloused and even dish out some hatred themselves, right…
So, I think this is more about the problem of people than a problem of a specific kind of people, whether they are Christian or not.
No, you’re responding to a strawman like “Christians are the only hateful people” and explaining how other people could also be hateful. That is not what I said, and your reply is not relevant.
Christians are the most hateful people. Their made-up framework for the universe that revolves around judgement of sins and being God’s super special buddy allows them to feel holier than thou and justify their mistreatment of others. Every misdeed comes with an exception and automatic forgiveness for them, because they’re a true believer, while every perceived or imagined misdeed from others is proof that others should be condemned.
Yet, Matthew 7:1 is judge not lest ye be judged.
It is hypocritical and goes against Christianity to do this.
[There is a famous story of a monk in Eastern orthodoxy… He was lazy, slovenly, slow to pray, even eating too much and complaining about conditions. He never advanced as a monk… Yet, when he was in the process of dying the angels gathered and one of the elders who was holy could see them coming to take him - they asked him, how is it so that angels would come directly here to bring you to heaven? He said,
“I am not sure, but I have worked very hard in my life to do one thing… To never judge anyone.”
There are other stories that reinforce the idea of non-judgment since it is at the core of Christian virtue of humility.
Obviously, some people are not doing this. I agree with you. We are bd at this. But I feel it is the case that doing this does absolutely go aginst Christian virtues.
But I feel it is the case that doing this does absolutely go aginst Christian virtues.
If the followers of Christianity are going against “Christian virtues” then Christianity is clearly failing to promote Christian virtues. If your goal is to promote Christian virtues then promoting Christianity will hamper your efforts. Promoting Christianity works against your goals.
This has become something of a tautology, though - you are equating Christianity with the behavior of its followers, and saying that the promotion of the actual text and classical understanding of Christianity is not the real one… And so “Christianity is not real Christianity because Christianity is only the Christianity filtered through imperfect people.”
But here is another argument for you:
Christianity has proven to be a pioneering and tolerant religion because it ultimately gave birth to the movements that enshrine the political rights of people that have lifestyles that run counter to its norms.
saying that the promotion of the actual text and classical understanding of Christianity is not the real one…
I don’t understand this sentence.
Christianity has proven to be a pioneering and tolerant religion
You’re the one who said there are followers of Christianity who are not acting in accord with the Christian virtue of humility.
I don’t understand this sentence.
I am just insisting that the authentic Christianity is the one of the teachings, not the one of the people who fail to live up to them.
(I would also contend it is probably not as bas as you are saying. We will get into that in a minute.)
Christianity has proven to be a pioneering and tolerant religion You’re the one who said there are followers of Christianity who are not acting in accord with the Christian virtue of humility.
I think it’s acutally the case that Christians tended to be very tolerant of divergent lifestyles in comparison to other religions that wielded political power, like Islam, or even what we see from political Judaism today in Gaza.
Christianity trended toward the secularizing the government, and it also traditionally tolerated all manner of sexual vice. 17th century England and France were pretty wild places, so was late Renaissance Italy, and this is quite different from the excesses of the Confucianists in the Song Dynasty or the Buddhits in the late Tang or late Tong Shilla dynasties in the sense that Buddhism was a very low intensity religion throughout the far East and Mahayana Buddhism tended towards endorsing transparently false and unbuddhist doctirnes when it comes to Buddhist soteriology (or should I say 'Nirvanology? lol)
Is this a fucking joke? Christians gave me suicidal ideation. Christians literally almost cost me my life. Fuck those evil assholes so much—worst cult man ever made.
I do not doubt what you are saying - there are very bad Christians out there, this is real. But I would point out that many Buddhist countries are troubled by violence and the gross sexual exploitation of women, but this is not a reflection of Buddhism, either, but rather a reflection of how the teachings have failed to penetrate the hearts of people.
You have a right to be angry… to feel slighted… to feel mistreated… Because that happened. But I would say that true liberation comes from understanding that the people who did this are pathetic - if they did it because they WILLED you to suffer, they are pathetic because of how mentally unwell & spiritually insane they are, and if they did it out of ignorance, they are unskilled & cognitively… dumb.
Be true to your negative emotions, right, but then try to overcome that negativity so you don’t have to suffer the same losses over & over again, right.
I do not want to preach to anybody on this sort of thing - I am not some guru. I am just talking about some of my own pain - I come to grips with it actually through ordering my thoughts and trying to sincerely understand the root cause.
this is not a reflection of Buddhism, either, but rather a reflection of how the teachings have failed to penetrate the hearts of people
The teachings failing to penetrate the hearts of people is a reflection of the religion.
… Or of the people,
How can it be a reflection of the people if other religions manage to penetrate people’s hearts?
So, you are saying because some people turn to Buddhism and other faiths instaed of Christianity, it is evidence against Christianity?
You are open, then, to the reverse as well, right…? It would also be evidence if people abandoned other religions for Christianity?
So, you are saying because some people turn to Buddhism and other faiths instaed of Christianity, it is evidence against Christianity?
No.