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I just wanted to comment on your answer to the "Faith and Reason" question. First of all, I respect your thoughts and opinions, but I did want to clarify.
The difference between Christianity and all the other religions out there is relationship. Every religion is driven with the idea that they have to "DO" something in order to somehow "EARN" their way to heaven. There are many people who claim to be Christian and have no clue what being a Christian even is and they too think they need to perform.
But true Christianity is having a relationship with God through Jesus and faith is required. I believed first, then I saw this truth. It saddens me that the word Christian is so flippantly tossed around because it is obviously giving the wrong idea to so many.
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Maybe give some free advice about: Spirituality?
I think I didn’t express myself all that well. Let me just try to clarify my references to Christianity.
I did not mean to say that Christianity is the same as other religions from the point of view of what is required of the believer or what it teaches. Every religion is different there, and since there have been so many throughout time I would not even begin to try to guess whether it is similar to others in this respect.
To be fair though, Christianity does ask more than just a relationship to God. The Ten Commandments clearly define rules by which we should lead our lives. However, I am getting off point. All of this is totally irrelevant from the point of view I was approaching the question.
In the end it does not matter whether a religion asks you to have a relationship, to go to church, to go to war, or even to make live sacrifices. The only thing that matters is if that religion is the true one. Obviously it would be nice if the hypothetical "true religion" also happens to be a nice religion, but that is not really in our hands.
So looking at other religions and realising that Christianity may or may not have some good qualities is totally irrelevant. That’s going about it backwards. The real question, the only question, is what concrete proof is there that these teachings are correct?
That was basically what I was trying to say in my answer (amongst other things). Because of this I actually made an effort to avoid too many direct references to Christianity, since there is no good reason why it deserves more or less attention than any other faith (and I am including here not just the major religions, but every little tiny tribal belief that has existed throughout time). The references that slipped through are there because the question itself dealt with Christianity.
I could write a religion tomorrow. It could have all the most wonderful ideas and teachings, and it could possibly appeal to millions. I could make it caring, friendly, compassionate, and humane. In a head to head comparison it may wipe the floor with today's major faiths. If I market it correctly I bet I could even get followers that "simply believe” in their heart of hearts. In the end however, I would have done little to prove the existence of my deity or deities. Sadly however, I would have offered as much evidence as any other religion past or present.
So, as I said, the actual teachings, the beliefs, the way the believers conduct themselves, etc. are irrelevant to me. These are all things that should be considered after one has determined the truthfulness of the religion.
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