I've had my own trials and i'm sure i'll have many more. I'd say overall i don't know where i stand. I have problems with christianity, although I have to say I don't care how much the atheist here hate me for saying it i've always wanted to believe. It is through the questions and realizations of the pain and suffering of the world the lack of women's importance in the bible where I suffer from the inability to believe in Christianity. I have so many people around me as i'm sure everyone does that are so faithful. So i was wondering how do the christains here logically understand their faith and how do you do it?

Where do you get that women aren't important?

lack of...

they are to be silent, they cannot teach, there are no women disciples, they are to be ruled over by their husbands, they cannot be priests going along with teaching, they should cover their heads, etc. etc. etc. etc.

Well it doesnt acknowledge the importance of Mary Magdelene for a start...



Therein lies the problem....u WANT to believe, but u dont, u r questioning it.

Follow ur heart and see wat feels right to YOU.

Well don't give up on yours. For some it's periods of floating in & out of our faith. Maybe it's our thought life that holds up the works.

Try becoming conscious of the things that rob your peace joy & hope. Make a list of them & use the word of God against it. Ask others to help you...get a prayer partner. Someone strong in their faith to help carry you until you can develop your own good habits. Prayer is very important to the inner development of man. It's where the abiding develops. Without the daily praise & worship & prayer, we become very dull spiritually.

Whatever you do don't ever give up. You may feel like you are going nowhere in your walk, but that's not true. Don't believe that.

BTW...all the nonsense of a woman's place blah blah blah...if you go to church then you know how valuable women are in the body of Christ. Don't dwell on all that. It's nonsense.

Best to you...God bless...

Check out Mary Magdeline in the New Testament. Upon reading, you'll discover that she was an important disciple. Remember, she was the one chosen to make the discovery of the Resurrection and spread the word to the others. The time period of the New Testament can hardly be compared to modern times when it comes to the influence by women. Even so, there were several Biblical heroines and leaders of the Hebrew army and politic.

If she even existed she was a whore who slept around the story of her magical impregnation was the obvious result of her not wanting to tell her husband he wasn't her true lover, women hold no place of respect in the mythological writings of fiction we call religion because they all were concocted by old men who held no respect for them fortunately we are now in modern times and sooner than later religion will be a thing of the past and remain only with those crazy enough to still follow it.

You perpetuate nothing more than a myth in saying that Mary Magdeline was a whore. Get your references straight and know what "Mary" you are talking about before making uneducated statements.

Interesting, I suspect I can call your post "mythological" given it's rashness of thought.

Some of this is Old Testament (covering heads)....and some is not. However...having said that, try this perspective on for size and see what you think:

We (women) cannot pee standing up or write our names in the snow (easily). We haven't nearly the upper body stregnth of a man. We cannot grow facial hair (most of us anyway). Does any of this mean we are less important than a man? I know it isn't quite the same thing, but....try to remember that as divinely inspired as the Bible might be...it was still written by men. Your importance in the grand scheme of things is still your call. I do happen to agree with the Bible's take on things. I believe the man to be head of the household. And I believe I am to obey my husband. But he also has a responsibility to protect me, love me, cherish me and take care of me as most precious...and important...in his sight. None of this makes ME feel less important. You can certainly look at the rules set forth in the Bible and choose to believe it gives you a "lack of importance". But men and women simply have different stregnths and different responsibilities. But no where in the entirety of the Bible will you find that it declares that women are less important than men.

But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Thats wat the church wanted ppl to believe. Truth is, Jesus loved her more than any of the other disciples, and she carried his child, she was the biggest secret of the church and she was well hidden.

Then there is St Bernadette, Visionary and messenger of the Immaculate Conception, she told us the very words of the Virgin Mary, spoken in the native Basque tongue of Southern France and Northern Spain. She spoke words teaching of the merits of prayer, penance, poverty and church.

And of course Mary, so there were very prolific women, higher than males imo.




Taken from another site..

By Alan Parker, Th. D.

Murder, coded messages, intrigue, suspense, and a race against time to discover the world’s best-kept secret—Dan Brown weaves all these elements together in his bestselling thriller The Da Vinci Code. Judging by the 30 million books that have been sold followed by a full-budget hollywood film, many people have been influenced by this fanciful story.

Yet what is surprising is that this obviously fictional work is being taken so seriously as a real explanation for the life of Jesus and the history of the Bible. Perhaps it’s because the novel begins with a single word: "FACT." Shortly afterward, Brown writes, "All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate."

1The Last Supper, the characters in Brown’s book claim that Leonardo really intended this to be Mary Magdalene!


The characters of the book discover that not only was Jesus "mortal," but also that he married Mary Magdalene and had a daughter whose descendants live among us today. The sources of this information are supposedly a secret society and the discredited Gnostic gospels, which give the "true" picture of the historical Jesus. In addition, paintings of Leonardo da Vinci are portrayed as coded messages that indicate that Mary Magdalene, not John, was the beloved disciple, and that it was she and not Peter whom Jesus intended to take over the leadership of the church. Because John is painted without a beard and sitting close to Jesus in the picture of

The book is nothing more than an open attack against the deepest beliefs Christians hold. It strips Jesus of His divinity, destroys faith in the Bible, and invents a false history of Christianity. But what is the truth?

You say that you've always wanted to "believe".

But what is it that you want to believe?

Do you want to believe that all of mankind fell from grace from God?

Do you want to believe that there is an evil angel who is the enemy of God?

Do you want to believe that there will be a horrific battle at Armageddon?

Do you want to believe that God demanded blood sacrifices from man to make atonements for their disobedience?

Do you want to believe that mankind is so inherently evil that God had to drown out all of humanity at one time save for a handful of people?

Do you want to believe that you are responsible for God having to send his son to be nailed to a cross to pay for you arrogant disobedience?

Do you want to believe that you are responsible for God needing to do that?

What exactly is it that you want to believe?

Is it that you want to believe that there is an intervening God who can step into your life and miraculously change things? I hope that's not your motivation because we can clearly see from the examples of the many Christians that they are always making prayer requests (clearly praying on their own hasn't produced any results so they are frustrated and feel a need to try to get more people to pray because God is hard of hearing or something).

If Jesus promised that he would answer prayers shouldn't he be doing that without the need for people asking large number of their friends to beg on their behalf?

Seriously, if God makes a promise shouldn't he keep it? How many Christians do you know who's prayers are truly being answered?

What is it that you want to 'believe'?

Do you want to believe that there is everlasting life and you will be cared for eternally in paradise?

Do you want to believe that there is a demonic boogieman who will take you into a deep cavern of fire and torture and never let you go if you aren't 'saved' from that fate?

What is it that you actually want to believe?

You've been studying religions. What's wrong with the pantheistic view of creation? Why do you find that hard to believe? What is unattractive about it?

From my own point of view, I believe in God. I don't believe in the Bible. I don't believe that mankind fell from grace and needs to be saved from a demonic boogiman.

I believe that all living spirits came from the same source and will return to the same source.

I believe that we are all eternal spirit.

From my point of view that's the only truly unconditional love. A creator who would have created a hell to send the vast majority of the souls he creates to just doesn't seem to me a very wise or loving. On the contrary such a creator seem to be extremely inept. He would also be gambling with all the souls he creates. Such a God would be a gambler with your soul!

What else would you need to believe to believe in the Biblical God?

You'd need to believe that God told people to judge each other to be sinners and stone each other to death.

You'd need to believe that God told people to stone their unruly children to death.

You'd need to believe that God told people to murder heathen, and destroy the entire villages that they came from.

Is this what you want to believe?

You'd need to believe that God frowns on women who have given birth to children and requires atonements for their sinful act of having procreated life.

You'd need to believe that God created man in God's image, but then created woman from the rib of man to be his property and helpmate.

What is it that you want to believe?

Which parts of this mythology are the parts you'd like to believe in?

What is it that you are desiring?

Are you hoping for a genuine spirit to show up and guide you in your everyday life?

Are you hoping to become a proselytizer who denounces all non-believers?

Are you looking to be accepted by a "Christian society"?

What is it that you truly want?

And is the biblical picture of God where it can truly be found?

If you are seeking social acceptance that might actually work depending on the society you actually reside in.

You did state:



Are you sure you're not just looking for acceptance within a group? If you can't beat em, join em?

I'm just sharing my thoughts. Whatever you choose is your choice. I just hope you do it for all the right reasons and not for superficial ones.

WOW!!

That was amost excellent post, best ive seen on this site since i joined a few days ago!!

Women also support the ministry with their money! Not to mention the other women that are held in high regard: Ruth, Mary, Deborah (she was a judge), and there many more. You also have the Messiah speaking to a woman at the well, and His disciples were shocked that He was talking to a woman.

The Messiah is our example, He held women in high regard so I wouldn't put to much thought on anyone else saying otherwise.

May you quest for TRUTH and KNOWLEDGE be blessed by the one and only Elohim of Israel.

Shalom!

sororitygurl4life,

When I was on the path to being a Christian, I had a stumbling block in my path: Evolution. I was a believer in Evolution and I couldn't reconcile Christianity and Evolution. To some people, Genesis 1 and 2 are merely parables, but I could not then and cannot now find anything remotely indicating that Genesis 1 and 2 are parables, other than that the stories are unbelievable. When discussing actions of an infinitely powerful God, I think you need more evidence other than "I can't believe it". This was a huge sticking point for me, until I talked to a Christian woman who told me the following: "I told God that I would accept the Bible as his word and trust him even if it doesn't make sense". That was a missing piece of the puzzle for Christianity in my life. I now realize that one cannot hold out anything and say "I'll believe in God, but only if..." You have to be willing to unconditionally accept Jesus and God. Now I'm not saying that God or Christianity is opposed to Evolution and for all I know, Theistic evolution is how God created life. But the point is that while I was saying "I'll only believe in Christianity if Evolution is a given", God had no interest in me. God loves us unconditionally, so we have no right to put conditions on our love for God. If you are only willing to accept God if God views all people the same way, then you are placing a stumbling block between you and God.

Not to be argumentative, but didn't your whole argument pretty much go to hell in a hand basket with the above statement?

How can you claim that the biblical God's love is "unconditional"?

According to the Bible there are extreme conditions on the biblical God's love. Not the least of which is the idea that you must believe that the Bible is the word of God and you must OBEY his every commandment.

You call that "unconditional" love?

Moreover, it clearly states in the Bible that the vast majority of souls will not make it into God's heaven and that only very few will make it. Clearly the biblical God is expecting that a whole lot of people are not going to satisfy the "conditions" that he set out as a requirment for his love.

Finally, even Jesus himself had stated that there will be man who claim to know him but he will deny them. So here, the biblical God is even saying that he will be rejecting people who are under the self-delusion that they have accepted the biblical God.

Clearly the biblical God can and will reject people who will even claim to have accepted him. This is contrary to what many Christians teach that God never rejects anyone.

In all honestly Spider, I don't think a person needs to be a Christian to recognize that the biblical God places very rigid and stringent "conditions" on his love.

To claim that the biblical God's love is "unconditional" truly flies in the face of the entire doctrine.

I just don't see how anyone can speak of the biblical God's love as being "unconditional", it's totally dependent on a myriad of conditions according to the doctrine.

It's anything but "unconditional".

The Bible doesn't say that.



Salvation is through grace, an act of love on God's part. We cannot make ourselves righteous.

Well, in that case then it's not important to believe in the Bible.

I'll certainly agree with that.

I'm not sure that I agree that the Bible agrees with that though.

If you had really spent the last 40 years studying the Bible, you would find yourself in agreement with me quite often.

The truth is that salvation is due to "undeserved favor". God grants salvation to those who have faith in Jesus and love for God. An illiterate who doesn't know a single word of the Bible can be saved and so can the learned man. The real test of who goes to heaven is the heart of the individual.

You know what? this woman was pouring her heart out on an issue close to her heart. She doesn't need people to debate "religion."

Makes me wonder why people would want to take a thread like this & turn it into a fight. Take THAT to some other thread.

She is looking for real life answers. Not intellectualizations.

Believe.

Believe in your higher power, your higher self.

Believe in yourself.

Believe in magic.

Believe.