Posted by James 5:16 on June 02, 2001 at 20:26:41:
As a Christian I have come to the conclusion (through reading and speaking to pastors and priests and a LOT of prayer) that we come to the Lord via faith. It's not something to be taken lightly, not by any means. We simply have a believing faith that a god/man came down from Heaven in a perfect form, a perfect human form. Also, that god/man sacrificed himself on a cross to fulfill anchient writings and to save those that choose to believe in him. Christians also believe that three days later that god/man was seen again as he was raised from the dead. Later, he ascended into Heaven, not needing to die again.
I have no facts to support this case. Not like the kind of facts you might find in a court case for example. Simply that we CHOOSE to believe that the Bible is true (and perfectly so). That is a very difficult thing to do, but is something that we accept on faith.
It took me many years to understand all of the things that went into being a Christian. It was very, very difficult, and I know there are others struggling with this problem. As it stands there are many other issues that go into being a Christian than the ones listed above.
However, I have chosen to use the "fundamentals" shall we say...to describe what the basis and foundation of Christian belief must be.
There are going to be readers out there that are going to read this posting and say, "Hey, this guy's a superstitious idiot that believes everything he hears!" For me, that was not the case. I spent literally years working through each and every point I could find on each issue that came up: baptism, the Eucharist, and even music.
I didn't want to believe in the wrong thing!
I found that many people believed many different things. So much so that I thought about changing churches several times so that I would fit better in the "right" church. But that wasn't the bottom line : What was the basic belief?
That is what this posting is concerned with. The basics. "The Fundamentals of Christianity." (By the way, that is a good read for those of you who are NOT Christians to see what we believe in.) If a non-believer has a question, ask. I'm here. I'll answer. If you want to call me an idiot, do that too. But at the very least read what is there.
One person who does this well is Ezekial. Keep posting guy! If you don't believe, ask questions! Challenge me!
Two requests to all of you though...
1) Read the entire paragraph before burning a sentence. Good arguments which can lead to learning on both sides start by listening to everything.
2) Don't go on a flame war, just burning people. That's not productive and not what this board is about. I won't listen or respond to those kinds of postings anyway.
Well, thank you all for reading,
James 5:16