The Forum > Article Comments > Does Christianity have a future? > Comments
Does Christianity have a future? : Comments
By David Young, published 20/4/2009It is not Jesus who is irrelevant in our lives today, it is Paul’s Christianity.
- Pages:
-
- 1
- Page 2
-
- All
RopP I was disappointed that the SBS only dealt with the end of the Cathars. The last two good men was the end of the genocide started in 1203 by the Church of Rome. It is a hideous story and shows the true nature of Christianity. Dominic Guzman (St Dominic) deserves a special mention. He makes Hitler look like a rank amateur.
Ho Hum. There are many ways to spirituality. The greatest sin of Christianity was to set itself up as the only true religion and violently suppressed any other religious views. Our society would probably be a lot richer had the ideas of the Gnostics, the Cathars, Pagans, Wicca and countless other forms of seeking spirituality had been allowed to exist.
I am of the view that the way forward is to integrate our spiritual life with the physical word the way the Cathars seemed to have done.
Pericles. <<Surely, as with every religion, Christianity exists only for the individual, and not - in any spiritual sense - external to the individual?>> No. It is true of what Westerns today think of as religion (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) but not all religions. The Buddhist religion (an example) seeks to help and guide an individual to there own understanding.
<<The entire piece seems, to the non-religious, to be an advertisement for something called gnosticism.>> Gnostic Christianity appears to have been the original form before Paul came along and destroyed it. Hence harking back to Gnostic Christianity as the true Christian religion.
My understanding has deepened in the last ten years, but the essence of the understanding that Paul destroyed Christianity as it could have been has not changed. This does not mean I am a closet Gnostic or Christian of any sort.
John J. Jesus son of God is something Paul dreamed up after the death of Jesus. It was not part of the original Christianity (nor was the Trinity). The 'Sermon on the Mount' from the literal Greek translation may change your mind about Jesus.