Struggling with my Christian belief

I was brought up a Catholic, I don't practice at all now. My own thoughts are that obviously nobody truly knows what is there for us after death, but if it is a heaven and Hell kind of thing. I think the brownie points will be earned on how you lived your life in relation to others. If you were Kind, helpful, that sort of thing, and not based on how many times you went to Church ir what you really believed in.

That's just my thoughts, I am not saying I am right, how could I? will have to wait and see

Nor was Mary Magdalene the epitome of the opposite view of women!

I can't get my head around the insipid version of Mary we're always given.

She was unmarried and pregnant in a society which condemned such women to death yet she managed to survive. Then after travelling whilst heavily pregnant she gave birth in a stable, had to escape to and live as a refugee in Egypt, bring up a child who, according to the Gospel of Thomas (one of those not in the Bible), showed off his miraculous abilities in a most irritating and at times dangerous ways and was incredibly arrogant and finally watch him be tortured to death on the cross.

Any women who could survive all that could never have been the insipid 'perfect' woman that men want us to believe.

The virgin birth cannot be proved or disproved

Norose4 artificial insemination is NOT virgin birth! The semen has come from a man!

It's the belief that counts , facts apparently are not of any significance

Not impossible to be born of a virgin now Pollyperkins artificial insemination etc . It is a fudemental core belief if one classes themselves as a Christian that they believe in the virgin birth.

Oh I do think there are many religions which have broadly the same ideals about how to live though!

BTW norose4, I dont think that you have to believe in the virgin birth to be a Christian. There are many interpretations of these stories and Paul never referred to them (nor did Jesus.) there are many stories of that era of miracle children being born of virgins which are very similar to the nativity stories. As a biologist I would like to point out that any baby born of a virgin (which is impossibl anyway) would b a female - the Y gene has to come from somewhere. And also at the beginning of Matthews Gospel there are 17 verses of genealogy to show that Jesus was descended from David and Abraham through JOSEPH ! Makes no sense at all if he wasnt the father!

Many parts of the world believe in the Old Testament & not the new , i.e. They are not Christian's & therefore firmly believe they are doing Gods will ! I recently googled religions, thankfully there are many out there that are very centred in humanity & helping each other.

Thatbags - I'm with you! Ie the books of the NT (gospels) were written years after Jesus died (after stories about him were passed down orally ) Some were later selected to be included in what we now call the Bible. The Acts of the apostles and Paul's letters were written first. Its hard to know what Jesus actually said and did but his teachings eg the sermon on the mount do come through. A lot of the Catholic churches teaching eg purgatory, limbo, transubstantiation, etc are not in the Bible at all and were introduced much later. I don't recall any of Jesus' teaching referring to hell.
Of course we can pick and choose - surely we should use our intelligence! The OT can really be disragerded except as background. Jesus said he was the New Testament (New Covenant) to replace th old one . This is a bit incoherent but Im too tired to write what I mean properly!

It rained today and I researched my family history but didn't get that far back, although I have noticed that some people do

You will have to keep them there for a very rainy day Jalima !

I have some of the lost books of the Bible downloaded on to my kindle, but people will keep giving me more exciting modern books to read so I haven't got around to them yet.

The Old Testament is interesting as history - if you believe that people lived for hundreds of years etc, or came down in flaming chariots.

which, of course, may be true.

Just to clarify what a Christian is according to God! It is a person who believes that God got fed up with getting everyone to fight each other, so sent his own beloved son to earth to be born of a virgin & to die on the cross & join him again in heaven the message apparently to say ' look I have done this to my own son so that you know how sincerely I want you to stop killing each other as I previously did & want you to live in peace & harmony. To technically be a Christian it is required by God that you believe in the virgin birth & the crucifixion, & that the only way to him & heaven is this belief that that is what happened.Hence the New Testament being the new set of rules as opposed to the rules of the Old Testament , which is why those that hold true to the Old Testament will never behave as those who believe in the New Testament . Thankful there are non believers of any religions who manage to live & behave in a very tolerant manner to each other... just saying

I don't think you can trust the Bible to be a definitive text on Christ because it was written by and organised by man. It didn't find it's current form until the late 4thC or early 5thC. Initially people simple passed on the story of Christ in oral traditions. These were eventually written down but not all the 'gospels' are in the Bible as we know it. Men decided which books went in and which were left out.

I don't think you have to be a Christian to think that Christ's teachings on behaviour towards other people are valid and try to follow them. Being nice to each other just seems a good way of living.

Other religious teachers seem to have had the same idea.

Mohammed also taught that people should be nice to each other www.questionsaboutislam.com/faith-beliefs-
practices/islam-teaches-manners.php

Sikhism also teaches that all are equal and should be treated accordingly www.realsikhism.com/index.php?
subaction=showfull&id=1248311402&ucat=7

Hinduism “He who hates no single being, is friendly and compassionate, free from self-regard and vanity, patient, contented, fixed on me in heart and mind is dear to me” - Lord Krishna.https://www.quora.com/What-does-real-Hinduism-teach

The Buddha said, "Do not earn your living by harming others. Do not seek happiness by making others unhappy." online.sfsu.edu/rone/Buddhism/footsteps.htm

Interesting. Can't find anything relating specifically to the Dead Sea Scrolls in his theories though. Got any more detailed references? And shall we let the discussion go back to the original post? Think we've hijacked it a bit ?

They record the earliest forms of rabbinic Judaism and Christianity.

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

Well Im prepared to be corrected but I really think they were written before the time of Jesus and didn't refer to Christianity at all.

The dead sea scrolls confirm the world Jesus existed in. They also confirn that Christianity was part of early Judaism so they provide insights into the very earliest forms of Christians and their writings in the NT.

The blood part means that God no longer required that sacrificial blood of animals. It is all written in the bible.
And sexual immorality referred to sodomy and adultery.

Well, I know I always seem to be disagreeing with Nina, but I have a passion for accuracy. How else can we make informed decisions. The Dead Sea Scrolls had nothing to do with Christianity but contained copied portions of the first five books of the Pentatuch. What we call the Old Testament. Plus a few portions of Proerbs and the Book of Daniel. And a few other non referenced texts.
I think Nina is referring to the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) which judged that non Jewish believers did not need to follow Jewish law but refrain from food given to idols, sexual immorality, meat from strangled annals and blood. Nobody is sure what the blood bit means. Halal, not to murder, blood transfusions, sex during periods? There's a raft of different interpretations.
Important to remember that at that point Christianity did not exist but belief in Jesus was viewed as belief in the Jewish Messiah.

Sorry Bluebelle, I didn't answer you properly. You can confess and repent if you accept Jesus. Then you're forgiven. But you can't be a Christian while carrying out a belief or behaviour knowing it's wrong. If you don't know something is wrong, then that's a whole different story. No one can blame someone who doesn't know any different.
But if you convert to Christianity, follow the faith, drink yourself into the ground every night and have flings and affairs, then that's not living the life of a true Christian.

Sacrifice of animals, sexual immorality, murder, false idols plus all the commandments.
Then there are the 7 sins of greed, lust, envy, gluttony, pride, sloth, wrath.

Basically, a true Christian doesn't question the authority of the bible or interpret it to suit themselves. You either accept it as way to live or you don't.

I find the bible fascinating not least because it's the world's best history book. If you look on Youtube, there are full length films of each book starting right back from Genesis. OK, they're a bit corny but some are right up to the current day. James Cameron, (Titantic) has made a film about the The Ark of Covenant. This is what Indiana Jones was about. Great film. They now believe that the ark of covenent in somewhere in Ethiopia.

Nina out of interest what sort of things were they saying you could or couldn't be ?