Hello all, and welcome to the Church of Sense and Reason. Now before I explain what this is and what it is all about let me make the disclaimer statement of: I'm not preposing a new religion, branch, church, etc. , in fact, it is quite the oposite.
What this is is a return to what true Christianlity is all about. Now I know there are a lot of extremists out there who say they know what true Christianity is too, and most people who "know" what and religion is truly about will say that all the others are wrong. I'm not here to say that either. I'm here to go back to the beginning and take an exegesis look at Christianity. I will be doing this with the help of some philosopher friends. This is a blog about Christianity but also about philosophy: no one would argue that the teaching of Jesus aren't in themselves a philosophy all their own. I want to bring in the reasoning logic, and ideas of several philosophers, some Christian, some Christian turned Atheist, some predating Christianity. I will using the traching of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Marx, Nietzsche, John Stewart Mill, Emerson, and others, to try and bring back the original point of Christianity.
You may be asking: what are my credentials? What's my background? Where am I coming from?
Here's your answers:
I was born, baptized, and raised Catholic and in a Catholic houshold. My mother was Catholic since birth, and my father, being the only one out of his siblings baptized, took First Communion and Confirmation, after my own First Communion. It is also a Liberal household.
I was in the Cub Scouts, dropped out in the Boy Scouts because I was doing to much and my grades were slipping. Why is Cub Scouts relevent? Well I got two of the medal's awarded for religous exercises (in this case Catholic). I was also an alter server from 5th grade to the August before I went away to collge. Not only that I was choosen to be one of the select Master's of Ceremony (for those who are unfamilair with the Catholic Church, this is like a promotion in the ranks of alter serving). Further more, during CCD, I was one of the few who paid attention, cared about the classes, and spoke in class, while the rest thought it a waste of time. I am a philosophy major and have taken courses in World Religions, Philosophy of Religion, Investingating the Bible and several others. I consider myself a Christian but I do not consider myself a Catholic as defined by most Catholics.
I'm really not here to insult anyone or rag on anyone's beliefs. I only want to help to remove the negative stigma surrounding Christianinty, teach others, and bring back what Christianity is all about. Some of you otu there may call me blasphemous, a heretic, or even a left-wing propagandist and that's fine, you are free to think what you like just as I am free to think as I do.
I'm an Empiricist but also a bit of a Rationalists. What does this mean? There are two main ways of gathering information about life, the universe, and everything. One is Empiricism: using ones experiences in the world to make sense of it and come up with what is moral, ethical, right and wrong, etc. Rationalists focuse more on reason than the senese, believing that true knowledge comes from contemplation. I agree in an amalgamation of the two: using ones experiences then conemplating on them as a whole,m seeing what adds up, what doesn't what seems logical and right and illogical and wrong.
That's all you need to know about me The main goal of this blog is to put Christ back into Christianity. So that's the introtroduction done. Shall I give an example of what is expected to be in following blogs? Very well then:
For those Christians out there, you may be familiar with a hymn/psalm called "They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love" This is the Christianity this blog is meant to discuss: Love, peace, forgiviness, compassion, etc. However, I ask all of you out there reading this who are not Christians, and never were Christians: do you agree with this song? Can you recognize Christians by their love? I'd like to think so but i know that is rarely the case. I have a hard time finding Christians by their love. When I ask my non-christian friends they say no. and then i ask them would it be more accurate to say you will know Christians by their hate? Typically the repsonse is yes. What do you think?
Well we can go back throughout history for great examples of this even though it shouldn;t be releveant to Christianity today I think it is. In fact, I'd say it is more relevnet, because the people of the past were not as far in the future from when Jesus was around than we are today, so one would think tehy would have more accurate translations and descriptions of how to be a Christian. Well the Bible still said the same thing but I think most people didn't get the messages. Either that or they are really stupid or they understood the Bible, they were just hypocrites. I'm talking about events like the Crusades, The Israli and Palestinane War, The Spanish Inquisition, The Salem Witch trails, groups like the Ku Klux Klan, and the Nazi party. In fact things like this are still going on today. You can see why that hymn might confuse some people. For example, Christian Fundamentalists who blow up abortion clinics with staff and patients still inside to or shoot doctrs know for conducting abortions point blank in their cars who have families in order to "stop the killing" Or Fred Phelps, leading the hate against the gay community telling them they are hated by God, damned, and will be sent to Hell. So you can see why many people are confused by Christianity.
Well that's a taste of what to expect from this blog. I hope you enjoy it!
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