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Christianity's premise

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maybe I am getting it wrong but I am thinking that Christianity came to be because of the notion that some being would check in on a person after they die to make sure they believed in that being.
maybe if you are going to believe in the supernatural you might as well believe that somebody is going to make sure you believed in the supernatural after you died is another way to look at Christianity's beginnings.
 
none said:
maybe I am getting it wrong but I am thinking that Christianity came to be because of the notion that some being would check in on a person after they die to make sure they believed in that being.
maybe if you are going to believe in the supernatural you might as well believe that somebody is going to make sure you believed in the supernatural after you died is another way to look at Christianity's beginnings.
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The only premise for Christianity is that there is a God, and Jesus is his son. Everything else is just bolted on to that defining principle, and varies from sect to sect.

But then, that's the whole problem with religions - they always make premises they can't keep.
 
yeah, I am getting at the WHY of the religion not the tenets.
 
none said:
maybe if you are going to believe in the supernatural you might as well believe that somebody is going to make sure you believed in the supernatural after you died is another way to look at Christianity's beginnings.
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Where do you get this idea?

Christainity's beginning was a messiah who was supposed to kick the invaders out of Israel.
 
The Bible teaches at least one message consistently from start to finish: blood sacrifice. God likes it -- likes to smell it, explicitly -- and demands it. Trademark signoff: Forgodislove.
 
I think the primary tenet of Christianity is that two wrongs make a right. There was so much wrong in the world that god needed to have an innocent person tortured and killed in order to make things right. Bizarre, but that's the core doctrine.
 
As far as I understand it, Christianity was developed moreso out of a need for a moralizing, social code, than anything to do with God.

God itself likely originated out of the question of existence. What other explanation can people with nil understanding of the universe come to about their lives other than someone or something caused it. After all, effects typically have causes.

Then as the years progressed God became mixed up with morality due to it's survival value, and Christianity came along.
 
The premise of Christianity:
God created humans and said, "Be good and you will live with me." The downside of this is anyone who is not good dies and does not live with God.

Being good was simply too hard for humans. The humans say, "Isn't there something we can do? Maybe we can renegotiate this deal. It's just not working."

God says, "Okay, be as good as you can, but choose an animal to represent you and it will die." The people think this is a reasonable deal but in time everyone realizes dead animals aren't doing the trick. People are still not being good.

God says,"Okay, I am going to explain it one more time, and have one last sacrifice. This one will do for everyone and forever. All you have to do is say Thank You, God, really appreciate it." God appears as a human, whereupon the humans listen for a while, but once he claims to be God, they get upset and kill him.

Ever since then, the defining element of Christianity has been to attempt to pay service to the things God said when he was pretending to be human and then saying, "Thank you."
 
Bronzeage said:
The premise of Christianity:
God created humans and said, "Be good and you will live with me." The downside of this is anyone who is not good dies and does not live with God.
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Nonsense.

The fairytale is that some god told 2 people, one which was made from the rib of the other, yet was a different sex, not to eat from the "Tree of Knowledge".

This psycho god demanded they remain ignorant.

That is the premise.

Stay ignorant and your god will like you. And Christians have struggled to remain as ignorant as possible ever since.
 
The why of religion rests on insecurity and fear, hope and desire, which makes religion quite useful as a means of social control and building and maintaining lucrative hierarchies....
 
I thought the central premise of Christianity was that Jesus died so that sins would be forgiven. As if that were somehow impossible for an omnipotent God before that, and if sins are forgiven, then why threaten people with hell or even have the place? It would seem that "do as you please and then believe in God on your deathbed" is the way to go. I don't see how that changes anything.

Also if Jesus is somehow God in disguise, then how exactly is God (being immortal) actually killed? If he could be killed, being nailed to a tree and stabbed with a spear does not seem quite enough to put it mildly. Perhaps only his fleshy overcoat is killed; erm, that happens all the time, nothing much happens as a result apart from someone being dead.
 
As to why there is religion: it gives another way to power beyond being a prince or king. It's something to do for 3rd sons of noble families instead of causing trouble. If something unfortunate happens to your "heir and a spare" you have one on ice ready to go. And if you are but a commoner, you can use it to gain authority without being of noble blood.
 
none said:
yeah, I am getting at the WHY of the religion not the tenets.
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The why is fear.

People fear the unknown. Gods and religion were invented to explain anything that people didn't understand.
People fear death. Gods and religion were invented to convince them that life was suffering but death brought them paradise.

Then those in control of the religion use that fear to control the population by propositioning divine punishments for not obeying the rules they claim were given by the invented god.
 
none said:
yeah, I am getting at the WHY of the religion not the tenets.
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To make many wise.

Otherwise, other whys are whirled around our world around our wise.
Otherwise, other whys around our world are whirled around our wise.
 
In Christianity, people want someone to intercede on their behalf to God. Jesus offered to do it and advised “hate less and love more and don’t be so selfish and I will intercede on your behalf with the author of all events”.

It’s a way of dealing with suffering, since people tend to feel nature’s antagonistic to them and would like some greater providence in life. They want things to go well for them, obviously, and are looking for some magic to see that it’s not left to randomness.

“Hate less and love more and don’t be so self-absorbed” is probably an effective way to accomplish the goal because, psychologically, things don't always seem to go wrong if you’re not selfishly tied up into how they “should” go, and willing to let “God’s will be done”.

There’s a self-sacrificial aspect to this that’s graphically expressed in Christ’s crucifixion. Which is symbolic regardless if it was an historical event or not.
 
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