hey, I've had other Christians ask me why I celebrate Passover and Rosh Hashanah as well as Easter and Christmas. In fact, I've heard the quote 'Jesus was one of the first Christians'. So I KNOW there are some ignorant people out there and if we want to go back, Constantine was the one that started the division between the Jewish and Christian traditions to make it more acceptable as a state religion so the break's been in place for a loooong time. When you get back to the basics, it's really very beautiful how completely many of the OT Jewish celebrations line up so neatly with the NT Christian ones right down to the traditions involved and the empty chair. The Jews were the first Christians after all. Though, considering even Islam is younger than Christianity I wouldn't exactly call it the 'baby' of the family. Which is why, as a Christian I think it's necessary to understand other religions and know why you came to the one you did. Most Christians can't talk about the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Council of Nicaea, what's up with the King James version of the Bible, etc - which is sad. But just as detrimental(in my eyes at least) is their inability to talk about why the Sunnis and Shiites are so emotionally at odds with each other, what the goal of Buddhism is, or about what the lost tribe of Israel means to the Mormons. Sadly though, I think that's going to be the same for just about any religion. Or political structure. Or diet plan. Because it's made up of people and so you'll always have the ones that thought it out, listened to the different angles and came to their own conclusions for themselves and the people who just do it because it's a comfortable spot to fill. Christians are made up of humans just the same way every other grouping of people on the planet is and you're going to get a mix. Some will be intelligent but most won't. I just thought I'd raise my hand and wave from the 'I paid attention' section of the human race.
I'm sorry you got jumped though. I thought it was a pass the time board game, not a 'tackle you over the dinner table' situation. Out of the blue, I had well meaning relatives tackle my family over Christmas dinner one year because they thought they needed to pray for us and whatever it was they thought we were doing wrong. Yeah, way to ruin any chance for an open, friendly time right off the bat like that. I'll happily talk about religion, Christianity or otherwise, any day if asked but I'm a firm believer in the idea that forcing anything down someone's throat is just a good way to make them sick (and possible get bitten) (have you ever heard me bring up politics for instance?). Some people just seem to be the type to go at something over and over and over again no matter how hard the wall they're running into seems though. So I'll happily sit in your 'I said no' corner with you on that one. And we won't talk about how many times I've been tempted to tell someone 'would you just shut up about being a Christian. You're giving the rest of us a bad name'.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
chiming
no subject
Date: 2011-01-19 05:32 am (UTC)From:I'm sorry you got jumped though. I thought it was a pass the time board game, not a 'tackle you over the dinner table' situation. Out of the blue, I had well meaning relatives tackle my family over Christmas dinner one year because they thought they needed to pray for us and whatever it was they thought we were doing wrong. Yeah, way to ruin any chance for an open, friendly time right off the bat like that. I'll happily talk about religion, Christianity or otherwise, any day if asked but I'm a firm believer in the idea that forcing anything down someone's throat is just a good way to make them sick (and possible get bitten) (have you ever heard me bring up politics for instance?). Some people just seem to be the type to go at something over and over and over again no matter how hard the wall they're running into seems though. So I'll happily sit in your 'I said no' corner with you on that one. And we won't talk about how many times I've been tempted to tell someone 'would you just shut up about being a Christian. You're giving the rest of us a bad name'.