@Fido,
Fido;118096 wrote:I understand how we structure our behavior with forms, and I see no alternative to forms...They still, often, need to be abandoned or reformed in some fashion...Christianity has had a reformation that did not much help...The ideal in every form of relationship is the relationship... That is the life of the form, the people in it... And organized religion often does serve the people in it; but I think they are incredibly self serving...Around here, the churches advertize...In my opinion, anyone doing as Jesus commanded is advertizing for Christian behavior; but Churches having to advertize only means they are not clearly doing God's will, which would be an advertizement in itself....The other thing they do which I purely detest is going to foreign lands and getting involved there...They help those people in the destruction of their environments and in over population...They clothe them, give them medicine, drill wells, and give them food, and surprise, surprise, they reproduce...Oftimes the churches sort of help themselves to resources not their own...But, they do that all over...The build big and need big money to support their structures and eat up all they should give to charity...They threaten all our liberties, and have zero respect for human freedom...
I agree with a lot of what you've said here.
But I don't quite follow your logic behind detesting going to foreign lands and (for Christians) 'spreading the gospel'. I don't quite know what you mean when you say "Oftimes the churches sort of help themselves to resources not their own" in the context of what you wrote. It would seem to be suggesting that some missionaries go on foreign missions to take resources?
I think the Christian perspective of mission work ought to be something like this analogy:
Say my brother and I are in a battle and he gets injured and for some reason he wants me to leave him there to die; he's screaming 'get out of here, just leave me'! Well(if it were me and my real life brother) I don't care what he says either I'm getting him out of there or I'm going to die trying.
To me, that ought to be the mindset of a Christian missionary.
However, the means in which one accomplishes "getting them off the battlefield" certainly has to be handled carefully and in the end the motivation must be that of love and enough love to eventually respect someones wishes.
My grandmother was Japanese and she was a Buddhist.
After becoming a Christian, I tried witnessing to her, but she stood strong in her beliefs. Even close to the end of her life I tried to the point of tears to get her to understand but I only did so out of love because I loved her and wanted to see her again one day. Well she never did and now that I'm older and I feel a little more enlightened, I love her for doing that.
She was me on the other side of the coin. And regardless of Christian doctrine or not, through my understanding of the Bible, I know she's in heaven.
Sorry I don't know why that story came up.
I think if Christians understood that it's not their duty to convert people but only to share the good word and let the rest be between that individual and God, they would be a lot better off and not get into so many precarious situations
