Well I attended church through much of my infancy and for want of a better term 'tween' years. My mother attends church, my grandmother attends chuch, my uncle (who is gay) and his partner attend church. NB: uncle is on mothers side as is church going grandmother, my father and his parents do not attend church.
I have made the conscious decision not to attend church. I am at most an agnostic.
I celebrate x-mas for the presents, I celebrate easter for the chocolate. Neither celebration bears any particular meaning for me.
As a note in regards to the origins of christianity and religion changing over time: Jews, Christians and Muslims all have the same old testament. Christians have their version of the new testament and muslims have their version of the new testament (in which Jesus features as a prophet).
I believe that religion should be a personal thing, it should not be a part of politics, nor part of the public domain. I am quite happy for christians to believe things that I think are wrong, I call this tolerance. I would appreciate if christians could tolerate my beliefs and not seek to change them.
As far as I am concerned once somebody has activily tried to convert me, Its open slather, they just walked up and asked me to refute their beliefs and indeed to try and convert them from their wayward ways.
UWS Richmond got the council to stop christians pestering students at the entrance to the uni, lol.
In short I belive in relation to Christianity:
The world was not created in seven days and all of humanity does not stem from one man, one woman and their surving son.
There was not an all enveloping flood a nd everything on earth does not fit into a boat, nor come from one breeding pair of each species.
The bible specifically preaches intolerance, see Leviticus the stoning of homosexuals as a prominent example.
Upon exiting Egypt the jews did not very nice things to most over people in the area, generally butchering them or being led astray by them and then god butchering them.
Jesus did exist however he was not the son of a god.
Originally there were two gods in judaeism however as a result of a power struggle within the 'church'(synagogoe) at the time, the female god was removed and the god left is God as we know it.
Jesus was in a relationship with (i forget her name) and she was not a prostitute, another power struggle saw women suppressed, this time around the time of the Byzantine emperors.
That god backwards is dog is not mystical in any way.
That 1 to the power of 3 equaling 1 does not prove the existance of the holy trinity.
The majority of Christians tend to be less educated and are close minded (bear in mind that this statement is based on my knowledge of christians, including my family and those who attended church with me, this i believe validates this view).
Creationsim is a crock. Also you proved that you are intolerant by not wanting to be related to a dirty monkey. Evolution is a theory yes, like the theory of relativity and flight. They are called theories because scientists are open-minded and will always test new evidence. Evolution is a logical explanation for the state of the Earth. Because the chances of life developing are low does not mean that it doesnt happen.
Entropy does not disprove evolution rather it proves it (in a very limited manner) a cell become less ordered it mutates and there we have random mutation the beginnings of evolution.
Christianity can be interpreted in good ways, it can be interpreted in bad ways. Religion can be both a pretext and a cause of war.
