[Bagheera]

Hello there,

it makes me sad reading so much aversion against christianity here in this thread. So I decided to add my two cents.

I am a christian, too. And since many years I am searching for that what I would call "truth". You can call it "god", "brahman", "atma", "allah", "higher self" or anything else. Name it as you want, it doesn't matter. Names are irrelevant. They only point to the moon but never mistake them for the moon itself. You have to go beyond words or concepts. It is impossible to explain to a blind man, how a color like "red" looks like or to depict the taste of an orange to a man who never tasted an orange before.

Go and look for yourself. There is much, much truth in nearly every religion on earth, and yes, even in our good old christian faith. There is only one god, our creator, and this god has been manifesting himself/itself in every part of the world, in every civilization and throughout history. But, alas, mankind has misinterpreted a good deal of their experiences with god. And today, there is much confusion about truth and reality itself. Unfortunately, there has been in nearly every religion a mingling of truth with selfish interests and/or with striving for power. Yes, this is very sad, indeed. And I can understand that a lot of people today are disliking christianity (or other organized belief systems) due to its history or as a result of negative personal experiences. But again, don't draw a premature conclusion concerning christian faith just as a consequence of this. Beware! It could happen to you that in one of your next lives you will become an ardent christian.

Admittedly, concerning christianity, one has to look very carefully and very deep. But truth is there, I am convinced of that. It is the same truth as in buddhism, in hinduism, islam and any other religion. Christian faith has absolutely nothing in common with selfishness. Christian faith doesn't oblige you to believe that our world has been created literally in 6 days nearly 6000 years ago or that Darwin has been on a false track or that Mother Mary has been a virgin. No. Christian faith has a lot to do with love - unconditional love - and with total altruism, a love that even accepts to die for others. It has a lot to do with seeing god or Jesus/Christ in your neighbor and not accepting when you see him suffer. It has a lot to do with developing compassion to all living beings and not to stop with this feeling but to change negative circumstances into positive. It has to do with sacrificing yourself for the needs of others, to live for others, to die for others. It has to do with the comforting certainty that our own suffering isn't insane, but that god himself is suffering with us (he/it just don't want to infringe upon our free will, and yes, we have chosen our suffering by our free will, I believe), it has to do with the absolute confidence, that everything is good and/or in the end will turn out good, and finally with the certainty, that death is not the end of all, but that we will evolve until we reach perfection.

A last word to clarkkent, the original poster. It even doesn't matter, if you cling to a religion or not. It's not important. Just follow your inner voice, follow that which you feel is important in your life. Be tolerant. Don't disrespect those who cling to a (organized) belief system. And what concerns me: Please don't think of me as being boastful or "holier-than-you". With this contribution it is not my intention to sound arrogant or to appear a wiseacre. I just want to share my experience with christian faith. There is much good in it. To summarize it in one single sentence: Christian faith could have been one of the highest evolved religion mankind ever has developed, but nowadays it is in a really bad shape and it is neither better nor worse than any other religion. Perhaps in the decades to come it will be replaced by "something better". We will see.

Finally, sorry for my bad english. I'm not a native speaker and I have very little practice.