Teaching Christianity

[Stratego]

Question for atheists and agnostics...and religious people too.

Christianity in America isn't going to go away in the near future. And since it's the largest religion in the world, it probably won't be going away in the other parts of the world either. But the way Christianity is taught differ greatly depending on the church. Catholic churches tend to be more uniform in what they teach. The Catholic doctrine goes through a strict governing body's approval before it's distributed. Catholic doctrines go through analysis and debate before they're changed and taught. However, many non-Catholic Christianity denominations don't have the central governing body. Many churches are just run by the local pastor and his ministry. As a result, the messages are not as unified, but pastors seem to have an easier time adopting their messages to fit the time.

So the question to atheist and agnostics is which method would you prefer to be the more more dominate method of teaching Christianity, given that you can't ban its teaching outright. Would you prefer the Catholic approach which is more methodical and analytical (although one could argue that analyzing an imaginary bearded guy is pointless), or would you prefer the non-Catholic approach which gives the pastor more freedom to interpret the bible (which may make the message more relevant to modern times, but may also create a cult of personality)?

[eynon81]

the only group fatter and more righteous than the Baptists? nope, you guys don't get input.

[Spider]

As an atheist, and also a secular humanist, I find the notion of banning any religion at all to be fully evil.

But anyways, if it were up to me, religion would be taught in such a way as to vigorously stress the separation of matters spiritual from matters temporal. I'd also encourage finding value in religious mythology as the moral stories and allegory most of it was intended to be, as opposed to a literalist historical record that can be said to trump everything else. You don't have to literally believe in giant whales and talking donkeys in order to be a Christian, nor do you have to deny geological time scales or a measurable relationship between the speed of light and the distance of astronomical objects. I'd end teaching of hate and judgement about the lifestyles of others, and focus more energy on public service and charity.

If people could run a damn soup kitchen or homeless shelter with the zeal they've got on tap to curse and judge their neighbors...we'd have some seriously kickass soup kitchens and homeless shelters. For srs. Lobster bisque and four-poster canopy beds would be present if all that hate could be redirected into something useful.

[eynon81]

[Philly]

As an atheist, I'm no fan of religious teachings, but I see how they can sometimes be beneficial to others.

However...

As I've long said, the Catholic Church is cartoonishly evil and never deserves the benefit of the doubt.

[Homer]

Maybe if they concentrated more on the love, kindness & forgiveness side of Christianity and less on the judgement and sex obsession.

Quite frankly, Christianity should get rid of the old testament from the Bible.

[Medius]

[John Galt]

all the protestants get mad about something then start a new church. and that includes the catholics, they did that the once. the orthodox are the one true church, rest are heretics

[The Comrade]

[John Galt]