Question about Christainty I Watched On A Program

OK... First, before I ask, this thread is not meant to be debated, if it were, I'd have posted it in the group. Rather, I'm interested in well thought-out opinions/insight on the manner of Christainty. I'm not a Christain so my knowledge is very shady, which is why I'm asking for help to understand.

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The question:

Kay, I was watching a program, Trading Spouces (I know... *sigh*) and this self-processed Christain women, a guardian if you will is what she called herself, professed stars, astrology, physics, any any person who admits they do not follow Jesus. are "dark sided." I was confused. Stars? What about the Star of David? Hebrew, yes? And the Penticle? Because I follow Druidism now, some of my reading suggests Christains can be Druids too. Astrology really confused me... Physics? Are they really considered evil by Christain standards?

I just like feedback as I think discussing religous beliefs are enlightening so long as the audience is mature. There can always be something learned.

Thanks!

Well I attend a Lutheran church and I pray every night, but I consider myself a deist more than anything - meaning that, as I know there can be varying definitions, I believe in God and the Bible and everything, but I don't believe that strongly in organized religion. So I don't know if I'm the right person exactly to answer your question, but I'll give it a shot.

In my experience the self-proclaimed "Christians", the ones who feel obligated to talk nonstop about Jesus and the fact that they are proud Christians, can be pretty ignorant and have high superiority complexes. I have a feeling the woman on the show you watched would fall under this category. These types of people just need something - some dogma to follow, some reason why they are better they everyone else - and they just happen to latch upon Christianity. They often end up giving religious people a bad name. In my experience, truly pious people don't feel the need express their religious beliefs every second of the day to everyone they meet. And, most people I know who are truly pious are humble.

Christianity is a broad term. A Christian is anyone who believes in Jesus Christ. Christianity thus covers from Catholics to Lutherans to Mormons to Baptists to Presbyterians, etc. I find it amusing that many of my friends who are self-proclaimed "Christians" don't know this. We'll get on the subject of religion, and they'll ask me what I "am", and I'll reply that I'm Lutheran. They'll respond with "Oh, well I'm Christian." I'm Christian too, you idiot. Sometimes when these types of people tell me that they're Christian, I'll reply with "Oh, me too! What denomination are you?" and they'll look at me with confused faces.

I'm sorry, I'm veering way off topic, and I'm not trying to offend anyone. There is nothing wrong with non-denominational Christians. It's just that, in my experience, I've found these are most often the types of people who self-proclaim themselves "Christians" with an air of superiority, and have to fling Jesus in your face every second to let you know that they have better morals than you. And, as I said, these types of people give religious people a bad name and a bad connotation. I've gotten off on a rant. Your TV show woman seems to be only partly this - the other part being an extremist/fundamentalist. And, she seems to belong to a rather weird sect/church - or she's just slightly off, herself - if that's truly how she thinks.

I'm sorry for my rant. To answer your question: physics, astrology, and stars are not considered evil by Christian standards, at least not in my book. They are totally cohesive with modern Christianity. The only people who may have a problem with them would be the extreme fundamentalists and the rather intense ones who constantly self-proclaim themselves "Christians", because, as I said, they are the type of people who need to latch onto something and need some dogma to follow. Although, if the latter are so extreme as to reject physics, they would probably fall under "extremist" as well, so then the lines become blurred. I've basically used your thread as an excuse to rant and have tried to make it fit. But, in summary, the term "Christianity" is too often generalized and stereotyped; "Christians" do not all think alike, especially as the term covers such a broad variety of peoples.

No, no. No need to apologize. I found your response very interesting, really. As for me, I was baptized as a Protestant but the faith didn't feel right for me. I have a bible. I contains the Old and New Testament. From the little I'm able to understand, I seem to have favored the Old.

Thank you for your time. I do think this women was unbalanced to say the least but because I know little about each "branch" of Christainity, I needed clearence. I was curious.

The Christian Writers group would be more suited for this.

Maybe, Lumi, but I see no harm in her posting here for a wider opinion. Sam, if you have any more specific questions, that usergroup could be a good place to inquire as well!

First of all, in my experience it's hard to ask about "Christianity" and expect one cohesive answer. As Attolia said, there are numerous different denominations within Christianity that often have fundamental differences but are still all classified as Christians. I'm a Catholic (which, yes, contrary to popular belief, is a Christian religion!) and can give you the "official" Catholic standpoint, but do keep in mind that a good number of Catholics might not adhere to these opinions. I'll try to answer your question, although I might be misunderstanding it.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

2116 All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future.48 Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.

Our Catechism has this awesome tendency of seeming perpetually antiquated and judgmental, so let me try and decipher that into something less...preachy.

Basically, the idea is that God alone, creator of nature and the heavens, holds the power to control/know the future or someone's destiny. Therefore things like fortune tellers, mediums, clairvoyants, and etc. are rejected as accurate. Depending on the person you will encounter this belief is taken to different extremes-- I know a woman who believes that even opening a fortune cookie is "dark", and yet I've known a Catholic deacon who read his horoscope every morning. The difference, at least with Catholicism, is how much faith you put in these practices. The first woman I mentioned truly believes that fortune cookies (and the other means of divination) were trying to "play God" and predict happenings in the universe, and so she considered them dark. The deacon, however, thought of these things less seriously and more as an interesting new side of things. He put no actual faith in astrology or clairvoyance, and so in his opinion he wasn't betraying God's authority in any way.

So, you'll get different opinions. You said that the fact that people could consider "Astrology/Physics" evil is confusing, but Astrology and Physics really aren't the same thing. Physics covers the fact that yes, stars are there, they exist in this way and operate in this way, and that's cool. But Astrology comes in to try and apply destiny and powerful knowledge to the stars, and that's where you'll lose many Catholics.

As far as people not following Jesus being "dark sided", meh. She's probably just judgmental about those with different beliefs. I believe very fully in Jesus, and sure, I think I'm right, don't we all? But very few Catholics will venture as far as to call all non-believers evil beings.

=) Hope this answered your question a bit, and hope I answered it as maturely and neutrally as you wished!

I'm a religious mutt when it comes to bit and pieces of religions I've looked into, and I think I can answer the physics thing.

Physics, especially quantum physics, tend to put a reason behind energy, mass, the universe in general. Because it puts science to what God created, and science can sometimes be considered a practice Atheists believe in (to pull a couple general science examples, evolution vs. creationism, and the Big Bang vs. Genesis), it can be considered "evil" by those who are a bit... fanatical. I've only tended to get more into quantum physics philosophy, but these philosophies do tend to exclude God in their explanations of the universe. (On a tangent, Greg Braiden actually manages to marry the two: Theism [Believe in God] and Science. It's very impressive).

Just my two bits on the physics thing. I'm not a tried and true practiser of religion (Theism suites me rather well), but that's my best guess.

So, you'll get different opinions. You said that the fact that people could consider "Astrology/Physics" evil is confusing, but Astrology and Physics really aren't the same thing. Physics covers the fact that yes, stars are there, they exist in this way and operate in this way, and that's cool. But Astrology comes in to try and apply destiny and powerful knowledge to the stars, and that's where you'll lose many Catholics.

Yeah, sorry, I take back what I said about astrology; I agree with Evi, especially what she said above this about it depending on how you, individually, believe. I guess I wasn't really paying attention to the astrology part - astrology, with the zodiac signs and predicting futures and everything, isn't too cohesive with Christianity. I've always connotated it with early pagan beliefs; I believe that's where it originates? So yeah, taking astrology completely seriously is technically not very Christian. But I'd think that most "Christians", while not literally believing in that type of stuff, would just consider it harmless. Calling it evil and labeling its advocates "dark-mined" is very extreme.

Before I start, I should warn you that this will be pretty one-sided. I go to a church of nearly 2,000, and it's non-denominational, so we have a wide range of people, but I'm generally rather shy, so I'm guilty of sticking to my group of friends, who all have pretty similar ideals. It generally means that I've got strong ideas that have been known to be wrong before, but if there's nothing to prove me wrong, then I'll stick to what I've always believed. So what I'm going to say is just based on what I believe to be true, combining my own ideals that have come with me from childhood, and various other influences which all seem to agree pretty well on the matter. I do trust my sources, and if I wasn't sure about this then I wouldn't be saying it, but I wouldn't deny the possibility of my being wrong.

For the greater part, in my experience, Christians take astrology totally seriously. We believe that its a tool used by Satan to draw us away from God, in order to gain revenge, as he knows he can't get domination of Heaven. I won't try to explain that, as I have a habit of rambling without making sense, and it's rather complicated. There is logic to this idea, anyway, which I can't be sure about for the other two.

As far as physics go, I can't see how that has to be exclusive of Christianity. The first time the two groups of people ever clashed was when it was suggested that the Earth might not be flat. I say "groups of people" because it doesn't even imply in the Bible that the world is flat. It was ideals created by Christians, and probably Jews and Gentiles alike before that, that made people so angry about the idea. Physics are not disputed in the Bible - I heard recently about a psychologist who did some research and found that everything in the Bible is physically possible, right down to the blood Jesus was sweating on the Cross. Other than that, the information was very generalised, and I can't confirm that the story is true, beyond the fact that I have a huge amount of respect and trust for the person who mentioned it. But, as far as I understand, the conflict between Christianity and science is entirely artificial.

Stars? I really can't explain that; I think some people just take things too far. I couldn't help with that one.

Well, I hope I helped. Let me know if you have any more questions.
~Grin

Yes. Physics is clearly evil by Christian standards.

So is genetics for that matter.

Oh my. Many thanks everyone for all the information. I'm sure what else to say, except, thanks.

It very simple the women you were watching was just a stupid american christian that has very little understanding of god and takes the bible as literal when it is infact meant to be taken as interpretation(at least for those of us smart enough which dosen't include everyone. More so she thinks that physics and stuff are evil because they teach a different view and give birth to different ideas about creation, as far as the star things go well, stupid American.

Stars are actually important symbolism for Christians... the Star of Bethlehem, for one, is rather important in the Nativity story!

Anyway, basically, the main idea is that we have to rely on God on everything -- not stars or horoscopes or astrology or any sort of divining from the natural world. Just God. So relying on anything besides God, for Christians, is not very good. It means, instead of following God, you're following something else.

As far as anybody who doesn't follow Christ? Well... Christ, to us, is God. So you either follow Christ or you don't follow Christ. A common symbolism for Christ is that of light... for example, in baptism (for the Catholic tradition, at least) you are given a candle so that you can walk in the light of Christ. So you are following Christ. If you do not follow Christ, to us, this is akin of walking in the darkness. So, therefore, anyone who doesn't follow Christ is in the dark or on the dark side, as it were.

Physics? It depends on the sect, really. Some sects still believe that dinosaurs never existed because the world was born 5000 years ago, according to the bible. But that's not true of most sects. I know for a fact that the Catholic Church is pretty much all embracing of scientific theories and advancement.

Hope that helps!

Just an interesting note on astrology: the three wise men of the Nativity story were astrologers who knew to go to Bethlehem on the day Jesus was born because they had observed the Star. It's also interesting to know that the Star of Bethlehem was scientifically proven to have existed; it just wasn't a star in the literal sense. It was a conjunction of two planets (I forget which two, but I believe it may have been Jupiter and Mars).

If you read the Old Testament closely, you might be surprised at just how much of a role divination played among the Jews. The main difference between modern divination and Biblical divination, however, is that Biblical divination was understood to come directly from God whereas modern divination generally cuts God out of the equation.

As for the woman on the show, Attolia pretty much covered everything I would have said. XD

It's also worth reiterating that there are a large range of beliefs encompassed by the term Christianity. For instance, to take Snoink's Jesus = God, not all sects believe that. The one I belong to (for lack of a better word) is one such, and while we believe that both are divine and form a trinity with the Holy Spirit, we also believe that each was a separate entity. We also believe that Jesus was very much human, but in the sense of a divinely perfect human, just like Adam and Eve were before the Fall.

There's so much variation within sects, much less within Christianity, that it's impossible to point to one person/group/etc. and say "That is what it means to be a true Christian." And just like any other group, the actions/beliefs of an individual may not be respective or indicative of the whole group.

I saw that episode of Trading Spouses, and, honestly, I thought that woman was a nutcase. >.> They probably chose her for the sensationalism.

TheTruthTeller wrote:It very simple the women you were watching was just a stupid american christian that has very little understanding of god and takes the bible as literal when it is infact meant to be taken as interpretation(at least for those of us smart enough which dosen't include everyone. More so she thinks that physics and stuff are evil because they teach a different view and give birth to different ideas about creation, as far as the star things go well, stupid American.

Fellow user, this wasn't a thread to bash nationality. But anyway, being raised in a mostly Christian family I have learned that while they respect science, certain practices such as, like Nate said genetics and realted things are seen as highly debatable. Abortions, which to them is the murder of the most innocent of people, is a diabolical practice. At least, in my families beliefs, some Christian denominations actually aren't so agaisnt it, believe it or not. Heck, even I, a non-Christian find killing fetuses bad.

As for astrology and such, the fact that it can be used to predict events in space long before they occur is sometimes taken as playing God. You know, predicting things without God's help. But enough of my banter, I'll let someone with more understanding carry on.

*Oh yes, I almost forgot, the Three Wise men story almost makes it seem that Christianity is going against itself,(okay, not really) but again, I am not an expert in this matter*