Live Your Lives

You have an interesting method of not asking in disrespect, so I’ll just reply this once and leave it at that.

Christianity is based largely around the idea of faith. If God made it so plainly obvious what he was doing that there were no competing views or religions, then Christianity could no longer be about faith.

So how do we know when we are putting our faith in the right thing? Well that would come down to various other factual arguments that, when taken in unison, point to the reliability of the Bible. I, for one, like the minimal facts case for the resurrection and the fact of all the manuscript evidence showing that the message of the Bible is effectively the same as it was in the early church.

Do I think that my understanding of the Bible is the only one true understanding? No, that would be very silly and presumptuous of me to think I alone somehow got it all figured out. But that doesn’t mean I’m not close, and the fact that there are others who believe like I do means in more likely to be at a reasonable understanding of the truth of the matter than I would be otherwise. But even if everyone else in the world was wrong wouldn’t really matter here, would it? The only thing it means is I would need to be cautious.

It’s an interesting enough read, however, the only thing I saw that was indicative of Christian belief was his desire to create and lead a church. However, plenty of cult leaders have already done the same. What makes him a real Christian and not just another brand of cultist along the lines of Mormonism or Jehovah’s Witnesses?

I see JP’s public presentation of Christianity as actively steering people away from what it really is. He focuses far too much on a mythologized, deistic form of Christianity and far too little on the beliefs that set Christianity apart. So, regardless of what he might think he believes in secret, I will continue believing, until things change, that someone who has intentionally given such a flawed interpretation for as long as he has cannot truly be called a Christian.

I’m a Christian myself and have listened to a couple of Peterson’s lectures on the Bible and I see him as someone who approaches the Bible with the mind of a conspiracy theorist or a New Age believer. He makes grand claims while using a handful of loosely related facts to support his beliefs and could care less about using a more rigorous approach. To him, any and all notable pieces of imagery in the Bible actually play important archetypal roles for fundamental principals in our grand cosmic reality

I believe JP has at the least strongly implied that he doesn’t actually believe in the truth of the Bible, that he is agnostic towards an actual God, and that he instead uses Christianity more as a vehicle for understanding his own set of beliefs. So, to answer your question, you could fairly call him a Cultural Christian, but it would be very unfair to call him an actual Christian.

As someone who’s been very happily married for a fairly long time now, I’d just like to quickly emphasize to everyone the point about being quicker to forgive than to judge. Love isn’t about constantly being high on happiness but about having such a deep connection with someone that you treat them as you would treat yourself. The golden rule is called the golden rule for a reason. The happiness you are chasing will come naturally.

I believe that is precisely the reason they said it.

It’s not religion that’s the problem but ideology and lazy thinking in general. How many people in the political parties we oppose just accept the lies being fed to them with no critical thought or investigation?

TLDR: the Bermuda Triangle isn’t particularly dangerous in any way, it just has a lot of ships that go through it.

Happy birthday to you