The problem with Christianity is that all this stuff about God, Christ's sacrifice, and letting yourself have faith is all very nice, but the ethical side of the religion is, to me, quite deplorable.
Could you please expand on this? Full disclosure, I am a Christian myself and am genuinely interested in which ethical parts of Christianity you find deplorable.
To me, the ethics essentially come down to mirroring Christ in my own life in everything I do; the moral compass is Christ himself in the Christian life. I fail often but that's the goal / struggle. With that, I'd like to know what those outside of the faith find deplorable about the way Christ lived His life?
And I do understand that deplorable ethical decisions have been made by those or the body calling themselves Christians (and sadly, myself too at times). I would say this is a sin / shortcoming of the person or group and not of what Christ has asked that person or group to live like.
James 1:27: "Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their misfortune and to keep oneself unstained by the world."
Please explain. I'm not on either side but you've left a very strong claim without backing it up. At the very least someone who responds will likely have an entirely different version of what you said than you do
I do not think a God that allows his children the option to damn themselves for all eternity is morally good. That is pretty much my main ethical issue in terms of the basic theology. I think the morally correct action for God would be to override the wishes of humans. I do not think that "free will" is a good excuse to allow people to be damned forever. A parent who allows his child to touch the stove is a bad parent.
I don't think it's necessary to believe in eternal damnation in order to be a Christian. Hans Urs von Balthasar and David Bentley Hart are two preeminent theologians who would agree. That's just from the little I know on this subject.
I mean it’s surely possible to find theologians that don’t but it’s the official doctrine of all real existing sects, and regardless, even if you forget about eternal damnation then is still implies that you aren’t saved unless you put faith in Christ.
My other issue with Christianity is that Jesus comes off as genuinely unhinged sometimes. For example, when he tells the Jews that the only way to be saved is to eat his flesh, and when they say “surely that’s just a metaphor, how do we eat your flesh?” he says “no, I’m being totally serious”. There are a bunch of times in John where the stuff he is saying sounds crazy even to his disciples. Let me ask you, if someone today came and said those things, would you believe them? The only difference between him and a modern person on drugs is the records of his supposed miracles
