Is this question okay? "Why does the pope have an army?" Too simple? Not theological enough? Too historical?
"How did Christianity become so corrupt in the Middle Ages?"
In the Renaissance, there were a series of popes that had familial ties and loyalties that gave biological lineage more preference than merit.
So much for honesty and hard work.
Apparently, this Machiavellian scheme of promoting yourself was really the thing.
Ah - I recently found out that fredsbend is agnostic now! Weird . . . it's funny how Protestants change position so fast! One day, they have this view, and the next day, a totally different view. Not only that, it seems that Protestants place more emphasis on explicit belief.
I wonder if fredsbend's new beliefs will affect how he'll celebrate Christmas and Easter.
Eh, not my business to know.
Still, it makes me sad that someone would reject a religion, simply because of not being able to reconcile theological questions. It seems to me such individuals view religion as a personal philosophy instead of a familial way of life and body of values.
On the other hand, it is possible that one may be Christian agnostic. Christian but with an agnostic view of God.
@curiousdannii Apparently that grouping only applies to the way it counts how many flags moderators handle. In the moderator statistics thing it definitely groups comment flags per post and counts them as one per. I guess for the user side of things it keeps it one for one. Fair enough.
@fredsbendtheGrinch I've actually been away from the computer as well as dealing with a very unreliable router (it worked fine before my fiancée and I got here), so I didn't contribute to your badge at all. :P
@curiousdannii Someone who follows nearly all of the traditions and customs of being a Christian.
I've seen a few of these questions recently, and have mixed feelings myself. I searched Meta, and the only post I could find that touched on this was Gray areas of questiondom
Three's really no meta post where we truly define whether these questions are acceptable and if so, what does it take t...
There are two answers to this question. One is the general type of "Cultural Christianity" to which other answers alude. A person can be non-religious, but still operate in a largely Christian context, clebrating some Christian-flavoured festivals (notably Christmas), and thinking of "God" in a C...
@curiousdannii I'm trying to develop some rules on this. I'm thinking those drive by answers that aren't that good from new users are suspect. But we usually give them some time to fix it if they come back. I'm thinking if they haven't been back for 3 or more months than I should flag it for deletion. What you think?
Anybody else have an opinion?
What do the MODS think? They're the ones who handle the flags, after all.
@Anonymous I never saw religion as either a personal philosophy or a family tradition. I was brought up to see it as a description of how the world works. And most religions with which I am familiar are precisely that (not necessarily very good descriptions, which is why I am not religious).
@Caleb Well, what is true is what is real. The two are the same. Therefore, the religion which correlates best with reality is also the truest. Of course, working out what reality is may be tricky. (I don't see a relevant distinction between spiritual and mundane reality here, even assuming that such a distinction makes any sense in any other context.)
@El'endiaStarman How many branches of Christianity would be happy to define a Christian as that? So called cultural Christians exist, but dropping the cultural and calling them Christians would be like dropping the step in step-father or step-mother. Modifiers exist for reasons.
@fredsbendtheGrinch Yeah often you will see a mod commenting on an answer requesting changes, which will be because someone flagged it when it was first posted. If it's been a month flag again and they'll probably delete it now.
I've seen a few of these questions recently, and have mixed feelings myself. I searched Meta, and the only post I could find that touched on this was Gray areas of questiondom
Three's really no meta post where we truly define whether these questions are acceptable and if so, what does it take t...
The Upper Room
The Upper Room