I am Baptist Christian.

I do not believe in evolution, if you talk about Darwin's theory. I have this awesome movie called Darwin's Dilema that discusses the points that make sense and don't.

I do not believe in reincarnation.

I do believe that stories are not bad, as long as you don't take them to heart. 

I believe in Animism, not God.

That's all :) 

Okay! Here comes the skeptic agonist to comment on a few Bible stories! Starting with Adam and Eve. As I said before, there wouldn't be enough DNA to go around. And Fully Evolved Homo sapiens were not the first life on Earth. Also, this story is really sexist, as it says that EVE convinced ADAM to eat the apple, but he was so noble that he didn't swallow entirely, and that's why males have Adam's apples.  

Now on to Noah and his Ark. One of the fundamental flaws is the same as A&E-- NOT. ENOUGH. DNA. He would need a TARDIS-like ark that was bigger on the inside than the out. 

Also. God had to come from somewhere?! Explain. I see some gaping holes in the Bible. However, they can be remedied. So thing is, I won't solidly believe the whole God aspect until it is scientifically proven. As Carl Sagan said, "We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to differ speculation from fact." Or something along those lines.

Okay, perfect! I've been waiting for another one of these threads.

I need to explain something. The truth is, a while ago I said that my family is Christian, which isn't exactly true. Here's the thing - we celebrate Christmas and Easter, because our relatives are Christian, but my dad is an Atheist and my mom is Agnostic - she believes in Jesus, but she doesn't know if she believes in God. I'm a little different. I don't really consider myself a Buddhist or anything, but I guess I'd say I believe in the Buddha more than anything else. I like the idea of God, but somehow I just don't feel like I truly believe in Him. I'm saying "I" a lot, aren't I? (Ha! There it is again!)

That's all I have time for right now. I'll post more on the subject later. 

I'm a Presbyterian Christian. I completely agree with what S.E. said. (Baptists and Presbyterians are very very similar.)

I don't believe in evolution or the "big bang". As Josh Wheaton put it so well in the movie God's Not Dead,  ". . .He said that the entire universe, jumping into existence in a trillionth
of a trillionth of a second, out of nothingness in an unimaginably
intense flash of light, is how he would expect the universe to respond
if God were to actually utter the command in Genesis 1:3, 'Let there be light.'"

I am Christian. I believe in evolution. The Bible says "in God's own image". God could be an ape. It's just kids' Bibles that portray God as a human and A and E as humans. I do agree that God had to come from somewhere. I pray etc. 

Personally, I'm a Christian. I remember when I first joined the church, they gave us Bibles with our name inscribed in them. That was really cool. Anyway, later I thought I'd put a quick overview on Christianity for those of you who don't know what we believe. Would you guys like that? 

I'm Jewish.

I go to synagogue almost every Saturday, and I sort of belive in G-d. I think that G-d might just be something that ancient humans made up so they had something/someone to turn to. It feels comforting, though, having a higher being more powerful than you to look up to. The rest of my family is really religious, but my immediate family (mom, dad, sisters) isn't really like that. We do observe all the holidays (right now we're in the middle of Passover. You guys out there who aren't Jewish, you're so lucky, you get bread!). Jesus was a real live actual person, but I don't belive that he was the son of G-d. He was a Jewish Rabbi. Did you know that?

The reason I've been writing "G-d" is because in Judaism you are not really supposed to write G-d's name. If it is written on a piece of paper, you're actually supposed to bury the paper, instead of recycling it or getting rid of it. I'm not sure what the electronic equivalent of that is, but I want to be on the safe side. 

I am a Baptist Christian but try to keep an open mind for things like evolution, and things like that; frankly, I'm not impressed with the evoloution theory, just my opinion, it has too many holes for my liking. But whenever I hear new theories I try to go about it like I don't know anything else. No one is completely unbiased, but I try my best.

Butterfly and I are Unificationists. I went into some description in the Easter thread, but basically, we believe in the teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon. No, we do not believe that Jesus died for us, but that he came with a mission to redeem humankind for the fall of Adam and Eve. However, because humankind wasn't ready for him, he was killed. If he lived, he would have been able to have a wife and a family - and spread the teachings of God. As he was murdered, someone else had to do it. I have heard some people call Jesus the second Adam. Well, we belive that Rev. Moon (or True Father, aas we more commonly cal him) is the third Adam.

Any questions welcome. Unificationism isn't exactly a commonly known religion, having been started within the past 100 years. Many of the members were once of some other belief, or are second generation (like me). My father was a son of a Christian minister and for a time considered his call to be ministry. Then, well, his life changed and he became a missionary, I suppose you'd call it, for a while. And then he met my mother, got blessed, then married, and had a family. We're not part of a brainwashed cult and all that stuff you might have heard about this. We're a bunch of people who want world peace and just happen to think different from a lot of other folks. 

Anyway, Christians believe that earth and everything in it was created by the Holy Trinity, or God. He first created the first man named Adam (hah, the guys came first!), and then he created the first woman named Eve. He gave Adam and Eve domain over all of creation, and also created two very special trees. One was called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the other was named Bob. Just pulling your chain, it was called the Tree of Life! God commanded Adam and Eve that they could eat the fruit of any tree, exept from the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good And Evil. Yada, Yada, life goes on for A and E. But one day Satan ' disguised himself as a serpent,  and snuck down to the place where Adam and Eve called home. He then tempted Eve to eat from the Tree of Good And Evil, saying that she would become like their Creator. She gave in to the temptation and did. She then gave some of the fruit to Adam, and told him what the devil had told her. Adam also gave into the temptation and ate the fruit. Then, long story short, that was the first sin and death "entered" into the world as a result. Then The Lord promised to send a savior to, well, um, save, us from sin and death. Fast forward a long time, about two thousand years ago, (this is where it gets complicated) God sent his son, Jesus, to die for our sins. The best way to explain it that e can think of is that Jesus died in our place, took the punishment we deserved of his own will. And the Bible says that "whoever believes in him and loves him will have everlasting life." Or in other words, go to heaven. Other Christians, please help. That was a pretty hard to follow description. Anyhoo, tee tee affin, tah tah for now! Hoo, hoo, hoo! 

Captcha says azwp. Is that even a word? 

I think you did a pretty good job, Will. I would add, though, that Christian denominations vary in how literally they believe or interpret the words of the Bible. First of all much of the Bible was written many years after the events, so different authors may have remembered them differently, or been writing down much older oral tradition. And translations of the Bible vary. We can't be sure exactly which definition of some words was intended. For example, I think the Greek word for love has many different meanings. While some Christian fundamentalists are strick Creationists, other Christians may believe in Evolution, too, to varying degrees.

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I'm tired; it's been a long day; not sure how coherent I am.

When discussing this stuff please keep in mind that what you believe/your family teaches you/your church teaches is not necessarily true for all of your religion, for all of your denomination, or even for all of your congregation. For example, my parents attend a Presbyterian church, which generally does not affirm or deny evolution because they believe that it does not contradict what is in the Bible. My parents believe this (their views differ with each other on some specifics), but I know of members of the church who believe in 7-day creationism and also of members who believe that the first chapter of Genesis is entirely metaphorical. So avoid saying that "Christianity believes" because there is a Christian out there, somewhere, who believes pretty much the exact opposite of what you believe.

Religion is complicated, please respect each other and be polite. 

Well said, SC. Thank you.

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