Do you believe in Christ? Do you consider yourself a Christian? Do you celebrate Christmas? (1132 views, 57 replies)

What does it mean to you?

You sure do ask a lot of personal questions. Data mining?

Neither my sister or I were ever christened or baptized, we are not Christians.My sister likes nature and science.I explored different philosophies and religions,and only came to the conclusion,it does not matter what or who I think God or the Afterlife is.--its going to happen no matter what i think.(although i do have some theories.)

i also have a keyboard fouling up.--I need to fined my newer one.

I would not call myself a Christian per-say as I see many Christians as false followers

I call my self a follower of the path of Christ, I try my best to live a good glean life only wanting to bring glory and honor to God and don't expect to go to heaven or even care if I do or not *certainly won't turn it down but not expecting anything of it*

I do believe there was a chilled-out guy called Jesus who had some great ideas on how society could get along without killing each other. I think he started the KISS method of teaching and marketing (Keep It Simple Stupid) and it seemed to have caught on. The message got out through good word-of-mouth marketing, strong willed disciples and a conversion of a Roman Emperor to the faith.

Were the miracles important for him to get the message across to basically illiterate followers - I suppose a bit of magic comes in handy. People remember a show.

Was he the Son of God - I believe he had God inside him, just as everyone has their own god inside each of them.

Mass religion was created to control the masses and give them something to worship when the other gods of the Greek and Roman Empire lost their shine. It was a way to try and keep the peace but put power into the hands of some very evil and dangerous men who considered themselves to be above the law of the land, to be touched by the One True God and caused the deaths of innumerable innocent men, women and children all over the globe, in the name of this God.
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I do not believe in mass religion which was the opimium of the people and stops each one from finding their true selves. People are the highest representation of love, the highest virtue, the one that we can share with others in different forms.

To love and be loved is the message. If you can do that and accept that, then you are doing something right.

And yes I celebrate this chilled-out guy's birthday and I believe in HIS message but leave the all this religious paraphernalia at the door.
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The way I look at it is.. If you choose to be a non believer and he does exist..you go to hell. So why take that chance? We all are going die at some point.. so where is the benefit of not believing? We came from something. Is it more realistic to believe it was a big explosion (bang)of gases? If that were true, the gases had to come from something living. Nothing just appears from nothing..nothing is nothing.

@bondojoe, thanks for the reply. Im just a common sense kind of gal and to me it's reasonable to believe in a creator. Everyone believes in something by faith...even if it's to believe we came from nothing. IMHO, that would take ALOT of faith.

I do believe in God and the Son and the holy ghost. If my faith turns out to be just something to believe in. Then I still feel I will be alright. What is the worst that can happen? I have taught my children to be kind respectful and to be worker bees. I have, and have instilled in them a love of all others. They are following to the letter. They don't drink excessively and they put their children first in life. We all seem to be happy. We are not perfect by a long shot. It seems to work for us.

Yes, no and, yes. No time to elaborate but, that is the crux of the biscuit.

I believe in God & always have since I was a wee girl as I was raised that way & he knows we are just humans made of weak flesh but wants us to strive to be Christ like and keep fighting & better ourselves. He said it won't be easy as the world will hate us as they Hated his Son. He loves us and wants us to talk/pray to him, build a relationship, and through this your belief becomes even stronger. I'm a Christian!

The world is very evil these days, But he said in the end days, it will be just like it was in Sodom and Gomorrah. (Just popped in my mind!)

I am going to decorate fir Christmas and exchange gifts with people. I am Wiccan, I beleive in a Goddess.

As I see it there is ample proof that Jesus did exist. Nothing more.
But remember the bible was written over a 2 hundred year period by different authors. Then a few centuries of rewrites by the powerful. Not to mention the interpretation problems from language to language to language to language. One thing you can be sure of, it was NOT written in english.
Just watch a movie in a foreign language with rubbish subs.

All of the stories about him that have been uncoverted in different places, at different times, [dead sea scrollls] are about the same. "Parts of the New Testament have been preserved in more manuscripts than any other ancient work. There are over 5,800 complete or fragmented Greek manuscripts, 10,000 Latin manuscripts and 9,300 manuscripts in various other ancient languages, such as Syriac, Slavic, Gothic, Ethiopic, Coptic and Armenian."...All about the same.

I was born and raised a Roman Catholic.

Yes, I celebrate Christmas.

Yes, I believe in Christ.

I also celebrate with other faiths and their "holidays" as my family is a melting pot of different cultures, races, religious beliefs and are global.

growing up we were taught to love and respect all religions and people. That's what I have always done and will continue to do.

Our beliefs and relationship with God (or however else other's refer to almighty) is personal and does not define anyone.

At the end of the day , what matters most is how well you treat others and all living creatures.

We must first learn to love our own true self or we will fail to love others, including God.

No matter what we choose to believe in or if we chose to believe in nothing, at the end of the day we are all equals.

Judge less and love more!

I have no time for religion. I'm an atheist . Christmas is NOT a Christian " invention ". But gosh darn it I love Christmas. It's a time of year when people tend to be nicer, I love giving gifts ( and getting them 😊) the Christmas markets, get togethers, happy children, making food and decorations. These are things everyone can be a part of regardless of religion or lack of. I know plenty of people of various religious persuasions that celebrate it for those reasons. Christmas is pretty much it's own thing

I wonder why they cal it CHRISTmas?

Here...let me help you..."According to an article entitled simply Christmas, found on Wikipedia, the word “Christmas” actually comes from the term “Christ’s mass“, which originated from the Old English phrase “Cristesmæsse” which was first recorded in 1038. In approximately 1131, it was replaced by the word “Cristes-messe“. "Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, it is preceded by the season of Advent or the Nativity Fast and initiates the season of Christmastide, which historically in the West lasts twelve days and culminates on Twelfth Night; in some traditions, Christmastide includes an octave. Christmas Day is a public holiday in many of the world's nations, is celebrated religiously by a majority of Christians, as well as culturally by many non-Christians, and forms an integral part of the holiday season centered around it."...Wikipedis. ... CHRIST seems to be spinkled LIBERALLY throygh the Holiday. Do you have someone else in mind?
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Etymology
"Christmas" is a shortened form of "Christ's mass". It is derived from the Middle English Cristemasse, which is from Old English Crīstesmæsse, a phrase first recorded in 1038[9] followed by the word Cristes-messe in 1131.[32] Crīst (genitive Crīstes) is from Greek Khrīstos (Χριστός), a translation of Hebrew Māšîaḥ (מָשִׁיחַ), "Messiah", meaning "anointed";[33][34] and mæsse is from Latin missa, the celebration of the Eucharist.

The form Christenmas was also historically used, but is now considered archaic and dialectal;[35] it derives from Middle English Cristenmasse, literally "Christian mass".[36] Xmas is an abbreviation of Christmas found particularly in print, based on the initial letter chi (Χ) in Greek Khrīstos (Χριστός), "Christ", though numerous style guides discourage its use;[37] it has precedent in Middle English Χρ̄es masse (where "Χρ̄" is an abbreviation for Χριστός).[36]...or to a layman...the celebration of the Messiah. ... CHRISTmas.
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I believe in keeping and passing down traditions. Some of my family are Christians, others are Jews and I find a comfortable loophole that allows me space there too... even if technically I would be considered an atheist. I'm just not a shallow minded and pretentious anti-theist.

Still, there are parts of religion that are parts of my heritage, my family, my friends, my broader communities. So, I take part in a variety of festivities.

I put my faith in people as it's the harder thing to do. But I enjoy the rituals of religion and what it means to others. Just as I enjoy the various holidays of the season, festivus too.