I hold my beliefs because I've thought them through very carefully, and found them to be highly consistent and even elegant. Based on some basic information about God, it is possible to deduce the reasons for almost everything about reality, and make some pretty fascinating speculations. There's a whole tree of interconnected truths that can be generated from a simple starting point, and I find that to have a kind of intrinsic beauty. I've also thought through a lot of other systems of belief, and never found anything that was quite this attractive to me.

Quote:Original post by unreason
Personally, I think converting people is fine, just don't be pushy about it. But if people show interest, there's no reason not to tell them about your faith.

as a matter of fact, she did show interest. She wanted to know why i was always trying to be helpful to others, and among other things, wasn't afraid about death.

i would never try to force my beliefs on anyone. i can imagine nothing worse than someone hating someone else for not believing the same thing they do... and i do know people like that.

the sad thing is some people use a religion as an excuse... a crutch. Lashing out at someone using god as an excuse is weak. people of past generations did it, resulting in the confusion over christianity and other religions that my generation share today. My friend certainly was confused.

As for why i am a christian? Personal experience. When you experience god for yourself, well... that's powerful.

Quote:Original post by ApochPiQ
I hold my beliefs because I've thought them through very carefully, and found them to be highly consistent and even elegant. Based on some basic information about God, it is possible to deduce the reasons for almost everything about reality, and make some pretty fascinating speculations. There's a whole tree of interconnected truths that can be generated from a simple starting point, and I find that to have a kind of intrinsic beauty. I've also thought through a lot of other systems of belief, and never found anything that was quite this attractive to me.

Same here pretty much, although I have ended up with many different conclusions. I'm currently reading a book, God and the Philosophers, which is just a collection of essays from various Christian philosophers, about reconciling faith and reason. I've noticed a common trend among many of them to point out that even when two different people, who are both very intelligent and wise, are presented with nearly identical sets of evidence, they will still often times come to completely different conclusions. I respect these people very much for acknowledging that. It would be convenient if there was strongly convincing evidence to support one fairly specific belief above all the rest, but unforunately, that's not how it seems to be. It's easy to wanna say to others, "But isn't just so obvious?" I've done it myself many times. I try my best to refrain from saying such things any more, though, or at least acknowledge that I won't be surprised if it doesn't seem as obvious to others as it does to me.

I think the "pushiness" of your stereotypical Christian is often caused by not truly realizing the diversity of beliefs that exist among very intelligent and respectable people. Stating beliefs about God can sometimes very easily be interpretted to say "If you can't see how obviously correct my beliefs are, then you're lacking a significant amount of intelligence and wisdom." They don't usually come out like that, but there are implications in statements that can be subtle, but real.

I'm Christian

Quote:Original post by Agony
I think the "pushiness" of your stereotypical Christian is often caused by not truly realizing the diversity of beliefs that exist among very intelligent and respectable people. Stating beliefs about God can sometimes very easily be interpretted to say "If you can't see how obviously correct my beliefs are, then you're lacking a significant amount of intelligence and wisdom." They don't usually come out like that, but there are implications in statements that can be subtle, but real.

Yeah, the problem I've seen is that many don't seem to realize that they're trying to convince someone. I've seen people use arguments like "But if you don't believe, you'll go to hell". They quite often seem to forget that these people that they're trying to convince do not believe in hell, which pretty much makes their argument useless.

I had the good fortune of finding a church that is run by it's members (instead of a church authority, such as some other denominations). In addition, our focus is on outreach, but we are far from pushy... we don't go door to door preaching the word of God, but we do advertise the many community events that we hold that we use to do just that, in addition to funding many projects around the world that involve sending missionaries, building schools, building churches, etc. If people don't want to listen, they don't have to.

Our church also had one of the greatest pastors (He has since moved on to create another church.. one focused more on community outreach). One time, during a conversation with him, he actually expressed that he was perhaps 40% sure that he was going to heaven. He does not express doubt in God, but doubt in himself. He shares so much of why he doubts himself in sermons and such that we can be sure he's not, again, one of the stereotypical self-rightous Christians.