So much to respond to....here's part 1
You know, I've never appreciated the whole suffering aesthetic. I can find nothing upliftng in it, and I think this is perhaps why I've never 'felt' faith. It reminds me of the first time I saw the film Au Hasard Balthazaar. I was informed that the ending was redemptive, but I felt like it only portrayed sorrow and helplessness. That's kind of how I feel about the story of Jesus in general. Like it's a celebration of helplessness.
I’ve never seen the film, sorry. For me, outside of my religious beliefs, I’ve accepted that suffering is an inherent part of the human experience. I could never find peace with a spiritual belief/faith/doctrine that doesn’t deal with it. I can see where you are coming from though, especially if its the case that you don’t believe in Christianity or the resurrection. Talking about helplessness and taking the resurrection to the side for a sec, the narrative of Jesus’ life shows he acted with great agency, intent and purpose in everything he did. He wasn’t helplessly following the crowd. It was his choice to be crucified, he chose his fate according to his strongly held personal convictions. I see him as a strong innovator of change and someone who has had a great impact on the world through his life. To me its about the great affect an expression of love can have on the world through an agent of change and this transcends the sorrow and helplessness. Eg: why mourning on Black Friday is followed by celebration on Easter Sunday – which I guess is a ritual element that Christians participate in which affects how they ‘feel’ about it. But I can see where you are coming from.
1. Christianity is based on negativity, fear, and suppression. It teaches children that if they don't behave like a good little boy or girl they're going to go to hell. Large swaths of the bible are ignored that have to do with genocide, emotional terrorism, and greed.
Denomenations differ in this respect, this is not blanket truth for all Christianity....and those denominations are influenced greatly by wider social factors especially when it comes to negativity, fear and suppression (classic example being colonial "christianity"). As you noted, there can be great discord between what the bible says, what Jesus preached and what people practice.
2. Christianity doesn't have any answers. It breeds intellectual arrogance and a resistance to information that contradicts its tenets. When someone asks genuine questions to find answers, they are ignored, shunned, or told to read more bible.
Christianity certainly doesn't have all the answers, but it does have some. That is the point of faith systems, they have answers, otherwise they wouldn't be a faith system. What is debated is whether they are true or not.
Yes the above happens and that's sad, but there is so much diversity, you can't say this is true of all Christianity. Intellectual debate is necessery, and often not given enough free reign, but also, remember, its a faith system, if you de-construct it too much, it looses all meaning. Then we end up with something akin to a deconstructed apple pie (a baked apple in reduced syrup with a chunk of pastry on the side) which is no where near as good or useful as a whole apple pie fresh out of the oven. Some is good (I like the addition of cranberries to apple pie, mmmhmmm), too much and we can end up in a cyclical, meaningless, post-modern oblivion IMO and what's the point of that? It's not useful in any sense....
3. Christianity is authoritarian. God is supreme and a source of fear.. much like the parents of the Christian child. Questions about the moral responsibility of authority are never dealt with. This perpetuates the ape culture of mindless obedience to the "
Big Man" rather than one of egalitarianism. The abused are convinced that it is simply natural that they are "lesser than" and undeserving or untrustworthy of having freedom.
I like Marshall Sahlins, did you study anthroplogy too?? I've seen both 'big man' and egalitarian forms of Christianity, I much prefer the latter.
4. Christianity teaches shame. Shame of basic wants and needs that every person has and deserves to have met. It convinces individuals that if they want more than they are alloted, they should feel bad. It twists beautiful desires like sexual expression into something ugly and demeaning. Instead of creating fulfilled individuals who have a lust for life and wish to help others grow it teaches individuals to be in perpetual combat with their own basic desires and to suppress them .
Personally, it teaches me to be happy, well maybe 'satisfied' is a better word, with what I have, rather than feeling shame or bad for wanting more. I don't feel bad for wanting more, but I accept what is. Christianity gives me a lust for life and the liberation to live it in full. The sexuality issue is a bit personal for me to comment on and I'm still working out where I stand on that one, so no comments, except that it hasn't become ugly and demeaning for me, but I do think it is overly emphasised and can hurt people when the point of restrictions on it was to not hurt people IMO.
5. Christianity breeds an arrogant "chosen people" mentality. It creates an in group out group mentality meant to reassure it's members that no matter what, they're better than other people. It encourages a mentality that has elements of racism and xenophobia. This allows small minded bigots the ultimate conceit of false superiority.
I don't think these symptoms are unique to Christianity or descriptive of all Christianity. I think this is a social and cultural phenomenon that happens in many circumstances and is part of human nature, unfortunately.
6. Christianity is morally simplistic. It was not designed to deal with modern ethical dilemmas that arise with rapidly changing technology. The morality of things like cloning, genetic engineering, ai, rnai technology, etc are never dealt with because exploring such questions in depth forces one to deal with a world of hilbert spaces, Planck lengths, guage bosons, entanglement, mecos, superpositionality, probability rather than concrete answers and possibly even super strings, n-dimensional branes, and reimann zeta functions. Those who do deal with it purely intellectually, never asking greater questions about the implications this has for being, identity, the purpose of life both individually and collectively, the nature of reality, and more.
Yeah, Christians could do better with this. But I don't think the OP was asking whether society should adopt Christian ethics, I think it was more about why the personal belief.
7. Christianity is a mish mash of religious concepts. Christianity and it's precursor Judaism arose in a world of many tribal cults like those to ashtoreth, marduk, baal, dagon, moloch, etc. Ressurection stories existed in egypt long before christianity existed, there are similarities to the bible and the enuma elish, mithras looks suspiciously like christ. Do you really think that all the years in Babylonian captivity had ZERO effect on the theology of judaism (and consequently christianity)? What conceit to think that YOUR BELIEFS ALONE spang forth pure and unsullied without being influenced by anything else outside of it. Grow the fuck up..
Since when is it considered immature to believe in a faith system?? I guess you did not read this which I posted earlier:
This makes me sad *sigh*
It annoys me when people (not you, thinking more of preachers + believers + other commentators) look at Christianity as if its outside of the influence of culture and society. In most of its expressions it has become highly entwined with the social and cultural discourses of the place it is being practiced in. This has good and bad effects. Also, the tradition itself is highly influenced by Greek philosophy and, especially in the case of the Catholic Church, the Roman then Byzantine Empire. As well as other things, expecially the origins of Christmas. But back to my point, many people confuse personal, political and social agendas with Christianity and don't challenge them enough through open-minded engagement with the bible, God and Jesus. Which is sad...The social and cultural context thingy is probably why I have not personally heard this stuff where I live.
As an aside, if your last post was in reference to mine, I outlined my personal belief system in the post, from my point of view and reasoning - (as in why would/do I believe in it over other religious traditions) - and I don't consider myself and my faith to be superior to the convictions held by others be that Athiest, Bhuddist, Jewish, Humanist, whatever. As in, that's my personal reasoning, but I respect the reasoning and beliefs of others, including yours