Again, I’m not an atheist, buddy.
You don't have to be an Atheist to want a soapbox. All it takes is an insufferable know-it-all who thinks that repeating nonsensical slogans makes for a compelling argument.
Enjoy your evening.
You ask whether Christianity is compatible with being trans
I didn't say any such thing. I asked (someone else, a "self-professed" Christian, not you!) the opposite of that: I asked what was so bad about having a community of people who are trying to reconcile their life choices with their Christian faith.
The other guy went on to say "they are using the flag! The flag is a sign of people who do not repent, and that is sin". Okay, I think this answer is stupid and left at that.
You on the other hand got on a little a soapbox to expose yourself as the utmost authority about all and any religion. Congrats! Do you want a cookie before or after I block you and go on with my day?
because you identify as a Christian and I no longer do, that you’re in some sort of position of authority over it
No, no, no... I've been trying like crazy to explain that "what I identify with" is completely irrelevant!
What I am arguing here:
- You don't have to identify yourself as a Christian to adopt some of its core values and apply them to your own life.
- I don't think you have to accept it wholesale if some parts of its core values bring meaning to your life
- (Self-proclaimed) "Christians" who go around judging others based on how much better they are "at following the rules" are completely missing the point.
You can still enjoy community without claiming to be a Christian. Perhaps in America you can’t…?
I'm born and raised in Brazil. Lived in the US from 2008 to 2013. Now I'm living in Germany - more specifically, in Berlin.
In the US, I had some family and friends. In Germany I was all on my own, so I've tried getting integrated. I went out to meet different people. I wasn't just stuck in my room all day long. The friends that I did do turned out to be invariably Italians, Polish, Israelis, Spaniards. The best I could say about the people from Nordic backgrounds were "they are my acquaintance". Dating in Berlin was weird - much similar to New York - where I'd never know if I was just getting myself into some mindless hook-up or a detailed plan establishing the contract terms of the relationship.
I was in 3 years already in Berlin and I was seriously considering moving out, when I've met a (Greek) woman who I am so very lucky to be able to call "my wife". She had moved to Berlin just one year before me, and though she had a much larger social circle than mine, they were also mostly of other Greeks. When we started dating, her group of friends didn't see me as an attachment to her friend. They took me in as part of the group. I've became friends with them as well, we would go play ball or hang out even if my then-girlfriend couldn't make that one night.
All of this to say: you are getting at this backwards. I'm not saying that I went to the religion to get "accepted" by peers. What I am saying is that even when I was surrounded by people, they were pretty much all of them completely atomized individuals. This feeling only changed when I found myself closer to people with other cultures who still have a higher attachment to their cultural roots.
Dude I’ve literally shown you how much more I know and understand about Christianity than you do.
Was this a competition? I wasn't aware. Congrats, you won!
Without monotheism, we would already have our gay luxury space communism.
So now you are going to be making two arguments:
- Explain what is "good" about gay luxury communism
- Show why no other non-religious society reached that status - which is hard because the best proponents do is "so-and-so atheist society was not real communism" and the worst is "we haven't seen it yet because we need to destroy everyone else to implement it".
This is what I meant with the part about how you could change your religion in the conversation to be literally whatever and the conversation would still be exactly the same.
Really? As an exercise, imagine you are a gay man and you went to talk about it with a priest. Now imagine the same gay man going to talk about it with an Imam. How do you think these conversations would go?
Take your best shot, give both of them the most charitable/noble representation of their respective values. Do you really think that we would get the same outcomes?
You said the priest required you didn’t, not that you followed through.
I said I wouldn't have converted if the priest was just concerned about getting me to mindlessly accept Church Doctrine. and I said that the reason I found myself willing to convert was because of his focus on keeping the community together and its values intact.
You also said you converted just to piss people off.
That was me being flippant at your stupid retort.
you don’t actually have a belief system.
Okay. I'll grant you that. I don't particularly care about the "belief system". I don't particularly care about doctrine. I don't believe that the Earth is 6000 years old and I don't live my life thinking of where I will end up once I'm gone. If this is your only idea of "being Christian", then I'm certainly not it.
And I’m just asking WHY?
Because of the community that comes with it. Because of the culture that is developed around it. Because it is the foundation of the Western World. Because most of the people/cultures that I've seen trying to reject those values have lost themselves to something worse. Because other religions seems to treat this world as a mere passage way, and Judeo-Christian cultures are also concerned about working to leave this place better than what was found.
believing in the Bible
"Believing in the Bible" does not imply "being forced to accept that everything must be taken literally even when stretched to its extreme logical conclusions".
To be accepted into the Church, you need to accept Jesus and renounce your sins. No one was asked to read the whole Bible and accept it as some Terms and Conditions.
claiming to be Christian while not even having read the scripture is a hypocrite
And I'm saying that arguing over the validity of "claims to be Christian" is irrelevant to anyone but fundamentalists.
who’s only doing it out of social pressure.
Social pressure from which side? Taking this thread as a sample, it seems that the only ones that care about "claims of being Christian" are the extremists.
Unless what you are describing involves some type of Decentralized Identifier, let's please stay away from any solution that depends on a single point of failure.