Christianity as a relationship not Religion?

What the hell does ^ mean..? When I try to have conversations on religion with Christians that is what they say, "No I do not like the way it is taught, I just feel like it is a relationship with god"..

Is there a difference? Would they even know about their "god" if it was not for Christianity the religion? Is it an even valid statement?

I have no idea, please could you guys enlighten me on the topic of

"Christianity as a relationship not religion"

 

There is a difference between religion and spirituality. You can be a spiritual person and follow the teachings of a holy book without being a religious person. Depending upon what denomination of Christianity you are looking at it they define their relationship with God differently. Take Catholics who, in my understanding, have no personal relationship with God instead they use priests to intercede with God for them. A relationship with God in Christianity is your personal understanding of God, prayer, and introspective mediation/study of the Bible. Though like I said, it is all relative to the person and the sect.

 

Okay thank you, lol very simple, I over thought the hell out of it. Would these people know about this spirituality if it was not for the religion? The 4 people that said this happen to believe in the Bible and have the same beliefs as Christians they just say the church is corrupt.

 

In my understanding of Christianity, I think Christianity is both a religion and a relationship. The religion is based around have a relationship with Jesus.
I can't really answer your spirituality questions, I'm not quite sure what you're asking... Someone else probably will though.

 

Okay this is my real question, would you have a relationship with jesus or even know about it if christianity was not as big as it is.

 

That's a hypothetical question that really has no answer. Everyone has a different opinion on religion. It is kind of like saying "If the Beatles were never famous would you still be listening to them?" It is a question without a quantifiable answer.

 

As Emperor_Nero said, it's a very difficult question to answer.
I can say to you this (Also I might be taking this thread slightly off-topic, but maybe not):

- Christianity had to start somewhere it would have first been something small - something caused it to become more well known. That something was the 2000+ books, now known as Bibles, written, almost simultaneously. Which means people did have a relationship with Jesus before it became 'big'.

- Also, it was the meeting of Jesus 2012 years ago which caused the writing of the Bible. Therefore it would have been very difficult for Christianity to be small.

Therefore I don't think that Christianity could ever have been small after Jesus' time.


I hope this has helped you Anymore questions?

 

The reason behind the rise of Christianity in the ancient world was the rise of mystery cults that gave a closer relationship with a god and something optimistic to look forward to in the afterlife. Christianity is really an amalgamation of a lot of concepts borrowed from Jewish mysticism, Roman mystery cults, and a humanistic and peaceful approach to life and it promised equal playing ground for all in the afterlife which is why it was such as draw to everyone.

 

Jesus the Christ in no way, ever intended to start a new religion. He wanted to actually lead people away from those pagan religions but humanity decided to start a new one in his name..

 

A religion like Christianity usually consists of worshipping a God. In religion you follow a certain structure such as the bible. Spirituality on the other hand focuses on following within yourself. You don't follow any set structure but instead can choose spiritualites you wish.

They can't really say they don't like the way it is taught. They either believe or don't believe.

The bottom line is pretty much in all religions there will be a relationship between the worshipper and the God/Goddess.

 

Thanks for all of the replies everyone.

At this day in age, if Christianity and their relationship with Jesus Christ is learned and taught from the bible, and they say that the bible is not fully correct, (this may sound blunt) wouldn't it seem like they are just picking and choosing what they want that can support their beliefs?

How can you learn about and build your relationship with Jesus, who you learned about through the Bible, then simply ommit portions of it while still maintaining that relationship?

Lol sorry this is slightly jumbled and off the original topic, I just have questions.

 

It's your thread, you can do what you like with it - to an extend...

You bring up a good point here:

I have no problems with admitting that I don't fully understand all that goes on in the bible. But just because one part doesn't makes sense to me doesn't mean it all doesn't.

In a non-biblical example:
For example, a couple of years ago scientists were saying that 'Global Warming existed'. This doesn't make sense as New Zealand had one of it's worst snow storm in over 30 years last year. (Other countries have had their cold experiences as well, but as I love in New Zealand I'm using that as my example). But just because that doesn't make sense doesn't mean that some of what scientists say isn't true.


- I am well aware that they are now calling it climate change.

 

Not a good example at all, because Global Warming is true but it isn't as magnified as people have made it seem. The world is always in a warming or cooling phase called either an ice age or a hothouse period. Ice ages are when the poles have ice caps and hothouse is a period of time when the earth experiences a large tropical band.


What your asking is what separates spiritual people from religious people.

I can be a spiritual person and concur with the teachings of the man Jesus in a philosophical manner, but as a religious person I have to take it that these are the facts as presented.

Going back to your very first question about how concurrence with the teachings of Jesus relate to the church. The Church is not the Bible. The Church is, speaking metaphysically, a human institution which therefore makes it prone to corruption. Many Muslims claim that the Koran has never been changed or altered but truly it has, if you read it in English it has and there are several other cases where passages have been changed and there are a lot of evidence that says so. The only way to truly read a religious document and correctly interpret the meaning would be to read it in it's original language in an unaltered form which is impossible now. I suppose what I am getting at is, that we don't know. It is impossible to tell what is human and what is divine, speaking for a religious sense unless you believe that God can directly talk to you and reveal to you what is correct. I am not religious or very spiritual but I haven't rejected theism and this is a rather interesting subject. Maybe I went too far off topic though...

 

Christianity as a relationship not a Religion is quite a funny contradictory statement, because the "relationship" with jesus or god or whoever is the principle of the religion.

Its a pretty shitty relationship if you ask me, For one god is never faithful to you, in fact hes pretty much a slut, but if you dare believe in someone else all of his associates should kill you and he will torture you for eternity. That's pretty jealous if you ask me.

Also you are never able to see him and he never directly gives you anything, but he subtly guides your life in a way that nobody can directly see and is indistinguishable from random chance. He also has very odd restrictions in what you can do with your life otherwise you anger him and he might violently react to these outrages, which include being born, having hair too long, having sex before marriage among a host of other things.

I don't think really anyone would like a relationship like that.

 

Yea, now that I look at it, you are right. BUT the point I was getting at was that 'Global Warming' would not make sense during winter, when it is colder. Such as parts of the Bible do not make sense now, but I'm sure when they were written they would have made perfect sense the people of that time (A bit like Shakespearian Language).

 

The reason that it existed was because people in the early ages lived shitty lives and were extremely barbaric. They used the story to attempt to cause them to become more civilized, but like every other human lead organization severe greed and pettiness tainted it and made it a mockery. If god does exist he wouldn't want himself represented by these people period.

The whole reason behind all the violence is because people didn't understand anything other than violence in those times as they were dealing with barbarians. Now though as we are slightly more civilized and slightly less barbaric it doesn't make any sense to us because we don't need petty threats to make us act in an accountable manor. In fact I would argue it has quite the opposite effect now seeing as believing in Jesus allows you to be cleansed of your sin, which allows people to commit horrendous crimes and feel as though they will be saved.

 

It's non-sensical. The word "relationship" is only used because of growing stigma surrounding "religion."

 

It is entirely possible for a religion to be a relationship but that really would only apply if the religion was completely personal and didn't involve silly ceremonies or group worship and stuff.

 

Thank you guys for your answers so far, it is really helping me lol. My next question is this:

Some of these people state that the Bible is not correct, and some that I have talked to do not even accept the Bible.... If they learned about Jesus through the Bible are they contradicting themselves?