Reply to If Jesus wasn’t a real historical figure, where did Christian theology come from?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Let this thread die and NOT be resurrected. [/quote]

+100. OP’s original premise, that Jesus existed and there was some cabal who made him up, has been soundly debunked. OP may even have been posting ironically to show how ludicrous that proposition is. LOL at all the atheist bigots demanding people justify their faith by proving divinity or denigrating other faiths, but no sane poster would engage with that and it’s a total derailment anyway. Die, thread, die. [/quote]

Read again. No one asked anyone to “denigrate” other religions.

The request was to expand upon this statement:
[i]“after a baseline of evidence, people go with the religion that makes the most theological/philosophical sense to them.”[/i]

What is the [u]process[/u] you used to select your own religion over others? [/quote]
DP, but I went through a process and chose a religion, so I'm happy to speak to that experience, though it may differ from what PP had in mind.

I was raised in a conservative Protestant denomination that never made any sense to me. I gave it up for a while in middle school and high school and then in college started trying more liberal Protestant denominations. What I found in my church-hopping was that my problem wasn't just with the conservatism, but with Christian theology as a whole. The Trinity doesn't make sense to me. The focus on sin (original sin, daily sin, heaven and hell, etc) is off-putting. I remember I went to a Presbyterian Church on Mother's Day and the sermon was about how our earthly families are just a shadow of our relationship with Jesus, and that was my last straw, because it was just one too many times that Christianity had downplayed the importance of family and [i]people [/i]in our lives, and it turns out that is a core value of mine.

Sorry, [b]my point is not to take issue with Christianity here[/b], but just to say that my experience with Christianity across the Protestant spectrum (and some Catholicism through my dad's side of the family and Evangelicalism through some friends and cousins) proved that it was not the right fit for my own beliefs. Visiting all of those churches that weren't right for me really helped me figure out what I did (and did not) believe. When I started to look outside of Christianity, I found a spiritual home in Judaism, and have been here happily for a long time now.

All that said, I think PP's point is over-exaggerated. I don't think it's common for people to go through a process of evaluating the beliefs in which they were raised, especially if their religion doesn't really play a major role in their lives (secular-style Christmas and [i]maybe[/i] church on Easter). People generally don't spend time evaluating something with a minor regular impact on them. My brother spends more time thinking about being left-handed than he does about being Christian.[/quote]

Well yay, someone took the bait and trashed other peoples’ religion. Happy, atheist pp?[/quote]
PP here. I'm not trashing Christianity, just citing examples of why the theology didn't work for me to answer the question about the process of choosing a theology. I'm sure that the Trinity and original sin and the elevation of the relationship with the divine over earthly relationships is meaningful for Christians. It just isn't [i]my[/i] beliefs, and so I'm not Christian anymore.[/quote]

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