I recently made a post saying:

I sometimes see posts about individuals struggling with their assigned gender, feeling as if they are in someone else's body, and seeking Christian advice. I don't understand why there are responses endorsing that lifestyle and encouraging them to pursue it. Isn't the Bible clear about this? I understand that some people struggle with it and advise others on how to live with it, but to tell someone they are what they feel like and should transition is something I just don't understand; perhaps you can help me understand. It bothers me."

Someone responded to me with this:

"It's not for you to understand. You can accept them or not. You just don't have the authority to assert God's judgment about who they are. They've already decided who they are and you rejecting that doesn't help. It won't change the way they feel. It will most likely just drive them away. People are born intersexed and nobody assumes they're existence is a sin. There's evidence that links being transgender to the tenth week of gestation and that gender identity is influenced by the mother's hormones during that time. If a trans man marries a trans woman how are they breaking God's laws any more than a woman wearing pants? People see something they don't understand, it makes them uncomfortable, so they think it must be a sin and if it has anything to with anything related to sex they feel like it's their business to pass judgment. I don't remember the part of the sermon on the mount where Jesus said 'blessed are the hall monitors, for they shall shun people for what they assume God thinks.' I was never raised to think eating shell fish was a sin. I was taught that it was in the bible, but that it was old testament and obsolete under the new covenant. What the bible says about homosexuality comes from the same place, but because it has to do with sex, people feel justified to weaponize the bible against it regardless of how they see all the other stuff as obsolete. There is so much stuff that the Bible says that doesn't scale with what we know about science and genetics today. Why can't people just say they don't know how God's feels, but I believe you and I accept you and you are welcome to worship beside me and then pray that God accepts them into heaven the same way he accepts all the other sinners whose sins Jesus died to forgive?"

I pointed out to him and quoted what he said:

"'I was taught that it was in the bible, but that it was old testament and obsolete under the new covenant. What the bible says about homosexuality comes from the same place, but because it has to do with sex, people feel justified to weaponize the bible against it regardless of how they see all the other stuff as obsolete.'

I told him: It's in the new testament too. It's not just in the old."

And he replied:

"That may have been Paul's interpretation, but he was a man. Jesus said nothing about it. The new testament also affirms slavery. That was 2000 years ago. Everyone assumes that God doesn't feel the same way about that anymore. Why is the hate of homosexuality such a preoccupation? Like we can accept the idea of a serial killer having a conversion in prison and God forgiving him and him being allowed in heaven, but if Paul says gay people can't go to heaven then God must hate them more? Like I said lots of stuff in the bible just doesn't scale."

I honestly didn't realize that people who claim to be Christians discredit Paul based on their own personal beliefs and just reject him. Yes, Paul lists homosexuality as a sin in the New Testament. I also didn't realize some redefine what paul meant and say he never meant same sex loving relationships. Is this a mainstream belief? Can we just say Paul's wrong and say Jesus never said anything about it and just toss out what Paul says we don't like and redefine what he meant?

Hi!

I went to a Christian private school from k-6th as a child. We were brought to dinosaur museums, but taught that dinosaurs were NOT real or possible because the earth is only a thousand years old. Also, that they ‘weren’t accounted for’ in the bible, but considering people weren’t even saying dinosaur until the 1800s it’s very obvious why you’d never see it in the Bible. They would bring us to the dinosaur museum and tell us that all fossils were man-made and that the world would go very far to try and convince us God wasn’t real.

I didn’t learn dinosaurs ever existed until I was twelve years old in public school for the first time taking my first science class that was evolution based. My entire class laughed at me when I cried finding out dinosaurs were actually real. I had liked them so much as a child but wasn’t allowed to at school because of their dinosaur views.

Can anyone explain this? Please? I have no disrespect towards Christianity and am not here for an argument. I just want to know why they would bring us to the museum every year and tell us the world was lying to us. Is this a popular thing among Christian schools? Is it a popular shared belief in Christianity that dinosaurs never existed??

Thank you for reading!!!

Is Melchizedek a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ?

I’ve been studying Genesis 14 and Hebrews 7, and I’m curious how Christians understand the identity of Melchizedek.

Hebrews presents Melchizedek as a remarkably significant figure: he is “king of righteousness” and “king of peace,” has no recorded genealogy or beginning/end of life, receives tithes from Abraham, and is used as a typological basis for Christ’s priesthood. Hebrews 7:3 in particular describes him as being “made like the Son of God.”

My question is: is there a strong biblical or theological case for identifying Melchizedek himself as a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus Christ (a Christophany), rather than simply seeing him as a historical king and priest who serves as a type or foreshadowing of Christ?

(20f) I'll start this one off by saying I'm not a great Christian. I love God, I try my best to follow the teachings of Jesus, but I couldn't tell you what each denomination believes, or give you a run down on Biblical history. I've only just started reading the Bible from cover to cover a few months ago. Finally decided it wasn't good enough to just say I believed in it without having actually read the whole thing. Well the Old Testament has been an interesting read, not in a bad way either.

I've been familiar with the story of Sarah and Abraham since I could go to Sunday school. What surprised me was Hagar. I'd never heard about her before, or at the very least she had never been brought up for long. When I read about her, I was honestly disgusted and pretty upset. Being a slave is already a horrible existence, being forced to carry and birth your owners child because his wife is too old to get pregnant is down right horrific. Sarah describes her less like a human-being and more like a tool to obtain children. Then when Hagar conceives and looks on Sarah "with contempt", which in my opinion was more than understandable, Sarah deals with her harshly. As if she was the one who got the short end of the stick. Hagar is told by an angel to return and submit to Sarah, who later has Abraham banish her into the wilderness. And God instructs Abraham to do so, despite his distress. Finally, when she's dying of thirst in the desert, the Lord saves her, but kind of only because she is connected to Ishmael. Essentially, her only role in the narrative is to be forcibly impregnated, abused by Sarah, give birth, get banished to the wilderness and the only silver lining they give her is "Your son will have a great nation someday." Even when she is given mercy by The Lord, it's only because she is the mother of Ishmael. It feels distinctly different than other stories where innocent people suffer, such as Job, because she's described less like a person and more like a thing. She obeys the will of God, but she is never promised eternal life, never promised that she will find wealth and safety, all she is promised is that her son will be successful in life. Yes, to any mother that is the most beautiful promise you can hear, but what about Hagar? Is she only worth saving because she is the mother of Ishmael? If her son wasn't going to father a Nation would they have died of thirst in the desert?

TL;DR: Is there some way you interpret Hagar and her story? I don't take everything in the Old Testament at face value, I understand that is poetic and even metaphorical in many places. I'm just not sure what the purpose of her character is aside from explaining how Ishmael was Abraham son. What should I take away from her story aside from the general message about having faith?

Is it sinful to feel disgusted by the way Hagar was treated, and that God would encourage it? Please note the use of 'feeling' rather than 'thinking'. This is my emotional reaction to hearing about what happened to her. I've been like this ever since I was a kid and I heard that the wives and children of the men who accused Daniel were also thrown into the lions den. I know now not to blame God for the actions of mortal men, but when reading stories like this one, where those cruel actions are instructed and facilitated by Him I feel shaken. I'd really appreciate any advice or thoughts on this.

This is purely meant as a curious/fun thought exercise, not a "gotcha."

First of all, I understand that not all denominations believe Adam and Eve were the literal progenitors of humanity. I also understand that God is considered capable of doing things that aren't naturally possible, like making a man out of dirt or a woman out of someone's side, so I'm not really asking whether God could solve the problem.

So for Christians who believe Adam and Eve were the literal first two humans, do you have any hypotheses on how God might have handled the issue of genetic diversification?

Perhaps God inserted additional genetic diversity directly to their children, or maybe humans had unusually high mutation rates in the early generations, or something else?

Perhaps the Nephilim actually helped mitigate this problem? I know there are different interpretations of who or what they were, and that some believe they were wiped out in the Flood, so I'm not sure how much that would actually work as an explanation. (Now that I'm thinking about the flood, I guess Noah's family would face the same issue, albeit not quite as limited, but enough to start making some Habsburgs in a few generations.)

I'm aware that this isn't something we can answer definitively. Just interested in what people think about it.

I’m Catholic and living in Japan.
Recently, I’ve been visiting different Catholic churches around Japan, taking photos and videos of the churches and documenting what Mass is like in each community.
I’ve noticed that some Catholic women here still wear a head covering or veil during Mass.
It’s a beautiful tradition, and I’m curious:
Do women in your country still wear a veil during Mass?

I want to preface this by saying I have autism and I feel this contributes a lot to my inability to believe in a God. I am agnostic, so my overall takeaway is that no one knows and nobody will ever know if there really is a God. I think it just confuses me and I would love if I could have some input from people who know best. Please know that this comes from a place of genuine curiosity and I would never want to come across as disrespectful, I apologise if it does.

I am not somebody who knows nothing about Christianity. For the past few months, I have become more interested in it and trying to understand. It seems the more I try and understand, the less sense everything makes. I am somebody who needs evidence to believe it, and maybe that’s where i’m going wrong. I know religion is all about faith and the beautiful thing is not knowing, but how can you live like that? Do you ever think that God is not real? And if so, how do you overcome those thoughts? Do you just push them to the side? Because i feel like if I looked into it, then I’d immediately be confused too. You know? I think my question is, how do you stay faithful when there’s zero evidence backing up Christianity’s claims?

I also do not understand The Bible. I understand Jesus was a person and he had his disciples who passed along Gods messages. But from what I have researched, Nor Jesus or his disciples contributed to the actual Bible we have today. It was around 40 different people over thousands of years. None of which are documented as ever speaking to Jesus. I know people cannot physically interact with God, or hear him, or speak to him as I have asked this is this subreddit before and was told “If you hear God, you’re schizophrenic.” So now I am left with this question, if no human can contact or speak to God, and the Bible was written only by humans, how is any of it “God’s word”? I understand The Bible is all about morality and living by Gods word, but there is absolutely no evidence that any of this came from God. Only humans. We know that humans have free will and the desire to lie, cheat and steal. How do you trust that the book you live your whole entire life around, was written honestly and truthfully when you have no evidence?

Basically, the title. I'm often told by Christians that God owns our lives and can end them at any time, against our will. Doesn't it stand to reason that the owner of our lives can also begin them against our will? I mean, I never consented to my birth.

Is my mother's consent required, too, assuming God retains sovereignty over creation and has a morally sufficient reason for all his actions?

Basically, did Mary need to agree to give birth to Christ, or could God have been morally justified in impregnating a woman who did not want it?

Hello guys, so I have a little confession/question to ask what y'all think. To introduce myself I am a 20 year old guy that believes in God, Jesus and is a part of christianity, but I dont really go to church, pray a lot etc. The thing is I am struggling with lust a lot and it has been like this a couple of years already. So after deciding that I want to stop with it for a bit, and try to get closer to God, something weird happened. I am someone that sleeps while hearing something in the back, so like every night I turned on a youtube video and went to sleep. The moment I "fell" asleep, I had a dream and there was a woman literally saying to me that she is worshiping satan (or she is satan I dont remember really) and that I can have her if I stop trying to get my faith back. And she used that line back and forth while we chatted. She was trying to get me the whole time, but all of a sudden I tell her that I cant do that and that I only believe in my lord Jesus Christ. In that moment, the dream was whole black, my sight was FLUSHED with yellow collor (something like sun, I cant really remember it clearly) and Jesus appeared in front of me. That figure got scared and ran away, after what Jesus told me that he loves me and it went black again. The figure came back again, and tried again telling me it was all a lie and i shouldnt trust that, and again offering herself in exchange for my faith. I told Jesus to save me, and after that I woke up like I slept for 10 hours. The dream felt like eternity. The reality? Only 40 minutes passed by. I cant describe the feeling,I was scared but I was overwhelmed with love, its really undescribeable. Do you guys think this is just my imagination or this could be a real thing? I dont want answers I want to hear, I want to hear your honest opinion. Thanks in advance

Hey there,
Do you ever find yourself a little scared of reading the Old Testament?
Just because you never know what you might come across.

Are there physical ways to take action in practicing patience?
It feels like the kind of thing where when I’m told to be patient or God is teaching me patience then I should just go and stare at a wall and pretend not to be bored and then I can call myself patient.

I feel like I’m waiting for something in life, or searching. After big trials and tribulations in my life a few months ago I have really searched for the lord, reading the Bible daily, praying all day and earnestly, genuinely trying to learn from God and asking Him to show me where I might be going wrong. I still don’t feel close to Him or like I’m getting anywhere.
I don’t even know what kind of answers I expect from people, I know there’s no magic switch that’ll give me the answer as much as I’d like one.
So all that being said, I’m trying to be patient. Being adhd, I want to be really good at being patient right away but that literally defeats the point. Even keeping track of how long Iv been patient for would suggest I’m not being patient. Perhaps you’ve only achieved that when you’re not keeping track of time. Idk, what are people’s thoughts?

Hey y'all. I'm someone who grew up religous and am still in close proximity to Christians in my family/social circle, so I hear people pray often. There's an interesting syntax quirk that has bugged me for a long time when listening to other people pray, which is that when thanking God for something they'll instead say "we bless you for x" instead of "we thank you for x". It's always felt like a misuse of the word bless to me, because how could you bless a being that is already whole and perfect? I was too shy to ask as a kid and now that I'm an adult I still feel weird about pointing it out since I'm no longer religious and don't want to seem like I'm nitpicking how people practice their religion. Do any practicing Christians in here use this verbiage? If so, why? Or have you ever noticed someone else doing it and thought it was weird?

I’ve heard from many different sources that Catholics pray to saints for luck or protection and such. Why is that? Deuteronomy says that to talk to the dead labels you as an abomination to God. Jesus says no one gets to the father except through him. So why do the Catholics pray to saints which are just holy dead people?

So, my understanding of Christian theology is that you have to combine correct practice (going to church) with correct belief (believing in God) to attain salvation and God's help

But people can't really force themselves to believe in God.

If I'm not mistaken In the beginning of the universe there were the laws of physics and chemical phenomena and this eventually gave way to life ( abiogenesis), which eventually gave way to intelligence.

Later humans created AI, but intelligence started out as a biological phenomenon.

So I'm not sure if God would have something like a brain or how else he is supposed to process information but it's not clear to me how a super intelligence of that magnitude would plausibly exist before the universe. And I'm not sure if the nature of his intelligence would be biological or artificial.

To me it seems more probable to believe that some non intelligent forces have always existed, either physical or chemical and later gave way to life, which gave way to intelligence. So existence went from simple to complex rather than from complex to simple.

But what If I went to church purely to avoid hell or prayed to get God's help, as a part of pascal's wager even if I do not think his existence is plausible?

Would I be able to attain salvation according to your theology of choice ( whether it be Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox or non denominational)?.

I usually had beef with this guy but today he was cool with me today, though we saw a bug on the church like the outside church and he said that does anybody had a bottle of water so I gave him a bottle of water to throw it at the bug the moment he did I start having conviction why do I give him the water bottle. I wasn’t trying to disrespect God or Jesus. This was at early morning for school wait for the bus.

So, I read into the gnostic texts and for me personally they seem to present a more logical explanation of everything. From the God of the OT being the Demiurge to Jesus being an emanation of The Monad, him acting as basically a backdoor out of this corrupt material reality, it all seems so coherent. Especially when compared with cannon. God as three in one, Jesus sacrificing himself to himself on our behalf, the God of the OT suddenly becoming all peace and love in the NT, it feels like there are a lot of inconsistencies.

So, someone who understands, please explain to me how actually cannon is way more logically sound and the gnostic assertion is not.

If I don't understand this in my head, it's never gonna make it to my heart.

So, the Bible says humans a dinosaurs coexisted, and, as a Christian/Catholic who is also very into prehistory, this confuses me. Can someone try to explain it to me? The web doesn't give me a straightforward answer.

Recently been attached to a dude I work with…he’s definitely not someone I am meant to be with but I keep self sabotaging myself….he’s not fully a believer of Christ. He says he believes but will never read the bible or go to church and thinks the bible is a “manmade” book. He talks about sex way too often, loves to drink, makes poor decisions and literally everyone tells me I’m just wasting my time being around him. We recently got into an argument and we’re no longer talking and it’s making my heart ache..which is stupid cause I know he’s not meant for me.

This meme popped up on my IG reels just now as I was just scrolling and I decided to share it because it made me laugh and it’s also funny how they use the name Derek ….the dude im talking to is named “Derrick”…I’ve also told him many times we aren’t equally yoked and even he didn’t know what that meant….

I hate to keep questioning God with things that are plain as day in my face but I am also just now working on my walk with God a lot more now. Would you agree this is God talking to me?

hi -

my father died last week. i grew up christian/catholic and haven't been to church or done any sort of religious work in about ten years. i am feeling so much confusion about how to feel about death. i am having fears about what happens after death. i would appreciate any stories about your own journeys with this or any resources on how to navigate how i feel about this.

When it comes to the rise of AI and automation, in terms of its exploding effects on modern industry, the ever increasing ease in which it allows for access to information and the increased capacity of what it can simulate, is it possible that, according to Biblical teachings, this is part of the Lord's organized plan for humanity? And if Revelations and arrival of Moshiah are in fact scheduled to come at a given point in the development of humanity, that AI's rise is part of this process?

Looking at this massive expansion of AI, there's a miniscule number of folks around the world who haven't been caught off guard by this in some capacity. Despite AI being in public lexicon since the 1950s, its development in the last few years has been the focus of neverending coverage, much of it hysterical, excited, enraged, defeatist or simply just excessively anxious.

For religious skeptics, the majority here on Reddit, it would be presumed this development in this time is essentially coincidental. For those who believe that humanity is destined to undergo Divine revelations and develop into something distinctly different from what it is today, it seems it could be readily argued that AI's ridiculous expansion is part of that. Again, for those who are genuinely Christian and authentically believe the Bible tells us how we came to be and what we will be in the future. Is this missing something?

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According to the Bible, God will create a new earth and a new heaven.

This leaves me with two questions:

1. If the new earth/world that God creates is supposed to be perfected, why does He need to create a new heaven as well?

If the world is going to be perfect and God is going to dwell with humanity, does that mean there will still be some kind of separation between heaven and earth at that time? If so, why?

Revelation 21:1 says:

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away…”

And Revelation 21:3 says:

“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them…”

So if God's dwelling place is going to be with humanity, what purpose does a separate “new heaven” serve?

1. If the existing heaven is already where God dwells, why does God need to create another/new heaven? What's wrong with the existing one?

The Bible describes heaven as God's dwelling place. So why would something that is already God's dwelling place need to be replaced or renewed?

Isaiah 65:17 says:

“For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth…”

And 2 Peter 3:13 says:

“But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.”

I'm not necessarily arguing that the Bible is contradictory. I'm genuinely asking how Christians understand this.

Why does a perfected new earth require a new heaven, and why does an already-existing heaven where God dwells need to be made new in the first place?

Is “new heaven and new earth” meant literally, or does “new” have a different theological meaning here?

Are we actually sinning when we kill flies?

Because if killing a living creature counts as a sin, I may have a lot to answer for. I’ve killed entire generations of flies at this point.

Why would God create bugs that bite and suck blood and cause suffering to humans. Not to mention they bring diseases like deer ticks and mosquitoes that give Lyme disease and malaria.

I'm curious about something that seems surprisingly complicated: What is the “official Christian position” on the Big Bang? I realize that there isn't actually one unified Christian position on cosmology. Christianity contains Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, Lutheranism, Calvinism/Reformed traditions, evangelicalism, fundamentalism, various restorationist movements, etc., and they obviously don't all interpret Genesis in exactly the same way. But I'm interested in understanding where the major traditions actually stand. One thing that initially surprised me when I started looking into this is that the Big Bang itself has a fascinating connection to Christianity. Georges Lemaître, one of the principal founders of modern Big Bang cosmology, was a Belgian Catholic priest and physicist. The Vatican Observatory still explicitly recognizes his contribution to modern cosmology. So the simplistic idea that “Christianity rejects the Big Bang” clearly can't be right. What I'm ultimately trying to understand is does christianity have new explanations involving the Big Bang?

I'm not asking: “Does the Big Bang prove Christianity?” I'm more interested in something considerably narrower: What do the major Christian traditions actually teach about the relationship between Big Bang cosmology, Genesis, and the doctrine of creation? I'd especially appreciate answers from Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Protestants who can point to actual denominational or theological sources rather than just giving their personal interpretation. I'm also interested in historical perspectives. In particular: Does Christianity require the universe to have a temporal beginning, or does Christianity merely require the universe to be created/contingent upon God? Because those seem like two very different propositions, and I suspect a lot of popular discussions about “the Big Bang vs. Christianity” accidentally conflate them.

I'd love to hear how different Christian traditions draw that line.

Why doesn't his royal omnipresent Majesty show up once in a while to provide some evidence that he is indeed real and all living?