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>>>>I accept the teachings of Jesus, the 10 commandments and all that, but I have serious reservations about terms like "worshiping through jesus", the "immaculate contraption", the full Constantine Creed (which was forced on the fledgling Church by a non-christian, pushy Roman emperor), and a lot of the medieval mumbo-jumbo.
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>>>>The rational human in me baulks at having to say some of the stuff (e.g. in a recent christening I went to). In a perverse way I feel that if there is a God, and He's omniscient and all that, then reciting stuff that is a lie in my heart will offend Him. Again, it's all that put-the-muckies-up-the-congregation, 3-in-1, and through-Christ salvation and damnation business that you blindly adhere to that I don't buy.
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>>>>I'll say it again: The bible is not the word of God, but that of the men who wrote it, and I'm buggered if I'm going to live my life according to the rules & regs, and primitive interpretaion of the World and reality, laid down by some bearded scholars 2,000 years ago.
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>>>What do you live by?
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>>I just told you. Look at the top paragraph
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>Yes, I read that - but - you've also said you do not believe some of the things attributed to Jesus' teachings ("I am the way the truth and the life - no one comes to the Father except through Me" for one.) I'm just trying to determine how you decide which of His teachings to believe and which not to believe.

You just don't get it. How else would J get people to join His gang? by saying they have just as good a chance by following someone else's guidelines. Even so, you interpret those lines pessimistically ("we're all sinners") as "Unless you're a committed Christian and buy into the whole thing, you're doomed", whereas I interpreet it, perhaps in a more charitable, Jesus-like sense: "Look, if you want to go to heaven, you must be good. Stick with me and I'll show you how". Now, again, all those little starving Africans, if they still (unwittingly) adhere to His teachings, then they'd be alright in His eyes anyway. For you it's an exclusive club, you all want the Captain's barque when the ship goes down, and let the rest of the World cling to flotsam, then drown.

Your sense of Christianity is quite un-christian.
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>Again, if you only believe parts of the Bible - how do you know which ones to believe? Is it the ones that seem illogical to you that you reject? Is it the parts you don't agree with that you reject? How do you determine what you will and won't believe?

I said I have my reservations. Maybe there WAS "a time of magic" back 2,000 years ago and my modern mind can't come to grips with it. So you could say I know the ones to believe that are plausible. But you see, I'm not living in this fear of eternal damnation that you're in, if you don't hedge your bets and go the whole medieval hog. It's not a case of belief, of faith, but of following what you know in your heart to be sensible, beneficial, right - the sense of right & wrong that our parents instilled in us, given their Christain upbringing, and so on down the ages, to those good words written in a book.

Then you've got the dilema of finding a $50 bill on the ground. Do you slot it or take it to a police stration for someone to later claim? ... and so on.

AFAI'm concerned we ALL go on to a next life, this one being a training/proving ground for the next.
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>And...is this belief something you came up with on your own or is it part of an organized religion? You mentioned The Church of England and how you really don't align yourself with them. Just curious if there is a group you belong to or if this is a sort of "home brew" religion.