How Christian We Are?

    Nowadays European civilization is considered to be a result of Christian doctrine. Is this assertion quit so true? Europe was under the full Christian doctrine during the Middle Age. The subsequent development started at the same time with the Renaissance, and one of the main aims of the Renaissance was just to diminish the role played by the church. This aim was necessary due to the mistakes that Christian Church had made during the Middle Age. Among the most important ones, there are the edification of a rigid hierarchy of a pyramidal type and its implications in politics. That's why European people are no longer believers but in a small measure.


    On the other hand, we could not ignore the role of the religion in our culture and morality. Almost all old paintings and musical works have topics from the Bible and religious topics still inspire nowadays creators. At the time being more than in the past, due to the lack of a morale motivation, more and more people come back to the old faith. That's interesting and proves people's need to have a sense for their life. Most of them find it in the faith particularly because the faith is not linked by politics any longer.


    Christianity brings an innovation. Unlike oriental faiths, where the Universe is stable and life is conceived in an endless cycle, in Christianity a being's life is unique. He has and beginning and of course an end. The idea of singleness has great moral implications. All people will go in front of the God for a final judgement. He will weight everybody's deeds and will give him a new life in the heaven accordingly with his deeds. In this way, people's life gets a sense. They are no longer convict to have a miserable life forever. From some passive, apathetic persons, they have become active people. It could explain the progress of the Europe in the good sense but their bad deeds too (wars, colonial conquest, etc.). Is the Christian morale a good one? We will never know.


    Pray or meditation? The word 'meditation' does not have sense in Christian doctrine. It is peculiar for oriental faiths where people meditate for to purifying himself for a future life. A Christian does not meditate but prays. During his prayer, he implores God to help him. People without much will, lazybones, or dishearten implore more often God's help. Trustworthy people instead usually forget the God, thinking that they succeed by themselves. They remember him only before an important but uncertain trial. Then, they ask for God's help to overcome the moment, or to conquer an enemy, even if this battle is contrary to the Christian doctrine. It makes me to think that our emotional mood needs the faith.

    In oriental faith, the salvation is individual. Consequently, a good believer insulates himself from the society; he lives in seclusion. Its religion tells him to not make bad acts, but not to make good ones. Christianity did it. From this reason, Christian believers live together, as one could not be good to himself. He needs a receiver for his kindness.

    Judaism and Christianity introduced the history: there was a beginning, and will be an end. Everything we do happens within this period of time, and we do it together. We are not some individuals living temporary in an infinite Universe, like in Hinduism. We live together in a limited period of time. Maybe we should think more about it. Man becomes man but by the community's virtues (Socrates).

    In ancient Greece, as people used to believe in gods, they were saying that Olympus is the place where gods live. But Olympus is a mountain not so high, and soon people climbed on its top. Then, the priests changed the expression and said that gods live somewhere far away, in a place like a mountain.

    Such things happened many times, and the priests have to adapt the ideas to new discoveries, otherwise they lose their credibility. The first Christians believed that God is in Heaven, and the Heaven is in the sky. It was all right as long as the earth was thought to be a platter in the middle of the Universe. Now, the sky is vague definite and nobody is curious to know where the Heaven is. Unfortunately, the priests only in the 15th century hardly understood and accept to change their old ideas. Much too late! Their credibility had been already lost

    Of course, nobody believes now in Mythology. But our ancestors did it. We must know the way in which they thought in order to understand them and their works. Also, we must know the most important fairy tales of people from wide world; they are filled with life philosophy.

    Some major themes are to be found in any religion, like the deluge. They are the same, but with small differences. Just in those differences we could find deeper philosophical meanings of the religions. By understanding Mythology and Christianity we understand the development of our civilisation.

    The human nature is described to be sinful. It is not only the Bible and Judaism that do it. Oriental faiths do the same. I often asked myself why? The single explanation that I found is the feeling of guiltiness of the parents, which know better when and how they conceived their children.

    Fortunately, the Christianity does not emphasis this idea, and say that Jesus sacrificed himself for it, so that we are responsibly only for our mistakes, not for some imaginary ones. It would make us more responsibly.

    Jesus wanted to show to the people that we are able to fight against to our bad temptations. The Catholic churches are full with imagines of Jesus' sufferings, but they lost the message. The Orthodox Church was less influenced by occidental doctrine. Here, the Ascension is the main imagine. This is a more optimistic message: there is a future, therefore there is chance, Jesus will come again, but not a possessed, to massacre most people, as most neo-protestants threaten us, but as the son of a well-intentioned God. Jesus game us dignity to stand right, but responsibly.

    The idea of an ancestral sin is an ancestral one itself. Most old religions contain it. The abandon of this idea is just one of the most important news that Christianity brought. Jesus died for it, consequently the problem is solved, and the topic is closed. To insist on this point means not to understand what the Christianity really is. We are not indebted to make sacrifice for imaginary reasons. Instead, we are responsible for our mistakes. Peter says: "... your sins may be forgiven" (Acts 2:38). Yours and not some ancestral ones! Following Christ's way, we propose to ourselves not to make other mistakes. Jesus Christ gave us the dignity to stand right, but responsible.

    Yes, God is forgiving; he always gives us a second chance, but, for it, we must repent and promise (to ourselves firstly) not to fall again in the mistakes, but to follow God's way.

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