Where are some good places to discuss Christianity?

I can't say I'm converting, but Christianity has really piqued my interest and I'm curious about whether or not there are some good places to discuss it.

>inb4church

I mean somewhere online/more accessible. I've visited /christian/ and they're okay. Offline a lot of people refer to just "feeling" when it comes to their faith, but that's difficult to root a discussion in. I'm interested in the difference between the Old and New testaments since trying to make those two bodies of work compatible is where a lot of my skepticism comes from.

go to church

I've gone to a few but don't know how you catch someone in their off-time to just talk about the religion since people tend to be on their way to do things after the worship service concludes.

Talk to the pastors, user. Additionally, most libraries should have theological texts about Chrisitianity that could prove useful.

Why? Why do you constantly feel the need to have this thread up? Why do you keep re-wording the topic so it sounds different, but is always essentially the same? If you feel the need to lie to get your religion spread, then it's probably not a very good religion, is it?

Christianity has much beauty to it in terms of its history, architecture, music. There is even a strong case to be made that it largely built Western culture as we know it.

But nonironically believing in the dogma itself in this age is completely untenable in light of scholarship, textual criticism and so on. You'll be tying yourself up with elaborate mental gymnastics to make it all fit. Not to mention the wisdom found in other traditions that you'll be depriving yourself of.

Admire the tradition, absorb what is useful and admirable, but don't take it whole.

I post the same type of threads on Veeky Forums and /x/ but not here.

I don't believe you. There's always exactly one of this thread, and a new one appears as soon as the old one is bumped off. It's always "I'm not a Christian but I really like it how do I get better at it?" or some variation of that.

It's either a really weird coincidence or you're lying, and a lying Christian is pretty par for the course.

>a lying Christian is pretty par for the course.
Kekked.

Anyway it's just a coincidence meme magic is probably making each thread establish a thematic chain of OPs.

Definitely not the Roman Empire before Constantine the Great.

Here or /pol/

>difference between the Old and New testaments

In a nutshell.

God chose for himself a peoples, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, made a covenant with them, and started a country and ruled over them. He gave them the Law, 613 in total, but the 10 commandments cover the basics. The covenant was keep the Law and I will bless you; violate the Law and I will curse you. Keep the land refreshed or you will lose it.

The Law was given to mankind because mankind followed the devil's gospel: eat the fruit, know good and evil, and thus be like God. God gave the Law to show mankind the first step to being like Him. And that first step was impossible.

400 years after God stopped enforcing the Old Covenant, Jesus was born. Jesus kept the Law perfectly, and Jesus paid the sin debt of humanity for all of humanity's violations of the Law. God's holiness, justice and righteousness thus satisfied, God in His grace and mercy offered mankind a New Covenant, completely unlike the Old.

This New Covenant was a gift to mankind, free for the taking, and enabled whoever believes in Jesus to have the power to become a son of God. To become a brother or sister to Jesus, and a joint heir. To know the living God. To live with God in heaven forever.

Nothing in the Old Covenant comes close to that. The blessings in the Old Covenant, which were never deserved, were to have more flour in your kneading bowl, to have bumper crops, to not have mold and mildew eat away your belongings, to not have your children attacked by animals, and to have God defeat your enemies. All blessings here on earth, and no relationship with the living God.

So under the New Covenant, God has taken for Himself a people zealous for good deeds, who desire the inheritance that comes with being adopted into the family of God, and who want to live with God in heaven forever.

Two different deals/covenants.
Two different parties on the other end.
Two different sets of blessings/curses.

Follow-up question, what's the deal with sin again? I mean, an omnipotent being is cool and all, but is spending eternity praising God actually something Christians look forward to? I get that living forever is cool, but is singlemindedly giving praise 5ever really that enjoyable? I guess there's the issue that a lot of enjoyable things are sinful and wouldn't fly in heaven, too, but still.

Sin = missing the mark. The mark is "be like God". Everyone misses the mark; nobody is like God.

Sin also comes with iniquity, wickedness, violating the Law, etc., but it all means the same thing. Nobody is as God is. And you have to be how God is to go to heaven and avoid hell.

Heaven is just living. You'll have your house, people you love, things you want to do, food to eat, water or wine to drink, and for a thousand years we'll rule over the world post-Armageddon. It will be plenty busy.

I don't know how to convey to you how satisfying it is to worship God in Spirit and in truth. It's better than any sex you will ever have. It's better than any drug you will ever take. It's better than any music you will ever love. It's better than anything you have ever experienced in your life, and it never gets old. It never gets tiring. It never comes to an end.

But the image that we're all just going to be sitting around on clouds playing harps and worshiping God is not from the bible, and it's not real.

The thing about sin is that you have deep seated needs for Love, Acceptance, Meaning and Purpose, and you use sinful means and measures to attempt to satisfy those needs.

God satisfies those needs completely. And only God satisfied those needs completely.

I don't look at eternity as "a long time", but as "always now". And since I'll be better there than I am here, and since God promised heaven will be better than anything I can imagine, I'm kind of psyched about it.

That seems so boring, though. It doesn't sound BAD, but I don't know. Immortality (well, I guess you do have to die for it, so whatever it would be) doesn't sound fun because you're just existing on an ecstasy high forever; it's because you get to experience life, as we know it, forever. The ups and downs, the struggle and triumph, even the parts where you're just dicking around. If heaven is all ups, where's the excitement from fixing the downs?

>american protties think heaven is just a giant suburb in the sky

kekles

I kinda hate telling you this because it's filled with retards (mainly /pol/) but there is /christian/ on cripplechan

I got banned from cripplechan /pol/ for picking up another user's deleted troll thread and asking for actual discussion on it.

>/pol/
I mean /Christian/

Kek

Well just scratch it off your list