Exaltist Ethan
Bridging the Gap Between Believers and Skeptics
As someone who has never once considered himself a Christian, I obsess about this question a lot.
The thread title is all you need to answer the question for yourself, and with this introductory post I am going to elaborate on this for myself.
So, the main groups I am interested in include: Messianic Judaism/Jewish Christianity, Mennonites, Evangelical Lutheranism and Mormonism. I will list each in its own paragraph explaining why I'm interested in them.
Messianic Judaism/Jewish Christianity: Possibly the most legitimate version of Christianity out there, that teaches to respect both the new and the old, and if you can quote scripture Jesus literally says that following the Torah is essentially following him, that he is the Law. And I don't really subscribe to replacement theory, where the New supersedes the old in any way. If you only believe in the Gospels why is there a Old Testament? Jesus was Jewish. End of story.
Mennonites: I consider myself a pacifist. Mennonites are both against abortion and the death penalty. I would have a hard time believing that any other group in America is also against both at the same time.
Evangelical Lutheranism: Okay, so I took a religious quiz and got 100% Evangelical Lutheran. I would say half of the responses were "only if I were a Christian" where the other half was truly me. The reason why I think I would make a good Evangelical Lutheran is they both promote the inerrancy of the scripture and at the same time are mainline and for things like gay marriage and women pastors. And I agree!
Mormonism: Mormons believe in many Gods, that you can become a God, and all of that, and to that remark I say Mormonism is very close to the Earthseed and Syntheist argument of, "God is change."
I have thought about this so hard I am surprised I haven't already called myself a Christian. The last service I went to was an Evangelical Lutheran service, and it would be very easy for me just to walk there and (eventually) get baptized. This syntheist pantheistic trinity I hold: The Omniverse, Entropy and Extropy can easily be translated into The Holy Spirit, The Father and The Son. Honestly, when I answered the questions as if were a Christian I didn't feel as if I was really lying either.
I am not saying I am Christian. Gnostic syntheism runs strong in my veins. I feel as one who is this faith I can know and understand God better than any Christian ever could. Maybe it is because I focus a lot of it on The Omniverse or Holy Spirit. I don't know.
What I do know however is, if one day I decided to convert, I would get baptized at the Evangelical Lutheran church minutes away from my house. If I decide to attend church on Sunday, that's great, but that church has video recordings of services on YouTube. Whenever I would feel like my faith isn't strong enough I would study the Old Testament on Saturdays to understand the Torah and prophets thereafter. And honestly I could see myself possibly one day, if I could deny my own syntheism, to just follow Christ in a way that would best suit me.
In the end I would probably not call myself any of those four labels, but instead, just a Christian and I would probably own a cross necklace. And I wouldn't let anyone let me get between The Son and me, and I would tell nobody how is the correct way to get to Him.
Overall I could be a very decent and upright Christian. And Christianity has it in the way which, as long as you believe in Him, that you can virtually be any kind of person you want to be. There are maybe three types of syntheists: the pantheist, the atheist and the humanist syntheists. All three are essentially the same. Things like pacifism doesn't really apply directly to syntheistic teachings. Having a religion of 2.2 billion followers offers more flexibility than say, a religion of maybe ten thousand followers.
I already own multiple Bibles, both in print and in audiobook format. I have contemplated many times how I can do this in a way where I'm not just arguing my syntheism to the pastors. The last service I went to I felt uplifted by the message but also felt like the things being said disagreed with my scientific understandings. And probably the hardest thing for me to truly wrap my head around is, well, I'm gnostic. I feel like right now I know God so well already, as time progresses I see things change more and more. And if, let's say, I became a Lutheran, I might only have faith in God again, rather than the knowledge of God I understand from my syntheism.
Anyways, I think about this more often than I would like to admit. And I know there's probably some Christians right now who are probably reading this who are like, "we're so close!" I developed my syntheism when I was 14, and have been in the syntheist realm since then. As far as Christian Syntheism goes, I might as well at that point become a Mormon. But Mormonism is a bit too hands-on for my tastes, honestly.
So, what do you think?
The thread title is all you need to answer the question for yourself, and with this introductory post I am going to elaborate on this for myself.
So, the main groups I am interested in include: Messianic Judaism/Jewish Christianity, Mennonites, Evangelical Lutheranism and Mormonism. I will list each in its own paragraph explaining why I'm interested in them.
Messianic Judaism/Jewish Christianity: Possibly the most legitimate version of Christianity out there, that teaches to respect both the new and the old, and if you can quote scripture Jesus literally says that following the Torah is essentially following him, that he is the Law. And I don't really subscribe to replacement theory, where the New supersedes the old in any way. If you only believe in the Gospels why is there a Old Testament? Jesus was Jewish. End of story.
Mennonites: I consider myself a pacifist. Mennonites are both against abortion and the death penalty. I would have a hard time believing that any other group in America is also against both at the same time.
Evangelical Lutheranism: Okay, so I took a religious quiz and got 100% Evangelical Lutheran. I would say half of the responses were "only if I were a Christian" where the other half was truly me. The reason why I think I would make a good Evangelical Lutheran is they both promote the inerrancy of the scripture and at the same time are mainline and for things like gay marriage and women pastors. And I agree!
Mormonism: Mormons believe in many Gods, that you can become a God, and all of that, and to that remark I say Mormonism is very close to the Earthseed and Syntheist argument of, "God is change."
I have thought about this so hard I am surprised I haven't already called myself a Christian. The last service I went to was an Evangelical Lutheran service, and it would be very easy for me just to walk there and (eventually) get baptized. This syntheist pantheistic trinity I hold: The Omniverse, Entropy and Extropy can easily be translated into The Holy Spirit, The Father and The Son. Honestly, when I answered the questions as if were a Christian I didn't feel as if I was really lying either.
I am not saying I am Christian. Gnostic syntheism runs strong in my veins. I feel as one who is this faith I can know and understand God better than any Christian ever could. Maybe it is because I focus a lot of it on The Omniverse or Holy Spirit. I don't know.
What I do know however is, if one day I decided to convert, I would get baptized at the Evangelical Lutheran church minutes away from my house. If I decide to attend church on Sunday, that's great, but that church has video recordings of services on YouTube. Whenever I would feel like my faith isn't strong enough I would study the Old Testament on Saturdays to understand the Torah and prophets thereafter. And honestly I could see myself possibly one day, if I could deny my own syntheism, to just follow Christ in a way that would best suit me.
In the end I would probably not call myself any of those four labels, but instead, just a Christian and I would probably own a cross necklace. And I wouldn't let anyone let me get between The Son and me, and I would tell nobody how is the correct way to get to Him.
Overall I could be a very decent and upright Christian. And Christianity has it in the way which, as long as you believe in Him, that you can virtually be any kind of person you want to be. There are maybe three types of syntheists: the pantheist, the atheist and the humanist syntheists. All three are essentially the same. Things like pacifism doesn't really apply directly to syntheistic teachings. Having a religion of 2.2 billion followers offers more flexibility than say, a religion of maybe ten thousand followers.
I already own multiple Bibles, both in print and in audiobook format. I have contemplated many times how I can do this in a way where I'm not just arguing my syntheism to the pastors. The last service I went to I felt uplifted by the message but also felt like the things being said disagreed with my scientific understandings. And probably the hardest thing for me to truly wrap my head around is, well, I'm gnostic. I feel like right now I know God so well already, as time progresses I see things change more and more. And if, let's say, I became a Lutheran, I might only have faith in God again, rather than the knowledge of God I understand from my syntheism.
Anyways, I think about this more often than I would like to admit. And I know there's probably some Christians right now who are probably reading this who are like, "we're so close!" I developed my syntheism when I was 14, and have been in the syntheist realm since then. As far as Christian Syntheism goes, I might as well at that point become a Mormon. But Mormonism is a bit too hands-on for my tastes, honestly.
So, what do you think?
