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Hello there, I'm Sofia and I'm a swedish university student.
I'm not here to argue or to question your believes. You all believe what you do and that's fine, I see little point in getting outraged or offended by them. I relaised a long time ago that religious debates is pointless, in those issues I can't affect your life and there is no point to try. Flame wars are equally bad so I rather avoid that as well. Besides no matter what you all do probably know what your talking about when it comes to christians better then me considering I never read a single page of the bible or visited the church on a sunday in my life. I can freely admit however that in some ways it's hard to fully understand how different life must be in the US. Even if you are not the majority of it's populations a church like this could never even exist in Sweden. At least if it did it would be little more then a bad joke.
The reason I did register is to attempt if allowed to gain some insight into things I most likely know next to nothing about. That is after all one of the wonderful benefits of the internet. It allows us to explore and learn about the world in a way that would otherwise be impossible. I don't intend to stay here too long though, a few weeks at most would be enough for me and might even be too long. After all this is a baptist forum and while I hope temporarly guests might be tolerated if not welcomed I suspect a longer stay for me would do little beyond interupting what your members are truely here for.
I am not a christian but even if I was in the swedish sense I suspect we would still have little in common. This is how religion works in sweden. All school children however did visit Church at easter, christmas and the end spring before summer vecation. Not for mass mind you, but sadly swedish priests have a bad habbit of trying to guide guidance for live to young people here despite the fact that nothing they talk about have anything to do with their churches or any god. For younger adults the church mostly try to represent itself as a youth recreation centre then anything else. I can't even count the number of times I heard the arguments from priests that while I'm not baptised, or gone through the confirmation or even believe that shouldn't prevent me from taking part of church activities. It goes without saying I never quite understand how they think.
Then again it's a small joke here that they probably don't believe either. We are a very secular country and while the majority of swedish population is still members of the church of Sweden it's mostly it's because of tradition. I remember when my sisters boyfriends family was upset because they decided not to baptise their baby. Their arguments rather amuse me since one of the things I heard them refer to was this.
Faith doesn't matter. It's just one of the things that should be done, oh and don't even DARE to think about leaving the church. After all they provide several beneitial things that could be useful in the future (like church weddings).
They simply don't believe in god either I suspect they just are conservative in the way that they like to follow traditions and among swedish people I suspect they are not rare. If the point isn't clear already here is a few things and quotes the former arch bishop was responsible for. The first part of the quote I translated myself but I could not find a full one online and I rather not quote half statements.
"It's up to God to prove himself, that is not our task. What we can do instead is to clear the field from a few shapes we have inherited and remove all "must do's". You do not have to believe in anything particular to be a Christian. To say that you want to be part of it is enough. What kind of right do I have to question that? The definition frenzy only leads to exclusion"
He is also rather famous for allowing Ecce Homo to take place in Uppsala Cathedral. It was a exhibit that showed Jesus among or even as a holosexual. While he since then been replaced by one that isn't quite as large of a joke the pracices remains the same if not spoken as openly now. We might also see the church being forced to either give up the right to marry people legaly soon or accept to marry homosexual couples. Anyway that is the situation as it looks over here, hopefully it might explain how different our lives are from each other or if nothing else it given you plenty of reason to ban or tell me to go away right away if you rather like no more guests at all at your forums.
I'm not here to argue or to question your believes. You all believe what you do and that's fine, I see little point in getting outraged or offended by them. I relaised a long time ago that religious debates is pointless, in those issues I can't affect your life and there is no point to try. Flame wars are equally bad so I rather avoid that as well. Besides no matter what you all do probably know what your talking about when it comes to christians better then me considering I never read a single page of the bible or visited the church on a sunday in my life. I can freely admit however that in some ways it's hard to fully understand how different life must be in the US. Even if you are not the majority of it's populations a church like this could never even exist in Sweden. At least if it did it would be little more then a bad joke.
The reason I did register is to attempt if allowed to gain some insight into things I most likely know next to nothing about. That is after all one of the wonderful benefits of the internet. It allows us to explore and learn about the world in a way that would otherwise be impossible. I don't intend to stay here too long though, a few weeks at most would be enough for me and might even be too long. After all this is a baptist forum and while I hope temporarly guests might be tolerated if not welcomed I suspect a longer stay for me would do little beyond interupting what your members are truely here for.
I am not a christian but even if I was in the swedish sense I suspect we would still have little in common. This is how religion works in sweden. All school children however did visit Church at easter, christmas and the end spring before summer vecation. Not for mass mind you, but sadly swedish priests have a bad habbit of trying to guide guidance for live to young people here despite the fact that nothing they talk about have anything to do with their churches or any god. For younger adults the church mostly try to represent itself as a youth recreation centre then anything else. I can't even count the number of times I heard the arguments from priests that while I'm not baptised, or gone through the confirmation or even believe that shouldn't prevent me from taking part of church activities. It goes without saying I never quite understand how they think.
Then again it's a small joke here that they probably don't believe either. We are a very secular country and while the majority of swedish population is still members of the church of Sweden it's mostly it's because of tradition. I remember when my sisters boyfriends family was upset because they decided not to baptise their baby. Their arguments rather amuse me since one of the things I heard them refer to was this.
Faith doesn't matter. It's just one of the things that should be done, oh and don't even DARE to think about leaving the church. After all they provide several beneitial things that could be useful in the future (like church weddings).
They simply don't believe in god either I suspect they just are conservative in the way that they like to follow traditions and among swedish people I suspect they are not rare. If the point isn't clear already here is a few things and quotes the former arch bishop was responsible for. The first part of the quote I translated myself but I could not find a full one online and I rather not quote half statements.
"It's up to God to prove himself, that is not our task. What we can do instead is to clear the field from a few shapes we have inherited and remove all "must do's". You do not have to believe in anything particular to be a Christian. To say that you want to be part of it is enough. What kind of right do I have to question that? The definition frenzy only leads to exclusion"
He is also rather famous for allowing Ecce Homo to take place in Uppsala Cathedral. It was a exhibit that showed Jesus among or even as a holosexual. While he since then been replaced by one that isn't quite as large of a joke the pracices remains the same if not spoken as openly now. We might also see the church being forced to either give up the right to marry people legaly soon or accept to marry homosexual couples. Anyway that is the situation as it looks over here, hopefully it might explain how different our lives are from each other or if nothing else it given you plenty of reason to ban or tell me to go away right away if you rather like no more guests at all at your forums.
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