Atheism and being Armenian

[KanadaHye]

Re: Atheism and being Armenian

Yeah, I don't see us as being inferior to either of those groups if we didn't have this attachment to church.
Why do you feel it is something we need? No one should convince us to destroy our churches. They are part of our history and they should be preserved. It seems like religion that's often a motivation to destroy history. E.g. destroying pagan buildings, not preserving history from our pagan past, etc. as efforts to forget the past and dedicate ourselves to the present and future as Christians. For instance, the Greeks and Egyptians aren't now destroying their ancient temples because the religion has changed and they no longer believe in Zeus, Athena, Ra, or Osiris.

Here is a pic of Pagan architecture in Garni. Are you comparing this basic bird house with pillars to the highly complex mathematically calculated and detailed architecture of our Churches?

[Mos]

Re: Atheism and being Armenian

Christianity has not even been part of the Armenian identity for the majority of its history, let alone long enough for us to insist it is an essential element of being Armenian.

Christianity greatly refined Armenian identity. After the adoption of Christianity, it was a struggle to keep our sacred religion as other powers tried to convert us. The Armenian church remained a centre of research, culture, and heritage preservation. During the Genocide, converting out of Christianity to Islam was basically converting to become a Turk. Denying the importance of the Christian religion to Armenian history and identity is not looking clearly at the facts. If we had given up our religion, we would be assimilated Turks, Kurds, and Azeri for all I know. And if it wasn't essential element, you wouldn't have Armenian church every place where there is sizeable Armenian community.

[Siggie]

Re: Atheism and being Armenian

Yeah, I don't see us as being inferior to either of those groups if we didn't have this attachment to church.
Why do you feel it is something we need? No one should convince us to destroy our churches. They are part of our history and they should be preserved. It seems like religion that's often a motivation to destroy history. E.g. destroying pagan buildings, not preserving history from our pagan past, etc. as efforts to forget the past and dedicate ourselves to the present and future as Christians. For instance, the Greeks and Egyptians aren't now destroying their ancient temples because the religion has changed and they no longer believe in Zeus, Athena, Ra, or Osiris.

[KanadaHye]

Re: Atheism and being Armenian

You want to be just like j3ws and muslims? ewwwwww

No, I'm striving to be a Chinese J3w

[Sip]

Re: Atheism and being Armenian

I don't think that it is good for us to be atheists. We were first Christians in world and we must be proud with it!

Yes and Turks are being proud of being Turks. "being proud" means nothing to me if what you are proud of isn't much to go on.

[Sip]

Re: Atheism and being Armenian

Here we go again. J3ws congregate at temple. Muslims at mosques.

You want to be just like j3ws and muslims? ewwwwww

[KanadaHye]

Re: Atheism and being Armenian

Christianity has not even been part of the Armenian identity for the majority of its history, let alone long enough for us to insist it is an essential element of being Armenian.

Here we go again. J3ws congregate at temple. Muslims at mosques. Armenians... well nowhere because they've been convinced that their churches needed to be destroyed because their beliefs attained through history were inferior!

[Siggie]

Re: Atheism and being Armenian

Christianity has not even been part of the Armenian identity for the majority of its history, let alone long enough for us to insist it is an essential element of being Armenian.

[Mos]

Re: Atheism and being Armenian

I don't think that it is good for us to be atheists. We were first Christians in world and we must be proud with it!

Christian identity is central to being Armenian. Even if one is not very religious they should still respect the Armenian Church, holidays, and clergy.

[Mikael]

Re: Atheism and being Armenian

I don't think that it is good for us to be atheists. We were first Christians in world and we must be proud with it!