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• Please give me good reasons why the Christian religion is not real.
  

  This discussion seems a little controversial.
  
  I think it’s good that you’re questioning your faith.
  
  I personally think that it’s not a healthy thing to either view a religion as being 100% correct, or reject it entirely. Religions are just human institutions, even ones that have divine inspiration or deep truths in them are still carried out by humans, and humans are imperfect.
  
  So I would advise you to look with a critical mind at Christianity–what about it do you agree with, and what about it do you disagree with?
  
  I don’t agree with everything about most forms of Christianity, but I sometimes attend churches. I find some churches resonate more with my belief system than others. There are some churches I feel very uncomfortable in, but others that I have enjoyed going to regularly.
  
  I personally don’t think you need to fear hell. I think hell is just a human concept that is an attempt to imperfectly grasp some sort of spiritual concept. Personally, I don’t believe that God punishes people because I believe that God is loving and I think the idea of judging or punishing people for what they believe is a human idea–one that is unhealthy–and that is not sanctioned by God. This is my personal belief, but I know some Christians share it too. For example, Universalists (which include the Christians who merged into the UU denomination) believe that everyone is saved regardless of what they believe. I know a number of people in other denominations who believe this true…and of course that’s just Christians. There are plenty of people who believe in God who aren’t Christian and who don’t share that particular view on hell.
  
  I think it’s important to talk to lots of people and get different perspectives, but most importantly, don’t feel the need to agree or disagree with something 100%. Most groups are complex and you’re nearly always going to find some things you disagree with and some you agree with about any group.
  - written 2 weeks, 5 days ago

• What religion are you?
  

  I think it’s exciting that this many people are responding!
  
  My religion is called Why This Way, and it’s a relatively new belief system, which not everyone considers to be a religion, but which I do. It is consensus-based, and the official writings of the group are stored on a wiki, which can be edited by anyone in the group.
  
  The group centers around a particular way of communicating, which we see as having many facets to it, but which we see as being helpful for discerning truth, and for respecting other people’s belief systems. The group is also very accommodating of people having different beliefs on spiritual matters and even some moral matters. Some of the core beliefs of the group include an emphasis on self-motivation, acting out of genuine desire rather than acting out of a sense of obligation. We aim to cultivate people’s self motivation and help people’s desires to come into harmony with their value systems, and also to break down vague senses of obligation that people feel due to societal pressure or messages from society that conflict with their values.
  
  I personally believe in God and share many beliefs in common with Christians, and fairly regularly attend various Christian churches, including Episcopal, and New Church (Swedenborgian) services. My personal belief system is also very influenced by the New Church and the ideas of Emanuel Swedenborg, although I don’t agree with everything about the theology and stances of that denomination either.
  - written 2 weeks, 5 days ago

• Is lemon tea and green tea the same?
  

  No, lemon tea and green tea are distinct categories, although they can overlap–you can have lemon-flavored green tea.
  
  Lemon tea can mean different things. It can mean lemon-flavored tea (black or green), or it can mean an herbal tea with a predominately lemon flavor. Often this involves lemony herbs like lemongrass, lemon balm, lemon myrtle, and the like–which have similar aromas and flavors, although they are not closely related to each other or to lemons.
  
  This page, which I maintain, explains more about what green tea is:
  
  http://ratetea.com/style/green-tea/4/
  
  Green tea is certainly healthy, but I think its health benefits are often over-hyped. Don’t believe everything you read online, especially things that don’t identify authorship and cite reliable sources.
  
  Also, lemon is healthy–including many of the chemicals responsible for lemon’s flavor. Many of the lemon-scented herbs are quite healthy. I generally recommend for people to give preference to whole herbs though, rather than flavored teas which just include flavoring and not the whole leaf or plant. My personal favorite is lemon balm, which grows easily in gardens in temperate regions.
  
  You can blend lemon-scented herbs with green tea…I think that is healthier and better tasting than buying most lemon-flavored teas available at the supermarket. I hope you find this helpful!
  - written 2 weeks, 5 days ago

• Any Ideas on how to make a bitter tea not so bitter?
  

  That examiner article is oriented towards true tea, from the tea plant (Camellia sinensis), not herbal teas, so I wouldn’t think it’s necessarily applicable, although some of the advice, like about the steeping time and amount of leaf used, may be helpful.
  
  I think finchberry’s advice to mix it is good…find an herb or tea that is naturally not at all bitter or minimally bitter, and try mixing it.
  
  Also you could try brewing it less strongly–using less leaf, or a shorter steeping time. Some herbs become too bitter if steeped too long.
  
  Do you have a compelling reason to want to drink this particular herbal tea, like for its medicinal purposes? In that case you may want to keep working on it, but if it’s just for taste, I’d say to give it up and try other things. There are many herbs out there and many of them taste quite smooth and even a few taste naturally sweet.
  - written 2 weeks, 5 days ago

• does green tea help lose weight?
  

  Other people have given a lot of good links. A word of caution, I wouldn’t trust any site that writes about tea and health. I also trust Mayo Clinic much more than WebMD. I’ve found, in areas in which I have expertise, that WebMD’s scholarship tends to be pretty sloppy. Mayo Clinic I’ve had better experience with.
  
  I also maintain a page about tea and weight loss:
  
  http://ratetea.com/topic/tea-and-weight-loss/23/
  
  Basically, the conclusions I reached in my research, looking over the scholarly literature, is that tea certainly won’t hurt your weight loss efforts, but it also is unlikely to help you by more than a small amount. And there’s little evidence that green tea is better than other types of tea (black tea, oolong, Pu-erh, white tea, etc.). So I recommend to just drink what tastes best to you and what makes you feel best!
  - written 11 months, 2 weeks ago

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