KICK ***!
This was the stuff that I was looking for...
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Ok, they aren't. Buddhist teachings are similar to Jesus', not the other way around. Jesus taught things that were obviously good, whether or not you accepted Him as the Messiah. His teachings appeal to the goodness in people, that's why many people will say "He was a great prophet, but nothing more." Buddhist teachings can follow His ideas, but then they won't confess Him as Lord, therefore they are wrong.
Historians, start your engines!
Now the question comes into play... Didn't Buddha live on this earth pre-Jesus? More over, wasn't he out of contact as far as Jesus' teachings go even if Jesus did live before Buddha?
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If you believe the Word of God, which you don't, then you know that the Bible, and the NT covenant in particular, is for all men. Just because they choose not to accept doesn't change it's relevance to them.
Ahh... okay, so it's just like every other religious book in the context of their religion being true (if each religion was introduced to someone, therefore each having equal credence).
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Yes, there is, because you are wrong. Jesus's death did not take place to appease God's wrath. It took place to cover all sin for all man forever.
Sorry, I worded that a bit angstfully =p... Equally though, it was that sinfulness that was "cleansed" that made God so angry over the state of his creation. Which is funny, because He knew that we would do what we do before he created us. Furthermore, seeing as he created us, and could've created us differently as to follow the Light, he is at root responsible for our world and how it is.
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Because Adam & Eve violated God's covenant and introduced the world to sin, the world became Satan's possession.
Actually, in the grand scheme of things (and in my eyes), God introduced the world to sin by creating beings with curious minds that he knew would sin. Which adds to the hilarity of God being 'angry' over that mess, because he either allowed Satan into the garden, or PUT him there, knowing that he would corrupt Eve, who in turn corrupted Adam (Because 'women are easily deceived' to paraphrase the Bible's reference to their disposition).
AND WHY THE HELL (no pun intended) IS EARTH SATAN'S POSSESSION!?!!? Why did God give Satan a playground to corrupt and steal souls from God at? I thought his Rebellion was worth punishing him for! Guess not, in the Bible, I see Satan having one hell of a time deceiving and destroying the faith of many people. It's not enough that a human must decide to love someone he'll never meet or talk to, but that he'll have to do so simply on faith all while being tricked, deceived, and tempted away from it! I know God wants people to choose him because they want to, but there's no excuse for throwing wrenches in their gears while trying to reach Him. Don't get me started on God testing the faith of His followers, either, ESSPECIALLY since the cost of failing is EVERLASTING PERPETUAL DEATH! (Much like public access television)
Grrr... That's what steams up so much about christianity... It's merciless regulations against those that think that a difference religion has more credence than Christianity.
It's one thing to place your little creations on a world that leads most of them to not believe in you, but to send them to eternal punishment for not loving you is INSANE in my opinion.
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Okay, Jesus did not want to die. Yes, Jesus was God in flesh, but He was as human as you and me, and would want a painful death as much as you or I would. He knew that God's will was for Him to die as our replacement, so He accepted that burden, but He did not want it. This is clearly evidenced by the fact that He asked God to "remove this cup" from Him, if it was possible. Then He sweated in such agony that His sweat drops were blood. Remember all that? He did not want to die, but He desired to please His Father more than His own desires.
He knew that there was a heaven and His Father was in it the same amount that a Christian would today. He was our example, to show us what we could be. He wasn't some half-human/half-angel being. He had faith in what His Father said, and He acted upon that faith.
You got me.
I should've posed the idea as, "Jesus would've been very dissapointed if he did not die as he did."
He was as human as us? Perhaps, apparently, at least in image, but I believe he (in the context of him existing, and christianity being plausible) was far more divine, in his abilities to perform miracles at whim and without need for recovery. He was enlightened. The reason so many humans deliberate over who is right when it comes to religion is, many religions preach of some sort of Hell or negative reincarnation, and thus they have much to lose if any one of those is true. Jesus did not have that problem. He knew he was the son of God, and that paradise was waiting for him. A prize, of which, would be given at his death. NO CHRISTIAN would convert to something else, or drop faith altogether, if they knew with the same certainty of Christ, that the Judeo-Christian teachings were true, and Heaven has many different bouncers to get past if you want to enter. And you know what? Christians lose their faith all the time.
Our views of Jesus are very different it seems.
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The Bible doesn't say clearly where God's people went when they died pre-Jesus, but there are verses that suggest a sort of holding place (not hell). It's the place that Jesus spoke of when He told the thief on the cross next to Him that "today you will be with me in Paradise". I do not know the Scripture references on this one, so I can't back it up right now. Sorry, I might be able to to scrounge something up later.
Don't worry about the references, because after being a christian for so long, I clearly remember those words; but not about the 'holding place'...
Regardless, that Bible verse creeps me out about no one ever going to Heaven before Jesus. That was always an implied idea. Esspecially since the Jews lived by such strict rules that bestowed death on many who broke them.
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As for the "good people" you spoke of, "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me."
Even believing in God isn't enough, many religions believe in a "God". You must believe that Jesus was His Son, and that He died to remove your sins, and rose again.
That doesn't quite assauge my feelings though, seeing as you've said nothing that defends the many good people who aren't christian. I'd be VERY difficult for ANYONE to convince me that God could not of, in his infinite mercy and wisdom, created a realm reserved for those who both did not know christ at all, and those who did not choose to follow him, but led very peaceful, harmoneous lives that benefitted those around them.
BETTER YET!-- Why doesn't God judge people on a case-by-case basis, taking into consideration only the person and his life, NOT whether or not he safeguarded himself by believing theory 'A, B, and C, and the other thing'.
Disgusting to me is the idea of a God that would cast a kind and gentle soul to eternal damnation, with NO CHANCE of redemption for his crime of not believing in someone, who very well could not of existed or have been true.
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God will give you His righteousness! You will be as righteous as He is.
Don't get me started on this... Too many people have I seen that are filled with a pious, and reverent trust in God that are filthy, disgusting people in their hearts, and often in their active lives.
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I know that it is painful to think that loved ones that have passed away aren't in heaven, and that they are in fact in hell. I know the feeling very well. But consider this: rather than taking that knowledge and turning your back on God, ask yourself if you want to meet the same fate as they did?
Tell me then, and try not blinding force yourself to defend the Bible and your God, "Did they deserve Hell, simply for not having a belief in someone that, for all they knew, could've been wrong, or simply non-existent?"
A belief in Christ seems too miniscule a thing to separate those who enter heaven and who suffer eternal perpetual death. There's a rather LARGE difference in the two, and frankly, I still believe that it would be the cruelest fate, if Christianity were true.
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The Bible says "Choose you this day whom you will serve."
And it's a shame, that so many other religions are so convincing that their numbers exceed christians by, what I guess, ~1-2 billion.
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There is no real OT Jewish concept of an afterlife beyond Sheol. Heaven exists in the OT but as God's home, not as an eternal reward for the holy (aside from Enoch and Elijah who were taken bodily into heaven). Sheol is pretty much nothingness. Eternal rest and greyness and that sort of thing. The idea in the Old Testment being that, largely, righteousness is its own reward. That and most of God's rewards in the Old Testment are earthly. Job passes God's test and receives three times his previous wealth. David has a palace and an army. So on and so forth. The entire Old Testament is largely a lesson that when nations (or people) glorify and honor God they get rich and powerful but when they turn away, they get over run with pagans and infidels and turn poor and miserable. Never in the New Testament does Jesus say that, according to the new order, you stand to benefit in any material sense from being righteous. In fact Jesus warns the opposite: that believing in him is setting yourself up for a life of scorn, poverty and potential death but you'll be rewarded in Heaven.
Keep in mind that, as there is no eternal paradise in the Old Testament, so is there no eternal damnation in Hell. Hell is a concept taken from various neighboring faiths, largely Greek/Roman with its subcatagories of Gehanna, Tartarus, etc and doesn't enter into the Bible (or the Judeo-Christian faith) until the New Testament.
People like you bolster my faith in humanity.
Your argument also syncs up with the OT, but in my experiences and talks with modern jews, they believe this, to paraphrase...
"When you die, God will judge you. All are punished according to their deeds. They suffer, but then are given the choice to shun their old ways and join God in heaven, or choose to be abolished from existence. Those who led lives of extreme evil (Hitler, anyone?) would be painfully exterminated from existence with no chance of joining God. Good people go to Heaven."
I like their version of the afterlife MUCH MUCH better. It's what I'd expect at the least from and all-knowing, all-powerful, all-merciful, all-loving being.
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1) Yes, I am a Christian, but I do not believe that we are all meant to worship in the same way. Each person can follow their own beliefs and remain in God's grace as long as his heart is true. In fact, Jews, Christians (of all denominations), and Muslims, are all flavors of the same religion. They just chose to believe slightly different things at one point or another. Same ideas, same beginnings. But back to your question... (Warning, this is long, may challenge your beliefs, and is in no way my opinion. It is rather my understanding of facts I have read. It also elaborates on the faults of the church throughout history, from a historian's standpoint, though I do not claim to be a historian.)
You're the kind of Christian that keeps me from giving up on your spiritual kin who scare the crap out of me.
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2) I do believe God is all-knowing. However, like the wise father, He lets his children make their own mistakes and learn from them. Seriously, how many times have you done something your father said not to? Sometimes the only way to learn is by first hand experience.
I wouldn't let my children make mistakes that I knew would cause them eternal excruciating pain suffering =/.
Besides, Hell offers no redemption, which defeats a great portion of the purpose of punishment itself. We punish people so that they do not do something bad again, for the most part. If you go to hell, there's no chance for you to get out, and no end to it, so there is really no point other than to scare fence-sitters to believe in Christianity, solely because they're afraid of the consequences of NOT believing it, which is no reason to believe in something in the first place.
On the separate flavors notion... I wish it were that simple, but Christianity preaches damnation of all other flavors, so it skews the whole idea...
[quote]Also, Christians, Jews, and Muslims are not flavors of the same religion. The point of dissention? Jesus. And that is a big deal, my friend. Big indeed.[/quote]
Muslims believe in Jesus VERY MUCH like how the christians do. It seems to me also, that Muslims are like christians who actually follow everything their Holy Book tells them to, rather than say that a part or two isn't for them. It'd be a VERY different world if Christians did everything their Bible told them to.
Jews are just waiting for the real Messiah.
[quote]While I respect your opinions, I must warn you as a fellow Christian to be careful when studying other religions and their literature. The devil is a crafty one, and can appeal to your mind by showing you things that "make sense", but contradict the Word of God. [/quote]
It's too bad that God does not reveal himself, esspecially to loyal christians in private at least. It's a shame that no matter how strong in the faith you are, there's few things stopping one from being able to accept that perhaps there is no God.
This thread is now kicking *** and I'm so happy that you all made such great, MATURE arguments, and I will happily be rating you all up (as if that means anything to you... And yes, you too, Death ;) )
