Thoughts and Prayers: The Religion Thread

We've already discussed this. The reliability of the Bible as a document is questionable at best. The version most of us read was written after Jesus Christ. At best, it is the divine as written down by humans with flaws and agendas, which has since been translated multiple times by more humans with more flaws and more agendas.

 

Also, this...

 

Neat. Nevertheless, hell is in the Bible - it's in there a lot - and the Bible is generally the source text for all Christians.

 

Alma, in his arrogance, is going dismiss any belief system that isn't his. It isn't a surprise, but it is fun to point out given that he was babbling about atheists somehow being too arrogant earlier in the thread.

 

GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) Definition

 

I haven't said one word about another religion in these recent posts. I'll let adherents of those religions take more of the lead on those.

Don't make stuff up.

 

My first church was a Southern Babtis' church in Bossier City. They seemed to handle having a diverse flock pretty well. I might have stayed if other SBC congos were like that one. While in college I discovered... DUN! DUN! DUN! the Episcopal Chruch!

Alma, I say this as someone who gets the vibe that I bother you. If you want to presume that my speciousness is a rejection of what you see as the ONLY way to be a Christian, well, it takes just a few seconds to hit the ignore button. I don't think you're a weirdo loser. You're a smart cookie with an interesting take on things. However, you have a dim view of humanity and I find that kind of sad.

Jesus seemed to really love people. One thing inferred is he delighted in seeing humans doing human things. He partied. He broke bread. He laughed. He cried. We were supposedly made in God's image and in turn, the Son of God took on our image when he decided to walk among us. The crucifixion was the spoiler. We're supposed to see grace in action as he wrestled with the foibles of being human.

 

You don't bother me at all. I don't personally feel like I'm being called a weirdo loser, I'm suggesting the dichotomy you set up there was Christians either don't believe in hell or they get sinfully excited at the idea of others being punished. A Christian who doesn't believe in hell, if you will, is kind of throwing Jesus' blood back in Jesus' face. What'd he die for, if not to keep mankind from being eternally separated from God? Why would God put Himself through all that unless He knew there was a hell? It doesn't make any internal logic - like, within the faith - to say there's no hell. Of course there is within the construct of Christianity. And I can make a compelling argument against works-righteousness - that it's grace alone, etc, Calvinist stuff - as to who goes to hell, but there's a hell within the logic of Christianity.

And the whole "well, man wrote this and twisted that over the years, and, wouldn't you know it, our Western culture just happens to know that m; one thing we're really confident isn't true is the gazillion references to hell in the OT and NT"....I don't have any time for that nonsense. Do you? I'd rather have someone say "the whole Bible is crap" than "well, it's a good book, but the most uncomfortable part, hell, that's just mankind being manipulative." It's part of why I spend about 0.01% of my time thinking about hell. Hell isn't the point. But suggesting it's not even there makes hell a disingenuous matter of debate. If one doesn't think the Christian worldview doesn't include hell, one might want to rethink it.

And Jesus did really love people. Jesus also stood in Jerusalem and bellowed out the seven woes. He also, not long after that, talks of the weeping and gnashing of teeth that'll occur when "the Son of Man" returns. A Christian believes Jesus is all good, and all god, and our Westernized concept of goodness - infinite niceness and tolerance, universal happiness - is not only an incomplete (and frankly ludicrous) concept of good, it's different from the falsely pious, grim attitudes of Jesus' day. The gospels rightly contrast Jesus to the Pharisees - that was the context of the day, the bitter and broken thing the nation of Israel had become - but, as subsequent letters lay out (and as Revelation lays out), the Gentiles would have their own struggles with Christianity, and they weren't necessarily the same as Israel's.

Do I have a dim view of humanity? Well, I have a Biblical view. I think all of mankind is fallen, and separated from God, and no amount of good deeds -as perceived by humankind - is going to bridge that gap. In a way, that's pretty freeing, that I'm not having to earn it by anyone's standards, including mine. I don't have to be my own authority on my own existential fate. I'll take that for me and everyone else. The gospel is a democratizing reality.

Your view, based on your dichotomies, is that there are good people and bad people, smart and stupid, successes and failures, people who "get it," and people who don't. That seems like a dimmer view, because it requires I, or anyone else, get it "right" according to...the prevailing notion of the day.

 

I'm not making anything up and you are kindly invited to take your suggestion to the contrary and shove it up the wrong end of your anatomy.

I'm reflecting the hypocrisy of your posts right back at you. You have made those statements. That you haven't done it recently is irrelevant.

 

If avoidance of Hell is a linchpin for grace by Christ's sacrifice, wouldn't it be a worthy topic to pursue? Or do you mean contemplating the existence of Hell? It seems more likely that Christ wanted to save us from ourselves. What if this existence is Hell? Not sure I believe that, but I have heard that argument put forth.

Hmmm. Not hmmph! Hmmm. I want to chew on this for a bit.

 

I believe Hell to be allegorical, FWIW.

 

Which is to say, Hell would be an entry denied for a reunion with long departed loved ones.
But I suppose we all have our own idealization of paradise.
It ain't called belief for nothing.