How To Get To Heaven When You Die

Exactly. I'm squarely in the "nones" (that group of people who don't identify with any particular religion), but that has a lot more to do my own personal observations and experiences than any issue with the fact that religions are fundamentally cultures of beliefs that grow and evolve. I don't identify as atheist (I'm NOT an atheist) but I don't see living by some purely arbitrary set of rules that seem to bear little to no relationship to moral or ethical behavior.

It's my opinion that most of those rules are supported by mythology rather than actual divine interaction with humans. Made up rules supported by made up stories, and seem to me to be designed to control the populace.

 

All of which are totally opinions to which you are entitled. I think for those of us who do affiliate with religions, part of it has to do with not seeing those rules as either purely arbitrary or unrelated to moral/ethical behavior. But if you do see it that way, then why would you affiliate with such a religion, and why would anyone want you to do so?

And while I tend to think that when it comes to religious texts or traditions, it's not necessarily a clear either/or between divine interactions and mythology, and I disagree that the narratives are merely devices for populace control, I also think that you have every right to see it that way, and trying to change your mind would not only be rude but an utter waste of time.

One of the biggest issues I have with fundamentalism in any religion (including my own) is the notion that questioning should not be tolerated and belief must conform. I prefer to think that people are capable of making their own decisions.

Not only do I not have an issue with that, it is my belief (like many, if not most, other Jews) that what is of primary concern to God is behavior, not belief. Not only is not my business, or anyone else's business but yours what you believe, but I truly think that what is relevant and important is how you act toward other people, whether or not you try to help the society around you be more just.

Folks like you and SirLance and other "non-believers" are good folks. You don't need the shit that fundamentalists throw at you guys. And I feel strongly that God doesn't think you need that shit, either.

 

You have clearly not spoken to any of my ex-wives....

For me, a big issue with organized religion in general and those arbitrary rules (and I respect that you don't see them as arbitrary) is that I can't get there from here....

I've seen a lot of crazy shit. I've had the sudden urge to take cover right before the artillery hit. I've seen strangers act against their own self-interest to help others. These are the observations that underpin my belief in, for want of a better term, god. The best way I can explain myself is to say that god is an all encompassing field in which all things exist, and which manifests itself in the pairing of life with matter. If you consider forces as an aspect of space-time, then consider love as an aspect of god.

I just can't get from "God is love" to "don't eat meat on Friday or you'll go to hell. And don't even think about having sex or touching yourself or being gay." And I can't be a part of an organization that would exclude my middle son or my nephew because they are homosexuals.

 

Listen, I'll admit I've been kind of mockingly dismissive in this thread. Maybe that's not too mature. But to be fair, you haven't exactly been engaging us in any meaningful conversation. I'm willing to bet that more of us here have read your bible than you would expect. Hell, I'm a Wiccan, and I've read it, and continue to read it, because I think it's important to understand why people think, believe, and act the way they do. So I'll endeavor to have a more sincere dialogue with you, meme free, if you'll try to have a discussion that has some actual substance. Discussion of the merits of your religion can be engaging. Levite proves that. Just give us a little something to work with. Throwing out bible verses and walking away just enforces our stereotypes.

 

It's all a lovely story, but a lovely story doesn't make it the truth.

For me, there is no heaven, there is no hell. All we have is this life and nothing more.

I am okay with this and do not need to consult fairy tales and epic dramas to assuage a fear of the unknown.

From where I am sitting, religion is just another opiate of the masses and I would never take that away from anyone. You believe what you want and so long as it doesn't impinge on my enjoyment of this life, we are good.

 

Thanks. I didn't know you were a Wiccan, bro. Cool. You folks are pretty chill.

 

I apologize, I have been having trouble with the quoting feature on this site. You have a right to your belief, but I would ask what you base your belief on? There are many reasons to believe in Jesus Christ. He was predicted to come hundreds of years before His birth. Hundreds of details of His life were predicted and fulfilled in Him, which is amazing enough. His miracles. His death, burial and resurrection is the most compelling aspect, which proves that He is who He claims to be. The eyewitness testimony of the Bible affirms this. Secular Historians of His day affirm this. Other writings from His day affirm who He is.

 

See You completely skipped over the learned Levite's post that pretty much explains that Jesus' coming wasn't predicted, at least not by Jewish texts as our scholars will tell you.
I'm understand you wish to pick and choose who you wish to respond to but you also have to understand that if you've already been shot out of the water before you post it's a little hard to take you seriously.

 

I'll skip over the hyperbole of hundreds of details of his life being predicted. I'm curious. How do you view the Bible? As a story, a series of parables, an absolute truth, our somewhere in-between? Your description of the Gospels as eyewitness testimony leads me to believe that you view it as true. How do you reconcile the inconsistencies?

 

Perhaps I am repeating myself, but you cite an interesting story. That does not translate into Truth.

Sure, I can agree that there was likely a historical figure that was Jesus Christ, even-though the historical evidence is rather scant. That said, there is no historical evidence that this person (any person) has performed so-called miracles, or physically died and been resurrected in the ways we typically associate with the story of Jesus.

There is no proof of these things happened and faith is not enough evidence for me to believe otherwise.

Frankly, I don't see the need of anyone believing these things. It's a distraction from the good stories and lessons that can be found in The Bible.

 

It does translate into truth. The evidence points in that direction. The evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ is not scant. It's overwhelming. There is evidence that this person performed miracles. The Eyewitness testimony of His life AND the fact that there are not writings from His day refuting the eyewitness accounts of His miracles AND the fact that Christianity exploded AFTER the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Had He not really risen from the dead, Christianity would have died right then. Think about that. It's interesting that you feel at liberty to pick and choose which parts of the Bible you wish to believe. If you don't believe one aspect to be true, how can you believe in all of the other things?

 

There is only faith based evidence that there was a person who did these things. I don't have faith that these things happened. The writings were not from his time but many years after. The writings themselves (the gospels mostly) frequently tie themselves in knots trying to provide evidence to Jews that Christ was the messiah.

@Christian, you ask why I pick and choose and why I believe one part over another, I am not sure what you are referring to. Please be more specific.

 

Coulda saved themselves a loooooooot of effort....

 

How would you know? I haven't shown you the EVIDENCE yet and yet you have already made up your mind that it isn't evidence.
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There is historical writings by the historians of His time, there are eyewitness writings from the eyewitnesses who knew Him personally. He's got writings from all types from His time.

 

That's a bit of an exaggeration. There are in fact only two bits of Jesus' history this all generally agree are fact -- his baptism by John the Baptist and his crucifixion.

Other than that, the remaining 'historical' sources are largely questionable.

 

There are actually not any eyewitness personal writings from Jesus' lifetime that are known to be extant. Such a thing, if found, would have revolutionized scholarship of that era, and would be top story in every media outlet. If you are referring to the gospels, even the most liberal scholarship on the synoptic gospels (John being both much later and clearly penned by a Greek-speaking non-Jew) indicates they postdated Jesus' lifetime by decades, and even the hypothetical Q-Text upon which the core portions of those gospels were based is unlikely to have been composed directly by personal eyewitnesses to Jesus' actions.

As for "historians of his time," there is really only one mention of him from a first-century writer, and that is Flavius Josephus. Unfortunately, that section of the Antiquities has been consistently redacted and suffered interpolations by Christian writers (mostly of the Roman and Byzantine periods, if I recall correctly) in order to better conform with Christian doctrines (and sometimes to cast ill light on the Jews, which was occasionally two ways of saying the same thing), which makes it extremely difficult to discern what Josephus did, in fact, say of Jesus. Of course, as a side note, it is also worth remembering that historians in ancient times were not objective, and made no claim to objectivity; and Josephus was an apostate Jew writing in no small part to please his audience of newly-adopted fellow Romans, which makes some of his assertions and syntheses subject to some question and debate.

In any case, it is extremely important to make a distinction between what you may believe as part of your faith and what is the objective case in terms of archaeology and history; and I mean that "you" generally, not just specific to you, Christian. I know, for example, nothing would please me more than some archaeologist digging up a stone tablet written in hieroglyphics from like 3500-odd years ago saying "Hey, we were chasing these escaped slaves, and this whole part of the Sea of Reeds just up and split wide open for them, and then closed back up and drowned almost every one of our guys! Can you people effin' believe this?!" But in point of fact, there is no archaeological evidence yet discovered to support the idea of even a historical Exodus precisely conforming to the narrative in the Torah, let alone a miraculous splitting of the sea.

What I'm saying is, it's fine to hold beliefs about what happened. But just realize that in the absence of concrete, objective evidence (that is, evidence that doesn't come from your sacred texts and traditions, but from multiple correlating period sources analyzed and vouchsafed by reputable academic sources) those beliefs will not be persuasive to anyone who does not share your viewpoint already.

 

I'm glad you pointed this out, BG. That kind of problem is one of the most pernicious issues with trying to approach the canon of scripture (whether Christian scripture or Jewish scripture) as though it were a single, cohesive whole, rather than a collection of redacted texts from multiple sources, often spanning a considerable amount of time, and originating in sometimes widely varying contexts, with widely varying agendas.

Scriptural narratives are often incomplete, embellished, and-- being drawn from multiple source traditions-- self-contradictory. Attempting to take them as coherent, let alone as uniformly of divine inspiration, inevitably creates far more problems than it solves, since commentators and theologians must then tie themselves in knots trying to reconcile the ultimately irreconcilable.

Judaism has not been innocent of the same problem. The Talmud is filled with examples of Rabbis trying desperately to reconcile this or that contradictory text. In terms of historical accuracy, this was an abject failure. They did end up teaching us many fine legal, homiletical, and moral lessons in the course of doing what they did, but of course, all of those things are subjective.

Fortunately, in regard to the historical accuracy, we have some fine lessons in Jewish tradition courtesy of Rabbi Moses Maimonides (12th century Egypt), who taught us that if the Torah appears to be telling you to believe something that is wholly against what we know to be true about the way the world works thanks to our best science, or which is impossible according to the most basic common sense, then you must seek for another interpretation, since Torah would never demand that you believe something you know from essential reasoning can never be.

It is a lesson that fundamentalists-- in every religion-- would benefit from learning, though that seems unlikely to occur any time soon.