A loving God that instills fear of punishment as His "love"?

Eddie, I really don't like disagreeing with a fellow Christian (labels aside) in an arena like this, and I REALLY don't wanna challenge what you beleive. But as I have said concerning God V. Science the whole thing is grey, so we have to decide for ourselves.

Might I suggest that you try not to be so absolutist? There are so many way to get to Him. If we let go of the semantics I think we'd find that most of us beleive the same thing

Be good
Don't fuck with other people's stuff
convince other people to be good and don't fuck with other people's stuff

 

QFT

 

Mmm, I love me some humble pie.

The ironic hypocrisy just blows my mind.

 

Right. And since we have all sinned, how do we avoid death?
"For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God."
"For the wages of sin is death."
"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
"For He who knew no sin, God made Him sin for us, so that we may become the righteousness of God in Him."

The reason I don't call myself a christian or adhere to a religion is that those are man-made labels. Religion is man-made, it's a set of rules, a lifestyle that one must live by. I don't believe in that. I don't believe that we can live a certain way or do certain things to earn God's approval and gain salvation. I believe salvation is a free gift based on God's love. It can't be earned, only accepted as a gift.
--- merged: Nov 29, 2011 3:44 PM ---

No worries, I'm not a christian and I don't believe like you.

 

nice, eddie. you repeat augustine's notion of original sin from city of god.

just as salvation is something you cannot earn, so sin is something you do not do. it is imprinted on you from jump, because you carry with you a fragment of adam, who was, the story goes, a bad bad man, bad enough to fuck over humanity for all time.

so sin is inherited and salvation arbitrary. if that's true, belief is of no consequence.

i like this.

but what perplexes me is why you waste your time reading the bible, if all the above is true. you won't find out anything from it about god because words are human conventions. and it won't show you how to live because how you live is of no consequence. if you want to know how to live, you might as well read the directions on industrial food product boxes for the detailed instructions as to how to access and live in 6-10 minute chunks of capitalist-optimized time.

 

Yes, sin is inherited. Which is why we all choose to sin. We are all born sinners, born into death because of Adam's sin. It's a disease of the flesh. There is nothing redeemable in the flesh, nothing of value to God. That's why he has offered us new life, through Jesus.

 

I'm well aware of the the evangelical mindset. It requires no effort on the part of the "saved". One need only profess allegiance to Jesus and take on board certain aspects of his birth (virgin mother), life (mostly inconsequential) , death (died on the cross) and purpose (died for our sins) as fact. Everything else can be ignored. All manner of dirtiness can be done as long as one continues to believe and spout the mantra.

There is no good or evil deed that cannot be justified by one belonging to the select club of the "saved".

You're right, you are not a Christian.

 

I don't justify my sins, I don't pretend that when I sin I'm doing nothing wrong. I simply know that the penalty for my sins has been paid, once and for all, for the entire world. Sin no longer has power to condemn.

 

right, eddie. but whether you believe or not is of no consequence. belief is also a human construction. it teaches you nothing. it gets you nowhere. it's an aesthetic matter like whether you prefer chunky or smooth peanut butter. you like the idea of believing in something, so you condition yourself into believing it and eventually you forget that you don't believe in something. but it could be anything. the dog star. loki or legba or the deity of lava fields. so who cares what you say about jesus and all that, if both sin and salvation are cosmic affairs and human choices have no bearing?

 

I disagree. I believe that "belief" is a response.

 

That, dear Eddie, is the ultimate justification.

 

But God does? It doesn't add up. If Jesus died for our sins, why does Hell continue to exist? Don't we all have a free pass to Heaven now that Jesus died for us?

 

Belief in this sense is a response to one's own fear of autonomy.

 

God's chosen people rejected him and His son. But to your point of who's going to hell. Any individual who does not accept that Jesus, the Son of God, died on the cross for their sins....is going to hell, regardless of race or religion.
--- merged: Nov 29, 2011 4:06 PM ---

Salvation is a gift. You don't have it until you accept it.

I guess I will repeat myself for you. I'm not saying that sin is justified. Sin is never justified. Sin is wrong. Period.

 

So a man who murders his family, but accepts Christ as his Lord and Savior, goes to heaven, but a man who cures cancer but doesn't believe in Jesus goes to hell?

Seems like a pretty shitty God to me

 

but eddie, according to your own position, acceptance doesn't matter. no-one in the cosmic sense gives a fuck what you think. salvation is arbitrary---you can't do anything to get it; it's bestowed by the fact of crucifixion and all that---just as original sin is arbitrary, passed generation to generation. so there is a debt (original sin) and its cancellation (jesus) so we float in a zero-space. your choices are of no consequence. you read the bible because you think the language pretty. you don't learn anything because you can't learn anything because there's nothing to be learned---the equation is complete without you or me or anyone else. and i have no idea how you can possibly imagine that belief, which is a word so a human construction that designates a mode of being, which is also a human construction (conditioned by the word no doubt) to get you beyond this loop---which is, by the way, of your own construction. i am pretty sure that the augustine that lay behind it is an accident.

 

Is God supposed to be impressed by the guy who cures cancer? God created the universe. Everything in creation is made to glorify God, not man. And when man starts taking the glory for himself, as though the very breathe he takes isn't a result of Gods mercy and love, he moves further away from salvation. God doesn't care about your good deeds, He cares about you recognizing and praising His good deeds. All glory belongs to God.

Why did Lucifer fall? Because he wanted God's glory.
--- merged: Nov 29, 2011 4:15 PM ---

That's what you believe? What are you basing your beliefs upon?

 

In your rush to get to the dessert, you have bypassed the main course. Just as a child would do.