Post by Wyvax on Apr 26, 2012 14:29:02 GMT -5
Before anyone would like to reply to me could somebody please tell me how to make the quote boxes?
The subject title is called "Dangers of Religion?" but allmost all the talk here is about Christianity. Perhaps what you mean isn't the "Dangers of Religion?" but rather the "Dangers of Christianity?". I'm getting that feeling in a rather major way. And since it IS a religion, perhaps we should compare the dangers (and perhaps virtues) of all faiths, including Atheism, and I think Super Communist has started that of quite nicely.
I don't think we mind that you critique our beliefs (in fact I would encourage you to do so) but I do think that whatever you are critiquing, you should know exactly what the beliefs are.
The doctrine of Salvation: "That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:9. Pretty straightforward and easy to understand, the issue here is that the acceptance of Jesus as savior is a form of accepting forgiveness. If you accept the forgiveness (or grace) you are saved; if you refuse to be forgiven, then you are still destined for punishment. (This of course hinges on the belief that all humans have willingly done bad things, or rather, sinned.) It is comparable to a child that gouges the kitchen table with a knife for sport, the parent is willing to forgive him, but the child must admit that what he has done is wrong and apologize for it. If he does than he is pardoned and continues to enjoy his meal, if not, he has to sit in the corner.
Of course one has to bring up the issue of “who is good and who is not”. We must ask ourselves “are we judging according to our concept of morality or God’s concept of morality?” According to ourselves… it can vary wildly, and has no absolute grounds; according to God: “As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one;” Romans 3:10. That seems extremely harsh, but realize that if God is “perfect” (please do not confuse me with Descartes at this or any other moment, ) meaning unaffected by evil, and yet he is incapable of tolerating or ignoring evil acts no matter the size, then the moral lives of everyone looks pretty bad. (Note that in true literally by-the-book Christianity, there is no karma or atonement of acts, you cannot steal from one person and make up for it by giving that money to the poor, or the alter plate for that matter.) So in questioning who is good and who is not, we find that though some people have done far worse things than others, there are no “good people” as everyone has done something bad, and God is incapable of letting sin go unpunished (completely just). A good allegory for sin is this: a starving hunter prepares to fire his arrow at a deer, he aims and misses. Does it matter whether he just missed by an inch, or if he shot in a completely wrong direction? No, he missed, the deer ran away, and he starves. It doesn’t matter the severity of the sin, it is still sin. (Now I should point out that God is strict but NOT blind; if you have to kill someone to prevent them from killing another, He WILL understand.)
So now that the “Christian” murderer/rapist and the “atheist” philanthropist are considered equal before God, let us look at whether the Christian murderer/rapist is really a follower of Christ or not. There is a passage that states: “What does it profit my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and without food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warm and full,” but you do not give them food or clothing, what does it profit? Thus faith without works is dead.” James 2:14-17. If that murderer/rapist honestly believes and never hurts a living thing on purpose again, then yes he is saved. However if he “believes” and goes on killing and raping despite it then no, he is not saved, he is not a Christian, and he never really was. The verses from James may seem to conflict with the first verse from Romans, but think, if you honestly believe something, you will live your life by what you believe, no? If you just say you believe something but barely if ever acknowledge it, then you are lying to yourself, and will not live to the standards of your beliefs.
Perhaps now we should get into what Hell is and what it isn’t. First God is present in Hell. God is everywhere; there is no place in the entire universe that he is not present. Thus Hell is not a physical separation from God, but a spiritual separation from God. In the Judeo-Christian worldview man has had a broken relationship with God since the original sin in the Garden of Eden. If one repents of their sin and comes back into the relationship with God that he intended then that person is no longer spiritually separated from Him, and they experience all his love, grace and mercy. If one refuses to reconcile with God, then they are still spiritually separated from God, and they only experience the Just side of God, that of punishment. Think of it this way: God is like fire, if stick your hand into fire, you will be burnt; don’t ask “why did that fire burn me?” burning is just the nature of fire. God is perfectly good and unchanging; however that means that any evil that comes in contact with him is “burned up”. Since man was made by God with an immortal soul and shall be given back our immortal bodies, the “burning” is eternal.
It is important to note at this very moment that humans were NEVER meant to be in Hell, EVER. Hell is there as the punishment for Satan and the other demons, who themselves were given the opportunity to repent of evil, but did not. The only reason way humans can go there is because we did the same exact thing the demons did: rebel and think our way is better than Gods. We are in the same boat they were in. But, like the demons God has given us a chance to reconcile with him, and it is up to each of us as to make that decision.
Moving on to whether “religion makes a difference to morality”: I believe it does, our beliefs directly influence our values and our behavior, so if one believes that all life has purpose and meaning, they are not going to murder someone else, as their life has purpose and meaning as well. If one believes that we have no purpose in life but ultimate destruction, who cares what we do as long as we make the most out of it to ourselves. Now as I stated earlier, just because someone says they are devout, doesn’t mean they are. Does anyone here honestly think God would approve of men racketeering and murdering all week with the excuse of a priest absolving them every once in a while? Are they truly devout???
The subject title is called "Dangers of Religion?" but allmost all the talk here is about Christianity. Perhaps what you mean isn't the "Dangers of Religion?" but rather the "Dangers of Christianity?". I'm getting that feeling in a rather major way. And since it IS a religion, perhaps we should compare the dangers (and perhaps virtues) of all faiths, including Atheism, and I think Super Communist has started that of quite nicely.
I don't think we mind that you critique our beliefs (in fact I would encourage you to do so) but I do think that whatever you are critiquing, you should know exactly what the beliefs are.
The doctrine of Salvation: "That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:9. Pretty straightforward and easy to understand, the issue here is that the acceptance of Jesus as savior is a form of accepting forgiveness. If you accept the forgiveness (or grace) you are saved; if you refuse to be forgiven, then you are still destined for punishment. (This of course hinges on the belief that all humans have willingly done bad things, or rather, sinned.) It is comparable to a child that gouges the kitchen table with a knife for sport, the parent is willing to forgive him, but the child must admit that what he has done is wrong and apologize for it. If he does than he is pardoned and continues to enjoy his meal, if not, he has to sit in the corner.
Of course one has to bring up the issue of “who is good and who is not”. We must ask ourselves “are we judging according to our concept of morality or God’s concept of morality?” According to ourselves… it can vary wildly, and has no absolute grounds; according to God: “As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one;” Romans 3:10. That seems extremely harsh, but realize that if God is “perfect” (please do not confuse me with Descartes at this or any other moment, ) meaning unaffected by evil, and yet he is incapable of tolerating or ignoring evil acts no matter the size, then the moral lives of everyone looks pretty bad. (Note that in true literally by-the-book Christianity, there is no karma or atonement of acts, you cannot steal from one person and make up for it by giving that money to the poor, or the alter plate for that matter.) So in questioning who is good and who is not, we find that though some people have done far worse things than others, there are no “good people” as everyone has done something bad, and God is incapable of letting sin go unpunished (completely just). A good allegory for sin is this: a starving hunter prepares to fire his arrow at a deer, he aims and misses. Does it matter whether he just missed by an inch, or if he shot in a completely wrong direction? No, he missed, the deer ran away, and he starves. It doesn’t matter the severity of the sin, it is still sin. (Now I should point out that God is strict but NOT blind; if you have to kill someone to prevent them from killing another, He WILL understand.)
So now that the “Christian” murderer/rapist and the “atheist” philanthropist are considered equal before God, let us look at whether the Christian murderer/rapist is really a follower of Christ or not. There is a passage that states: “What does it profit my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and without food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warm and full,” but you do not give them food or clothing, what does it profit? Thus faith without works is dead.” James 2:14-17. If that murderer/rapist honestly believes and never hurts a living thing on purpose again, then yes he is saved. However if he “believes” and goes on killing and raping despite it then no, he is not saved, he is not a Christian, and he never really was. The verses from James may seem to conflict with the first verse from Romans, but think, if you honestly believe something, you will live your life by what you believe, no? If you just say you believe something but barely if ever acknowledge it, then you are lying to yourself, and will not live to the standards of your beliefs.
Perhaps now we should get into what Hell is and what it isn’t. First God is present in Hell. God is everywhere; there is no place in the entire universe that he is not present. Thus Hell is not a physical separation from God, but a spiritual separation from God. In the Judeo-Christian worldview man has had a broken relationship with God since the original sin in the Garden of Eden. If one repents of their sin and comes back into the relationship with God that he intended then that person is no longer spiritually separated from Him, and they experience all his love, grace and mercy. If one refuses to reconcile with God, then they are still spiritually separated from God, and they only experience the Just side of God, that of punishment. Think of it this way: God is like fire, if stick your hand into fire, you will be burnt; don’t ask “why did that fire burn me?” burning is just the nature of fire. God is perfectly good and unchanging; however that means that any evil that comes in contact with him is “burned up”. Since man was made by God with an immortal soul and shall be given back our immortal bodies, the “burning” is eternal.
It is important to note at this very moment that humans were NEVER meant to be in Hell, EVER. Hell is there as the punishment for Satan and the other demons, who themselves were given the opportunity to repent of evil, but did not. The only reason way humans can go there is because we did the same exact thing the demons did: rebel and think our way is better than Gods. We are in the same boat they were in. But, like the demons God has given us a chance to reconcile with him, and it is up to each of us as to make that decision.
Moving on to whether “religion makes a difference to morality”: I believe it does, our beliefs directly influence our values and our behavior, so if one believes that all life has purpose and meaning, they are not going to murder someone else, as their life has purpose and meaning as well. If one believes that we have no purpose in life but ultimate destruction, who cares what we do as long as we make the most out of it to ourselves. Now as I stated earlier, just because someone says they are devout, doesn’t mean they are. Does anyone here honestly think God would approve of men racketeering and murdering all week with the excuse of a priest absolving them every once in a while? Are they truly devout???