I wanted to post this thread as a place for people to (if they want) try and understand what I understand christianity to be. I noticed that in the Zeitgeist movie Christianity is shown to be a big joke, because God loves us, but still send us to hell for breaking any of the Ten Commandments. I wanted to try and explain to anyone who might acctually think that’s what Christians believe, why it’s not what we believe. I KNOW this is going to become a debate thread, or perhaps more likely just die, but I felt it was worth a try.
Christians believe that God is BOTH infinitely loving, AND infinitely just, and to illustrate why people go to hell, I want to use this allegory: Let’s pretend God is a teacher, and we are students. The teacher tells us that the ONLY way we can expect to pass the class, is to do an EASY project. Then the teacher sends his teacher aides to help you along, and to spread the news of the easy project to the whole school, so that other students can choose to pass. The teacher OBVIOUSLY wants the students to pass. However, the teacher is very fair, so the students who don’t do the project will not pass; they chose not to do it, despite how easy it was, and so they are doomed to fail. If the teacher were to say, “you must all do this project to pass” and then pass the kids who didn’t do it, it would be really unfair. But the teacher isn’t unfair.
That’s what God did for us. He told us what we had to do to go to heaven, and he told us what would happen if we didn’t do it. He made it really really easy to be saved, which is his infinite love: he wants desperately for us to “pass”; that is, get to heaven. However, if we refuse his way, we will not “pass,” we will not get to heaven, we will go to hell. He is fair, and plays by the rules he set.
Thats how I think of it too. If I didnt agree with it or want to do something or have to sacrifice things that I do, well, I probably wouldnt be Christian, which is why a lot of people I see fall away from Christianity.
But for me, I dont mind if I have to stop doing this or that, and possably change how I act a little. Its all been for the better for me, and is something I will continue to work torwards.
ok well im Christian or at least was baptised a Christian. I dont follow the Bible or belive that there is a God etc… So does this mean im going to hell?
Also who is a Christian? Is it the person who goes to Church weekly, someone who is baptised, or the person who acts according to the scriptures?
According to Christianity, yes, you would go to Hell. But if you dont believe in Christ, then this shouldnt bother you. If going to Heaven and Hell do bother you though, id like to hear more about it. It would be interesting when coming from one who doesnt believe in Christ yet would worry about Heaven and Hell.
Well, the Bible says you need to be Baptized. I wasnt baptized as a kid, which I like, because that would be more of a symbolic things saying my parents would raise me this way, and I wouldnt have a choice, so the meaning wouldnt truly be there.
I am a born again Christian, and have yet to be baptised, so technically I am not fully a Christian, but I am going to be baptized soon.
What is also said is that you need both words and works to be Christian. I can say tons of good things, never lie and curse, and pray, but if then I go out and do actions not according to the Bible, then whatever I said verbally means nothing, and vise versa. If I do everything good physically, yet then go and verbally do something bad, then none of it from before would matter.
What it takes is giving your life to Christ, making sacrifices so that you live to honor God. To say the right things, and to do the right actions. That to me is to be a Christian.
Im not saying it bothers me because I personally dont belive there to be a Heaven and Hell. I just find that it is interesting that even thou I dont belive in Christ, heaven, hell etc… that I would still be going there in the eyes of a Christian.
Was it really necessary to make a new thread? Whatever,
That allegory makes sense, however, try this:
Someone comes up to you on the street, someone you have never seen before, and says this: “Someone told me that you are in a class. The teacher wants you to pass, and to pass you need to do a project. It’s an easy project, and if you don’t do it, you’ll get expelled from this class.”
Would you believe this random person? I doubt it. That’s what the Bible is like…preachers are telling you that something called God wants you to do something for Him or Her, and if you don’t then you’ll go to this place called Hell. There’s nothing there to give you any reason to believe it other than this stranger’s word. You can choose to believe it, if you want, but there’s no reason to.
Another difference is that we choose to take classes. However if God created us, and created two destinies, one in which we are happy and one in which we suffer for eternity, we were never given the choice to be in this life. If He or She knows that some people will burn in Hell, that automatically makes God a pretty sadistic being. If God loves us, why would He or She make a Hell at all?
Well, the Bible says you need to be Baptized…not fully a ChristianQUOTE]
This is one of the things I disagree with. I personally believe that (according to Eph. 2:8-9) that works are NOT necessary to be saved. i believe that, although baptism is important, it’s not INTRINSIC. I think someone who is not baptised is still fully Christian. In my opinion, because I’ve never read or heard of a verse that says you have to get baptised to be saved, it’s merely a gesture to show the world that you believe. It’s like saying to God “I trust you, and want to show the world how I feel about you.”
In my opinion, (from Romans 10:9-10) the only thing necessary to be a full Christian is a true belief that jesus was God’s Son and was raised from the dead after dying for the sins of the world, and confessing this belief o the world.
One of my favorite quotes concerning these sort of dogmatic and doctrinal differences between denominations and/or individual christians is from St. Augustine of Hippo, who said “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.” Basically, if it isn’t that important, then don’t fret it. Just because two Christians see slightly different views of different issues doesn’t mean we can both love eachother and accept each other. The only things that we MUST agree upon for us both to be Christians are, to my understanding, the following: Jesus was God, Jesus died for the sins of the world, Jesus rose from the dead three days after his death.
If I created something, but gave it no CHOICE weather or not to love me, is it really love that the cration feels for me? God gave us free will (so that we can truely love) and the knowledge that some choices will lead to consequences. The whole idea of “he knew what was going to happen before it happened…he didn’t give us a choice” can perhaps be better understood with another allegory. If I offer a child a brown bag of candy, and a brown bag full of dirt, and I knew the kid really well, I’d know which kids are gonna want the candy, and which ones are going to want the dirt, but that doesn’t mean I’m choosing for them. God knows which people will choose life and which will choose death, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have the choice, it just mean’s you are predictable and he knows you very well. He did, after all, create you.
First of all, “God” did not give us instructions, or anything else. A human, several humans actually, wrote about God doing it. So, like I said before, you can choose to believe this human was inspired by a divine being if you so choose.
Assuming that it is divinely inspired, nothing means He or She needs to make us suffer for all eternity if we choose to not follow His or Her instructions. Obviously a kid will eat candy instead of dirt, because the candy is right there, the dirt is right there in front of his or her eyes. But someone is telling us to “imagine” that there’s a nice place in the sky we can go to, if we do some things. If God truly wanted us to do something, He or She would not make it possible for this debate. He or She would be right here, giving us choices, not sending messengers to only few people, who then pass that message on to us, and expect us to believe it.
Obviously any allegory is going to be flawed to an extent. I assumed you realized that, but since you may not, let me just say one more thing without using an allegory.
For us to assume that God should work in human terms, in ways we deem “believable” or by offering up what we deem “acceptable” as proof seems stupid to me. If God is any sort of All powerful God, it makes sense to me that he would be beyond our comprehension. The birth of a child, Aurora Borealis, The Grand Tetons, cute baby animals, all these things, despite having scientific explanations of HOW they happen, scream loudly the existence of God. That we can live in such an intricate and wonderful world that is only a FRACTION of the entire created universe which is full of awe-inspiring events that are both beautiful and mighty and terrible and brillient and mystifying and explainable all at once points to the greatness of God. I don’t honestly look to God for the How, he provided humans with minds to figure that out scientifically, I look to God for the Why. So far, he’s done a darn good job at that.
Nice post, Mikeal. That is kind of how I am (relating to the allegory). Other religions say the same exact thing so how am I to decide? If god was real would he make this life a mere guessing game for some? What about those who have not been exposed to this religion? Are they for ever doomed because of the fact they don’t live in a westernized world? The people before Jesus, what about them?
What happens to an atheist scientist who lived a moral life? He did not believe in god, yet he still lived a moral life. With he research he saved millions of innocent people from death and suffering. Does this great peaceful man go to hell even though he lived a moral life and saved millions?
Not trying to be offensive here, but saying something like that automatically blinds yourself. Basically you said that if what God does makes no sense, it’s because He is God, and it’s beyond us to understand it.
I would like to ask if you mean (more or less) that an eternity of suffering isn’t fair. If that’s the case, I want to point out that the human perception of fairness is flawed to the extreme. My little brother complains if he gets a scoop less ice cream than I for dessert. “It isn’t fair,” he says. Children in Africa die daily because they are malnourished, or because they were raped by an adult carrying HIV/AIDS. People get taxed on money they invested even though the already payed taxes on it when they earned it. “It’s not fair” they say. Women in some middle eastern countries are reated like dogs, sold, bought, neglected, beat, and all around mistreated. Impoverished people in america can buy a weeks worth of groceries with food stamps and then pull out a 50 and buy a few dozen lottery tickets. “No fair” exclaim the middle and upper classes. America claims a right to oil that doesn’t come from our country, and has formed a foreign policy around the assumption that other countries owe us that oil. Tell me again how we can be the judge of “fairness”. Tell me again when the last time our ideas of “fairness” were entirely static, much less accurate.
Yeah, that was interesting to read. I just wanted to know why he made us less intelligent than him. It seems very intelligent people seem to have more questions maybe that is why. Intelligent people seems more likely to go against that who is in power.
I see your point, and at the time, I have no way to refute it. In fact, I acctually think you are right, to an extent. It is sort of like blinding myself. But to be honest, I’ve considered other sides, and to me, this makes sense. Ready for another allegory? As little children, think very young, only 3 or so years old, we often don’t understand what our parents are telling us, or why they are telling it to us. Often times we won’t even realize that it was for our own good untill later. Our minds at the time were unable to grasp certain concepts. Perhaps, for example, the concept of a hot pan. My mom had told me it was hot, and not to touch it, but I didn’t really understand why she was telling me that, untill I touched it. Your dad might tell you that you can’t watch a movie, but gives no really good reason why not, so you watch it, and have nightmares for weeks because it was too scary for you to handle at the time, but you didn’t really understand what your dad meant by too scary for you. God often tells us things, that don’t make sense to us, because in comparrison to his omnipotence and omniscience, we are children. We don’ understand things the way he does, so he has to try and make us understand by speaking on our level, and when we still don’t undersand what his purpose is, he might simply pull the “because I said so.” He has good reasons, but thast doesn’t mean we can understand them.
I like Jesus or “God” cuz he told people to love and respect each other. He layed down some deep and serious shit. In my mind, true Christians follow Jesus’ teachings and the whole “believing in God” part is secondary. But that’s just what I think.
How do you know that God’s a guy though?
I don’t. I refer to Him as a He because of three main reasons:
A) thats how He’s refered to in the Bible
B) In the english language, an indefinite subject is always “he” rather than “she”
C) If cars, boats, space ships from TV, and countries all get to be “shes” we boys should get God! (not to mention MOTHER nature)
I agree that life isn’t “fair”. But the point is that God still condemns certain people to eternal pain…eternity is a long, long time. God could instead say that people who follow his rules go to Heaven after this life, but others just die and that’s the end (in fact some religions do believe that) or that those who are not moral enough to get to heaven instead get reincarnated into another life on Earth until they do learn all their life lessons and are able to go to Heaven (again, certain religions teach this). So out of all of these possibilities and beliefs, the thought that a “loving” God would create a place to torture people who don’t do what He tells them to, is somewhat ludicrous, you have to admit.
Jack Kerouac wrote this in his book the Dharma Bums:
“I don’t think Hell is anything but a dream cooked up by some hysterical monks who didn’t understand Buddha’s peace under the Bo Tree or for that matter Christ’s peace looking down on the heads of his tormentors and forgiving them.”
(not to mention MOTHER nature)