For all those who believe in Christianity or Some form of it...
POSTED BY: RiveR6213
UPDATED: Wednesday, May 23, 2007 10:10
VIEWED: 25834
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Causal wrote:
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...Taking off my philosopher hat for the moment, and putting on the theologian one, if one accepts the Bible as authoritative (and yes, that's a huge "if"), it does seem to be the case that it teaches that those who out-and-out reject Jesus will not make it to heaven. It is not as clear what the fate of the Papua New Guinea tribesmen will be, hence the debate.
As a Christian person myself, hell has always given me fits, because it doesn't seem to fit with everything else I know about God. Where I finally had to come to rest, and be content, is this: I trust God to be just--not fair, mind you, but really just. That means that I can leave the eternal afterlife questions up to him and trust that he'll dispose of people justly. My responsibility isn't to walk around saying "You're going to hell." And it isn't to walk around preaching all day. It's to conform myself to Jesus' example as much as I possibly can, which means loving God and loving people as much as I can.
There, I'm out there. Tear me up.
Amen, brother. And mark me down for 'strong inclusivist'...
Like, I said: God = Love. When we love others, we are letting God's light shine through us, regardless what word we use for God. When we love others, we love Him and, ultimately, ourselves. When we truly love others, we forgive them for their human failings, and we forgive ourselves for our own human failings. Unless we love, we cannot be loved. Unless we forgive, we cannot be forgiven. It's all in the Lord's Prayer, which so many chant from rote memory, without ever seeming to take the words to heart, in a literal way. Anybody who kills in whatever name of God, for whatever justification, has got it so wrong as to be unfathomable...
Jesus warned us quite demonstratively not to cast judgment on the status of other people's salvation or damnation. We lack the skills (in the vernacular) and it ain't our job in the first place. More importantly, when we damn someone or refuse to forgive them, we are projecting not-God hatred, regardless how much we wring our hands piously, saying 'I'm ever so sorry, but you are going to Hell'.
I've been on this board for just over 3 years, and I've never voiced a religious opinion, unless asked for one. In my workaday 'real' life, I will only offer spiritual advice to those who ask it (in other words, virtually never) or to those who are quite clearly at the end of their rope (in other words, a handful of times over the past couple of decades). If they tell me to bugger off, I bugger off. But what kind of loving person would I be if I stood idly by and watched someone bleed to death, physically or spiritually?
Sometimes, you've got to put yourself "out there" because you know it's the right thing to do, even if you get ripped for it. To do otherwise would be like watching a person drown and saying, "Hey, it's none of my business." But, to complete the analogy, I ain't gonna jump in and 'save' someone as long as they seem to be staying afloat, regardless how ugly or inefficient their stroke...
Fraternally,
zoid
P.S.
You are really just a big softy, aren't you. And here I was, thinking you were a respectable nihilist...
P.P.S.
RE: The Lord's Prayer: Had Jesus' culture and language been matrilineal, we would certainly be praying, "Our Mother who art in heaven...". Once again, with feeling, God has no biological body, no sexual organs related to biology, and hence no gender. All aspects male and female originate from God.
Wanna get into a really sticky philosophical dilemma? Think about the fall of Adam and Eve. How could omniscient God not know that they were going to eat of the Tree of Knowledge? Does free will play a part? Or was it predetermined that they were going to fail thus, and therefore God was just play-acting at being disappointed and angry? Was Lucifer just God's shill in Eden? That's why I don't believe in predetermination of salvation or damnation. Clearly, free will plays an important role.
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Quote:
Originally posted by zoid:
P.S. You are really just a big softy, aren't you. And here I was, thinking you were a respectable nihilist...
I'm consistently amused (and pleased) by the way people misread me. I hate being pigeonholed as this or that. So if I'd been coming off as a "respectable nihilist" it means I'm doing something right! I like to argue all sides of an issue (within reason) because that helps me see the issue more clearly and formulate my beliefs more accurately. Doesn't mean I don't have any beliefs at all. I am, as mentioned, a follower of Jesus, and probably a weak inclusivist to boot. But yes, I am a big softie, deep down. I cover it with logic pretty good most of the time, though. Cynical as I can be, I'm also pretty sentimental. Ah, the joy of being me!
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Wanna get into a really sticky philosophical dilemma? Think about the fall of Adam and Eve. How could omniscient God not know that they were going to eat of the Tree of Knowledge?
Depends on what you take "omniscient" to mean. Most contemporary philosophical theists think God has "middle knowledge," that is, knowledge of all true prevolitional counterfactuals. Quite a mouthful. Basically what that means is God knows the answer to a question like the following: "If Kennedy hadn't been assassinated, would he have escalated our involvement in Vietnam?" or "If Curley is offered a bribe will he take it?" A counterfactual is a claim about what will happen if a given set of circumstances comes about. So for instance, God knows that "If offered a bowl of cherry ice cream, Causal will choose to accept it." Now, God isn't causing me to choose to accept, and he isn't causing anyone to make the offer; he just knows that if the offer obtains, I'll accept. So in that sense, God knew that the counterfactual, "If Adam and Eve are offered an apple, they will choose to accept it" is true. But this kind of knowledge doesn't interfere with creaturely freedom. The place where middle knowledge is vulnerable, in my view, is that if it's the case that God knows the initial conditions of the universe, and if God knows all true counterfactuals, it could be the case that middle knowledge will collapse back into omniscience as traditionally understood. But I'll have to read up on that.
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Does free will play a part? Or was it predetermined that they were going to fail thus, and therefore God was just play-acting at being disappointed and angry?
Well, it seems to be the case that freedom of will is a necessary condition of moral responsibility. That is, one can only be held morally responsible for a choice if they were free with respect to that choice. So it seems that on the Christian view, Adam and Even had to have been free with respect to their decision to eat the apple, otherwise they could not have been held morally responsible for that choice. That said, I don't see any way around the fact that God knew that Adam and Eve would err at some point. If God knows all true counterfactuals, and if humans are inherently imperfect, then God would have seen that no matter what they chose in any given specific situation, there would be at least one situation in each possible world in which Adam and Even did some wrong (even if that wrong wasn't of the apple-eating type). So the curious thing is, "Why'd he do that?" Many theologians think that the project of creating the world (and everything in it) is a project God undertook for his own glorification (and let's be fair: if God is perfect in every way, he would seem worthy of glorification). So they will say that ugliness and evil will ultimately turn out to be for God's glorification in the end. That's not a particularly satisfying notion when it comes to dealing with the evils in the world, but that's why they think that Adam and Eve were set up for failure, so to speak.
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That's why I don't believe in predetermination of salvation or damnation. Clearly, free will plays an important role.
Y
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Originally posted by RiveR6213:
Wow! That was a mouthful. What are "Knickers" any way? Anyhow. Your posts in this thread have been very good and quite informative. You have presented a side that is inspiring and quite deep, and well thought out. You have demonstrated that you are solid in your belief, and world view, and you are clear that heaven is where you are headed without a doubt. There is no sarcasm on my part regarding any of this. I suspect that you take my wording as being cavalier on the subject of hell, and my own character and nature that will carry me there, but if you read closer, you will find a not too happy person, who knows her final outcome; who knows her character, and what's in her heart. I'm just being brave and courageous about it all; pure smoke that hides the inevitability of what must come to pass. It is all that it is supposed to be.
One of the many problems with Christianity is that everything is boiled down to a simple black and white choice, and presented that way to look as though it is easy, or simple. This is earth that we live; It is not a black and white scenario.
So spare me your sarcasm. This thread is about one believing if they are going to Heaven or Hell, and I'm not really into getting into a verbal, swirling, word, dogfight over it. Simply put from where I stand. I am going to hell, but I'm not happy about it, but I do accept it. Also, as crazy as this may sound. I am not to happy about going to heaven either. I wish history and the God's had left me alone in the land of non-existence in the first place.
The Universe appears to be a very bothersome place...
-River
This is probably a mistake, but...
You and I have conversed in this forum before. I know your troubles, because you told me, and I take you at your word. You have landed yourself in a pit of vipers that you dug and stocked yourself. You've made your own bed. I'm not telling you to lie in it. I'm saying only you can change the linen.
Every time we have spoken, a story from the Bible has popped into my head, so I'm gonna go ahead and relate it, especially since it deals so succinctly with the original thread topic of Heaven and Hell.
...In Mark 10:17-22 (Rev Std Ver, for those who prefer it), a rich man comes to Jesus, inspired by His words:
Quote:(Emphases mine, salient to previous posts)
17 And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 18 And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 19 You know the commandments: 'Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.'" 20 And he said to him, "Teacher, all these I have observed from my youth." 21 And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said to him, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." 22 At that saying his countenance fell, and he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions.
The thing about possessions is, they come from a biological urge for physical security. The body secretes a little hormone here or there, and we go on autopilot. We want to fight, we get jealous, we want to eat/possess everything in sight. The Spirit wants to love, to share, to help others. But it is trapped inside a physical drug factory that leads inexorably to spiritual errors.
The point is, you say you can't help the way you are. The fact is that you are like the rich man and won't extricate yourself from your own personally crafted Hell.
But someday you might. That's my fondest hope.
(NB: This is my last post on this thread. But, I will continue to read the thoughts of others, here. Spirit and Intelligence -- the image of God within us -- is the only real substance worth exploring.)
Finally,
zoid
P.S.
The expression, "Don't get your knickers in a twist" is the British equival
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So... what I'm pondering is this: what exactly would Heaven be like? Certainly, there has to be a separate Heaven for each of us, because if I need my husband to be with me, but he's an ax murdering fiend, then I'll be in my own Heaven with an image of him to keep me warm and he'll be suffering in Hell as the rules say he should. (This is hypothetical. I have no husband!)
Anyway, so say we each have our own Heaven. I honestly can't say what mine would be. Um... orgasmic bliss forever? That's nice and all, but wouldn't it get boring after a few eons? Certainly, the best times of my life haven't always been the ha-ha wee! happiest, so my Heaven needs to have some of the same complexities of real life. Ups and downs. Which gets me all screwed up, cause why do I have to die to end up in the same place?
And the suffering of hell - wouldn't you kind of get numb to it? We're talking forever here, right?
Actually - my bigger problem with the notion of hell is that no one - and I mean NO ONE - is intrinsically evil. Even you, River. You may have all kinds of evil plans, and even do evil acts, but I'll stack that against the amount of pain you've been through in your life. There's not a God out there who'll think that putting you through more pain and torment will solve the problem that is you. Certainly, not a God who deserves the title.
I have a bigger problem with the idea that faith is the golden ticket. As long as I Believe, I'll get in the door, no matter what else I've done. Really? Does that make any kind of sense?
I honestly don't know what'll happen and where I'll go, but I know for sure that if there is some higher power out there, it's by definition a helluva lot smarter than me, and the thing it's got waiting for me is far beyond a fork in the road with Door #1 in red and Door #2 in white. So I'll just make the most of life, and let whatever's coming come.
My .02.
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I'm the president. I don't need to listen.
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Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:
So I'll just make the most of life, and let whatever's coming come.
Thank you for that. Y'see, to directly address River6213, my answer to your question, as I understand it, is neither place , because maybe, just maybe, they do not actually exist. In the sense that "God", and Heaven and Hell, are imaginary creations posited by people. Constructs invented by people to form some fundamental ethical and moral basis upon which to build an understandable way of living. We humans are pretty talented at inventing conscructs that work well enough to explain mysteries and to create technologies in the short term. To wit (skipping many steps here), there's the Platonion shperical model of the stars which leant a form of logic to the funky planet Earth's placement in the universe that the Gods of the time played around in, to Newtonian physics, which worked (and continue to do so) well enough as a basis to build ballistic toys and enable mapping routes to the Moon, to Einstein and Relativity, which gets us nearer to the concept that God ain't playing dice with this universe... except the possibility that maybe there is no God, so maybe there is a random element to our existence, eh? And so forth, into realms of mathematical paradigms I'm not going to pretend to understand. Paradigms we can use as tools that function well enough for us humans to build stuff enabling us to expand our abilities to spread our seed, mayhaps on galactic platforms, who knows?
What if, yeah, what if God and Jesus, and, by extension, Heaven and Hell, and feel free to add Infinite Oneness and existential accident to the list, are mere conceptual tricks that people have invented, in order to erect a convenient temporary foundations upon which to mitigate our fear of random happenstance?
I think that it's important that we don't know what makes the universe, um, and by extension, us humans' role within it, tick, because it's exactly that mystery that makes our endeavours interesting. That the concept of God, and Heaven and Hell, has, perhaps, psychological attributes may well be worthwhile tools for the time being. Yet I remain unconvinced of the truths of such concepts merely in terms of, "it feels right, ergo it must be so".
Also, I don't grok the "6213" part, which, in and of itself, belittles all that I've ever done and been, eh?
In short (lol!), we ain't necessarily destined for either place, cuz we just made 'em up. Doesn't mean we can't work on finding ways to not hate ourselves, and to not hate others. The work involved, heh, can be a bitch. In my opinion, an embraceable bitch.
***
Thread killer
Qu'est-ce que c'est?
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Good stuff, cozen.
Dang, this is going to sound offensive any way I say it, and I apologize in advance, but... it just seems like the evidence of religion and "God" being a creation of human beings is overwhelming. I'm constantly stunned that so many people see it as the other way around.
*dodging rotten fruit thrown at me by believers*
Hey - I'm not saying you can't believe, please do and have a great time with it! It's just...
mal4prezisconfusedisall (to borrow a certain user name)
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I'm the president. I don't need to listen.
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Theologically, I mostly agree with what zoid has said. Hell is not the fire and brimstone place of punishment, but merely a complete separation from god, where those that reject god will go because by rejecting him, they have already separated themselves from him in life, so the separation would continue after death. Because of this, since I believe and accept god, I believe I will go to heaven (but who knows, I could be wrong).
As for how free will and predestination work together, I believe that there is a set starting point and ending point of where we will definately go in our lives (point a and b, if you will). If we start at point a, we have to go to point b, but the path we use to get there is entirely our own choice. If we decide to go in a straight line or take the curvy convoluted path is the element of free will, but no matter what, you will get to point b.
edit* Mal4Prez, if you're confused about why someone would believe in a diety, then I can tell you why I believe, but if that's not your issue, then you can ignore this.
I went through a bit of a quandry when I started questioning the reality of god, because logic does dictate that god is a construct made by men trying to explain the world. However, I decided that the idea of a world without god is too depressing...no true meaning for life, no reason for me to have ever been born than for the simple reason to exist. For me, existance isn't enough. If my only reason to be on this planet is for me to exist and then there's nothing, I'd rather not exist at all. So because I hope that there's some greater plan at work, some reason that I live, I choose to believe in god.
I'm a leaf on the wind
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i'm aiming for that level of Hell some one mentioned on here a while back - Dante or something, the level for the virtuous unbelievers?
Something about a castle surrounded by endless rolling fields, where all the secular greats live - the philosophers, the artists, the interesting guy from the pub. All living it out, in a sunlit place of sanity and reasonableness, un disturbed by cataloque salesmen, chavs, serial killers, scientologists, those who talk at the theatre and anyone who ever bought a Cheeky Girls album.
ahhhh, bliss.
I went through a similar think - not a big deep one, never had much time for religion - but questioning the why's and wherefores, and came out the opposit way - if there was no deity behind it all, there didn't seem to be much of a point, except exisiting, but what was the issue with just existing? I just decided to me choosing to believe cause just because the alternative was not a nice idea was just deluding myself. (Edited cause it really could have been seen as offensive!)
I'm always ready to reconsider, but so far nothing has made me want to.
Isn't sanity really a one trick pony, anyway? I mean all you get is one trick, rational thinking! But when you're good and crazy...ooh hoo hoo hoo... the skys the limit!
http://www.myspace.com/seryndippyt
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Hi Constance...not logical? Logic, reason or sound judgment is not why Scientists would have us believe we were once monkeys. It requires faith to believe this, and makes me wonder where all the Gorilla people are? Spider monkey's would have made funny looking human beings to be sure, and the more than 300 species of primates still in existence today probably should have evolved by now...but it takes millions of years to change one species to another apparently, and we cannot test this theory, but people believe it as fact because they are told it is so from day one in school.
Science tells us to believe that life was created from happenstance...mere random chance, yet scientists cannot even "create" life from the resources provided by this planet (from whose elements life is said to have evolved from) where life is so abundant. They can stimulate growth, but they cannot create life. Now, how a nameless faceless, unintellignet, and lifeless universe created life on earth (which is by all the evidence to date, the only life we know of) is completely illogical.
Life, depends on so many specific variables to even be possible...for example...if days were too long all plant and animal life would die. If days were too short all plant and animal life would die. If our orbit was one degree off, life would cease to exist. If the earth was further from the sun, or closer to the sun, if the sun was too hot or too cool life couldn't exist, if the moon was closer or further away, if water were less abundant, if gravity was too weak or too strong...so many elements that must be perfect in order for life to even have the chance to be and this is just scratching the surface...look into it yourself.
If this is the case, and if it turns out to be comepletely ludicrous to you, to believe that life was created so haphazardly without cause or purpose despite there being so many specific pre-requisites for life, then there is only one other option. That life was created intentionally.
If there is a purpose to anything in existence, there must be a rational and logical explanation for it...
Denying that God exists because it is "supposedly" illogical to believe He does is simple laziness. If the all powerful, all knowing, ever-present all loving God does exist, it provides that there is a reason and a purpose to everything that happens here on earth and in the Universe, and provides the very fabric for logic and rational thinking Atheists tend to use in order to try and discredit God.
If Atheists are right, it means simply this...all suffering in the world, all good in the world, all things in this world...no matter how grandiose or how flawed, all are pointless and amount to nothing because we all die (100% of all people die--an uncontested fact.) The poorest person who suffers all their life will die and cease to exist if they are just "meat." The richest person on the planet will die and cease to exist, people who suffer tragedy, those who are awarded for excellence and integrity will simply vanish and soon be forgotten by all the others who will shortly die off as well...all life will die and cease to exist leaving no legacy to no one.
A very depressing yet surprisingly unrealistic--in my opinion--viewpoint to hold to.
If God does exist, then it means that suffering has a purpose and is not in vain, and in fact provides the opportunity for people to be generous, compassionate, loving to one another when they need it most. Suffering brings people closer together in love and brings out the very best in humanity. Suffering can motivate action, and it can allow for the opportuntity to come closer to and rely on God who wants to relieve our suffering and give us the promise of life after this earthly death. The suffering gives birth to faith, not out of sadistic intent, but out of a love so great for us that if we believe
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Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:
Good stuff, cozen.
Dang, this is going to sound offensive any way I say it, and I apologize in advance, but... it just seems like the evidence of religion and "God" being a creation of human beings is overwhelming. I'm constantly stunned that so many people see it as the other way around.
*dodging rotten fruit thrown at me by believers*
Hey - I'm not saying you can't believe, please do and have a great time with it! It's just...
Two things:
1) What's the evidence?
2) The presuppositions involved in evidentiary support are beyond evidentiary support. On some level, everyone believes something that can't be proven.
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