Dutch rethink Christianity for a doubtful world

Distinctly unlike the current understanding of heaven, of course, in that no one really got to be in the vicinity of god until later, except for angels.

And those angels were seriously not at all like how we imagine them.

The only person who was allowed in as an exception was Enoch.

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Malachite, you're way better at explaining all this stuff than I am. I too think its great that this thread is a place where we can all discuss this like normal human beings instead of devolving into a flame war.

Niki, I believe that when someone makes the decision to follow Christ, to ask Him to be in their life, He does work on our lives and because we are seeking Him and getting to know Him we are becoming more interested in doing the right things, loving humanity, striving to be our best/to be self aware and wanting to make positive differences in the world. I think they go together in a natural way.

Also for Niki, do you really think humanity is "better" now than it ever was before? Sure we are more educated, we have more experience under our collective belts, but do you think the average person is a more caring kind and moral individual then the average person at any given point in history? If you do then that's sort of a Star Trek view, that humanity evolves out of all its vices. But if you think people are people then its more of a Firefly philosophy, that no matter where you go there are caring people and greedy people and within us there are both sides too. History always repeats itself and humanity seems to cycle around, that's my view of it.

As a side note, Enoch and Elijah were the only people in the Old Testament taken to Heaven and away from the earth while still alive.



"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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I was thinking there might have been someone else, but couldn't confirm it. Thought it was Ezekiel.

I see Elijah is the one I've quoted before about the amber cyclone.

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Byte: Yeah, I deliberately avoided using the concepts of heaven and hell in my original explanation because I thought it would only lead to more tangents. Thanks for bringing up Sheol though, since it made me look up the Sheol wikipedia article which I thought was quite fascinating. Part of me likes that concept better than the concept of eternal torment for sinners. That being said, part of me does also want justice to be done to those who have done evil and gotten away with it in this lifetime.

You also mentioned current concepts of heaven and current concepts of angels vs Old Testament concepts of angels. That is another couple of tangents that could be interesting. Biblically, I thought angels were pretty consistently represented, that is something that was pretty awe and fear inspiring. In common culture, though, angels are cute, unintimidating and kind of magic djinni-like. Is that the contrast you were making? Concepts of heaven would be a longer tangent, I think, contrasting what is in our culture versus what is in the Bible...

Riona -- Raising the issue of moral evolution is an interesting one. I'm of the opinion that we are struggling with the same issues now that we struggled with back then but it comes out in modern ways -- greed, selfishness, lust, envy, etc. Yup, our world is still full of those issues and so am I... I mean really, why haven't we at least evolved beyond war yet??

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Thanx, guys, it helps to hear things from REAL Christians, and informed ones as well, not those who are blinded by self-righteousness (of which there are too many and no, I do NOT think they're in the majority, by a long shot!). Believe me, I'm WELL versed in the kind who are downright horrible to me because I'm buddhist, and others who just wouldn't leave me alone, they were so intent on "converting" me!

So. The problem is, you're right for the most part, Riona, we're no better, and we haven't gotten past wars. If you believe mankind will always be the same, to me THAT is hopelessness, so I see why something beyond it is needed...but surely if Christianity worked the way it was supposed to, we WOULD be better by now. I would argue that buddhists, tho' some individuals have engaged in violence and wars, don't do it to nearly the extent "religions" have and do. So how has having a God improved humanity? I get that you don't expect improvement and that's why you have Christ dying for our sins, it just isn't logical for me. Far too many use that view to be morally lazy. So, for me, looking inward and being responsible for ourselves has worked better than having a divinity who, by dying for me, absolved me of sin. It's just illogical to me.

There's also my extreme prejudice against all religions in that, once humans get ahold of them, they become power to wield and "causes" to fight over, and create men who do bad things to gain power, or even small people who use that power to condemn others and tell those who look to them what to think and how to behave. And I agree about angels, they, like the cute little nativity scenes, have become corrupted away from resembling anything like they supposedly were.

You'll get a kick out of this (maybe). Before I was buddhist, I was agnostic for decades. Given I lived in a land much like what Jesus lived in atone time, I abhorred my mom's yearly mantle decoration of the creche in one of those fake "stables" you can buy every Xmas, complete with a backdrop of green branches! So I set about building my own "nativity" a few years back--I'm a diorama-aholic ;o) I researched caravansaries, which were most likely near where Jesus was supposedly born, built a miniature one (honest to gawd, out of clay and had it fired and everything), used miniature wooden carved figures we got while in Switzerland (gorgeous!) and bought more when the same sculptor's figurines came out in replicas here in the states, built a cave and made a "REAL" nativity, complete with rocks, sand, a stream and everything. Ended up expanding the mantle, ahem, quite a bit!

I did that for a few years, until I dscovered those little lighted houses from Department 56...then I went nuts for years (and even took over the entire dining room!), building Dickens dioramas. But it was very satisfying for those years I built "real" nativities.

All that from someone who never believed in God or saw Jesus as a divinity. Nobody said I had to make sense!


Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Biblically, I thought angels were pretty consistently represented, that is something that was pretty awe and fear inspiring. In common culture, though, angels are cute, unintimidating and kind of magic djinni-like. Is that the contrast you were making?

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Pretty much.

The seraphim are too bright too look at, but they're vaguely humanoid under the fire. They have four heads, and six wings with eyes all over them, a pair to cover their heads and a pair to cover their "feet" and a pair to fly with. Sometimes they appear as large flying fiery snakes. Not that they do that much flying, they pretty much just hang around god singing all the time.

Lucifer and the Metatron I believe may have had twelve wings (Lucifer in literature is often just given six, though). They were leaders of the seraphim (Metatron replacing Lucifer when he fell). If you've read Dante's inferno, Lucifer also has four heads in the lake of ice on the lowest level of hell, and in three of those heads he's eating Brutus, Cassius, and Judas for all eternity. The fourth head just looks sad all the time I guess.

Cherubim are NOT the babies with wings you see in art, nor do they look like adult humans with wings like some depict. They also have four heads like the seraphim, but one is a lion, one is an eagle, one is a bull, and one is human. They have four wings, four heads, four arms, and four legs.

Then you get into some non-humanoid stuff, like the thrones and the ophanim (which were just balls of light).

Regular angels are always male (and don't have wings), and they are called malachim or irinim depending on their duties (messengers/heralds and The Watchers in English). In the past some of them have been attracted to human females, giving rise to a race of gigantic monstrous fallen angel sorcerers called the nephilim.

God himself is described either as the usual old guy on a gold/sapphire/pearl throne, or as interlocking gold rings, or as three differently coloured spheres of light. However, he has a female counterpart, known as the Shekhinah. She mostly just looks like smoke, which makes sense according to her duties, because she represents hearth and home. Burning incense in temples made her manifest. Though God also spoke through her now and then in the form of burning bushes.

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Riona, if you believe

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He does work on our lives and because we are seeking Him and getting to know Him we are becoming more interested in doing the right things, loving humanity, striving to be our best/to be self aware and wanting to make positive differences in the world

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then why HAVEN'T Christians improved in all this time? If it worked as you say, surely Christians would have become better than those of other religions, or better than those who have none. Yet while many strive to do the right thing, love humanity, etc., the majority do not...at least when it comes to good works and become self-aware, from my observation. At this time in history, in this country, it's exactly the opposite for people like Bachmann and many "religious fundamentalists", they are more focused on hate and judgment than loving others. How does that square with what you said?


Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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