mojo wrote:as an agnostic i can make either argument without too much trouble. please don't take this the wrong way, picard, but surely you realize you're not living as a christian is meant to live. insofar as the bible itself is concerned, there are very specific rules and guidelines for christian living which simply cannot be met without at the absolute least continual reading of the bible and continual attendance at church. i mean, there's just no way to argue anything else because it's spelled out throughout the new testament.
I know. There are some reasons, but... I won't try to justify myself.
i seriously hope that that wasn't too offensive, but it kind of makes my point for me. you seem like a rational, nice kind of person as far as i can tell, and you're obviously pretty intelligent, yet you openly admit to having a belief in christianity yet failing to live the part as explained so clearly in the bible. and fuck, man, you're probably up there in the top 25% of american christians as far as understanding what is in the book and what the dogma actually is rather than what bullshit your parents told you while not taking you to church during your childhood, which is the norm.
You weren't offensive, if I considered what you wrote offensive I'd be in pshychiatry right know beacouse my brain... my conscience would be offending me non-stop. But truth is that I find church unnerving. I know I should be going to church, but I know many people go in church out of habit. And that unnerves me; and to make it even worse, when I start going to church every weekend, I start finding myself paying less and less attention to what priest is saying. I fall into the routine - and then, when I feel that, I simply cease going to the church. Even thought it could be considered a test to continue going despite that. But when I don't see point in something, I generally don't do it.
I told you that I won't be trying to justify myself, and now I wrote you same that I thought about writing one quote previously ;-).
and yet 90% claim to believe in the christian god and that they will go to heaven. THROUGH WORKS, for fuck's sake. that they will go to heaven because they are a good person, rather than through the sacrifice of christ, which if you think about it, is fucking hilarious considering that belief in entering heaven through works rather than through the blood of christ shows an ABSOLUTE lack of knowledge of even the most basic tenets of the religion.
sorry for getting carried away there.
Actually, Christ sacrificed himself to make it possible for the people to go to the heaven, to clear them from the Original Sin; but that only means one can go into the heaven, not that he/she
will go to the heaven no matter what - one still has to work, and work hard, to achieve that. He "took the sins of the world", but that probably means "original" sins, ones we are born with, and which are removed during the ritual of baptism. Church now supports the view that atheists can go to the Heaven; althought only thing certain is that good atheists will
not go to the Hell. Which is why I think that Purgatory, despite not being mentioned in the Bible, makes sense. Christ did say, "believe and your sins will be forgiven", but when you look closer, those that think they can do shit and go to the heaven have brain that isn't worth shit - beacouse, althought anyone can say that he believes, true believer will not do - or will at least try not to do - things that are counted as sins.
Besides, as far as I remember Bible, Christ's coming to the Earth was not in original's God's plan. He came beacouse sins have grown too strong and too many.
Also, while early people (Homo Erectus, early Homo sapiens sapiens, for example - mixing religion and science now) were doing things that were technically sinful, they are probably exempt beacouse they were not aware that it was sin (not sure about EHS).
Besides, God judges by "what is in heart". You might be an atheist, but if you "feel" God, so to speak, you will still go to the heaven. Or at least that's how I understand it. God
is Love.
1 Tim 4:10 "it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God who is teh savior of ALL MEN, espeically of believers" (not exclusively believers)
Matthew 3:11
"I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire."
Jesus: "The servant who knows what his master wants him to do, but does not get himself ready and do it, will be punished with a heavy whipping. But the servant who does not know what his master wants, and yet does something for which he deserves a whipping, will be punished with a light whipping. Much is required from the person to whom much is given; much more is required from the person to whom much more is given." (Luke Ch 12) - it seems that Christians will be punished heavier for evil they do than atheists, beacouse they heard Word of God and allegedly believed in it, yet did not obey it. So in all probability, both rewards and punishments for atheists are going to be lighter than those for believers (Christians, but I think Muslims and Jews might partially count - both believe in same God, but Jews think Christ was liar, and Muslims put him as just another prophet - albeit only second to the Muhammad himself).
Then again,
Hell isn't a
place, it is
a state of soul, where soul is forever on torment, doe to being detached from its Creator for the eternety. So one can also argue that atheists don't feel God and are thus condemned to Hell. But, Jesus himself said that God cannot be percieved by reason (althought it did help me when I got into crisis of faith) so what we
think about existence of God might not apply on that level. Thus, wether you are "kind of heart" (as Iron Maiden put it) is
far more important.
It
will be harder - far harder - for atheists to go to the Heaven, beacouse they won't get "believe" "credit". But impossible? No.
Believeing in God also makes it easier not to fall into traps of modern world and thus separate yourself from the God. Atheists are far more suspectible to become idol worshippers (althought false Christian is as good as atheist in that regard; in others, he's far worse beacouse he's
lying - to people and to God. And God doesn't like lying. At all.) than believers (one could say - and I think about it that way - that soul always searches for God; but beacouse reason is denying that God exists (or it or soul are not confident in God's existence enough), soul tries to find a replacement. And there you go - modern sects (Scientology; New Age; and so on), extreme materialism, etc. If you took a look at Bible, you'd notice that Jesus was, economically, a socialist (now you don't have to wonder why I'm such devout socialist, if you read my discussions with Admiral Breetai).
I'm quite liberal Christian, but there you go.
Oh, and:
http://atheism.about.com/b/2009/01/12/c ... heaven.htm
(NOTE: Hitler certainly didn't convert before the death, 'caouse he wouldn't be killing other people with him).
http://www.jutarnji.hr/sudac--i-ateisti ... la/277033/
- you'll need to translate it (it's on Croatian) but I agree with him (in short, to translate title: Monsignour Sudac (surname Sudac means Judge - i hope he judged correctly) : Atheists also can go to the Heaven if they do good deeds.
The Bible says that on the Judgment Day, books will be opened containing a record of everything people have done, good and bad. It says that we will be:
Judged according to our deeds;
judged by every word we have ever spoken;
that all our hidden motives will be exposed,
and everything we have done in secret will be brought out into the open.
So in short, it is also important WHY you are doing good deeds. Christian doing them only beacouse he hopes to go to the Heaven will be far worse off than atheist who genuinely wants to help other people.
And, from this:
http://www.broadcaster.org.uk/section2/atheists.htm
When Jesus said that people couldn't get to heaven except through him, he probably meant that anyone who will never accept that they are a sinner and that he died for them on the cross will not get to heaven, as well as anyone who won't accept his death for them because they don't care that they're sinners. People who don't accept that they are sinners won't want to be made perfect if they think they're already good enough. And the Bible says that only people who are willing to be made spotlessly pure can be in heaven.
Read rest of page too, if you have time.
EDIT:
sonofccn wrote:Not to ruin the capitalists are evil love-in going on but need I remind you Capitalism and Corporations brought you everything you are using to sustain your life and bashing of said system. Food, drinks, clothes, petrol, computers everything which sustains and allows what we are doing right now comes from "Evil" Capitalism.
Conversely "humane" collectivism typically produces famines and massive, massive heaps of dead bodies. Just a thought from one of us evil Capitalists. ;)
Wrong. I'm not opposed to all types of capitalism - but for ease, I just call it "capitalism" and "socialism", instead of "free market capitalism" and "socialistic capitalism".
Problem is that classic capitalism disregards ethics and morale in pursuit of profit. It privatizes everything, including things that should not be private at all (except maybe in Hell), like health, education and some other systems. It sets profit as
only measure of man - morale be damned. Many advancemets were scrapped beacouse they did not promise quick profit - I mean, when you look at all things Nikola Tesla designed that were not put into use due to them being unprofitable - we'd be living in friggin'
Star Trek by now. As for petrol - I'd rather hydrogen, thank you.
Or horses.
Most products that you are praising and we are both using are made in what are basically slave societies, by slaves.
And there are still famines - one third of world has few times more food than it realistically needs, two thirds are dying of hunger in the meantime.
What you are using as a "capitalism" is a correct definition, but not what I think when I talk about capitalism. I might try to be more precise and talk about corporatism, beacouse that is what it is. However, it can also exist without corporations (refer to the Roman Empire) so it might not be correct deifinition either.