Is it sane when people derive enjoyment from the pain and suffering of other people?
Is it sane when people do things which destroys their own health?
Is it sane when people give over their freedom and will to addictive drugs?
Is it sane when people pour poisons into the rivers and air?
I can go on and on and on…
People do these things which do not seem at all sane and they keep on doing them even when they know it is wrong and stupid and destructive of all that is good in the world.
Some people close their eyes to beauty and love and they call them all lies and fairy tales preferring other things like power and even things which look more like deception to other people.
I think that is kind of the whole point. It doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. Certainly I have known a great deal of people who see far more of hell in the broken ugly relationships between people at church, than in the descriptions of fire and torment by the religious. I can tell you what it means to me. To me, hell means my own self-destructive habits continuing to grow and devour my free will and everything else of value within me until I become everything I hate most.
We declare our faith in Christ because we believe He saves us from the insanity of sin. We are told to repent and turn to God for our salvation/sanity. I think we should examine repentance much more closely, as it is the commencement of the death of the sinner and rebirth in Christ.
I agree that some do this, and I also affirm many do not.
We human beings are a complicated lot - we are admonished to grown in God’s Grace and Knowledge.
Well… I certainly think this is true. But this hard for the non-religious to take seriously, since they do not see the value of God in the first place.
I would explain that this is because God is the source of life and to be cut off from it is to be left without that which makes an eternal existence worthwhile. Many of the non-religious can understand how an eternal existence can be more of a burden than a good thing eventually even becoming agonizing in its emptiness. So I would explain that eternal life by contrast is relationship with an infinite being with no end to what He can give – an existence in which there are always new things to learn, to experience and to become.
I think the lollipop God is the one where people imagine God able to do anything by whatever means WE care to dictate – so we can have our cake and eat it too. I think it is more a matter of not being able to wish ourselves to a lollipop reality where God can just make all our problems vanish with an abracadabra. This is primarily why God cannot be manipulated. He is dealing with the realities of the situation and our nonsensical wishes are more meaningless that we comprehend.
But the rules are only completely arbitrary in a dream world. It is the coherence and rationality of it all that makes it real.
God created the angels – ministering spirits, servants, spiritual tools. Then God created the self-organizing process of life, for that would give Him children – ones who would grow and make their own choices. Then His children chose to blame one of those angels for their own mistake. But power goes hand in hand with responsibility. So God assigned this angel to be what His children wanted it to be. A personification of evil? yes. Power to oppose God? The very idea is absurd to the point of hilarity. He has power, naturally, when people abdicate their responsibility to him. But the idea that He can thwart God Himself is ridiculous.
Why did God do this? I think the reasons are threefold.
If we need to blame someone then it is better to blame Lucifer than to blame God.
It is to give a more clear choice between good and evil.
We need to learn that passing the blame and responsibility to others just doesn’t work.
Yes, that is wrong. Ultimately Satan is the quintessential scapegoat. He is made the personification of evil so we can more easily reject evil and to see it destroyed in the end.
It is a mystery, but it also causes us to consider freedom as transcendental, as part of our spiritual existence. From the myths concerning Lucifer, we may infer that he has great knowledge, and he went further in desiring great power. The ultimate power is God who created him, and yet his vanity led him to contend with God and become Satan the adversary. The how and why is a mystery to me, and yet when we as human beings make choices that are sin, we are also irrational in that we may insist evil is good for us, and are often filled with a sense of power.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
71
You have to respect your immediate culture, honour your parents, family, kin, your neighbour. Their religion. Alien American damnationism has nothing to offer them. Or you. This is anthropological, sociological, not theological. It has nothing to do with truth or morality, which are entirely relative, subjective beyond the golden rule. Live the social gospel giving appropriately to every man that asks. Which doesn’t mean emptying your pockets. Get involved.
Looking beyond your horizons is natural, but don’t go down the first rabbit hole. This is more like Cu Chi. Damnationists are sincere but they aren’t bunnies. Do not abandon tradition. Be grateful for it all. Don’t expect, demand anything of it. Be content with it as it is. Forgive it. Love it. It is a rock in a stream. Don’t just plunge in to the stream. Talk to your priest and people - men - he recommends. If a better rock surfaces within stepping distance, may be. But they don’t. I know one, but it’s too far, I’m too old to move to it.
If you keep coming here (why?), I will stand by you.
What i got from your repost was to not “share” my views with others in my church which is not gonna happen anyway sooner or later. Tradition in church is a good thing but too much of it and it ruins everything. The reason i came here is because my beliefs are similar to others here and the variety of people can maybe answer my questions (plus i enjoy the company). The answer the priest gives me is limited to the churchs teachings. The church doesnt hold the whole truth. Neither do protestans do. Both have been influenced by secular things and the later has ruled out basic themes of christianity .
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Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
73
Aye. Tradition can stultify the enquiring mind. But that’s not tradition’s fault. Tradition can’t help not having the tradition of open enquiry from its citadel. Few do apart from Western secular institutions. So where do you get your beliefs? In what way are they similar to others here? What is your belief mechanism? Your epistemology? What is the tradition of that?
Arent we all(the majority) are christians here? Arent we all(the majority again) are trinitarians? The core beliefs are similar. My epistemology comes from what the early christians did. For example. The reason why i wouldnt go to a protestant congregation even if it was one here is that i despise their post modern liturgy. They have ruled oute tradition and i dont think is valid. Therefore i reject that . Another example is why i dont believe in saints . While a lot orthodox do i dont. The early christians didnt venerated the other martyrs as higher "beigns "above them and certainly didnt believe they were doing miracles. So i reject that as well.
Dear Nick,
[content removed by moderator] The Early Christians agreed with you, before they were massacred by the “Holy Roman Empire” and the same empire created the Eternal Damnation Doctrine.
The question comes down to believing that God is Love, and letting go of how He far His Love goes. Or, siding with those who massacred the peace loving Early Christians and orchestrated some of the worst massacres in the history of humanity, in His name. [content removed by moderator]
I have been praying that God send humanity wisdom in these trying times. I hope this might help in that regard.
Best wishes, Shawn
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
76
As the Holy Roman Empire dates from 800 AD, when and where were these massacres?
Shawn as i said if i was to accept universalism as it is i wouldn’t accept that all are saved . That cannot happen in my opinion. What i whould accept is that people ,good people that have christian morals although not beign christians can be saved
@gbob, it truly is a mystery, but being a mystery does not mean that God has not given us the ability to resolve it. We are looking at the question from the wrong perspective, which is why do we have evil? The right perspective is How did God grant humans freedom? By giving us the ability to make real
choices.
May I suggest that you read my essay on God and Freedom on Academia.edu for more details.
Why is that? I can see how you are incluenced very much of other cultures and you kinda mix up things with the bible so i really dont know what to get from your responses