Understood.
The movie "Religulous" by Bill Maher presents many of the questions I have. It seems that God is good if you follow his rules and if you don't follow everything to a T then you are branded a sinner even if you morally are a good person. In the eyes of God, commiting theft and commiting murder hold the same weight. I tell you one thing, in my eyes it doesn't. So I think it has to do with morals.
What I don't understand is that according to Christianity, believers will go to heaven and non believers will go to hell. That seems kind of skewed to me. There are various other forms of religions out there that don't believe in God or follow Chirsitianity. So because they believe in something different, regardless if they are a great human being, they are going to hell? That seems a bit rediculous. To me it seems you are scared into believing.
Another thing is the Bible. It was written by man. Therefore it's not perfect. Plus it was written many many years ago. Life has changed, we have evolved. By this logic, we should be following the same government guidelines from those times. Community stonings and the likes.
It seems that every other day there was miracles happening. Now, nothing happens. Anyone split a sea lately?
Science and Religion conflict each other. So if you believe in God and follow Christianity, then you certainly can't believe in any of the information that science prooves for us. i.e. the earth being millions and millions of years old, evolution, outer space and various other galaxies/life forms.
How about the crusades? Those were good days pushed by good Christians...or wait...actually it was the opposite. But slaying people is what God wants. If this is the case, then we do not have a need for human rights. If wars can be blessed by the pope, no one is safe.
Religion causes many if not most of the worlds problems. With so many conflicting religions out there, how can you be so sure that you're right with Christainity and everyone else who is not is wrong. Surely they are living a lie, no? Please don't say it's a faith thing. Do you think muslims really get 27 virgins? Because they surely have faith that they do in heaven.
The mind simply can not compute absolute nothingness. So it comes up with something to hold on to, a sense of false reality so that it can function without a misfire.
Its ok. I can actually address most of these with simplicity.
The movie "Religulous" by Bill Maher presents many of the questions I have. It seems that God is good if you follow his rules and if you don't follow everything to a T then you are branded a sinner even if you morally are a good person. In the eyes of God, commiting theft and commiting murder hold the same weight. I tell you one thing, in my eyes it doesn't. So I think it has to do with morals.
This concept is consistent with all religions
but Christianity. As with anything in life, people like BM seem to have an aggressive stance against religion and Christianity simply because of lack of information, or perhaps miscommunication by the "christian" organizations. Christians are sinners. Cut and dry no exceptions. We are sinners just like everyone else. Do we like it? No. Do we deliberately continue in it? We try not to. Are we still imperfect even in our "righteousness"? Yes. The righteousness I have is from Christ, not myself. So yes, I go to heaven because I realize that it is God and only God that gives me righteousness through Christ. My faith can been seen as genuine if I follow Christ. My following Christ doesn't define my salvation or righteousness, but, without works - faith isn't legit. The faith and dedication I put into loving God and loving others is evidence that I truly believe in and rely on Christ's work on the cross. He
is perfect. And He offers that perfection to all who choose to follow Him in faith. I would elaborate on this more but I need to get to my first point, lol. God created the commandments and the "law" to do one thing only - to lead us to Christ. Think about it. We sinned in the beginning out of
pride. So the only way to break us of our pride is to give us a command(s) that we cannot fulfill. He breaks us by giving us impossible laws to follow. (Romans 3-19:20) The Law makes us conscious of our sin and imperfection. God created us as sinless beings but we chose ourselves over Him thus creating a life and world about "self" rather than "others". You can easily see that correlation today. Pride and selfishness drive our sin. So when God tells us to post His commanments in our doorway, to talk about them in the home and to live by them every minute of every day, (Deut. 6) He is actually wanting us to be exposed to our sin through the Law. The Law defines God's character and sets an impossible but perfect standard. We humans tend to
compare ourselves to one another, not to God as we should. Thus, the need for the Law. Finally, when Christ mentioned that being angry with your brother is just the same as murdering your brother, there was soooo much Christ was accomplishing in that statement. We have to look at the proper context of the statement to understand it. For instance,
1) The audience was a bunch of prideful, stuck-up Jews who thought they were holy and "above" the Gentiles (which was everyone else). Sound familiar? Sound like today's American Christian!?!? I have to agree. Christ wanted to show them that they aren't perfect and that they aren't living by the commandments as they so thought. He did this by bringing the "2.0" version of Mosaic Law. By taking things up a notch, this prideful society would see that they aren't perfect. And they knew very well what the consequence of imperfection meant. It was just a matter of bringing it to their attention. You see other examples of Jesus analyzing the heart of man such as the lusting and sleeping with a woman as being the same as well. And they are. Christ is concerned with our heart, which causes the outward behavior of sin in the first place.
2) Can you really murder a man without first being angry with him? Can you? Anger has to be present in some way or fashion to retaliate(I do not mean "to kill" or defend by killing)
3) Can you wind up sleeping with someone other than your wife without first lusting after or "desiring" that woman? Get my drift?
Another thing is the Bible. It was written by man. Therefore it's not perfect. Plus it was written many many years ago. Life has changed, we have evolved. By this logic, we should be following the same government guidelines from those times. Community stonings and the likes.
66 individual books written by 40 different authors over a 1500 year period in 3 different continents and in 3 different languages with a
very very consistent plot and theme. Behold, the Holy Bible. God's love letter to man. His calling to us to come back to Him before He's destroys unholiness. I have to disagree that it is not perfect. When it comes to writing a book, the real metric of measurement is whether the book communicates it's point effectively and in this case, considering the millions of lives that it has changed - I have to say it's just perfect for man.
People can't even communicate a simple statement consistently over the course of a day in the office or a class period in school much less a story with so many characters, authors and chapters over 1500 years in different cultures and languages. God has a presence in the work of this Bible whether man wants to realize it or not.
BTW, I want to add that the countries, governments and characters of the Bible were not included to show us something or someone to follow. They were there to reveal how bad we really are as humans. All of our history and "dirty laundry" is in this book. The point, to give us reason to see our need for a savior. The ONLY character that God intended for us to follow in the Bible is Christ. His example is the only worthy one to note.
So because they believe in something different, regardless if they are a great human being, they are going to hell? That seems a bit rediculous. To me it seems you are scared into believing.
Compared to who? The people around me? The guy next door? The prison-mate next to me? How about Hitler? I bet I look good enough to go to heaven compared to him don't I? The benchmark isn' men and women. The benchmark is Christ, who
did come to earth and did live a perfect life and offer us a gift. That gift was paying for man's sins - past, present and future and to give us
His record of perfection. To come back to Him, follow Him and love Him. When you are God, you can do things like that. Think about how successful and widespread the Bible has been compared to all other texts. Coincidence? I think not.
And as for the Crusades and religion causing problems. I agree. Crusades is a great example of how Satan took a positive intention and corrupted it, causing men to be prideful and forget the whole point of following Christ which is to love Him and love people. Sticking middle-easterners with swords isn't what I call "loving" them and this was certainly not God's work. Satan obviously has won a few followers here and there (being sarcastic). Lol, in fact, he has the whole world.
After all, until Christians get this concept of "selflessness" no one will see and believe in Christ. Christ specifically said, "love one another
as I have loved you" and also said that in doing so that people will see Christ in that love, not in our obedience to the Law. The Law was created to establish a direction for God' people - that direction as mentioned earlier is to Christ. The Law reveals our need for a savior yet we often use it to compare our "performance" with others. Christ actually fulfilled the Law and in doing so destroyed the need for religion! Besides, the root phrase for religion is "to bind". Doesn't sound like something I want to be apart of and I can't blame you for being turned off as well. But that isn't what Christianity is really about. Many will say it is and guess what? They aren't true believers either. They are just like the Jews who think their works are necessary to go to heaven. Bull crap - we all deserve our wages of death bceause our work is nothing but sin (Genesis 6 & Romans 3:10) That's why Christ said He will "free us" from our bondage to sin and that's why He also said His yoke is easy because leaning on Christ for salvation and righteousness is much easier than trying to obtain it through denial and pride in oneself. Do you get the objective yet? Is it forming in your mind? I want you to be able to envision God and His creation. I want you to be able to envision the depth of God's love for man and what
hell He put himself through to get us back to Himself. By leaning on Christ, I
must make my life about Christ instead of myself. And since Christ has tons of examples of what "to do", I also have lots of tips on how to please God and thus satisfy my own soul since the Holy Spirit now resides in me! God makes a new nature out of men. Our sinful nature gratifies the desires of sinful behaviors but when God lives in my soul and resides in my mind, I now gratify
righteous behavior. Sure, I can still sin. And quite honestly, I do still sin. But so long as I continue to do so, I
am miserable. Living in constant wickedness/sin for me is about as awkward as an athiest attempting to sing praise hymnals in a Church of Christ service.
Take a look at this- Here is one of
your old brethren that is now one of
my brethren, lol:
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He converted after experience God's love through His people. Just some food for thought...