Ok, this is for the people who do believe in some sort of higher power, particularly Christians...

What do you think your purpose/role in life, regarding your religion & God, is?

Is it to serve God & give your life up to him?

Is it to spread God's word?

Is it to be an image of Jesus; do good things for others like Jesus did...?

Is it something else?

Well, the other day I was talking to a guy in my class about religion. he's a complete "holy-roly", he's a southern baptist & was raised in a tiny bible belt town, & he claims that he was "saved" at the age of 8...

He asked me about my religion & I told him I didn't know exactly what I believed, but I did try to live my life being a good person & doing good for others, b/c that's a common belief among all religions, so even if I followed the wrong God atleast I did what whatever the right God wanted, right?

Well he informed me that I was wrong.



He said that the only way to get ito heaven was to devote your life to Jesus & just being a good person wasn't enough. He even said "good people go to hell all the time"

Now, I'm not worried about what I have to do to get into heaven, I live for today, not for tomorrow. I'm mainly just trying to figure out how people can think that way & what their reasoning is behind it, besides b/c that's what they've been told by some preacher...



so, can you give me some of your insights?

He's obviously an idiot.

That's a tough one. My purpose regarding my religion an God. It's a combination of things. Jesus summed it up best when He said "Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind. And love your neighbor as you love yourself." I guess those are the goals all Christians should strive for.

As far as 'spreading God's word', I feel it a duty to share and help those who want it. Many Christians refuse to accept that alot of nonbelievers simply don't want to and won't believe. There really is no point in trying to convert a strong skeptic to a faith-based religion. Instead I'd rather focus on helping anyone who does happen to be interested, who is looking for something to believe in.

Regarding the Bible-thumper who informed you you were 'lost'. He was partly right, but like many Christians, he probably sucks ass at explaining himself (or perhaps he is completely incapable of it).

For starters, from a Christian perspective, let's break down what 'you' actually are. You are composed of 3 things, the mind, the body, and the soul. The body is your physical body. The mind is your conscious being. Your thoughts, memories, desires, are held and formed by the mind. The soul is in you, the part of you that defines you as a person. It is what makes you second guess yourself when you're doing something you don't know is right or wrong, it is what makes you feel there is more when your mind says there isn't. Some would call it a 'conscience', which is a role it plays. But it is more than that.

So you have your body, mind, and soul. 2 are destroyed on Earth, one can only be destroyed by the one that made it, that one being God. Now that we know what 'you' are, lets find out why you can't get into heaven just by being good.

*Note: I'm not meaning to preach to you. You asked for insight about why we think this may be, so I'm giving you insight.

Whether you acknowledge it or not, your mind, body, and soul all have a nature that you are born with. The nature is one of both self-preservation, and self-destruction. To sum it up in a word: greedy. We are greedy by nature. It's almost the full definition of 'sin', greed (the rest of the definition being a close relative of greed, arrogance). You may be saying, "No. I'm not greedy. Plenty of people go their lives without being greedy." But things are more comlpicated than that. It isn't just actions that make one a sinner (as a matter of fact, it really isn't actions at all), it's desire. Merely the desire, the consideration, to do selfish acts is sin, and makes you sinful.

Now a more fun question "Why can't my good works make up for my selfish nature? Why can't I be rewarded for my self restraint instead of damned for a nature I can't control?"

First, heaven must be devoid of sin. You know what heaven is if sinners are let in? Earth! It wouldn't be a paradise because people would still be fighting each other, competing, betraying each other to please themselves. It just wouldn't work.

So we see ourselves somewhat in a pickle. Heaven is devoid of sin, we have sin written all over us, wtf do we do? Back in the day, people would sacrifice animals. Not because God has a hardon for blood, but because sin carries a universal penalty. Death. Sin, in the end, must and will be completely eradicated from existance. Pre-Jesus, something had to die for a sinner for his sins to be paid for.

New question: "Why couldn't God forgive them anyway? He's omnipotent; Why make shit so bloody? Or better yet, why couldn't God just make people not sinful by nature?"

Because

1) If He 'forgave' them, there would be no penalty, therefore sins wouldn't be seen as 'wrong' by people, therefore God would end up throwing the whole world in hell (because sin can't be allowed into heaven), saying "Fuck it", and go back to existing in nothingness. There would be no right or wrong, no point.

2) If He took away our sinful nature, it would defeat his purpose in creating us. If God made beings who thought like Him, loved Him, did everything He wanted them to do...guess what? They wouldn't be seperate beings from Him, they'd be just an extension, clone, and alternate reality of Himself. We would all be divine in nature, all everlasting beings. And to God, it would all be fake. Like putting finger puppets on your fingers and making them say to you, "We love you!". Pointless.

Anyway, something had to die for sins. God said "Make it animals, but only really clean ones. I don't want any cripples or any crap like that." The whole time this is going on God is planning on sending the soul of his Son down to Earth to die for man so they don't have to keep killing doves and sheep everytime they screw up. Finally God sent his son down and knocked up Mary.

Remember how I made that analogy with the finger puppets earlier? Jesus is like one of them. Jesus had no will of his own, his will was God's will; no competing will of his own. So Jesus comes down. His body, mind, and soul are all selfless and sinless. He tells a bunch of people that nobody gets into heaven unless it's through him, he forgives people of their sins, and went on to be a final sacrifice for the sins of man.

However, because He was a part of God, because His will and God's were one in the same, He was able to resurrect himself from the dead, then go to heaven without dying again.

In doing this, God made it possible to people, on their own free will, to rid their souls of sinful nature. By believing that one is a 'sinner', all one must do is ask God to forgive them of their sins and ask to be born again in Christ. This isn't a literal 'asking', it could be entirely mental, alone. There is no ceremony or crying or none of that, it's simply a defining moment in coming to terms with one's beliefs and humility towards God. After that, one is, as Jesus put it, "born again." Meaning the sinful nature of the soul is removed. Because the soul is no longer sinful in nature, when the mind and body die, the soul can go to heaven.

The conflict in all of this, is that even though the soul is now sinless in nature, the body and mind are not. It creates almost an Orwellian double-think in a Christian.

For instance, in my soul, I believe everything I typed above.

I my mind, the above can be torn apart. There is no basis for it. At times I wonder why I even succumb to beliefs like this.

It is a bit of an internal struggle, trying to juggle everything around and make sense of it all.

At the end of the day though, the feelings of the soul conquer the logic of the mind, and one accepts the fact that there are things regarding existence that we will never understand until we either meet our maker, or cease to exist altogether.

Hope this helped. http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

wow Elephantitis Man, thanks a lot for taking the time to reply. that's pretty much what I was looking for. (sorry but I'm kinda in a rush now, but I'll reply to it in more detail a little later when I do have time)



Let me explain my "situation"...

I went to Catholic school for 13 years, took religion classes for 12 of them, and am baptized & everything else "Catholic", but I don't consider myself a true "Catholic". I consider myself agnostic. I once was a complete athiest b/c I just said fuck all of this religion bullshit that they've been craming into my head, I'm just gonna forget it all & find out the truth on my own. I've now come to believe that there actually is some kind of higher power... now it's just figuring out who/what religion knows that higher power...

One of the reasons that I "denounced" my "faith" was b/c of how all of the viewed the others, even the various Christian religions.

My Southern Baptist friend believes that I'm going to hell b/c I don't devote my life to Jesus & spend time every week worshiping him, but I, "being Catholic", believe that he is the one going to hell just b/c he has never received the Eucharist in the sacrament of Communion.

So we both say the other is going to hell...

How do we know who's right & who's wrong?

I don't think that we can know who's right or who's wrong.

So I think that instead of "wasting" time in church worshiping a God that you can't be sure exists, it is better to spend that time helping other people around you and making their lives better.

See what I'm saying?

quote:Originally posted by Elephantitis Man:

...

As far as 'spreading God's word', I feel it a duty to share and help those who want it. Many Christians refuse to accept that alot of nonbelievers simply don't want to and won't believe. There really is no point in trying to convert a strong skeptic to a faith-based religion. Instead I'd rather focus on helping anyone who does happen to be interested, who is looking for something to believe in.



but do you believe that it is more important to spread God's word, or God's love?

one of the main reasons why I stopped liking the Catholic religion is because some of the most "religious" people I knew, such as the nuns and religion teachers at my school, were not very kind & loving people at all. quote:

Regarding the Bible-thumper who informed you you were 'lost'. He was partly right, but like many Christians, he probably sucks ass at explaining himself (or perhaps he is completely incapable of it).

I agree that I'm lost, by that I don't know what God/religion to believe in. But I'm also lost at how some people come to their conclusions... He said that he was saved when he was 8, now I do not believe that it's possible for an 8yr old to even have enugh of an understanding about God to even think or convince themselves that they're "saved". maybe I'm wrong.

quote:

For starters, from a Christian perspective, let's break down what 'you' actually are. You are composed of 3 things, the mind, the body, and the soul. The body is your physical body. The mind is your conscious being. Your thoughts, memories, desires, are held and formed by the mind. The soul is in you, the part of you that defines you as a person. It is what makes you second guess yourself when you're doing something you don't know is right or wrong, it is what makes you feel there is more when your mind says there isn't. Some would call it a 'conscience', which is a role it plays. But it is more than that.

I would kinda call that your superego (your parents voice in your head telling you what's wrong or not). Would that be just about the same thing?

[B][QUOTE]

quote:Originally posted by Elephantitis Man:

New question: "Why couldn't God forgive them anyway? He's omnipotent; Why make shit so bloody? Or better yet, why couldn't God just make people not sinful by nature?"

Because

1) If He 'forgave' them, there would be no penalty, therefore sins wouldn't be seen as 'wrong' by people, therefore God would end up throwing the whole world in hell (because sin can't be allowed into heaven), saying "Fuck it", and go back to existing in nothingness. There would be no right or wrong, no point.

Except people have their own built-in set of morals. It's something just about every person has, religious or not. If a "sin" isn't seen as wrong by the people, it's because the person sees no reason why it's wrong beyond "God said so."

Also, it doesn't make sense that you say God will end up throwing everyone in hell if he forgave everyone / took away their sinful nature.

quote:2) If He took away our sinful nature, it would defeat his purpose in creating us. If God made beings who thought like Him, loved Him, did everything He wanted them to do...guess what? They wouldn't be seperate beings from Him, they'd be just an extension, clone, and alternate reality of Himself. We would all be divine in nature, all everlasting beings. And to God, it would all be fake. Like putting finger puppets on your fingers and making them say to you, "We love you!". Pointless.

Isn't that what people in heaven are supposed to be like? Just zombies worshipping God for all eternity...

quote:However, because He was a part of God, because His will and God's were one in the same, He was able to resurrect himself from the dead, then go to heaven without dying again.

In doing this, God made it possible to people, on their own free will, to rid their souls of sinful nature.

I'm not sure how you got from point A to point B there. God's all-powerful, so he should be able to do this by his own will.

quote:The conflict in all of this, is that even though the soul is now sinless in nature, the body and mind are not. It creates almost an Orwellian double-think in a Christian.

For instance, in my soul, I believe everything I typed above.

I my mind, the above can be torn apart. There is no basis for it. At times I wonder why I even succumb to beliefs like this.

It is a bit of an internal struggle, trying to juggle everything around and make sense of it all.

I am the same way, even though I am no longer a Christian. I have a set of emotion-based beliefs, and a set of logic/reason-based beliefs. Emotion-based beliefs aren't very reliable when it comes to accuracy... they are just more enjoyable to have. People's emotion-based beliefs vary from culture to culture, and there are people in every religion who are 100% sure of their beliefs, as absurd as those beliefs may be. Doesn't this tell you something about these sort of beliefs? If you want a reliable method to find the truth, you need to go by logic and reason.

quote:Originally posted by Clarphimous:

If you want a reliable method to find the truth, you need to go by logic and reason.

That is, if you truly believe you are capable of seeing everything required to make an informed decision on the matter. http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif)

quote:Originally posted by emag:

[B]but do you believe that it is more important to spread God's word, or God's love?

one of the main reasons why I stopped liking the Catholic religion is because some of the most "religious" people I knew, such as the nuns and religion teachers at my school, were not very kind & loving people at all.[b]

Really should be one in the same. In spreading God's love, you are a living testament of what His word preaches. Alot of Christians have a hard time drawing the line between 'acceptance', 'tolerance', and 'condemnation'. 'Acceptance' being a Christian who seems to have no problem with sin at all. They can get so wound up with trying to be 'loving', they end up manipulating the scripture to try to accomodate everyone. 'Condemnation', of course, one who feels the need to inform everyone they don't see on Sunday morning that they are going to hell. They also manipulate the scripture, somehow interpreting that they have a right to judge those around them. 'Tolerance' being in the middle. Not judging, yet not accepting. Perhaps informing people that you don't think what they're doing is right, but not going so far as to deem them as 'inferior' or 'damned'.

I gotta run now, but I'll finish up later.

quote:Originally posted by Elephantitis Man:

That is, if you truly believe you are capable of seeing everything required to make an informed decision on the matter. http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif)

Which is why you would also want to do research. Preferably from non-biased resources. Human logic is far from perfect, but it's a hell of a lot more reliable than emotion-based belief.