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Goodbye Jesus

How Does Jesus' Death Bring Salvation?


R. S. Martin

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Madame M has a thread in the Lion's Den about How Was Jesus' Death a Sacrifice? I was going to post this there but realized that from a theological perspective this was a different topic. Besides, I don't want to "kill Christians" over this topic. I just want insight and understanding that heretics might bring to it. The only people I have yet seen address the question are people who are either outside Christianity or on their way out. Besides, Christians do read this section and Christian theology is evolving and changing as we speak.

 

Deva and I started the conversation in the Kat and Antlerman Peanut Gallery but Deva suggested it was too far off-topic. I will copy that convo here for the OP.

 

This is one of my strongest arguments for not accepting the theology of salvation. I was fairly young when I was struct with the ridiculousness of the idea that anyone can get to heaven just because Jesus died. The way I remember things, Mom told me about Jesus and that people hated him so much they killed him. We had no Sunday School or Bible stories or TV. All I got was what Mom told me. I might have been about 6 years old. The idea of hating anyone enough to kill them wrenched my sensibilities but it made sense on the logical level. A long time later I heard Mom tell my younger sibs that Jesus died so we could get to heaven when we died.

 

I heard innumerable sermons from the age of 8 to 17 about how Jesus took the punishment on himself as a substitute that we all deserved for being born rotton sinners who God the Father hates eternally. I actually believed it at the time! It was stated over and over that Jesus died the worst possible death because God the father turned his back on him or something like that (How's that? Two gods?). Also, that since he took the punishment we would not have to die. Of course they meant spiritually, but yet they would use all kinds of dramatic examples of people physically sacrificing themselves to save others. There was some story about a train going of a cliff or something, heck, wish I could remember it. All kinds of stories with the sacrificial, substitutionary thing going on.

 

 

I had meant to respond to this part of your post and got lost in the fuzzies of cat stories. :)

 

Not a single one of those sermons addresses my question. If your kids vandalize my property, you can make it right by either giving me the money to restore it myself or you can restore it. Either way, you take it upon yourself to restore that which your kids vandalized. That is justice, fair play, whatever.

 

Now if I were one of your kids, and if you were a very stern and strict parent and found out that I was guilty of breaking the law, I might have been in fear of severe punishment from you. In some cultures you might have given me over as a slave by way of retribution for my share of the vandalization. If you valued me enough as your child so that you would give money or restore the property and allowed me to continue living with you as your child and legitimate heir, that would possibly be experienced by me as fairly gracious.

 

In another culture, such as North America, giving children away as slaves is illegal and repulsive in the extreme. I have seen where people were made to work on a contract basis to pay back what they had destroyed. That is as far as our ethics will allow us to go.

 

The Christian god obviously comes out of an ancient Mid-Eastern slave culture where the scenario described would fit all too well. Even so, where does a savior fit in? If hell is being separated from God, then I guess being handed over to the neighbour would be hell. And it would be forever (rest of life). So the analogy fits thus far. But if Dad decided to pay hard cash instead....Oh I see, Big Bro goes instead of me.

 

But according to the story he doesn't really. He just goes gets his ass kicked (dead three days) then comes back and gets to be home for eternity. Seems he just delivered the cash. Fancy way of delivering but hey! it was god's will. So the neighbour's house is still burning. (Water might have been more beneficial.) And it will be for eternity whether or not I get to spend my life there.

 

I guess this is where I'm supposed to hang up my brain and just trust and obey. Fine. I trust where there is reason to trust. But when I see smoke I have little reason to trust that there is not also danger of fire. Okay, if I want to roast weiners I am happy to see smoke; there is hope that we might get enough flame to actually roast and not just smoke, but we are talking about a home. Fire and home fit only in terms of cooking and heating. Go beyond that and it's not okay. Hell is considerably beyond that. And the story that has come down through the ages does not in the least hang together. There is no reason to trust that Jesus actually did anything helpful when he was dead.

 

I've seen pictures of the cross laid across a pit so we can cross over to heaven but I don't know where in the cosmos that is supposed to be located. If Kat can tell me about that, and astronomers can verify it, perhaps I will believe. Somehow, I will not be satisfied even if Hans's son gets healed. Sure, I will rejoice and be exeedingly glad for the healing. But can I trust Jesus to save me from hell? Not on that disjointed story!

 

The Christian god obviously comes out of an ancient Mid-Eastern slave culture where the scenario described would fit all too well. Even so, where does a savior fit in? If hell is being separated from God, then I guess being handed over to the neighbour would be hell. And it would be forever (rest of life). So the analogy fits thus far. But if Dad decided to pay hard cash instead....Oh I see, Big Bro goes instead of me.

 

But according to the story he doesn't really. He just goes gets his ass kicked (dead three days) then comes back and gets to be home for eternity. Seems he just delivered the cash. Fancy way of delivering but hey! it was god's will. So the neighbour's house is still burning. (Water might have been more beneficial.) And it will be for eternity whether or not I get to spend my life there.

 

I never saw it in terms of master/slave. To me it was more like the schoolyard bully is going to beat me up but someone steps in and takes the beating for me. Of course the bully is God the Father and Jesus is the person taking the punishment in this example. There are a lot of things wrong with it, and I am not in anyway defending it, but as a child it made some sense to me. I think the only reason it made sense was that I accepted the whole idea of an unseen spiritual world where things were happening that were not visible. Maybe you didn't accept that idea, Ruby. That is why Christians were able to give Jesus' death such great significance. He didn't just get his ass kicked and come to life again, because he wasn't a man, he was god. He was doing things in the spiritual world to get us right with God the Father.

 

I was told over and over that Jesus died for ME as if I were the only one on earth. I have to say this never made any impression on me since i knew he was supposed to have died for everyone else too. They were just trying to make another emotional appeal.

 

Should we start another thread on this subject?

 

 

This is the thread.

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Deva said:

 

I never saw it in terms of master/slave. To me it was more like the schoolyard bully is going to beat me up but someone steps in and takes the beating for me. Of course the bully is God the Father

 

I did not understand God to be the bully, nor do I think anyone in my church did, either. I have never heard or come across that concept in any of my reading or seeking. It does not fit the God as householder parables at all. But if the householder/king/judge is a capricious tyrant it does fit. And we do have one parable by Jesus that uses this likeness. However, most of the time we're supposed to see God as loving, merciful, and just--not exactly the description of a bully. So it would seem there was something else the matter that literally separated humans from God, something that was beyond God's ability to fix outside the death of Jesus. This is what I intuitively knew as a child. It is the logic I brought to the situation as an adult with no text but the Bible and no education beyond Grade 8.

 

I credited God to be at least as intelligent, moral, and logical as I was. I was taught that his thoughts and ways were so much higher than mine as the heavens are higher than the earth. I trusted this to be the case. This meant that he was all of the things I was PLUS much more. In other words, he was definitely not a bully, and that I was correct in my conclusion that prior to Jesus' death humans were literally separated from God by something God was incapable of fixing outside of Jesus' death. There was no other logical or moral explanation for Jesus' death.

 

QUESTION: What was this thing that Jesus' death fixed? And how did his death fix it?

 

I think this needs to be part of the story and that anyone who is obligated to profess belief in the salvific value of Jesus' death has a right to know it. If God were all-knowing, he would have come up with something more universally meaningful than ancient Jewish sacrifical symbology; he would have come up with something so magnificently meaningful that it would amaze the most brilliant brain today in the twenty-first century with his wisdom, insight, and foresight. As it is, any self-respecting person must choke back sanitized sensibilities and acept revolting sights and smells and concepts simply to save their soul??? This is beyond stupid.

 

I think the only reason it made sense was that I accepted the whole idea of an unseen spiritual world where things were happening that were not visible. Maybe you didn't accept that idea, Ruby.

 

Oh yes, I definitely accepted the idea of an unseen spiritual realm where invisible things were happening. Well, that was one of the things I questioned about but I understood the concept perfectly. Very early in my life I had to learn to differentiate between the visions in my head and the concrete external world. When I was about fourteen this internal world once more was exceptionally vivid to me. A few more times in my life it intruded vividly into my waking consciousness. It's real alright and I believe it is where religion comes from, but by now I believe it begins and ends in the human psyche. However, it's vague enough for humans to believe it's external, and perhaps most people do not experience it as vividly as I do. Thus, it may be that all they have to go on is the word of authority. I think that might make it all the more scary.

 

None of this answers my question, though, unless we accept that it is evidence that god as an external universal being does not exist.

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In my opinion the only way god as described in the bible could possibly make any sense is if it wasnt really necessary for christ to die for our sins. That in its self doesnt really make sense unless god figures were just a bunch of idiots and death and sacrifice were the only ways to get our attention.

 

If god is infinite, supreme omnipotent and all knowing he wouldnt need to do anything to reconcile his creation to him. Making an earth version of him and killing it....while still being wholly spirit and watching it happen, and his sinless earth version taking all past present future sin guilt...and....ARGGHHH its just so stupid!

 

Even if an xian were to argue that we cant understand him b/c he's god and just works by different rules than us, the fact remains that by having to do anything he negates and contradicts his previously asserted status of awesome gawdness. If god has to do some cosmic checkbook balancing in his own universe to change his own rules what does that make him?

 

Thats why I have to think of these things outside of the theology box Im used to, it actually makes sense then. God as a concept made up by men and communicated by language through various theologies depending on the time is alot better for my sanity. That was the worst part of xianity, being able to look at everything as a whole and say "it just doesnt add up" but being forced to work around that and grasp at straws to support faith basically out of fear of missing out on something.

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QUESTION: What was this thing that Jesus' death fixed? And how did his death fix it?

 

What was fixed was man's relationship with God, which was destroyed by sin. It is all purely on a spiritual level. The death of Jesus saved us from spiritual death. It brought about a reconciliation between God and man. That is what I was taught.

 

As to exactly how his death actually fixed it -- that is a lot more difficult to understand. I don't know how many times preachers said it was a mystery. Why was a blood sacrifice necessary? The Blood of Christ was really special. We would often sing "Power in the Blood." It was said that we were covered in the blood so that at the Last Judgment God would not see anything of our sin, but only the blood of Jesus.

 

Oftentimes I remember preachers would go back to the Old Testament story of how the people painted blood on their doors, and the angel of death passed them by. This necessity of the blood of Christ to appease the wrath of God the father, I don't think was ever properly explained.

 

I can tell you this, I always figured God hated people. I never bought totally into this notion of a good God. After all, how can you mentally reconcile a "good God" with the image of a bully who must be appeased?

 

Ruby said:

The way I remember things, Mom told me about Jesus and that people hated him so much they killed him. We had no Sunday School or Bible stories or TV. All I got was what Mom told me. I might have been about 6 years old. The idea of hating anyone enough to kill them wrenched my sensibilities but it made sense on the logical level. A long time later I heard Mom tell my younger sibs that Jesus died so we could get to heaven when we died.

 

Ruby, we come from very different theologal backgrounds. Mine was Baptist "Roman's Road" theology. Basically the entire plan of salvation was revealed in Paul's writings. It never was taught to me that people actually killed Jesus. Since he was god, that was impossible. Essentially, it was our sin that killed Jesus (talk about a guilt trip).

 

I have been out of any belief in this theology for a long time, excess of 15 years, but I was raised in it and it is still disturbing. I confess that after some reflection on this topic, I am not quite sure I want to mentally go down this road again in too much detail. I know I suggested another thread be opened, but am thinking now that some things really are better forgotten.

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As a Christian I saw Jesus death as a blood sacrifice. He had to spill his pure blood, in order for our unclean blood to be purified. But also that he went to Hell and took the keys to Hell from the Devil... not sure why though... or maybe I just don't remember anymore.

 

But what it really is, is that the sacrifice is just a borrowed ritual from old traditions that you give a gift to the gods to please them. But they can't receive real, physical things, since they're spirits, so you have to give a spiritual thing to the spiritual beings. And what spiritual thing can I give them? The soul of a living being of course. So a sacrifice of an animal or ultimately a human being is a way of pleasing the gods and make them kinder and nicer to you. This tradition penetrates many religious rituals, and it's obvious the cruci-fiction is just the same thing just dressed differently.

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Madame M has a thread in the Lion's Den about How Was Jesus' Death a Sacrifice? I was going to post this there but realized that from a theological perspective this was a different topic. Besides, I don't want to "kill Christians" over this topic. I just want insight and understanding that heretics might bring to it. The only people I have yet seen address the question are people who are either outside Christianity or on their way out. Besides, Christians do read this section and Christian theology is evolving and changing as we speak.

:) Ruby Sera... if you're truly interested in this, and just to broaden your horizons of the take on this story... showing that some people look at this differently than fundamentalists...

 

First, I'd like to say that I don't know if the sacrificial story is true, or to what degree it could be true, however I do think the message, put in a different light could have redeeming insights. :ohmy:

 

IMO, the war between heaven and hell is within us, and the side that wins is the side we feed the most. This story exemplified principles by which to live our life, putting us closer to a mindset of heaven, nirvana, etc. than a mindset of hell, of weeping and gnashing of teeth, or hell is just natural repercussions to some ways people may choose to live their life... that's all.

 

Keeping this in mind, what other people say or do to me, is a reflection of who they are, not of who I am. If I hate or harbor retribution for what they do/did to me, then I become no better than they... I start feeding hell within me. If I understand that everyone is doing the best they know how, in the situation they are in, how can I condemn someone for not doing better than their best? This causes me to see my perpetrator as being the real victim, releasing me from a victim mentality. I forgive them, within me only, because if I tell them that at the moment, they aren't ready for it. This facilitates releasing resentment within me. However, I can forgive them for what they did, while I am still holding them accountable and responsible for their behavior. Otherwise they will not change, and keep their disrespectful ways. That is never helping someone, by enabling them to have dysfunctional behavior.

 

What supports our will to thrive "saves" us, what drains our will to thrive, "brings death". Believing in these principles supposedly taught by "jesus" is what brings salvation. As the story goes, he supposedly lived these principles he encouraged, through a terrible death, showing that this is the path to maintain the closest mindset to heaven, no matter what the adversary to our will to thrive puts before us. He rose from his grave in "spirit," giving us the keys to "heaven"... compassion.

 

Now, IMO, the story has evolved just as did St. Nicholas to Santa Claus, to an even greater degree. It's a shame that the story has been tampered with so much, and that fundamentalist beliefs are so tremendously pervasive through our culture, that we are far better off turning to other means that reveal more meaningful insights than those now of the "Santa Claus" version of the story. :(

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I think that was an interesting post Amanda.

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Madame M has a thread in the Lion's Den about How Was Jesus' Death a Sacrifice? I was going to post this there but realized that from a theological perspective this was a different topic. Besides, I don't want to "kill Christians" over this topic. I just want insight and understanding that heretics might bring to it. The only people I have yet seen address the question are people who are either outside Christianity or on their way out. Besides, Christians do read this section and Christian theology is evolving and changing as we speak.

:) Ruby Sera... if you're truly interested in this, and just to broaden your horizons of the take on this story... showing that some people look at this differently than fundamentalists...

 

I read the entire post and what you talk about is precisely what I meant when I said Christian theology is changing and evolving as we speak. I know about this perspective. In fact, it is what came to me before I heard or read about it from any human. It came to me after I committed myself to my own happiness at whatever the cost might be.

 

Evantually, I learned about Abraham H. Maslow's self-actualized person and hierarchy of needs (you can read about it here though I learned about it in a course), and several years later I read Paul Tillich's Systematic Theology and The Courage to Be, and Maslow's Psychology of Being. All of this pretty much supported what I already knew and what you are saying in your post. Still later I read about Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), a German theologian who "spoke to my soul."

 

However, when put to the empirical test, there are major theological implications. While these theologies, philosophies, and psychologies describe the inner condition of the human psyche with considerable accuracy as I experience it, I think I acquired this condition without any help from any divinity. I think it came out of my own psyche just like muscle development and physical growth comes out of our own bodies. So far as I can make out, the Christian theologians I read (mentioned above) adjusted their theologies with the conscious attempt to keep God in the picture in order to keep their jobs and religions.

 

I am not sure which came first--job or religion. I have challenged my own thesis supervisor with this very same thing and he says it's more than keeping his job. But he is hardly in a position to say or believe otherwise and I know that in cases of self-preservation the conscious mind sometimes blocks dangerous information from the mind in times of danger. He seemed totally sincere when he said it's more than keeping his job. As stated, he is hardly in a position to say (or think) otherwise.

 

I'll go through your post and comment as I go.

 

First, I'd like to say that I don't know if the sacrificial story is true, or to what degree it could be true, however I do think the message, put in a different light could have redeeming insights. :ohmy:

 

I'm not sure what you mean by whether or not the "sacrificial story" is true. We know that ancient peoples believed that the gods would be appeaced with sacrifice. We also know that the NT makes Jesus out to have been the sacrificial passover lamb. I think it says so in Hebrews and also in Paul's writings if I am not mistaken. Jesus is also likened to the Jewish High Priest in Hebrews. Now I remember; it's in Revelation that Jesus is portrayed as the sacrificial Lamb, but I think the concept appears elsewhere, too. (Are you one of those Christians who doesn't read the Bible outside what your church tells you to?)

 

IMO, the war between heaven and hell is within us, and the side that wins is the side we feed the most. This story exemplified principles by which to live our life, putting us closer to a mindset of heaven, nirvana, etc. than a mindset of hell, of weeping and gnashing of teeth, or hell is just natural repercussions to some ways people may choose to live their life... that's all. Keeping this in mind, what other people say or do to me, is a reflection of who they are, not of who I am. If I hate or harbor retribution for what they do/did to me, then I become no better than they... I start feeding hell within me.

 

If I understand that everyone is doing the best they know how, in the situation they are in, how can I condemn someone for not doing better than their best? This causes me to see my perpetrator as being the real victim, releasing me from a victim mentality. I forgive them, within me only, because if I tell them that at the moment, they aren't ready for it. This facilitates releasing resentment within me. However, I can forgive them for what they did, while I am still holding them accountable and responsible for their behavior. Otherwise they will not change, and keep their disrespectful ways. That is never helping someone, by enabling them to have dysfunctional behavior.

 

What supports our will to thrive "saves" us, what drains our will to thrive, "brings death". Believing in these principles supposedly taught by "jesus" is what brings salvation. As the story goes, he supposedly lived these principles he encouraged, through a terrible death, showing that this is the path to maintain the closest mindset to heaven, no matter what the adversary to our will to thrive puts before us. He rose from his grave in "spirit," giving us the keys to "heaven"... compassion.

 

Now, IMO, the story has evolved just as did St. Nicholas to Santa Claus, to an even greater degree. It's a shame that the story has been tampered with so much, and that fundamentalist beliefs are so tremendously pervasive through our culture, that we are far better off turning to other means that reveal more meaningful insights than those now of the "Santa Claus" version of the story. :(

 

Amanda, these ideas did not originate with Jesus and one does not have to be a Christian to live like this. I don't know what you mean by salvation but my guess is you mean a feeling of calm and peace inside of oneself. I understand you equate heaven with compassion. Some of the most compassionate, self-sacrificing, but well-balanced people I know are not religious people but atheists and agnostics. Jesus has nothing to do with it. So we still don't have any answer as to how Jesus' death brings salvation.

 

If you mean that it works as allegory for overcoming in spite of great odds, I still have problems with it. 1. Jesus's death was not one bit more terrible than that of any other person who was crucified; in fact it was far less terrible because he died within hours of being crucified while most people languished for days. 2. Jesus is but one of many who reportedly resurrected. A few others I know of who have been said to have resurrected are Apolonias of Tyana and the Cynic philosopher Peregrinus. For scholarly info on this, see The Pagan Origins of Jesus Christ, by Jesus Seminar Fellow Robert M. Price.

 

ONLINE BOOKS on Apollonius of Tyana:

Apollonius of Tyana: The Philosopher Explorer and Social Reformer of the First Century AD, by G.R.S. Mead, 1901 edition.

This book tells about the man, the world he lived in, i.e. the Rulers of the Empire, what he believed, and the books he wrote and sermons he preached. It also describes what kind of "wonder-worker" he was. I don't see right away where it says that he resurrected from the dead. Maybe he didn't but I thought he is said to have done so.

The Life of Apollonius.

FROM THE WEBSITE:
In the
Life of Apollonius
, the Athe
nian author
, a
who lived from c.170 to c.247, tells the story of
, a charismatic teacher and miracle worker from the first century CE who belonged to the school of
.

STORY OF PEREGRINUS

 

Passing (and Resurrection) of Peregrinus (a brief passage from the website)

 

35. Soon the Olympic games were ended, the most splendid Olympics that I have seen, though it was then the fourth time that I had been a spectator. As it was not easy to secure a carriage, since many were leaving at the same time, I lingered on against my will, and Peregrinus kept making postponements, but at last had announced a night on which he would stage his cremation; so, as one of my friends had invited me to go along, I arose at midnight and took the road to Harpina, where the pyre was. This is quite twenty furlongs from Olympia as one goes past the hippodrome towards the east. As soon as we arrived, we found a pyre built in a pit about six feet deep. It was composed mostly of torchwood, and the interstices filled with brush, that it might take fire quickly. When the moon was rising—for she too had to witness this glorious deed—he came forward, dressed in his usual fashion, and with him the leaders of the Cynics, in particular, the gentleman from Patras, with a torch—no bad understudy. Proteus too was bearing a torch. Men, approaching from this side and that, kindled the fire into a very great flame, since it came from torchwood and brush. Peregrinus—and give me your close attention now!—laying aside the wallet, the cloak, and that notable Heracles-club, stood there in a shirt that was downright filthy. Then he requested incense to throw on the fire, when someone had proffered it, he threw it on, and gazing towards the south—even the south, too, had to do with the show
33
—he said, "Spirits of my mother and my father, receive me with favour." With that he leaped into the fire, he was not visible, however, but was encompassed by the flames, which had risen to a great height.

 

37. Once more I see you laughing, Cronius, my urbane friend, at the
denoument
of the play. For my own part, when he called upon the guardian spirits of his mother, I did not criticise him very strongly, but when he invoked those of his father as well, I recalled the tales that had been told about his murder, and I could not control my laughter. The Cynics stood about the pyre, not weeping, to be sure, but silently evincing a certain amount of grief as they gazed into the fire, until my gorge rose at them, and I said, "Let us go away, you simpletons. It is not an agreeable spectacle to look at an old man who has been roasted, getting our nostrils filled with a villanous reek. Or are you waiting for a painter to come and picture you as the companions of Socrates in prison are portrayed beside him?" They were indignant and reviled me, and several even took to their sticks. Then, when I threatened to gather up a few of them and throw them into the fire, so that they might follow their master, they checked themselves and kept the peace.

 

38. As I returned, I was thinking busily, my friend, reflecting what a strange thing love of glory isl how this passion alone is unescapeable even by those who are considered wholly admirable, let alone that man who in other respects had led a life that was insane and reckless, and not undeserving of the fire. Then I encountered many people coming out to see the show themselves, for they expected to find him still alive. You see, on the day before it had been given out that he would greet the rising sun, as in fact they say the Brahmans do, before mountin the pyre. Well, I turned back most of them by saying the deed had been done already, those to whom it was not in itself highly desirable to see the actual spot, anyhow, and gather up some relic of the fire. In that business I assure you, my friend, I had no end of trouble, telling the story to all while they asked questions and sought exact information.
Whenever I noticed a man of taste, I would tell him the facts without embellishment, as I have to you, but for the benefit of the dullards, agog to listen, I would thicken the plot a bit on my own account, saying that when the pyre was kindled and Proteus flung himself bodily in, a great earthquake first took place, accompanied by a bellowing of the ground, and then a vulture, flying up out of the midst of the flames, went off to Heaven,
34
saying, in human speech, with a loud voice:

 

“I am through with the earth; to Olympus I fare.â€

 

They were wonder-struck and blessed themselves with a shudder, and asked me whether the vulture sped eastwards or westwards; I made them whatever reply occurred to me.

 

40. On my return to the festival, I came upon a grey-haired man whose face, I assure you, inspired confidence in addition to his beard and his general air of consequence, telling all about Proteus, and how, since his cremation, he had beheld him in white raiment a little while ago, and had just now left him walking about cheerfully in the Portico of the Seven Voices,
35
wearing a garland of wild olive. Then on top of it all, he put the vulture, swearing that he himself had seen it flying up out of the pyre, when I myself had just previously let it fly to ridicule fools and dullards.

 

FOOTNOTES

 

33. Part of the Hindu element was the idea that the souls after death were conducted to the South, the region of the Manes See
Atharvaveda
18, 3, 13; 4, 40, 2.

 

34. At the death of Plato and of Augustus it was an eagle; in the case of Polycarp, a dove.

 

35. This was a portico on the east side of the Altis which had a sevenfold echo (Pausan., V, 21, 17; Pliny, XXXVI, 100).

Several points:

 

1. Lucian of Somasota is the author and writes the account as though to a friend Cronius. The Cynic Peregrinus cremated himself as some kind of pronouncement of faith or philosophy, I think, but in the end called on superstitious religious belief. The reference about turning to the South is about Hindu beliefs, according to the footnote. The appeal to the spirits of both his parents had significant superstitious/religious meaning for the Greco-Roman aristocrat, too, it seems, though I don't fully follow. Lucian highlights all of this. I don't know too much about Cynic philosophy but I would guess some of these ritual may have undermined the symbol of cremation. At the same time, we need to keep in mind that Lucian is telling a good story.

 

2. Verse 37 is not that important to this post. It is mainly background info. Lucian draws parallels between Peregrinus's death and that of Socrates.

 

3. The part I bolded in Verse 38 has been especially helpful for me in understanding how and why accounts are embellished. Note the kind of things he added for embellishment. Then look at Verse 40 and see the kind of story the old man told Lucian about Peregrinus's resurrection. It's not exaggeration like we exaggerate things these days when we want to make an impression. Lucian intentionally added supernatural elements because he knew people would believe it.

 

What is the reason people would believe it? A bit ago Hans and I got into a conversation about such things when talking about his childhood memories of Sweden. The following post is from that convo:

 

Thank you for the story, Hans. I am sure it would sell if it had the appropriate art to go with the stories. Esp. if you can dig something up from your own memory of forms you saw in the mist along the river. That fascinates me because it's right along the lines of what I've concluded people must have experienced. I'm convinced that these stories are not built on thin air. I am also convinced that these creatures do not exist in factual reality. So I've been trying to figure out where in the human brain the two connect.

It makes a lot of sense.

 

When you walk in the early morning and the mist is heavy and moving around by the slow breeze. It dances. It moves. It form shapes and faces. And the same happens at dawn and dusk with the trees. It is scary when you walk out there alone. But I can still remember the amazing feeling in a morning like that. You feel you're in Heaven and seeing angels. ... but back to reality... it's just vapors.

 

Back in old days, really long time ago, it is completely understandable that the early humans saw these shadows dancing and believing it was something alive. Since it wasn't a body, it was spiritual. The ideas grew, and stories were made.

 

Back to your post, Amanda, and my response to it where I say you're not answering my question. Am I contradicting myself? What you describe make perfect sense on the level of psychology. Maybe what I am feeling is a need for it to hang together on the level of myth. Since it is supposed to be either historically or mythologically true, it really should hang together on those levels. And it doesn't. I dunno. I'm just feeling frustrated with the whole thing. I wanted so desperately to believe just so I could fit in better socially but personal integrity is more important to me than social acceptance so I sacrificed so much for the sake of truth. It really does have to make sense whatever we come up with. And this idea that you come up with does not measure up. I'm not sure why but it doesn't. I don't like when I don't know....but that's where I'm at right now. Maybe later my head will clear, maybe not.

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Wow.. Ruby Sera... thanks for the huge amount of great information, however, I think you have assumed some positions, that I have that you are contrary. Yet, I believe we are on the same page...

 

Evantually, I learned about Abraham H. Maslow's self-actualized person and hierarchy of needs (you can read about it here though I learned about it in a course),

:) I've referenced that model many times here.

 

However, when put to the empirical test, there are major theological implications. While these theologies, philosophies, and psychologies describe the inner condition of the human psyche with considerable accuracy as I experience it, I think I acquired this condition without any help from any divinity. I think it came out of my own psyche just like muscle development and physical growth comes out of our own bodies. So far as I can make out, the Christian theologians I read (mentioned above) adjusted their theologies with the conscious attempt to keep God in the picture in order to keep their jobs and religions.

I agree.

First, I'd like to say that I don't know if the sacrificial story is true, or to what degree it could be true, however I do think the message, put in a different light could have redeeming insights. :ohmy:

 

I'm not sure what you mean by whether or not the "sacrificial story" is true.

I meant I don't know if it has any historical merit. Maybe it was based on an actual occurrence, but I don't know, and it seems there are no convincing resources at the moment that Jesus even existed... much less if his 'self sacrifice' actually occurred.

 

Amanda, these ideas did not originate with Jesus and one does not have to be a Christian to live like this. I don't know what you mean by salvation but my guess is you mean a feeling of calm and peace inside of oneself. I understand you equate heaven with compassion. Some of the most compassionate, self-sacrificing, but well-balanced people I know are not religious people but atheists and agnostics. Jesus has nothing to do with it. So we still don't have any answer as to how Jesus' death brings salvation.

Of course you don't have to be a Christian to live like this!!! Certainly there are wonderful Atheists and Agnostics that have reached a state of "nirvana" without any spiritual teachers! Perhaps they are the ones who have attained the highest, IDK. I didn't say this did originate from the character portrayed as Jesus, and I understand that these teachings could have come from numerous sources. No, I don't equate heaven with compassion. I said that compassion is the key to heaven... it certainly helps open the door. And, as I said, if you consider what increases our will to thrive, as that is what saves us... and what diminishes our will to thrive brings death (perhaps a mental state that could be referred to as hell), then possibly believing on these principles in that era, helped people increase their will to thrive... hence, "their salvation". No hocus pocus or mansion in another dimension somewhere, just the here and now... that's all. It seems only his "spirit" was resurrected, in this spirit of compassion, and perhaps seeing things from a place of agape "love". After all, inside is where we really live. One can be in a peaceful park and have turmoil and depression inside them... and one could be in the midst of a turbulent storm or war, and have peace within them.

 

Back to your post, Amanda, and my response to it where I say you're not answering my question. Am I contradicting myself? What you describe make perfect sense on the level of psychology. Maybe what I am feeling is a need for it to hang together on the level of myth. Since it is supposed to be either historically or mythologically true, it really should hang together on those levels. And it doesn't. I dunno. I'm just feeling frustrated with the whole thing. I wanted so desperately to believe just so I could fit in better socially but personal integrity is more important to me than social acceptance so I sacrificed so much for the sake of truth. It really does have to make sense whatever we come up with. And this idea that you come up with does not measure up. I'm not sure why but it doesn't. I don't like when I don't know....but that's where I'm at right now. Maybe later my head will clear, maybe not.

 

Ruby Sera... I will say this... because of the current pervasive understanding of the Christian religion... people are better off... not walking away... but RUNNING!!! It has evolved to the most dysfuncional, victim mentality approach to life I have yet to see. You're absolutely right... keep your integrity. This site is a wonderful site to help people get away from the current "Christian" brainwashing. It's difficult for me to give my opinion like on this thread, because I never want to cause confusion, for someone to consider going back to that hell. :nono:

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Amanda, thanks for your response. I think we are on the same page. :)

 

I suspected as much but wasn't sure. I don't know you at all to fully understand what you mean. All of us have our own way of saying things and sometimes it takes me a bit to catch onto a person's style. So I was just doing a bit of double-checking.

 

And please don't take all that info personal. I was thinking of the general readership when I was posting--NOT of you personally. Sorry, it never occurred to me that it might appear like all of it was supposed to be a message to you personally. You appear to be a well-read and well-informed person, but we seem to have some pretty ignorant people dropping in, not to mention people like me who sometimes like to browse and enjoy coming across information for its own sake.

 

I've referenced this passage about Peregrinus lots of times but I see no evidence that anyone has ever looked it up and I think it is a very important example of what is meant by embellishment. I decided to do a cut-and-paste this one time and write a brief review on it. Maybe more people will be liable to read it this way. But Amanda, my dear, I was NOT thinking of you when I did it. I should have done it as a separate post or something--I don't know.

 

Anyway, my head has cleared and I remember how I had been going to end that post:

The line between fact and fantasy is very thin and not always easily discernible. Also, the two realities have co-existed for thousands of years, i.e. back in Lucian's day some people believed in the supernatural and some did not. The same is true today. Also, some people differentiate between religion and superstition. Yet one person's religion is another persons' superstition.

I put my posts from this thread (not this one) on my forums and that is the closing statement I used for that post. It is what I had meant to use for the post on this thread. I was thinking of it when I was in the bathroom but somehow it slipped my mind by the time I got back to the keyboard. Am I normal or something???

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Ruby Sera... I will say this... because of the current pervasive understanding of the Christian religion... people are better off... not walking away... but RUNNING!!! It has evolved to the most dysfuncional, victim mentality approach to life I have yet to see. You're absolutely right... keep your integrity. This site is a wonderful site to help people get away from the current "Christian" brainwashing. It's difficult for me to give my opinion like on this thread, because I never want to cause confusion, for someone to consider going back to that hell. :nono:

 

I love this! Dysfunctional victim mentality approach to life. You got it! That sums it up right nice and neat. But isn't that what Christianity is supposed to be? I am not asking is this what Jesus meant it to be. I am asking is this what the Christian Church since Acts has meant it to be? I think it is. There is the emphasis on martyrdom from the very beginning, starting with Stephen. It's what gives Jesus' death meaning to begin with.

 

If I correctly remember, one of my prof said that it was precisely for this reason that the disciples figured out that Jesus died for the world's salvation--in order to give meaning to his death. They thought he was supposed to be the Messiah and then he got executed. They had to make some kind of sense of it. And that just brought the whole thing down to the level of everyday human life. All of us have to make sense of the terrible disappointments and deaths that happen to us. If that is all that salvation is--just a way of making sense of Jesus' death....I found it revolting in the extreme.

 

I had already deconverted...anyway, so much for those shallow-minded, empty-headed xians who come in here preaching that we exChristians weren't serious about the faith and didn't really seek with all our souls and hearts and beings... :ugh:

 

I'll dare them to read my long post and write a critique on it--if I am in the mood to exert that much energy on them.

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This whole thing with Jesus' death and salvation and so on is a load of crap. God created everything, including sin and evil. God created humans in his image. God is all powerful, all knowing, alpha and omega, and planned out every detail of every moment time. If those things are true, which Christians believe they are, then God created a world in which humans had the opportunity to become corrupted by evil. The corruption became so bad that even God became disgusted by it, and for some sick and perverted reason he had to sacrifice his own son in order to save his very own, supposedly most beloved creation, from his own wrath. Uhhhh, where is the sense in all of this?

 

Christian God = One messed up d00d

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...

Christian God = One messed up d00d

He sure is.

 

That's the thing. If you had an all powerful God that created the Universe, don't you think he could figure out a salvation plan that guarranteed at least a 99% success rate on the salvation plan? I mean, currently he'll have about a handful of people in Heaven, while 10 billion people (from all history past) are burning indefinitely in a pit! Even a fried monkey brain could have done a better job, or a jalapeno on a stick!

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...

Christian God = One messed up d00d

He sure is.

 

That's the thing. If you had an all powerful God that created the Universe, don't you think he could figure out a salvation plan that guarranteed at least a 99% success rate on the salvation plan? I mean, currently he'll have about a handful of people in Heaven, while 10 billion people (from all history past) are burning indefinitely in a pit! Even a fried monkey brain could have done a better job, or a jalapeno on a stick!

HanSolo... it seems so obvious what you say here... yet, I think that very concept is what makes the brainwashing so powerful... the immutable fear of hell. Considering your post, it's amazing Christians don't even dare to doubt such an utterly rediculous concept. How can this fear of an obviously fictional hell, continually over-ride reason? :rolleyes:

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HanSolo... it seems so obvious what you say here... yet, I think that very concept is what makes the brainwashing so powerful... the immutable fear of hell. Considering your post, it's amazing Christians don't even dare to doubt such an utterly rediculous concept. How can this fear of an obviously fictional hell, continually over-ride reason? :rolleyes:

Isn't it amazing though, that people fear a fictitious burning pit, but they keep on neglecting reading the book that is the so called "instruction" book to avoid the same torment. Somehow I think most Christians deep down really don't believe in Hell. At least they don't believe they personally are going to that place - which is a very prideful attitude - but nonetheless it doesn't seem to bother them too much that they might have the wrong understanding and might risk going there. As a Christian I spent a lot of my time trying to get my faith straight, because the thought of Hell did scare me, so I just can't understand all these Bible ignorants that don't spend day and night studying and paying for Bible seminars to get it right. If they did, there is a chance they actually might discover the stupidity and finally de-convert.

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Somehow I think most Christians deep down really don't believe in Hell. At least they don't believe they personally are going to that place - which is a very prideful attitude - but nonetheless it doesn't seem to bother them too much that they might have the wrong understanding and might risk going there.

HanSolo, I may be wrong... but I think they actually do fear a literal place of eternal torment and torture after death, called hell. I think it is the fear of that concept that keeps them just believing what their preacher tells them. IMO, once a person loses fear of the tactic used to secure brainwashing, a literal hell, then there is a chance of using reason...

 

Think about it... if you really and truly believe in a literal hell, where you're going if you don't believe a certain way... are you changing your mind about anything? :nono:

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I don't know. I guess in some way they believe in Hell, but at the same time they don't take it for a 100% chance they will go there or not. It's like they have some kind of "playing on Lotto" kind of attitude. They take the words of the pastor for true, and won't study themselves to make sure they don't screw up and end up in this place they "fear" so much. As a Christian, I think I had a notion that God would be merciful on me, even if I had done something wrong or not acting according to his word. Now, that is a form of "Universalist" thinking, while at the same time someone just "has to" believe in Jesus to get saved. So even the most extreme believer still give a lot of slack to their belief and won't really dive down and give it all. Very few Christians do, most are very much shoot-from-the-hip-theology believers and they just hope for the best. So how sincere are they in what they claim they believe?

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I don't know. I guess in some way they believe in Hell, but at the same time they don't take it for a 100% chance they will go there or not. It's like they have some kind of "playing on Lotto" kind of attitude. They take the words of the pastor for true, and won't study themselves to make sure they don't screw up and end up in this place they "fear" so much. As a Christian, I think I had a notion that God would be merciful on me, even if I had done something wrong or not acting according to his word. Now, that is a form of "Universalist" thinking, while at the same time someone just "has to" believe in Jesus to get saved. So even the most extreme believer still give a lot of slack to their belief and won't really dive down and give it all. Very few Christians do, most are very much shoot-from-the-hip-theology believers and they just hope for the best. So how sincere are they in what they claim they believe?

 

Hans, I don't know which post to take seriously. In the other one you said how much time you spent trying to make sure you had the faith straight. Now here in the part I bolded you don't--more "couldn't care less; this stuff is just too heavy to really get into it--God is going to forgive me."

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I know some people do read the Bible and they do believe very strongly in hell. And that fear seems to be a huge factor in what keeps them in the religion. It keeps them from questioning the faith. They are afraid that when they start to question they will lose their faith--just look at what happened to Ruby. She has always asked too many questions and now she doesn't believe anything!

 

Of course, if they would just listen to my reasons for not believing in their religion they would know that it's not because I asked questions but because they failed to provide real answers. But yes, they would probably lose their religion, but not their faith. I see faith--real faith--as the ability to trust that things will work out even though we don't know all the details for sure. But the details we don't know are a different kind of details from what they want me not to worry about. They want me to believe the myth but I'm not allowed enough evidence to know whether or not the myth is true. I have a major problem with that. They don't; just believe. They know every detail about how the universe came into being and I don't. They have a major problem with that. Somehow it matters to them.

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I don't know. I guess in some way they believe in Hell, but at the same time they don't take it for a 100% chance they will go there or not. It's like they have some kind of "playing on Lotto" kind of attitude. They take the words of the pastor for true, and won't study themselves to make sure they don't screw up and end up in this place they "fear" so much.

Well, the bible, and the way it is written, can be quite confusing... especially with all the spin that has been imposed upon it through these thousands of years. Plus, I never knew the influence of so much previous mythologies till I cam here.

 

Perhaps hell was initially played up moreso during the time the church use to sell indulgences. If one sinned, then they only need to pay money to the church to escape hell. Therefore, one needs to continue to come to their church, and continue to pay... after all, no one's perfect. Wow... what a sales pitch, that keeps on going! You have to go to church and support them, to make sure you learn how to make it :HaHa:

As a Christian, I think I had a notion that God would be merciful on me, even if I had done something wrong or not acting according to his word. Now, that is a form of "Universalist" thinking, while at the same time someone just "has to" believe in Jesus to get saved. So even the most extreme believer still give a lot of slack to their belief and won't really dive down and give it all. Very few Christians do, most are very much shoot-from-the-hip-theology believers and they just hope for the best. So how sincere are they in what they claim they believe?

I think a lot of your belief system is because you are from Scandinavia. People there are far more progressive than just about any where in the world, IMO. I'm impressed with how they treat animals, to prisoners, to just the vast middle class that is there. It is a very compassionate society, and especially Sweden is a very nonviolent country... so I can see where you felt that way. Now compare that to the backgrounds of most other western countries that try to find congruency between religious beliefs and government...

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I know some people do read the Bible and they do believe very strongly in hell. And that fear seems to be a huge factor in what keeps them in the religion. It keeps them from questioning the faith.

Ruby... thank you. I've been saying this for a long time now. I don't understand why fundamentalists don't consider that God gave us the gift of reason to be used... instead of ignored!

Of course, if they would just listen to my reasons for not believing in their religion they would know that it's not because I asked questions but because they failed to provide real answers. But yes, they would probably lose their religion, but not their faith.

I think there is something to be offered in all spiritual teachings, including Pagans, Wicca, etc.. It's the extreme fanatics that give their religion a bad name, taking much of it out of context for their own agendas, generation after generation.

I see faith--real faith--as the ability to trust that things will work out even though we don't know all the details for sure.

Having a convicted belief that we have or can attain resources, that can resolve the way we think about our situation, is sometimes the most we can ask. Sometimes we have to let go of what we think we want, and to look at it a different way. Do we try to change the impossible, or do we find a position that empowers us even while in/over/thruough that situation? The worst thing to do is just wait for a miracle to fall down from the sky.

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I don't know. I guess in some way they believe in Hell, but at the same time they don't take it for a 100% chance they will go there or not. It's like they have some kind of "playing on Lotto" kind of attitude. They take the words of the pastor for true, and won't study themselves to make sure they don't screw up and end up in this place they "fear" so much. As a Christian, I think I had a notion that God would be merciful on me, even if I had done something wrong or not acting according to his word. Now, that is a form of "Universalist" thinking, while at the same time someone just "has to" believe in Jesus to get saved. So even the most extreme believer still give a lot of slack to their belief and won't really dive down and give it all. Very few Christians do, most are very much shoot-from-the-hip-theology believers and they just hope for the best. So how sincere are they in what they claim they believe?

 

Hans, I don't know which post to take seriously. In the other one you said how much time you spent trying to make sure you had the faith straight. Now here in the part I bolded you don't--more "couldn't care less; this stuff is just too heavy to really get into it--God is going to forgive me."

Probably because I'm trying to understand myself and how I was thinking and acting as a Christian and the reasons why I did certain things. Sometimes our feelings and drivers are more of a gray zone kind of thing rather than a categorical "yes" or a "no", "black" or "white", "true" or "false", and nothing in between situation.

 

I will try to figure out exactly how I was thinking and I will try to do my best to explain it, but the disclaimer is that I'm not even sure all the things the drives us as humans and how it all works. I'm still a student of life, and I'm far from a psychologist to be able to explain it all. But lets see anyway if I can make sense out of it.

 

Two tiers of belief:

 

1) If you believe there is a Hell, and the Bible is the text book that would help you avoid Hell, would you refuse to read it and let someone else interpret it for you? If you really were concerned, you would do what it takes to make sure you do what you can to understand what you have to do to avoid Hell and not just trust other people. I took the time I could to read the Bible, study, read other books in the subject, not trust one source, listen to hundreds of preachers... etc, just to make sure that I had read the Bible many times over and not just had someone else tell me what to believe. The due diligence if you are sincere. Very few take their faith this serious. Many Christians don't even know the name of the first book of the Bible and have never read it. Are they scared at all?

 

2) Second tier. Why do people do such a thing, that they believe there is a literal Hell but never open the Bible and never study it on their own but just trust one person in their life, i.e. your pastor, and hope that he knows what he's doing and his teachings will save you from eternal Hell? They believe there is a Hell, but they don't take it serious, one reason could be that they somehow believe (a second tier of belief) that God somehow will give them grace based on their ignorance. In other words, they don't care, because they think God will take them to Heaven based on that they didn't know better. And I think that maybe every Christian got this belief. What else could be the saving grace considering if they believe there is a Hell, but they don't care about knowing how to avoid it, unless they think God will let them slip in, or get a free pass?

 

Did that make sense at all?

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I know some people do read the Bible and they do believe very strongly in hell. And that fear seems to be a huge factor in what keeps them in the religion. It keeps them from questioning the faith.

Keyword: some

 

(But it's very likely a majority of American evangelicals are what you say they are. My experience from Sweden wasn't like that. We have different cultural background.)

 

I think only 30% of Catholics have ever read the Bible. While for Evangelicals the number is much higher, but still, there are evangelicals that never read the Bible.

 

Here's the part I can't really understand: if they all believe Hell is literally true, and they believe the Bible is the literal word from God, how are they so sure they will avoid Hell? On what do they justify that they know they will avoid Hell without ever reading the Bible? Is the explanation that they believe in their Pastor rather than the Bible? First authority seems to be to trust the pastor and their own mind, and only on second place is the book that supposedly God gave them.

 

 

--edit--

 

Some interesting statistics from the Barna group, 2003:

 

Likewise, Bible reading levels are about 33% less among twentysomethings than among older adults. Overall, only 30% of twentysomethings have read the Bible in the past week, compared to 37% of those in their 30s; 44% of fortysomethings; 47% of adults in their 50s; and 55% of those age 60 and above. David Kinnaman, Vice President of the Barna Research Group, and the director of the study, pointed out that twentysomethings are one of the first age cohorts to widely embrace postmodern philosophy. "Since the postmodern viewpoint emphasizes that an individual’s experience and personal insight are the prime sources of determining what’s important in life," Kinnaman said, "the decline in Bible usage is another sign that many twentysomethings are trying to make sense of life without traditional sources of Christian input."

 

--edit--

 

Another thought, maybe this is how it works. Most Christians do believe there is a literal Hell, but they not necessarily believe the same way how and what you have to do to avoid it. There are many name-only Christians in Sweden, and I can only think that the reason why they can skip Church, skip reading the Bible, skip praying and all that, and still believe they go to Heaven, is because they don't think those things are necessary to get the passport to the pearly gates. :shrug:

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I don't know. I guess in some way they believe in Hell, but at the same time they don't take it for a 100% chance they will go there or not. It's like they have some kind of "playing on Lotto" kind of attitude. They take the words of the pastor for true, and won't study themselves to make sure they don't screw up and end up in this place they "fear" so much. As a Christian, I think I had a notion that God would be merciful on me, even if I had done something wrong or not acting according to his word. Now, that is a form of "Universalist" thinking, while at the same time someone just "has to" believe in Jesus to get saved. So even the most extreme believer still give a lot of slack to their belief and won't really dive down and give it all. Very few Christians do, most are very much shoot-from-the-hip-theology believers and they just hope for the best. So how sincere are they in what they claim they believe?

 

Hans, I don't know which post to take seriously. In the other one you said how much time you spent trying to make sure you had the faith straight. Now here in the part I bolded you don't--more "couldn't care less; this stuff is just too heavy to really get into it--God is going to forgive me."

Probably because I'm trying to understand myself and how I was thinking and acting as a Christian and the reasons why I did certain things. Sometimes our feelings and drivers are more of a gray zone kind of thing rather than a categorical "yes" or a "no", "black" or "white", "true" or "false", and nothing in between situation.

 

I will try to figure out exactly how I was thinking and I will try to do my best to explain it, but the disclaimer is that I'm not even sure all the things the drives us as humans and how it all works. I'm still a student of life, and I'm far from a psychologist to be able to explain it all. But lets see anyway if I can make sense out of it.

 

Two tiers of belief:

 

1) If you believe there is a Hell, and the Bible is the text book that would help you avoid Hell, would you refuse to read it and let someone else interpret it for you? If you really were concerned, you would do what it takes to make sure you do what you can to understand what you have to do to avoid Hell and not just trust other people. I took the time I could to read the Bible, study, read other books in the subject, not trust one source, listen to hundreds of preachers... etc, just to make sure that I had read the Bible many times over and not just had someone else tell me what to believe. The due diligence if you are sincere. Very few take their faith this serious. Many Christians don't even know the name of the first book of the Bible and have never read it. Are they scared at all?

 

2) Second tier. Why do people do such a thing, that they believe there is a literal Hell but never open the Bible and never study it on their own but just trust one person in their life, i.e. your pastor, and hope that he knows what he's doing and his teachings will save you from eternal Hell? They believe there is a Hell, but they don't take it serious, one reason could be that they somehow believe (a second tier of belief) that God somehow will give them grace based on their ignorance. In other words, they don't care, because they think God will take them to Heaven based on that they didn't know better. And I think that maybe every Christian got this belief. What else could be the saving grace considering if they believe there is a Hell, but they don't care about knowing how to avoid it, unless they think God will let them slip in, or get a free pass?

 

Did that make sense at all?

 

Thanks for an honest effort at explaining. Let's see if this resonates at all. I think what you're saying is that you took the faith really, really seriously and you studied it all you could. But it's impossible to watch one's back and front 24/7 52 weeks a year. Besides, there's supposed to be some saving grace; it's not supposed to be all works. So maybe the saving grace is for those times when one simply can't be on guard. Thus, while you did take the faith seriously for those times when you thought about it, there were lots of times when you just sort of glided through life enjoying the moment. In those times you assumed God would be merciful even if you did something wrong that was not according to his word. Is that sort of what you're saying?

 

I'm not a psychologist either but to me that would make sense.

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Thanks for an honest effort at explaining. Let's see if this resonates at all. I think what you're saying is that you took the faith really, really seriously and you studied it all you could. But it's impossible to watch one's back and front 24/7 52 weeks a year. Besides, there's supposed to be some saving grace; it's not supposed to be all works. So maybe the saving grace is for those times when one simply can't be on guard. Thus, while you did take the faith seriously for those times when you thought about it, there were lots of times when you just sort of glided through life enjoying the moment. In those times you assumed God would be merciful even if you did something wrong that was not according to his word. Is that sort of what you're saying?

 

I'm not a psychologist either but to me that would make sense.

And also, looking back at that time, I don't think I was 100% certain I had all theology, dogma etc fully correct. I wasn't sure if adult baptising were required or not, but just in case I did it because that's what pentecostal do. But Biblically there seems to be some support for that you should, but maybe don't have to. I thought I would go to Heaven. I hoped I would. But was I 100% sure? Not quite. I hoped for it though. I assumed that if I just believed in Jesus it would be enough for God to grant me entrance, but at the same time I felt my actions would reveal my sincerity so I had to keep on pushing to impress God that I was serious. So how serious is that church member that don't even read their Bible? That was part of my upbringing. If you believe, it will show in your actions, and aweful lot of Christians didn't show interest in God except on Sunday morning. So they believed that Hell was real, and they would escape it by going to a building with a spire once a week. Isn't that strange?

 

So that's why I'm wonder if every Christian can really say they know for sure, 100% guarranteed, that what they believe is enough to take them to Heaven? If they do, then what exactly is it they think is enough, and why? Is it just to believe in Jesus? Then what about the Jews before Jesus? And so on... So in the end I don't think any Christian can say they know exactly what God demands of them, and some of them don't even try to find out, so how scared is a person of the penalty of not knowing? Either Hell isn't fully real to them after all, or they really don't care, or they are arrogant enough to think they know it all. :shrug:

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