The Ever Increasing Race

[Castiel233]

Picture God telling you that you can go to Heaven as long as you run 10 miles wearing a T shirt with His name on it.

 

Fair enough you say and you do a good bit of training, warm up on the big day and run the required distance. God is waiting for you at the finish line. He says, sorry you should be wearing a diver’s helmet while you were running. You complain that you weren’t told that in the beginning. That’s just the way it is, (you are told). If getting to Heaven was just as easy as the running the race, then why bother. You have to prove your worth. OK you think I’ll try again, this time with the helmet.

 

So you are braced for the start, rubbed your calves down and watching for the pistol. God appears right next to you. Sorry, but you can’t run like that, you must be wearing Wellington boots as well. So you roll you eyes at yet another condition, but borrow a pair from a watching farmer.

 

So now you have you Wellington boots on, your helmet on and are good to go. No, says The Lord, you must run with your hands in your pockets while humming the theme tune from “Archer”.

 

At this point your teeth are clenched in misty rage, but as the prize is so amazing you go for in.

 

Two hours later you collapse at the finish line.

 

So close says God, but you had to run the race in less than 30 minutes…..and then He sets you on fire.

[miekko]

Yet Christian theology is pretty much a rejection of that kind of line of thought, unless you've grown up in some movement that went sour.

[Castiel233]

The whole add ons gratefor me:

 

First you need to believe in Jesus

 

then comes the add ons:

 

Be baptised

Confess your sins

Have the inner witness of the Holy Ghost (how exactly?)

Convert others

Obey all the commandments (all 631, or just the big 10)

Read the Bible (lots of different versions)

Abandon your family

Give away all that you have

Be meek

(for women only) Be silent and submissive

Love and fear God, while hating yourself......etc, etc

[gall]

This reminds me of the one time I attended a Mormon baptism ceremony, at the invitation of the missionaries in the area at the time. The service took place indoors where there was a baptismal font in the church sanctuary. All the cadidates were around the age of 12. One of them had to get dunked several times because each time, something went wrong. Either the man reading the pledge / testimony misspoke a word or phrase, or the fringe of the candidate's robe floated above the water, or the man doing the dunking didn't lower the candidate into the water in the proper way, etc. Poor kids, having to go through all that. But everything had to be perfect. It's part of their submissiveness conditioning. Everybody seemed to be entertained, except me, and of course the kids being baptized.

 

Sounds like a circus show... Although the monkeys in circus are usually more organized...

[rach]

It's a carnival game.  God's the carny.  You are being manipulated and tricked constantly so that you cannot possibly win. 

 

If god's got a mansion in the sky for me haha then how come I'm here in a house I can't afford to heat

[Vigile]

Yet Christian theology is pretty much a rejection of that kind of line of thought, unless you've grown up in some movement that went sour.

 

What are you talking about? 

 

There are 41,000 denominations according to wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations

 

You speak of xian theology as if it were monolithic. 

 

[mymistake]

All you need is to believe in Jesus.

 

 

And all you need to do is give your bank account number to the former interior minister of Nigeria and he will happily share half of his "retirement fund" of 30 million US dollars.