How will you get yourself into heaven? On your own merit or via a scapegoat?

Greatest I am

teapot

Greatest I am
Would you express your love for humanity or those you love by having your own child needlessly murdered?

Or if convinced that a sacrifice was somehow good, would you have the moral fortitude to step up yourself to that cross instead of sending your child?

Your cowardly God did not.

Your supposition anthropomorphises God and so diminishes your capacity to discern Him. If the doctrine of the Trinity has any significance, the sacrifice was, is and ever shall be, of the self.

You speak of Heaven and how we may access it; by our own merit or because we are saved. For some (the Bible advises 144,000) will gain access via their own merit. For the rest, (the Bible advises 'a great multitude'), by the sacrifices of God Himself! And quite right too! It is His responsibility and His alone, to fulfil the purpose(s) of the firmament.

Whichever route each of us may take, anyone that has no love for God will have trouble accessing Heaven.

I agree that the sacrifice is of the self but that hardly get us away from anthropomorphising.
In fact it enhances it. As it should if you think of what Jesus said.

www.youtube.com...

You do not sound Christian. More Gnostic Christian to this Gnostic.

Who is your God?

Regards
DL

You keep saying you are a Gnostic Christian....

Do you mean Agnostic Christian?

....did you Google the correct word?

If heaven ain't a lot like Dixie then I don't want to go.


I'm not religious, but if there is a god, then god knows me, and knows that I am right in my heart and that I've always tried to help others. If that doesn't get me in then I reckon I better get the suntan lotion ready.

snowspirit
reply to post by Greatest I am

 

I am not an atheist but Satan and Christians want atheists to embrace barbaric human sacrifice and the notion that we should profit from punishing the innocent instead of the guilty. Scapegoating IOW.

Human sacrifice? Any type of sacrifices to get a person into a residence full of killers. No thanks.

I tried to watch a show last night called "The Bible". I couldn't finish. It made no sense. About as much sense as the book. A father about to kill his son as a test? What a crappy father. So many things wrong with the whole idea. God creating 10 plagues/crappy situations in order to convince the pharoh to free the slaves? Seriously? Lot offers his daughters up to the town folk of Sodom and that's considered OK?
Apparently Jesus dies on a cross to atone for the sins of all future people's sins, and people think that gives them a free pass to keep on being a-holes.

Every time I've looked at a piece of the bible, I'm horrified. Clearly the universe does not want me reading that book.

Morality doesn't come from religion, especially from that book, and I'm making my own heaven when it's my time.

A touch of sanity and intelligence. Nice to see.

Keep pushing your morals in places like this against Christian morals my friend.

For evil to grow, all good people need do is nothing.

"to keep on being a-holes." This says that you likely have been busy doing something so do not laugh at my prompting you.

Regards
DL

Fylgje
If heaven ain't a lot like Dixie then I don't want to go.


I'm not religious, but if there is a god, then god knows me, and knows that I am right in my heart and that I've always tried to help others. If that doesn't get me in then I reckon I better get the suntan lotion ready.

Good view.

I hope that your (helping others) includes trying to de-convert the poor souls who have sold their souls to false ands immoral religions.

As you saw in the O p, they have a real strange view of love.

Regards
DL

Greatest I am

o0oTOPCATo0o
I am not religious really at all, so maybe someone can clarify that you get into heaven "By the grace of god"
No good deed will get you in.

So we should not bother with good deeds.

Thanks for your garbage view.

Regards
DL

Easy now pal. Read again. This time understand it.
***I am not religious really at all, so maybe someone can clarify that you get into heaven "By the grace of god"
No good deed will get you in.***
I'm not saying don't bother with good deeds. I'm saying food deeds are not what gets you into heaven. Geez. Maybe someone with a bible can back me up or something. Jesus told someone that as men, we can never do enough to get in to heaven.
All I was trying to say, no need to call my view garbage or anything. Especially because you misunderstood and now look foolish.

reply to post by Greatest I am

How sad.

Would you teach your child to uses a scapegoat, in school for instance?

Good grief! I hope not.

Dear God: Please don't let BELIEVERpriest have any children; either his own, or other people's, to indoctrinate into this self-loathing mindset.
Please.

TYVM, have a good day!
wild

o0oTOPCATo0o

Greatest I am

o0oTOPCATo0o
I am not religious really at all, so maybe someone can clarify that you get into heaven "By the grace of god"
No good deed will get you in.

So we should not bother with good deeds.

Thanks for your garbage view.

Regards
DL

Easy now pal. Read again. This time understand it.
***I am not religious really at all, so maybe someone can clarify that you get into heaven "By the grace of god"
No good deed will get you in.***
I'm not saying don't bother with good deeds. I'm saying food deeds are not what gets you into heaven. Geez. Maybe someone with a bible can back me up or something. Jesus told someone that as men, we can never do enough to get in to heaven.
All I was trying to say, no need to call my view garbage or anything. Especially because you misunderstood and now look foolish.

edit on 3-2-2014 by o0oTOPCATo0o because: (no reason given)

You are correct. Regardless of religion (or lack of), doing good deeds is the proper thing to do.

Also, the OP will result to name calling when a person proves him wrong or doesn't go by his 'Gnostic Christian' views.

Greatest I am

CirqueDeTruth
I don't know what happens in death, personally, I've never died....

But I hope I've enough of a system imprinted to follow it to the next incarnation... wherever and whatever that may be - even if it's my energy/conscious matrix being absorbed into the whole - with individuality destroyed.

So long as I get where I'm suppose to be going, and not lost in limbo...

I shall be content.

I'm a good person, and when I make mistakes, I auto correct and make strides not to make them again. So in this I do not worry. About the nature of my being. My only real worry, because I take such a comparative approach to belief systems, is will I get lost in my afterlife journey back to source. Since my system is so unlike anyone else I've ever met. Will I be shown a Christian symbol to follow? Ohm? Will a family member come to lead me through? I don't know, however, I hope something is there I recognize so as not to get lost... if that makes sense.

CdT

No God worth his title would ever lose any of us.

I call myself a Gnostic Christian and esoteric ecumenist.

"I take such a comparative approach to belief systems:

You seem to have that same esoteric ecumenist leaning and that insures heaven.

Your/our view just makes the transition and apotheosis that much easier.

Regards
DL

Greetings,

WOW you make it all sound so easy and in some way I wish you were right but cmon......really?

So you think everyone goes to heaven?

If someone killed your son or daughter, would you let that person live with you? I surely would NOT!

So what Hitler did in WWII is also OK?

If this is the case then morality has no meaning. No reason for the laws.

I do not understand your reasoning in this at all.

According to Jesus:

Matthew 6
14"For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15"But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.

Mark 11
25 But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too. "

Matthew 7
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

According to Chrisitans:

Romans 10
9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

There is an obvious discrepancy between what Jesus taught and what Christians believe. Jesus says that you are your own salvation through forgiveness of others, Christianity says Jesus' death and believing he alone is Lord is salvation.

o0oTOPCATo0o

Greatest I am

o0oTOPCATo0o
I am not religious really at all, so maybe someone can clarify that you get into heaven "By the grace of god"
No good deed will get you in.

So we should not bother with good deeds.

Thanks for your garbage view.

Regards
DL

Easy now pal. Read again. This time understand it.
***I am not religious really at all, so maybe someone can clarify that you get into heaven "By the grace of god"
No good deed will get you in.***
I'm not saying don't bother with good deeds. I'm saying food deeds are not what gets you into heaven. Geez. Maybe someone with a bible can back me up or something. Jesus told someone that as men, we can never do enough to get in to heaven.
All I was trying to say, no need to call my view garbage or anything. Especially because you misunderstood and now look foolish.

edit on 3-2-2014 by o0oTOPCATo0o because: (no reason given)

You are the foolish one when you do not listen to Jesus when he says that we will know his people by their works and deeds.

Regards
DL

Jesuslives4u

Greatest I am

CirqueDeTruth
I don't know what happens in death, personally, I've never died....

But I hope I've enough of a system imprinted to follow it to the next incarnation... wherever and whatever that may be - even if it's my energy/conscious matrix being absorbed into the whole - with individuality destroyed.

So long as I get where I'm suppose to be going, and not lost in limbo...

I shall be content.

I'm a good person, and when I make mistakes, I auto correct and make strides not to make them again. So in this I do not worry. About the nature of my being. My only real worry, because I take such a comparative approach to belief systems, is will I get lost in my afterlife journey back to source. Since my system is so unlike anyone else I've ever met. Will I be shown a Christian symbol to follow? Ohm? Will a family member come to lead me through? I don't know, however, I hope something is there I recognize so as not to get lost... if that makes sense.

CdT

No God worth his title would ever lose any of us.

I call myself a Gnostic Christian and esoteric ecumenist.

"I take such a comparative approach to belief systems:

You seem to have that same esoteric ecumenist leaning and that insures heaven.

Your/our view just makes the transition and apotheosis that much easier.

Regards
DL

Greetings,

WOW you make it all sound so easy and in some way I wish you were right but cmon......really?

So you think everyone goes to heaven?

If someone killed your son or daughter, would you let that person live with you? I surely would NOT!

So what Hitler did in WWII is also OK?

If this is the case then morality has no meaning. No reason for the laws.

I do not understand your reasoning in this at all.

Then perhaps answering a few question with the future you might wish for others.
The bottom line though is that no murderer is born that way unless insane. Killers are made by those around them and we must all share in that blame.

Judgment and punishment go hand in hand.

Our human laws have a form of punishment where the penalty is graduated to fit the crime. An eye for an eye type of justice.

God‘s punishment seems to surpass this standard with hell. Hell used here is the eternal fire and torture type of hell and I am not particularly interested in the myriad of other definitions and theories that some use to supplant this traditional view.

To ascertain if hell would be a moral construct or not, all you need do is answer these
simple question for yourself.

1. Is it good justice for a soul to be able to sin for only 120 years and then have to suffer torture for 12000000000000000000000000 + years?

2. Is it good justice for small or mediocre sinners to have to bear the same sentence as Hitler, Stalin and other genocidal maniacs?
This might actually include God if you see Noah’s flood as God using genocide and not justice against man. Pardon the digression.

Punishment is usually only given to change attitude or actions and cause the sinner to repent.

3. Is it good justice to continue to torture a soul in hell if no change in attitude or actions are to result?

4. If you answered yes to these questions, then would killing the soul not be a better form of justice than to torture it for no possible good result or purpose?

Is hell a moral construct or not?

Please explain your reasons and know that ---just because you think God created it ---does not explain your moral judgment. It is your view I seek and not God’s as no one can speak for God.

Regards
DL

3NL1GHT3N3D1
According to Jesus:

Matthew 6
14"For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15"But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.

Mark 11
25 But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too. "

Matthew 7
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

According to Chrisitans:

Romans 10
9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

There is an obvious discrepancy between what Jesus taught and what Christians believe. Jesus says that you are your own salvation through forgiveness of others, Christianity says Jesus' death and believing he alone is Lord is salvation.

Martin Luther, Jesus and many more point to personal responsibility to God and the fact that we can all get to God without the church.

The churches will never teach that truth as there is not money in it.

I do appreciate that some funding is required to get the message out here but a Crystal Cathedral or huge monuments to churches instead of feeding the poor is not the way to do things.

There are good reasons, to the church, for keeping the bible away from believers for so long. They did not want the sheep to know that they did not have to be fleeced so close to the skin.

Regards
DL

reply to post by Greatest I am


Speaking of churches, what better way to respect God's creation than by chopping down trees on every street corner, laying down cement, and building a church in order to teach to respect God's creation? Better to teach it than to practice it I always say!

Greatest I am

BELIEVERpriest
reply to post by Greatest I am

 

Ask yourself two questions:

1). Was I born of my own merit or by the grace of God?

2). As flawed as we all are, what are your good deeds worth to God?

Jesus is the only begotten and sinless son of God. Only the work of Jesus is worth anything to God. Jesus may have been incarnated, but His soul was never created. Jesus' believers go to heaven on account of His credit, not our debt. Its after the righteousness of Christ is credited to us by faith that we are rewarded for good deeds in the afterlife.

Jesus tells us to pick up our cross and follow him.

You think you can pick your cross up and climb onto Jesus' back and that God will accept you.

How sad.

Would you teach your child to uses a scapegoat, in school for instance?

I doubt it. So why would you think it ok for you to use Jesus and profit from his pain and torture?

Regards
DL

Before you can pick up the cross and follow Jesus, you have to first believe in Him and His purpose, or else youre just following a man to his death.

Jesus said He was the only way to the Father. Jesus was the Lamb of God, He came to sacrafice Himself for us. Faith in that sacrafice gives us salvation and a starting point for our good deeds to mean something.

Jesus willingly went to the cross with all of mankind in His heart. He understood that He was the Lamb for the slaughter.

Why are you so determined to discredit His love for us?

I'd like a sincere answer.

reply to post by BELIEVERpriest

Faith in that sacrafice gives us salvation

Not according to Jesus.

Matthew 6
14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

It amazes me how Christians continually ignore the man they claim to believe in.

Matthew 9
13 But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

Jesus did not desire sacrifice, he desired mercy, something those who crucified him showed him nothing of.

reply to post by Greatest I am


I will get to heaven by obeying the Golden Rule because it is The Narrow Path that fulfills The Law of God and everything The Prophets ever taught:

Matthew 7:12-13
"So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it."

Galatians 5:14
"For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

According to Paul and Jesus Christ himself, this is what God's Law is about and by keeping this command you are guaranteed to go to heaven sine this is "The Narrow Gate" that leads there. Anyone preaching against this or saying that God's Law is something different, 'does not know God'.

That is why Jesus Christ rebuked The Pharisees when they tried to stone the woman and called him a sinner for working on The Sabbath. Jesus said "they followed Tradition and they never knew The Father".

reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1


Yeah, thats all very nice, except John the Baptist introduced Jesus as the Lamb of God. The Hebrews had been sacraficing spotless lambs for almost 2000 years before Jesus arrived. It was common knowledge that the Lamb of God was slaughtered for attonment.

The verses you cited are better understood in that context.

reply to post by BELIEVERpriest


So you choose human traditions over what Jesus said? Ok, good luck with that.

This is what I mean by Christians ignoring the man they claim to believe in.

Greatest I am

Jesuslives4u

Greatest I am

CirqueDeTruth
I don't know what happens in death, personally, I've never died....

But I hope I've enough of a system imprinted to follow it to the next incarnation... wherever and whatever that may be - even if it's my energy/conscious matrix being absorbed into the whole - with individuality destroyed.

So long as I get where I'm suppose to be going, and not lost in limbo...

I shall be content.

I'm a good person, and when I make mistakes, I auto correct and make strides not to make them again. So in this I do not worry. About the nature of my being. My only real worry, because I take such a comparative approach to belief systems, is will I get lost in my afterlife journey back to source. Since my system is so unlike anyone else I've ever met. Will I be shown a Christian symbol to follow? Ohm? Will a family member come to lead me through? I don't know, however, I hope something is there I recognize so as not to get lost... if that makes sense.

CdT

No God worth his title would ever lose any of us.

I call myself a Gnostic Christian and esoteric ecumenist.

"I take such a comparative approach to belief systems:

You seem to have that same esoteric ecumenist leaning and that insures heaven.

Your/our view just makes the transition and apotheosis that much easier.

Regards
DL

Greetings,

WOW you make it all sound so easy and in some way I wish you were right but cmon......really?

So you think everyone goes to heaven?

If someone killed your son or daughter, would you let that person live with you? I surely would NOT!

So what Hitler did in WWII is also OK?

If this is the case then morality has no meaning. No reason for the laws.

I do not understand your reasoning in this at all.

Then perhaps answering a few question with the future you might wish for others.
The bottom line though is that no murderer is born that way unless insane. Killers are made by those around them and we must all share in that blame.

Judgment and punishment go hand in hand.

Our human laws have a form of punishment where the penalty is graduated to fit the crime. An eye for an eye type of justice.

God‘s punishment seems to surpass this standard with hell. Hell used here is the eternal fire and torture type of hell and I am not particularly interested in the myriad of other definitions and theories that some use to supplant this traditional view.

To ascertain if hell would be a moral construct or not, all you need do is answer these
simple question for yourself.

1. Is it good justice for a soul to be able to sin for only 120 years and then have to suffer torture for 12000000000000000000000000 + years?

2. Is it good justice for small or mediocre sinners to have to bear the same sentence as Hitler, Stalin and other genocidal maniacs?
This might actually include God if you see Noah’s flood as God using genocide and not justice against man. Pardon the digression.

Punishment is usually only given to change attitude or actions and cause the sinner to repent.

3. Is it good justice to continue to torture a soul in hell if no change in attitude or actions are to result?

4. If you answered yes to these questions, then would killing the soul not be a better form of justice than to torture it for no possible good result or purpose?

Is hell a moral construct or not?

Please explain your reasons and know that ---just because you think God created it ---does not explain your moral judgment. It is your view I seek and not God’s as no one can speak for God.

Regards
DL

Good points but remember in Revelations it speaks of a time when Hell will be destroyed forever. Hell will not continue for infinity.

God did not justify sin - he simply put it that sinners will not be able to come to heaven. Murder is murder whether you kill one man or a million. If you lied once or everyday of your life - you are still a liar.This does not change the sin.

If I build a house can I later destroy it? I created the house and I can destroy it if I want. If I built the house then any change will come from me and not from someone else. Inside my home are my rules not yours.

If God made man, does he have a right to destroy or punish man? Of course he is the creator and it is his rules not ours that count.

You are 100% correct - Judgement and punishment go hand and hand. If God allows mankind to sin without punishment what good are his laws? If he changes his mind how would people look at him then?

Your life on this planet is a test. You will either pass or fail.

You love to hate way too much for me to bother with if you think as you do about hell.

You have embraced the notion that punishing the innocent instead of the guilty is good justice and that you should profit from that injustice for your own gain, and there is nothing I can tell you to kill that self-serving greed.

If this is our proving ground, you have failed because of your poor morality.

Would you teach your child to use a scapegoat, at school let's say?

I did not think so.

Yet you are planning on doing just that. Shame on you.

Regards
DL