Serious question...

Am I incorrect? Here is a portion of the Gospel of John, Chapter 3:

15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

I had a former classmate tell me the same thing.
My response was that I don't believe in a God that would condemn millions, no billions, of people who have done nothing wrong. She didn't respond and has never contacted me since then. We eventually ended our lunch and polite terms.

Oh, well. Threats. I don't do things if I am threatened. I'm stubborn like that.

"Say, you seem like a nice enough guy. I wouldn't want nothing should happen to you, so you'd better believe this, see?"

All the threats are just another way to convience people that there is a hell

10,000 flavors of Christianity, and you are responsible for picking the exact right one. What a merciful supreme being who set up this lottery!

But Revelations 20:11-15
Judgment Before the Great White Throne
11Then I saw a great white throne and the One seated on it. Earth and heaven fled from His presence, and no place was found for them. 12And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne.

And there were open books, and one of them was the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their deeds, as recorded in the books. 13The sea gave up its dead, and Death and Hades gave up their dead, and each one was judged according to his deeds.

14Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death—the lake of fire. 15And if anyone was found whose name was not written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
I guess we're fucked

You have to believe in him the Right Way, or it doesn't count.

Well, I can't get past the basic threat, really. I don't respond well to threats.

Without that.....HELL

but that you do not need to acknowledge or even know his name.

so if you believe in being a genuinely good person and try to live your life that way, then that's what matters, not declaring "i believe in jesus". conversely, even if you say "i believe in jesus" but do not try to live your life as a good person, then you're not going to heaven, all protestations to the contrary (because god knows you didn't really believe in jesus).


of course, this is not the view of those who have converted heathens throughout the ages, at times under threat of death....

of course, i've also known more people who say "but that's judaism! it's precisely belief in jesus, by name, that distinguishes christianity from judaism" which is certainly a more widely held view.

lots of eyebrow-raising stuff in there for those who take every bit of it literally. we should be stoning people for lots of really minor things if you're going to go that route. and at the same time, no one should throw the first stone, so not sure how that process gets going....

about the very issue I'm talking about. Do not Christians take the written words of the Gospels literally? If not, what is the point of any of their belief?

Clearly, according to that passage, I have only two options. To believe or not to believe. There are consequences of both. It's not a difficult question, really.

The vast majority of Christians don't take ALL of the bible "literally". Much of it has been accepted by many Christians as "parable". Heck, the "Christian Deists" (an odd concept in my mind) take almost NONE of it literally. Then there are the Unitarians.

It's about the core scriptures in the four Gospels. Some of it is attributed directly to Jesus, himself, or so it is written. Now, if one doesn't take those words literally, what is the point of belief in the first place?

Mark 16:

16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

Not only are those supposed to be Jesus's words, but they were supposedly spoken after the resurrection. I mean...how more serious could that be to a Christian?

You see what I'm saying, right?

But your purpose is rarely understanding.

threat of eternal damnation are not meant to be interpreted literally. They are instead meant to be interpreted metaphorically?

As soon as you do, it's all quite ridiculous.

to be metaphors for.

Perhaps they have no idea. That seems the most likely explanation.

Jesus said that.

It could be a metaphor for how the departed are remembered by the living.

One possible interpretation is that heaven is when the living remember someone as a great person who loved and was loved and accomplished much to help others; hell is when the living remember then as a horrible person who made life worse for those around them.

The idea that your consciousness goes on and that *you* will continue to be aware of all this after you're dead is the part of the literal interpretation that may not be part of the metaphor. That is, it's only a device to help you appreciate, now, while you're living, what it will be like once you're gone.

I.e., live life well and properly so that you'll be remembered fondly.

Christianity covers a lot of ground, and can't be simply characterized. It all depends on which product from that brand you buy. Check the expiration date on the packaging closely.

Christianity certainly hit on some great marketing ideas....

All you have to do is believe one thing. No complicated rituals and multiple deities. No Karma or behavioral rules you must follow. If you screw up, forgiveness is right at your fingertips.

Easy Peasy! That's the attraction of Christianity and the reason for its success.

I mean the literal eternal life thing is sort of fundamental to the religion.

Sure, there are quite a lot of Christians who believe in a literal heaven and hell.

But I've known plenty who don't.

Even an external god is not essential to the religion. I've also known plenty of Christians who believe in an intrinsic god, which some people similarly think sounds a whole lot like atheism.

Plenty of Jews, like me, are atheists, but go to synagogue and recite prayers acknowledging god, led by a rabbi who may himself be an atheist. For some, it's just a story and a tradition. But I don't think there's anything "official" in Judaism that says atheism is cool. But in practice it is widely accepted.

eternal afterlife. You seem to be on to some lesser point that not all christians actually believe in the nonsense their churches preach. Polling data suggests that the vast majority do, but certainly not all christians.

I don't know many stories that claim, within the stories themselves, to be mere fiction or just metaphor.

So, sure, the Bible doesn't say "this is metaphor", don't know how many denominations would officially say that. But individual church leaders may, and certainly many people who consider themselves to be Christians do.

No doubt a minority, but many.

I wasn't trying to claim it was anything beyond a minority view, and I wasn't trying to claim it was officially approved in any way. I was merely refuting the notion that a literal belief in a personal consciousness that survives death is a necessary component of Christianity.

No real explanation of hell in the Bible. I think that was something highly embellished by the later church and Dante.

BTW, not all Christians believe that the scriptures necessarily provide for a hell. There's a book by Rob Bell called "Love Wins" where he argues that that is not what the Bible says. The word for Hell in Aramaic also referred to the great trash heap outside of Jerusalem. It could have therefore been metaphorical, he argues. I found it an interesting take and refreshing to find that not everybody in Christianity is now a literalist.

If the Bible says you don't get everlasting life for not believing in Jesus, then cause may not be the same for athiest, but the result is. So at least maybe they are right on the second part (non-believers don't get everliasting life), just not the first.

Seriously though, a God who would send you to a bad place simply because you don't recognize him would be an awfully egotistical being, and why would a God hold people to spiritual principles he/she him/herself does not follow?

Am I wrong?

...which ended at 16:8. Most agree that the 16 + was deliberately added later and shows a changing perception of who and what Jesus was.

It is a threat--you are quite right.

What they become over time.

asbestos suit.

And never mind those carcinogenic fibers.

He was Jewish.

So, if he doesn’t believe that crap, why should I?

Some will interpret the whole of the scriptures that way. But generally, the specific statements merely say that to have "eternal life" one must accept Jesus' gift and sacrifice. The whole "burning in hell" thing really is a conglomeration of things, not all of them in the scriptures.

So it's unlikely that Jesus Himself would outright condemn anyone, but point out their need to improve (think about the rich man and a camel through the eye of a needle).

He mostly talked about being good, kind, and taking care of the needy. Followers ever since have tried to meet those goals with varying degrees of success.

Bottom line: What most hold up to be "Scripture" are translations of translations and interpretations of interpretations shared for over 2 millennia (5 if you count the OT).

The Biblical view is that God gave us freewill and life is a messy thing at best.

My view on faith and goodness is like the characterization of pornography: I can't define it, but I know it when I see it.

Luckily I see it in many people and locations, but not often in the grand edifices of organized religions.

There is the historical figure from 2000 years ago. Enough evidence to believe this Jesus preached in Judea, made the Romans and the Jewish hierarchy angry, and was executed for it.
Or do you believe in the one some TV preacher does (maybe) when he says "And Jaysus came to me in a vision and said that I need to update my private plane so I can spread the word! Send money now!"
Do you believe in the Jaysus of Franklin Graham who says that Mayor Pete is not a Christian and that he must REPENT?

I attended the Babtist Church (spelling deliberate) until I got away to college, and I can say that while I can respect Jesus and his teaching, I am not a big fan of the Jaysus racket.

I acknowledge that there are many good people of faith and that religion does both a great deal of good (feed the hungry, help the poor) and a great deal of harm (kill the infidels).

In addition, what do you believe you will find in heaven of hell?

Is heaven all full of the people you want to see and golden harps and maybe unicorns? Are there dogs? If so, do I still have to pick up pooh?

Is hell a fiery pit where you are tormented by demons? Is hell being separated from God or your connection from the world? Is hell other people as Sartre said? I mean, do you go to a perpetual Trump rally?

I have no answers, and while I know and respect people who find comfort and a path for their lives in their faith (as long as they're not killing infidels or heathens) I just do the best I can.

Hence my question.

What are you calling "the Gospels"? Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? All those letters Paul (whom I term the guy who invented marketing) wrote? Revelations?

They are the core of Christianity. Paul's letters, assuming there was a Paul who wrote letters to various people, are something else. When I say Gospels, I mean Gospels. Four books.

Or did you just want to provoke an argument with believers in which they explain things in terms of faith and you respond in terms of fact and logic and you both walk away feeling as though you won even though you know the other side doesn't agree and are too pig-headed to even understand your point of view?

It seems a singularly pointless exercise, but enjoy!

bewilderedly,
Bright

There is so much in science and nature that we can comprehend and that we can only marvel at. Sure, we got that big argument between Galileo and the pope (and yet, it moves!) but if you choose to believe in a higher deity set all this in motion, I'm OK with that.

If you choose to believe that because god gave humans dominion over all things on Earth, and therefore we can exploit it until the planet is ruined, I am not down with that.

Another question: Do you, as a believer, think we are all made of stars? Because we are. If Genesis, is, as I believe, an analogy, where did get the stuff from which the universe was molded? Did God cause the big bang? No one knows what caused the big bang.

Do we get reincarnated? If I am very good, can I come back as an otter at the Monterey Bay Aquarium (they eat shellfish and like to swim and have fun, so I am halfway there already)?

I don't know. I'm good with that.

are completely at odds.

Faith requires the suspension of reason.

by everyone in the xtian churches I was forced to attend.

eternally. Anyone who didn't "...accept the lord j***s C***t into my heart as lord and savior..." I was going to BURN in hell forever. When that message whether implied or verbatim - it was both - is pounded into every message one gets the idea that those who tell you that really mean it. Can't change what really happened.

nor do I believe in anything. I know a lot of things for certain, I understand more than I know and I am willing to examine anything else whether I end up agreeing with it or not.

I don't subscribe to any organized religion, I understand and practice the religion of 2na, nobody else belongs to it and that's the way it should be. For me, religion is an understanding and practice which expresses that understanding, period.

our sins including not believing in Jesus?

That's not how most preachers tell the story, though.

Yep that's their spiel. Some say once forgiven you're in the clear.

There are multiple multiple heavens.

But does mom have to clean them?

He uses paleography to determine that there never was one Christianity which later split into two, the orthodox and the heretics. His findings show that there were always two and they were generally split geographically, the east showing heretical ideas and the west orthodox.
What I have determined by analyzing the synoptic gospels is that they are written for two different levels of understanding.

The orthodox level appeals to the masses back then. A godman savior for the followers. There were a lot of such gods, Dionysus and Mithras most notably being the ones whose stories and rituals were applied by the orthodox to their godman. A common complaint by pagans back then (Origen defended Christianity to Celsius) was that there was basically no difference between paganism and Christianity except for the names of the godman.

However, Origen, the foremost apologist of his time, makes the admission that when he and his peers were talking theology, they had to change the subject when a novice came within earshot. So, we can assume he was at least somewhat onto a higher level of understanding. But, Origen can be tricky.

The heretics, of whom there were many types by the time the orthodox were on the attack, believed in karma and reincarnation. The "godman" was one's own soul, a spark of divine light with two missions: to return to its source once it qualified by growing its light via instilling divine principles on the earthly plane. The true meaning of the parables can only be determined if one understands that they explain the beliefs of the "mature" (as opposed to Paul's "children" ).

There are plenty of overt clues which most orthodox ignore. Jesus and his disciples casually discuss reincarnation;why is that one should ask. Jesus explicitly describes a believer and a healer who will be rejected in his spiritual level;so much for faith, forgiveness via faith or the savior godman.

In response to your first question, no, you are not sent to hell because you don't have faith in Jesus. The healer had faith, but didn't qualify. Faith is not the determinant factor would be how you respond to someone threatening a nonbeliever with hell. Beyond that, any further explaining is useless because what they've been told to believe is a lie.

No longer sure what I believe and I’m perfectly okay with that.. the whole thing with not being saved by your deeds but by your faith still resonates... yet I do believe in doing good to help others evolve. Living by example can change things.

The one thing I am sure of ....if they don’t have dogs and horses in heaven... I’m NOT going!!

You have a mind that is capable of reasoning. Just because someone a very long time ago wrote something and called it "the word of god," doesn't make it true. It's a concept, a belief.

I'm not dependent on what others do or don't ignore about religion. I'm a Buddhist, which BTW is NOT a religion, but a practice. All concepts, emotions, mental formations are essentially empty, void of existing in impossible ways. They have no mass, can't be weighed on a scale. They only SEEM real. It took me a long time to understand the Buddhist teaching on emptiness (shunyata). Suffice it to say that concepts about the nature of an imaginary god are just thinking.

when real people use those thinkings to hurt other real people then that affects me, not to mention the people who are hurt.
If you are good with that, then my opinion of you is low.

I'm not that powerful. I can only control what I do, and I have my hands full trying to tame my own mind and actions. Your opinion of me is your own creation of mental formations and emotions. And as such, your thoughts and feelings are empty also and void of existing in impossible ways.

Avaloketishvara, the Great Boddhisattva,
while practicing the insight that brings us to the other shore,
suddenly discovered that all five skandas are completely empty,
and realizing this, he overcame all ill-being.

cause harm to others, and I do object. I am not a solitary individual, entirely separate from others. If I were, i would be a hermit, and you would not have ever heard of or from me.

The vast majority of people exist as part of a culture and society. In the grand scale, all is empty and meaningless. However, we humans are forced to live in the moment, where actions affect ourselves and others. It is in that smaller scale that actions are meaningful.

Some Christians say you'll burn in hell forever if you don't believe. Others say it doesn't matter. They are both right. Likely there were authors and redactors in both camps, so we have a hodgepodge of beliefs all packed into one book.

The purpose of religion is not to provide a totally rational explanation of the world. Such a thing may be impossible anyway, though we may always try to make one. The purpose of religion is to make it's adherents feel better.

Some people only feel good when they are judging others. Others feel good when they sing hymns to God. Still others may feel good with other things that religion gives them.

It just so happens that whatever makes them feel good is also what their religion teaches. Go figure.

Both are proclaiming a myth to be true. I see no evidence to the contrary at all. So, I simply dismiss it all as a figment of some old people's imaginations from millennia past.

Why waste time believing old made-up stories, myths, and fables from the past? We can write our own stories now.

People like old stories. I think we evolved that way because old stories are a way of transmitting cultural knowledge. If the stories are about how to hunt antelope, that is important knowledge, but perhaps adding a magical element makes the story easier to remember. Those kids who remember the true part along with the false survived better than those who forgot both. Maybe a few knew that the magic part was not true, but that gave no survival advantage, so it didn't matter.

Regardless of its source, it only serves to confuse.

Yet we do them anyway. At least some of us do. Even those of us who think they aren't will never escape the perception of others that we are doing something stupid and meaningless. You have to decide for yourself what is worth your time or not, what is confusing or make sense.

Also to be avoided are people whose perceptions of us are incorrect or based on myths and fables.

Of course, avoiding such things is a choice. We don't all decide to make that choice. Sometimes, it is for our own amusement and sometimes it is because we hope to change others' minds.

I wobble between the two choices, I'm afraid.

as long as they don't hurt anybody. If they need to believe in magic, I'm not going to judge that. I can understand why you don't want to go that route, but I can also understand why others choose different way.

I know two born again Christians who I knew before they met Jesus. They were both messes before. They got a lot better after their experience. Of course there are natural explanations for this, but based on how their religion improved their lives, I can't say that accepting a natural explanation would work any better for them.

As someone who considers himself to be a lifelong, practicing Christian, this is just my personal take on this, but I think it's more important to believe in the "message" of Jesus, rather than whether or not Jesus existed or (if he did) that he was god.

Of course defining what the "message" of Jesus is/was is in itself a matter of debate. For me, however, the message is simple:


Do to others as you would have them do to you.


I believe that if there is a god, he/she/it is more concerned with how we treat each other, rather than if we believe in the divinity of Jesus, Zeus, Shiva, Yahweh, Vishnu, etc.

Anyway, just my thoughts - thank you for posting/sharing!

Wishing you well and peace

Tim

It is, as you say, the only rule that is really needed. If everyone followed it at all times, we'd live in a peaceful world.

It's not the "message of Jesus." It's a universal message that needs no "Savior" to espouse.

The reason it's universal is that it makes perfect logical sense. Nothing it says requires any supernatural entity nor any religion. It's just a simple statement of a fundamental principle of society.

Wouldn't it be much easier to follow that basic rule before taking any action? Think of all the time that would save, compared with long lists of commandments or laws about specific things. All of those derive from the simple rule of reciprocity, anyhow.

Religion and civil law all are based on that single, easy-to-understand rule. Sadly, it is a difficult rule to follow for many people. It shouldn't be, though.

Let's teach the Rule of Reciprocity to everyone, starting in childhood. That should be enough. We don't need all the rest, if people would just follow that single rule.

To clarify my comments....I agree that The Rule of Reciprocity did not originate with Jesus (nor is it exclusive to Christian belief)...if my original comments implied that, I apologize for not being more explicit.

What I was trying to state was my belief that this was/is the core of Jesus's message -- that we love and take care of each other (as we would like others to love and care for us).

I also agree that a god or "Savior" is not required for people to follow this rule - however, it is also my belief that it doesn't necessarily preclude a god or "Savior" from espousing such a message. That being the case, it would make sense to me that a god would not exclude or punish anyone just because they did not hold certain beliefs, adhere to a specific religion, or have no belief in the divine at all.

Again, these are just my thoughts/beliefs - thank you again for the opportunity to discuss this with you.

Wishing you well and peace.

Tim

According to the stories, there are several examples of him treating people badly, when they hadn't done any harm to him.

I have to claim ignorance on this...I don't doubt you, but I was wondering which examples did you have in mind?

Wishing you well and peace

Tim

A Gentile woman asked Jesus to help her suffering child. First he ignored her pleas, then he compared her to a dog begging at the master's table, because, he said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel,” and she was was of a different ethnicity. Only after she debased herself, and agreed with that characterization of her, did he relent and heal the child. Matthew 15:21-28

When Jesus was offended by the presence of the money changers and sellers of sacrificial animals in the temple, he didn't go explain to them why he thought they were doing wrong, and ask them to please stop. Instead, he constructed a weapon, attacked the people, drove the animals out into the street, and vandalized the place. John 2:13

He cast demons into a large herd of pigs, and the pig were drowned. There's no indication that the owners of the pigs were compensated, and the townspeople asked Jesus to leave. Matthew 8:30-34

I appreciate the time that you took to post these.

Wishing you well and peace!

Tim

Any semblance of truth in that statement (via allegory...how else) has been plowed over by orthodoxy and the pursuit of power and authority. Essentially, fear mongering to control people. Any response we could have is going to be determined by the circumstances in which it's brought up - ignore them, laugh in their face, repudiate with logic, etc. Unfortunately, the most insidious place it is used is in the privacy of homes of fundamentalist parents who threaten innocent children with such violence where the kids may have more fear of their parents than of any existential threat by an unseen being. That's where it does the most damage.

When did this change happen? What was it like before? What's your evidence?