I’m scratching my head because trying “save” me before showing me that I need to be saved in the first place is asinine, no matter what your opinion of the subject is, and trying to do it using in-house lingo is doubly so.
By the way-Why do I need saving? Because I am an individual? Why not go en mass to a church of a different faith and try to “save” them during their service? You might get a whole bunch of them that way, and they are already predisposed to believe in gods anyway.
If it’s because of some sort of courtesy churches show to one another, then please show the same courtesy to us individuals.
Certain religious practices harm people here and now.
Whether someone goes to Hell or not doesn’t affect anybody else.
Hugh Hefner famously said, “If a man has a right to find God in his own way, he has a right to go to the devil in his own way also.”
(And if you really love me, don’t ring my doorbell at 8:00 a.m. on Sunday morning!)
Yes but let us not assume that nobody is ready. Besides with God all things are possible.
Which God?
I once attended a funeral at a fundamentalist church where the preacher was much more interested in espousing his views than honoring the deceased. He stated that, according to Revelations, only 144,000 people would be in heaven. (Google “144000” for more info.)
It seems to me that if that’s your belief, it would be to your benefit to keep your One True Religion as secret as possible; the competition for a spot in heaven is going to be fierce.
The preacher also stated that the Bible specified the size of heaven – which was pretty small (I forget the measurements). I couldn’t help wondering why God bothered to create the universe if the Saved only need a city the size of Pasadena. Perhaps the universe will be needed to hold the damned.
No, speaking for myself, I’m sure they believe what they say. I just don’t agree with it.
To echo an earlier response, it’s love. Love meaning wanting for others what God wants for them, to be happy and live with Him forever. It’s because it’s Good News and you want to share it. And it’s because of the earlier commission, to spread the good news to all.
I would witness if I am asked but I wouldn’t do it to win a spot in heaven! It would be because I am asked to tell the truth and that’s the Truth.
This response appears to be shift the goalposts a bit. The original question was what was the motivations of those believers who want to save someone’s soul and what was in it for them. Whether or not you think they aren’t doing a good job trying to prove their point is irrelevant.
The gates of heaven are made of twelve pearls. Twelve GINORMOUS pearls. Were there actual oysters that size that the pearls came from? Or did God just magic them out of nowhere? If so, why pearls? Why not, y’know, magical God-stuff, like sparlies in lucite, or whatever. Why twelve pearls? Why not just one really big one?
Taking this stuff literally is beyond hopeless.
I’ve heard the phrase “pearly gates”, but never before did I think that the gates would’ve actually been created from huge pearls. Looked it up on Wikipedia. Wholly high weirdness, Batman! Deep waters, indeed…
The LDS efforts are different than proselytizing by evangelical Christians, as Mormons believe in works more than faith and doing “temple work” for the dead is an essential requirement in order to get into the Mormon version of heaven.
Baptism for the dead is only the first stage, they also perform what is called an endowment ceremony, an essential ordinance in the eternal progression of man and which allows people to eventually become gods and goddesses. In the endowments, you learn the secret signs which allow you to pass into heaven.
After one has gone through the temple for oneself, then all subsequent visits must be done as a proxy for dead people.
Regular temple attendance and the subsequent the proxy work for the dead is strongly encouraged and will be taken into consideration during the final judgement to determine which of the various Mormon heavens one can enter.
There is an fundamental divide within Mormons between those who are “temple worthy” i.e., those who follow the rules, pay tithing, abstain from coffee and alcohol, etc., and those who do not.
Mormons are encouraged to do the temple work for their ancestors, but in cases such as my family, all the identifiable ancestors have already had their temple work done.
Volunteers go through various genealogical records and gather names for the temple work. The work is generally not supervised, which is why problems occur such as the doing proxy work for the Jewish Holocaust victims. Even Hitler’s temple work has been done and he has been married to Eva Braun along with many other historical figures.
How many historical figures have married Eva Braun? Maybe Hitler wasn’t exactly an attentive husband in this world. But, in the afterlife, you’d think he’d have more time for such things. (There being far fewer Jews in Catholic heaven than in this world.)
Or, maybe I got that backwards, and you are saying that in the afterlife Hitler married many historical figures? I suppose… I’d think he’d owe at least the first century to Eva Braun to make up for his general piggishness during their time on Earth.
Either way around, no matter who married all of the historical figures, Mormon heaven sounds like an interesting place.
I think that you are misremembering. Heaven is supposed to be a cube around 1,500 miles on a side. If each resident was given 10,000 square feet of living space and each floor is 20 feet high, then that would leave room for more than two thousand trillion residents, with plenty of room left over for public spaces.
I love talking to these people just to see how crazy their statements will become. When I told one street evangelist that I couldn’t join a Christian religion because I’d have to cut off all contact with my sister the hardcore feminist lesbian, she replied “Well, if you get a relationship with Jehovah and your sister sees how happy you’ve become, it will cure her homosexuality.”
Blah. Bad writing. Hitler and other historical figures, both good and bad, have had their temple work done. Hitler was married in proxy to Eva.
Although past Mormon prophets have taught that polygamy is a requirement for heaven, no polygamous wives have been married in proxy to Hitler. Mormon doctrine is not particularly clear on cases like this.
Temple work was done for Buddha, including being married in proxy to a “Mrs. Buddha.”
There apparently isn’t much oversight in the process. Some of my ancestors were done a number of times because their names were submitted by different people.
[aside]If Jesus hung out with tax collectors and prostitutes, why can’t you hang out with feminist lesbians? What’s with this Christian idea that you have to shun sinners, anyway? I thought you’re not even supposed to worry about who the sinners are, that you’re supposed to pluck your eyes out rather than judge one another.[/aside]
Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk