I just wanted to add that the “Good Samaritan” story was significant because Samaritans were a religious/ethnic group that all Jews pretty much hated at Jesus’s time, so it is important that it is the Good *Samaritan *who is acting in the way God commanded, not any of the other Jews who pass the man by. That’s why some modern adaptations of the parable have inserted atheists, Muslims, etc.
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris
I’m a Christian who does not believe in hell.
Looking at a quilt piece by piece is not going to tell me the pattern. I have to look at all of it put together and with a little perspective. The New Testament’s most profound message is of a loving “God” expressed through Jesus the Christ.
This is not the old man that I had pictured in Sunday School when I was a kid. That God is too small. I don’t know the words to talk about this more Cosmic God. As I’ve said before, I often think of God as being the Great Cosmic Glue that holds all of “IT” together.
I believe that Jesus is the Son of God and became human for a while. He may have even made mistakes as a human being. It’s his teachings that I try to pay attention to.
Jesus knew that his followers and friends wouldn’t be perfect. When he was teaching them how to pray, he included a part that mentioned to ask forgiveness for things we have done wrong. Who said that a Christian is going to be better than anyone else? That person is wrong right off the bat.
We are supposed to love God and love each other. I think that eventually we may find that it’s all the same thing. Everything is One. That includes other ways of thinking that seem to be diverse now.
Nzinga, Seated, is it possible that your problem is with some Christians and not so much with Christianity?
The word most commonly transated as “hell” in the New Testament is Gehenna. This is what’s referenced in MEB’s quotation from Mark. Gehenna was not an underworld, but the Valley of Hinnom, a real valley outside of Jerusalem. Once allegedly a site for human sacrifice (though archaeology has not confirmed this), by the 2nd Temple period, it was a garbage dump where fires burned perpetually. It was also a place where the carcasses of animals, and sometimes executed criminals were discarded. Eschatologically and allegorically, it was the site where the bad people would be destroyed on the day of judgement. They would be destroyed in the fire that was “never quenched,” and their bodies devoured by the worms (“that never die”) and maggots that perpetually infested the garbage dump. It’s only the flames that are eternal, though, not the suffering of those designated for destruction. Gehenna wasn’t an otherworldly destination, but an earthly one (and a figurative reference to annihilation in general).
MEB also referenced a phrase from Matthew tranlsated as “eternal punishment.” The Greek in that phrase is kolasin aionion. Aionios is an adjectival form of aion which means “age” or “season” in the sense of an indeterminate amount of time. This is the word that usually gets translated as “eternal,” though “age-long,” (or “eon-long”) would cut closer to the literal. An argument can be made (and frequently is by universalist Christians) that aionion still denotes a finite period of time and does not mean “eternal,” but I think the translation of kolasis makes it a moot point. Kolasis means literally “cutting off,” or “pruning.” It has a figurative meaning of “correction” or penalty." So kolasin aionion does not refer to eternal torment but to an “enduring penalty” – or even more literally, an indefinite “cutting off.” Even if we accept ainion as “eternal” (which I’m not convinced we shouldn’t), an “eternal pruning” still makes sense with what we know of Jewish eschatology and afterlife beliefs (and Jesus was Jewish) while “eternal torment” does not.
MEB’s last citation is from Revelation a highly allegorical and hyperbolic book. I’ll say that the words translated as “forever and ever” are aionas aionon “ages and ages,” and that Revelation 20:13-14 says that even this “hell” will be destroyed:
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell [Hades] delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
And death and hell [Hades] were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
I have always understood the fundamentals of Christianity to be expressed in the two Great Commandments and the Great Commission:
The nature of hell, the virgin birth, transubstantiation, etc are all the work of theological “lawyers” (such as those who wrote the Nicene Creed) - trying to tie up all the loopholes and answer all the unanswerable questions.
Grim
I have made several threads here on SD to ask if there was any consensus among our Christian Dopers about certain religious tenets that are commonly thougth about as “Christian”.
There never was any consensus.
Von Bingam? Is that Hildegarde von Bingen? She lived a little late (b.1098, d. 1179) to make the Dark Ages cutoff, wasn’t she? Born after Charlemagne, the foundation of the Holy Roman Empire and the Battle of Hastings, and lived during the First Crusade. What events would you say bookended the Dark Ages that would include her lifetime?
While the Nicene Creed might be considered a core set of fundamentals from the days of the early church, I think the Message, so to speak, of Christianity has evolved. My Protestant background seems to emphasize less any obligatory tenets of specific theology and preach instead a story with relatively soft fine points including who gets to be saved and what happens to those who are not. In modern times I think the story has tended toward increasing inclusiveness but the key fundamental has remained that a broken world has (or will) be restored through the redeeming work of Jesus Christ.
Here’s the core Protestant Evangelical story, I think (subject, of course, to the fine points from the Dividers and subtraction of a few points from the Uniters):
God exists. He created a perfect world, and placed man in that world.
God created a covenant of obedience with man. Man could choose what whether to follow God in all things or to follow another path.
Man, from the first to the present, has chosen paths that diverge from God’s perfect plan (this is what sin is), and as a consequence we live in a broken world and are by default separated from God (this is the penalty for sin). God sent his son, Jesus, to pay the penalty for that sin in order that man not have to pay it.
The life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ creates a pathway by which this broken world can be healed and man can be restored to a perfect relationship with God.
This broken world will eventually be replaced and there will be permanent unity of man and God, in permanent harmony.
Most, but not all, Christians believe that man freely chooses a path that will lead to eternal union with God (salvation) or eternal separation from God (damnation; hell; the specifics are not usually considered more important than the key point that it is a permanent separation from God).
Raised in one of the more extreme sub-denominations but would not describe my self as Christian. I would say the the fundamentals of Christianity are summed up in John 3:16. That’s why they have the signs at sporting events. 
All of the other details about exactly what constitutes “believing in him” and “everlasting life” and “perish” and the rituals are what define the denominations.
Dio, you’re gonna make a great annihilationist or universalist Christian one of these days. G
To the OP:
Basic essentials of Christianity IMO:
Father God as Creator with His Word/Son & His Lifebreath/Spirit.
(I’m a Trinitarian in that I believe the Word & the Spirit are as eternally personally God as is the Father but I am getting a bit more understanding of those who don’t, such as JWs & Armstrongists.)
Jesus as Divine Unique Son of God, Virgin-born, fully human & perfectly kind & fair, without any moral flaw. He died so that our sins might be forgiven and bodily rose to make Eternal Life open to us. He bodily ascended to the Father & reigns as Lord of Creation. He will return to judge all humanity & manifest His Kingdom in Creation.
The Holy Spirit- God’s Lifebreath works with all people, but especially indwells faithful
Christians, has inspired the Biblical writers, and operates through the Church.
Christians should be baptized, study the Bible, pray, gather with other Christians for the Communion Meal, keep the Ten Commandments (and other moral laws), promote kindness & fairness among everyone, and share the Faith.
I probably missed something, but that’s the basic essentials IMO
Oh yeah, In the End, all humans will see themselves as they truly are in the Light of God/Jesus as He truly is. That will be Eternal Joyous Life or Eternal Despairing Death.
IMO it may well be that everyone will embrace God/Jesus eventually or that those who will not embrace Them will be allowed to fade out of existence. Any Eternal Torment there is will come from within those who see the Divine Light & hate It.
If there’s one, it is the resurrection. Disbelieve that and you aren’t a Christian.
Sheol is the abode of the dead, my understanding is that it is underground, but not Hell. Hell is a place reserved for the devil and his angels that only began being ‘populated’ at the time of Jesus. This is when the Satanic kingdom became condemned:
Before this statement we have to assume that Satan, though doing things that God did not like, was technically in the clear, and could not be condemned.
A bit more expanded here then usual due to your mention of Hell and Satan but:
We all are born into the satanic kingdom, the realm that Satan is allowed to control. As such we are his subjects and after we die our souls are his. We would stand condemned along with him and his kingdom.
But Jesus wants us back, all He requires is that you renounce the gods of this world, and want Him as your God. Meaning for Him to be your God He has to be first, you have to acknowledge Him as your God, anything else, including stating there is no god is following the ways of this world, which is the ways of the satanic kingdom.
Once you claim Him as your God He gives you citizenship in His Kingdom and will eventually come to get us and take us there.