Light-hearted humor never annoys me. Giving vague answers in an attempt to seem wise without actually answering the question does. My question was about which path was the correct one to actually get into Heaven, and had nothing what so ever to do with who your god does or doesn’t love, unless Libertarian is stating that his god loves everyone, so everyone is geting into Heaven. The answer that will “satisfy” Czar is the one that is pertinent to the question.
Maybe God even loves self-righteous, condescending Christians who (mis)use lots of big words in an effort to hide the weaknesses in the pseudo-logic with which they try to assail the atheist’s lack of belief.
Peace, Lib; peace, all of you. My attempt at lighthearted humor. I honestly was not referring to anyone on this board, I promise. You use the big words pretty well, even if I often don’t agree with the conclusions you draw.
But your question assumes that one, and only one Christian Sect is the true way, and you know Libertarian has never proposed that that is the truth. You wish he would, of course, since it would make it easier to find logical faults in his argument.
He doesn’t’ think one of them is right, and all the rest are wrong. Yes, there are Christians who do think so. There are Athiests who think Venusians are drilling holes in their heads late at night too. Do you feel compelled to defend their views?
How many atheists in the world did you study before you chose your atheistic philosophy? All of them? I doubt it. Is that germane in any way to anything reasonable? No. And neither is your proposed question. It is a burning straw man.
Tris
No, Tris, it is a simple question. If Libertarian believes that any/all paths lead to Heaven, and that what or if you believe is not a barrier to the gates of Heaven, it would be simple enough for him to say so. But when he tries to divert the subject to who his god does or doesn’t love, it indicates that he doesn’t want to answer such a straightforward question for fear of alienating potential supporters.
Have atheists killed millions because of their political fear of established churches?
It’s a simple question, Czar. If you believe there is no God, why don’t you just answer it.
Tris
BTW, the question I asked was absolutely germane to the topic at hand, since the vast number of different Christian sects indicates that there is a wide discrepancy as to what people believe is the message of Jesus.
I expected that you would try the old “Look! Over there! A train wreck!” diversionary tactic rather than actually answer the question, but I’ll go ahead and play your game just to get it out of the way.
People who believe as I do have not killed millions out of political fear of established churches.
Now would you mind not sidestepping the question I asked. Do people who believe as you do think that any and all paths lead to Heaven?
No
I don’t think so. I don’t think we can give you an authoritative answer though, because it is a matter of faith, and interpretation.
I think Poly does believe that, although I am not sure. Basically as I understand his view, since God has infinite love, and infinite time, your version of lost forever is just His version of “HEY, over here!”
While I don’t think all paths lead to Heaven, I don’t think you can find one that will lead you to a place where Christ cannot save you, Unless you turn directly away from Him every time you encounter Him, of course. That’s free will.
Lib already told you at least six times that remember, in these forums that He believes your path will lead you wherever you expect it to. You don’t expect Heaven, so then it becomes a direct logical sequence that Lib does not believe that all paths lead to Heaven.
Yes, many people have different views of what the Message of Jesus is. You have made clear that you think it’s “Hey, dummy, gimme your money, and I’ll fuck you over.” We disagree. Lib thinks you will die, and simply be dead. Poly thinks that the love of Christ will overcome your disbelief and you will be saved. I fear that you will see the Face of God, and still cling to your need to be right, or, put another way, you will choose to die, rather than be forgiven. Theological differences, and to us, nothing but minor points of view. For us, the message of Christ is “I love you.”
Tris
“Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.” ~ Hypatia of Alexandria ~
But that’s only half the message, Tris.
I’m just trying to find out if the whole message is “I love you, so everybody is gonna make it in.”, or “I love you, but you chose the wrong path, so tough luck.” If you want to convince others that Christianity is the way to go, you had better be ready to answer questions such as the ones I ask. Answering “How do you get into Heaven?” with “God loves everybody!”, which Libertarian does repeatedly, accomplishes nothing. I realize that there is no authoritative answer to the question-I was asking for individual answers to show why some might hesitate before going down the Christian road.
Czar,
I am going to go out on a limb, and use an analogy.
You seem to think of salvation as the prize, and life as a contest to win the prize. God sets the rules, and you feel cheated because there is no official rule book.
I see it differently. The world is a dangerous place, and it is filled with paths that wander around, going nowhere. There is a way out, but it is very hard to find, alone. So, God created love, and love will bring you together, with others. God also came into the world, and showed that love to us as a man. With love, you will find the way out. When you do, you will find Him, because He is what love, and eternity, and Heaven are all about.
Tris
An odd aside on MS Word. The two-word phrase rule book gets highlighted in green, with the auto-correct suggestion rulebook. Then rulebook gets highlighted red, as a misspelling, with no suggested correction.
Well, Czar, I do not believe that you hate God – you cannot hate what you don’t think exists. You hate that Nehemiah claimed divine authority for his xenophobia, that Joshua claimed divine authority for his genocide, and that Jerry Falwell blamed the 9/11 tragedy on gay people, liberals, feminists, and everybody else that he happens to dislike. You hate that people show up at your door professing to love you and tell you about a supposed god whose all-encompassing love is shown by his damning everybody to hell unless they toady up to his son, whom he tortured instead of the rest of us.
I grant that there’s a pretty wide range of answers to the question posed by the OP. But what we’re all trying to do is to grasp what exactly it was that Jesus, presuming Him to have existed and the Gospels to report the tenor if not the exact words of His teachings, meant by the stuff that he said.
And I see you doing what you’re capable of doing to fulfill His commandments: You love God to the best of your ability – which in this case is negligible, since you are not convinced that He even exists – but from what I know of you, you would be inclined to love fully and without holding anything back the Person that Tris and I believe in, if you had any satisfactory evidence that He did indeed exist. Not, I hasten to add, the paranoid sadistic megalomaniac that your understanding of the evangelical viewpoint of Him makes you despise – but rather the one who is compassionate enough to all people to have been willing to die in an attempt to get through to them about how to treat their fellow man and how to find a richer and fuller life. And the other half of it, to love your fellow man as you do yourself, it’s evident that you do from all your posts here on non-religious questions.
As Homebrew has said, echoing Jesus Himself and Hillel, that’s the core of the message – everything else is just commentary.
Why does God loving you mean that you’ll go to heaven necessarily? If He loves you, then why wouldn’t He let you go wherever the, um, hell you want to go?
Huh? Did you actually read this? Here it is again:
Kindly explain how, from that, you derive that I answered you with “God loves everybody”? And if you did not accurately represent what I said, then kindly retract and apologize.
Mr. O
Yes, isn’t He wonderful!
No offense was taken, Mr. O. I can take a joke. It’s deliberate obtuseness for the purpose of bullying that offends me.
Libertarian, in your humble and personal opinion, what does one have to do to obtain entrance into what you believe Heaven to be? You seem to be following a path. Can you describe this path to us? Don’t worry about what I believe because it is not germane to the question being asked. Don’t worry about my motives because you are usually wrong about them. This question is about your beliefs about entering Heaven.
One has to become me.
Impenetrably personal. I believe that I’m on a moral journey, and that the destination is the place I’ve sought all my life — when I was a child, when I was a student, when I was an atheist, and even now. I want to go where there is mercy, peace, and love. I need mercy, I love peace, and I crave love. In my God, I’ve found all these things. So the path I want to follow is the one He walks down. I want to be with Him always and at all times. I adore Him. He is everything to me. My moral journey will be complete when I come to understand fully that you and all others are He.
Okay. Well, those are my beliefs.