We do not- he was wrong. Well, that was oversimplification. There are many sects & branchs of “the” Christian Church, and not all beleive this- ie my branch, the Celtic Church. However, an unrepentant sinner will go to hell, until he repents. However, we also accept that many other beleif systems hold a portion of the truth. Thus, if that “tribesman” accepts the Sky God, follows that Gods moral precepts (assumming they are more or less “good”), they that tribesman may very well to to “his reward”, but not the Christian hell. “Careful with that tar-brush, buddy, you’re getting tar where it don’t belong”.
matt- you DO know (I think I have told you) that there are “non-pauline” Christian Churches out there, such as the celtic Church, who hold only JC’s words as “the Word”. St. Paul, to me, was possibly the greatest pitchman in the history of the world, inspired by JC to “sell” Christianity instead of persequet it. But his letters to the wayward early churches- were just that- letters to early Churches. Not the “Word”.
However, even if Celtic Christianity does not appeal to you, I urge you to find some outlet for the search for faith I think i hear. Unitarianism, Buddhism, perhaps neoPaganism. Find one that fits your personal need for faith, the one that calls out to you, the one that fits.
Well, if everyone was gay or everyone used birth control, that wouldn’t be very humanistic either…
As for marriage, Jesus said people who wished to take part in the resurrection wouldn’t get “married,” although people tell me that isn’t what that says.
The important things are not to treat people as objects, whether by committing adultery, or or any other sins who’s root cause is lust.
Bravo, Jodi! I can’t speak as eloquently as many here, but I can say that there is a Truth that exists apart from human beings and we are called to follow His will. Our mission is not to create Him in our image and create a personal morality that fits our needs. We are called to transcend the limitations of our human nature and with His grace be the people He means us to be. The kinds of “rules” that some people here find so grating are a moral code that will in some cases constrain human impulses but for a higher good, not to be oppressive.
Let me clarify, as this could be misconstrued given the above conversation. When I say “exists apart from” I don’t mean that God is not a consistent and integral presence throughout humanity (as opposed to the far-removed king). I mean that God would be the same Truth whether or not man existed, and is His nature is not changed by what man thinks He might be. His nature is not dictated by man.
Hmmm, RoboDude, consider two scenarios:
National church convention takes place in a city. Lots of people, lots of traffic. Local self-proclaimed atheist activist protests police directing traffic as a violation of SOCAS. And every intelligent atheist groans at what this nimblewit is doing to paint their cause as lunatic fringe.
College freshmen, calling themselves pagans, decide to celebrate the Feast of Priapus by stripping, showing their bodies covered with goofy symbols, in the public square at noon…and of course get arrested. And every decent pagan sees this as a major setback for having their beliefs respected by the public.
Guess how Jodi and I and Triskadecamus feel about the latest pronouncement from Pat Robertson, Paulk’s group, or Jerry Falwell, or that Fred Phelps has picketed another funeral with his disgusting signs.
Read what I said again. There are meddling bumbleheads who believe that they know what’s best for you and will make you like it whether you like it or not (yes, I meant what I said) – and some of them use the Bible as prooftext for their legalistic BS.
Just because they’re noisy doesn’t make them right. Or Metallica would be the fount of all wisdom.
Hey now… are you asserting that they are not???
And that’s exactly why I left. I can’t put up with a religion where someone else knows better than me how to be myself no matter how old I get. I refuse to put up with that kind of surrender of power over my own destiny. I am not interested in a world in which to be human is a weakness, nor one in which God made me flawed so that I could be His personal reclamation project. I am not a toy; I do not exist for the pleasure of some Tinsmith God who wants to watch me tick for his own amusement. I am my own person, and I do not want my morality determined by the arbitrary diktats of some god of a desert tribe but by the good of society and the earth.
Christianity is a religion of self negation, of self destruction. The world we live in is supposed to be maya (to mix my religions up a bit), a shadow, not The Real Deal, which is the life of the world to come, amen. You’re not supposed to concern yourself with the world except insofar as you can get to heaven personally by doing actions which may or may not benefit others, but are supposed to please God.
Permit me to doubt. Permit me to suppose that what we see, after careful consideration, to be good actually is good: that actions for the benefit of humanity are good, whether or not they obey the dicta of God The King.
I’ve often said that I became a Wiccan for the same reasons a lot of people become atheists. As I believe now, God did not create the universe: the Gods are the universe and everything in it, including me. If I am to worship the divine, it is to wonder at all that exists including others and myself, not as flawed creations of a perfect God (?) but as God and Goddess Themselves. And being divine as anything else, I can be existential and humanist, plot the course of my life, decide on what is ethical. All I give up is the comforting illusion of certainty, which is not much of a loss because nothing is certain.
I am my own. I am not God’s servant. If I am a servant it is the servant of the common good.
I know that there are a lot of Christians (my parents, and apparently such people as Polycarp among them) who have altered the path of historical Christianity and its doctrine to a (somewhat) more humanist and affirming form of religion. I can only regard this as an evolution, not to mention a tacit agreement that the historical precedent could bear some evolution.
C’mon, after your trip to Raleigh, how can you doubt that the old biddies we never listened to were right: Lynyrd Skynyrd, Styx, and so on were promoted by Satan. 
I’m not saying it’s contradictory; I’m saying it’s oppressive and anti-humanist.
That’s exactly what Christianity does, and it’s not a good thing.
On the face of it, these are wonderful ethics. But think of this: why must you care for the poor, love others, etc? Is it because it’s good for them, because it’s good for humanity, because it will help save the world? Or is it because God said so?
And, for that matter, if God up and changed his mind tomorrow and sent an angel of light to say “People are scum, it’s a dog eat dog world, everyone go kill and take what you want”, would you go do that?
It is very frightening for me to conceive of a person with so little self worth that they’d abandon control to a god.
And the difference between you and me is that I don’t think there is a baby.
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I’m not saying it’s contradictory; I’m saying it’s oppressive and anti-humanist.
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Well scratch out the ‘truth shall set you free’ verse.
I’d submit that is what some teachers do, not what Christianity as a whole does. It is possible to have a clear mind, that exercises free thought within the truth of Christianity.
I think the answer is ‘all of the above’. That was probably why he said it.
Hmmm… nice straw.
Go back and read that ‘truth shall set you free’ verse.
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Oh, and Poly, I knew that ‘Return to Paradise (Theatre)’ was another gospel!
MATT:
If you decide you wish to be a better person and in seeking how best to do this turn to the teachings of Buddha or Tao or (God forbid) Jesus, are they then telling you how to be yourself? Or are you figuring that out on your own?
Then don’t.
Yeah, me neither.
Blah blah blah. This is just you ranting about what you think God is, not explaining why you think that.
No, it emphatically is not. If that is your experience of it then I am truly sorry for you – not in the sense of pitying you, which I would not presume to do, but in the sense of regretting that your experience of it has been painful. Christianity is a religion based on love and forgiveness and, yes, tolerance.
Jeez, if I thought Christianity meant what you think it means, I wouldn’t be a Christian either. Fortunately for me, it doesn’t.
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*Originally posted by Navigator *
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I assume by “truth” you mean “truth as revealed by Jehovah.” Well, that truth won’t set you free. It’ll enslave you to God.
But if you take the truth of Christianity for granted, a priori, there’s no point in having a free mind, because you’re not doubting the underpinnings of the whole arena you’re playing in. We must always doubt everything.
No, it is not a straw man, it is a very important argument within this context. If you are going to abandon your free will to God, you either are prepared for all possible consequences of this, including this one; or you are being a fool.
Not all Christians believe that per se. If you keep the commandments of Jesus, he sends you the Holy Spirit and it teaches you all things. After which time you need call no one “rabbi” or “teacher” or “Father” except for God (and that Spirit). That is what Jesus taught anyway. That still leaves the problem of knowing what the commandments are.
But, let us assume for a moment that there is a God, and he does have a certain set of teachings we can point to. On the short term I agree those teachings seem short-sighted. But perhaps not everyone can see the bigger picture, and perhaps God can – and what he really wants for us is a better society. A lot of the wreckless damage to the earth is due to greed, IMHO. God’s position on greed, I am told, is against.
True. But perhaps not for the reasons you think.
Again, perhaps what pleases God is to the benefit of others whether they can see that or not.
It is dangerous to fall into pride though. You may just think you know better than God, while the garden path humanity puts itself on instead has destruction right around the corner.
I’ll take that with a grain of salt.
But what if everyone thought that way? It sounds like you can arbitrarily decide anything is ethical based on circumstances. That is not a good thing.
How do you define common good though? How do you know what the common good is?
You mean that wasn’t an angel of light? 
Well, I give up – what exactly does Lucifer mean anyway…
Maybe some people (not me) value the interests of humanity, which they see embodied in Christ’s teachings, so much that they are willing to “die to their self” for the good of their fellow man.
Well, Matt, some of us think that the humanistic message was what Jesus had to say in the first place, and Paul (perhaps inadvertently) and others are the ones who have twisted it into legalitic judgmentalism. And you have to admit that the one authority everyone can agree ought to know what Christianity is supposed to be about would be Jesus – assuming for this argument that he existed, but otherwise regardless of what you might think about him.
As for the self-abnegation thing, Joel (for once) has the precisely right point: if you choose to give something up, you are still in control – it’s your choice. There are things in this world that matter more to me than my own life – one of them is your freedom to be who you are.
I do my own thinking, make my own decisions, based in part on what I’ve learned and taken to heart. Just as you do. If I choose to abnegate some authority over my life to God, that’s still my choice.
It happens I don’t have all the information needed to run this board. TubaDiva does. I may disagree with her on some point or other from time to time, but I honor and respect her as the person who has taken on the responsibility of running the board and has the information I don’t to make the right decisions. (Which she normally does.)
God is, it says here, all-knowing. Including the future, about which I have only a few precognitive or prophetic flashes. So maybe He has the information to run the universe right. And maybe He has a better handle on what I need than I do. That was certainly the case ten years ago, as I outlined on another thread. And He manipulated events to lead me to being who I am today. And I like me much better as I am than as I was.
I too believe the doctrine evolves, and that it’s healthy; perhaps I have fallen behind the wave front of evolution in that regard, but I think there are some fundemental aspects that apply universally, and although perhaps not perfect, I think the Ten Commandments embody them, insofar that they are a set of guidelines for getting along with your neighbors, be they next door or on the other side of the globe. Although promulgated in Christianity, I believe them to be commonsense rules that transcend time, cultures and beliefs.
Before I come off sounding too inclusive, I recognize that there are cultures where they may not apply.
Matt_Mcl asked me to say a little bit about why I left Christianity for Paganism. As usual, we agree on the big things but disagree on the details.
The truth is, I always felt uncomfortable in Christianity. It did not feel intuitively true. Wicca felt right. Religion should not have to be more complicated than that.
But of course, it is. At least it is in our society. And in a culture where a Christian, a Jew, or a Buddhist is granted religious tolerance, but where I as Wiccan am continually expected to justify my faith, I’ve had to think about it a lot. There seems to be a reflexive hatred in the West of religions that are close to the Earth.
When I try to take a day off work for a religious holiday, it’s more of a hassle for me than for my coworkers. When I tell people I’m Wiccan, they ask if it’s a cult. The new American President (sort-of) Elect said on the campaign trail that Wicca was not a religion and did not deserve protection.
I ask myself why my religion is so denigrated. In our society, Christianity is the obvious target. It’s woven into our culture. If I was raised in Israel, it would probably be Judaism. In India, the Hindu religion. It is Christian prejudice I’m most familiar with. I ask myself why a Jewish nationalist and mystic born approximately 2000 years ago is assumed to have more access to the Truth than I do. I wonder why so many of his followers believe they have special access to the capital-T Truth.
I’ve counselled gay teenagers who think they’re going to hell because of who they are. I’ve had sex with a man who prays to the Virgin Mary to forgive him. I’ve read the grafitti that says AIDS is God’s punishment. Even the more mainstream churches, almost without exception, do not ordain openly gay priests or perform gay marriages. I see it as a good thing now that I always felt Christianity was wrong for me. The church left gay Christians long before those gay Christians leave the church.
A close friend of mine died of AIDS. He didn’t believe he was going to hell. He was an older gay man who gave my friends and I a safe place to hide from the gaybashers and our parents. He once asked me if I knew what Wicca was, and at the time I’d never heard of it. It was only years later that I realized he was another Follower of the Way.
I guess what I’m trying to say, is, even if the theology had ever felt right to me, there aren’t enough Christians out there who follow Christ’s message for me to want to join. It was for those two reasons – one intuitive, one moral – that I left my mother’s faith.
I hope (to mix my religions up a bit) I’ve provided a suitably emotional yin to Matt_Mcl usual intellectual yang.