Howdy Tambi and all. I hope all are well. Progressing into the New Year with Flair!
Tambi wrote:
well you have to admit, people who believe others burn in damnation hell fire for eternity simply for following a slightly different religious tradition do have a rather morbid theological world view
I agree
Tambi wrote:
ahh, I see what you're saying, so people who do good works for purely selfish motives, like personal salvation, or worldy status right?
Exactly!
Tambi wrote:
evangelical Christians for one. they believe that truth and spiritual knowledge is dead outside of their faith, thus the need to go forth and convert the masses to Christ.
Now I get where you’re coming from. You right those who do that are forgetting that God Loves us all and Jesus came for all of us. Not just a special few. Before we are Christians we are children of God. Along with ALL our brothers and sisters in the world regardless of faith or non-faith.
Tambi wrote:
Orthodox ecangelical Christians believe that we have only one life to accept Christ, and that christianity is the only ticket to escape hell.
They may believe that, but they must offer eternal life to ALL, not just Orthodox believers in Christ. It’s not for them to judge who will be saved and who won’t. That judgement belongs to God alone. If we follow Christ’s teachings our only task is to offer eternal life we don’t need to teach only a few will be saved. God will make that determination. We must offer a Gospel of Love that Christ taught to replace the Gospel of Fear that was taught in olden times.
Tambi see what you think about this story. Read it like fiction. But remember sometimes you find more Truth in Fiction than in the crystallized dogmas of the institutions guided by men.
While the religion of authority may impart a present feeling of settled security, you pay for such a transient satisfaction the price of the loss of your spiritual freedom and religious liberty. My Father does not require of you as the price of entering the kingdom of heaven that you should force yourself to subscribe to a belief in things which are spiritually repugnant, unholy, and untruthful.[/b] It is not required of you that your own sense of mercy, justice, and truth should be outraged by submission to an outworn system of religious forms and ceremonies. The religion of the spirit leaves you forever free to follow the truth wherever the leadings of the spirit may take you. And who can judge--perhaps this spirit may have something to impart to this generation which other generations have refused to hear?
Shame on those false religious teachers who would drag hungry souls back into the dim and distant past and there leave them! And so are these unfortunate persons doomed to become frightened by every new discovery, while they are discomfited by every new revelation of truth. The prophet who said, "He will be kept in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on God," was not a mere intellectual believer in authoritative theology. This truth-knowing human had discovered God; he was not merely talking about God.
I admonish you to give up the practice of always quoting the prophets of old and praising the heroes of Israel, and instead aspire to become living prophets of the Most High and spiritual heroes of the coming kingdom. To honor the God-knowing leaders of the past may indeed be worth while, but why, in so doing, should you sacrifice the supreme experience of human existence: finding God for yourselves and knowing him in your own souls?
Every race of mankind has its own mental outlook upon human existence; therefore must the religion of the mind ever run true to these various racial viewpoints. Never can the religions of authority come to unification. Human unity and mortal brotherhood can be achieved only by and through the superendowment of the religion of the spirit. Racial minds may differ, but all mankind is indwelt by the same divine and eternal spirit. The hope of human brotherhood can only be realized when, and as, the divergent mind religions of authority become impregnated with, and overshadowed by, the unifying and ennobling religion of the spirit--the religion of personal spiritual experience.
The religions of authority can only divide men and set them in conscientious array against each other; the religion of the spirit will progressively draw men together and cause them to become understandingly sympathetic with one another. The religions of authority require of men uniformity in belief, but this is impossible of realization in the present state of the world. The religion of the spirit requires only unity of experience--uniformity of destiny--making full allowance for diversity of belief. The religion of the spirit requires only uniformity of insight, not uniformity of viewpoint and outlook. The religion of the spirit does not demand uniformity of intellectual views, only unity of spirit feeling. The religions of authority crystallize into lifeless creeds; the religion of the spirit grows into the increasing joy and liberty of ennobling deeds of loving service and merciful ministration.
Tambi I think you and many here are ready to follow "the religion of the spirit" and no matter what church or faith you belong to it will make you a better person in the faith or church you follow.
By the way I'm not a universist. I have a peticular faith and Church I follow. But by findng and living the living faith. one person at a time we will change our churches from Crytallized Dogma to Churches of living faith. It's our job to change them into Loving Churches who teach us to LIVE as jesus taught not dogma About jesus. The Time has come for the world to change. the time is NOW.
Tambi wrote:
do you believe that anything remotely similar to Hell exists, or that there are any consequences in the afterlife for our actions in the world?
Here’s an excerpt of my views from page 2 of this thread.
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 4528#54528
My preception of these ideas evolves with accruement of knowledge and entertainment of varying ideas over time.
Sin - to me is making a mistake or missing the mark, like in old Anglo times when a arrow "sinned", it missed the mark. So basically when your doing something "wrong" instead of "right" and "wrong is basically "missing the mark". That’s Sin.
Now when we do something wrong we "suffer" the consequences of that wrong doing.
So Hell- to me is "suffering the consequences" of our "wrong" doing. It's really kind of a natural occurrence. It's not imposed on us by GOD but is a result of our "free will" choice. God doesn't make us choose wrongly, we do it on our own.Now some of us constantly and consistently choose to do the "wrong" thing. Maybe some of you can conceive of such a person. Maybe a hardened criminal, repetitive murderer, some person who shows no remorse and has no intention of ever changing. This might be a person who would "suffer" the consequences of their actions as long as they're alive. And if they lived eternally it might be referred to as an "Eternal Hell".
God Blessings with with you and all on this site.
