Another post in here just made me think of this: God is all-forgiving, right? Theoretically? Jesus died to forgive us our sins. I will for the moment ignore the silliness of that in and of itself, but here's the thing...Forgiveness is a gift, and to accept it, you must be christian. Doesn't that seem silly? Why would you have to believe a certain thing in order to be forgiven? First of all, belief is based on unreasonable and illogical premises, however you cut it. It would be illogical for a perfect god to make belief a precondition for salvation, since it's not a conclusion you can logically arrive at. Second of all, it's not really a gift, then. It's more of an exchange pay with your faith, devote your life, and in return, I'll spare you from hell. Thoughts?
Belief is the only key you need to Salvation. You are too young to understand the need for Salvation. Hope is Salvation. And Hope is the last thing to die. Live your life and believe what you want but the Lord will always Love you. Try and pray every now and again.
It doesn't matter how important salvation is. I understand that if there is an afterlife, yes, it's important. But it's highly unlikely that that is the case, if only because of the many illogical premises involved. If the lord will always love me, why would he send me to hell just for not believing in him?
Well, if the Christian "God" is All-Knowing, All Omnipotent, "He" would have known all along what a persons destiny will be. Whether this person is going to spend an eternity in paradise or an eternity in hell. So, if the Christian "God" is All Compassionate, and All-Merciful, knowing that a person is bound to spend an eternity in the flames of hell, "He" would have prevented this from happening in the first place.
Unfortunately the Christian conception of God isn't "All-Knowing" or Omnipotent. The conception of free will negates that in Christian thought. See you have this paradox where they say God knows everything, yet supposedly he doesn't even know what you're gonna do next. Hell, even God changes his mind, no? So if God has enough free will (hey that's a good question for another thread), he can be an asshole one minute and a kind loving goody twoshoes the next. That's the only way he could've been a vengeful, destructive God in the old testament, and such a wonderful loving one in the New testament, if indeed they are referring to the SAME God. hummm... Sounds like God got some sensitivity training somewhere between the testaments, no? He/she/it certainly is more forgiving in the New Testament, no?
Sorry to all the X-tians here, but I think, the Christian belief system is rather shallow. It seems to be a faith founded more on blind faith and a need for CONTROL. One of my all time favourie musician and composer, the late Frank Zappa spent a career mocking "God" and bashing Christians. One of his quotes goes: [size=+1]The whole foundation of Christianity is based on the idea that intellectualism is the work of the Devil. Remember the apple on the tree? Okay, it was the Tree of Knowledge. "You eat this apple, you're going to be as smart as God. [/size][size=+1]We can't have that."[/size] [size=+1] [size=-1]-- Frank Zappa[/size][/size] [size=+1][size=-1][/size][/size]
