dado

no you can't: you'd have to occupy his country first just to get the chance, and that's covered by the "do not covet your neighbor's oil" clause.

Heathen Dawn

LOL

Jinto

Indeed, you aren't saved by keeping it. However, in Christian belief, you are saved in spite of not keeping it. Even though the Christian will admit that they are in contravention of the -law-, and that the penalty for breaking it is -death-, they argue that because of Jesus's sacrifice, that God will not apply the law to them (even though he still applies it to everyone else). Ergo: "This applies to everyone but me."

Of course, those who believe in universal salvation, salvation through works, and/or any religion besides Christianity are excepted from this line of reasoning.

Satsujin

One has to wonder: Why the 'no gods before me' clause?
If there aren't any ( according to the good book) there shouldn't be any need for such a law. Unless, ofocourse, it was composed by a mind/minds that had seen pagan religions and wanted to make sure theirs came out on top.

Satsujin

...Before I forget: Greetings. I'm new here and this is my first forum much less my first forum post.

Heathen Dawn

Welcome to the forums, Satsujin. Where in the Middle East are you? I’m in Israel.

dado

the change from polytheism to monotheism happened gradually, not in one glorious leap. between "lots of gods" and "only one - possibly virtual - G-d" are a host of gradations such as "my G-d can kick your G-d's ass (but somebody watch my back just in case)" to "my G-d is so great i can safely ignore your puny little godling wanna-bees".

Satsujin

Thanks . I'm in the good ole moderately liberal United Arab Emirates.

Heathen Dawn

Another one! Same as QueenofSwords.

The Midge

Perhaps I could try stating this more positively:

Christian have been set free from the law. The law exists to show us there is a problem and no one is perfect. If something is not done about this imperfection then we are going to wind up dead. Not just the body but dead in spirit as well. The law applies to everyone because the same measure will be used to grade everyone. However Jesus death and resurection* has four different effects

1. .that the difference between what we are and what we should be has been made up because Christ paid the deficit,
2. sacrifice creates access to God the source of life our wrong had cut us off from,
3. Death was defeated and has been over come as demonstrated by the resurrection,
4. Christ's life and death serves as an example to us to follow that if we were to follow would put an end to much of the suffering for it demonstrates to us how humanity aspires to all.

Of course nothing we do could affect the outcome of these affects, nothing we could do would make us worthy of benefiting from these affects, nothing we could do could acheive the same affect as Christ's death and resurrection. This applies to everyone- including me.
* NOTE I think it is wrong to talk about the death and resurrection as just "Christ's Sacrifice". It is more than that, as I summarise in the four affects that I describe.