Clivedurdle

In Michael Palin's (ex Monty Python) Himalaya he sees a most amazing kaleidoscope of religions near the old silk road.

One of the Dalai Lama's monks tells him he is reincarnated from an elephant, in Pakistan he sees strict Moslems manufacturing weaponry, and cricket, polo and billiards are being played thousands of miles from Britain!

The various religions are completely integrated into the societies, even down to the amazingly male Moslem societies compared with the completely mixed Hindi and Buddhist cultures.

So will xianity die out? Probably not! Can communism be seen as an extreme xian cult? From each according to their ability to each according to their need seems very similar to the idea of holding everything in comon in Acts.

Secular thinking will continue to interact in fascinating ways with supporters of the sacred.

Chili

The Catholic Church will survive but maybe not the Christian church as you know it. The fact is that Christian religions are heretic by nature and therefore they won't survive. The problem is that they are a nasty side effect of the Catholic church and that is why we have the classification "heretic" and the place called "hell" -- which must exist if the Catholic heaven is real.

The point here is that if heaven is real, hell must also be real and if heaven is for Catholics only hell will always be an attraction for those who want to go to heaven. I know that this seems like a contradiction but that is really how it is . . . except that they, Christians, do not see it that way.

I Love Jesus

What does this mean?


To the OP, I say never.

Chili

Good question. I am an advocate of "heaven on earth" after our first death which is the death of our human condition or "persona" (go to Romans and read all about it).

Christians, on the other hand, believe in heaven but they can't get there until they die both their first and second death. To me this is wrong because when we die our second [physical] death our eternal life in heaven will be over.

See the difference?

Edited to add that the promise of heaven after we die is a good idea as long as we do not die our first and second death at the same time, because, in that case we, will have wasted our eternal life portion of life in anticipation of heaven after we die and that is a prolonged purgation period that becomes hell.

The short purgatory period is described in the first beast of Rev. 13 and the everlasting purgation period is described by the second beast of Rev. 13 and goes into Rev.14.

In relation to the OP, Catholicism will only end when mankind becomes extinct because it is the true representation of mankind (our eternal life belongs to the mythology and our temporal life is just a reflection of it and is therefore an illusion).

I Love Jesus

I see the difference, but I'm wondering - how can eternal life anywhere ever be over?
The second death (physical) is the physical body, which will then be resurrected to the glorified body. I do not know what sort of theology you have but it is not Christian.

Interesting interpretation of Revelation.
How could something everlasting purify you? Purify you for what?
Are you a Christian? (just curious, I've never heard these ideas from a Christian).

Chili

I agree that my theology is not Christian but also argue that Christians are wrong.

Eternal means without the acute knowledge of time, such as in our soul or right brain where time-as-such is not known. We are eternal in our soul so to become eternal we must take up residence in our soul and there live our eternal portion of life. It's like walking on water wherein water is our soul and we have learned to go by our intuition -- which is the memory of our soul. Notice that in the New Heaven and New Earth the sea was no longer . . . to say that once we are one with our soul we no longer have a soul. Another way to put this is that once we enter the race we must work out our own salvation and not spend the rest of our life trying to work out our own salvation and die nonetheless.

So yes, if this makes every Christian wrong, so be it.Notice that the first beast came out of the sea and had victory over sin (ten diadems) while the second beast came out of the earth and remained divided in the saved-sinner complex with two horns, etc.

You will never hear this from a Christian or they would not be wrong.

I Love Jesus

At least that makes sense

So I guess you would not say that eternal and "endless" or "permanent" are synonyms.
I am curious where do you get these beliefs from. Obviously you have read Scripture.


Interesting.

Ojuice5001

I think it will be a long time before Christianity goes extinct. Of the social forces in existence today, only Islam shows any sign of having the capability to eliminate Christianity. I very much hope that it doesn't, since Islam is radically less worthy than Christianity. So if it isn't Islam that eliminates Christianity, it will be some new social trend that isn't very salient at present. So we would have to wait for this new trend to surface, and overcome all resistance put up by the Christians and their god. That will be a long wait.

I Love Jesus

Any one ever read G.K. Chesterton's "The Everlasting Man" ??
He makes a good argument why Christianity will always exist.

Hedshaker

Whilst I agree that Islam is to be more feared than Xianity I disagree that, "only Islam shows any sign of having the capability to eliminate Christianity"

IMO, only reason and logic has capability to eliminate Christianity or any other religion including Islam. Time will tell, although there will always be people who choose faith and deny reason and logic. But I truly believe they will one day become the minority :thumbs:

But not in my life time, alas

Orbit