Bumble Bee Tuna

Vinny- Your explanation still eludes me, though it was clearer than Amie's. "Through the Cross"? What are you talking about?

Meanwhile,yes, I consider myself a great person but according to God's fucked up moral code I'd say I'm a pretty bad person.

As for Psycho Economist, a correction. The worst place in Dante's Inferno was reserved for 3 people: Judas, Brutus, and Cassius. All 3 were constantly eaten by the three heads of Satan. Or, the absolute lowest level of Hell was actually reserved not for betrayers of friends, but betrayers of masters. Yep, in Dante's Inferno the absolute worst crime of all was being a slave and not being keen on your servitude. And of course, there isn't even a section in Hell for slaveowners, so that tells you something about Dante's moral views.
For a wonderful parody of this, go to the Brunching Shuttlecocks' Lore Sjoberg's "Ratings" of it:
http://www.brunching.com/dante1.html

-B

Psycho Economist

It was lost on me in English (well, Literature) class that Dante believed Judas, Brutus and Cassius to be servants of Jesus and Caesar respctively... I always figured they were in there under the "betrayers of friends" category. Go fig.

Back to the fight!

[Vinnie, I will engage your spiels when I have a little more time... don't go too far.]

Clutch

Personally I'm partial to the Calvinist conception of salvation. It's Ed McMahon theology: You may already be a winner!

As for the Christian god just being love: Well, he just loved those Amalekite infants to death, huh? For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, and the sons and daughters of many other people besides...

Vinnie

God is love. I'm not a literalist and you shouldn't be one either. I don't think God butchers children. I do think war is sometimes necessary for men but I certaintly don't believe things like the 10th plague (God killed all the first bron on account of their father's sins). Notions such as those are ludicrous in my eyes. They directly contradict the compassion of God demonstrated on the Cross as best as I can see.

I find that so funny LOL

I'll probably use that in my paper. That was great!


What makes you so great? Do tell

What is God's moral code and why is it messed up? My definition of "good" and "bad" are defined by God's will. It kind of makes it impossible for God's "moral code" to be "messed up." Its our wills and our moral code that is "messed up".

Please do

There is more to it than this but I'll highlight one dimension of it. Solidarity. By lowering himself and becoming one of us, and dieing God created solidarity with us. He tells us he is with us. When we see that solidarity we use it to create our own solidarity with God. We see that he loves us, he doesn't hate us, he's not some evil finger pointing primitive deity out to get us, but a mother who cares for us and loves us. When we see God's solidarity with us we align ourselves to him (repent, make effort to follow his will). The Cross would not be the only means to solidarity in this case but given the gravity of an Incarnation it is a mjor one. There is more to that cross than that. This is just a simplified version and I'm sure some critical readers here would be able to pick that up

Bumble Bee Tuna

I correct myself-

Judas and Cassius and Brutus do not fall into the "betrayers of masters" category. They have their own category where Satan chomps on them. Satan is at the absolute center of hell. He is surrounded by ice, which is where the betrayers of masters go- immersed in ice. The betrayers of guests and hosts are encased in ice with only a small part of their heads sticking out. The betrayers of kin and country are encased in ice with their whole heads sticking out. You can see here that Dante ran out of ideas and wasn't the most creative guy. I learned all this from the Brunching Shuttlecocks page I linked to, which is a highly entertaining read.

Vinnie-

I still don't get why you say through the cross. Why not say "Through God's strange self-sacrifice?" The cross doesn't do anything, it's just the means of execution.

I consider myself a great person because I'm nicer than your average bear and I don't antagonize people. I don't think your accomplishments need to involve global politics or heroics to be considered great.

God's moral code is fucked up because it prohibits things like premarital sex, eating shellfish...What the hell is wrong with these things? And since God apparently created us, HE is the one responsible for our wills and urges, and that's what makes his morals fucked up. If he made us repulsed by premarital sex, fine. Instead, he makes it one of our strongest drives. Although I'd still have problems with calling that immoral- it's consensual!
But I'd rather not get into a MF&P style argument here on subjective vs. objective. I just think God's rules, while sometimes reasonable, are usually a load of shit. And then I wonder why he would have made me in such a way that I would think that.

-B

Clutch

Agreed. I don't believe that Jesus literally turned water into wine, walked on water, experienced brain-death then came alive again, or flew away in the sky.

And you shouldn't either.

Eikonoklast

Hello everyone. I just have one question so far regarding something that Vinnie said.

I have never been a theist. I've often wondered what exactly it is that I am supposed to be saved from. I don't feel like I need to be saved at all because there is nothing to be saved from. I can't rebel against god because that would involve a relationship between God and me. Here you state that being "saved" is about "mending the relationship" with God. What if there is no relationship to mend? As a non-believer do I not require salvation?

Vinnie

Some general thoughts on the who, what and why of this topic:

I'll get to specific posts later:

It is often asked about the eternal state of non-Christians. For instance, those who have never heard of the gospel, the mentally handicapped, infants who die and pious adherants of other faiths. I think we have all asked this question or have encountered it at one point or another. C.S. Lewis in a well known statement from Mere Christianity (page 65) had this to say:

This has long perplexed us. We have notions like "the age of accountability" which are by no means universal in church history or practice! Here is a somewhat different but interesting take on all this:


I find that view very interesting and plausible. I alsso share the sentiment that was laid out a page earlier: "a loving, merciful God would welcome into his kingdom all those who would truly wish to be there, excluding only those who would eclude themselves and could thereby only be brought into the kingdom by coercion."

This does not have anything to do with whether or not Jesus' work was necessary for salvation. One can think it was necessary or not absolutely necessary and affirm this "wider-hope theory". What is under discussion is the question of whether historical knowledge of the incarnation and atonment is strictly necessary for salvation.

Vinnie

Oh yeah, in light of that "wider atonement theory" we see that God obviously does not require you heathens to believe 49 problematic statements before breakfast in order to avoid Dante's inferno. There is hope even for those who you who don't understand what there would be hope for

Psycho Economist

I hate to break it to you, but Jesus himself said that most everybody: everybody who does not follow Jesus and even most people who claim to are gonna burn forever in Hell.

You discredit the parts of the Bible you don't agree with, but you cling to the passages you do. On what basis can you say the scriptures you like are more true, or are more likely true, than the ones that don't happen to concur with your human sense of right and wrong and worldly knowledges of history and nature?

I don't give a lick about whether I agree with a passage of the Bible when I read it: I ask how well it stacks up against other knowledge... and my other knowledge says electrochemical reactions are necessary for consciousness, the subjective experience of life. When the electrochemical reactions stop, thus whither self.

Other people ask, when exposed to new facts, "How well does this stack up to what the Word of God says?" They say you must believe in saving grace and accept it (and maybe even believe others are condemned) to escape eternal torment and get into Heaven.

I don't get the "middle" position. By what rule do you mark-out your holy book sometimes and turn a deaf ear to science at others?

If you're afraid I'm asking the questions too generally to be on-topic, I don't mind you exclusively addressing salvation at all.