AdamWho

St Robert;

IMO, not only does life not have the property of meaningfulness outside of subjective experience it also doesn’t have the property of personhood.

But nice segue way into your evangelism...

[ May 15, 2002: Message edited by: AdamWho ]</p>

JL

GPLindsey

St. Robert --

I've heard it from too many Christians to count--both those I know personally, on the airwaves, or down through history--who basically contend that the meaning of this life is that it decides our fate in the next life. God will either judge us as righteous and send us to Heaven, or cast us into Hell, based on what we do in the eye-blink of time we have here on earth. If you TAKE AWAY the promise of eternal life with "Jesus Christ our Lord," then you also take away the supposed purpose of this life!

Questions: Would you still be a Christian if you were NOT promised eternal life--if Jesus had simply preached that morality was its own reward in this life? Isn't the promise of eternal life the most common carrot used by evangelists, i.e., follow the narrow path and you can get to Heaven?

St. Robert

Excellent question. Would I follow Jesus, if he had not promised eternal life? Probably not, because their wouldn't be anything particularly unique about him. I would probably follow my own imperfect sense of morality.

What makes him more than merely a great moral teacher is his outrageous claims of being God and promising eternal life. It's hard to imagine separating the two. Jesus did not only claim to be the source of eternal life. He claimed to be the eternal life.

"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg-or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon: or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

-C.S. Lewis

[ May 28, 2002: Message edited by: St. Robert ]

[ May 28, 2002: Message edited by: St. Robert ]</p>

Ruy Lopez

St. Robert:

If you have not yet sold all your belongings and give all the proceeds to the poor, I can't take you seriously.

Ruy Lopez

[QUOTE]Originally posted by demon-sword:
[QB]St. Robert:

If you have not yet sold all your belongings and give all the proceeds to the poor, I can't take you seriously. Also you are supposed to pluck out the eyes cut off the hands when they make you sin. Since according to bible believers, everyone is a sinner, where are the missing eyes and limbs?

St. Robert

Demon-sword,

On occasion, Jesus used hyperbole in his teaching to make a strong point. These exaggerations that you have cited do have real spiritual significance, but aren't intended to be taken literally.

[ May 28, 2002: Message edited by: St. Robert ]

[ May 28, 2002: Message edited by: St. Robert ]</p>

Ruy Lopez

St. Robert: Good answer and good sport. Might still get to like you. It does not mean though that your beliefs are real. Did it ever occur to you that you pastor and congregation could be mainly after financial contributions?

victorialis

The pastor and congregation could be after financial contributions out of a sincere belief that just poncing around with ideas is not enough; they want to do something, and to do something in this material world, they need money.

Like, to reduce the suffering in the world.

Sometimes the obvious gets overlooked around here.

St. Robert

God is light. He exposes whatever hides in darkness especially in his church.

[ May 29, 2002: Message edited by: St. Robert ]</p>