Amos

Jamie, notice the tremendous identity complex "Christianity" had on you that you should identify your becoming an atheist as a matter of "coming out."

Catholics never have that problem and nobody will ever call a poor Catholic an atheist and never will they have a complex about it. In fact they can't because most of them attach no personal status to their own salvation. For them, if Catholics are saved, all Catholics are saved.

IvanK

No, I mean that if there is a God and His power is not limited then He can let anyone into His Heaven that he wants to be there regarless of whether or not they are Catholic. Do you disagree? If so, do you disagree with the idea of there being a God or with the idea that God is omnipotent? If God is not omnipotent with respect to who gets into His Heaven or not, in what other areas might he be less that potent?

Amos

"There being a God" is an expression from oblivion because there is no God after we become God to the same extent that we are the continuity of God. So it is only from oblivion that we can have an idea of God and once we have full knowledge of God we are God and are omnipotent to the same extent we are potent and omniscient to the same extent we are sentient. In other words, we know who we are and know why we can do the things we can do. The extent to how far this can be taken is not known by me so I can't define its limits because I only have to know who I am (which I don't, but for which I present the argument).

IvanK

I'm only going to deal with this bit, which appears to make some kind of sense.

So, your position is that God neither allows people into Heaven nor condemns them to Hell, but based on how people work out their own salvation they will end up in one place or the other and possibly some different kind of place.

My question then is, what does it matter whether God exists or not or whether we believe or profess God exists or not if however we work things out for ourselves determines our future condition? Is it at least possible for, say, a pagan atheist to get into heaven as long as he or she has worked things out for him or herself in whatever the proper way might be?

Amos

"Working things out" is not the same as "working out your salvation" because "things" are not [always] equal to your salvation. Having said this I should add that before we die we all have to "make peace with ourselves" -- as it is often called -- and this is most easily done for people that have never been "saved" according to the protestant image of salvation.

Protestants often have a problem with this because they "entered the race" when they took upon themselves their "ideal of salvation" which is the very thing they cling to and must die with. They have much invested in this ideal and their entire life they have fed this image with all (?) the money and willpower they had. These are the "born again" Christians with an appetite of a wolf because it does not pay anything back until they die. Their urgency to convert you after their own image of salvation is evidence of their torment etc.

Non-believers, poor Catholics and poor protestant have little problem with this because they have nothing to lose because they have nothing invested. These people are cold and that is why they are OK. In other words, there is nothing to look forward to after you die . . . and so if life owes you nothing you'll be OK when you die.

There also people who complete the race and work out their own salvation shortly after midlife (look in literature and this age is always 38-42 and I am surprised to find how this age is always around that age). They complete metamorphosis at midlife and have the benefit of heaven while on earth. These benefits are numerous and amount to wisdom, good health and a happy old age (cancer and other old age illnesess are societal diseases and do not affect them).

Females are a category of their own because they can have a close relationship with God through their own non rational (mystical) mind, but in the end must also make peace with themselves.

So heaven and hell are religion specific and part of life only if we enter the race, and if we don't get out of purgatory before we are 42 we'll be there for the rest of our days until we die nonetheless.

So Ivan, that is how I see it and I have lots of evidence to defend it. The next question might be if "that" is all what religion is about is it still worth all the wars that have been fought? Sullster would say no, and I say yes . . . but then again, poor sullster doesn't know.

[ March 25, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>

PopeInTheWoods

1 COR 7 14

My agnostic co-worker's xian wife has that on her license plate.

Andy

Jamie_L

Wow. Are you really saying people with cancer bring it on themselves? Or just old people with cancer?

My dog got cancer when it was old. Was that because it wasn't saved? My father's best friend, a devoutly religious man, died of cancer in his forties. Was he on the wrong track?

You say you have evidence that cancer is a "societal disease". What evidence?

Sorry to take this off topic, but I've been exposed to a lot of cancer in my short life, and this feels like a slap in the face of all the good people (and pets) that I know who died from it.

Jamie

sullster

Dear Amos, not one drop of blood shed in any religious war is not worth your vision of a selfish eternal mental state. Your catholicism is raging nihilism and is a scourge. Your comments on the age when one comes to some religious state is purely subjective poppycock, yet you propose it as if it were holy writ.
Amos's catholicism= nihilism
Death to all religion

Amos

Amos

[QUOTE]Originally posted by sullster:

But my dear sullster, I understand why you see it that way and I can see why many people, not just you, get frustrated with relgion. I am just here to present the argument and the reason why things are the way they are. And you what? I don't disagree with you and I told you why.