Well, that's only part of the picture. In Christianity, the need for a conscious decision is borne out of God's desire for man to maintain his free will, and "damnation" is essentially the state of eternal separation from God which is contrary to the original creational design. Death, lake of fire, torment etc. are just the details -- the essence of it is separation from God which is a Bad Thing(tm). The idea is that when man fell, he lost his communion and fellowship with God because of his sinful state, and so God created a way for man to become united with him again. Man still has to make the decision to accept that way, but the way isn't created or defined by man, it is God's design. In other words, you can't "earn" salvation in Christianity, because it isn't about what you do, it's about what God/Jesus did. Commonly held misconception, though. (I'm still trying to figure out exactly what this topic has to do with this thread.)
Sishir- traditional Christianity teaches that salvation is not acheived from any of man's efforts or it would give man reason to take credit or boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9) A conscious decision implies that man decided to become a Christian this also differs from traditional Christianity. The traditional view is that God saves us through grace, which is a gift from God. The faith and repentance required of men to receive salvation are responses to God's Spirit's work. I look at it like my 8 yr old sitting in my lap and driving the car. He always tells his mother he drove me home, but his feet don't reach the pedals and he couldn't see over the dash if he wasn't in my lap. Jesus Christ is an awesome Savior, He does all the work and we get the benefit.
Good points The decisions are conscious and the will is free. I like to explain it this way- No one can become a Christian without the work of the Holy Spirit and God's grace. Yet the Holy Spirit cannot and will not force this decision upon anyone. Jesus saves us, not we ourselves. I like this topic, I wish all the threads would end up this way.
You just took it in a whole new direction, actually. Let's drop the "man-made" for now. Does Christianity evolve with the times to maintain cultural relevance.. or does it not? My eyes tell me yes. Apologists will then say this is because our understanding of the Bible has changed. So my questions to you are: What makes you think contemporary Christians have the correct interpretation, that the meaning of your faith won't continue to change? What makes you think Christians of old didn't have the correct interpretation?
The interpretations don't ever change. Just the applications- For example- 'Love your neighbor as yourself ' is easy to interpret, but there are many applications.
Holy baby jesus...Poor choice of a quote, yes... Is this racism, IMHO, hell no...just islamic ignorance
Oops, missed this post What does free will have to do with it? The Bible says something is the right answer. It says anything that's not the right answer is wrong. That's what I mean by "absolute truth". Nowhere in there does it go "I gave you free will so you're free to interpret and question what I say"
C'mon, rhester.. Christianity has had to evolve to stay relevant in this world. Surely you see that? The slowly shifting Christian perspective of homosexuality, what's that all about? And gender relations, they haven't changed in the past couple of millennia? The interpretations aren't just evolving, they've never even been agreed on in the first place. In other words, people are believing whatever they want to believe. And that smacks of hypocrisy to me You say the main message does not change much, if at all. But then why on Earth would the Bible have so many ambiguous details on the side? A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, isn't it? If a holy book has even one spelling error (figuratively speaking ), don't you have to start questioning its validity?
I believe that the changes you speak of are about man's understanding of God's will changing, and not God's will itself. People taking a more enlightened view towards women's rights, minority rights etc. would be more in line with the overall message of Christ. The problem is when church's in the past have been guilty of not seeing the forrest for the trees. The way people have preached the word is today and always has been limited by man's own understanding and limitations. As mankind on the whole grows in enlightenment, then it makes sense they are able to gain a new perspective and understanding of God's message. One spelling error in the bible doesn't challenge the validity of it IMO. I don't understand why it would. That is especially true considering it is taken from a version of an interpretation in the first place. The concept of what Jesus did and who he was is the biggest thing, and spelling errors don't change how revolutionary that is.
I'm not sure what you mean by "slowly shifting perspective of homosexuality" ... but changes in gender relations from my view are entirely symptomatic of societal evolution and aren't a consequence of biblical interpretation. The fact that society is changing doesn't mean the words of the bible are being changed. If they are being contradicted, then the issue is inherently with those who are contradicting it. Also, the weakest-link idiom does not necessarily apply to spiritual topics, but nevertheless, I'm curious to know what ambiguities you speak of.
I don't mean to change the topic but as article of evidence #1,254,734 that Fox News is full of ****, this morning I was flipping channels and came across the blaring Fox News headline: British Muslim Says Pope Should Be Beheaded. I didn't have the volume up so went to look up later online that this is the same British Muslim who says the same thing about just about everything. The man is, of course, a joke and everybody who isn't psychotic or one of his brain dead followers understands this. The same thing could be said about the freak in Kansas who sends his moronic zombies off to military funerals to protest homosexual tolerance, but you don't see Fox News running the following headline at every opportunity: American Christian Says Soldier Deserved to Die Because Men Bugger Men. Everybody would flip out and understand that some moron hate preacher is only hiding under the name of Christianity and to describe him as such without clarification is slanderous. It never fails to disgust me the way they seek to profit by feeding into peoples most base fears and hatreds. They stay in business by reassuring people that the parts of their psyche that are the most base and hateful are good and healthy.
Exactly his point. The fact that the murder was done in protest to the Pope's remarks can hardly be debated. It seems awfully convenient if we define protests only as peaceful protests. If a riot breaks out at a protest, we can't say well that obviously wasn't a protest, it was a riot because everyone knows a protest is peaceful.
They've had representatives from that church on NUMEROUS times and EVERY time they've skewered them just as they would the muslim who calls for the Pope's head. They've reported on that story many, many, many times.
But, having seen the clips myself they go to great pains to question whether they are actually Christians. They describe them as 'members of so-and-so Church' not generally as Christians and ask them about where they find biblical support for their beliefs etc. With the Muslim guy they just say he is a Muslim as if all muslims believe the same. Do you see the difference?
The murder didn't start as a protest and turned bad. It started out and ended as a murder. Actually, it isn't confirmed that it was even in response to the Pope's speech. So before we jump to any conclusions lets get some more facts. The example you mentioned of a protest turning into a riot would be a reason to look at the protestors and law enforcement and lay blame. The protests pictured in this thread and referred to by Azadre did not turn into riots, or murders. There is no reason to lay blame at these protestors for anything. Yet there is still people trying to denounce them. When asked about why they are denouncing the protests they then lump in several acts and groups not associated with the protests. It is stereotyping, generalization and ignorance at play in those cases. The reasoning is pure wrong and unjust. Because many muslims protested without violence, and a very small amount of muslims not associated with those protests committed acts of violence, doesn't mean that muslims in general shouldn't be allowed to protest, or that they did a bad job of protesting.
Let's look at homosexual Christians, or Christians who are fine with homosexuality. You're going to tell me they've never reconciled their views on the topic with their own interpretations of the Bible? Obviously such changes are caused by societal evolution - what I'm putting forth is that people take the words of the Bible differently so as to accommodate these changes. I never said the words themselves were being changed And they all have their own interpretations of the Bible. As do you. What is a contradiction to you may not be to them. Also, when you say "issue", are you implying fault? I certainly hope not. I use idioms any way I want, dammit!! By ambiguous details, I was referring to the room for debate on contentious topics in modern society, e.g. the aforementioned homosexuality. If the Bible wasn't ambiguous, there would be ZERO room for such debate. Christians will of course say this is a result of mankind struggling to understand God (as usual), but this is one of my points exactly. You have an opinion on homosexuality that goes along with your interpretation of the Bible, don't you? What makes you think you have the right interpretation, and Christians who disagree with you don't? By extension, what makes you think Christians have gotten it right and people of other religions haven't? By the way, if you were expecting me to raise Bible contradictions or inaccuracies (of which there are plenty - run a search).. that's another debate for another day. Perhaps you should take it up with someone more well-versed in Bible scripture than I am Good that you put it this way. We are very much the product of those who have come before us, don't you think? And we're all interconnected like cogs in a machine - or, if you don't fancy that expression, neurons in a collective human mind. I know Christianity likes to harp on the concept of individual souls with free will.. I'm just offering another more macro way of looking at it Dude, I said figuratively.. should have known that would set someone off
Nah I should have made it more clear. I think understood what you were saying and was just playing around with the concept keeping it hypothetical, but I didn't address that at all, and it wasn't clear from the way I typed it. I agree with you about the interconnected cogs in a machine at least to a point. I also don't think that is mutually exclusive with individual souls or free will. But it provides stimuli, and catalysts for thoughts and actions which is all taken as input by the individuals. So there is definitely a relation.
