(May 13, 2014 at 12:46 pm)Godschild Wrote: Everyone here who professes to be non believers has rejected salvation out of self interest. Salvation comes from humbling yourself to admit you are a sinner who needs Christ and the salvation He gives.That implies that everyone who professes to be a non-believer is really a believer who rejects Christ out of self-interest. But again, if a person believes that the greatest reward is only through Christ, then self-interest would drive them towards Christ, not away from him. Therefore, it isn't self-interest; it's genuine lack of belief.
Quote:it's been a hard choice for many here, some have given up what they had received. Earlier you said salvation was a hard thing, now you're saying it doesn't seem to be much of a sacrifice, you need to come to some kind of agreement with yourself.I said that to live this life is to risk hell, unless you believe the philosophy of "once saved, always saved." Paul taught that Christians struggle against the weakness of the flesh, that salvation was not easy to achieve. Therefore it requires effort to stay on the path to salvation.
But it is also not a sacrifice. To call it a sacrifice implies that you are giving up something valuable to help another. I get the impression that you feel that your life, lived in accordance with god's plan and Christ's teachings, is the best possible way to live it and not a burden. So in exchange for living a rewarding life, you get to live forever in heaven with god. Where is the sacrifice?
Quote:Self interest through denial, you have no absolute proof that salvation through Christ isn't real.I have no proof that it is, either. And that's the most logical approach. If I were to live my life based on the things I could not prove, I would have to worship thousands of gods, maybe millions of them. "Self interest through denial" is why I also do not worship the god of Islam or the gods of Olympus or any other god. You do not worship Brahma-- is it safe to assume that you do so driven by self interest through denial?
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
