(October 5, 2014 at 2:31 pm)Retrolord Wrote: Just my views as a future RCIA candidate, if you wish to read them:
Christianity doesn't say faith alone will send us to heaven. Our actions play a big part. We are to do our works with- love, joy patience, gentleness, kindness, self control, goodness, peace, faithfulness. With these "fruits" or blessings of the holy Spirit, we are to deal with others. It makes the world a better place.
THIS is why god needs us to trust in the holy Spirit ( so that we may get the blessings.) I'm not saying atheists don't have these traits, but I stand witness to say it is hard without faithfulness (belief that god will guide your heart even when you get discouraged by humanity) and joy ( joy knowing someone up there is smiling when we do good). That is why the saints gave their lives to serving others. They had all nine fruits. Maybe that's why it is called a sin-because it must be thought that without faithfulness and joy how can you have the other fruits of the spirit? If you don't have them how can you make the world a better place? Sadly, such christians are rare to non existent nowadays.
Also I don't believe in hell for non believers. It all boils down to works as I wrote above.
You don't have to believe in the same thing as me or like what I've written. just try to understand what I meant by this.
This sounds exactly like the recipe for any "modern" religious person.
1) Take any religious text of your choice.
2) Clean out all the disgusting, immoral and bigoted parts.
3) Ignore all the parts that fly in the face of reality or consider them metaphorical.
4) Reinterpret the text to give results consistent with your current value system.
5) Put in the heavy feel-good dressing with lots of love and kindness.
6) Present it as a beautiful and wonderful thing that has very little in common with the original.
You can do the same thing with Hinduism. It is the same recipe as the fabled stone-soup. Which leads me to ask again - why does the type of stone matter?
