God, Christianity, Control, & Fear

[Minimalist]

There's 30,000+ sects of xtianity who would gladly burn your fanny at the stake for maintaining such a position.

[tackattack]

And those that do use fear and lies to manipulate people to follow them and miss the heart of the teachings. I'd welcome any Christian theist on this site to state their opinions on inclusivism.

[Minimalist]

Yeah...I'd be willing to watch that debate.






Hey were you able to access that file?

[fr0d0]

"The Church is the only society that exists for the benefit of those who are not its members." - Archbishop William Temple

A church that's non inclusive isn't a church.

[tackattack]

Yes I did get it min thanks, I'll start on it this weekend.

[Caecilian]

A question for tackattack:

Inclusivism seems to be saying that those who follow other religions, or who aren't aware of christianity, are not necessarily condemned to eternal damnation in the fires of hell.

Thats an improvement tolerance-wise over the alternative. So- a good move.

Whats unclear to me is this: what about out-and-out atheists such as myself, or min, or most of the other people here? Do we get condemned to hellfire? Or does the fact that some of us are nice people count for something?

If we do get sent to hellfire, then doesn't that make god a pretty unpleasant sort of entity? I mean seriously: would you send a sweet young woman like KawaiiKoneko to hell???

And if we don't get sent to hellfire then wtf is the point in being a christian?

[Paul the Human]

Good question, Caecilian. While it's nice and all, I see this as just another example of the way Christians make it up as they go along. Don't like something about the religion? That's okay... there's a sect over here that will tell you what you want to hear.

[fr0d0]

I'm with tacky on the non explicit requirement of salvation. I think there are plenty of bible verses to back that up. What if you label yourself as non Christian... how does that really reflect on the true you and how much in tune with God's ways? Just because you don't wear the label doesn't mean it don't fit.

[tackattack]

No, no you're both (Caecilian and Paul) missing the point of inclusiveness. It's a counter to the idea that non-believers have that " So if you're not a Christian you're going to hell" schtick. It's the stance of a lot of non-denominational Church movements. We're not saying sure anyone can get into heaven either mind you. It would be completely unreasonable though, for God to punish people who's only exposure to his grace would be from nature (some remote tribe) or who didn't have the mental fascilities to understand the message (mentallly disabled or children). People before Jesus still got into heaven, so Jesus obviously isn't the only way. Since Jesus, and if you know of the message, the only way to God is through Jesus' teachings. For instance you're blind and in a third world country with no access to religion. You still have the laws of God written on your heart (for literalist atheists that means inherit to your nature) and can therefore get into heaven. The main message being that God only requires as much belief and faith as he's revealed in his Grace. It's not our responsibility to have faith, it's God's responsibility to show us reasons to have faith in him. Remember, true faith isn't without notitia, which requires illumination from God. Similarly, someone could live in absolute blind faith their entire life and speak about God and believe without a shadow of a doubt that God exists and pray to baby jesus all the time and not get into heaven. This is described as happening in the Bible, he spoke to Phillip about it and in the parable of the narrow door. I think the Christian movement sees people like muslims, LDS, and Jews as going to "Hell" (wth ever that is), not because they're sinners or they're "god" isn't the same "God" but because they intentionally turn away from Jesus' teachings. Jews before Jesus obviously got into heaven, that's in the Bible to I'm pretty sure. Breakdown from a Christian perspective:
1-For God to know you he's had to reveal himself to you
2-For you to know God you have to either
a) had the message of Jesus brought to you
b) acknowledge revelations God has for you
3- To qualify for eternity both 1 and 2 have to had happened and yoou have to follow that path he's provided for you.
4- You're left outside the door to eternal life if you turn away from either 1 or 2 or the path they lead to.

I hope that explains it a little better.

[Minimalist]

Good question, Caecilian. While it's nice and all, I see this as just another example of the way Christians make it up as they go along. Don't like something about the religion? That's okay... there's a sect over here that will tell you what you want to hear.

Lots of them are bat-shit crazy, Paul.

http://www.rense.com/general72/ssome.htm

In any case, Fundamentalist "Evangelical" Christians seem to believe that somehow the Anti-Christ will come up with a brilliant, convincing explanation for the "Rapture" event and that somehow, the world will have a sigh of relief by his explanation.

Among other stupidity.