Anyone who is unperturbed by the thought of their death simply doesn't value what they will lose sufficiently or has bamboozled themselves with promises that they could not rationally hope to have delivered.
I'll only lose if I haven't made the most of what I have now. That's what perturbs me. Not the dying. The living...or non-living.
I do not agree. You are losing everything, regardless how you live your life. Nothing can compensate you for that.
Point 1: I disagree with you, Zen, because if you're right, then there's no way to change the ending, therefore the only way not to lose *is* to make the most of the time you have.
OTOH, I think you misunderstand the nature of Christianity and Sin. Sin is a state of separation from God, the outgrowth of which is behavior inconsistent with God's nature. Therefore you don't go to hell because you have a pottymouth. You have a pottymouth because you're going to hell. I know you still don't believe in all that, and that's all well and good, but I wanted to clear that particular point up.
I did, however, get the joke :)
Looney, that argument is so demented as not to be worth challenging. You have painted sin as a separate entity from yourself, rather than a function of how you act and how you are. That's far too Calvinist for most Christians. I thought you were a Catholic, in any case, not a Lutheran?
No, no, no, not Catholic. You'd probably classify it as evangelical. And no, it's not demented, although my explanation likely is. In fact, the sense of it being a separate entity is somewhat Pauline. I'm certainly not a Calvinist either, in the strictest sense of the word.
Let me try to explain it differently. Sinfulness, the tendency to sin, is an innate aspect of human nature, IOW, original sin. (It's not just for Catholics anymore!) Many (most?) Christians understand it as the basic change in nature caused by "Adam" by whom sin entered the world. So we are born with a sinful nature, already fallen. Because that is our basic nature, we sin. Not that the actions aren't bad in and of themselves, but they're symptomatic of the root problem of inherent sinfulness.
You don't fix the sinful nature by doing good works. The good works are against nature. Instead the individual is in need of spiritual regeneration, putting to death the sinful self and being reborn into spiritual purity and entering into a process of sanctification of the physical and mental self as the new nature begins to affect the body and the psyche. Good works would then be the natural outgrowth of inner change.
Probably the clearest New Testament explanation is found in Romans, chs. 5 thru 8.
Catholics see it a little differently, as they see the redemptive work of Jesus Christ as absolution for original sin, then the rest if up to the catholic to do their best, and to go to confession to establish their place in Heaven.
Well, my explanation probably still sucks, but hey, it's me :)
No, Anthony, your explanation doesn't suck. It sounds exactly as I've always understood the message of redemption. What sucks is that mankind shared in the fuckup of one man and is expected to pay the idiotic price of hell if they don't recognize the existence of God and his workaround to fix it all-the sacrifice of his son.
Since God is omnipotent, since he knew what would happen, since he knew that billions of his supposed beloved creatures were going to be doomed based on the choice of ONE man and that they would have nothing to go on to understand God than the gut, basically, certainly nothing tangible, you would think he would have stopped himself from doing anything so utterly absurd and cruel as to create man in the first place.
Lily has nailed it. How can the sacrifice of Jesus have been the only way to redeem sin when God a/ knew from day one that man would be sinful, b/ knew the outcome (that there would be a Jesus, that he would redeem your sins and you would accept it or not) and c/ can choose any means he wishes to bring about any end he wishes?
I will continue to look askance at the kind of fucked-up entity who thinks the only reasonable way to make up for being naughty is to have someone murdered in (literally) excruciating pain.
Hey, fair enough. I just wanted to clarify the concept of sin, putting the horse back in front of the cart. I wasn't trying to validate the viewpoint so much as clarify the concept.
The core issue of Christianity, in my own view, is free will, from sin to redemption. I could expound, but you'll likely continue to look askance and say witty yet derisive things as you're wont to do... and you're probably simply not at all interested. But thanks for the conversation. I haven't visited your blog near often enough as of late and I realize I've been missing it :)
Of course, I am interested. I have a pretty good understanding of modern theology, as it happens. However, it's difficult to discuss it with a committed Christian from a more objective standpoint because they generally cannot be too objective about it and naturally I don't really have as much at stake as they do.
That particular concept in Christianity is incredibly difficult, Anthony. There simply isn't a good answer to how you can have true free will when God is transcendent, and a/ created your will in the first place, b/ knows all outcomes of your decisions before you make them and c/ (most importantly) because he stands outside time has "already" judged you for the decisions you are yet to make.
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