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Liberal Christians: If I get into Heaven just cause, what’s the point?
quakers, and some others, don't see christ as an individual vs all other individuals.
suffering can be a state of mind; which affects the physical body.
this can be understood in the parable of lazarus and the richman
Good question.
Logically, abortion is also the ideal parenting method. Assuming that the goal is to get your kids to Heaven. Letting them live to "the age of accountability" is just giving them the freedom to make a choice that will result in Eternal Damnation, according to Christian and Muslim teachings.
This doesn't make any sense to me. It's a major reason I don't believe in such religions. It's irrational, and it's also fundamental boilerplate teachings.
Tom
no all christians, or muslim's, believe in eternal damnation. some but not all
Yerda
Veteran Member
It surely matters that God has love for all, no?
Being a liberal Christian is about reading the Bible without constraints and not about being an anarchist. Repentance is resurrection just as the bread and wine are the body and blood. Heaven-going is a cowardly idea, something I think is inappropriate for Christians. It is a tale told to ignorant peasants by their feudal lords to keep them in line.
I think "liberal Christians" probably spend more emphasis on the life of Jesus and the love he talked about in his message, not so much the death and why of his death. Perhaps that's a different kind of "Christian" I can never really tell.
that seems to be what jesus focused on. jesus was a liberal and a liberator.
Come to the moderate Christian view. God wants humans to have choice and to choose the right way. God does not want us to forcibly remove choice from others, if God did god could and would remove the choice. God judges you based on your choices. Christ sinned and because of his sins god opened the gates to heaven for sinners if truly remorseful.
As to killing it would be a choice that you made, you would be held responsible for your actions. I doubt you would move in to heaven but only God knows.
Skwim
Veteran Member
If anything, god was bored so he created man for entertainment, AND have a being he could lay hardships on yet still worship him. Christ appears to be an afterthought, designed to add another dimension to mankind's dilemma.
If one is truly suffering and with absolutely no relief in sight I guess that might be an option, but just think of all the interesting stuff you'd miss out on. Right now there's the most bizarre, psychologically disturbed leader of a country the world has ever seen in office, and I'm not talking about Kim Jong-un. For the last year the congress of USA is so inept it can't find its own spine, and women are wearing blouses with their shoulders missing--might also note that the coming spring fashions for women are filled with a lot sheer, see-through tops, without anything on underneath.
And the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang South Korea, with women's gymnastics , are coming this February. So you might want to consider hanging around for a while..
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So what happens in the afterlife or is heaven just a metaphor in the liberal view?
There is more than one liberal view, but I think if we look at the what the Bible says then the afterlife means investing your life in Christ. You enter into life through repentance, but before that you are dead in sin. You become alive when you join the body of Christ, denying yourself. This is basic Bible, gospel and Pauline letters. Denying ones self is central. Churches which focus on heaven-going typically do not have a good education about self denial and what it means to be baptized into the Name. For example most have not any concept of denying themselves, do not believe in denying themselves and their members ask questions such as "What does it mean to be baptized in the name of Jesus?" because they just have no basis, no education. They don't even understand what hymns are for and have been abandoning them in droves for the new highly commercialized contemporary worship thingy. The entire Christian life is often described as just a joyride to heaven for many, and yet they say that liberal Christians are being grossly negligent with the Bible.
While his life and message are of fundamental importance - indeed He is for we Christians the exemplar of a perfect life - His death is absolutely pivotal to every Christian, regardless of their leaning towards a "liberal" or "conservative" adherence to their faith.
It is arguable that Christ's greatest teaching was manifested in the manner in which he gave Himself up to death like a lamb: without "taking the sword", retaliating against his abusers or cursing them as they ridiculed, beat and nailed him to the cross but rather praying that they be forgiven.
You see, it is because Christians understand Jesus as being an innocent victim of the sinfulness of mankind that we strive to see the Face of Jesus reflected in all victims of oppression. As the Archbishop of Yangon, Cardinal Charles Bo, has said in relation to the Rohingya Muslims persecuted by the Burmese authorities:
Pope Francis: Trekking his way to the fringes of the Catholic Church - La Croix International
"Scapegoating — a concept popularized by the French philosopher, Rene Girard — is a process by which violent and frustrated societies with a deep sense of collective victimization channel their anger onto individuals or groups to smother their frustration.
"The scapegoat is ‘sacrificed’ either through massacre or expulsion to the ‘desert'. Bosnia and Serbia, after long years of totalitarianism, went into a spiral of fratricidal genocide till the international community intervened.
"The large-scale exodus of Rohingya may be seen as the ‘scapegoat’ sent to the desert (for the frustrations and anger felt by many in Myanmar).”
As the Catholic philosopher and social theorist Rene Girard once put it:"The scapegoat is ‘sacrificed’ either through massacre or expulsion to the ‘desert'. Bosnia and Serbia, after long years of totalitarianism, went into a spiral of fratricidal genocide till the international community intervened.
"The large-scale exodus of Rohingya may be seen as the ‘scapegoat’ sent to the desert (for the frustrations and anger felt by many in Myanmar).”
"The earliest followers of Jesus did not make that mistake. They knew, or intuited, that in one sense it was like all other events of victimization "since the foundation of the world." But it was different in that it revealed the meaning of these events going back to the beginnings of humanity: the victimization occurs because of mimetic rivalry, the victim is innocent, and God stands with the victim and restores him or her. If the Passion is regarded not as revelation but as only a violent event brought about by God, it is misunderstood and turned into an idol. In the Gospels Jesus says that he suffers the fate of all the other prophets going back to Abel the just and the foundation of the world (Matt. 23:35; Luke 11:50).
And James Warren in Compassion or Apocalypse?, a section entitled, "Sacrificial Christianity and Atonement Theology," pp. 285-95. Near the conclusion he writes,
Combining Girard, Abelard, and Christus Victor, I would say that by nonviolently expressing limitless compassion and forgiveness in the face of human abuse, Jesus exposed the scapegoat mechanism and made himself the model for a new humanity. Imitation of Christ rewires our violent neuro-circuitry, links us together in community, and reconciles us to God. In the process, the Satan of anarchic mimetic rivalry and the Satan of sacred violence are both cast out. Christus Victor! ...
The word atonement first appears in print in Tyndale’s 1526 translation of the English Bible. It means, literally, “at-one-ment,” being a contraction of “at” and “one.” In other words, it means reconciliation. But we must bear in mind that while Jesus effected a reconciliation of humanity to God, God had no need to be reconciled to us. The rivalry had been all on one side; from God’s side there had always been unconditional love. Jesus’ death and resurrection has given us access to that love, as a result of the opening of our hearts in response to his infinite forgiveness.
In the place where our envy and anger should have been met with reciprocal violence, it encountered instead an absolutely unlimited font of compassionate forgiveness. As Paul wrote, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts...” (Romans 5:5) It was a great victory over the devil of mimetic rivalry and the satanic scapegoat mechanism. Something like this, I believe, is the meaning of “atonement.” (pp. 294, 295)
The word atonement first appears in print in Tyndale’s 1526 translation of the English Bible. It means, literally, “at-one-ment,” being a contraction of “at” and “one.” In other words, it means reconciliation. But we must bear in mind that while Jesus effected a reconciliation of humanity to God, God had no need to be reconciled to us. The rivalry had been all on one side; from God’s side there had always been unconditional love. Jesus’ death and resurrection has given us access to that love, as a result of the opening of our hearts in response to his infinite forgiveness.
In the place where our envy and anger should have been met with reciprocal violence, it encountered instead an absolutely unlimited font of compassionate forgiveness. As Paul wrote, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts...” (Romans 5:5) It was a great victory over the devil of mimetic rivalry and the satanic scapegoat mechanism. Something like this, I believe, is the meaning of “atonement.” (pp. 294, 295)
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leibowde84
Veteran Member
Not that I am an expert on the matter, but where do you get the idea that you would go to heaven if you killed yourself?
Eris999
New Member
you kill your self and your family and you will reincarnate again in a worst life than the one you actually have.
The large majority do believe in Eternal Damnation because it's a fundamental boilerplate teaching of both religions.
Tom
Faithofchristian
Well-Known Member
Your leaving out the major reason about abortions.
Yeah taking an innocent life, is wrong.
But does this stop the child from being in heaven, No it doesn't.
Its the woman who has the abortion, She is the one that will be held accountable, Then those who performed the abortion will be held accountable also.
For in taking an innocent life.
Why would God prevent a child from entering heaven, when in fact the child had no say so in the matter ?
Muffled
Jesus in me
I believe I resolved the issue of what the right thing to do is when I was young. Taking ones own life is kin to murder and therefore not permitted by the commandment of God. Only God has the right to determine when someone dies.
I believe this will not work for two reasons. 1. God can send a person right back into this world with a punishment to match but my feeling about suicides is that they don't get into Heaven and don't get another life for a long time because they didn't value the one they had.
I believe it matters a great deal. Anyone can be good in Heaven but being good on earth is extremely difficult. Jesus helps with that and it makes a difference. For instance my wife was perfect in Heaven but when she came to earth with me she managed to sin. Being in Heaven did not correct her waywardness. Only being here on earth puts a person in the position where choices must be made and the truth is we learn from our bad choices sometimes.