What does Jesus say about who will go to heaven?

[sandy whitelinger]

I don't get the point of his post.

And you still haven't answered my question.

 

[Spiffy]

So what I'm getting is basically two things: (1) believe in me, Jesus (2) be kind to the poor, hungry and imprisoned.

Does that sound right to you?

Christians will do well to recognize the logical traps placed before us by atheists. As various responses (including mine) in this thread showed, autodidact is not interested in actually exploring the truth of Christian salvation from different aspects. Rather, he's using a very common atheist methodology to trap Christian literalists into agreeing with him. This methodology has been used for many years, and has really blossomed since internet theology boards have been in around.

It works like this: The atheist insists in his debates with Christians on being the one to define the arena in which all associated arguments must conform: only material, empirically proven existence is real. Obviously, any reference to things ethereal--God, spirit, etc.--are not allowed as legitimate concepts for debate. "Show me the evidence!" is the typical atheist response to virtually any a priori use of the supernatural by way of argument...and of course the only allowed evidence, as noted, must be material and empirical. This forces debaters to strictly the recognition and acceptance of the most harshly literal meaning possible in Scripture. Any response which deviates in any way from the literal is quickly eliminated as irrelevant. Obviously, the atheist excells in circular reasoning. Thus, our allegedly "free thinking" brethren are anything but free in their approach...while they often routinely accuse or allude to Christians as 'intellectually dishonest'.

Unfortunately, few Christians realize that the more literal one's stance on Bible interpretation is, the more readily one plays into the atheist's arena. There is a reason the more harshly literal one interprets the Bible, the more one has in common with atheists in debate about the Bible. Our atheist correspondents know they can trip up the literalist Christian with ease. The literalist Pharisees tried this many times with Jesus, we might recall.

What is distubring is that so many Protestant Christians today defend literalism to the hilt, never realizing that in adherence to literalism, they have more in common in debate with atheists than they do with Christians who recognize that Jesus taught almost exclusively using figurative or metaphoric langauge. He did so for a reason, and as long as a large segment of Chrsitianity plays directly into the hands of the enemies of God, it appears the reason will remain hidden to many in the church.

Forgot about this thread, happened to stumble across it, reread a bit, and thought it worth commenting.

 

[Muffled]

Christians will do well to recognize the logical traps placed before us by atheists. As various responses (including mine) in this thread showed, autodidact is not interested in actually exploring the truth of Christian salvation from different aspects. Rather, he's using a very common atheist methodology to trap Christian literalists into agreeing with him. This methodology has been used for many years, and has really blossomed since internet theology boards have been in around.

It works like this: The atheist insists in his debates with Christians on being the one to define the arena in which all associated arguments must conform: only material, empirically proven existence is real. Obviously, any reference to things ethereal--God, spirit, etc.--are not allowed as legitimate concepts for debate. "Show me the evidence!" is the typical atheist response to virtually any a priori use of the supernatural by way of argument...and of course the only allowed evidence, as noted, must be material and empirical. This forces debaters to strictly the recognition and acceptance of the most harshly literal meaning possible in Scripture. Any response which deviates in any way from the literal is quickly eliminated as irrelevant. Obviously, the atheist excells in circular reasoning. Thus, our allegedly "free thinking" brethren are anything but free in their approach...while they often routinely accuse or allude to Christians as 'intellectually dishonest'.

Unfortunately, few Christians realize that the more literal one's stance on Bible interpretation is, the more readily one plays into the atheist's arena. There is a reason the more harshly literal one interprets the Bible, the more one has in common with atheists in debate about the Bible. Our atheist correspondents know they can trip up the literalist Christian with ease. The literalist Pharisees tried this many times with Jesus, we might recall.

What is distubring is that so many Protestant Christians today defend literalism to the hilt, never realizing that in adherence to literalism, they have more in common in debate with atheists than they do with Christians who recognize that Jesus taught almost exclusively using figurative or metaphoric langauge. He did so for a reason, and as long as a large segment of Chrsitianity plays directly into the hands of the enemies of God, it appears the reason will remain hidden to many in the church.

Forgot about this thread, happened to stumble across it, reread a bit, and thought it worth commenting.

No doubt an athist can peruse a text and not understand it but that does not mean that our understanding has to be based on something imaginary. We have a text that can be understood. As for a literal understanding, I agree that it is often failing to reflect context. However the words are literally there and can be understood for what they say.