Faith and modernity

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
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Nonc Hilaire
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Re: Faith and modernity

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

noddy wrote:take facts away from the story and you are left with therapeutics ?

i remember DOU arguing such a few years back, that if you turn the story into moral fables and metaphors then the jesus sacrifice is meaningless.
DOU has smarts and faith. I'm not talking just about Jesus but a large collection of many different genre of ancient literature. Proverbs goes back to ancient Egyptian inscriptions. Esther is a fairy tale told to Jewish youth in exile. Many biblical books have multiple authors spanning centuries, or are redactions of generations of verbal history.

Sometimes the Bible is so factual it is scary. Goliath was thought to be a legend until it was found the biblical description perfectly matched with the Phoenician charioteer in recently discovered manuscripts.

The simple fact is fewer people respect scripture today because they think it is just an old book when it is an anthology of ancient books with centuries of different interpretations that has defined righteousness for millinea. The study in question used the term Scripture, and in NT theology that means OT as the NT didn't gain that panache until well after the authors were martyred. When a NT author wrote "Scripture" it meant the Septuagent.

To quote Billing's hymn "Creation":

When I with pleasing wonder stand
And all my frame survey
Lord, 'tis thy work, I own thy hand
Thus built my humble clay
Our life contains a thousand springs,
And dies if one be gone.
Strange that a harp of thousand strings
Should keep in tune so long.

The Sacred Harp has guided civilization for a long time. Some generations played well; others poorly or not at all but it is still in tune for those willing to put in the practice time.
“Christ has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks among His people to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses His creation.”

Teresa of Ávila
noddy
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Re: Faith and modernity

Post by noddy »

a delightfully abstract answer.

for me this still leaves me in moral fable land, things humans have discovered that lead to a better life.

I cant seperate your poem from any of the human moral systems.
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Post by Simple Minded »

noddy wrote:
"It was interesting that fewer people participated in religion or prayed but more believed in an afterlife,” Twenge said. “It might be part of a growing entitlement mentality — thinking you can get something for nothing.”
this gave me a smile :)
:)
Simple Minded

Re: Faith and modernity

Post by Simple Minded »

Nonc Hilaire wrote:No link, but no matter. It is the assumed decrease of interest in Scripture that I find unfortunate. I understand this, because today it is those without a proper education in Scripture who proclaim it loudly. It is almost as bad as politicians preaching peace and prosperity. Almost.

The Bible never claims to be completely factual, but it does claim to be "breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (2Timothy 3:16). Not infallible or completely exemplary, but merely profitable for use. It most certainly has been misused quite often, and with most unprofitable consequences. It's not the hammer's fault if you whack your thumb.

The big deal is righteousness: Justice. Mercy. Repentance. Forgiveness. I think if Twenge polled people on the importance of righteousness the response would be different. The question as posed panders to prejudice and ignorance.

Twinge sounds like she is coming from the wrong direction. Scripture is not for answers. It is for defining which questions are important. It is like a coffee table with a circumference of about eight centuries that ties generations and religions together in conversation and community. Twinge may be a good psychologist but it does not sound like she understands what she is trying to measure and this why only a goofy journal would publish her work.
Well said. Thanks Nonc. IMSMO, I consider you to be a very good source of sane religious expertise.

Hopefully that does not reduce either your faith or your self-esteem. ;)
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Nonc Hilaire
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Re: Faith and modernity

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

noddy wrote:a delightfully abstract answer.

for me this still leaves me in moral fable land, things humans have discovered that lead to a better life.

I cant seperate your poem from any of the human moral systems.
I did well then! I try to keep religious topics open so anyone can join the discussion. The only time I get specifically Christian is when asked a direct question or to clear up a misunderstanding.

A critical difference between Scripture and human ethical systems is that in Scripture we view human development as being drawn into an inexorable future instead of being pushed along by the past. It's like surfing instead of swimming.

However, if you want to hear me preach Christ crucified and risen, I certainly do enjoy that. Attractive as that must sound to all of you, it would also obligate me to take up an offertory. My valiant $25 bitcoin investment has slipped a buck, so maybe a bitcoin collection plate is a good idea ;-)
“Christ has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks among His people to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses His creation.”

Teresa of Ávila
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Heracleum Persicum
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Re: Faith and modernity

Post by Heracleum Persicum »

.


If, non-Catholics can go to heaven,
why be Catholic ?


. . Catholics can no longer believe that all Muslims, Hindus, atheists and so on are going to hell.

..

. . if you don’t have to be a Christian to be saved, what is the point ?

..

. . Benedict seems to take refuge in the idea that God keeps the world going because of Christians, and that we are all here because some people at least have grasped the true religion :

“It is important to mankind that there is truth in it, this is believed and practised. That one suffers for it. That one loves. These realities penetrate with their light into the world as such and support it. I think that in this present situation it becomes for us ever more clear what the Lord said to Abraham, that is, that 10 righteous would have been sufficient to save a city, but that it destroys itself if such a small number is not reached.”

It’s easy to laugh at this, but in some form his dilemma is shared by all universalist theories about what people really need to be happy in a world that is profoundly multicultural. Traditionalists such as the pope believe that liberal self-actualisation is a delusion that can only lead to misery; feminists and egalitarians are sure that no one can be completely fulfilled in a patriarchal and hierarchical society. It’s not just popes who find it hard to believe that there are many ways to salvation. We are all guilty.

.

:lol:


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Nonc Hilaire
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Re: Faith and modernity

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

The concept of "going to heaven" is hard to find in scripture and is more Platonic than Christian. We don't go up to heaven; heaven comes down to us.

The Christian concept is everlasting life, which is a continuance of the life we have now. Scripture says Jesus life continued after Easter and his resurrection, and he was so transformed even his disciples had trouble recognizing him.

Jesus taught a parable about the shepherd who abandons 99 sheep to go out and find one straggler which was lost. It speaks to the value of the individual, and to an implicit faith that God will protect the 99.

This is what the Pope is doing. Not changing rules, but trusting the church to care for the main flock while he seeks out the stragglers.
“Christ has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks among His people to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses His creation.”

Teresa of Ávila
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Heracleum Persicum
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Re: Faith and modernity

Post by Heracleum Persicum »

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http://www.theamericanconservative.com/ ... ne-option/


A w a k e n i n g
Powerful speech by Philadelphia’s Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput
Excerpts :



.

Sexual confusion isn’t unique to our age, but the scope of it is. No society can sustain itself for long if marriage and the family fall apart on a mass scale. And that’s exactly what’s happening as we gather here today. The Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision approving same-sex marriage last June was a legal disaster. But it didn’t happen in a vacuum. It fits very comfortably with trends in our culture that go back many decades, even before the 1960s. It’s useful to read or reread Wilhelm Reich’s book from 1936, The Sexual Revolution. Reich argues that a real revolution can only be made at the level of sexual freedom. And it needs to begin by wiping away institutions like marriage, family and traditional sexual morality.

What’s interesting about Reich’s work is that, 80 years ago, he saw the United States as the most promising place for that kind of revolution, despite its Puritan history. The reason is simple. Americans have a deep streak of individualism, a distrust of authority and a big appetite for self-invention. As religion loses its hold on people’s behavior, all of these instincts accelerate. The trouble is that once the genie is out of the bottle, sexual freedom goes in directions and takes on shapes that nobody imagined. And ultimately it leads to questions about who a person is and what it means to be human.

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http://www.firstthings.com/article/2014 ... minorities


So you can be a minority, living in a country whose religion, culture, and legal system are not your own, and yet sustain your identity, live your faith, and contribute to the common good, exactly as Jeremiah said. It isn’t easy. It demands a complex finessing of identities. It involves a willingness to live in a state of cognitive dissonance. It isn’t for the fainthearted. But it is creative.

Fast forward twenty-six centuries from Jeremiah to May 13, 2004, to a lecture on the Christian roots of Europe by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, later to become Pope Benedict XVI. There he confronted the phenomenon of a deeply secularized Europe, more so perhaps than at any time since the conversion of Constantine in the third century.

That loss of faith, Ratzinger argued, had brought with it three other kinds of loss: a loss of European identity, a loss of moral foundations, and a loss of faith in posterity, evident in the falling birthrates that he described as “a strange lack of desire for the future.” The closest analogue to today’s Europe, he said, was the Roman Empire on the brink of its decline and fall. Though he did not use these words, he implied that when a civilization loses faith in God, it ultimately loses faith in itself.

.

Interesting

Finally red lights going on, finally

But, is it not too late ? ? .. probably it is


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manolo
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Re: Faith and modernity

Post by manolo »

Folks,

An acquaintance once said to me, "An atheist is someone without an invisible means of support." Up to now I hadn't thought of this beyond individual terms, but the idea of a nation needing such succour is of interest. Groups of people do seem to need some holding glue, which might be religion, ideology, or a plain old common enemy.

Being a social libertarian, I have tended to live without such glue, which does require considerable personal strength. I can see how flocking does appeal to many.

Alex.
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Re: Faith and modernity

Post by noddy »

manolo wrote: Being a social libertarian, I have tended to live without such glue, which does require considerable personal strength. I can see how flocking does appeal to many.
its hard to imagine anyone being as wonderful as yourself.
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Re: Faith and modernity

Post by noddy »

Nonc Hilaire wrote:However, if you want to hear me preach Christ crucified and risen, I certainly do enjoy that. Attractive as that must sound to all of you, it would also obligate me to take up an offertory. My valiant $25 bitcoin investment has slipped a buck, so maybe a bitcoin collection plate is a good idea ;-)
i can offer nodcoins, random numbers of any size you require.

its alucky dip, maybe you get a valid bitcoin, maybe you get the magic number that cracks blurays - or maybe you get gibberish!
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Heracleum Persicum
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Re: Faith and modernity

Post by Heracleum Persicum »

manolo wrote:Folks,

An acquaintance once said to me, "An atheist is someone without an invisible means of support." Up to now I hadn't thought of this beyond individual terms, but the idea of a nation needing such succour is of interest. Groups of people do seem to need some holding glue, which might be religion, ideology, or a plain old common enemy.

.

Very well said, excellent

IMO, society needs a "moral beacon", to orient to .. absolute necessary, "main pillar" of society

Why ?

Because, good or evil, moral, ethics and stuff of that nature must be ingrained in fabric of a culture, society, individual .. only so a society can exist long term.

Notion, view of many, law and order is what guards and runs a society and culture sign of immaturity, illiteracy.

When Khomeini took over, for 3 days there was no police (most police stations were fire bombed and the police changed to civilian cloth and staying home), no military, ZERO law .. one could be shot on the street and dumped in the morgue and nobody would ask any question .. did any looting or civilian killing happened ?

NO, Zero.

But, light went off in New Your City for a day, whole city was looted and much more.

In that sense, Religion was supposed to play that "Moral beacon", the invisible means of support.

But

Reformation was highjacked .. reformation was not meant to weaken/destroy the Christianity, but bring back Christianity from corrupt Christian institution to what Christianity (and any religion) was meant to be.

Instead, Christianity was "castrated" .. leaving the herd without the shepherd.

Colonialism, Slavery, Holocaust, WW 1&2 and what is happening right now is the result.

Oil policy, Gas Pipeline, plundering African resources, communism excuse leading to destroying nations/cultures (Cambodia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc), ocean of refugee, misery, millions dead, terrorism and counting .. nobody asks the morality of all these, talk is only of GDP and growth.

manolo wrote:
Being a social libertarian, I have tended to live without such glue, which does require considerable personal strength. I can see how flocking does appeal to many.

Alex.

.

Alex .. "glue" misleading

Are Muslims somehow "glued" ? ? not at all .. what have Indonesian Muslims in common with India or Iranian or Albanian Muslim .. nothing

In European wars, European Christians have killed "at least" 100 million other European Christians (forget African and Vietnamese and South American Christians .. they don't count).

Other things is the "Glue" for a culture.

Iran has 20 ethnicities, 15 languages, more than half of Iranian do not speak same language, 1000s of yrs of different religious minorities .. but .. still in one piece after 5000 yrs .. what is the glue holding Iran in one piece ? not the religion.


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Parodite
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Juvenile faith

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Spin off from Donald The Newest Savior:
kmich wrote:
Parodite wrote:Kmich, Nonc, I can see how the juvenile and-or hollowed out faith createsth a potential supporter of Trump.

Not sure what a post-juvenile grown up religion means (it also seems very personal and as difficult to communicate as any privy experience)... but as long as children are fed with that lingo of baby Jesus son of God and virgin Mary, dying but walking around three days later.. and all the incomprehensible (at least, for children not yet brainwashed into much culture and belief) theological concepts that only make sense to well informed theologians with a phd as a minimum (which bears the suspicion that years long brainwashing of the frontal lobes far into adulthood is needed to "grow" out of that juvenile thingie)...I'm afraid the language of youth will not quickly part a religious culture. It would be like trying to forget your mother tongue.

I have met quite a few Christians of different sorts over the years. Intellectually they all talk intelligently but the emotion seems, at least to me and it could be my twisted ears, always of the "juvenile" type as they learned and understood it as kids. I don't mean to say that "juvenile" is bad here, on the contrary! It is the most honest and truthful part of the faith.

So the same kid who loves Jesus as best friend, savior, as winner who defeats all evil and pain, in the end coming home to your Fathers place... is the kid who loves Trump too. Maybe Trump won't deliver... but that is true too for Jesus Christ Superstar.

Ok bit off topic. But Trump does magic and trades in make-belief, the dirty word being "branding". That is an important mechanism too in the develpment of faith and religious culture. So all in all I'm not surprised that many Christians like Trump. A feast of recognition.
“Juvenile” can be a misleading term. While advancing age and serious study can provide a means to nurture a more fertile ground for faith to deepen for some, simplicity and an honest openness of mind and heart are the keys. Those can be present irrespective of theological sophistication or advancing years.
I have never encountered anybody who benefited from serious study of (indulging in) ancient literature. Some may keep an open mind, don't loose entirely simplicity and honesty, a healthy skepticism...but that mind set was there already which made them interested in things of past, present and future in the first place.

A curious mind and open heart will always investigate and the lucky ones don't loose them after exposing themselves to the various mind boggling meta-physics and heart breaking stories that condensed in the writings of man kind. But the risk is there and my bet is that most people can't resist the hypnosis, and to small or bigger degree start to live, think and feel like a mesmerized army of zombie-lievers.
Faith is not a litany of beliefs as you crudely and facetiously list. Beliefs can only be, at best, imperfect articulation of objects of faith, not faith itself. Faith is not something you decide to believe in; it is what grasps you in the desert, the darkness, on the cross, and turns one’s mind and heart to direct you on a path whose end you cannot know. This suggests a much more difficult, reflective discussion than would be helpful here.
That may be so, at least for a number of people like yourself, but the bulk of the faithful are traditional followers who habitually walk the religious walk while they talk about normal worldly matters and concerns most of the day, and for whom religious community serves primarily their social needs irrespective of religious content and ritual.
Beliefs, both political and religious, can be simple projection of human needs driven by fear, greed, insecurity, powerlessness, as well as the complexes of individual and collective narcissism.
Very true.
Political candidates like Trump and many others, as well as religious leaders, often exploit these human frailties for their own ambitions and purposes by telling people what they want to hear or advertising themselves to be what people want to see. None of the urging of these very human needs are the call of the Lord to faith IMHO. His voice, at least in my own experience, has nothing to do with me and my assorted insecurities and needs, and everything to do with His love and will. Again, that leads to a discussion certainly not appropriate to his thread.
Yes that's what Trump is doing.

Personally I have no experience where Gods voice, love and will visiting me. Maybe because I'm skeptical and don't expect that to happen anyways, but who knows. As that ball would be in His/Her park..not much to say or do about it.

I have known and heard too many different stories of people "grabbed" by some something divine.. where that what grabs them perfectly fits their needs and hence expectations. Smacks like self-fulfilling prophecies to me. If a divine agency wants to grab me (by the heart and/or balls) it better be totally unexpected, unimagined.. unthinkable. ;)

But all this of course doesn't need to keep us from pondering the human condition, having conversations about the mystery of existence, of life, the fact of our individual consciousness(es), experiences. It raises questions and eye brows. If anything grabs me at time times, it is realizing we are all very similar, suffering and enjoying the same things, all in the same boat floating around on oceans of space and time, a sea of ignorance and uncertainty.
Deep down I'm very superficial
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Heracleum Persicum
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Re: Faith and modernity

Post by Heracleum Persicum »

.


God Is a Question, Not an Answer


.
Any honest atheist must admit that he has his doubts, that occasionally he thinks he might be wrong, that there could be a God after all — if not the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition, then a God of some kind. Nathaniel Hawthorne said of Herman Melville, “He can neither believe, nor be comfortable in his unbelief; and he is too honest and courageous not to try to do one or the other.” Dwelling in a state of doubt, uncertainty and openness about the existence of God marks an honest approach to the question.

There is no easy answer. Indeed, the question may be fundamentally unanswerable. Still, there are potentially unpleasant consequences that can arise from decisions or conclusions, and one must take responsibility for them.

Anyone who does not occasionally worry that he may be a fraud almost certainly is. Nor does the worry absolve one from the charge; one may still be a fraud, just one who rightly worries about it on occasion. Likewise, anyone who does not occasionally worry that she is wrong about the existence or nonexistence of God most likely has a fraudulent belief. Worry can make the belief or unbelief genuine, but it cannot make it correct.

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True


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Parodite
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Re: Faith and modernity

Post by Parodite »

oOCxcOdxNog

Just wonder if this is "juvenile", or maybe religion at its best?
Deep down I'm very superficial
Mr. Perfect
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Re: Faith and modernity

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Censorship isn't necessary
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Re: Faith and modernity

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Nonc Hilaire wrote:The concept of "going to heaven" is hard to find in scripture and is more Platonic than Christian.
False. Just do a word search on heaven. It's all over the place.
We don't go up to heaven; heaven comes down to us.
Doublespeak.
The Christian concept is everlasting life, which is a continuance of the life we have now. Scripture says Jesus life continued after Easter and his resurrection, and he was so transformed even his disciples had trouble recognizing him.
Triplespeak.
Jesus taught a parable about the shepherd who abandons 99 sheep to go out and find one straggler which was lost. It speaks to the value of the individual, and to an implicit faith that God will protect the 99.
Yeah. But whole other subject.
This is what the Pope is doing. Not changing rules, but trusting the church to care for the main flock while he seeks out the stragglers.
Obfuscation.
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Mr. Perfect
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Re: Faith and modernity

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Heracleum Persicum wrote:.


God Is a Question, Not an Answer


.
Any honest atheist must admit that he has his doubts, that occasionally he thinks he might be wrong, that there could be a God after all — if not the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition, then a God of some kind. Nathaniel Hawthorne said of Herman Melville, “He can neither believe, nor be comfortable in his unbelief; and he is too honest and courageous not to try to do one or the other.” Dwelling in a state of doubt, uncertainty and openness about the existence of God marks an honest approach to the question.

There is no easy answer. Indeed, the question may be fundamentally unanswerable. Still, there are potentially unpleasant consequences that can arise from decisions or conclusions, and one must take responsibility for them.

Anyone who does not occasionally worry that he may be a fraud almost certainly is. Nor does the worry absolve one from the charge; one may still be a fraud, just one who rightly worries about it on occasion. Likewise, anyone who does not occasionally worry that she is wrong about the existence or nonexistence of God most likely has a fraudulent belief. Worry can make the belief or unbelief genuine, but it cannot make it correct.

.

True


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God is an undiscovered country. It's a struggle to imagine before you encounter it firsthand. After that it is very normal and familiar.
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Re: Faith and modernity

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Heracleum Persicum wrote:.
Jesus was married
The manuscript is in poor condition and only small abstracts are decipherable. However, one decoded phrase has attracted much attention. “Jesus said to them, My wife ..,” the fourth line of the document reads.
What about children .. how many children had Jesus and what happened to them ?
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Atheist quandary. Jesus did not exist, but if he did he certainly had kids.
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Nonc Hilaire
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Re: Faith and modernity

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

Nope.
Mr. Perfect wrote:
Nonc Hilaire wrote:The concept of "going to heaven" is hard to find in scripture and is more Platonic than Christian.
Mr. Perfect wrote:False. Just do a word search on heaven. It's all over the place.
Terrible hermeneutic. Word counts are used to discern authorship but not importance. The word 'heaven' occurs often, but never as a permanent destination. It's a temporary place where God can exist.

Search for for 'going to heaven' and you will have difficulty. 'Salvation' and 'eternal life' are not 'heaven', and they are frequently used terms. You will have trouble finding people in heaven except as a sort of waiting room for martyrs (Rev. 6:9-11). Even then, they are grumbling, crouching under the altar and anxious to leave.
We don't go up to heaven; heaven comes down to us.
Mr. Perfect wrote:Doublespeak.

Rev. 21:1-3 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.


Clearly, the imagery is of God descending from heaven to dwell with man and not the other way around.
The Christian concept is everlasting life, which is a continuance of the life we have now. Scripture says Jesus life continued after Easter and his resurrection, and he was so transformed even his disciples had trouble recognizing him.
Mr. Perfect wrote:Triple-speak
The fact that eternal life is an extension of our current life is obvious. The scriptural focus is on the resurrection of the dead, not 'going to heaven'. See Luke 24:13-52
“Christ has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks among His people to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses His creation.”

Teresa of Ávila
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Re: Faith and modernity

Post by Parodite »

However, while on death row with the two others, he said to one of the convicts: "And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise."

If paradise where among the living on earth, you'd expect him to mean that they would not be killed that day but pardoned. If my death sentence would be canceled last minute, I'd definitely feel like being in heaven.

That being said, I also think that heaven and hell were used as poetic descriptions of states of being while being alive.
Deep down I'm very superficial
noddy
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Re: Faith and modernity

Post by noddy »

an eternal life of doing nice things - how nice, sounds very... pleasant.

wonder how boring it would get after a few thousand years...

if god cracks the shits and kicks over the chessboard down here in fallenville, whos to say he doesnt also do so in cloudsville.
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Nonc Hilaire
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Re: Faith and modernity

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

Parodite wrote:However, while on death row with the two others, he said to one of the convicts: "And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise."

If paradise where among the living on earth, you'd expect him to mean that they would not be killed that day but pardoned. If my death sentence would be canceled last minute, I'd definitely feel like being in heaven.

That being said, I also think that heaven and hell were used as poetic descriptions of states of being while being alive.
Heaven and paradise are not the same. Jesus did not enter heaven and open it to mankind until days after the resurrection and Emmaus.

My point is that many common beliefs often do not fit with Scripture. Pastors oversimplify, folk beliefs and literature like Milton and Dante distort the truth and like everything else which is alive Christianity continues to evolve.
“Christ has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks among His people to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses His creation.”

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Re: Faith and modernity

Post by kmich »

Eternal life is not about a state of immortal stasis. “Immortality” was a pagan concept to distinguish mortals from the transcendent fixed realm of immortal gods, who frequently got bored with it all and caused problems among themselves and among hapless mortals whom, in general, they could not care less about.

Eternal life in Christianity is about transformation, death and resurrection in the Christ, which, at least as I understand it, is not simply a defined temporal event, but a state of being that is constantly renewed through repentance, forgiveness, and an open mind and heart. It is a vital, living, and growing presence nurtured by the rains of God’s love and by the light of grace. It is also grounded in mysteries of impenetrable and immeasurable depths.

So I cannot say what will happen to me when this life and this body cease to continue in their developed forms since that answer resides within the fathomless depths of such mysteries. My ultimate fate is not within my power to determine or to construct. I am simply called upon to trust that whatever will be or not be, including destinies well beyond my crude ontologies, will be held firmly in His loving embrace.
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