What if God forgives everyone?
- Thread starter Dreadsox
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I guess that would depend on what your individual feelings on those subject matters are to begin with. Certainly humanity doesn't hold a universal belief in either of those.
Personally, nothing about my belief regarding judgment would change because I already feel that forgiveness is a tool which allows you to liberate yourself and that is why it is worthy of pursuit. As for justice, I don't believe there is such a thing anyway so that wouldn't change either.
Personally, nothing about my belief regarding judgment would change because I already feel that forgiveness is a tool which allows you to liberate yourself and that is why it is worthy of pursuit. As for justice, I don't believe there is such a thing anyway so that wouldn't change either.
diamond
ONE love, blood, life
My faith teaches that we are to forgive all men and that God will forgive who he chooses to forgive.
dbs
dbs
BVS
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Are we talking eternal justice or "law of the land" justice?
coemgen
Rock n' Roll Doggie
I believe God forgives anyone who sincerely asks for it through his son. "All debts are removed." That's Grace.
Also, that doesn't mean justice on Earth can't be, or doesn't need to be, carried out.
Also, that doesn't mean justice on Earth can't be, or doesn't need to be, carried out.
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
coemgen said:
I agree with this for the most part, we just have to careful of what our earthly "justice" is...
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
i love the inclusiveness of "window in the skies."
many skies. over many countries. for many different kinds of people.
reminds me of a great Springsteen lyric:
[q]This train
Carries saints and sinners
This train
Carries losers and winners
This Train
Carries whores and gamblers
This Train
Carries lost souls
This Train
Dreams will not be thwarted
This Train
Faith will be rewarded
This Train
Hear the steel wheels singin'
This Train
Bells of freedom ringin'
This Train
Carries broken-hearted
This Train
Thieves and sweet souls departed
This Train
Carries fools and kings
This Train
All aboard[/q]
many skies. over many countries. for many different kinds of people.
reminds me of a great Springsteen lyric:
[q]This train
Carries saints and sinners
This train
Carries losers and winners
This Train
Carries whores and gamblers
This Train
Carries lost souls
This Train
Dreams will not be thwarted
This Train
Faith will be rewarded
This Train
Hear the steel wheels singin'
This Train
Bells of freedom ringin'
This Train
Carries broken-hearted
This Train
Thieves and sweet souls departed
This Train
Carries fools and kings
This Train
All aboard[/q]
meet me in the land of hope and dreams 
coemgen
Rock n' Roll Doggie
BonoVoxSupastar said:
I agree with you there. (For the record, I don't agree with the death penalty.)
coemgen
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Irvine511 said:
I like these lyrics, too. Thanks for posting. May we all chose to get on the train.
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
coemgen said:
and i'm pretty sure we'll find the Buddha, Vishnu, Abraham, Jesus, and Mohammad on that train.
verte76
Blue Crack Addict
Irvine511 said:
I want to ride on that train and meet all of those great beings!
coemgen
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Irvine511 said:
That would be nice, but the differences of all these people's faiths lead them to take different trains.
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
coemgen said:
there's only one train, like there's only one window, but we all find our way onto that train or through that window.
to solidify the discussion a bit, i think in many ways, faith is all that matters. i find the understanding of the death "tunnel of light" image as a creation of an asphyxiating brain (as A_W could probably explain better). if you are a person of faith, that's god. right there. he's reaching out to you and you walk towards it and then maybe blackness and you're back to where you were before you were born, which is blankness and blackness, but your faith has given you access to that place for those fleeting seconds before your brain dies. kind of how a dream can seem to take a lifetime, but it's really taking place in those seconds before you wake up in the morning.
so, just some thoughts, and i do believe that if you believe you will be with God when you die, then you will be, as far as you are concerned, even if it isn't empirically true.
if that makes sense.
ever seen Waking Life?
A_Wanderer
ONE love, blood, life
The evolutionary spandrel of conciousness affords us a wonderful death, although I would have an interest in altered states from a strictly materialist viewpoint; of course we don't need to wait for death for such things.
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coemgen
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Irvine, by saying faith is all that matters, you're not really solidifying the discussion though. I can have faith that God is a tomato and you can only get to heaven if you make a mean bottle of ketchup out of it. Does that make it true?
And all of these faiths can't be the same train (I see the train as the way to God or heaven). Jesus claimed he's the only way to God. Jews don't believe Jesus is the Christ. Islam just considers Jesus a prophet and Buddhists don't even really believe in God. How can they all lead to the same place?
And all of these faiths can't be the same train (I see the train as the way to God or heaven). Jesus claimed he's the only way to God. Jews don't believe Jesus is the Christ. Islam just considers Jesus a prophet and Buddhists don't even really believe in God. How can they all lead to the same place?
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
coemgen said:
what i am saying is that if you have faith, your brain will give you the perception that you have gone to heaven when you die, and then blankness. so it's all okay.
God, Jesus, Mohammad, the Buddha -- all different cultural understandings of the same thing.
perhaps God speaks to us in our own language, or we use our own language to speak to ourselves about God.
A_Wanderer
ONE love, blood, life
As true as your own lord and saviour, how can one fallacy be better than another? Say what you will about a lack of belief at least it's consistent, we all end up dead.
If Jesus is the only path to God and God is the only God then does that make every unbeliever destined to hell? Whatever realms other faiths believe in can they exist, did Vikings go to Valhalla?
nathan1977
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Irvine511 said:
Buddhists -- as I mentioned in the other thread -- don't believe in god per se -- certainly not a Supreme Being in any relational sense. There is only enlightenment.
Muslims believe in a God of supreme and inconceivable holiness, who rules based on His own laws of justice, laws that humans (as unholy creatures) cannot comprehend.
Christians believe in a God of mercy and grace, Who trumps His laws of justice with a greater law of love.
Muslims do not accept Jesus as the Son of God (because humans are too unholy for God to consort with), don't accept His sacrifical death on a cross (they believe that God switched Jesus and Judas on a cross -- a holy God would not allow a noble prophet like Jesus to die), and thus have no concept of grace (unmerited favor).
Buddhists would not accept anyone who claims to be God in a Supreme sense, because everyone has the capacity to be "enlightened" (i.e., gods in their own minds). In this no one one should be set up above another. (Even the Buddha as we know him is just a teacher.)
Each of these God-concepts carries substantial differences from the other -- differences not just in the application but in the fundamental identity (or not) of God Himself.
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Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
nathan1977 said:
but as Bono might have said about Popmart, it's all just window dressing. people are here for the songs.
the song being what happens when you die, all are explanations of the same thing, our connection to the infinite (i.e., Nirvana could also be understood as akin to an existence in heaven).
This is how I see it. God created everything. Correct well before humans started to create. He put everthing in place for us.
He created all humans. So even if the Native Americans had no notion of a Christian God, Muslim, Jewish, Budhhist they still believed in a higher power. And if God did not love then why create humans that did not believe in him in the first place.
Why would he ask for people to spread the word of the lord if people believe they were already created by a higher being. So God Loves all even if they don't believe in him/her/it.
He created all humans. So even if the Native Americans had no notion of a Christian God, Muslim, Jewish, Budhhist they still believed in a higher power. And if God did not love then why create humans that did not believe in him in the first place.
Why would he ask for people to spread the word of the lord if people believe they were already created by a higher being. So God Loves all even if they don't believe in him/her/it.
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
to add something: it's not that "it's all the same" in that all religions are the same; rather, all religions are concered with, and provide access and answers to, the same thing.
nathan1977
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Irvine511 said:
Albeit Nirvana as the ultimate expression of self-annihilation (since self is an illusion and Nirvana is the place of ultimate enlightenment), as opposed to self-discovery in our final, unveiled relationship with God and one another (the faces we had before the world was made).
Jesus' final prayer for His followers was for relationship with God ("I pray that they know you as I know you"); a very different goal than Nirvana, Paradise, or Heaven. (He spent much more time talking about relationship with the Father than He did about Heaven.)
coemgen
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Irvine511 said:
Yes, but the answers are very different. Many contradict each other, and/or don't even acknowledge the others as being true.
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
coemgen said:
but it's still the same question. it's all about the same thing that we cannot ever know: what happens when we die.
A_Wanderer
ONE love, blood, life
Can we really never know? People die and are brought back to life more today than any other time in history, there are those who take these experiences to reinforce beliefs but they still provide information, the number of NDE cases will only increase in time.
To reduce all religions to the banality of something like death robs them of anything inherently special, now thats all well and good but it is not the catch cry of any belief system offering absolute revealed truth.
To reduce all religions to the banality of something like death robs them of anything inherently special, now thats all well and good but it is not the catch cry of any belief system offering absolute revealed truth.
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
A_Wanderer said:
i, too, am very interested in NDEs, but the fact that they occur means that death was not fully achieved, though the information they provide is fascinating and an glimpse into the process of dying if not death itself.
it's not that religion is reduced to death but that religion primarily addresses death (no, not all), for isn't this the great question? the undiscovered country?
love and faith and sex and fear / and all the things that keep us here
coemgen
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Irvine511 said:
Well, that's why these faiths exist: to try to explain this stuff. Many claim to be a revelation from God so we can prepare for after death and so we know what happens after death. However, the faiths point to different things and contradict each other. Now's it's a matter of seperating truth from nontruths or not accepting any of it.
A_Wanderer
ONE love, blood, life
f you want to get Freudian you can reduce it all to eros and thanatos.Irvine511 said:
