I am a christian, i and i strongly belive in my lord jesus christ, and i also belive that if you belive in him and except him as your savior, u will go to heaven. and i also believe that he created the world, not the big bang, or that we came from stupid apes.
My wife and I are not christian, yet we have 3 bibles, a qu'ran, a torah, several of the vedic texts, and various books on philosophy and religion.
Got me on the Vedic texts and maybe the toran, I've got 8 Bibles, the book of Mormon, qu'rah, Urantia book (it's has Christian elements to it), and a shelf or two full of philosophy.
I also have various texts from other religions as well.
eh, I got rid of the book of moron after the missionaries quit coming around. I have something of a reputation I guess or w/e. Vedic texts are actually very interesting. More on the fantasy side and less of the dry bullsh*t genealogy of the bible. Dianetics was really interesting too, still have a copy of that. My dad got it a loooong time ago and I picked it up from him.
Would you mind elaborating on that? Since it really has no bearing on what is being discussed I really don't quite get it. Perhaps you are referring to the title of this thread, in which case you obviously didn't read the OP, nor the preceding debate on the past few pages. And if you are a christian, would you mind delving into why that is? And what greater merit one particular theistic faith has over all the others, or the lack of faith altogether?
I myself have ~6 Tanachs in hebrew, a few translations, ~20 about it, including "The Bible as History". The Tanach is one of the main subjects at school, where we learn every chapter 2-5 lessons . Please elaborate or give examples to what you mean by "hilosophy books".
I grew up with parents who worked for a christian organization (church ministries, a college, etc.). I spent the better part of my life around fundamentalists who took the bible literally. The problem is that they only took it literally when it suited them. The old testament has alot of "rules" that would make life in modern times difficult. These "rules" were thrown out, but others (very apparently used for control) were not. My question is: if you are a christian (or other religion with text) and believe that god was directly responsible for said text, should you not follow indescriminately every word?
However all the great people who lived morally and socially proper lives, they have to burn for eternity because they didn't worship Yahweh... sucks for them.
Don't make me facepaw you. Just because you don't believe in God doesn't mean you go to hell. If you show up after you die and are like "Oh sh*t God exists" and believe in him, then you're safe. Sure is a tough, unfair religion.
As far as I can see, the criteria for entering Heaven is a life led believing in Christ
A life led believing in Christ, or just believing in Christ as your savior in general? Most people who claim to be christian dont lead their lives through Jesus, they just "believe" in him and live normally. hmmm...
Well I should imagine the Romans had a good hand in it - editing and choose which books to go into the Bible. The people that translated the Bible into all the different languages. You would need to be able to travel back in time to ask them of course. The answer is lost to time, we will never know.
The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God
2 Corinthians 6:14
Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?
So just because I don't believe in god means I am dark, or blind? I do not believe in any "higher deity" but I don't like being called an atheist.
An old lady I used to work for recently went Christian. She was a most undesirable person, who spewed foul words each time she spoke. Now she believes Christ will save her, but she still continues those old "bad habits". I don't know if it should be considered hypocrisy, or if she just likes the feeling of protection.
I do not believe there really is a god, I believe they were invented thousands of years ago, so that leaders could control their uneducated civilians. Thats also why they killed non-believers, because they didn't fear their gods.
And if I'm wrong and there is a god, then I guess I will burn for eternity.
