GhaleonOne wrote:*warning now - Heavy Christian theology coming.
By putting faith in Christ, rather than ourselves, Christ's death and resurrection has meaning, and we get the chance to partake in that resurrection, rather than choosing sin, which leads to death (Romans). That's what Christian's will call "saved". This foretelling to an ultimate sacrifice is propechied all throughout the Old Testament as a coming Messiah.
Just to note, that's what some sects of Christianity call "saved". Specifically some of the Protestant sects. Catholics don't prescribe by the whole "saved" thing at all but believe that the sacrament of baptism washes away original sin and brings a human into the grace of god. Should a human commit any "grave mortal sin" (Which is considered to be anything against the 10 commandments, taken to a /very/ long extent and definition) puts the person out of god's grace. To get back into god's grace one needs to take the sacrament of Reconciliation and confess their sins to a priest. If one dies while out of god's grace, they go straight to hell. If you die in god's grace, you goto purgatory to absolve yourself of the sins that you committed but confessed to, and when you have finished your time in Purgatory you get to goto Heaven. Purgatory is pretty much like hell except they let you out eventually.
Some things that qualify as grave mortal things include of course adultery, lying, murder, taking the name of god in vain, magic, psychics, horoscopes, or any other kind of super-human ability that could not be attributed directly to being granted by god's power, hurting someone, impure thoughts including thoughts of sex, arousal (That's right guys, if you liked the bath scenes in Lunar too much and you're Catholic, better get to confession or your going to hell.
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
), thinking of hurting someone, not believing, taking eucarist when out of god's grace, and I used to have a tape that /listed/ all the various things you could not do in detail. Needless to say it's a very very long list which basically assures you don't do much of anything, really.
Personally though, I stopped believing in that stuff a long time ago. Or more specifically I stopped pretending I believed in it to make myself feel better. It's pretty bad when you /want/ to believe something and realize you're just lying to yourself. I stopped going to church because I was feeling guilty saying the Nicene (SP) creed every Sunday and realizing I was lying when I said it. You know, why you stop repeating it per rote and listen to what you're saying.
Also, as far as organized religions are, I tend to view them as business ventures. Albiet I'm sure most are honest people meerly trying to do their work, no organization with an infrastructure like theirs can get away from the need to generate capital and to increase their client base. That's all their is to it, if you want to spread your message to more people and fulfill what you believe is your evangelical duty you have to face those simple realities. Once you look at it that way, all of the things that are often let "slip" from public view become more apparent. If the Catholic church pushed their hard line, catechism written doctrine at every Sunday meeting, well, there'd be even fewer people there every week.
I'm pretty much part of the camp that god did not create man, but man created god.
Now, of course for all I know there could possibly be some sort of deity, but I'm not holding my breath over it. It's also entirely possible there could be an afterlife that involves no deity whatsoever, but once again I don't exactly have much a way of knowing. I hope that's the case, but that falls in the same kind of catagory as, "I'd like world peace."
Now, if God is all-knowing and all-powerful, why would he allow me to not accept Jesus? If he created me, it would be his fault for not hard-wiring me to come to that conclusion.
Supposedly the reasoning is that god gives people free will because he wants them to love him and that it's meaningless to force people to love him. You know, kind of how it's meainless if you cheat at a game to make yourself win?