Bad Theology and Salvation

[liamconnor]

this thread was provoked by Elijah JOhn's stimulating question on why the Trinity was not a focus of Jesus' (and I add, any of the N.T. authors) if it is so important.

I commented there that the N.T. authors did not think salvation came through belief in the Trinity.

But this raises a question which deserves its own thread.


Suppose a person believes that Jesus' death atones for sins; that Jesus is God's chosen King/Messiah/Christ of the world. But...

This person does NOT believe that he is God (i.e. denies Trinity) though Jesus actually IS God (reality has it that God is Triune)

(or)

The person DOES believe God is Triune; but God in fact is NOT triune (Jesus is not God).


Can either person be "saved"?

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 18 by Divine Insight]

"So who is an authority on Christianity? Apparently no one."

And that is how it should be. We have written Word, we all can read, we all have intelligence to accept or reject. We have choice which churches to attend if we want to. We have choice of religion to follow.

There's not two humans who shall understand any scripture in exactly the same way. The concept of 'God' is different with ea human even if they are following the same doctrine.
It is genuine love of truth that counts. Why do we sill get it wrong? It's a process. We find one kernel of truth to start us thinking and build on that and continue to build on it to eternity

And what about those who have discovered the truth that the entire Abrahamic picture of God cannot possibly be true?

I have studied the Abrahamic religions for over 5 decades and I am completely convinced that there does not exist a single version of this religion that holds up to sincere scrutiny. Not Judaism, not any form of Christianity, and not any form of Islam.

That's my "truth" upon which to build.

I have concluded that if there exists a "God" it's far more likely to be something along the lines of Pantheism, such as described by Buddhism, or Taoism, etc.

And finally, I have come to realize that there very well may be no "God" at all. The secular atheists may actually have the truth of reality.

There are many things "wrong" with this reality in which we live. Why would any God create a situation where life needs to devour life in order to survive? And even that alone would not be problematic if there was a very sharp distinction between animal life and plant life and all animals were vegetarians. If we lived in a world like that I might be inclined to believe in a "God".

If humans were the only creatures on earth who caused problems and did bad things, it might make sense that humans are the source of "evil". But that's simply not the case in our reality. Humans don't do anything that animals haven't already been doing naturally for billions of years. Sure, we may have higher brain functions that allow us to "plot" out our activities better. But other than that we aren't really doing anything different from what animals have naturally been doing from the dawn of time.

So I just don't see where any religion that tries to pin the blame for the ills of reality onto humans as making any sense.

And why would a "God" have created a dog-eat-dog world to begin with?

So when you speak of building upon "Truth", as far as I can see the secular atheists may actually hold the ultimate truth.

How can you suggest otherwise?

What makes you so sure there exists a "God", and if you are convinced of that, then why the religion of the ancient Hebrews? Why not some other religion, like Buddhism, or Taoism, etc.?

If you are going to claim to be building things on "Truth" then what is it that you see as your foundation of "Truth"?

I hope you're not going to say "Jesus" because that's not going to make any sense at all. That would just be placing faith in the stories of the Gospels. And it certainly wouldn't address the question of why animals naturally eat each other and have been doing so for billions of years, long before humans appeared on the planet.

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 21 by Divine Insight]

If humans were the only creatures on earth who caused problems and did bad things, it might make sense that humans are the source of "evil". But that's simply not the case in our reality. Humans don't do anything that animals haven't already been doing naturally for billions of years. Sure, we may have higher brain functions that allow us to "plot" out our activities better. But other than that we aren't really doing anything different from what animals have naturally been doing from the dawn of time.

Just curious, but does this situation become good, bad, or neutral, within a pantheistic worldview?

[Claire Evans]

this thread was provoked by Elijah JOhn's stimulating question on why the Trinity was not a focus of Jesus' (and I add, any of the N.T. authors) if it is so important.

I commented there that the N.T. authors did not think salvation came through belief in the Trinity.

But this raises a question which deserves its own thread.


Suppose a person believes that Jesus' death atones for sins; that Jesus is God's chosen King/Messiah/Christ of the world. But...

This person does NOT believe that he is God (i.e. denies Trinity) though Jesus actually IS God (reality has it that God is Triune)

(or)

The person DOES believe God is Triune; but God in fact is NOT triune (Jesus is not God).


Can either person be "saved"?

Of course that person can be saved. As long as they accept Jesus as their saviour and repent of sin, then salvation is theirs. We cannot understand everything and God is not so petty as to reject someone because they didn't believe in the trinity. All will be revealed one day.

[oldbadger]

Of course that person can be saved. As long as they accept Jesus as their saviour and repent of sin, then salvation is theirs. We cannot understand everything and God is not so petty as to reject someone because they didn't believe in the trinity. All will be revealed one day.

Hello....
But so many Christians do not believe the above.....
They quote Matthew .......7:14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to ... salvation......... For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
....... which does not seem to allow much leeway for partial beliefs.

There are many many hundreds of Christian Creeds, Denominations and Churches, and many of these believe that many of the others are bound to fail.

Christians choose their doctrine, rules, laws and codes from a huge selection of bible passages. The war-monger Christians cherry-pick any the passages that show Jesus to have been a fighter (sell your scrips and buy swords etc) and wish for public executions of gays etc etc... and still believe that slavery is ok (oh yes), whilst more loving Christians focus more on a more understanding Jesus.

But nearly all Christians base the major part of their faith on the 'mid-term dispensation' of Paul as the new Jesus, pushing rules, boundaries and laws far far beyond anything which Jesus stood for.

Which, if any, are true?

[Monta]

[Replying to post 21 by Divine Insight]

"And what about those who have discovered the truth that the entire Abrahamic picture of God cannot possibly be true? Think

I have studied the Abrahamic religions for over 5 decades and I am completely convinced that there does not exist a single version of this religion that holds up to sincere scrutiny. Not Judaism, not any form of Christianity, and not any form of Islam.

That's my "truth" upon which to build."

I respect your truth you should respect mine.

[Left Site]

Of course that person can be saved. As long as they accept Jesus as their saviour and repent of sin, then salvation is theirs. We cannot understand everything and God is not so petty as to reject someone because they didn't believe in the trinity. All will be revealed one day.

Hello....
But so many Christians do not believe the above.....
They quote Matthew .......7:14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to ... salvation......... For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
....... which does not seem to allow much leeway for partial beliefs.

There are many many hundreds of Christian Creeds, Denominations and Churches, and many of these believe that many of the others are bound to fail.

Christians choose their doctrine, rules, laws and codes from a huge selection of bible passages. The war-monger Christians cherry-pick any the passages that show Jesus to have been a fighter (sell your scrips and buy swords etc) and wish for public executions of gays etc etc... and still believe that slavery is ok (oh yes), whilst more loving Christians focus more on a more understanding Jesus.

But nearly all Christians base the major part of their faith on the 'mid-term dispensation' of Paul as the new Jesus, pushing rules, boundaries and laws far far beyond anything which Jesus stood for.

Which, if any, are true?

Am I wrong in suspecting that you are just about totally disgusted with the conflicting interpretations and bickering among the religions?

You are well justified if that is how you feel but please consider who it is that is playing upon our human limitations in learning the truth and rejoicing to fan our weaknesses.

In another thread, I forget which one right now, I commented concerning the born again process being described most pointedly for us by John at 1 John 3:9.

There it speaks of being born of God so that his seed is in us governing our way so that we do not sin. And I believe we can understand that by comparison to how being the seed of our more immediate birth father affects to a degree how we think and act.

But my point was that spiritually the devil fights from even before we are born and especially so from the moment we are born to sow his seed in us.

I have had moments during my life where I felt as you seem to feel. I know it is not easy and God most certainly knows that better than I do.

Sometimes we need to back away and empty ourselves of the entire thing so that we can recover from the stress of it all. I have done that probably more than once during my years on this earth. The only caution I can give anyone is to be aware that when we find that we must back away for a while it is during that time that we are even more vulnerable to being tripped up by Satan sending influences at us to try and get us involved in the sorts of sin which cause burdens to us that cannot be easily thrown off from us. He does that so that when we finally get going again we will find ourselves even more labored. For that reason we don't want to let ourselves break off too long a time.

I am thinking of you and hoping the best for you.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 21 by Divine Insight]

"And what about those who have discovered the truth that the entire Abrahamic picture of God cannot possibly be true? Think

I have studied the Abrahamic religions for over 5 decades and I am completely convinced that there does not exist a single version of this religion that holds up to sincere scrutiny. Not Judaism, not any form of Christianity, and not any form of Islam.

That's my "truth" upon which to build."

I respect your truth you should respect mine.

I do respect yours.

This is a debate site. You came to a debate site. You can't blame me for that.

If I met you in person I would never argue with you about your religious beliefs unless you were trying to push those beliefs onto me either as evangelism, or through political legislation.

If you want to believe in the Abrahamic picture of God, be my guest. But if you want to come onto a debate site to argue whether or not it makes any sense, then you should be prepared to hear arguments of why other people are convinced it doesn't make any sense.

[Divine Insight]

Am I wrong in suspecting that you are just about totally disgusted with the conflicting interpretations and bickering among the religions?

No, you are not wrong in this at all. I am disgusted with the bickering that goes on among and even within religions. However, you would be wrong if you believe that this disgust represents my motivation for arguing against these religions.

In another thread, I forget which one right now, I commented concerning the born again process being described most pointedly for us by John at 1 John 3:9.

There it speaks of being born of God so that his seed is in us governing our way so that we do not sin. And I believe we can understand that by comparison to how being the seed of our more immediate birth father affects to a degree how we think and act.

But my point was that spiritually the devil fights from even before we are born and especially so from the moment we are born to sow his seed in us.

And now you need to believe in an evil demon that is constantly fighting against God's creation. I reject this notion as being absurd. I see no reason why an omnipotent God could need to allow a measly demon to cause such havoc with his creation.

This is a highly problematic paradigm IMHO. We can't claim that God cannot stop Satan. For to claim that would require that God is incapable of doing this. And if this God is capable of curbing the actions of this demon, and doesn't bother to do it, then this God is totally responsible for all evil and mayhem this demon gets away with. Where does Satan get his POWER?

Even the Book of Job has Satan going to God to ask permission to do evil things to Job and his family and God grants permission.

So Satan ends up being nothing more than a puppet who is basically doing the will of God with God's permission.

Keep in mind here that I'm making arguments against this ancient Hebrew mythology. I just don't see where it makes any sense at all. And then later in the Christian New Testament this God has to supposedly sacrifice his only begotten Son as a ransom that could only be paid to Satan. Who else could have demanded such a ransom?

In fact, I could go into great detail on this specific issue alone on why this scenario could never be made to work without elevating Satan to the level of power that could actually be a genuine threat to this God.

I have had moments during my life where I felt as you seem to feel. I know it is not easy and God most certainly knows that better than I do.

Actually this view basically represents an open confession that the religion doesn't make any sense. Think about it. We see many problems with these scriptural stories and so we are basically 'taught' to ignore these problems in favor of placing our blind faith in the idea that this God has answer that we simply cannot know or understand based upon the scriptures that this religion is founded on.

So we are 'taught' to believe that after we die and go to heaven this God will then explain why this utterly absurd and highly contradictory religion actually makes sense.

In other words, we have a religion that is filled with absurdities, immoral principles, and obvious self-contradictions, and we are simply 'taught' to ignore all of that and just believe in faith that God has answers if we simply "believe in him" and keep the faith.

This is a religious paradigm that has pulled out all the stops and will use any tactic whatsoever to keep its followers in line. So it has even invented a way to excuse the fact that it doesn't even make any sense. And people by the millions are buying into it.

Sometimes we need to back away and empty ourselves of the entire thing so that we can recover from the stress of it all.

This religion doesn't cause me any stress at all, save for the fact that people who continue to believe in it use it to try to evangelize others to believe in it, and/or they use it for support for bigotry against others. This religion is used demoralize non-believers as supposedly having "Rejected an all-righteous God". It is used to support the idea that gays and transgender individuals are somehow "evil sinners" who simply refuse to change their evil ways. It's been used to support male-chauvinism against women for centuries. And today it is even being used to reject the scientific knowledge of evolution, etc. It's actually creating a war on science and rational thought in favor of believing in these clearly self-contradictory fables are pure blind faith that some invisible God knows more than we do and can eventually explain why these religious scriptures appear to be so immoral and self-contradictory, when supposedly they aren't.

I personally feel that this is something worthy of exposing.

I have done that probably more than once during my years on this earth. The only caution I can give anyone is to be aware that when we find that we must back away for a while it is during that time that we are even more vulnerable to being tripped up by Satan sending influences at us to try and get us involved in the sorts of sin which cause burdens to us that cannot be easily thrown off from us. He does that so that when we finally get going again we will find ourselves even more labored. For that reason we don't want to let ourselves break off too long a time.

And now who's stressing out over this region?

If you are convinced that some evil demon named Satan is out to get you, then you will forever be driven back to this religion by nothing other than the "fear" that Satan might win your soul.

I am thinking of you and hoping the best for you.

And you are also clearly thinking that some evil demon named Satan is trying to "steal my soul".

That itself is a part of this religion that I have come to see as being utterly absurd.

This is just part of the "fear tactic" that this religion uses to try to keep people from abandoning it entirely.

I hope the best for you too. I truly do.

But that's not going to change my position on ancient Hebrew mythology.

I can tell you this much, if there exists truly benevolent righteous God, then I have absolutely nothing to fear. And no evil demon could change that.

So I don't need to believe in, or support, any specific religious paradigm.

The only "God" I would need to fear would be a malicious unrighteous and untrustworthy God. And ironically that's precisely the God that Christians are asking me to believe in all the while they claim that he's benevolent righteous and trustworthy.

In fact, I'm perfectly content with believing in pure secular materialism. I will grant that it would be really cool if reality could turn out to be mystical and magical and we could somehow survive death and live more than just this one life. However, if the truth of reality is that our existence is temporary and we simply cease to exist when we die, I can't accept that. That, to me, is nothing to fear or even remotely worry about.

[Left Site]

[Replying to post 28 by Divine Insight]

After reading all of your comments in post number 28, I understand what you are saying. I thank you for being forthright about it.

You can choose whether you wish to believe me or not, but, I am a lot like you when it comes to having to have things make sense. I have even approached the subject in my personal studies using as a base many of the same ideas you express. I like to formulate many different paradigms in my mind when I study and then do what is known as paradigm shifting so as to search out which view makes the most sense against the text and it's context. In considering context I first survey the immediate context, then I compare it to a chapter wide context, then to a book wide context, then a Bible wide context. I also take in some consideration for extra-Biblical and even non-Biblical commentaries.

If I am anything, I am aware of the dangers of a closed mind boxing me in and careful to be thorough. I have not by-passed many of the same ideas you express, but I have worked through those ideas and found what I now believe makes even better sense.

I know you cannot see what I am about to say but I believe it needs saying. You are fixated in a premise rather than paradigm shifting so as to compare various premises. The contradictory teachings from one religion to another makes that easy to have happen because all of those contradictory teachings gathered together are like a billion sparrows gathered together so that your mind's eye cannot find the singular finch to see it. Sparrows equating to flawed premises and the singular finch equating to that one perfect premise. I used the paradigm thought because you mentioned that word in your comment. I therefore assume that means you understand what paradigms are, how knowledge of them is to be used in to help us sort through beliefs, and how to do what is called 'paradigm shifting.' If not then if you wanted to you could look up books like Stephen Covey's 'The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People', which has an excellent discussion of paradigms as well as much more very helpful information concerning man's inborn attributes and how to make use of them. Attributes such as our capacity for self-awareness which can be used either to our advantage or to our disadvantage, depending upon how well we understand it.

I saved your comments in that post to my desktop where I can think more about them before giving a more specific reply to them. After all, you did have a lot to say. LOL.

[EduChris]

[Replying to post 1 by liamconnor]

I don't see that the N.T. teaches that we are "saved" by virtue of our having assented to specific intellectual propositions (even demons grant such assent). What saves us is "faith," a heart-and-will orientation that at some level directs us toward actions consistent with the idea that we, individually and collectively, belong to a God who ultimately makes all things right. The N.T. provides a concrete story by which we can better envision or conceive the specific means by which God "ultimately makes everything right."