Do you believe that you are being judged by God?

tentative

I thought you said you were going to look at all of them, and then make a decision. Best get crackin'.  I can't tell you definitively who a religious authority is, but I can tell you who isn't, and that's me!  I guess the real question is, since it's going to take you years and years to collate this information (and yes, I realize you've been at it for some time already), can you resist the temptation to believe something in the mean time?

I already said how to decide who has authority, I said it twice.

 Of course it is. Even someone who doesn't look into these things at all is responsible for the fact that they didn't do so.  I guess I'm lost. Are you saying that subjecting one's self to a religious authority is a way of escaping the responsibility of having to choose for yourself, or aren't you?  If accepting the authority of another into your religious life isn't getting one out of their responsibility, then what's your beef with it?  And finally, what about my point on history? How do you avoid acceptance of authority on matters which happened a thousand years ago? Have you decided that all such matters are irrelevant to your life [i]carte blanche[/i], or do you have some way of learning history that doesn't involve relying trusting fallible human testimony?

I think you only get Gods attention by trying really hard. If you WANT to be judged, then fear him all day long. If you want to be blessed, challenge Him to bless you by untertaking something really, really difficult to accomplish and He might take an interest - it has to be a learning experience for Him, too.
The boldest crimes go unpunished. So I think the boldest prayers get answered.

“tentative”

This is what I see as the problem with the human rationale of religion. It frustrates me that whenever there is a philosophical argument about religion - the believers just chalk it up to faith when they have a hard time answering a question. Part of the mystery, I suppose. Ucci, you mentioned that because we weren’t there and didn’t see it for ourselves we cannot grasp its existence - and yet none of the contemporary interpreters of the Bible were there either, so how are we not responsible for our own actions - our own choices? Our own interpretations? Unlike tent, I struggle with the residue of guilt from my belief system, but I do see the sheer freedom in moving away from it. Under the Christian umbrella, you see that a higher being watches us as we fall - having the power to forgive and judge our free will when, in essence, (if you believe in God) you should assume that He gave you the tools to choose. Don’t you think that ignoring your God given tools is like ignoring God himself?

It is. Beautifully put, by the way.

Hi Ucc.;

Mat 20:1-16
For the kingdom of Heaven is like a man, a housemaster, who went out when it was early to hire workers into his vineyard. And agreeing with the workers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard.
And going out about the third hour, he saw others standing idle in the market. And he said to them, You also go into the vineyard, and I will give you whatever is just. And they went.
Again, going out about the sixth and ninth hour, he did the same.
And going out about the eleventh hour, he found others standing idle, and said to them, why do you stand here idle all day?
They said to him, because no one has hired us. He said to them, You also go into the vineyard, and you will receive whatever is just.
But evening having come, the lord of the vineyard said to his manager, Call the workers and pay them the wage, beginning from the last to the first. And the ones having come the eleventh hour each received a denarius.
And having come, the first supposed that they would receive more. And they also each received a denarius. And having received it, they murmured against the housemaster, saying, these last have performed one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the heat of the day.
But answering, he said to one of them, Friend, I do not wrong you. Did you not agree to a denarius with me? Take yours and go. But I desire to give to this last as also to you. Or is it not lawful for me to do what I desire with my things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?
So the last shall be first, and the first last; for many are called, but few chosen.

Shalom

Hi Bessy,

I missed this discussion (work again!) but I understand your frustration. I have tried in the past to put the whole issue in a different perspective, but it begins where Ned and Ucc. began, namely with the fact that only God is good. However, what does it mean to be “good”? In Aramaic, the vernacular of Jesus, we are talking about something which is ripe or mature, fully grown or developed. This is true of many statements where the word “good” is used.

In this sense, humankind is “unripe”, “immature”, “green” and “undeveloped” – which doesn’t contradict my experience of humankind at all. It also explains my own failings adequately. In another statement, Jesus says that his followers should be “perfect”, as their heavenly Father is perfect. In the Greek and in the Aramaic, the word literally means “complete” or “whole”. I think that this does give the discussion a new feeling.

We have many problems with the divine up-bringing, since we continually have the feeling that we can decide things on our own, but if we are Christians, then we are children. Towards God we must humbly accept this and not try to pretend that we have reached “goodness” or “adulthood” – even though on human standards we may have. In fact, this is where our measure becomes unclear, since we like to judge by human standards, although we are told that it isn’t wise to judge at all.

The aim of God then, according to our tradition, is to help his children attain “wholeness”, so that they can enter into communion with himself. The first step is rather like being given a prop to overcome our one-sidedness, or being given an eye to overcome our neglect of those things we do not see. In modern language, God compensates for what we are lacking for as long as this is possible. By all accounts, there is a time when the time for this compensation is up. However, it isn’t by our “wholeness” or “ripeness” that we are judged, but in the way we have treated our fellow beings – which may seem to contradict, but it is humility and authenticity which is looked for.

Right, and according to the parable of the talents, we are all given talents to be used. I find it comforting that it is a minority that buries its talents, saying that God is a strict judge who wants the fruits of the seed he hasn’t sown – but this statement seems to sound a lot like some “believers” I have known …

Shalom

Bob,

I hate people like you. You are one of those ministers I would follow for decades if you were on the pulpit. You have a way about you that brings even the wicked and wayward into the fold in the most respectful way. I hadn’t thought about good and bad in that manner. If you assume that good is an impossible thing to achieve then I can understand the struggle and the reason for the need for church and further study. It is remarkable to me that the more I study Eastern philosophy, the more I can see that Jesus was not the only one with these thoughts. As the Son of God, you would say that he was the first to honor the Golden Rule.

religioustolerance.org/reciproc.htm

But as you can see… he wasn’t. My husband asked me something as we were discussing this. He mowed the lawn of a sick woman next door yesterday. As a Jewish man, he wondered - would a Christian be more inclined to go to mass or do someone a favor? In the RC church, mass is a sacrament - so what if there was a choice? Is living it the thing or “living as” the thing? In the OP, I asked how one would be judged. I wonder if God and Jesus don’t see the day to day good that you say is impossible to achieve.

As we were going over our group of neighbors we decided that in this Bible belt of ours that most of them would go to Bible study and dress for the Sunday service. I don’t understand this and I wish one of you would explain it to me. How is honoring that sacrament more important than helping a neighbor?

Bessy

 Well, I didn't mean it to be a big statement on religious faith, it's a lot more mundane than that.  All I meant was, when you're studying history, you can't go and see it for yourself. If you want to know what happened a hundred years ago, you [i]have to rely[/i] on someone telling you what happened. That's the only way there is, and it doesn't matter if you're studying World War II or the beginning of the Church.  This all relates to Christianity because so much of it revolves around history.  If Jesus said something, you know it because somebody told you so. That comes before interpretation, even- you can't interpret a statement if you haven't heard it yet. 
So yes, you are responsible for your own choices, and your own decisions, but part of that decision process has to involve a reliance on authoritative testimony. Tentative seemed to be suggesting that there was no good way to decide who was a good authority and who wasn't, I would suggest he ask historians how[i] they [/i]do it. 
I still haven't fully grasped why our ability to discern good authorities from bad ones, and our ability to rely on testimony of others[i] doesn't count [/i]as one of those tools! You've read enough of what I write to know that I don't ignore reason and logic, don't you? Do I strike you as someone who isn't using his tools?  
This is the main thing that frustrates me about philosophy of religion. If this was [i]any other subject[/i], I wouldn't have to have the "Why reading books and listening to people more experienced than you is good" conversation. Not with an adult, anyway.  
  I also think another side of this is what you're using to discern truth, and what your goals are.  If your measure for when you've found spiritual truth is when you get a good feeling in your tummy, then yeah, you can totally find that yourself without relying on anybody else. How could I argue with that?

Bessy,

In my understanding, helping the neighbor is the performance of the sacrament. It is the difference of talking about being a good samaritan, and being that samaritan. Whether the act is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is not in the act itself, but in the intent. If your husband performed the act of kindness from his heart, then he has performed a communion with his creator. If he mowed the lawn so that all the neighbors would see it, he has not. Same act, different intent.

That is your belief system which I agree with (by the way) but most RC would go to mass. :confused:

Their belief in being judged has now infringed on their daily “goodness.” THAT worries me.

Hi Bessy,

Ah yes, this is „deeper magic from before the dawn of time“(as Aslan put it). Jesus doesn’t use the term “Son of God” for himself in the synoptic Gospels. It could reasonably be assumed that Jesus was perceived to be the personification of chokmâh (divine wisdom), which speaks so clearly in Ecclesiastes, before he became Christ and the “uihos theos” or son of God. Essentially it is the merging of ideas, which is fascinating since in the Christian tradition they all merge from different parts of the Tenakh and find their meeting point in the Sage from Nazareth. I think it would have disturbed him that people thought of him in that way, but that is one of the reasons they did.

I find eastern philosophy inspiring too, although, as you can se, I am deeply involved in the Christian.

OK, I was raised an Anglican, which is a bit of both, but have been protestant for years, and I would say that on judgement day (to stay with he subject) it won’t matter how many times you have missed mass.

Shalom

Bob

Is there a good word for the force in Christianity that keeps people being good when they know they don't have to be for a reward?  The question will come up again and again that if a Christian knows he will be forgiven, that he may as well sin all he likes and just apologize after.  I agree what you've said above, but I'm still reminded of that skeptical argument.

Anyone who looks for the easy way out and sins just for sport isn’t much of a Christian, but I am not sure of this “scale” of who gets in and who doesn’t. In a way this even sounds like I’m joking… it even sounds like I am being sarcastic and I’m not. I am merely tellling it like the rest of us from the outside see it…

Bob was pretty sure that intent was essential when it came to placing the lawn mowing over the church going but most Catholics I know would forgo the favor for their trek to take their weekly communion. Now it would seem like common sense to me that kindness is the Christian way and yet there are rules, you know. This sacrament of Communion is clearly an essential ideology of the Catholic church.

So, getting back to Judgement Day, does that mean that there are degrees of behavior where (say) the Baptists may allow a favor of giving an old lady a ride over missing a Bible study or a dinner made by a Presbyterian for a sick neighbor could negate the fact that she had a one night stand with a man from the subway on her commute home. I realize that putting specifics in this scenario makes it sound like I am pulling your chain - but I am trying to make my point. If I strip it down to the bare essentials it begins to allow you to understand what non-Christians see. There seems to be a double standard depending on the mood of the believer.

If it is all written in the Bible (as you say) why the heck are there so many standards when it comes to the entrance into eternal life? I can’t get a grasp on it unless I (again) chalk it up to undying faith that will never be understood by the masses least of all little ole me…

Heavens, my head is spinning.

Uccisore, I am curious about something, as I do not know what you estimate god is and if/what god’s judgment is.

Suppose I was waring red shoes, I am invisible, and got a friend of mine got to write that down in a book 4000 years ago… Would I be entitled to view it as a sin if you did not believe him? There were many other people everywhere to said that my shoes were blue, or green, or that I had no shoes at all. It’d not be easy to chose between one proofless claim and 1000 others…

As you can see, anyone can be moral without god, and anyone can live without god. Anyone can be happy without god, and anyone can be healed without god. It depends upon the situation, but yes, the god of the bible isn’t as useful as he appears to be. If it’s possible to spiritually live forever, I think that also can be done without god.

Entrance into eternal life is not a question of moral purity or faith, it’s a question of spiritual evolution and a wide enough self-understanding which leads to ni ‘perfect’ self-repair.

Dan,

I think the woman in my subway story was wearing those red shoes tho’ they could have been green or blue, but you know how that telephone game gets after the 1000th person. :confused:

Yeah, and the question is only compounded by YHWH supposedly being all-powerful, because if he was all-powerful, he wouldn’t need anyone to talk for him, he could talk for himself.

It’s like a baby needs people to feed it at an early age because it cannot feed itself. And a cripple in a wheel-chair can’t walk, he needs help.

Same thing applies to god, TOTALLY.
If he’s all-mighty then he doesn’t need little specks of dust like us to do his work for him and he can do it better himself.

But if he is not all poweful then there will be a vast, trickly web of supposed “reason” for why he does not discharge his love, mercy, might and glory into humanity visibly.

Hi Ucc.,

Yes, I know. It is a little disconcerting, but I find that coercion isn’t what makes Christianity tick, but rather has come along when Christianity became a mass movement. It isn’t the threat of punishment or even the promise of heaven, but the spiritual awareness of renewal that leads people down the narrow path. The Pharisees assumed that a little coercion or “good example” could change people – Jesus shocked these presumed venerable gentlemen by telling them that they had to be reborn, that they were blocking the entrance to eternity, and that they already had their reward and couldn’t expect more.

I understand why people get the idea that coercion is necessary, but that is the weakness of the Church, not its strength. It shouldn’t surprise you either – doesn’t God continually turn things around and present us with a perspective we didn’t expect?

Hi Bessy,

I know, and I have often said that there are many reasons for not being a Christian – most of them are people who call themselves Christians.

I think where we are at odds is in the fact that the provision of the Catholic Church is adequate to do both. There are numerous celebrations of Mass in the week and enough exceptions to allow people who have difficulty attending to come to the sacrament. What you are criticising, however, is not how the Church provides, but how the people react and lead their lives. Even though I am not a Roman Catholic, I find it important to differentiate.

It seems to be a similar problem here. It isn’t our good works that recommend us, but the Spirit in which we live. That is, it is something which isn’t apparent for all to see – which is a good argument for not judging. I have no doubt that where the Holy Spirit is in control, there will be good works, but you can’t turn the sentence around.

This is where Ucc. gets uncomfortable. The problem is that it is not a question of a blanket answer, but where you are. You have heard of the story where a rich young man asks how he can attain eternal life. Jesus says, “You know the commandments …” He says that he has followed them his life long. Jesus then says, “Then there is only one thing else to do – sell all of your possessions and give them to the poor and follow me.”

This was an individual answer for someone for whom the commandments were not enough. You must ask yourself, what do I need? Am I compromising myself by hanging onto Mammon or anything else? Nobody can answer hat question but yourself.

Shalom

Such a pleasure it is to read your answer, Bob. Christianity would be a good thing for everyone if they could see the Holy Spirit from this personal point of view. So, just as I thought, the answer lies within. If you can admit to where you are now and know where you want to go - it isn’t a matter of judgment at all but of the personal journey. Funny, the journey is what has moved me in my daily search all along.

There will always be zealots and it isn’t fair to hold them up as our guide. They seem to forget that when it is all said and done their pure and elitist attitude will only push them further away from the Light that they are so drawn to.

Matt. 7:1-5 Do not judge lest you be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.

Thank you for your time, Bob.

Sing us a meatloaf song Karaoke man!

Yes, God always watches us and hopes for the best. The highest will, the most supreme legacy, the most exalted honors, and deepest course into the routes of expansion prime and gear us up for the level that God knows that we have to be at. Those who are weak, shallow, without emotion or emblems of divine guidance falter, succumb to the easy way out, flicker away from life, and fail, ties down by their own puny negativity.

But, if you find inner peace, harness the flow of God, act from the sacred heart, and channel the most wise orders from the virtuous, then it’s love, life, purity, and endless oceans of joy everyday, painted and restored into pristine form for you (your reward, your judgment from God)!