Here's a quick one for the True Believers ™ among you:

How can it be that the Jews are God's chosen people (as it says in, oh, about the entirety of the Old Testament), and yet are all going to hell (because nobody is saved except by accepting Jesus Christ as their savior)?

This post was last modified: 12-17-2006 10:52 AM by Pedro Timóteo.

I simply don't think that's the case.

I'm under the impression that if jesus was this "chosen one", he wasn't the "savior" rather, trying to show us how to save ourselves.

The "I am the light and the way" quotation for example, basically everything around him was a church run by greed. In other words "Don't listen to that bullshit, listen to me."

I believe that, in several parts of the New Testament, it is explicitly said that nobody is saved except through Jesus.

Most current Christian religions say so.

Therefore, either that's not true (you can be saved without Jesus Christ) or all Jews are going to hell... don't you agree?

Sure I agree, and I think that this being "saved" needs no outside force.
Like I said, you save yourself. Since nobody can make decisions for you, it's up to you to decide what kind of person you wish are going to be.

Yeah Kren, but what I think Pedro is getting at is that this is not what most Christian sects teach. You either accept Jesus - or you go to hell. Simple as that. We may disagree with this, but that is what is being taught.

I think, Pedro, that this is just another example of the inherent contradictions in the bible.

Yes, a definite contradiction within that book.

In most faiths, anybody else burns in hell. Or at least doesn't get thier 70 virgins.

My problem with this is that they are all alike and are blind to it.

Kren: luckily, you don't believe that book is perfect. But many Christians - especially in America, from what I see - do.

How can they explain that one, for instance? Have they even, ever, thought about it?

Take neocons. They use the "God's chosen people" reason for their support of Israel, but they also believe that anyone who doesn't accept Jesus will go to hell. So they're supporting a nation of the damned! (Hmm, that would make a good title for a zombie movie...)

This post was last modified: 12-18-2006 08:26 PM by Pedro Timóteo.

IMO they just accept that they are damned and believe that in this damnation they are righteous.

Jesus never says that no one can be saved without believing in him. He says several other things that have been variously interpreted, but which all seem to point to the concept: "I am the person who will save the world".

It is EXPLICITLY stated in the Bible that you don't have to KNOW ABOUT JESUS in order to take advantage of this salvation.

Jews, Muslims, Christians, whatever, are all under the same condition:

love is their path to salvation.

-micah
Rock & Roll

- John 14:6, KJV

I'd say - and most Christians agree with me - that its meaning is pretty clear: without Jesus, nobody is saved...

Could you give an example?

As I said, Jesus' statement about being "the way, the truth, and the life" has nothing to do with knowing about him. Quantum Physics is "THE WAY the universe operates, THE TRUTH of how it operates, and the basis of THE LIFE we live; NO ONE ACCOMPLISHES ANYTHING BUT BY QUANTUM PHYSICS".

But do you have to know about Quantum Physics in order for it to work? No. Jesus accomplishes what he set out to accomplish, whether or not people know about him.

I don't have any great single-line texts, but in this context, Paul makes the argument that KNOWING about the truth does not make you a better person. He states that those people who have never even heard of the moral principles of Judaism often find themselves acting in moral ways; and that God saves these unbelievers just as he saves the believers.

-micah

Where did you find that in the quote you offered? I read nothing there about saving anyone at all..

That's right. It's not in this quote; it's in the context of the quote, and the argument is made over several chapters. So, like I said, it's kind of hard to give a single-line quote to prove this. I offered this quote to show Paul's general reasoning:

people don't have to know about Christianity's moral codes to be considered righteous.

-micah
emergent christianity

Again, nothing there about "righteous"

While it is certainly true that people other than xns can and often are morally good people, xtny and xns are not inclined to recognize this fact, and certainly do condemn others for simply not believing in the same illusions that they prefer. It seems that you are grasping at illusory straws given the absence of the support of your claims/interpretations of xnty.

Oh and btw xnty has no moral code, only a religious one.

This post was last modified: 01-07-2007 09:52 AM by TXStorm.

When I read Paul's writings, he seems to very clearly state that non-Christians partake of the same benefits as Christians (salvation, forgiveness, morality, righteousness). Why don't you think this? That IS the context of Paul's statement, but it is a semi-complex argument laid out throughout Romans 1-4...do you simply need more proof-texts?

IN THAT QUOTE, Paul says that the gentiles were never exposed to the Jewish religion (and the Christianity which sprung from it), but that they still had morality built-in to their consciousness, and since this is the case, their consciences defend them before God. His further argument is that:

This same gentile who never knew about God or Jesus or the bible, etc, receives praise from God for doing good.

Here's something from John:

John is saying that Jesus has "paid off" our sins; and not ours only, but also the sins of the whole world.

Which brings us back to the "no one comes to the father, but through me" statement. Jesus claims to be the one who is responsible for making a whole relationship with God possible. And he has done this for humanity, whether or not humanity knows anything about Jesus.

And this, BTW, is rather commonly acknowledged among the Christians I know.

-micah
there is no second coming

Again I have to point out that your interpretation is not supported by your quotes. Nothing is said of morality at all, but rather of "Law" The two are not merely not identical, but are often at odds. "Law" in this context can only be read sensibly as "religious dictates" or "religious codes" not morality. Recall that part of the dictates of xnty is that one is to refrain from treating his slaves too harshly. This is the religious law. Morality necessitates that one not have slaves at all. The two are incompatible.

The same problem rears its ugly head here, in that you are adding your own words to the quote, crucial words and notions which are simply not present in the quote. Nothing is said about being good or doing good, only about self mutilation and self denial (in the name of this "god").

As for the last quote, let's assume for a moment that there was this guy who supposedly did wipe the slate clean for the whole world at the point of his death. Now with that assumption, and with your quote which states this, there is still no evidence for your conclusion which goes FAR beyond this to state that everyone is saved and knows this "god" through Jebus.

And this, BTW, is a rather commonly recognized logical fallacy (Appeal to popularity, appeal to "common knowledge") Truth is not a popularity contest.

It appears that your argment begins and ends with the conclusion, with little coming inbetween.

You argument does not need "more" evidence to support it, it needs evidence in the first place. As has been shown, the quotes offered do not support the assumptions made which are the conclusion itself. Read the quotes you offer without the assumptions first, and see that in fact they do not say what you wish for them to be saying. This most generous reading of the arguments given still results in clear absence of support for the concluison for anyone who is willing to look at it objectively.

Micah: to me, those passages were never about people who don't know about Jesus being saved, but about Cristianity not being - unlike Judaism - for Jews only. In other words, gentiles can be saved through Jesus, they don't have to be Jews, circumcised, and so on.

This was all part of Paul's plan: since the Jews didn't accept him - including Jesus' family itself -, he transformed Christianity into a non-Jewish religion.

There are currently 2 types of Jews that accept Christ as their savior. -
Messianic Jews
Hebrew Christians

As for the rest, you can read in the Bible that one of the conditions for Christs return is that the Jews are made aware of the true identity of the pseudo-christ and run for the hills, followed by their 'admittance to their sin', basically realizing who Christ really was and then praying for his return. They also play a large role as Revelation states, as the 144,000 (12,000 from each tribe) that will be caught up with Christ during end times. These I assume are believers already.

This post was last modified: 01-14-2007 10:21 AM by Biblenut.

Bush... for the chosen people?!?

nah, he's just doing it so he can have a place to fight the Armageddon. (at least IMHO)

and about righteousness?

As Pedro points out about "Letter to a Christian Nation" on his blog entry,

"Consider, for instance, the human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV is now the most common sexually transmitted disease in the United States. The virus infects over half the American population and causes nearly five thousand women to die each year from cervical cancer; the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that more than two hundred thousand die worldwide. We now have a vaccine for HPV that appears to be both safe and effective. The vaccine produced 100 percent immunity in the six thousand women who received it as part of a clinical trial. And yet, Christian conservatives in our government have resisted a vaccination program on the grounds that HPV is a valuable impediment to premarital sex. These pious men and women want to preserve cervical cancer as an incentive toward abstinence, even if it sacrifices the lives of thousands of women each year."

I was absolutely shocked as I read that. My only thoughts were: “YOU… FUCKING… MONSTERS!”

This post was last modified: 01-21-2007 02:45 AM by overcaffein8d.