Questions about the Bible , I ask as I read

[Jon Miller]

I agree that rejecting Jesus was disatrous for the Jews of the time.

JM

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Did you see my post about through versus beleif in?

Everyone is saved through Jesus.

Even those (who are saved) that don't beleive in Him.

JM

Yes, but I believe your view is a minority position. I think most believe that saved through Jesus means that you must believe in him. At least that what it appears that Ben was saying, and I think most would agree with Ben.

[Jon Miller]

But many have never heard of Jesus.. and most (I think including Ben, but I don't know as much about Catholics actually) think that those who haven't heard of Jesus are still given opportunities..

Jon Miller

[Vesayen]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
I agree that rejecting Jesus was disatrous for the Jews of the time.

JM

The group Jesus was a member of, the Aseens, thought the apocalypse was immenent and were borderline revolutionaries. Had the Jews followed Jesus, he Romans would of exiled the Jews much earlier and it would of been far more violent.

[Jon Miller]

spiritually..

JM

[Ben Kenobi]

but I think what you are saying that you believe that chosen status doesn't confer automatic salvation. That is only if they accept the Savior.

Yes. That's why I referred to table scraps, which is an allusion to perhaps the best passage on this issue between the relative status of Jews and Gentiles.

I remember the first time I read this and I was shocked. You are telling me that Christians are like the dogs at the table begging for scraps while Jews get to sit at his table?

But the truth is this. Christ came specifically for the Jews and to save the Jews. In his mercy he reaches out to everyone else.

[Ben Kenobi]

But many have never heard of Jesus.. and most (I think including Ben, but I don't know as much about Catholics actually) think that those who haven't heard of Jesus are still given opportunities

Not only are they given opportunities to get to know God, but Romans is very specific. Everyone has a law written on their own hearts, and will be judged accordingly. The one without the law (ie, no knowledge of scripture), demonstrates the he loves the higher law, (ie God's commandments), through the law in his heart, (his conscience). Thus no man is without excuse.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
But many have never heard of Jesus.. and most (I think including Ben, but I don't know as much about Catholics actually) think that those who haven't heard of Jesus are still given opportunities..

Jon Miller

Well that is a different issue entirely.

[q=Ben Kenobi]
I remember the first time I read this and I was shocked. You are telling me that Christians are like the dogs at the table begging for scraps while Jews get to sit at his table?[/q]

Though I guess those Jews today who don't accept Jesus as Savior are just thinking they are sitting at the table, in the mind of a Christian?

[Ben Kenobi]

And yes, it is an undeniable fact that Jews were the ones who sent Christ to Pilate. I don't see why it automatically follows that Jews deserve to suffer the holocaust.

Undeniable fact? Hardly.

The Romans killed him.

I never said the Jews killed him. They sent Christ to Pilate.

Even if you gave the "Jews" the role of Judge(which is a stretch).. we don't call judges who send criminals to the death penalty killers, do we?

What was his crime Vesayen?

[Spiffor]

Ben: Thanks for your answer. I'm too lazy to reply to it right now, but I've read it entirely. At that point, I think we've reached the points where disagreements are expressed enough and deep enough so that the discussion will be completely sterile

I'd like to react to this however:

Another fellow you should read Spiffor is Joseph Conrad. He was a pole who wrote one book in English, Heart of Darkness that gets into these ideas.

Your results will strongly depend on how you ask the question.

Since everybody here is fairly political-savvy, and has at least one pet peeve about current society, they might go with the knee-jerk reaction of saying that current society is ZOMFGhorrible (I've encountered this among young Commies, who can ignore decades of progress just to make a point, even though they do agree that this progress exists and is amazing).

The aim would be to avoid the knee-jerk reaction, and to see how people seriosuly assess today's society in comparison to what has existed since ancient times and all through history. And to that effect, you'd have to ask the question very clearly.

[Arrian]

We cannot sustain ourselves, we need God to help us.

I disagree. In fact, I find this argument to be depressingly defeatist. Debating it, of course, is pointless.

-Arrian

[Robert]

That's a lot to respond to

Molly Bloom

CyberShy: you're talking about later evolutions of protestantism. Maarten Luther, the father of the Lutherian church, believed that only personal faith would save.

Molly Bloom: Which ones did you have in mind ?

Lollardy ? The Hussite Church? The Waldenses ?

Luther's protest (supported by German princes/electors) is generally viewed as being the beginnings of Protestantism.

That's what I said. Luther, the beginner of protestantism, laid more focus on personal responsibility and personal choises. I think even more then the churches that carry his name these days.

Spiffor

OK, now for a less trollish answer.

Thanks

To you "all evil" in this world comes from the fact that the humans want to "build a better world" despite not agreeing on what a better world would be. In other words, "all evil" in this world comes from political/religious/philosophical/whatever ideology.

Not exactly.
All evil comes from the fact that humans aren't capable to (always) seperate good from evil.
Our choises aren't 100% good.

Evil comes not from any ideology. Evil comes from ourselves. Ideologies are attempts to get rid of evil. But they all fail, unfortunately.

According to you, the only right way for the word to improve is when God decides so. Human efforts to make the world a better place are bound to do evil, and they are actually the sole source of evil.

The world can improve if we would all live to the 2 golden rules: love God above all and the other as yourself.
The world will only become perfect again when God remakes it.

Our efforts aren't all doomed. But they are if they're not based on "Love God above all and the other as yourself." And no, you can't love the other by killing him.

It's not the human effort to make a better world that's thesole source of evil. The sole source of evil is that a human thinks he knows all answers for a perfect world and forces others to follow his ideas. (by force in example)

I strongly disagree with this.

I do strongly disagree with it as well, in the way you presented it

The other point you make is that, as humans try to change things by themselves without waiting for God, they will do evil, and we're bound to do more evil than good.

I don't know if we do more evil then good. There's much good in this world.

I think your reaction is to a misunderstanding of my opinion, and therefor the rest of your post doesn't need to be answered anymore.

except:

If we are looking at Europe in the past millenia, I think there hasn't been any time where the society was less "evil" than in the past 50 years or so. And it doesn't seem miraculous at all.

Do you really think that our society is less evil then ever?
Eventhough I think we've made a lot of improvements, and I'm happy that I'm living in these days, I still disagree. I think it's as evil as always.
It's just that you most probably think that things like 'abortion' is good. And free-prostitution. Liberalism is good, I think, but liberalism comes with individualism. I think children haven't handled their old parents as bad like in our days. I understand that everything is debatable, which I won't want to start right now, but no, I don't believe that this age is the best age ever. I think it's even getting worse. (b/c individualism, which brings us closer to 'being god' then ever)

Vesayen

I liked your post very much(really) but i'd like to add an adendum

Thanks

First off, Judaism has no hell and the after life is pretty vague

Judaism has a hell, but indeed, the entire concept of the afterlife is pretty vague. It is there though.
Daniel 12, Isaiah 66, Deuteronoium 32, Psalms 55 ie. describe hell.

different Jews will tell you differently, but most will tell you a Jew who lived a good life and a non Jew who live a good live(good as in being good to your fellow man) will have the same fate, whatever that is.

most probably, yes.

In any event, NO ONE-and that includes Hitler, Staling and Polpot are tortured for eternity.

Well, hell is in my opinion not a place where people are tortured anyway. hell is the total absence of God.
Hell = being all by yourself.
Which may be quite a torture though.

Edit: Disagreeing twice.....

So far we hardly disagreed
Only about the question if judaism has a hell. I think we disagree there, but you are wrong :P
Perhaps some parts of judaism interpert those passages that I listed different, which is possible, but the key-concept of hell can be based on the Old Testament.

I actually got into an argument with this over some of my relatives rescently.... one of them said that the problems in Israel will solve themselves(peacably) when the Meshiach(messiah) comes. I said no no no, don't wait for Meshiach... why depend on G-D? Wouldn't it be so much better if we honored G-D by solving our own problems, showing how much we value his values?

I agree. We must try to solve the problems.
I don't believe we will be able to, but I think we should try nevertheless. And we should try our very best.

This is why Messianists of all religions well.... piss me off. Well yeah, it would be nice when/if Meshiach comes and fixes the worlds problems, but we could honor G-D so much more greatly if we did it ourselves-and of course it has the added benifit of having the problems fixed, just in case G-D is not real.

Messianists should believe like no one else that we should all love God above all and the other as ourselves. I'm sure that would solve about 80% of our problems. (it won't solve the erupting volcanos and the stupid mistakes we make by accident)

So I'd say: don't be pissed off too much

Immran Siddiqui

IMO, being the chosen people means that God will save you when the time comes. You have been chosen by God and that gets you in.

I think you mix up the concept of predestination with the people of God. I'm not sure if the Jews are automaticly saved. I don't think the New Testament gives any answers to that question. It's not our business anyway.

re: Protestantism & Enlightment - Setting in motion the chain of events to create the Enlightment and being responsible for the Enlightment are two vastly different things.

agreed.

Vessayen

Well Jesus preached brotherly love, which is a huge concept in Judaism.... there is a story where someone aproached the Rombom(a Jewish scholar... I think it was the Rombom) and he asks the Rombom to teach him the whole Torah while standing on one foot. The Rombom says "Love your brother as yourself, the rest is commentary"

The 2 commandments of Jesus are straight from the Old Testament.

We can not sustain ourselves? Then why even try?

Why would you only try to do good if it can sustain yourself? I want to do good because I got saved by Jesus.

Jon Miller

Everyone is saved through Jesus.

Even those (who are saved) that don't beleive in Him.

Karl Barth anyone
I'm sorry, but I disagree with you (though I hope you are right)

If God will fix the world and unfixed people will walk on it, then they will do evil again and corrupt the new world.
To the new world man will only have access if he's been renewed by God. And I believe that God can/will only renew those who want to be renewed.
Only those can access the new world who accept that God is god and man is man. That he's the one who's in charge.

But many have never heard of Jesus.. and most (I think including Ben, but I don't know as much about Catholics actually) think that those who haven't heard of Jesus are still given opportunities..

Jon Miller

It's not important if you hear of Jesus. Someone can understand that he himself is fallable and not able to live perfect, and have the desire to be renewed. Of course with different words, etc.
I think and hope that that'll be enough, but I'll gladly leave that up to God.

Vessayen

The group Jesus was a member of, the Aseens

Baseless hardly founded modern theologican theory that's almost believed by no one.

Arrian

someone else: We cannot sustain ourselves, we need God to help us.

Arrian: I disagree. In fact, I find this argument to be depressingly defeatist. Debating it, of course, is pointless.

Why do you disagree with it? Because it's depressing? Because it's defeatist?
We will all die! That's true, despite that it's depressingly defeatist.

If you disagree, why do you disagree that we can't sustain ourselves?

[Vesayen]

Judaism has a hell, but indeed, the entire concept of the afterlife is pretty vague. It is there though.
Daniel 12, Isaiah 66, Deuteronoium 32, Psalms 55 ie. describe hell.

Why don't you leave it to the Jews to decide what their religion is? It never ceases to amaze me what scriptual straws Christians grasp at to tell us Jews what OUR holy book says, when we have not even imagined it that way, for thousands of years. If you want to quote scripture, look it up and quote it for me to save me and everyone else some time and i'll respond more thoroughly.

So far we hardly disagreed
Only about the question if judaism has a hell. I think we disagree there, but you are wrong :P
Perhaps some parts of judaism interpert those passages that I listed different, which is possible, but the key-concept of hell can be based on the Old Testament.

Hell is NOT a Jewish concept. There is no hell in Judaism.

I am off to work, i'll respond in more detail in about 9 hours.

Why would you only try to do good if it can sustain yourself? I want to do good because I got saved by Jesus.

I meant why bother to try to improve the world, if there is no G-D? If the only reason to improve, is because of him? A defeatist attitude.

Baseless hardly founded modern theologican theory that's almost believed by no one.

So you attack the authority and not the merits? I'm not sure what circles you travel in but I've heard this from numerous respected scholars on the period and CHRISTIAN theologians....

[Vesayen]

What was his crime Vesayen?

He was either a revolutionary, or an idolator or broke other religious law-lets not forget the little scuffle in the market at the Temple?

There was enough breach of civil and religious law(which were mixed at the time) to have him executed. The Romans might of done it just for the #### he pulled in the Temple courtyard.

If you are the rulers of an important trade-crossroads land which has a bizzare religion and is almost constantly in revolt and some lunatic goes into the holiest place of this land and starts throwing around the tables of money changers..... what are you going to do?

Jesus was an ACTUAL criminal at the time, both to Roman and Judaen secular law and Judaen religious law.

When they Romans executed Jesus, he was just another criminal, they didn't see him as anything special....


As to the religious law, there are few violations which can result in the death penalty, though right after the diaspora started the first time, it became incredibly more difficult to EVER execute anyone.....

Claiming to be the son of G-D is idolotry(for Jews) and one of those executable offenses because G-D TOLD THEM SO. However there are also prescribed methods of death for different crimes and I am pretty sure that idolotry, is stoning. Jesus was not stoned so it was not a religious punishment. I'd chalk it up to the Romans for any of the laundry list of secular and quasi religious crimes he commited.

Now he could still be the son of G-D and christianity could still be right(even though I obviously disagree) but most Christians don't seem to ever consider the fact that Jesus WAS a criminal in the land he was in.

[Jon Miller]

Cybershy, anyone who is saved will be 'fixed'

JM