Questions for Christians

[lolwhatzdrugs]

Please answer the following questions. I'm curious about the responses and any variation.

Is it possible to get to heaven without ever going to church?

Is it possible to not get in going every day?

Is it possible to get into heaven if you don't consider yourself a Christian because the bible is hearsay, but would if you had the proof Thomas got, as you agree with his Morals (as opposed to the Old Testament's stone them to death for blinking too much)?

One of my problems with modern Christianity is the emphasis on orthodoxy (what you believe) over orthopraxy (what you do). In my opinion, this emphasis spawns a certain hypocrisy I have seen commonly in Christians who when Christ warns about throwing the first stone or before you talk about the splinter in another's eyes pluck the board out of your own, they seem not to care, Christian monarchs, hell the Catholic Church as persecuted for millennia! Why these disconnects?

 

[rickolasnice]

According to most Christians.. No You are not going to heaven..

Others will say you will..

To get into heaven you need to live like Jesus, love Jesus more than your family and not believe in any other God.. And other things..

 

[7ca5p]

I'd like to add to the OP.

- Where is the human soul? And why is there no evidence of any such thing? If our personality and memories and all personal data are stored in a soul, how come neurological diseases and injuries often drastically alter a persons personality, attitude, and memories? This is a huge evidential point against those who believe that they are somehow 'more' than their physical body.

- Furthermore, when you supposedly go to Heaven, what age are you? If you die at age 18 months then are you 18 Months for eternity? If you die at age 90 do you spend eternity with crippling health conditions? Either of these supposed 'Heaven' scenarios sound exactly like my idea of Hell, especially the latter.

 

[corinth113]

I'm not a Christian anymore, but I grew up as one (and believe me, that's putting it mildly), so I'd like to have a go at your questions.

"Is it possible to get to heaven without ever going to church?"
Yes. According to the Bible, the only way someone will get to heaven is by accepting Christ as their savior for their sins--good deeds, including going to church, won't save a person in and of themselves. Fellowship is still very important, but even then, Matthew 18:20 says that where two or three are gathered in his name, there he is with them. In my own opinion, "church" is a human organization meant to facilitate the spiritual concept of "fellowship" among like-minded individuals.

"Is it possible to not get in going every day?"
Is this still in regards to church? If so, I think it's safe to say that most people definitely don't go every day. I went four times a week when I was a Christian and that was probably more than twice as much as most people.

"Is it possible to get into heaven if you don't consider yourself a Christian because the bible is hearsay, but would if you had the proof Thomas got, as you agree with his Morals (as opposed to the Old Testament's stone them to death for blinking too much)?"
I guess it depends on what you consider heaven. No, but seriously, if you don't consider yourself a Christian, but you die and go to a land of eternal paradise, it probably just means Christianity was wrong about the part that says "only Christians will go to heaven." However, let's say that all Christians were right and you can only get to heaven by accepting Christ (John 14:6), then you wouldn't go to heaven.

I'm not sure I understand the second part of your question though. What I can say is this: most Christians believe that there is a defining moment in your life when you see the truth (even if it is momentarily) and from that point on, you are responsible if you choose to ignore it and bypass "salvation" through Christ.

"One of my problems with modern Christianity is the emphasis on orthodoxy (what you believe) over orthopraxy (what you do). In my opinion, this emphasis spawns a certain hypocrisy I have seen commonly in Christians who when Christ warns about throwing the first stone or before you talk about the splinter in another's eyes pluck the board out of your own, they seem not to care, Christian monarchs, hell the Catholic Church as persecuted for millennia! Why these disconnects?"

I totally understand your concern over beliefs vs. action. While the only way to reach salvation (according to the Bible) is to accept Christ, many people forget that their actions have to match their decision to follow him. When Christ picked his disciples, they left their jobs to follow him. They didn't just accept him as Christ and continue on living life the way they had. A lot of Christians that think it's enough to say they accept Christ as their savior forget that they are also making a commitment to live their lives from then on according to how he would've done it--with love for God and others.

I believe the disconnects are there because people want to argue over dogmas instead of practicing love and acceptance. They forget 1 Corinthians 8:13--if a fellow Christian thinks it's a sin to eat meat, don't eat meat in front of them. In other words, if a fellow Christian thinks something is a sin that you don't think is a sin, just don't do it in front of them so as not to cause them to sin by judging you.

On top of that, there are probably a lot of political inner workings within various churches that cause them to forget the main reason they're there in the first place--to promote the practices and teachings of Christ (all centered on love--not on being holy...or making money).

Hope this helps!!

 

[Shrooms00087]

Please answer the following questions. I'm curious about the responses and any variation.

Is it possible to get to heaven without ever going to church?

What's a church? It's just a building that structures lessons for the day. It's grandiose meditation. Heaven, Purgatory, Hell these are just words that, I think, define the perception of your immediate condition. You can be in Hell one day and Heaven the next.

Is it possible to not get in [Heaven] going [to church] every day?

Depends on if you need church/meditation.

Is it possible to get into heaven if you don't consider yourself a Christian because the bible is hearsay, but would if you had the proof Thomas got, as you agree with his Morals (as opposed to the Old Testament's stone them to death for blinking too much)?

I'd say you'd be closest to Heaven being a Buddhist 'atheist'.

One of my problems with modern Christianity is the emphasis on orthodoxy (what you believe) over orthopraxy (what you do). In my opinion, this emphasis spawns a certain hypocrisy I have seen commonly in Christians who when Christ warns about throwing the first stone or before you talk about the splinter in another's eyes pluck the board out of your own, they seem not to care, Christian monarchs, hell the Catholic Church as persecuted for millennia! Why these disconnects?

I'd say this is a problem of most institutional churches. Which I think could stem from the need to pass the gold tip plate around. Religion has become less about being in awe, belief. As well as carrying less responsibility for the believer with the stipulation being, "well as long as you believe it's fine".

Foot note: I think eternity is best defined as nothingness; the same state your consciousness came from. Once you physically die eternity is the abysmal atheist conception of nothingness while the Kingdom/civilization remains, your body dies.

 

[Foreigner]

- Where is the human soul? And why is there no evidence of any such thing? If our personality and memories and all personal data are stored in a soul, how come neurological diseases and injuries often drastically alter a persons personality, attitude, and memories? This is a huge evidential point against those who believe that they are somehow 'more' than their physical body.

Not really. We know that the brain is definitely part of consciousness, but for all we know the brain is the physical component required for the soul to interface. When the brain is damaged, the physical means for interfacing is damaged and the soul cannot connect.

It's akin to the radio signal and the radio. The radio announcer is not in the radio. If you damage the radio, the signal cannot be properly received, but that does not mean the signal stops transmitting.

The brain and the soul could work in this way. I'm not saying it's for sure this way, I'm just pointing out that changes in personality as a result of brain damage do not discount the soul whatsoever.

 

[7ca5p]

Not really. We know that the brain is definitely part of consciousness, but for all we know the brain is the physical component required for the soul to interface. When the brain is damaged, the physical means for interfacing is damaged and the soul cannot connect.

It's akin to the radio signal and the radio. The radio announcer is not in the radio. If you damage the radio, the signal cannot be properly received, but that does not mean the signal stops transmitting.

The brain and the soul could work in this way. I'm not saying it's for sure this way, I'm just pointing out that changes in personality as a result of brain damage do not discount the soul whatsoever.

Well I must say that is an extremely far-fetched and overly elaborate hypothesis, and requires a huge amount belief without evidence.

So much for Occam's razor eh?

What is this soul made of exactly? Where is it positioned? How is it measured? Why does it not show up on X-Ray scans, Ultra Sound scans, CAT Scans, or nMRI scans?

 

[ancientwreck]

Please answer the following questions. I'm curious about the responses and any variation.

Is it possible to get to heaven without ever going to church?

Absolutely. Church and faith are related, but faith is what you need, not church.

Is it possible to not get in going every day?

Absolutely. To paraphrase, God judges us by what is in our hearts. The specific example in scripture is the story that Jesus tells of tax collector, a symbol of the most reviled low life of the time, collaborating with the occupier and skimming receipts off the top, kneeling in the temple, praying and crying and wailing with all his heart. Then, there is the Pharisee, an upstanding member of the congregation who follows all the etiquette, rituals and behaviors, looking down his nose at the spectacle: yet he is the one less in favor with God, because he concentrates on what is superficial.

Is it possible to get into heaven if you don't consider yourself a Christian because the bible is hearsay, but would if you had the proof Thomas got, as you agree with his Morals (as opposed to the Old Testament's stone them to death for blinking too much)?

See the above. God is love, you are "judged" for what is in your heart. When you have faith, you don't fret about "getting into heaven", because what you want is to really meet God and tell him how much you love him. That sounds snotty, but it is a personal feeling and I'm using only a few words.

One of my problems with modern Christianity is the emphasis on orthodoxy (what you believe) over orthopraxy (what you do). In my opinion, this emphasis spawns a certain hypocrisy I have seen commonly in Christians who when Christ warns about throwing the first stone or before you talk about the splinter in another's eyes pluck the board out of your own, they seem not to care, Christian monarchs, hell the Catholic Church as persecuted for millennia! Why these disconnects?

Again, and it is maybe an odd thing to say, but you can't confuse church with God, and religion with faith, and a religious organization, no matter how large and powerful, with the will of God. But I get what you are saying: there are some very hypocritical people who wrap themselves in populist Christian rhetoric. The stereotype of judgemental, gossiping church ladies has more than a little truth to it.

 

[Foreigner]

Well I must say that is an extremely far-fetched and overly elaborate hypothesis, and requires a huge amount belief without evidence.

So much for Occam's razor eh?

I think it's presumptuous to apply Occam's razor to something as complicated as consciousness, when we still aren't even sure what it is.

Also, it's not that there is no evidence, it's that the evidence cannot be repeated in a laboratory setting according to the criteria of modern science. There is a lot of circumstantial and anecdotal evidence to give one pause about this question.

What is this soul made of exactly? Where is it positioned? How is it measured? Why does it not show up on X-Ray scans, Ultra Sound scans, CAT Scans, or nMRI scans?

I don't have the answers to these questions, but that doesn't automatically mean the soul does not exist.

It's my assumption that if the soul exists, then it's likely non-material yet somehow interfaces with the material body. That would at least correlate with human history's belief about it.

 

[Belisarius]

1.) Christians are fond of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy when it comes to bad eggs.
2.) Having lived with evangelicals and others my whole life, I can tell you that they're as perplexed by the Bible as everyone else. The only responses are to either sweep the weirdness under the rug, or to reach bizarre conclusions where they clearly try to square the circle. I once sat in on a study group that spent the whole hour or so trying to explain why the Israelites' massacres of the Canaanites was morally justified. The leader of the group concluded that it was justified because God knew they were damned anyway--a decidedly un-Christian and Chingiz Khan way of looking at things.
3.) The "works versus faith" problem goes all the way back to Martin Luther himself, and perhaps to St. Augustine's day, depending on how broadly you want to define it. The American stripe of Protestantism (and of course, their "nondenominational" cousins) fall firmly in the second camp, which means (IME) that your salvation literally is between you and God. It frees them from a perhaps stifling clerical hierarchy, at the cost of being free to be a douche as long as you get right with God in your own time.

 

[rickolasnice]

Foreigner..

Do you believe in a soul? If so; why?

 

[Foreigner]

Do you believe in a soul?

I don't know.

 

[rickolasnice]

Do you believe in fairies?

 

[Foreigner]

Do you believe in fairies?

I haven't seen any, so I would have to say no. Why are you asking me these things?

 

[rickolasnice]

No evidence for fairies.. no reason to believe in them.. No evidence for souls.. so?

 

[bunnymunro]

What puzzles me is "why am I me and why am I not you?"
OK can brush that off with the term Ego, but then why do you have your sense of identity and what is it that makes it unique to you?
This isn't a chemical reaction, it is something that I cannot explain as anything other than a soul.
Whether that particular soul remains with us throughout eternity or whatever is open to debate, but it would sort of make sense, or else we could just be mindless clones of mythical adam.

 

[Thorns Have Roses]

I'm not religious, but I am interested in religion in general. And Jesus' answer on how to live meaningfully/try to save the world is the best I've come across.

Please answer the following questions. I'm curious about the responses and any variation.

Is it possible to get to heaven without ever going to church?
Is it possible to not get in going every day?

Yes, I think the theology supports this.

Is it possible to get into heaven if you don't consider yourself a Christian because the bible is hearsay, but would if you had the proof Thomas got, as you agree with his Morals (as opposed to the Old Testament's stone them to death for blinking too much)?

There's one theory that the Gospel of John was really just a counter-argument to the Gospel of Thomas, in which case John's author would say fuck no. Along with this is the old Jewish belief that following G-d's commandments because He said so is better than doing so because you reason that those commandments are the ethical option. That's not to say you can't make a case for the contrary, people have and do, don't recall the exact supporting verses at the moment though.

"why am I me and why am I not you?"

Genetics and personal experience, i.e. nature & nurture.

 

[Foreigner]

No evidence for fairies.. no reason to believe in them.. No evidence for souls.. so?

Depends on what your requirement for evidence is. Fairies are one thing, but the idea of a soul is quite another, especially since it's a universal idea among all humans globally, unlike fairies. Not to mention there is a real vested interest in knowing the true nature of our consciousness and its origins in space and time, something that is still hotly debated. To me your fairy analogy is a non-sequitur.

 

[Ninae]

Your question is very material, i.e. it demands material proof to believe something exists, which is kind of the opposite of spirituality.

While the soul is something that is supposed to live on after our death and have eternal life. We still have no real way of prooving the existence of anything material, either for or against, it's more something that has to be felt with your spiritual senses. Like, you can "feel" the presence of different people, their individuality, etc. I think this is the only "proof" we have to rely on about these things so far.

I can only think about my own experience of "finding God" and religion and all those things. It was exactly like falling in love, or to me, it felt just as real as that. So I pretty much just trust my own senses. But before I'd had any strong, personal religious experience, and it was still only words to me, it didn't make any sense to me, either, and I found that a convenient excuse.

 

[Thorns Have Roses]

While the soul is something that is supposed to live on after our death and have eternal life

Not in some Christian denominations, see annihilationism.