Are you telling me I have missed my generation and my calling? I could be having sex with my followers out in the Californian desert, man. Damn. I watched Easy Rider for the first time a few weeks ago too.
Could be. You sound a lot like the flower children that used to flourish in that magical decade.
But Easy Rider is crap. I could tell that even stoned.
True, but I don't know that the Orthodox are a sect, if that's what you mean - they're knid of, well, orthodox. And actually that idea has no levels at all, no heaven or hell, just everyone being in the presence of God.
Yeah, but some closer and some farther. It may not be a "quantum" thing, but definately stratified.
And I agree, "sect" is not the right word. Would "bent" be better? But then, who wants bent sects?
You've hung out with the wrong Xtians, then! When I was growing up I remember people saying that your bed was made in this life but that hasn't struck me as fair for a long time and I know quite a lot of Xtians who say the same as me.
I have lived all my life in the Bible Belt of the US, and though I know a lot of people from other parts of the world, most of the Christians I know are from my homeland. The Christians here would call you bad names and say you were trying to make God in your image. They'd much rather have God like he is supposed to be, in
their image.
I don't see 'repenting after death' as a discovering that one has got a fact wrong (God exists etc) but being caught up as one comes face to face with pure wonderful love; perhaps it is not so much that God judges us but our reaction to the full presence of the most wonderful thing possible that determines how we are.
It seems to me that the situation you describe is just another way of "discovering they were wrong", in this case, about the nature of God. But it still doesn't make any sense to me that such a nature would be revealed after death, when it could be just as easily revealed before. But then, the whole notion of life-after-death doesn't really make sense to me either, so obviously I am not the person to try to characterize what it should be like.
There are Xtian notions that someone might still reject God but who knows how after a time everyone's heart might be softened and warmed.
After a time? That's another concept that doesn't make any sense to me. Time in eternity. Like in the movie "Groundhog Day", if I knew I couldn't die, I'd probably try everything just to have some new experiences. Elsewise, I'd go outta my tree with boredom.
Xtians can go on about becoming a Xtian is the Golden Ticket to get you into heaven but I think that that is not what God is about. What one's character is like and how one treat's one's fellow man (one's neighbour), tending the sick, aiding the poor, fighting injustice is what it is about (remember the OT prophets had a real downer on people who mouthed words, carried out sacrifices, but who were hypocrits - God really isn't fond of hypocrisy).
I agree with almost everything you've said, except that it doesn't have anything to do with Christianity.
Anybody can do that. Like you, I think any God worthy of my respect would care more about goodness than He would about making sure you say the right words in mass, but where does Christ come into the picture? You are describing a humanist more than a Christian. (Not that that's bad...
)
I have not done masses of thinking about what the afterlife is like because I find it difficult to get my mind round it. Good qs. I think the idea of purgatory addresses something of this but I don't know. And, sure, it is no reason to believe that there is an afterlife if you don't think there is one in the first place, but it makes the idea that God is loving and just a bit more plausible!
You are a very difficult person to argue with, because I keep agreeing with you. But I'll keep working at it. Okay, how about this.
Why would you need something to make the idea of a loving God more plausible? It's almost like advertising, slick and sexy, but not real. Why is it necessary for Christians to "sell" Christ? The product should speak for itself.
He he. I have studied Philosophy and Theology and English and I find that the more time I spend here the more my mind works in an academic way and I like using and playing with words, and if they happen to be more accurate words pertinent to the discussion then I will pop them in, especially if people ridicule simplified Xtian ideas and then think they have just dismissed Xtianity I will chuck in these more complex notions and terms. Hey, I'm human.
You are indeed a sneaky bastard, playing on my logophilia.
But your ideas, while not at all simple, just don't sound Christian to me. It is almost like you have built a great philosophy and at the last minute you just slapped on a Jesus logo because you figured it gave you respectability. I gotta ask, "why?"
Unfortunately it is an all too common failing in us, to accept that we might be wrong.
I think you meant to say that the failing was "to refuse to accept that we might be wrong."
But I might be wrong.
. I certainly wasn't expecting to get this out of the thread. Cheers.
