Well then, perhaps its time for a new revelation of the Word. The Gospel of Vortigern99, a Modern-day Saint.
New revelation never works. The best technique is to present whatever you are
saying/doing/going to do, as a return to an original teaching that was somehow lost through time; only heretics are foolish enough to propose something
new.
Let's not be absurd. I am an agnostic, I am not "revealing" anything new here, and I certainly do not accept the miracles attributed to Christ or God or any biblical personage, except perhaps in a purely metaphorical sense. As such, I could never be a religious leader or teacher, and I'm not trying to impose myself as such.
I do, however, perceive that I am calling attention to an often-overlooked passage which, when taken with the assertion that "God is loving and merciful", shows that, according to Christian theology, Christ must repeat "His" descent to Hell/Hades/Sheol/the grave/"the spirit prison" for every person, like those he rescued in 1 Peter, who otherwise escaped His teachings during life. (Please see my post at 2:57 August 06, upthread, for further clarification of this point.)
JThe problem I have with the notion of the dead being ministered to is that it makes the purpose of this life redundant. If we can choose Jesus after we die and go to hell, well why not?
I've read the first sentence several times and I'm still having trouble understanding it. What do you mean "it makes the purpose of this life redundant"? In what way is life rendered "redundant" if Christ ministers to those dead who escaped his teachings during life? As to your second sentence: Exactly.
So here's an example of how useless it would be.
You die and discover oops, you were wrong - there is an afterlife and you have a choice. On one side are some fluffy clouds with choirs of annoying JW's and Mormons singing the latest David Archelutta song. An electric Jesus is waving at you. Someone is selling Jesus shapped toast. You see an image of the Virgin Mary on the sidewalk.
On the other side is an old white gate and an old guy in a guardhouse with a large key. Can't see beyond but it looks dreary.
Now we all know what we would pick - run for the choir!
You've certainly created an unorthodox and unprecedented dilemma here. According to your proposition, our choices at death will be 1) to join an "electric Jesus" and "annoying [Christians]" in a choir of questionable musical taste, OR 2) to go past an "old guy" into a "dreary", nondescript sort of place with a guardhouse.
Where are you deriving that nonsense? What scriptural passages indicate that such a silly choice will be put before us? What preacher, priest, rabbi or pastor has been feeding you this baloney? And why do you feel that "we all know what we would pick - run for the choir!" -- a choir you've described as being populated by annoying persons? "Electric Jesus", indeed.
[1]How would that be any different than what we would pick while alive? Would we suddenly start making smarter choices?
[2]So all the atheists, discovering they were wrong, run toward the choirs - and find out it, well, it is hell. Should have read their bible to know about those pearly gates... [3]So what's the point?
[1] Because, if we are ministered to by the disembodied spirit of Christ himself after our own bodies have died, then we shall have proof positive of the reality of His word and His existence. In life, all we have is the say-so of fallible human beings and an error-ridden, contradictory book.
[2]Ah, now I see you were establishing the "annoying" choir (populated by Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses) as being in truth Hell, an illusion and deception designed to entice us into the lake of fire.
God: what a kidder, huh? As for me, I reject that the loving, merciful God promised in the Bible would either "Himself" create such a heinous deception, or that "He" would permit a lesser spirit (namely Satan) to create it to the detriment of trillions of misguided souls. That hateful theology simply does not wash.
[3] The point is: Justice. Fairness. Mercy. Love. Accountability. If God created us with the skeptical machinery of our minds intact, along with all our various errors and weaknesses, then "He" knew that trillions of us throughout time would reject the "Holy Writings" proposed by other, fallible human beings as baloney, delusion, myth-making, horse-hockey.
To damn us to eternal suffering because we have employed the critical faculties of thought
with which "He" supposedly imbued us is unfair, unjust, unloving, unmerciful, and therefore wholly at odds with the biblical proposition that "God is loving and kind".
The only religious solution to this contradiction is suggested in 1 Peter and elsewhere: Christ comes to us after death and shows us He's the real deal. The ravings of street-corner evangelists and Internet missionaries are thereby rendered unessential to our salvation.
