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Normally, I don't tend to get involved in HN talks about religion/Christianity, but I'm going to make an exception this time. As someone who is a Christian (I d

Normally, I don't tend to get involved in HN talks about religion/Christianity, but I'm going to make an exception this time. As someone who is a Christian (I define as a "follower of Christ", not just as someone who follows some set of rules) I actually find the common misconception that "behaving badly" getting you thrown in Hell or "behaving well" gets you a ticket into Heaven to be one of the greatest, and saddest, misconceptions about what Christianity is. In fact, there is actually only a single requirement for getting into Heaven: deciding to accept a freely-given gift of forgiveness by deciding to follow Jesus. Before that point nothing you do can get you into Heaven, after that point nothing you do can take it away from you. It has absolutely nothing to do with doing good things or bad things, and I really, really wish this wasn't such a common misconception, because the reality is much more beautiful and simpler than that. Also saying that God isn't forgiving is an entirely other topic that means you haven't paid much attention to the Bible. The amount of times he decides to not destroy his (highly belligerent) people in the Old Testament is ridiculous, and the efforts put forward to grant forgiveness to anyone in the New Testament are unheard of in any other religious teaching. Which I'm glad about, because I am certainly a flawed, screwed up person that would never be able to earn my way into any kind of good afterlife otherwise. Sorry for the rant/preaching/whatever. Feel free to downvote me or whatever for getting into something off topic for HN, it's internet points so it doesn't matter much to me. I just really felt a need to point out some common misconceptions about something I deeply care about.

Domenic_S 10y ago
> after that point nothing you do can take it away from you Eternal security is a Calvinist view that is far from universally held.
- FreezerburnV 10y ago
  I probably phrased that badly/didn't fully expound upon what I meant there by just trying to hit a few main points that bother me. I'm not going to try and tackle anything complicated here, but merely state that once someone has decided to follow Jesus, assuming they continue to do so, their various sins from being a flawed being aren't going to take going to Heaven away from them, which is the entire point of grace. (and yes, I'm aware of "blaspheming the Holy Spirit", which to my knowledge nobody actually knows what that means or how you do that, and I'm deliberately leaving that out of my above statement to leave it simple)
virmundi 10y ago
Christianity is even odder than that, comparatively to the pretty much every other philosophy. You only need to repent (not that it's a small thing). That's it. The story of the prodigal son shows this. Total fuck up son gets accepted back just because he repents. Doesn't do anything. The father just accepts him. The legalistic, I-did-everything-for-you son didn't have to do the works. His works didn't matter. The father says everything I have is yours. The son's works didn't do shit. He could have enjoyed the benefits of son-ship, but didn't due to constraints he put on himself. I know of no other religion or philosophy that says you don't have to do anything. That explicitly says works don't matter for your salvation (you're supposed to do them, but they don't save you).
- eternalvision 10y ago
  I temporarily attended a "born-again" church at age 18, whose patrons partook in trying to harass me by being "empowered" with information about what they speculated was my private thought process. In other words, a patron tried to make it seem like they had a connection to "Jesus Christ" or "God" or whatever it's called, and used that against me to demonstrate what was ostensibly a "power" they had over me in reading my mind through their god. They did this by harassing me via looking at me during a sermon, and telling me what they thought was on my mind at the time from the perspective of a reaction by their god to my thought at that time channeled through them. This served absolutely to alienate me from Christianity. The same church strongly recommended to me that following Jesus Christ was more important than attending University. I've observed many other anecdotes suggesting there is a strong connection between Christian-empowered "do anything you want, you'll get your eternal golden box", and sitting on one's okole. Of course, the world contains a seemingly never ending series of contradicting beliefs. Observe Pope Francis warning certain groups of assured eternal torture, which is in conflict with the idea of "accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior just prior to death, and you will get into Heaven" belief system. Regarding Christianity or other belief systems that involve eternal torture for humans: The whole notion of eternal punishment as existing for at least one human being in a future offspring that a human partakes in creating is simply absurd, with logical consequences that go beyond acceptable public rational discussion for the future of humanity. Such discussion would perhaps best occur at the deepest levels of international security as it pertains to both our survival, and our protection from any type of eternal torture that could be possible by a higher intelligence. Although, if a higher intelligence wished to create/simulate life and torture it eternally, even human extinction from our perspective wouldn't serve to stop it. Thus, simulating universes truly does carry eternal responsibility. What's crazy is that this idea of religions as an underlying truth cannot really be proven or disproven, at least not for the current state of evolution for humanity. For instance, it's simply impossible to differentiate between a reality where Christianity is the truth, and a reality where a higher intelligence has control over reality of humans enough to make it impossible to know the higher intelligence is creating a complete perception of reality where Christianity (as part of this same example) is the truth. The human experiencing this would be unable to tell the difference. Ultimately, a human, with their limited perception, simply has to formulate their own beliefs about the nature of the reality which they are presented. There is no Trinity nor Morpheus to free your mind -- at least there hasn't been for me, personally. We are limited by our ability to perceive and fill in gaps on our short-term first-person experiences, coupled with whatever programming/information we receive from our parents. I'd like to believe I am not the only human to have a deep account of a reality containing signs of an enigmatic higher intelligence that seems very clearly to exist in this reality in some form or fashion. The existence of an intricate trail system of religion entrenched throughout our history speaks to this, truly. To me, the fascination lies in cracking the code via ever-improving scientific understanding of reality in a way that fits with my personal experience in this short life. It's not that I don't believe in Jesus Christ as a personal savior. Rather, I just believe that the reality I am presented is really happening, and I attempt to fill in the gaps to the best of my perceptive abilities, the same as every other human being. On a side note, I know of Christians that believe that "Jesus Christ stalks you". I find this to be dangerous dogma to spread, as it potentially empowers people or entities to stalk others. It justifies other malicious behaviors. It's extraordinarily dangerous to participate in stalking / harassing someone with the intent of trying to influence their belief system, because some people question the underlying nature of their reality and will easily misperceive any such stalking/harassment as a form of malice. These dangers have clear parallels to our centralized digital age. Sorry for the free form digression.

Domenic_S 10y ago

> after that point nothing you do can take it away from you Eternal security is a Calvinist view that is far from universally held.

FreezerburnV 10y ago
I probably phrased that badly/didn't fully expound upon what I meant there by just trying to hit a few main points that bother me. I'm not going to try and tackle anything complicated here, but merely state that once someone has decided to follow Jesus, assuming they continue to do so, their various sins from being a flawed being aren't going to take going to Heaven away from them, which is the entire point of grace. (and yes, I'm aware of "blaspheming the Holy Spirit", which to my knowledge nobody actually knows what that means or how you do that, and I'm deliberately leaving that out of my above statement to leave it simple)

virmundi 10y ago

Christianity is even odder than that, comparatively to the pretty much every other philosophy. You only need to repent (not that it's a small thing). That's it. The story of the prodigal son shows this. Total fuck up son gets accepted back just because he repents. Doesn't do anything. The father just accepts him. The legalistic, I-did-everything-for-you son didn't have to do the works. His works didn't matter. The father says everything I have is yours. The son's works didn't do shit. He could have enjoyed the benefits of son-ship, but didn't due to constraints he put on himself. I know of no other religion or philosophy that says you don't have to do anything. That explicitly says works don't matter for your salvation (you're supposed to do them, but they don't save you).

eternalvision 10y ago
I temporarily attended a "born-again" church at age 18, whose patrons partook in trying to harass me by being "empowered" with information about what they speculated was my private thought process. In other words, a patron tried to make it seem like they had a connection to "Jesus Christ" or "God" or whatever it's called, and used that against me to demonstrate what was ostensibly a "power" they had over me in reading my mind through their god. They did this by harassing me via looking at me during a sermon, and telling me what they thought was on my mind at the time from the perspective of a reaction by their god to my thought at that time channeled through them. This served absolutely to alienate me from Christianity. The same church strongly recommended to me that following Jesus Christ was more important than attending University. I've observed many other anecdotes suggesting there is a strong connection between Christian-empowered "do anything you want, you'll get your eternal golden box", and sitting on one's okole. Of course, the world contains a seemingly never ending series of contradicting beliefs. Observe Pope Francis warning certain groups of assured eternal torture, which is in conflict with the idea of "accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior just prior to death, and you will get into Heaven" belief system. Regarding Christianity or other belief systems that involve eternal torture for humans: The whole notion of eternal punishment as existing for at least one human being in a future offspring that a human partakes in creating is simply absurd, with logical consequences that go beyond acceptable public rational discussion for the future of humanity. Such discussion would perhaps best occur at the deepest levels of international security as it pertains to both our survival, and our protection from any type of eternal torture that could be possible by a higher intelligence. Although, if a higher intelligence wished to create/simulate life and torture it eternally, even human extinction from our perspective wouldn't serve to stop it. Thus, simulating universes truly does carry eternal responsibility. What's crazy is that this idea of religions as an underlying truth cannot really be proven or disproven, at least not for the current state of evolution for humanity. For instance, it's simply impossible to differentiate between a reality where Christianity is the truth, and a reality where a higher intelligence has control over reality of humans enough to make it impossible to know the higher intelligence is creating a complete perception of reality where Christianity (as part of this same example) is the truth. The human experiencing this would be unable to tell the difference. Ultimately, a human, with their limited perception, simply has to formulate their own beliefs about the nature of the reality which they are presented. There is no Trinity nor Morpheus to free your mind -- at least there hasn't been for me, personally. We are limited by our ability to perceive and fill in gaps on our short-term first-person experiences, coupled with whatever programming/information we receive from our parents. I'd like to believe I am not the only human to have a deep account of a reality containing signs of an enigmatic higher intelligence that seems very clearly to exist in this reality in some form or fashion. The existence of an intricate trail system of religion entrenched throughout our history speaks to this, truly. To me, the fascination lies in cracking the code via ever-improving scientific understanding of reality in a way that fits with my personal experience in this short life. It's not that I don't believe in Jesus Christ as a personal savior. Rather, I just believe that the reality I am presented is really happening, and I attempt to fill in the gaps to the best of my perceptive abilities, the same as every other human being. On a side note, I know of Christians that believe that "Jesus Christ stalks you". I find this to be dangerous dogma to spread, as it potentially empowers people or entities to stalk others. It justifies other malicious behaviors. It's extraordinarily dangerous to participate in stalking / harassing someone with the intent of trying to influence their belief system, because some people question the underlying nature of their reality and will easily misperceive any such stalking/harassment as a form of malice. These dangers have clear parallels to our centralized digital age. Sorry for the free form digression.