Every person, every group, every organization has the potential to suck and suck hard, to do evil things, to destroy the lives of others. They don't even have to do these things knowingly or willingly; they could have the best of intentions and still screw someone over hard. They could be trying to do what they think is the right thing and still do more harm than good. And, ultimately, that's what counts. The end result of one's attempted good is what they should be judged on regardless of what mindset they adhere to. If someone tries to follow God's words and does so by volunteering at a soup kitchen, good on them, regardless of if they're Christian, Muslim, Jewish, whatever. If someone tries to do what's right and does so by helping donate supplies to a school, good on them, regardless of if they're atheist, agnostic, pagan, whatever. If someone tries to do what they think is good and it involves proactively seeking out and harming others, lock 'em up. I don't what they say they are or what they really are; lock 'em up. It doesn't matter what tag someone places on themself; if they're helping, let them help, and if they're not, call them out on it. I believe that, ultimately, there is indeed one standard to be lived up to. But not everyone is going to get there during this life, and a fair number of people will never even know it's there. But guess what? Everyone still has the capacity to be good and to do good, and I believe that those who do good will be rewarded in the end. Period. You can't cherry-pick historical examples of your religion/ethnicity/group. The Mountain Meadows Massacre was perpetrated by Mormons. The Danites in Missouri conducting revenge raids were Mormons. For whatever our reputation apparently is now, you really don't have to look far to find freaks and jerks and murderers and robbers in Mormon history. I'm sorry that that's true, but, well, it's true, and I can't do much about it. The people who enacted those wrongs did not live up to the standard the LDS church sets for it's members, but those people were still members when they committed those crimes. The people down in the polygamist towns claim to be the true body of Mormons. I disagree with this, but guess what? They trumpet their position regardless of my will, and as a result some people conflate our two groups. So even though we don't consider them Mormons, some other people do, and that to a degree makes them our problem still. Now I'm sure many of you would disagree with polygamy on any level, and that's fine. But I'd like to say that what they're doing and what we did are not the same things. Back when polygamy was still practiced by the main body of the LDS church, fewer than half of the married men had multiple wives. It wasn't a way to divvy up every available warm body. It was a way to basically take care of widows and women who were left unmarried by the unbalanced gender ratio. If you think that's wrong, fine. Just know that there's a distinction to be had there even if you condemn both mindsets. Anyway.
Only Siths deal in absolutes. My best friend is a go-to-church-every-Sunday Christrian. I make myself accountable to him as well as my wife, another go-to-church-every-Sunday Christrian. In fact, I make myself accountable to total strangers when what they desire is totally rational: i.e. not turfing their lawns, kicking their dogs, or lieing about them behind their backs. Get it. They can desire for me all they want to believe in God. But I said rational. That's the key, junior.
So clearly Janet Reno did the right thing by trying to burn Koresh as a witch. Auto da fes are making a come back in Stilton land. Demons, I tell, you demons!!!!
how very clever of you. iirc, i said that i thought the FBI overreacted against the Branch Davidians. we would like to think crazy, bunkered-in people don't have to be torched.
this may be entirely true. the follow-up question is: by whom will they be rewarded and in what manner? i don't have any quibble with the idea that people's lives will be evaluated on the basis of their actions, but unless you don't believe in a heaven and a hell, the reward for good behavior doesn't matter much. what difference does it make in the long run how you behave if there's no heaven or hell? tell you what: you believe that people will be rewarded for what good they do. put your stock in that pot. but if you're totally off base on that account, are you willing to bear the penalty for their error? would it not be more correct to say that there is an ultimate judge of our behavior, and that judge will determine how we will be dealt with. that judge determines the standard by which we will be evaluated, and that judge will decide our fate, not on the basis of the standard we set for ourselves or the standard we think is fair. if this paradigm is false, then you can believe what you prefer, without concern for the consequences. but if there is a holy God, holy and just and merciful, beyond our criticism and rational examination, a god who sent his unique son to be the one mediator between himself and ourselves, then we must -- again, must -- know him and what he wills for us.
Who cares? What's wrong with being a good boy for the sake of being a good boy? Why do you have to have daddy promise you a trip to the candy store? See my comment above. What's the penalty? Do you really think that if I live my life being basically a good guy, that when I die and there does happen to be some form of afterlife that the person running that place is going to be pissed off because I was a nice guy, but I wasn't nice in his name? But if he is so just and merciful, don't you think he's going to judge people on their actions and not on which version of the story they believe in?
Or perhaps our deficient American educations. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NGQwMDgyMmZlNTFkY2RkZjMxNzhiYzQ0OTQzOWVhYWU=
I would like to interject here and state again that I think good people will be justly rewarded, and that there's also an ultimate standard to be held to. One needs to be good to the best of their ability; not everyone at any given time has the capacity or the knowledge to be totally, completely, 100%-according-to-the-will-of-God good. Think of the parable of the talents...one guy started with five, another with two, and the third with one. The first wound up with ten, and the second with four. That's not an even playing field...because that's not how life is. Not everyone has the same advantages or abilities. But so long as you're as good as you can be, even if you've never heard of God, or even if you were raised and lived your entire life in a Muslim society, or a pagan society, or a Catholic society, with no interaction with any other given religion, you can still be a good person and will be judged according to what good you've done. And I believe that eventually everyone will have the chance to adhere to God's ultimate standard, that there really is one version of the story, and that it is indeed necessary to follow it gain the greatest of God's rewards. But not everyone has the chance to know or understand that during their life.
There is no difference between a standard you set for yourself an done that "we" think is fair. They are both standards you set for yourself. I don't think there is any magic to "one judge" or "10,000" judges. The point is that you are creating an artificial standard. God may indeed have a standard, but he's picked a pretty crappy way of telling us what that standard is. So an equally -- no, a more logical -- idea is that we either cannot understand the "judgmental factors" or God may simple be a moral being who loves his children, and all the rules and judgments are an elaborate hoax. The last thing God may want us to do is to think about judgments and rewards He may just want us to do our best to be like Jesus, although perhaps less of a moocher. Which is exactly what people try to do, and exactly why judgmental Christians are a huge hinderance to the message.
Yeah, but dude, your God isn't going to reward me with hookers and beer, so um, thanks but no thanks.
Of course it does. Might does not make right, not even ultimate might. As Yul Brenner once said, it is better to die in battle with god than to live in shame.
I think if you read the Old Testament, you'll find out that no, it doesn't matter. God's got His thing going and it really, really, really, really, really doesn't matter what we think of it. It's for Him to know and for us to find out.
If you read the OT, you'll also find that you have to wear fringes on the four corners of your garment and you cannot blend fabrics or you're willfully disobeying a direct commandment of The Lord and are therefore going right to Hell. Have all your clothes passed the shatness test, AM?
a). you know what God's standard is. b). if you think his way of telling us is crappy, what would be a better way?
if you read the NT, you know that Jesus fulfilled the Law. if you trust him, his fulfillment of the law accrues to you as perfect righteousness, and you can wear polyester and hemp.
Then how come when so-called "Christians" want to support something that is clearly against the ethic that the NT claims was taught by Jesus, they always quote the OT? Well, when they're not quoting Saul's most OT-resembling passages, that is.