Is the need of salvation an evil lie from religions?
Is the need of salvation an evil lie from religions?
Some religions like Christianity and Islam teach that people are condemned by God and that we have to work to gain salvation. God created us ill, and orders us to be well, on pain of tremendous eternal torture and eventual death. This teaching follows the one where we are told that God is unknowable, unfathomable and works in mysterious ways. This makes the notions of condemnation and the need for salvation obvious lies.
Gnostic Christianity does not use this type of carrot and stick motivation in its theology. We are Universalists and only see a heaven, no hell. We think God too good a creator to ever have to condemn anyone. Our God is a winner, not the loser God that Christianity has invented. All the Gods are myths created to help us reach our highest human potential and are only tools to open our inner eye. Our single eye as Jesus calls it.
How we can forgive ourselves is that as Universalists, we have tied righteousness to equality. The logic trail from there says that if God is to punish anyone, he would have to punish everyone as everyone contributes to what we all are.
For instance. If God were to punish Hitler, he would have to revue what made Hitler what he ended up being. God would follow his time line and see perhaps that his parents spanked him and God would know what we know today, that spanking creates resentment and a delinquent attitude. That beginning would see Hitler's parents setting his mindset which eventually flowered into his tyrannical nature. So to be just, God would automatically have to punish Hitler's parents. That same logic would apply to everyone who contributed or facilitated Hitler's rise to infamy.
So for you and me to blame just ourselves for what we are would be quite unjust. This is not to say that we hold no responsibility for our actions, just not all of them.
Do you agree that the need of Salvation promoted by religions is an evil lie?
Re: Re: Is the need of salvation an evil lie from religions?
I agree but not the way you are thinking.
Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability in the fall by whipping out their favorite "free will!", or its all mans fault.
That is "God gave us free will and it was our free willed choices that caused our fall. Hence God is not blameworthy."
But this simply avoids God's culpability as the author of Human Nature. Free will is only the ability to choose. It is not an explanation why anyone would want to choose "A" or "B" (bad or good action). An explanation for why Eve would even have the nature of "being vulnerable to being easily swayed by a serpent" and "desiring to eat a forbidden fruit" must lie in the nature God gave Eve in the first place. Hence God is culpable for deliberately making humans with a nature-inclined-to-fall, and "free will" means nothing as a response to this problem.
If all sin by nature then, the sin nature is dominant. If not, we would have at least some who would not sin. That being the case, for God to punish us for following the instincts and natures he put in us would be quite wrong.
I agree that among Christian sects, the Gnostics have the healthiest view - no Hell for starters. And a lot of them believe in a High, True God Who exists in another realm or Pleroma, in a completely separate realm from Yahweh and other false, creator-gods. The Other Realm saves and enlightens the Gnostic and helps the adherent to pass through all the false worlds that stand between earth and the realm of the True, Alien God.
BTW, Does the OP know any books that have extensive research into Gnosticism?
Re: Is the need of salvation an evil lie from religions?
Yes, I agree.
I think that people have the capacity for good and evil, but humans are the way we have evolved to be through whatever force has guided us to where we are. Call it "God" or "Spirit" or "Life Force" or whatever. No condemnation or salvation is inherent in any way, shape, or form. I used to hate this phrase, but I think it actually is appropriate: "It is what it is."
Gender: Male Location: The Proud Nation of Kekistan
Speaking as a Christian Universalist, Hell is the most ****ed up part of traditional Christian theology.
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Re: Is the need of salvation an evil lie from religions?
I don't think so, but how would you go about determining what is and isn't evil? What precisely is "evil?" Can you demonstrate to us what evil is without using any form of relativism as support?
Nah, I'm pretty sure Christianity says nothing about needing to "work to gain salvation." It certainly suggests works are a result of faith, but that doesn't appear to be what you're saying here.
Lets assume all of the premises of Christianity are valid. How precisely, therefore, has God created us ill? Who tells us that exactly? A conclusion I assume will be supported in the next paragraph.
If by "Gnostic Christianity", you mean Christianity in which its adherents are sure of their faith, no, it doesn't. In fact, it teaches the opposite. It teaches how we benefit from these principals regardless of some heavenly reward. Ah, then you mean something besides what I'm thinking when I see the words "Gnostic Christianity."
A thought I'd have to strongly reject. Perhaps your intentions are good, but you make the mistake of subverting your own standards in place of God's and disregard clear aspects of his nature (such as his wrath and judgment). The author of morality and creator of existence makes the rules and has absolute dominion over his creation.
I'm not too knowledgeable of the various terms various groups make to describe themselves, but why label your group as "Gnostic Christians" if you reject Christianity? Help me out, bro! Our single eye is our heart. And frankly, it's 'openess" is merely dependent on one's willingness for it to be open.
If I might ask, how does everyone contribute to say . . . a group of aborigines who live on some island off the coast of Australia? Not trying to bash you or anything, but I just don't see how everyone could possibly contribute to what everyone else is. Nor do I believe that one can possibly reach their maximum potential without learning to be accountable for their own actions. It's bit of a limitation in my experience.
What exactly made Hitler what he ended up being? Sounded like vanity and envy to me. Something his victims most certainly weren't responsible for.
Lets go a step further. Why stop at just God? Why don't we apply to this standard to our judicial system? Perhaps the Sandusky coach child rapist would not have raped children had the people his own age responded better to his advances in his earlier years? Maybe they're the ones who need to be punished for not seeing what a swell guy the Sandusky coach and thus refusing to give him the time of day. Should we not have let him off the hook as opposed to sentencing him to a lengthy time in prison?
I disagree. You can put two people in the exact same position and the exact same circumstances and get two different results. Our universe is by no means bound to the confines determinism is actually quite 'random' as far as modern science is concerned. If the premises of Christianity hold, we all free will and are thus all accountable for own behavior.
Not at all. I've seen nothing in your post to support that conclusion. Even from a purely secular and hedonism standpoint, Salvation, even if a lie, is a fairly useful means of keeping communities in tact and a great way to discourage any unnecessary anarchy.
Re: Re: Re: Is the need of salvation an evil lie from religions?
"I agree but not the way you are thinking.
Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability in the fall by whipping out their favorite "free will!", or its all mans fault.
That is "God gave us free will and it was our free willed choices that caused our fall. Hence God is not blameworthy."
But this simply avoids God's culpability as the author of Human Nature. Free will is only the ability to choose. It is not an explanation why anyone would want to choose "A" or "B" (bad or good action). An explanation for why Eve would even have the nature of "being vulnerable to being easily swayed by a serpent" and "desiring to eat a forbidden fruit" must lie in the nature God gave Eve in the first place. Hence God is culpable for deliberately making humans with a nature-inclined-to-fall, and "free will" means nothing as a response to this problem.
If all sin by nature then, the sin nature is dominant. If not, we would have at least some who would not sin. That being the case, for God to punish us for following the instincts and natures he put in us would be quite wrong.
Regards
DL"
Eve wasn't "vulnerable to being easily swayed by a serpent," as you put it. But she did have the FREE WILL to CHOOSE to sin (if she wanted to). It was HER choice to sin, not the devil. The devil can only TEMPT, but he CANNOT make anyone DO anything. DESIRE is a capacity that God gave humans. It is a NORMAL ability that all of us have. There is nothing wrong with desire unless desire is for sin (which will separate him/her from God). For example, a person who wants to play team sports MUST submit to the head coach's rules. A player might be TEMPTED by some person who does not have their best interest at heart (such as a team rival who wants to take that player's starting position) to disobey the coach's rules. For whatever reason the temptation might be something that taps into the player's DESIRE (such as money, a gift, or whatever floats the player's boat). The player is not VULNERABLE to yielding to the temptation, but he/she is CAPABLE of yielding to it because of free will. Without free will CHOICE cannot exist. God VALUES free will because He values CHOICE. But choice does not come without consequences. You see, there are GOOD consequences to choices, and there are EVIL consequences to choices. There are POSITIVE results to choices, and there are NEGATIVE results to choices. In the above illustration, I set out to show that having a free will does not mean that a person is vulnerable to their choices, they are just FREE to make them. Free will DOES NOT EQUAL vulnerability, it equals CHOICE. Eve was FREE to CHOOSE to sin if she DESIRED to. But if SHE DIDN'T WANT the EVIL consequences and NEGATIVE results that came with her choice to sin, she could just as easily have received the GOOD consequences and POSITIVE results that came with the choice not to sin. Eve exercised her free will NEGATIVELY. In other words, Eve CHOSE to sin.
Eve's HUMAN NATURE is not to blame for HER WRONG CHOICE because she was MORALLY RIGHTEOUS (i.e. BLAMELESS or INNOCENT) in the eyes of God before CHOOSING TO SIN. What happened was Eve YIELDED HERSELF SERVANT TO OBEY SIN, and BECAME a SERVANT TO SIN, instead of servant to RIGHTEOUSNESS. There is a Scriptural principle that states,
Romans 6:16
Don't you know, that TO WHOM YOU ALL YIELD YOURSELVES SERVANTS TO OBEY, HIS SERVANTS YOU ALL ARE TO WHOM YOU ALL OBEY; whether of SIN UNTO DEATH, or of OBEDIENCE UNTO RIGHTEOUSNESS?
You become SERVANT TO OBEY the ENTITY (or PRINCIPLE) that you YIELD TO, be it the devil, drugs, pornography, alcohol, TV, social media, music, celebrities, video games or whatever the entity is. If you YIELD TO IT, you WILL become its SERVANT (good or bad depending on what you yield to and its TYPE OF INFLUENCE). The contrast is between yielding to SIN (which results in DEATH), or yielding to OBEDIENCE (which results in RIGHTEOUSNESS). That's it. Eve had nothing else to yield to. Eve's human nature was NOT a factor because she was a servant to RIGHTEOUSNESS. But let us for discussion sake say that Eve's human nature was a factor. If it was a factor, she would have had HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE in her favor because she was already a default SERVANT TO RIGHTEOUSNESS before CHOOSING to switch teams, so to speak. She was on the WINNING TEAM and then CHOSE by way of (her) free will to join the losing team, as it were. It is like having the football in your arms on the 1-yard line, and it is first down. You are playing at home. You are feeling good. The sun is shining, and everything FEELS right. Now, you have FOUR CHANCES to get the ball across the 1-yard line, but each time the ball is snapped, you turn and run in the opposite direction. After doing this four times in a row (as unrealistic as this illustration is) the other team gets the ball. On the first possession, they get the ball in the end zone, score 6 points, win the game, and walk of cheering. You had EVERYTHING in your favor but, INEXPLICABLY, CHOSE to put yourself and your team in an UNFAVORABLE situation just because you FELT like going the other way. You weren't easily swayed. You weren't vulnerable, and your human nature didn't have a thing to do with it. You just CHOSE to be stupid. It was the same thing with Eve. So, no matter how you look at it, Eve was to blame for the CHOICE that she made. Her human nature was not a factor, and if it was it was IN HER FAVOR. So, Eve is STILL to blame not God.
Last edited by JesusLovesYou on Jun 3rd, 2017 at 06:27 PM
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