I was reading something about...

[Tellyontellyon]

I was reading something about Susan Atkins, she was one of the followers of Charles Manson.
After murdering Sharon Tate, and her unborn baby, she went to prison for the rest of her life.
While in prison she found God and became a Christian and helped many of the other prisoners.
I'm not sure about Sharon Tate.... Do you think she will go to heaven? And what about the unborn baby....
What about other children who were raped and murdered... How many of the kids end up in hell when their killers get a second chance to find God....

These are extreme examples, but these things do happen. Hitler was evil, but how many of his victims can go to heaven... Their suffering will be increased beyond all imagination and will last forever... This seems very odd to me.

I'm a Buddhist and used to the idea of Karma.... You plant a seed (an intentional act) and it ripens (happiness or suffering)..... mainly through conditioning how you perceive reality.

I find this a real stumbling block in seeing Christianity as reasonable and just. How do you reconcile this with your conscience?

 

[bèlla]

I don't know. That was a gruesome crime. I was a child when it happened.

I remember watching the Patti Hearst story and seeing the things they did to her. I'm a mother. It hurt my soul. I can't fathom Manson and the others. That's my baby. My precious possession. My heart grieves for her family.

It's too much Telly. I know my limits.

~bella

 

[Mark Quayle]

I was reading something about Susan Atkins, she was one of the followers of Charles Manson.
After murdering Sharon Tate, and her unborn baby, she went to prison for the rest of her life.
While in prison she found God and became a Christian and helped many of the other prisoners.
I'm not sure about Sharon Tate.... Do you think she will go to heaven? And what about the unborn baby....
What about other children who were raped and murdered... How many of the kids end up in hell when their killers get a second chance to find God....

These are extreme examples, but these things do happen. Hitler was evil, but how many of his victims can go to heaven... Their suffering will be increased beyond all imagination and will last forever... This seems very odd to me.

I'm a Buddhist and used to the idea of Karma.... You plant a seed (an intentional act) and it ripens (happiness or suffering)..... mainly through conditioning how you perceive reality.

I find this a real stumbling block in seeing Christianity as reasonable and just. How do you reconcile this with your conscience?

You seem to be operating on a few misapprehensions of what Christianity teaches —or at least of what the Bible says. Understand this: that logically, God would have no reason to even bother to create, if he was unjust. We can be sure he will be altogether just. Precisely just and thorough.

 

[Sketcher]

I was reading something about Susan Atkins, she was one of the followers of Charles Manson.
After murdering Sharon Tate, and her unborn baby, she went to prison for the rest of her life.
While in prison she found God and became a Christian and helped many of the other prisoners.
I'm not sure about Sharon Tate.... Do you think she will go to heaven? And what about the unborn baby....
What about other children who were raped and murdered... How many of the kids end up in hell when their killers get a second chance to find God....

These are extreme examples, but these things do happen. Hitler was evil, but how many of his victims can go to heaven... Their suffering will be increased beyond all imagination and will last forever... This seems very odd to me.

I'm a Buddhist and used to the idea of Karma.... You plant a seed (an intentional act) and it ripens (happiness or suffering)..... mainly through conditioning how you perceive reality.

I find this a real stumbling block in seeing Christianity as reasonable and just. How do you reconcile this with your conscience?

What I remember is that God has more skin in that game than I do. God set up Hell and the parameters by which people will go there. Yet, he provided an amnesty plan for any who believe in Jesus and what he did, and who follow him to escape it.

I do not know how many chances Sharon Tate got in her life to receive this. I do not know how many chances she or her children got in the last moments of their lives, or if there was one after death or not. If there was one after death, I believe it will be a fair chance - people who receive it wouldn't necessarily have an incredible advantage over those who had that chance in this life. Jesus preached to crowds on Earth and did miracles before them. Some believed and some did not. If there's a chance after this life, I believe it would be similar. But the Bible doesn't tell us for sure that this chance exists.

It is just as well for us, because it is to motivate us to do our utmost with the chances that we are given to receive what Jesus has done for us, and to do what he has told us to do.

As to fairness, none of this is really fair. Christianity is predicated on mercy, which by definition isn't fair. Is it also unfair that the children were thusly killed? Of course it is. Life isn't fair.

 

[~Anastasia~]

First I would say that it isn’t up to us to say who might be condemned. That judgement belongs to Christ alone. We can’t know a person’s heart or repentance (true or not).

Secondly - God desires for all to be saved and is merciful. While some types of Christianity have a limited view of salvation, others trust in the ability of a merciful God to do as He wills. We trust in His mercy on the souls of infants and children - especially those who have been brutalized.

It’s not as though His hands are tied by some cosmic law that is above His will.

I was reading something about Susan Atkins, she was one of the followers of Charles Manson.
After murdering Sharon Tate, and her unborn baby, she went to prison for the rest of her life.
While in prison she found God and became a Christian and helped many of the other prisoners.
I'm not sure about Sharon Tate.... Do you think she will go to heaven? And what about the unborn baby....
What about other children who were raped and murdered... How many of the kids end up in hell when their killers get a second chance to find God....

These are extreme examples, but these things do happen. Hitler was evil, but how many of his victims can go to heaven... Their suffering will be increased beyond all imagination and will last forever... This seems very odd to me.

I'm a Buddhist and used to the idea of Karma.... You plant a seed (an intentional act) and it ripens (happiness or suffering)..... mainly through conditioning how you perceive reality.

I find this a real stumbling block in seeing Christianity as reasonable and just. How do you reconcile this with your conscience?

 

[Tolworth John]

You plant a seed (an intentional act) and it ripens (happiness or suffering)..... mainly through conditioning how you perceive reality.

I find this a real stumbling block in seeing Christianity as reasonable and just

Just by whose standard?
You used the example of aborted babies. What intentional deeds had they done to deserve death?
In reincarnation there is no conscious knowledge of a previous life so it is the deeds of an unknown person that rewards or punishes one! is that just?

A perfect God with perfect knowledge of ones motives and deeds judges one. on what grounds can you object to his justice?

Do you really obey in the spirit that your religious laws or is it just an outward show?

 

[Tellyontellyon]

You used the example of aborted babies. What intentional deeds had they done to deserve death?

Our lives are not determined my Karma, rather it conditions our lives, it doesn't take away free will or chance.
That doesn't mean that a person might not have something bad happen to them because of karma, but only a Buddha can know really whether it is or not, or why.

If a baby is stillborn, then it might be because of some really bad karma from a previous life, maybe even many lifetimes past... or it may not...
The main effect of Karma is that we are born at all! All that are born will suffer and die, over and over again, and human rebirth is very rare anyway, mostly we are born in the lower realms.
The point of Buddhism is to escape from cyclical existence and the suffering that entails.

Edit... some people do remember previous lives... A Buddha remembers them all.

Edit2... I find the idea of infinite punishment for a finite sin unfair.... Infinitely brutally unfair.

 

[Tellyontellyon]

Do you really obey in the spirit that your religious laws or is it just an outward show?

I never claimed I was above anybody.

 

[mmarco]

I was reading something about Susan Atkins, she was one of the followers of Charles Manson.
After murdering Sharon Tate, and her unborn baby, she went to prison for the rest of her life.
While in prison she found God and became a Christian and helped many of the other prisoners.
I'm not sure about Sharon Tate.... Do you think she will go to heaven? And what about the unborn baby....
What about other children who were raped and murdered... How many of the kids end up in hell when their killers get a second chance to find God....

You must understand that God does not only knows all our past, present and futiure, but He also knows how each of us would have behaved if he had lived in any hypotetical situations; so God can judge also aborted babies because he perfectly knows who they would have become as adults.

 

[Tellyontellyon]

He also knows how each of us would have behaved if he had lived in any hypotetical situations

Why create the world at all then? Before time began, God would have known how things would have turned out, yet the world was created in full knowledge that he would be creating beings that would suffer beyond imagination for ever...
That's... obscene... That's more than Jesus suffered... Jesus' suffering is not limitless... Those poor souls will suffer without limit.
What mind can conjure up something so evil... merciless.

 

[Tolworth John]

That doesn't mean that a person might not have something bad happen to them because of karma, but only a Buddha can know really whether it is or not, or why.

If a baby is stillborn, then it might be because of some really bad karma from a previous life, maybe even many lifetimes past... or it may not...

So what ever happens to us whether good or bad, may be because of our actions or it may not, because it is down to the actions of someother person who was us in previous lives.

You object to the all knowing perfectly justice of God, but are happy for the injustice of karma!

 

[Tolworth John]

I never claimed I was above anybody.

I'm not saying yu are, just asking do you obey the letter of Buddhist laws or do you obey the spirit of those las.
eg.
the ten commandments says 'Do not Murder'.
I'm sure you, like me have never murdered anyone, but have you ever thought, ' I hate you, I want you dead!' or similar thoughts? Jesus says this is equal to committing murder.

 

[mmarco]

Why create the world at all then? Before time began, God would have known how things would have turned out, yet the world was created in full knowledge that he would be creating beings that would suffer beyond imagination for ever...
That's... obscene... That's more than Jesus suffered... Jesus' suffering is not limitless... Those poor souls will suffer without limit.
What mind can conjure up something so evil... merciless.

God has chosen to create man with a free will, therefore He never creates souls in order to condemn them, but in order that they can freely choose. God wants to save all souls, but He respects man’s free will. If God saved us against our free will, He would destroy our essence of human beings. We are free to love Him or to reject Him. The souls who go to Hell are those who scorn God and do not want to be sanctified and live a holy life in heaven. God has always known since the beginning knows who are those will choose evil and will go to Hell, but this is not the purpose He creates them. God creates them because He wants to save as many souls as possible and the fear of damnation in Hell may have a role in man’s choice to abandon sin, expecially when he is still much involved in sin. This is the reason why God tells us that Hell exists and that many will go to Hell (see Matthew 7:13, for example); since God never lies, He created also the souls who will go to Hell. If God had not created the souls who will go to Hell, fewer souls would have gone to heaven because the fear of eternal damnation induces some souls to choose to cooperate with God's grace, so that God can save them. In conclusion, also the souls who will go to Hell , against their own intentions, have a positive role in the salvation of the souls, because through them, God can lead more souls to heaven.

Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him

In ALL things (which implies also through the men who scorn God and choose evil) God works for the good of those who love Him.

 

[Tellyontellyon]

You object to the all knowing perfectly justice of God, but are happy for the injustice of karma!

I don't know if karma is just? It simply is.

But at least a stillborn child, or an aborted child, or a murdered child will quickly be born again in a few moments for another chance.
There is no super-being in Buddhism who makes a just decision and no god made the rules. It is simply a matter of creating patterns in your mind that colour your future experiences.
The root is a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of reality, so we make decisions based on the misunderstanding... if we understood reality it wouldn't be a thing to act from lust, hatered, jealousy, greed, fear etc. The idea that you could take something from me, or me from you, literally would have no meaning... there is no 'me' or 'you' in the sense of individual beings, only a convenient fiction we use to negotiate our apparent 'reality.'
The 'laws' of karma aren't fair, or just, it's just nature. If you act with selfishness then you act from a state of delusion. If you act with cruelty, then your delusion will become very cruel. If you act with kindness then your delusion will become very kind... But the Buddhist approach is to escape the delusion completely.

 

[Tellyontellyon]

If God had not created the souls who will go to Hell, fewer souls would have gone to heaven

Why create hell?... So more can go to heaven?.... What?

 

[mmarco]

Why create hell?... So more can go to heaven?.... What?

Why are you asking what I have just explained?

 

[Tellyontellyon]

You didn't explain why God created hell in the first place. If he hasn't created hell, he wouldn't have to go through a process of trying to get people not to go there.
In order for man to avoid choosing sin?
But God has created this sin surely? He created the possibility for sin knowing many would fall into it.... It's a sick game... If this God exists then he's got the mentality of a schoolboy pulling legs off spiders.
God wants us to love him out of free choice? (under threat of torture more like) I'm a jealous God! An angry God!
In the Buddhist view there are gods, but they are deluded with pride and a false belief in immortality. Then there are the angry jealous demi-gods...
From a Buddhist perspective the Biblical God is somewhat insane.
I'm not saying this to put your religion down, I'm just pointing out how it looks from a Buddhist point of view. Jealousy, torture, human sacrifice to hide our sins from God in a pool of blood...
I've got a long way to go before this makes any reasonable sense.

 

[mmarco]

You didn't explain why God created hell in the first place.

Yes, I did: because the fear of eternal damnation induces some souls to repent and abandon sin.

If he hasn't created hell, he wouldn't have to go through a process of trying to get people not to go there.

Wrong. The point is not of trying to get people not to go in Hell, but trying to induce people to repent and abandon sin, so that they can find the true life.

In order for man to avoid choosing sin?
But God has created this sin surely?

Wrong; Sin is not a created entity; sin is every rejection of good.

He created the possibility for sin knowing many would fall into it....

God has created man with a free will because otherwise we would have been simply like robots and I am grateful to God for creating me with a free will.
Those who choose sin are fully responsible of their choices and of their sins; it is not God's responsibility.

It's a sick game... If this God exists then he's got the mentality of a schoolboy pulling legs off spiders.

This God exists and you must repent of what you have just written, otherwise you will go to Hell.

From a Buddhist perspective the Biblical God is somewhat insane.

I think that a person who think what you have just written and spends so much time on a christian forum, is insane.

 

[Tellyontellyon]

I think that a person who think what you have just written and spends so much time on a christian forum, is insane.

I began sincerely hoping to find something here, maybe even convert.... But it just isn't for me. It just doesn't resonate on a heart level, and the logic is often circular or lacking.
I'm sure it serves many people well, and they are better people for it... I think there are many good Christians, made better through their encounter with Christ/Christianity.... But I find the reasoning behind the religion very strange.... Maybe it's good if you don't think about it too much and leave the understanding up to God?
I really don't get the theology...
From a Buddhist point of view you can indeed make it to heaven and avoid hell if you follow Christianity without being a hypocrite.... it just won't be forever.

 

[Albion]

I find this a real stumbling block in seeing Christianity as reasonable and just. How do you reconcile this with your conscience?

It's a fundamental principle with Christians that God is just. It's also the case that we do not know everything about how he judges or, for that matter decides everything else.

People often try to tease an answer from Scripture to every question we mortals ever will face in life, but that's not inherent in the religion, and the Bible itself states without equivocation that it's wrong to do.

Will Sharon Tate wind up in heaven? Or her unborn child? We do not know. Do we need to know????? If so, why?