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halfpastseven

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,,,that the people that i have came across that believe in jesus believe that he is the only way for our sins to be forgiven, n he is the only way to be connected to god or to have your prayers answered by god, n thru him is the only way to have a relationship with god
when there are alot of different religions that may even aknowledge jesus but dont put theyre intire faith in him, does that mean that they dont have a chance to have a personal relationship with god
i mean take for instance the indians (native americans) they were a people that praised everything in existence individually like the water, the sun, the trees n things of that nature, when in all acuality if god is everything in existance n the creator of all, then they really broke down praising him on a whole different level, so did that go unnoticed by god cause they didnt praise him thru jesus christ
 

MethodMan

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halfpastseven said:
,,,that the people that i have came across that believe in jesus believe that he is the only way for our sins to be forgiven, n he is the only way to be connected to god or to have your prayers answered by god, n thru him is the only way to have a relationship with god
when there are alot of different religions that may even aknowledge jesus but dont put theyre intire faith in him, does that mean that they dont have a chance to have a personal relationship with god
i mean take for instance the indians (native americans) they were a people that praised everything in existence individually like the water, the sun, the trees n things of that nature, when in all acuality if god is everything in existance n the creator of all, then they really broke down praising him on a whole different level, so did that go unnoticed by god cause they didnt praise him thru jesus christ


RO 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
RO 1:21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
RO 1:24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen.
 
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momalle1

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halfpastseven said:
,,,that the people that i have came across that believe in jesus believe that he is the only way for our sins to be forgiven, n he is the only way to be connected to god or to have your prayers answered by god, n thru him is the only way to have a relationship with god
when there are alot of different religions that may even aknowledge jesus but dont put theyre intire faith in him, does that mean that they dont have a chance to have a personal relationship with god
i mean take for instance the indians (native americans) they were a people that praised everything in existence individually like the water, the sun, the trees n things of that nature, when in all acuality if god is everything in existance n the creator of all, then they really broke down praising him on a whole different level, so did that go unnoticed by god cause they didnt praise him thru jesus christ

Because I believe that Christ is the son of God and our saviour. Accepting that, this is what he told me, that he is the light, the truth and the way. I reserve the right to believe that, and I'm not forcing it on anyone, so why are you questioning it? It's the basis of the Christian faith. Are you asking Buhdists why they follow Buhda?
 
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halfpastseven[/quote said:
I think the key thing to remember is that Christianity is concerned with the physical manifestation of God in Jesus... and not concerned with the physical manifestation of God in other creatures...

When Jesus said "no man comes to God without me..." did he mean specifically him, Jesus of Nazereth? OR did he mean him, The Logos of God, eternal and one with The Father from the beginning, The Alpha and Omega that might be manifested in nature or in other religions?
 
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halfpastseven

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yes i do ask y people follow who ever it may be that they choose to fallow, i have grown up as a chatholic and have also studied with jahovahs witnesses n i could never understand how people could say that christ is the only way, im not saying that i dont believe in him myself but i have also study on all kinds of different religions n im not goin to say that i dont believe in the ones they fallow either cus i feal that they are all a reflection of god, but me personally i have always prayed to god directly for guidence n understanding and my prays were always answered in mysterious ways, but i jus dont see how people can disregard the thousands of people that dont believe that the only way for their sins to be forgiven is thru the blood of jesus, but regardless all religions serve the same purpose n thats to make people better, n bring peace and love into their lives n when it comes down to it thats all that matters right
 
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halfpastseven said:
yes i do ask y people follow who ever it may be that they choose to fallow, i have grown up as a chatholic and have also studied with jahovahs witnesses n i could never understand how people could say that christ is the only way, im not saying that i dont believe in him myself but i have also study on all kinds of different religions n im not goin to say that i dont believe in the ones they fallow either cus i feal that they are all a reflection of god, but me personally i have always prayed to god directly for guidence n understanding and my prays were always answered in mysterious ways, but i jus dont see how people can disregard the thousands of people that dont believe that the only way for their sins to be forgiven is thru the blood of jesus, but regardless all religions serve the same purpose n thats to make people better, n bring peace and love into their lives n when it comes down to it thats all that matters right

If you have studied all these religions, what is the difference?
 
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Merlin

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Imagine for a moment, (and this is only a story for illustration purposes) imagine you wish to
travel to Pleadeus-heaven. It is in a distant galaxy. You have no means of getting there on your
own.
The ruler of the land, Jehovah, builds a vehicle which is called Jesus-I in order for you to come.
Jesus-I is the only possible way to get there.

Many people in many lands and many languages will have different pronunciations of Jesus-I
and many spellings too, but there is only one vehicle to get you there.

Jehovah (the ruler of Pleadeus-heaven) has made reservations in your name, but you must get
on board the vehicle yourself.

Now, many other (travel agents) want to make money selling you a ticket. But unless that
ticket is for Jesus-I, you won’t arrive where you want to.
A ticket on trans-global airlines will deliver you to Hawaii, not Pleadeus-heaven.

Many travel agents [religions] (perhaps called Catholicus, or Baptismus) will truly give you a
ticket to Pleadeus-heaven. But some charge higher prices. Sure you get your ticket, but they
burden you with other baggage.

The thing to be concerned with, is that Jesus-I only makes one trip, so you have to be on board
when it leaves.
If you get on board the wrong vehicle and miss the flight, it’s too late to belly-ache to your
travel agent.
 
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If you want a discussion please take the time to write your post syntactically and semantically correct.



As it stands it is very hard to read and considering this is an international forum and not a sms chat between friends it is also out of place to use short hand and unstarted abbreviations.

People believe that Jesus can forgive our sins because in the human form Jesus did so empowering humans to forgive eachother. (If that answers your question, seriously I have no real idea what you are asking, it is too hard to read).
 
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gwenmead

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halfpastseven said:
,,,that the people that i have came across that believe in jesus believe that he is the only way for our sins to be forgiven, n he is the only way to be connected to god or to have your prayers answered by god, n thru him is the only way to have a relationship with god

Well, if I may be allowed to dig into the dusty mental archives of my Christian days, there is that pesky verse in John 14:6 that goes along the lines of: "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

Whether one adheres to this depends, I would think, on how much of an inerrantist one is.

But that's just the spin of an unwashed apostate. Your mileage may vary.
 
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halfpastseven

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the difference is in who they follow n the stories that are behind those people, and also that they are all self rightchous n think that they are the only ones that have everything figured out, n they dont want to accept anyone elses points of view he who thinks he knows doesnt know, he who knows he doesnt know knows
really the differences are real complex, but like i said they are all the same in the sense that they make people better people n bring peace into thier lives

now if u believe that everyone either goes to heaven or hell or lives on a paridise earth, do u think that god deterimes all of this by who millions of people have followed or what kind of person they are?
do u get excepted because of what u are or who u are on the inside?
 
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1: some people use abbreviations... that's OK... it can be annoying when they CAN'T spell whole words like "why" and "you" and "are" and "And" and instead use y-u-r-n all the time... but that doesn't invalidate the question.

2: (according to my understanding of the bible) Jesus is the proper way to go about praising God. However, I believe God cares less about what book you study from than he cares about if you actually take his message to heart. For example: The OT tried to teach jews to get along with eachother... not to kill, steal, cheat, lie, or do things that people find generally 'mean.' Basically to treat others how you want to be treated... get along... that sort of thing. However, the world evolved into a monster, completely betraying his words in the OT... therefore, God sent his son to relay to us clarification, to put an end to some of the laws that were taken in the wrong way, and to try to clarify the will of God.

So.... Jesus is the 'way to God'... does that mean everyone before he came around are damned to hell for all eternity? Of course not. Those that lived the life God wants them to live will be rewarded regardless of where they learned the knowledge... whether they learned how to act through christianity, buddhism, or if God just told them personally... Obviously there is a down side to going with other religions... for example: if you use buddhism to live a peaceful life... you have to remember you're still giving praise to someone other than God... and (by christian standards) that's wrong... but I believe it's more important to God that you're living life right than you're saying all the right prayers.

Example: Two people, Joe and Tom:

Joe is a Buddhist, is kind to his neighbor, is loving, mild, peaceful, and exemplifies all of the fruitages of the spirit listed in Galations 5:22ish, meanwhile none of the works of the flesh listed a few verses up. However, he was raised being told that Christianity is false because of all of the evil works christians often do (wars, corruption, etc.). He is living a life as god wants him to, but simply not worshipping correctly.

Tom is a Christian... he goes to church every sunday, and wears a cross around his neck... he sings the songs in church and says all the right words when it's time to pray... but outside of church he goes home, gets drunk, beats his wife, and rights ad slogans for cigarette companies targetting children as prospective 'customers' so as to make a mild profit at the cost of their lives.

Who do you think is a better servant of God? Tom GOES to church... but he lives life by a horrible standard. Joe doesn't go to church, but he's still received god's message and is living the proper lifestyle.

In that respect I believe it's foremost important to live life to serve God to the best of your ability, and put your faith in him that if you understand something wrong, he'll forgive you. (For example, put yourself in tom's shoes... you've lived your life imbibing the information that has turned you to christianity... but what if muhammad really WAS a new prophet? Hopefully God would see that you are TRYING to serve him in spite of having an incorrect understanding).
 
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Stinker

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Everyone that rejects the Gospel rejects Jesus, therefore they will be in trouble on the day of Judgment. (Mt.7:24-27)

So if both 'Joe the Buddhist' & 'Tom the Christian' reject the teaching of the Gospel....both will go to eternal damnation.
 
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Cleany

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halfpastseven said:
,,,that the people that i have came across that believe in jesus believe that he is the only way for our sins to be forgiven, n he is the only way to be connected to god or to have your prayers answered by god, n thru him is the only way to have a relationship with god
when there are alot of different religions that may even aknowledge jesus but dont put theyre intire faith in him, does that mean that they dont have a chance to have a personal relationship with god
i mean take for instance the indians (native americans) they were a people that praised everything in existence individually like the water, the sun, the trees n things of that nature, when in all acuality if god is everything in existance n the creator of all, then they really broke down praising him on a whole different level, so did that go unnoticed by god cause they didnt praise him thru jesus christ
for me it isnt clear what it means to say that jesus is the "only way". it all relies on what salvation is about. can non-christians know god? i dont know, but i dont see why not - at least in some way. some people say that people can know jesus in other ways through other religions. even jesus said things that make it not as clear-cut as some christians would have you believe.

in the end i have to say that i dont know, but it helps to be open-minded about these things.
 
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Stinker said:
Everyone that rejects the Gospel rejects Jesus, therefore they will be in trouble on the day of Judgment. (Mt.7:24-27)

So if both 'Joe the Buddhist' & 'Tom the Christian' reject the teaching of the Gospel....both will go to eternal damnation.

There's a difference between knowingly REJECTING the gospel and not understanding it. If you are born into a christian family, study the bible every day, and come to a full and complete knowledge of God, yet reject it... you are rejecting God (obviously).

However, As in the OP's post, he asked about the native americans... Before christians came, Native americans had no way to learn from the bible as, geographically, they were seperated from it's teachings. While they didn't know Jesus, God was likely to guide them quite often, and certain ones may not be damned JUST because they weren't around the mediteranian sea.

Yes... it's better to study the bible... but JUST because you don't attend the catholic church on a regular basis DOESN'T mean you don't have a personal relationship with God.
 
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KCDAD

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The Gregorian said:
There's a difference between knowingly REJECTING the gospel and not understanding it. If you are born into a christian family, study the bible every day, and come to a full and complete knowledge of God, yet reject it... you are rejecting God (obviously).

However, As in the OP's post, he asked about the native americans... Before christians came, Native americans had no way to learn from the bible as, geographically, they were seperated from it's teachings. While they didn't know Jesus, God was likely to guide them quite often, and certain ones may not be damned JUST because they weren't around the mediteranian sea.

Yes... it's better to study the bible... but JUST because you don't attend the catholic church on a regular basis DOESN'T mean you don't have a personal relationship with God.

God must have great accountants...
Joe heard the Gospel but didn't understand it
Tom heard the Gospel and did understand it but his family wouldn't let him practice it
George never heard it but lived a good life
Mary never heard it but was a real witch
Susan heard it once but she was ill and couldn't pay very close attention
And Jim, well he never was a very attentive kid so I won't hold that against him
Then there is Steve, who heard the Gospel and started real strong, but somehow got into a cult group and they twisted everything around and he got lost
What about Yang Shen who never understood the American slang, the Greek mythology references and Aramaic idioms so I guess he never really heard the Gospel tho he listened and trried to understand...

How does He keep track of all this?
 
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Jacob4Jesus

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This is like a hypothetical question I posed to an older Christian a few months ago.

A little boy grows up in a small South American village with little to no contact with the rest of the world. He grows up and leads a good life. He is never visited by missionaries, and not a single person in his village has ever heard of Jesus or anything of the sort. He gets married (as to his tribe's customs), never cheats on his wife, is good to his kids and dies.

Does this man go to Hell?

Well, my friend wanted to say yes, I could tell. He sputtered a bit and then decided that there are different levels of Heaven. This man in my story would go to a lower level of Heaven and not get to be with Jesus. Basically, he said this lower level of Heaven would be a lot like life on Earth.

So I asked him, why should this man be placed in this hypothetical lower level of Heaven? He never had the opportunity to be a Christian. Yet, in a way, he is being punished because he doesn't have the advantages the rest of the world does. Is that fair?

Well, all this friend could say was the Jesus was the only way to God and to Heaven. That was pretty much the end of the hypothetical situation.

It saddened me to a degree, because it really makes no sense to me at all. It's like what was poorly stated in the OP, I guess. It was so hard to read, though. Why should someone who has no way of learning about Jesus be punished?
 
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Cleany

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Jacob4Jesus said:
Well, my friend wanted to say yes, I could tell. He sputtered a bit and then decided that there are different levels of Heaven. This man in my story would go to a lower level of Heaven and not get to be with Jesus. Basically, he said this lower level of Heaven would be a lot like life on Earth.
"different levels of heaven" - *bangs head on table. is "i dont know" some kind of swearword or something?

AAAGH!
 
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halfpastseven

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in all acuality i have never been shown where it says in the bible that people are sent to hell to suffer and be tortured for all of eternity, i have only seen such a place spoke of in the sense that someone can place themself in that prediciment while they are here on earth, meaning mentaly, i have seen it say that those who do not cooperate with gods plan and seek forgiveness, there time will come to an end, meaning they will be wiped clean of an existance, if god is sapose to be the all loving why would he torture people forever, no one ever asked to be born and placed in the situations that they are put in so why should anyone be punished for such a long time
i have also seen that there is only a certain number of people that acually make it to heaven, and if you look at how many people have been on this planet thru out all of time, that number is just a small fraction of mankinds population
it also says that the earth will be brought back to how it was originally sapose to be, so the majority of people will be resurrected to live on a paridise earth, thats like when people ask "do you think the world will come to an end?" my answer is no, no matter what happens the world will still be here, revolving around the sun and will very much still be alive, how do you determine if something is alive, me personally i believe that anything that has energy and is in motion is alive if not then is this universe dead, just like when people ask "do you think there is life on other planets?" i dont know ive never been to them before and the human eye cant detect every form of energy, but i can say this much, that those planets themself are alive, but im jumping way off subject now, so ill stop with all that

sorry for my form of writing and abreviations, and my spelling period, but i went to a school that practiced creative writing, where you can spell things the way you want to as long as people can still read what it is your saying , but i didnt know that it would be a problem for some of you or be such a big deal, but i will try to stop
 
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Annoula

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the Orthodox viewpoint is that the ultimate goal of a Christian is Theosis through Grace. this means becoming one with God (Theos) throught His Grace. because we cannot achieve Theosis, salvation by ourselves.

we should strive for a true relationship with God and we can condemn as much as we like non-christians, but we are in no position to understand how the Grace works, thus we are not in the position to say who will be saved and who will not.

i really detested this "i am the only who is gonna be saved" thing...
it's irrational, non-loving, and pretty selfish... if not for me... it is at least for an almighty, loving and compassionate God .
 
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