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I was just trying to help you to see how reality is, if you don't want to accept it then it is your choice. I tried to open your eyes, but maybe you don't want to... Sorry if any of you felt insulted by me.
We are told that acting morally is not nearly as important as believing the right doctrines, with the perverse consequence that those who believe wrongly, but act justly, are to be punished solely for being mistaken in their religious beliefs. All sins are forgivable, but the sin of doubt and nonbelief is not.
Wryetui is Romanian and Orthodox. Orthodox absolutely believe that morality is important, all Christians do to some extent. But we will not be judged according to a merciless moralism, but how we faithfully live.
The problem isn't so much that doubt is sinful, but lack of faith does not bring eternal life.
People see suffering in the world and they conclude the world is ugly, this is understandable. Sin has that power on people: to cause despair and a darkening of the mind. It is not until they come to the Great Physician and follow his Perscription that they will be able to appreciate the goodness. That means entering into the life of faith. Anselm, one of the greatest theologians of the West, said that he had "faith seeking understanding". Understanding does not precede faith, how could it? Sin is a sickness and unless you are wiling to undergo treatment for it, there is no cure.
So your complaint is that God did not create Stepford. You seem to think that God's plan should not be any more complex than the plot of a Lone Ranger episode.
You claim (correctly) that modern fundamentalists (as distinct from classical Fundamentalists) don't see shades of grey, but can't you see that God could have a plan with more complexity than the plot of a Lone Ranger episode?
I was just trying to help you to see how reality is, if you don't want to accept it then it is your choice. I tried to open your eyes, but maybe you don't want to... Sorry if any of you felt insulted by me.
Exactly. You won't be held morally accountable for your actions, but for whether you believed in the correct doctrines.
Which is a rather perverse system to call "just". It simply has nothing to do with justice.
Wryetui is Romanian and Orthodox. Orthodox absolutely believe that morality is important, all Christians do to some extent. But we will not be judged according to a merciless moralism, but how we faithfully live.
The problem isn't so much that unbelief is sinful, but lack of faith does not bring eternal life.
No, not true at all. Especially in the case of the poster you are responding to. Doctrine in the EO church is there to guide in faithful living, but it is not an end in itself.
Which is a good thing in some ways, as we do not get our due as sinners. God is both just and merciful, and the reconciliation of that justice with mercy is our salvation.
In your view then, does the hindu or non believer who lives a good life, get treated the same way at death as the christian believer?
Faith is imagining something and then pretending that what is imaginary is real.
In your view then, does the hindu or non believer who lives a good life, get treated the same way at death as the christian believer?
I can not make statements in the name of God, neither do you, so you will have to ask God in order to get a response.In your view then, does the hindu or non believer who lives a good life, get treated the same way at death as the christian believer?
In your view then, does the hindu or non believer who lives a good life, get treated the same way at death as the christian believer?
Faith is the most important thing, as I see now, because Christ is the most important One in our lives. Morality comes after faith, one who follows Christ will be moral too, but Christ didn't come on this earth to teach us about morality, He came so we can be saved, morality doesn't take you to Heaven, Christ, our Lord and our God, does.That would entail moral accountability, which is apparently not so vitally important as faith.
It was said by the ancient Greeks, "Wind is the evidence of the unseen air." The writer of Hebrews reused that line to say, "Faith is the evidence of things unseen."
Faith is not something imagined, any more than the wind is something imagined. A person who has faith knows that he has faith--it's not imagined any more than hatred or desire is imagined.
A person who actually has faith doesn't have to have faith in faith. He knows he has it, it's palpable, it's undeniable, and it's the evidence that something more unseeable lies beyond it.
All I know is that God loves them and he is merciful. Beyond that, I don't think our religion has definitive answers.
Eternal life is not about living a good life, it is about communion with the Source of Life. Goodness is part of that but if we were to be judged only by our own goodness, we would be found wanting.
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