it's a gift.....

Are there any ways to get to heaven without accepting this free gift?

Originally posted by TheSkipper
Theist: You’re making this way too complicated, but I love you, and so does invisible guy.

Rich.

Originally posted by knightmeister
If I tell my son grizzly stories about what can happen if you are hit by a car , am I playing a cheap trick on him to make him afraid of cars or am I warning him because I love him and don't want to see him squashed? Had it occurred to you that Jesus might have been warning us out of his love for us?

To make the analogy more apt:

1) You give your son 24 hours to sign a 'get out of car accidents FREE' contract.
2) When the time elapses, and he has not signed it, you take him out by the road, and shove him in front of an oncoming car.

If you did this, [obviously] few would call you a loving father.

Originally posted by knightmeister
You have some kind of point here , but then again what is God going to do if you align yourself with the darkness and make yourself his enemy? By refusing the gift you would also be refusing love, humility and joy - so what's left and what goes into the gap where his love and grace should have been? God is going to cast the darkness away from himself ...[text shortened]... , but you will have had many chances by then to take the free ski lift in the other direction.

This just sounds like a false dichotomy. Why should the only two choices be "for God" or "against God"? Why can't I just remain neutral, like Switzerland?

Another interesting question: how can an omnipresent God ever cast anyone away from himself?

Originally posted by knightmeister
If I tell my son grizzly stories about what can happen if you are hit by a car , am I playing a cheap trick on him to make him afraid of cars or am I warning him because I love him and don't want to see him squashed? Had it occurred to you that Jesus might have been warning us out of his love for us?

I would think that you are a deficient parent. To use fear as a means of compelling behavior is
cheap at best, deplorable generally, and at worst debilitating.

You should teach your child to respect things that are dangerous, absolutely, but to scare your
child into obedience borders on evil.

Nemesio

Originally posted by Nemesio
I would think that you are a deficient parent. To use fear as a means of compelling behavior is
cheap at best, deplorable generally, and at worst debilitating.

You should teach your child to respect things that are dangerous, absolutely, but to scare your
child into obedience borders on evil.

Nemesio

Did I say I use it for everything? I use fear specifically in regards to road safety. The reason why I do this is because a child cannot afford to make one mistake on the roads and need to learn how to become hypervigilante , especially with all the speeding out there and increased car numbers . I do not terrorise them so that they can't cross roads or become paralysed by fear and it's not a question of obedience either it's a matter of giving them the motivation to create good habits ...and it works.

They need to know what could happen to them on the roads in order to avoid the danger and the truth is grizzly I'm afraid. Take some time to watch youngsters near the roads and teenagers in cars. You will see that they have little understanding of danger and think they are immortal. They need to be more afraid , not of their parents , but of the truth of what can and DOES happen on a regular basis when accidents happen.

3,000 deaths or serious injuries of children in the UK alone. That's one 9/11 every year that goes unnoticed. It's the acceptable slaughter of modern society and I make no apologies for giving my children the best chance of avoiding it. Fear is a natural protection mechanism that nature gives us , like pain . Why not use it ? And why not tell children the truth about what can happen on the roads , it will scare them yes , but it's the truth that they need to know. To not inform someone about the dangers facing them is unresponsible parenting based on concenrs like "ooooh I might upset them..." Frankly , who cares ? If it saves a life then a little fear is worth the price.
Apparently Jesus thought the same about saving souls.

(BTW - Do you have children?)

Originally posted by SwissGambit
This just sounds like a false dichotomy. Why should the only two choices be "for God" or "against God"? Why can't I just remain neutral, like Switzerland?

Another interesting question: how can an omnipresent God ever cast anyone away from himself?

This just sounds like a false dichotomy. Why should the only two choices be "for God" or "against God"? Why can't I just remain neutral, like Switzerland? ----swiss---

....because God is the ultimate reality of everything. There is no switzerland. It's like taking a stand on apartheid or not or a stand against facism or paedeophilia. You can't be neutral on it. If you don't protest or take a stand against it then you are condoning it. If you don't stand on the side of love then you are standing against love. In the battle against evil there can be no middle ground . Evil happens when good people do nothing.

As for omnipresence I don't know. Maybe it applies now but when the end of time comes things will change. Myabe God won't give up on those in hell and offer them his boundless love once again , but if they refused it the first time....?

Originally posted by SwissGambit
To make the analogy more apt:

1) You give your son 24 hours to sign a 'get out of car accidents FREE' contract.
2) When the time elapses, and he has not signed it, you take him out by the road, and shove him in front of an oncoming car.

If you did this, [obviously] few would call you a loving father.

1) You give your son 24 hours to sign a 'get out of car accidents FREE' contract.
2) When the time elapses, and he has not signed it, you take him out by the road, and shove him in front of an oncoming car.

If you did this, [obviously] few would call you a loving father. ---swiss-----

A thorny one this I will admit . Firstly , your analogy is morally neutral in the sense that it lacks the moral choice between right and wrong. What I would say is this . If God is love and embodies all that is good and worthy and compassionate what do you think he feels about evil. Is he likely to get angry ? Do you think he should do anything about it? Should there be some form of justice or calling to account at the end of time?

So if someone places themselves consciously on the side of evil and rejects love and justice what's going to happen when God sorts it all out? Don't forget that love is compassionate and gentle but it is also a holy fire. God wants you on his side , on the side of love , but if not he will have to battle against you and you against him. God's nature is holiness and it's in his very nature to repel evil. You talk as if he can just choose to arbitarily to pretend evil is good and good is evil.

I'll answer your last question first: Yes, I have a son. He'll be four in a few months.

Originally posted by knightmeister
Did I say I use it for everything? I use fear specifically in regards to road safety. The reason why I do this is because a child cannot afford to make one mistake on the roads and need to learn how to become hypervigilante , especially with all the speeding out there and increased car numbers .

Again, you are using fear (grizzly stories and intimidation) to accomplish an end. There are
many things that children have to learn to be hyper-vigilant about, things over which they cannot
make even one mistake. You can choose to be a good parent, watching your child and instructing
him/her when s/he begins to err or approach dangerous situations, explaining clearly and
responsibly the implications of his/her actions (and, yes, children can see them very, very early
on), or you can be a lousy parent and strive to make them fearful and timid. The latter is
evil.

I do not terrorise them so that they can't cross roads or become paralysed by fear and it's not a question of obedience either it's a matter of giving them the motivation to create good habits ...and it works.

Oh, I know it works. It's also hateful and damaging. It doesn't give them a motivation to
create good habits. It gives them an irrational, psychological opposition to a bad behavior.

They need to know what could happen to them on the roads in order to avoid the danger and the truth is grizzly I'm afraid. Take some time to watch youngsters near the roads and teenagers in cars. You will see that they have little understanding of danger and think they are immortal.

I'm not opposed to informing your child that they could get very hurt if they run out into the
street. But that's not what you said. You said 'grizzly stories.' The former is sufficient to justify
the point to even the youngest child, the latter only serves to damage them.

They need to be more afraid , not of their parents , but of the truth of what can and DOES happen on a regular basis when accidents happen.

No. They need to be less afraid and more aware. Fear is not knowledge; fear is the shrinking
away from knowledge. Fear is a cheap surrogate for good parenting.

3,000 deaths or serious injuries of children in the UK alone. That's one 9/11 every year that goes unnoticed. It's the acceptable slaughter of modern society and I make no apologies for giving my children the best chance of avoiding it.

Then you're a lousy parent.

Fear is a natural protection mechanism that nature gives us , like pain . Why not use it ?

Right. Why not use a tazer every time your child does something potentionally dangerous?
Pain is a natural protection mechanism. Why don't you just skip over fear entirely and just
give your children a few 1000 volts if they play too close to the street?

I'll tell you why: because pain has a visible, palpable effect on your child. Fear is more
insidious.

You're appealing to humankind's baser instincts (fear/pain) to achieve your ends. You are
behaving like and treating your children like animals. Instread you should appeal to the things
that make humans different than other animals: appeal to reason. A child can see the consequences
of actions earlier than they can talk or have the motor control to accomplish anything voluntarily.
When my son has gotten dangerously close to the street (or whatever), I have pulled him
aside and informed him of the consequences of his actions. Then, I always ask him if he
understood what I said and to repeat it back to me. No fear, only knowledge and understanding.
I treat my son like a human, you treat your children like animals.

And why not tell children the truth about what can happen on the roads , it will scare them yes , but it's the truth that they need to know. To not inform someone about the dangers facing them is unresponsible parenting based on concenrs like "ooooh I might upset them..."

Telling 'grizzly stories' goes beyond what they need to know about what can happen on the
road. And what next if 'grizzly stories' doesn't work? Grizzly photographs? Snuff films?

Frankly , who cares ? If it saves a life then a little fear is worth the price.

If you don't care that treating your children like animals might make them behave more like
animals, then by all means, go ahead. But don't lie to yourself in thinking that fear is 'saving
their life.' All fear does is replace the human relational process with a baser one; it makes for
fast and superficial parenting rather than slow, deliberate, and meaningful parenting.

Apparently Jesus thought the same about saving souls.

Your Jesus likes fear and treats His flock like animals at worst, or at best like children running
out into the street. My Jesus likes love and treats His flock like humans and adults able to
understand the implications of their actions (or inactions).

Nemesio

Originally posted by knightmeister
This reveals the flaw of your 'thirst' analogy. Going to hell isn't a matter of just sitting back and waiting passively for it to happen. Rather, someone [God] throws you into hell. It is not a place we can reach on our own. And it is more than just being away from God - it is something we are told to fear. ---swiss----

You have some kind of point h ...[text shortened]... but you will have had many chances by then to take the free ski lift in the other direction.

By refusing the gift you would also be refusing love, humility and joy...

I don’t refuse love and joy: they are how I try to live my life, sharing same where I can—and, in a sense, they are their own reward. That is where I have “aligned” myself.

I simply don’t believe that Jesus was the son of a supernatural being (whom I also don’t believe exists).

(I’m only passing on humility here because I don’t know how you are using the term (the dictionary has a bunch); I would not take a general attitude of submissiveness to be a virtue, for example. I doubt that you mean that a woman who accepts Christ would have to submit to her wife-beating husband, for example.)

Originally posted by knightmeister
....because God is the ultimate reality of everything. There is no switzerland. It's like taking a stand on apartheid or not or a stand against facism or paedeophilia. You can't be neutral on it. If you don't protest or take a stand against it then you are condoning it. If you don't stand on the side of love then you are standing against love. In the b ...[text shortened]... and offer them his boundless love once again , but if they refused it the first time....?

....because God is the ultimate reality of everything.

I have no idea what that means, especially the everything part.

As for the rest of your post, there are plenty of non-Christians who routinely show love to others, and plenty of Christians that don't. I don't admit that your God has a monopoly on love. In fact, I don't see why 'standing on the side of love' and opposing evil requires any belief in God at all.

Originally posted by knightmeister
1) You give your son 24 hours to sign a 'get out of car accidents FREE' contract.
2) When the time elapses, and he has not signed it, you take him out by the road, and shove him in front of an oncoming car.

If you did this, [obviously] few would call you a loving father. ---swiss-----

A thorny one this I will admit . Firstly , your analogy is You talk as if he can just choose to arbitarily to pretend evil is good and good is evil.

If God is love and embodies all that is good and worthy and compassionate what do you think he feels about evil. Is he likely to get angry ?

Maybe. Or perhaps feel sorrow or regret.

Do you think he should do anything about it? Should there be some form of justice or calling to account at the end of time?

If God is love [borrowing the emphasis from vistesd], he would only administer humane forms of punishment, if he did at all. No punishment would last forever, because man's life is finite and therefore his capacity to do evil is finite.

Don't forget that love is compassionate and gentle but it is also a holy fire.

Or hell fire? If that's what you mean, I think you have a perverse concept of 'love'. Love isn't about the deliberate infliction of misery.

You talk as if he can just choose to arbitarily to pretend evil is good and good is evil.

No, I don't. That would be you.

Your 'salvation' allows God to accept a mass-murderer into heaven, so long as he accepts Christ before he dies, and condemn a philanthropist to hell, because he does not accept Christ.

Originally posted by SwissGambit
[b]....because God is the ultimate reality of everything.

I have no idea what that means, especially the everything part.

As for the rest of your post, there are plenty of non-Christians who routinely show love to others, and plenty of Christians that don't. I don't admit that your God has a monopoly on love. In fact, I don't see why 'standing on the side of love' and opposing evil requires any belief in God at all.[/b]

In fact, I don't see why 'standing on the side of love' and opposing evil requires any belief in God at all.

It doesn’t.

Knightmeister’s theology/Christology is a bit unconventional, though (I don’t say “unorthodox” ), and he might side with some early church fathers, such as Justin Martyr, who would likely say that if you’ve aligned yourself with what I’ll call here “the Logos of love,” then in fact you have received the gift, whether or not you know it or even think about it... And he might not; I’m just not sure...

Originally posted by SwissGambit
[b]If God is love and embodies all that is good and worthy and compassionate what do you think he feels about evil. Is he likely to get angry ?

Maybe. Or perhaps feel sorrow or regret.

Do you think he should do anything about it? Should there be some form of justice or calling to account at the end of time?

If God is love [borr ...[text shortened]... efore he dies, and condemn a philanthropist to hell, because he does not accept Christ.[/b]

If God is love [borrowing the emphasis from vistesd], he would only administer humane forms of punishment, if he did at all. No punishment would last forever, because man's life is finite and therefore his capacity to do evil is finite.

The usual response to that is something like, “Yes, but God is also just”, etc.

However (if one takes the author of the letter of John seriously) that is attempting to contextualize/condition essence with an attribute, when—as you are pointing out—it ought to be the other way around...

_________________________________

My single claim to fame: a bold is... 😉

Originally posted by knightmeister
Try loving God instead of loving the idea that God loves you.

Try loving the teachings of Jesus instead of loving the idea that Jesus loves you. ---think of one----

These are excellent points you are making and you have really hit on something , but why do these ideas have to be opposed to each other ? Why does it have to be an either/ or? Can't we do BOTH?

The former is about righteousness, the latter is about selfishness.