Spiritual Healing

[raisindot]

True christians, following the guidance of Jesus (not the Old Testamant because his teaching contradict that in too many ways - an eye for an eye does not equate with love thy neighbour after all), must practice tolerance and understanding towards others. That is not at odds with how most reasonable, decent people want to live their lives, regardless of whether they are committed to a faith of any kind, is it?

Don't want to get all semantical on you, but Jesus' Golden Rule originated in the Old Testament, and Jesus doesn't expouse the "Love Thy Neighbor" philosophy in Mark, which is commonly acknowledged as the earliest gospel. These ideas weren't expressed until Luke and Matthew, which were written much later. Some scholars believe that Paul was the "inventor" of the concept of Christian love, as he mentions about loving thy neighbors as well as and enemies many times in his epistles, but never once attributes these ideas to any sayings of Jesus. This doesn't mean that Jesus didn't say these things, or that Paul didn't get these ideas from the oral traditions he had heard about Jesus, but it does seem odd that Paul failed to attribute to Jesus one of the man's most important innovations, or that Mark failed to mention them either, given how game-changing this whole idea was.

For this reason, some scholars believe that the writers of Matt, Luke and John incorporated the "Christian love" ideas from Paul's letters and attributed them to Jesus.

It doesn't mean that these aren't splendid ideas that everyone, Christian or not, should follow. Nor does it negate the fact the there is a great deal of God-inspired nastiness in the Old Testament (as well as there are many laws requiring people to be kind and charitable to others in need).

[Jan Van Quirm]

I generalise, you semant

As I was only a Catholic technically until I was about 11 (when I stopped paying attention in RE) I was only ever taught from the testaments (we weren't encouraged to get hold of the real bible and read it - only those adapted for kids ) and so we never really got into the differences between Gospels and Epistles except insofar as the Gospels were according to the 4 disciples, Mark, Matthew, Luke and John and the Epistles written by Paul etc In other words we weren't put to the trouble of having to study it too much, just to mostly listen to what we were told. However, because the disciples were Shi'ite effectively (having both seen and heard the prophet) their messages were superior having been given to them by Jesus and so the later converts like Paul (the Sunnis who'd only heard Jesus' teaching from others) were therefore not as 'authentic' but of course adding piously to what had been received by them and so on.

The Sermon on the Mount espouses the principles of faith supported by the reported actions of Jesus (in his not minding being seen with well-known hookers, tax-collectors, lepers, Samaritans and assorted social scum in Roman-occupied Judea) demonstrates the principles of loving your neighbours well enough to say it doesn't matter a damn who actually wrote it - the concept came from the original prophet which is deeply at variance with the moral values of the wrathful god of the OT (and of course was the religion he'd been brought up with and more or less turned on its head when he finally went totally Rabbi)

I can't believe I'm having an eccumenical discourse here with you Jeff! Paul was a sanctimonious git anyway and without his famous conversion would have remained a class and racial traitor and even if he had got 'turned' when Jesus was around I bet he'd have been a splitter too!

[poohcarrot]

Can someone fill me in on the following questions. This isn't picking on Capt, I'm just curious.

Obviously Christians believe that the only way into heaven is by believing in JC. So if you don't believe in JC, you won't go to heaven. So Muslims, Jews, Hindus, atheists etc won't go to heaven.

What about people who have never heard of JC? Will they go?

And Christians are split into various sub-sects like Mormons, Catholics, Protestents, Jehova Witnesses, Creationists etc. Does a Catholic believe a Protestent will go to heaven? Do Creationists believe anyone who doesn't support their views won't go to heaven?

What about babies and animals, will they go to heaven?

And what the hell do you do in heaven all day, everyday for all eternity? I've read "The history of the world in 10.5 chapters" and heaven seems like fun to start with, then just gets boring.

[Tonyblack]

It's one of the questions I pondered when I was a kid and one of the reasons I rejected religion. Most religions seem to offer a way of living one's life with the promise that if you do a good job, then you'll be rewarded after you die.

A lot of people are afraid of death and this, presumably, gives them some comfort. Of course, the fact that the only way to prove if this is the case is to die, makes it kind of hard to prove either way.

This from Mort:

'Nobody likes a smartass,, she said with some satisfaction. 'We give him trouble, you see. Priests don't, so he likes priests.'
'He never said,' said Mort.
'Ah. They're always telling folk how much better it's going to be when they're dead. We [witches] tell them it could be pretty good right here if only they'd put their minds to it.'

[deldaisy]

As Ricky Cervais once said:

If there WAS a god.... why did he invent atheists?

[Jan Van Quirm]

I think the Jesuit line on the heaven question is that if you have a soul and accept and abide by the teachings of Christ (as opposed to Jesus of Nazareth who, along with dozens of others almost certainly did get crucified in CE 33 by dint of the local Hebrew leaders refusing to deal with his punishment for insurrection as a non-violent freedom fighter in diverse offences against the state of the Rman Empire... ). The fact that you're Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist or Wiccan etc makes no difference essentially so long as you're human and draw breath and you're potentially living a 'good' life and are capable of repenting any wrong-doing, you are a suitable candidate to enter the kingdom of heaven, no matter who you worship if anyone/thing.

Babies are included as they have souls too, from the moment of conception because it's the potential of a soul that counts and is the reasoning behind why contraception and abortion is wrong - simply because it's a sin to kill. Animals - if god has given them souls then it's a big 'yip' to doggie, pussycat and gerbil etc etc heaven too

For the Catholic Church every sperm really is in fact sacred in other words and this is why even the rhythm method is 'wrong' because you're wasting good little congregation material and ergo so is masturbation - only worse! It's OK for females of course as eggs doesn't get 'wasted' as such There's no equality on this earth at any rate, so you're damned if you do and damned if you don't...

Back to free ticket to heaven - god does love sinners. Deathbed conversions do count as well, which means potentially your Hitler types, if genuinely repenting their black deeds, can 'get in' once they've gone through a suitably strenuous stint in purgatory/limbo to atone for their said vile doings whilst alive.

Limbo's a funny thing too and is sujpposedly what happened to people before Jesus died in that NOBODY got to heaven until he'd resurrected - so obviously it would have been pretty crowded by then having a couple million years worth of homo sapiens all bouncing around atoning for not knowing how to get to heaven... Dunno if neanderthals and homo habilis were included in that - but as that means adding on another 4 million years or so, limbo would have been even fuller!

My own 'answer' - what you have here and now in flesh and blood is heaven or hell, depending on how you live with yourself. What happens when you die, if anything, I don't know, but how can it be anything like life as we know it because you won't have a body so no glands or hormones, or pain/pleasure reflexes to attain 'ecstasy' as we experience it when we're alive? Possibly we might retain emotions and memory if there is an 'afterlife' in brain activity/energy in some manner, unshackled from our bodies. The idea of a soul or spirit is, after all quite persuasive, which is where the priests (and psychoanalysts) may have something and, if you're a Hitler type, you have to 'live' with yourself for the rest of eternity, knowing what a truly vile being you once were. If we're lucky I suppose there's nothing at all to be afraid of, because it all just stops. And nothing doesn't hurt so far as I can tell.

[meerkat]

I know animals go to heaven because I have been visited a coiuple of times by my dog, Buster. Once he jumped on my bed and once he barked, warning me.
Wierd!

[raisindot]

I think the Jesuit line on the heaven question is that if you have a soul and accept and abide by the teachings of Christ (as opposed to Jesus of Nazareth who, along with dozens of others almost certainly did get crucified in CE 33 by dint of the local Hebrew leaders refusing to deal with his punishment for insurrection as a non-violent freedom fighter in diverse offences against the state of the Rman Empire... ). The fact that you're Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist or Wiccan etc makes no difference essentially so long as you're human and draw breath and you're potentially living a 'good' life and are capable of repenting any wrong-doing, you are a suitable candidate to enter the kingdom of heaven, no matter who you worship if anyone/thing.

You can't possibly be claiming that anyone (let alone Jesuits) who consider themselves to be 'true Christians' believes that anyone who doesn't believe that Jesus died for everyone's sins and was resurrected has any chance of getting into Heaven, regardless of whether they live a sinless life or not?

If that were true, there wouldn't have been two thousand years of Christians kicking the asses of Jews, Muslims, and anyone else they considered to be enemies of Christianity, nor the long tradition of institutionalized anti-semitism that has only been repudiated by the Catholic church in the past 30 years.

[Jan Van Quirm]

Of course I can claim that - Christianity is capable of all kinds of mental acrobatics! The arse-kicking has always worked both ways don't forget and was common practice for whatever Heaven, Paradise, Elysian Fields or Valhalla was going no matter who ran it, way before the church got to sticking the boot in. Where's Bin Laden telling his people they're gonna end up but only if they kill the infidel? Did the Pharoahs get to go to heaven because they 'let the Israelites go' - they were already in heaven being god-kings of course, but the principle's the same and, after all, Jews, Muslims and Christians do at least agree there's but One God and his name's Allah, Jehovah, or just God but that hasn't stopped any of them killing each other even when they belonged to the same 'club'. The pendulum's just swung over to the apologist and moderate side of the fence that's all

Heaven has to be attainble for everyone doesn't it? How else are you going to get converts, because that's how Roman Catholism work - it's maximise bums on seats all the way. All they say these days is that heaven is for everyone, and their way means you might get a better seat - they're far better at this than fundamentalist of any stripe because they really do care about market forces and their PR teams have had 2000 years of practice at the how to do their product placement and point of sales at least as cynically as any brand leader on Madison Avenue. They sell hope through faith - why else did Marx say that religion is the opium of the (oppressed) masses...

That piece of propaganda is the current sanitised and politically correct view because the (Roman Catholic) church has finally realised they can't get away with all the bullshit you just mentioned in a modern world. The church has always understood the power of mind-control, almost from the beginning, certainly very quickly after Christ resurrected (literally with the Pentecost and gifts of tongues - hey lets get out and sell resurrection and life-everlasting to 'em now). The modern church are still manipulators, but they do learn, especially when they're up against a wall and no longer the ones doing the most effective mind-controlling - they just have to get a little cleverer about what they're selling and how they do that

This pope, who lived under and was compromised by his native land's politics as a youth, knows this very well, which is why the Vatican is now moving towards rehabilitating contraception as the Third World Catholic countries are finally cottoning onto how they're being kept in poverty by church policy effectively that makes it a sin to prevent having so many kids. I doubt abortion will make it onto the acceptable agenda for another few decades, but that'll get there too I expect, because the church is cynical and exceptionally good at posturing to the mood of the times and is still, in some places, the de facto ruling political power. Big Brother knew the power of The Truth - it can be changed to suit what you want to achieve. The Big Beard con tingent knew that a very long time ago and don't like to see the back of a gravy train.

Sometimes The Truth will lead you onto the path of righteousness by accident or necessity when design fails...

[Jan Van Quirm]

Obviously Christians believe that the only way into heaven is by believing in JC. So if you don't believe in JC, you won't go to heaven. So Muslims, Jews, Hindus, atheists etc won't go to heaven.

What about people who have never heard of JC? Will they go?

Here's another demonstration of the 'flexibility' of faith from the zealot side of the fence. The Jews and Muslim do 'believe' in Jesus because he is part of their history - he existed. And before anyone starts yelling, read on a bit.

The Jews (the important ones i.e. Herod and the law-givers) rejected Jesus the man, because, politically he was 'too soon' by about 30 years for full scale revolution (or, you could argue, too into passive resistance and anti-violence, which of course back then would have been too slow to work satisfactorily) and that is when is when the Romans seriously prodded buttock and began the first really purposeful racial persecution of the Jews, which was partially fuelled by the growth of Christianity and provided a good excuse for decimating Jerusalem and exiling the Jews from their own territories - now you can complain about persecution if you want, but don't blame Jesus for it per se.

The Muslims are heretical believers in the same manner as Protestants were in late medieval/early Renaissance times. They do believe in Jesus and he is one of their prophets - in fact more than that, because he was in fact Muhammed's favourite prophet and their teachings are pretty compatible for the most part, especially in relation to the treatment of slaves and women... Islam was the first major rupture in Christianity, and also in Judaism you could perceivably argue, in that some of the Aramaic Palestinians and assorted desert tribes were finally united by their very own true prophet Muhammed and you have to admit that Muhammed was a lot more successful in his professional life than Jesus ever was, unless you read a lot of Dan Brown...

Like I said - same 'God' different attitudes and that's all religion is when you boil it down. An attitude which can be good, bad, indifferent, superbly silly or downright dangerous. This largely, as always, depends on the people who run it, not necessarily the ones who start it

[poohcarrot]

I know Judaism and Islam recognise JC, just not as the son of God.

What I should have said originally was "if you don't believe in JC as the son of God, will you go to heaven?"

[Jan Van Quirm]

I already answered that in the big post- you can follow the teachings without buying into the god aspect according to the latest propaganda.

Because I've never sat down and actually read the New Testament as a book cover to cover (The Old Testament is only valid as garbled history and myth is my personal take on things) and just taking the various storylining, Jesus as preacher and man is far more convincing from a social and cultural viewpoint than Jesus resurrected as the son of god - that's the hooker in PR terms as per rationalisation in 'proving' the godhead aspect.

Faith's not about proof. Think about it. What the christian church says is that you should accept Jesus and his teachings, so looking just at the teachings of Jesus, what do they tell you? To live a kind, tolerant, non-judgmental life. Now ask yourself how he taught. By parables. Ask yourself what parables are and you start to arrive at an 'acceptable' truth for his claiming, as an example, that

in my father's house there are many mansions,

meaning that you can come to heaven via different routes - through Judaism or Islam as a for instance, but also through Buddhism which doesn't have any gods and also has the most consistently non-aggressive and truly spiritual stance on moral values over most of the other 'religions' on the life ethics I just described...

Jesus talked about his 'Father' - taken literally he's saying he's the son of god (the Father with a capital 'F' ). As a parable - a metaphor or a simile - he could also be using 'father' in a more collective, philosophical manner, but with a lower case 'f' to denote that he means the father of us all. What Jesus did not truly talk about was resurrection as in coming back to life - he talked about life everlasting and he talked about redemption but he didn't actually say "I'm gonna die in a particularly brutal way and come back to life 3 days later". Or maybe he did but I can't remember my being taught that he actually said that. His followers said that not him. Life everlasting and my F/father as parables do not mean he said he was a god. His miracles did if you want to believe in them, but otherwise he never really claimed to be god or his son specifically.

Jesuits are linguists and interpreters and they know just about everything there is to know about the sophistry of language. It all interpretation and knowing your market.

[poohcarrot]

How long have creationists been on the scene? I'm pretty sure it's a recent thing because I'd never heard of them 30 years ago.

[deldaisy]

So... Jesus was up on the cross.... a torn, bleeding and wretched image... but bravely he raised his head and looked into the distance... his head slumped forward once more and a whisper came from his lips....

"Paul!....Paul..."

Word spread through the crowd that Jesus was asking for his disciple....

Jesus raised his head once again....

"Paul! Paul!..."

Paul, hearing his name pushed and fought his way through the milling crowd... reaching the edge of the crowd in front of Jesus he was beaten back by the Roman guards....

Barely more than a croak Jesus called again...

"Paul!... Paul!..."

Paul, distraught that his beloved Jesus needed him, fought his way past the guards and lay beneath the cross looking up at Jesus and called,

"Yes Jesus.... I am here! I am here! What do you wish to tell me?"

Jesus raised his head one last time then looked down at Paul...

"Paul? I can see your house from up here"

[Tonyblack]

Have you seen the movie, Inherit the Wind? It's based on an actual trial that pitted Creationism against Evolution and the right to teach it in school. It's well worth a look - the interchanges between the two lawyers arguing for for and against evolution are wonderful. It's based on the Scopes Trial

It struck me a few years ago when I visited the Natural History Museum in London and saw the new statue they have there of Darwin - and they were working on a whole new section dedicated to Darwin and evolution, that it was unlikely to happen in parts of the USA.

I would also strongly encourage you to watch the documentary I posted a link to a few pages back.