shakeybrainsurgeon:
As Bertrand Russell observed, if we were truly Christian, there would be no earthly laws at all. Christ says that judgement is for God and that we should turn the other cheek if struck, not press charges.
There's more to it. The Bible certainly makes provisions for earthly governments. It also requires us to judge at times, though condemnation is a different matter.
As to ethics deriving from God, what God? Different religions define different morality. Abuse of women is tolerated in some relgiions, not in others.
Yes and it is tolerated by some governments and has even been tolerated by our own.
The main flaw in monotheistic religions is that all aspects of existence, good and bad, derive from one source. God defines morality, but immorality is also his creation. Christianity tries to obscure this by invoking a quasideity, Satan, but Satan is no god. As a creation of God, satan must answer to him and cannot be all-powerful, so where is the battle between good and evil in Christianity --- between the all powerful God and the finite satan? What sort of battle is this?
You're not quit correct here and the answers to these questions are in the Bible. Satan is a created being and the Bible tells us that he certainly will not win in the end. Satan was not created evil, he was created with a choice.
Read Revelation. Satan has no chance and it won't be much of a fight from Gods perspective.
Religion poses all sorts of paradoxes --- was the killing of Christ wrong? How could it be if, in Christian dogma, it was mandatory for our salvation? Why is Judas a villain --- he was critical to our salvation, as critical as Christ.
Interesting questions but not really paradoxes. We're told that God will use all things to His eventual good. What was mandatory for our salvation was for Christ to suffer the penalty for sin on our behalf. God, knowing that the jews would reject him and that Judas would betray Him, simply used those things to impliment His salvation plan.
moreover, modern Christians don't realize that for most of Christianity's existence, salvation was not a matter of doing right and not doing wrong, but a matter of being predestined to heaven or hell from birth.
I'm not sure how you come to the conclusion that most Christians don't understand. Even today, the topic is debated. While most christians believe that excepting Christ is required for salvation, what isn't always agreed on is how that happens. If we are spiritually dead in sin, then it stands to reason that we can't make spiritual decisions. Salvation isn't by any work that we do. The disagreement comes in as to how much of the decision is your own. Can you decide to accept Christ or must the Holy Spirit do a regenerative work in you first? I think a close reading of scripture gives the answer. I think it's fairly well sumed up in Romans 10:17 "So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."
Even now, a good person who rejects Christ will go to hell, a bad person who accepts Christ with his last breath goes to heaven. If Hitler had made a deathbed confession, he was Catholic, the church acknowledges that he would go to heaven. A man who thinks of cheating on his wife and has a heart attack goes to hell. Anyone who disagrees with this doesn't understand Catholic dogma.
I do understand the Catholic "dogma" as you term it. To discuss it, we have to look at the role of the sacrements though. If we leave out the sacrement of confession and take a more protestant or strictly Biblical view, what is required to go to heaven is to be reborn in the Spirit. While it may be possible to do it in a moment on a death bed, I see it as unlikely. We could easily show a Biblical case against a decision made by a person in a split second as qualifying as rebirth in the Spirit.
In a Catholic view, a saved man who commits sin without recieving the sacrement of confession and having that sin forgiven would go to pergatory, not Hell. A more protestant view would have the man going to heaven because he was already saved and his sins forgiven him, having been reborn in the Spirit, of course, being what limits the persons desire to sin in the first place.
And before protesting and saying you are not Catholic but some other type of Christian, keep in mind that for 16 centuries, catholicism was the keeper of Christian dogma. All modern Christians are either catholics or a gnat's eyelash away from catholicism.
There may have been esentially one church in the begining, however, to say that all Christianity is a gnats eyelash away from Catholosism is not correct. There are major differences in theology. As major as there could be. Some examples would include, baptismal regeneration (sacrements), the worship of saints and the Virgin Marry, The authority of church tradition and the whoe idea of a pope or preists being necessary for any of it.
The whole mythology of Christ, his death and resurrection, the entire paradigm of Christianity was crafted by the catholic church.
That's your story.
And, come to think of it, what earthly sin merits "eternal torment" --- the whole hell thing is creepy. In the end, Christians do good because they are afraid of eternal torment. With hell hanging over their heads, they hardly have free will.
Of course Hell is creepy but what sin merits it? Any unforgiven sin at all. What does sin do? It seperates us from God. Seperation from God means Hell. Saved people do not do good because of a fear of Hell. They do good because of the work of the Holy Spirit in them bringing about a desire to do good. Fear of hell is probably a fine reason to begin asking Christ to cover you sins with His, already finished, payment though. Christ defeated sin and death. Through Him so can we. It's not the good works that makes one worthy of heaven, it's the rebirth in the Spirit that makes one worthy through Christ and brings about the desire to do good works.
Salvation is rebirth in the Spirit making a new creation of one who was dead in sin but now belongs to Christ. If you belong to Christ, you go to heaven.
Ephesians 2:1 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 2 in which you once walked according to the couse of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom also we conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath just as the others.
2 Cor 5:17 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
