Are you worth saving?

[Gigantus]

To espouse some sort of high-and-mighty better-than-thou misanthropy.

Fairly successful then by the looks of it.

[Turkafinwë]

Fairly successful then by the looks of it.

It's been one hell of a rollercoaster so far

[AqD]

First of all, I didn't say everyone was equally worthy of being saved, just that everyone was worthy of being saved. Don't put words into my mouth. We are as a species and society in a position where everyone can be "saved". There's no reason to not try to save everyone.

There doesn't have to be a net personal benefit to you for it to be a benefit to the survival of the species and society. Everyone benefits when the helpless are helped. Even looking at it from the edgy misanthropic perspective of yours it stands to reason that you can extract more value from a resource if you don't let it die of easily preventable things. I can't believe you seriously think that people don't deserve to be helped if they haven't done enough for society or can pay for the treatment directly themselves.

So you do understand people are not of equal values. What does this mean, exactly?

Let me try another way, among poor countries whose median income families living below your poverty line, how many of them have public / free education for kids and vaccination programs? and how many for comprehensive elder care and healthcare at the same time?

Essentially, those governments and their people need to choose who get to live well and who die due to lack of allocated fund. So, how many sick old men or braindead patients in need of life support would you trade for school lunch for 100 healthy kids, whose lunch might be the only meal they have? And how would you make that calculation?

When you have to choose, most choose by future / potential economic values (the kids), NOT how helpless they are (braindead patients) or their existing contribution to society (the elders). And of course, you'd prioritize your own or people who appear closer to you than those who are not.

So, if we're dying and nobody helps, it's perfectly fine. If entire people is dying and no country lend a hand, it simply means that people doesn't provide enough potential value to its allies or be worth more alive than dead to its enemies.

[Sir Adrian]

I will admit that I’m not very well-versed in more Eastern Orthodox schools of theology, but I’m usually unimpressed by it when I encounter it. It’s not really “the most minimal of effort” to repent and seek God if literally no one on Earth does it, at least not according to the Bible in passages such as Romans 3.

Regardless, maybe you could dig a little deeper and envision the thought process of the Christians who do believe the thing I said and do have the conundrum that I was outlining. I bet that will be more on topic than this aside.

To my knowledge I've never talked to anybody who actually believes that. And if anybody does believe that, he is in error according to the actual founders of Christianity.

As for the effort, here is what Christ had to say on the issue

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

God will literally do the heavy lifting for you, giving you the power to fast and pray and lead a Christian life. All you have to do is accept God's gift. That's it. If that is not minimal effort, I don't know what is.

Romans 3 says that nobody is righteous. There is a massive difference between being righteous (completely free of sin) and what we are discussing here. If nobody sucessfully took on the yoke of Christ heaven would be empty, and we empirically know that not to be the case.

In that case, why do ostensibly Christian countries have prisons? I’m not saying that a government’s laws are a 1:1 ratio to sin, but prisons do punish thieves and murderers for being thieves and murderers. The Bible itself instructed God’s people to prescribe such and such a punishment for such and such a sin in the Mosaic law, and so forth.

There is a lot to be discussed here however two things have to be remaked:

1. Ideally prisons are NOT for punishment but for rehabilitation. Of course that is not always the case, because not all societies are mature enough yet.
2. People in prison are not pusnished for being sinners but for braking the laws of man. Motive is important. I've never seen anyone go to prison for doing laundry on Sunday, even though it is a sin. That is from a western perspective. From an eastern perspective (and pre-gregorian western perspective as well) you don't even have multiple sins, just one - failure to emulate Christ to the best of your ability - and there has never been any case of imprsoning someone for that.

[basics]

When God's word speaks of saving it has nothing to do with the worldly concept of near death instances or wealth gathering, even saving time, rather the situation that all creation finds itself in regarding its position with God. All creation fell when Adam and Eve our first parents made the same mistake that man has done ever since, that being to disbelieve and disobey God. On that fateful day sin entered the very character of man wherein he became at emnity with God. The whole world changed bringing sin and death into nature itself so when we read that " For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him shall not perish but have everlasting life." What world was that? It was the world He created before the fall as pictured by the garden of Eden. That is why Jesus Christ came into the world. To show the way of salvation to a people lost in their sin. It is about the Spiritual saving of fallen man whose eternity is lost lest he turn to God. It is why Jesus explained the concept of rebirth when He said, " No man can enter heaven unless he is born again." That's where the word saving takes on its importance to man because it resolves each man's final destination for eternity. If anyone thinks it doesn't apply to them may I suggest they think again.

[Kyriakos]

Worth noting that even assuming that Jesus was the son of god, he still rather had a clear advantage over regular humans, in that he knew he was the son of god. The others only could use faith, so it's not really the same thing at all

[AqD]

If anyone thinks it doesn't apply to them may I suggest they think again.

Are you suggesting people not to pray to God for their petty problems at all, for example, to ask his help that they may stay on the right path, or to prolong their life for them to help more people?

If the afterlife is all they should care, wouldn't they just secretly wish speed termination of their lives and the lives of their children? Not by suicide of course, that'd be cheating.

[Akar]

If the afterlife is all they should care, wouldn't they just secretly wish speed termination of their lives and the lives of their children? Not by suicide of course, that'd be cheating.

Yes, they would. Christianity is not a logical religion.

[basics]

Worth noting that even assuming that Jesus was the son of god, he still rather had a clear advantage over regular humans, in that he knew he was the son of god. The others only could use faith, so it's not really the same thing at all

Kyriakos,

Of course He knew Whom He was and for what and why He was sent. It wasn't a case of the blind leading the blind rather Light shining in darkness in which all creation was enclosed. Why even His disciples and other followers knew and felt that He was different but what little faith or belief they had failed them the night He was arrested. It wasn't until Pentecost came that faith, God's gift, fell on them that everything came to Light. From that time on these men and women were prepared to die for Him and most did. So where does this gift come from and why? Well, when a person is born again of the Spirit of God the faith of Jesus Christ is imputed to them as well as the indwelling of the Holy Ghost ensuring their entry by adoption into God's family. It is all of God.

AqD,

Prayer is probably the most important miracle happening around the world right now yet most of the world would never dream of using it unless under great strain or pain. The wanting to get to heaven as strong as it might get is surpassed by the call to go out into the world and preach the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

[Himster]

Or the divinity does not condemn anybody and anything and man actually chooses condemnation by rejecting said divinity while the dinity does nothing more that respect your wishes and stand by until you aready to accept him.

The common doctrine of original sin condemns all through our inherent nature by definition/default and the chances of making the correct choice to overcome the inherent unworthiness one is born with is next to zero.

By definition, a finite mortal cannot make an informed choice concerning an unknowable infinite divinity.
It would be a simple case of arbitrary binary choice if the world only had one clear and uniform religion, however the world has an indefinite number of mutually exclusive religions, sects and interpretations. This means that one must blindly choose from among a practically infinite number of indistinguishable variables, akin to playing Russian Roulette with an unlimited number of chambers, all of which are full, except one. Meaning that the choice can never be anything more than pure chance and therefore meaningless.

We are made sick and commanded to be well, the cure being: an impossible game of spiritual Russian Roulette.

[Akar]

Prayer is the most useless thing to a christian, especially if you believe in predestination. Why pray to change something god has already predetermined? For that matter, why even look both ways before crossing the streets?

We are made sick and commanded to be well, the cure being: an impossible game of spiritual Russian Roulette.

Yeah well if you didn't want to be made sick maybe your great great great great great great etc grand parents shouldn't have eaten something that someone told them not to eat, even though they had no knowledge of right or wrong at that time.

[Cope]

Prayer is the most useless thing to a christian, especially if you believe in predestination. Why pray to change something god has already predetermined? For that matter, why even look both ways before crossing the streets?

Because they were predetermined to. :'D

Yeah well if you didn't want to be made sick maybe your great great great great great great etc grand parents shouldn't have eaten something that someone told them not to eat, even though they had no knowledge of right or wrong at that time.

Genesis is in part an allegory of man discovering his own intelligent consciousness; try not to take it too literally.

[Akar]

Genesis is in part an allegory of man discovering his own intelligent consciousness; try not to take it too literally.

Except the vast majority of christians don't believe that, especially the ones in this thread.

[basics]

Except the vast majority of christians don't believe that, especially the ones in this thread.

Akar,

And you know the vast majority of Christians and what they think? For a born again believer prayer is the natural language between them and their Father in heaven. John tells us that the prayers of unbelievers God does not listen to so perhaps these are the so-called christians you talk of. So, what ones on this thread?

[Cope]

Except the vast majority of christians don't believe that, especially the ones in this thread.

What matters is not whether a scriptural reading is literal, but whether it takes you closer to redemption. There was a passage of time when our species stepped out of its ignorance and became cognizant of complex concepts like morality. In doing so, it irreversibly shed itself of innocence (with agency comes accountability). This is what Genesis conveys.

[Akar]

Akar,

And you know the vast majority of Christians and what they think? For a born again believer prayer is the natural language between them and their Father in heaven. John tells us that the prayers of unbelievers God does not listen to so perhaps these are the so-called christians you talk of. So, what ones on this thread?

Do you believe Genesis is literal?

[basics]

Do you believe Genesis is literal?

Akar,

" In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Since where God dwells there is no darkness it follows He made what we call space as well as a little ball of water sitting inside it. So, inside space there was no light at all, in other words if a man held up his hand he couldn't see it such was the darkness. Over the ball, earth, hovered or fluttered the Holy Spirit. I like fluttered because it denotes the activity of God's Spirit throughout history. Then God declared, " Let there be Light and there was Light," but Whose Light? Obviously it was God Who lit up the earth just as He will Light up the New Heaven and Earth when this creation is replaced. This was the first day where He divided daytime from nightime.

On the second day God raised up the waters into two firmaments one beneath the surface and one above these being important as we will find out for another two good reasons. This was the second day.

On the third day God raised up the ground thus separating the waters on the earth making seas and bringing into fruition all the plantlife necessary for our benefit.

On the fourth day God made the sun, moon and stars. Now as described in the Book of Job we find that these creations were close to the earth so the firmament above created a screen to protect the earth otherwise this planet would have been toasted until God spread them into the positions needed so that couldn't happen.

On the fifth day God created all the living creatures according to their kind on land, sea and air.

On the sixth day God made man and woman, Adam and Eve in His own likeness but Whose likeness was that? The Father is a blinding Light upon Whom no man may look and live and the Holy Spirit is a Spirit of Spiritual form so Whose form was it? Of the Three Jesus Christ had the form and so it was in His likeness man was created. This is borne out by Adam walking and talking with God in the Garden.

On the seventh day God rested. Creation was finished exactly to plan.

Concerning the firmament's second objectives we see that it had not just to do with protecting the earth at the creation of the sun, moon and stars, it had also to do with the lifespan of man and his reproduction which decreased agewise when that firmament broke up to deluge the earth in the flood in Noah's day.

So as you can see I take Genesis seriously just as God intended it to be when instructing Moses to put it all on parchment or tablet.

[Kyriakos]

I like that god was making earth for a much longer time than "the stars". Ancient jewish people weren't exactly scientifically oriented ^_^
Will be an issue when the Trisolarians invade.

[conon394]

So as you can see I take Genesis seriously just as God intended it to be when instructing Moses to put it all on parchment or tablet.

Of course textual evidence shows multiple authors or a god personality disorder and later than a any potential date for Moses.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Does anyone have recognized too, that in the OT God is a severe, everything punishing father, but in the New Testament God is more like a loving, almost everything forgiving mother?

Gender change, two gods or multiple personalities?^^

Edit:

So as you can see I take Genesis seriously just as God intended it to be when instructing Moses to put it all on parchment or tablet.

That should be problematic for a real Christian as Jesus said in Luke 22,20:

In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.<sup>"

Jesus made a new covenant with God, so for a Christians should primarily be relevant, what the teachings of the New Testament are, not the Old Testament.

Moses is out, Jesus is in.</sup>