Cogitations on religion
DISCLAIMER:
For those who for personal or other grounds would rather not debate religious issues, I beg you not to bear any ill-feelings towards me. This posting is fully representative of my thoughts, and is intended not just to invite debate, but also to find answers to questions that I have long pondered, that neither my mum nor my pastor can answer …
Of Heaven and Hell …
Given: God understands our thought process.
Does it matter if you think about getting laid before marriage, cheating on your wife, etc vis a vis going out and committing those sins?
Does it matter if you think about challenging static and firmly rooted religious beliefs versus actually engaging in discourse to try and get answers?
If you believe that in the former case it doesn’t, it must follow also in the latter scenario. Surely, if one wholly subscribes to Christ, the bible and the teachings there in, I submit that the definitive answer to the aforeposed questions based on traditional Christian teachings is:
NO IT DOES NOT MATTER.
The implications and conventional Christian teachings are severe; both would be punished in equal measure.
DOES THIS MAKE SENSE?
Something bothers me about this interpretation. Every force in our world has its opposite. For God, the opposite is the Devil. This is the ultimate antithesis, from whence diverge all the other opposites.
For good – evil , love – hate , reward – punishment , and the list goes on …
Talking of rewards and punishment … here a discrepancy unfurls …
My pastor, mum, all my religious mentors … they all have counseled me, at one time or another, that every person shall be rewarded according to the good he/she does in this world. There is nothing wrong with that. It makes perfect sense.
But why is the converse not true according to Christian teachings? All sinners will be thrown into a burning lake of sulphur! Hitler and the kid who got hit by a car while running from the mob, after lifting from a convenience store will suffer the same fate. I just find it hard to believe. In fact I do not think that is what the bible teaches. Take a look at the following verses:
I will recompense them according to their work and according to the doing of their hands (Jer. xxv. 14)
Jehovah, whose eyes are open upon all the ways of men, to give to every one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his works (Jer. xxxii. 19)
The Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels and then He will render unto every one according to his works (Matt. xvi. 27).
2 Corinthians 5:10 10For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things [done] in [his] body, according to that he hath done, whether [it be] good or bad.
Ecclesiastes 12:14 14For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether [it be] good, or whether [it be] evil.
Food for Thought: What do you make of heaven and hell ?
Coming up:
Of God and Money
Of the Origins of Creation
posted by jm at 4:49 PM
4 Comments:
just another thought train that I may add to your list.
For many years I have pondered the intro of Christianity and its replacement of many African customs. Some really ought to have been done away with a long time ago- female circumcision e.t.c but others were swept away by western worship and tradition.
Now I too have had multiple conversations with many people about Christianity and the proclamation of Christ as Lord in our lives.
Why should we be part of a faith that came to us stealing part of our past and traditions, essentially, our culture, and replaced it with western ideas and lifestyle that plague us to date. Such as the association of western clothes with the way we should be light skinned and thin and all use Christian names.
While that issue of tradition is secondary, I have always questioned what kind of faith I would have had, if my grandparents had not converted and I not been introduced to Christ through them and the parents' taking us to church as young 'uns.
As I grip adulthood with a tight lock and define who and what I am, I see a world as that which was promised, one of contradictions. Where a personal Saviour reached me through missionary fervour, and an inconquerable rock which stands despite abandoned churches and fundamentalist Christianity, I still yearn for those olden African values, which were as effective for governing society as the new Christian values proclaim to be.
Answers and peace will not be found in the words of men,rather in the unchanging words of Christ through the Bible. Find a guide in God's wisdom and you will acquire a renewed perspective if not an even closer association with Christ.
Maybe you will forgive exclusionist Christians who shun their own relatives, and heartless people who act in the name of Christ. I have had a fair share of both types. I am tired of textbook Christianity and seek only to be renewed in mind and body by a daily pick-up of that burden of responsibility to Christ and His teachings.
Find peace,really.
what do i make of heaven and hell?
heaven and hell are just within, heaven is what you make it abd hell is what you are going through.
Every force in our world has its opposite. For God, the opposite is the Devil. For the above Anonymous the opposite is me. So I am the first (insert opposite of Anonymous) up in here!
Anonymous 2 has stolen my favourite quote. Seems we both like Wu-Tang Clan.
Heaven is not a physical place and neither is Hell.
And the way you look like a Pastor hapo juu.
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