Question About Christianity

<p>Enjoi, if you do a sin, you can repent, no matter how bad it is.
Here's a story someone told me. There was a murderer and he killed 99 men. And he went to a sheikh and asked him if he could still repent and go to heaven. The sheikh said no, you've killed too many people. So he killed him too and went and another guy saw him. And the murderer stopped and told him that he killed 100 men and asked him if he could still go to heaven. The guy said yes, repent and say the shahadah. So he did that and then the murderer died .. and he supposedly went to heaven.
I don't know if it's true or not, but it goes to show you that no matter how bad you are, you can still repent and become good.
There's even a hadith, i'm not sure of the exact words, but Allah is saying that there would be no need to create a world if no one sinned.</p>

<p>Oh, and to whoever stated that Christians throw out the contradictions between the Old Testament and the New Testament -- Christians actually believe that there are no contradictions between the two. They only seem to be contradictions because people who read them only have a half-understanding of what we believe about the Law.</p>

<p>In brief, Christians believe that the arrival of Christ did away with many of the old, traditional laws that had been set out in the Old Testament and by many of the Jewish priests at the time. The problem for many comes with the fact that not ALL of the laws are thrown out, just some. Obviously, we've not thrown out the Ten Commandments, but we've thrown out the requirement of a lamb sacrifice.</p>

<p>Here's my best understanding of which laws are thrown out and which are kept, although this gets into areas that I'm not fully versed in. Basically, all moral laws from the OT are kept. Laws dealing with respecting God and other people -- such as the Ten Commandments -- still apply. However, the traditional laws dealing with ritualistic things were thrown out because they weren't NEEDED. Christ had replaced them. There's no longer a need for a weekly sacrifice of a lamb because Christ IS that sacrifice.</p>

<p>Again, this is an area of theology I don't know much about, but I'm sure there's a wealth of info on the internet.</p>

<p>I would recommend a reading of Mark Shea's book on understanding Scripture (name escapes me), he does a good job of explaining the OT/NT connections and how one should "read" the Bible (ie. why Christians don't follow some OT laws, etc). We read Shea in my theology class, and it was definately worth the read. Oh, and again CS Lewis is always a good choice if you want to learn more about Christianity.</p>

<p>By the way, did the whole trinity concept come into place because Constantine put it there?</p>

<p>"I don't know if it's true or not, but it goes to show you that no matter how bad you are, you can still repent and become good. "</p>

<p>Sarorah, what you said may be true.But, why was Mohammed's (pbuh) uncle punished for not being Muslim? He was a nice man and he took care of the prophet.</p>

<p>Who? Abu Lahab? Abut Lahab was really bad .. he always planned these mischevious things to do the Prophet (pbuh) and always denounced Islam. Don't you know the surah where Allah curses Abu Lahab (Tabbat Yada)?</p>

<p>Abu Lahab wasnt the the person i was talking about. I was talking about the prophet's uncle who took care of him when his parents passed away. </p>

<p>Obviously i know who Abu Lahab is. That was one of the first surahs i learned (its called Surrah Lahab).</p>

<p>ALLAH in Islam is the same "ALLAH" in Christianity.</p>

<p>Now people are going to say no it's not, that in Christianity there is the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, while God in Islam is a single force.</p>

<p>Allah is simply God in arabic, duh. </p>

<p>And Islam accepts the Bible and Torah before the Koran. Therefore you can see that the God in Islam is that one of God in Christ and Judaism</p>

<p>And Islam accepts the Bible and Torah before the Koran.</p>

<p>I highly doubt that. Most Muslims dont even refer to the Bible or the Torah, but only the Quran.</p>

<p>Most Muslims are not right. In the Koran it respects the previous books of faith. If they don't ever refer to it, that does not mean the Koran never mentions it or respects it.</p>

<p>In the Koran it respects the previous books of faith. If they don't ever refer to it, that does not mean the Koran never mentions it or respects it.</p>

<p>Thats my point. The Koran respects the existance of the Bible and Torah, but in no way does it encourage that Muslims accept them before the Quran itself. If Muslims did accept the Bible and torah, they would have been reading them , and this whole religious war in the Middle east wouldnt even exist.</p>

<p>Yeah Muslims follow the Quran, but we know that the Bible and Torah existed. Enjoi, I don't know which uncle you're talking about. It's probably really obvious too and I just can't think of it :(</p>

<p>"Christians believe that works alone are simply not good enough to redeem us from all of our sins."</p>

<p>Some Christians, not all Christians, believe this. It depends on the denomination.</p>

<p>Well isn't that what Christianity would do, to not accept the Torah before the Bible?</p>

<p>what religion would say to accept something first before your own religion.</p>

<p>And yeah, the whole middle east is totally screwed up all because of those fanatics.</p>

<p>Islam does not even demand an Islamic government. If you think about it, what religion truly does.
Religion is only to you and God, period. Whoever wants to make "religious governments" are out of their minds, because it only makes people less passionate about religion.</p>

<p>I wonder why Jesus has still not arrived yet. I wait his second arrival and hope he gets back here so this whole world friggin stops all this pointless agony.</p>

<p>And this is the BEST WAY I PICTURE HIS ARRIVAL:</p>

<p>As you are driving on the freeway, or on the simple road, the entire sky starts <em>flashing</em> white, and then this loud voice comes, and then all the clouds start surrounding a ghost that makes his way down, with stars circling him.</p>

<p>That sounds nice.</p>

<p>I haven't read all the posts on this thread, but I'm just going to put in my 2 cents from reading the original question. Grace is the key here. Grace is getting something you don't deserve. We don't DESERVE forgiveness but God knows that we're are naturally going to sin so he offers to forgive us if we ask. In Biblical times, they had to sacrifice perfectly pure lambs to ask for forgiveness but then God sent his son, the ultimate, perfect sacrifice so that we would no longer have to do that. It's symbolic and it shows that Jesus was willing to take our ultimate, eternal punishment. It makes sense because EVERYONE sins and therefore if he didn't do that for us, everyone would go to hell. I think I'm explaining this somewhat coherently but I'm not an expert either. Back to one person's example, if a person killed someone they would still be punished by the government. Jesus didn't save them from that. But God believes that people can change and a murderer could end up being truthfully sorry and so he is willing to forgive them. I dunno if this helps at all so if it doesn't, just ignore it. lol</p>

<p>"[Jesus' sacrifice] is symbolic and it shows that Jesus was willing to take our ultimate, eternal punishment. It makes sense because EVERYONE sins and therefore if he didn't do that for us, everyone would go to hell."</p>

<p>I feel like we're going in circles. I understand the part about Jesus taking everyone's punishment for them. What I can't figure out is why this is ok, and why sins are a commodity that can be transferred, when I can come up with so many counterexamples for scapegoating, not to mention the feeling of "DOES NOT COMPUTE" I'm getting. There are three possibilities, unless I'm missing something:</p>

<ol>
<li>There exists a justification that just hasn't been brought up.</li>
<li>I'm too stupid to grasp the justification (highly likely, given the volume of responses in this thread).</li>
<li>There is no logical reason why the scapegoat mechanism works, and it "just does" because "God says so," in which case I have a lot of objections to Christian ethics (even more so than usual, for those who have read my previous posts on "mythligion":P).</li>
</ol>

<p>like i said in the second post, it just works because "God says so" :)</p>

<p>And don't worry, there is no such thing as "Christian ethics" for you to disagree with. God (however you define such a being) has no place in defining morally right and wrong acts... none. And I defy anyone to say otherwise.</p>

<p>GD, is that whole puzzle getting to you? IT's hard to grasp the knowledge "why" when it comes to religion when we don't even know and we have finite mindsets. I know how you feel, I also ponder like hell sometimes, but I can't get it. But who cares, really. Because closeness and prayer with God is all that really matters.</p>

<p>Actually, I started this thread because I just couldn't believe that there could be such a gaping hole in the very basis of Christianity. If morality is defined as whatever God says it is, then that leads to a whole string of problems. For example, it makes morality a tautology, and therefore meaningless, and since God, by definition, can't be immoral, then it means he has no choice. Since acting morally involves a choice to be moral, then God can't be moral, and we have a contradiction. In addition, without bringing in all the abstract reasoning, it basically makes God into a dictator, and I don't see why I would have any obligation to him, or morality for that matter, if the two are defined tautologically. What if morality were defined as whatever Stalin does? Do I then have a "moral obligation" to support the murder of 20 million people? Furthermore, since God is all-powerful, it makes morality into "might makes right," an assertion on which I would have to call bull****. I've always been a critic of Christianity, but I never thought it would be this easy! (assuming, of course, that there is no answer to my original question).</p>

<p>So to answer your question, baller, I think it matters a great deal, since the lack of a justification for the "divine scapegoat" leads to all these consequences for the Christian religion.</p>

<p>well said gdwliner. ive thought about this a lot and i still dont know whether there is a god, but the theory that makes the most sense is that religion developed like the ideas of santa claus or the boogey man - "share your toys or santa won't get you presents," dont go out in the dark because the boogey man will get you," "eat your peas or you'll burn in hell." it probably just started out as a tactic to get people to follow "morally right" acts and then developed further until everyone believed in it.</p>