Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 92 11:24:44 -0400 
From: Thomas.Sullivan@cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: *I* am THE way.
	<dil.714160462@vulcan.sce.carleton.ca>


Dave raises some important points that bring me back to my post
which held the original subject line:

> Excerpts from netnews.talk.religion.misc: 18-Aug-92 Re: *I* am THE way.
> Dave Laurenson@sce.carle (1745)

> Judgement is based on what we do with Christ - provided that
> we know about Christ of course.  As to what happens to those
> who don't know about Christ we could get into a really long
> and unproductive argument.  Ultimately God will judge those
> who don't know of Christ justly based on what knowledge they
> do have.  An albeit poor indication of this can be seen in John
> 9 verse 41:

> 	Jesus said to them, "If you were blind,  you would have no
> 	sin; but since you say, 'We see,' your sin remains."  (NIV)

Well, I'm not exactly convinced that such an argument would be
any less productive than many of the threads on this bboard.  The
point your raise about being "blind" here is important.  What does it
mean to be "blind"?  How do we know Jesus?  From what others
tell us (we could be misled, could we not?), or from what we understand
on our own?  This seems to be the root of the arguments about who
will be saved and who won't.  Bottom line is, I can't worry about whether
anyone else thinks I'll be "saved" or not.  I think Christianity is
often 
mis-represented by people running around telling other people they won't
be saved for this or that reason. The important thing is for everyone to
get to know Jesus for *themselves*, then live their lives and make their
decisions accordingly.  In the end, any decisions to be made about being
saved (if there is such a thing, or if anyone is acutally denied
salvation)
are really up to God, not human interpretation here on earth.

> This provokes all kinds of interesting arguments.  The basic
> facts are that by our "actions" each one of us has
> transgressed God's law (or however much of that law we
> know).  So by rights, each one of us deserves God's judgement
> and punishment (death and separation from God).  So it is
> true that we are judged on our actions and knowledge.
> However, as you point out, Jesus took that punishment on
> Himself.  Now it is up to each individual to either accept or
> reject that gift.  For those that don't know of Christ, how can
> I say what God will use as criteria for judgement - but
> certainly our actions towards God will be used.

> Dave.

The only record we have of Jesus' life is the bible.  It has been 
"interpreted" over the years, and given the "flavor" of the times
each time it has been translated.  I believe the best we can do is
read the accounts of Jesus' life, and decide for ourselves what we
think he was saying.  Any formalized "church" is going to push its
own interpretation.  Most of the christian denominations can't even
agree on an interpretation.  I think it is pretty obvious the ideals he 
was trying to get across, and I think it is only putting words in his 
mouth when people push ultra-literal interpretations of their bible.
It really comes down to us as people, and what we do armed with
the parables that he presented.  

Living a Christ-like life can come from never having heard of Christ.
I have a hard time believing that God will hold this against someone
in the end.  I also don't think God will hold it against some people who
may have heard of Jesus, and "rejected" him, because they had Jesus
represented to them in some inane manner (I think there have been 
plenty of unloving presentations of Jesus over the years).  They didn't
"reject Jesus", they rejected some other character that was presented 
to them.  

I think God will know what motivated our beliefs and actions here on
earth when we die.   If there is a judgement day, God will look at ALL 
the evidence, not just certain superficial things like whether someone
had heard of Jesus or not, then made a decision.  I have to believe that
God is a better judge than that!

--Tom




Xref: sparky talk.religion.misc:14465 talk.religion.newage:3936 sci.physics:13285