Are religious rules more for making the present better, or to get into heaven?
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  Are religious rules more for making the present better, or to get into heaven?
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Question: For God, are religious rules more for making the present better, or to get into heaven?
#1
Making the present world, and your life, better
 
#2
Just a checklist to get into heaven
 
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Total Voters: 16

Author Topic: Are religious rules more for making the present better, or to get into heaven?  (Read 1196 times)
Blue3
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« on: September 21, 2017, 10:40:16 PM »
« edited: September 21, 2017, 10:49:32 PM by Blue3 »

Why did God make these religious rules? Do you think religious rules are more for making the present world (and your life)inherently better, or just to get into heaven? Which is God's reasoning for these rules more likely to lean towards?
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Blue3
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« Reply #1 on: September 29, 2017, 08:02:24 PM »

Why did God set the religious rules he did... for our betterment in this life, or just to have some arbitrary checklist for a good afterlife?
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Lechasseur
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« Reply #2 on: October 05, 2017, 03:28:47 AM »

Religious rules exist to make society and one's life better. Although I am a Christian and thus try to live the most moral life I can to please God, these rules have a practical use as well, without some concept of morality, of right and wrong, a society collapses, just as we're starting to see now.
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Dr. MB
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« Reply #3 on: October 10, 2017, 12:15:37 AM »

Making your life better. The Bible does say you can repent from sin.

I don't follow all the laws of the old testament and think many applied more to the people then than they do now, but I try to lead a good life anyway.
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Lechasseur
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« Reply #4 on: October 11, 2017, 08:46:51 AM »

Making your life better. The Bible does say you can repent from sin.

This is true
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Solid4096
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« Reply #5 on: October 11, 2017, 10:38:47 AM »

God did not make those rules; nor does God actually exist.

Religious rules were designed by wealthy aristocrats to solidify their hold to power.
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Dereich
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« Reply #6 on: October 11, 2017, 12:52:02 PM »

God did not make those rules; nor does God actually exist.

Religious rules were designed by wealthy aristocrats to solidify their hold to power.

Thanks. I wasn't PLANNING to give up my religious beliefs based on an atheist's unwanted interjection into a theological discussion, but then you underlined a few words and it became so OBVIOUS that you were correct that I had no choice in the matter.
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Greatest I am
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« Reply #7 on: October 11, 2017, 07:11:49 PM »

Obviously, if parents will not make life better here, they do not deserve heaven.

Regards
DL
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tmcusa2
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« Reply #8 on: October 12, 2017, 09:35:24 AM »

I vote for the enlightened Buddha's answer, which is making the present better.

To be enlightened you don't need to believe in a creator or afterlife. The point of Buddhism is that peace comes by focusing on what we already know and experience. Metaphysical questions are not important. If you go to change a flat tire, you don't go read the Bible, you go change the flat tire. Jesus also taught to focus on today and not to get all bent out of shape on the future, so a true follower of Jesus focuses as does a true Buddhist on getting it done today, and not spending too much time on planning for tomorrow (although it is prudent to prepare for the future). Living in the present is the way to live life. Tomorrow you can worry about tomorrow. Live one day at a time.
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Greatest I am
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« Reply #9 on: October 12, 2017, 09:59:22 AM »

I vote for the enlightened Buddha's answer, which is making the present better.

To be enlightened you don't need to believe in a creator or afterlife. The point of Buddhism is that peace comes by focusing on what we already know and experience. Metaphysical questions are not important. If you go to change a flat tire, you don't go read the Bible, you go change the flat tire. Jesus also taught to focus on today and not to get all bent out of shape on the future, so a true follower of Jesus focuses as does a true Buddhist on getting it done today, and not spending too much time on planning for tomorrow (although it is prudent to prepare for the future). Living in the present is the way to live life. Tomorrow you can worry about tomorrow. Live one day at a time.

To be enlightened, one must recognize that he needs to be enlightened and seeks it perpetually.

That is the Gnostic Christian way as well as the best Buddhist way.

Regards
DL
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tmcusa2
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« Reply #10 on: October 12, 2017, 10:22:10 AM »

To be enlightened, one must recognize that he needs to be enlightened and seeks it perpetually.

That is the Gnostic Christian way as well as the best Buddhist way.

Regards
DL
Yes, I agree, enlightenment is something one should seek whether or not one is a Buddhist. Gnostic Christianity has much to offer.
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tmcusa2
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« Reply #11 on: October 12, 2017, 10:23:50 AM »

The key to enlightenment is, of course, not just to talk the talk, without walking the walk, talking the talk will not lead to full enlightenment.
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Greatest I am
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« Reply #12 on: October 12, 2017, 10:32:05 AM »

To be enlightened, one must recognize that he needs to be enlightened and seeks it perpetually.

That is the Gnostic Christian way as well as the best Buddhist way.

Regards
DL
Yes, I agree, enlightenment is something one should seek whether or not one is a Buddhist. Gnostic Christianity has much to offer.

There are good reasons why the intelligent discerning seeker after God say that the only good Christian is a Gnostic Christian.

Our branch, Chrestians, which I think pre-ceded and whose writings were usurped by Christianity, has never been literal readers of myths that were never written to be read literally.

When and if the world recognizes that fact, all Christians will put Gnostic in front of their label.

Shame on those Christians who do not.

Regards
DL
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The Mikado
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« Reply #13 on: October 15, 2017, 02:57:32 PM »

It 100% depends on the faith tradition and on which specific rule you mean.

For example, the Prophet Isaiah makes a strong case that fasting is supposed to help you sympathize with the poor, who go hungry not by choice but by necessity. Isaiah's take is not the only one on the table, though.
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The Mikado
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« Reply #14 on: October 15, 2017, 11:56:16 PM »

Just thought I'd give a different perspective, really quickly...Moses in Deuteronomy has a case that the answer is neither to make the world a better place nor a place in an afterlife that isn't recognized, but because it is the Israelites' contractual obligation to God and that there's one hell of a severance package for noncompliance.

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This answer is "you should follow religious rules because God is judging the entire community on the actions of the entire community, and if the community doesn't play ball, the severance clause on the contract is too horrific to contemplate."
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The Mikado
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« Reply #15 on: October 16, 2017, 12:03:16 AM »

God did not make those rules; nor does God actually exist.

Religious rules were designed by wealthy aristocrats to solidify their hold to power.

Which is why half of the Bible is the Prophets condemning the Kings and the narrative itself condemning basically every king except Hezekiah and Josiah as varying degrees of immoral. Even Hezekiah(!), Isaiah's golden boy, gets knocked for not destroying the high places.

Nathan condemning David for murdering Uriah the Hittite and wedding his wife, Elijah condemning Ahab and Jezebel for the seizure of Jezreel, the entire story of Saul and Samuel's brutal condemnation of him (and monarchy in general!!!)...I guess I just imagined those and they weren't actually in the text.
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DC Al Fine
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« Reply #16 on: October 20, 2017, 05:39:09 AM »

God did not make those rules; nor does God actually exist.

Religious rules were designed by wealthy aristocrats to solidify their hold to power.

Which is why half of the Bible is the Prophets condemning the Kings and the narrative itself condemning basically every king except Hezekiah and Josiah as varying degrees of immoral. Even Hezekiah(!), Isaiah's golden boy, gets knocked for not destroying the high places.

Nathan condemning David for murdering Uriah the Hittite and wedding his wife, Elijah condemning Ahab and Jezebel for the seizure of Jezreel, the entire story of Saul and Samuel's brutal condemnation of him (and monarchy in general!!!)...I guess I just imagined those and they weren't actually in the text.

Reminder, most atheists who claim to study the Bible are full of it.
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they don't love you like i love you
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« Reply #17 on: October 20, 2017, 08:09:54 AM »

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" TOTALLY sounds like the sort of thing wealthy aristocrats would come up with to solidify their power after all.
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The Mikado
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« Reply #18 on: October 20, 2017, 03:25:33 PM »

If you're counting the New Testament, it does have the strongest endorsement of temporal political authority in the Bible:

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Which is even more striking in its famous KJV opening line "Obey the Powers That Be." Thing is, Paul isn't speaking from the perspective of a government authority, Paul is speaking as a member of a tiny religious minority who doesn't want to invite government scrutiny or persecution and wants his flock to keep their heads down. Even that passage isn't telling you to obey the government because it's inherently good, it's telling you to stay out of trouble.
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Greatest I am
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« Reply #19 on: October 26, 2017, 03:42:05 PM »

God did not make those rules; nor does God actually exist.

Religious rules were designed by wealthy aristocrats to solidify their hold to power.

Which is why half of the Bible is the Prophets condemning the Kings and the narrative itself condemning basically every king except Hezekiah and Josiah as varying degrees of immoral. Even Hezekiah(!), Isaiah's golden boy, gets knocked for not destroying the high places.

Nathan condemning David for murdering Uriah the Hittite and wedding his wife, Elijah condemning Ahab and Jezebel for the seizure of Jezreel, the entire story of Saul and Samuel's brutal condemnation of him (and monarchy in general!!!)...I guess I just imagined those and they weren't actually in the text.

Reminder, most atheists who claim to study the Bible are full of it.

Yet statistics belie your position.

You might ask why so called believers almost never go to church and why it is the atheists who show the theists what they should be reading and how to read it.

Have you ever read these? I doubt it or you would be a Gnostic Christian or an atheist.

Matthew 6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Isaiah 56:11) "They are shepherds who have no understanding; They have all turned to their own way, each on to his unjust gain, to the last one" But do not despair, for the day of judgment is at hand, for the day of judgment and the day of the LORD occupy the same time frame. All the dross will be burned away. (Zech 13:9) & (Malachi 3:3). In that day, "you will distinguish between the righteous and the wicked" (Malachi 3:18)

Regards
DL
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