Are religious rules more for making the present better, or to get into heaven?

[Greatest I am]

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

Regards
DL

[Greatest I 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

[Greatest I 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

[Greatest I 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.

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