:DDN (from original post): Would someone please explain to me what is meant by "being saved", "accepting Jesus as your savior", "witnessing Jesus as the one and only path to spiritual salvation", etc.:Shaun: Let me explain the first two first, I'll get to the third one afterwards. When you "accept Jesus as your Savior", you are then "Born again". Heres the deal. Jesus is God.There is a heaven and a hell, and all of us will spend eternity in either one of those places. Hell is a place of torture and torment, but heaven is a place of eternal bliss and happiness where God lives. God wants us all to be in heaven-but there is one rule. God will not allow sin into heaven. The problem is that we are all sinners. Every single one of us has at one time or another commited some kind of sin. Our sins are keeping us out of heaven and we are all bound for hell......
DDN: But why am I still going to hell if Jesus died for my sins? What did he go to all that trouble for if it still left me with a one way ticket to hell?
-------------------------------------------------------
:Shaun: .....We all deserve hell because we all have sinned, some more than others. But God loves us! He has provided a way for us to escape hell!
Jesus went to the cross to show us his love for us. He was beaten before they nailed him to the cross. He bore our sins in his body. If we weren't sinners, he never would have had to go through that. God knew we were all headed straight to hell and there is nothing we can do to save ourselves, so He came to earth in the form of a person (Jesus)to provide the only way out of hell......
DDN: So, prior to the arrival of Jesus, everybody went to this "hell" place when they died? Question: If God knew we needed Jesus to avoid eternal damnation and God loves us then why did he let everybody that lived prior to the arrival of Jesus go to hell with no possible escape route? Did God just suddenly start loving humanity just prior to 2000 B.C.? Did something happen just prior to 2000 B.C. that suddenly made us loveable? If so, what was it? Why were we not lovable prior to 2000 B.C.?
Also, you say, as many Christians do, that there is nothing we can do to save ourselves, but below you have told me what I MUST DO to be saved - acknowledge Jesus, confess, etc. and then I'll be saved, correct? How do you reconcile this apparent contradiction.
-------------------------------------------------
:Shaun: ......All you have to do is believe that Jesus is Lord and he died for your sins.
DDN: Two points to make here:
1) Already I am at a loss for what to do. I don't understand this instruction and therefore cannot carry it out. What do you mean by "Lord"? Do you mean "God"? What do you mean by God? And who is Jesus? Is he here? Can I meet him? How am I to come to a belief that Jesus is God if I don't know Jesus or this "God" guy either. How am I to hold the opinion that ANY two things are one in the same if I am not aquainted with either of them?
2) No Shaun, apparently this is not "ALL you have to do". You provide additional instructions as follows:
-------------------------------------------------------
:Shaun: .....Confess to Jesus that you are a sinner and and aknowledge him as the savior of the world, and ask him to save you and cleanse you from sin. You have to mean it with all of your heart though.....
DDN: Are you saying I have a choice as to whether or not I "mean it with all of my heart" when I say this? I don't know how YOUR heart works, but I don't find that I have any say at all over what is in my heart? The sincerity is either there or it isn't - and, in my case, it simply isn't. Are you suggesting that there is something I can do to make my heart sincere in this regard so that my confession will have the desired effect? (And, if so, wouldn't this be yet another instruction on what one "can do to save themself")
----------------------------------------------------
:Shaun: .....Once you have done this you are born again. Born again means that your old self-the worldly sinner-no longer exists.....
DDN: But you said we were ALL sinners. Are you now saying that born again christians are NOT sinners?
-------------------------------------------------------
:Shaun: ......You are now a new creation-you are forgiven and you are living for Jesus.....
DDN: But you are still a sinner living in this world, thus you are still a "wordly sinner" (albeit a FORGIVEN one), correct? Also, if your sins are now automatically forgiven then no amount of wrong action or sin can keep you out of heaven at this point, correct?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
:Shaun: ......You have accepted Jesus as your savior. Jesus died to save you. Will you accept his gift of eternal life? Or will you reject him and go to hell? .....
DDN: But wouldn't I have "eternal life" in hell? If eternal life is such a wonderful gift all by itself then what difference does it make where I spend it? Also, I haven't "rejected" anybody. You've asked me to somehow magically force myself to believe a set of statements about two entities (Jesus and Lord) that I have never even had lunch with. I've not rejected them anymore than I have rejected a bowl of soup when I simply ask the waiter what its ingredients are or complain that I have no spoon.
------------------------------------------------------------
:Shaun: .....This stuff is all in the bible.....
DDN: I KNOW it is. That's why I contend that the bible is so damned confusing.
---------------------------------------------------------------
:Shaun: .....Once you have become a christian, you should read the Bible. The bible explains how Christians are to act and live......
DDN: Eh? What difference does it make how you act and live? You're still going to heaven anyway, aren't you? Isn't your born again status enough to secure your place in heaven? Are you now saying that there are certain things you must do throughout your entire life in order to be allowed through the pearly gates?
-----------------------------------------------------------
:Shaun: ......It says Jesus is coming back.....
DDN: Ok. So that means he is not HERE right now, correct? If he is not here then how am I supposed to make this confession to him? Cellphone? Email? How am I to receive the "gift" from him? UPS? Federal Express?
-----------------------------------------------------
:Shaun: .....He said it himself. I hope you are ready.....
DDN: Ready for what?
----------------------------------------------------------
::DDN (from original post): ...These seemed to be the primary tenets of christianity. They are dished out in excessively generous portions with little or no clarification on what they mean or how one goes about fullfilling them. This has always struck me as being very peculiar since it is the fullfillment of these tenets that allegedly keep us from being eternally damned in a pit of flames.....
:Shaun: Thats right-out of pure love, Jesus did his part to save us. We Christians are doing our part by sharing his love with you. The reason we are sharing this out in extremely generous portions is because we love and care for others and we want you to know that there is a way to escape hell.
DDN: I'm sure we all appreciate your concern, but if its so important to save the rest of us wouldn't it be prudent to come up with some instructions for salvation that EVERYONE can understand?
------------------------------------------------------
::DDN (from original post): You'd think that a game with stakes this high would come with crystal clear instructions that could not possibly be missinterpretted, but alas, all explanations I have receive to date either contradict each other, contradict themselves, or pile on more ambiguity.
:Shaun: .....But there are crystal clear instructions, God's word, The Bible.....
DDN: Maybe they are crystal clear to you, but many people find them to be profoundly UNCLEAR. Can a body of instruction truthfully be labeled as being "CLEAR" when there are as many people who are baffled by them as there are people who completely understand them right away? The Holy Bible is the most complex book I have ever read (and I've read hundreds of books). It ranks dead last on my reading list as far as clarity is concerned. Were you somehow endowed with magical powers of understanding at birth that allowed you to read the entire 1500 page holy bible and not be even a little bit confused?
--------------------------------------------------------------
:Shaun: .....That's where we Christians get all this stuff from. As for all the contradictions, if the Bible dosen't say it, I don't believe it.......
DDN: Does the Bible say that your name is "Shaun"? No. Does the Bible list the atomic weights of the elements? Does the bible say how old you are in milliseconds at any given point in time? The Bible doesn't say a whole lot of things Shaun that are obviously true. So your conviction seems rather rediculous.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
::DDN (from original post): Am I the only person that has this Alice In Wonderland kind of experience with christians?
:Shaun: I completely forgot what Alice in Wonderland was about. It has been years since I've seen it.
DDN: Alice in Wonderland is about a young girl's dream (or psychodelic trip) where everyone she meets its crazy or on drugs and are incapable of making any sense. The characters speak in strange poetic codes about things that seem to bare no relevance to anything. Any reality she is accustomed to is skewed beyond recognition by her experiences with these individuals and she usually walks away from each one of them utterly confused and/or dissappointed until she finally wakes up and says to her sister "I've had the most curious dream". The End.
Its by Lewis Carrol. Its very short book and should be easy to come by. Read it and experience what I believe many people experience when trying to milk christians for information about salvation.
