Re: [asa] Attaining heaven -- a poll

  As a Christian who believes that the Bible teaches "For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.", I believe with the majority in the polls. One of the earlier posts on this thread Schwarzwald stated, "There is a difference between believing that people of other faiths can achieve salvation, and that other religions themselves 'offer eternal life'." Though I am not a literalist in interpretation, I do believe that Jesus is the way the truth and the life, and life is found only in him. I don't believe that salvation happens in this "aeon" (or age) for all; it's apparent some never come to know him in this life. Since it would be to long ( and probably boring) to go through scriptures to show why I believe in eventual salvation for all, the verses in 1 Cor 13 on love state "13:7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 13:8 Love never ends." If I am supposed to love like this, how much more will our Savior and Heavenly Father? Now I'll grant that the majority of the respondents to the polls haven't thought it out systematically, God has given us a sense of right and wrong. The idea of an eternal punishment goes against any but the worst of our concience. So, maybe our God-given sense of justice and mercy are in line with the One who gave it. Dave M ________________________________ From: David Clounch <david.clounch@gmail.com> To: John Burgeson (ASA member) <hossradbourne@gmail.com> Cc: asa <asa@calvin.edu> Sent: Sunday, December 28, 2008 6:02:50 AM Subject: Re: [asa] Attaining heaven -- a poll Its an interesting survey. As George points out, a survey on ignorance? :) Maybe I am simple minded, but I look at it in a very practical way. Lets assume God doesn't exist. That means that the very best a person can hope for is to spend a few years on this planet, and then spend the rest of eternity six feet under. And everyone you know will reach the same fate. Whether they were good or bad doesn't matter - all will be pushing up daisies. Thats the very best we can hope for. I think that is rather grim. Its certainly grim enough. I'll call that option I. (BTW, two days before Christmas I finalized the cremation of my mother. This isn't a theoretical matter. Its real). It could be worse. One possibly could live on - and be subjected to horrible situations that make one wish for death. You don't need hell for that. Just being forced to live with tyrants for which there are no limits to their actions, with no consequences, can lead one to want to escape into death. I'll call these undesirable situations option II. Are any other options available? OK, along comes someone like God who can save us from that grim reality of the very best we could look forward to, which is Option I. A smart person would jump at the opportunity!!!! But what do people do instead? They complain about how unfair it is that their benefactor doesn't suit their whims. That would be like the millionaire reality show where the undercover millionaire writes a check for $100,000 to you, and you slap his hand and blame him for being a millionaire - and refuse to cash the check to spite him. Would that be dumb, or insane? Death is a good thing given the consequences of sin and the natural human condition. Who would want to be dying of cancer for 100,000 years? Whether you were good or bad has nothing to do with it. All religions exist because people have a yearning for something other than their natural condition. That shows how bad they think their natural condition really is. But how does blaming the solution change their natural condition? I think it is the unbeliever who is engaging in wishful thinking. But, as I said, I must be sort of simple minded. I see the Christ as absolutely WONDERFUL. If someone thinks there is another way besides the Christ, what they need to show is that the other way gets the job done. -Dave C On Sun, Dec 28, 2008 at 11:02 AM, John Burgeson (ASA member) <hossradbourne@gmail.com> wrote: Of course, a poll that says most folks think that Jesus is not "the only way" has no effect on the truth or falsity of that claim. But it is interesting.. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/opinion/27blow.html?th&emc=th By CHARLES M. BLOW Published: December 26, 2008 In June, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life published a controversial survey in which 70 percent of Americans said that they believed religions other than theirs could lead to eternal life. Earl Wilson/The New York Times Charles M. Blow This threw evangelicals into a tizzy. After all, the Bible makes it clear that heaven is a velvet-roped V.I.P. area reserved for Christians. Jesus said so: "I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." But the survey suggested that Americans just weren't buying that. The evangelicals complained that people must not have understood the question. The respondents couldn't actually believe what they were saying, could they? So in August, Pew asked the question again. (They released the results last week.) Sixty-five percent of respondents said — again — that other religions could lead to eternal life. But this time, to clear up any confusion, Pew asked them to specify which religions. The respondents essentially said all of them. And they didn't stop there. Nearly half also thought that atheists could go to heaven — dragged there kicking and screaming, no doubt — and most thought that people with no religious faith also could go. What on earth does this mean? One very plausible explanation is that Americans just want good things to come to good people, regardless of their faith. As Alan Segal, a professor of religion at Barnard College told me: "We are a multicultural society, and people expect this American life to continue the same way in heaven." He explained that in our society, we meet so many good people of different faiths that it's hard for us to imagine God letting them go to hell. In fact, in the most recent survey, Pew asked people what they thought determined whether a person would achieve eternal life. Nearly as many Christians said you could achieve eternal life by just being a good person as said that you had to believe in Jesus. Also, many Christians apparently view their didactic text as flexible. According to Pew's August survey, only 39 percent of Christians believe that the Bible is the literal word of God, and 18 percent think that it's just a book written by men and not the word of God at all. In fact, on the question in the Pew survey about what it would take to achieve eternal life, only 1 percent of Christians said living life in accordance with the Bible. Now, there remains the possibility that some of those polled may not have understood the implications of their answers. As John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum, said, "The capacity of ignorance to influence survey outcomes should never be underestimated." But I don't think that they are ignorant about this most basic tenet of their faith. I think that they are choosing to ignore it ... for goodness sake. -- Burgy (In the above, I'd object to the claim that "the Bible makes it clear.") www.burgy.50megs.com To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message. Trustworthiness: Vendor reliability: Privacy: Child safety:

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Received on Sat Dec 27 19:04:08 2008