Sababa
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2014
- Messages
- 2,578
- Reaction score
- 1,089
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Liberal
There are many Christians who when confronted with a logical argument for why their religious position does not and should not be civil law call upon the idea of damnation in the end of days. It is an interesting approach but one that will fall on deaf ears as if you don't believe in God or their particular version of God then it is an empty threat. But it that is what motivates someone not to sin, then what is that really saying about honoring the law and God? If the reason you don't break a commandment is fear of punishment, that is not discipline it is fear, a total external thing. The counter of course is to make God into a cartoon that says "Love me and obey me or I will punish you forever, and by the way I created you in a way that you are more likely to fail".
This is an insane theology to me. It creates strange ways of looking at the world. There is a story from my tradition.
A rich man wakes one morning and sees in his courtyard a beggar. He calls to the man to come in and asks him if he would daven (pray) the morning blessings with him and if he does the rich man would feed him. The beggar explains it had been so long since he prayed but the rich man instructs him in putting on the proper garb and helps him with the words. Twenty minutes later the two sit down to a meal, the first for the beggar in almost 3 days having lived off scraps he received in the street.
Later that day the rich man encounters his Rabbi and explains the situation, proud he got a man to fulfill the commandments of prayer. The Rabbi responds: "You fool, when you encounter someone in need, act as if there is no God, feed and care for him or her and then pray".
The lesson is clear. Too often people find themselves wrapped up in the God of the moment and not the Godliness. Thinking on an afterlife to guide your moves is not acting in a godly fashion. For Christianity, the teaching is to use Jesus as a role model and to show the world how glorious the faith is to you, not beat them over the head with hell fire and damnation. Jews tend to not focus on our various afterlife stories. It is not important, we are in the here and now and one of the biggest jobs for Jews is to leave the world a better place for us having been here. How we interpret that is different for sure. But in the end we feed the hungry before was ask for prayers, we act out of our own convictions and not fear or divine retribution (to a point) and we try to find a way to live in the world we are in, not one of the past.
The fact is that is also how many Christians live their lives. That is how religion should help motivate us for greater things. Sadly for some they see religion as a battle ax and that is troubling.
This is an insane theology to me. It creates strange ways of looking at the world. There is a story from my tradition.
A rich man wakes one morning and sees in his courtyard a beggar. He calls to the man to come in and asks him if he would daven (pray) the morning blessings with him and if he does the rich man would feed him. The beggar explains it had been so long since he prayed but the rich man instructs him in putting on the proper garb and helps him with the words. Twenty minutes later the two sit down to a meal, the first for the beggar in almost 3 days having lived off scraps he received in the street.
Later that day the rich man encounters his Rabbi and explains the situation, proud he got a man to fulfill the commandments of prayer. The Rabbi responds: "You fool, when you encounter someone in need, act as if there is no God, feed and care for him or her and then pray".
The lesson is clear. Too often people find themselves wrapped up in the God of the moment and not the Godliness. Thinking on an afterlife to guide your moves is not acting in a godly fashion. For Christianity, the teaching is to use Jesus as a role model and to show the world how glorious the faith is to you, not beat them over the head with hell fire and damnation. Jews tend to not focus on our various afterlife stories. It is not important, we are in the here and now and one of the biggest jobs for Jews is to leave the world a better place for us having been here. How we interpret that is different for sure. But in the end we feed the hungry before was ask for prayers, we act out of our own convictions and not fear or divine retribution (to a point) and we try to find a way to live in the world we are in, not one of the past.
The fact is that is also how many Christians live their lives. That is how religion should help motivate us for greater things. Sadly for some they see religion as a battle ax and that is troubling.