Salvation is suicide
I must decrease that he may increase is the oft quoted saying by many a humble believer. I once used to say it myself. It was originally said by the man whom Jesus referred to as being the man whom no one greater has ever been born. Well he was his cousin too, so maybe it was also a bit of family love.
But the sentiment spells out clearly whats salvation is about. It's the denial of self and the adoption of a new master. A lord and a savior. To be born again as his child and live your life not according to your will, but in line with the painful cry that came out of the blood soaked face of Jesus of Nazareth in his darkest hour, "Not my will, but your be done". It's a choice to end your will. A choice to submerge your ability to decide in the warm water of obedience to another. It's to resign yourself to the wishes of your new master. It's suicide.
Now it may sound crazy but this is actually what is so exciting and attractive about Christianity. Real life is full of tough decisions and many mistakes and seemingly endless heart aches. We are poor and wretched beings and are told so repeatedly by not only the clerics but by the ever so loud results of our mishaps. Our failures to resist eating too much, or stealing or whatever weakness or perceived weakness one may have. Real life is hard. Responsibility is hard.
so when you hear that God will take on all your cares and troubles and you can just rest in the assurance that he's got it all sorted, you'd be a fool or a sadomasochist not to take that offer,right?To have your life planned out for you by the person that controls the universe, that sees all, that knows exactly what you need..priceless. Oh wait, not exactly..it does come with a price. The price is your very mind. The very thing that separates you and makes you and individual. Your will.Your very being. Rather steep price for eternal life NOT being you wouldn't you say?
Unlike the devil at the cross roads that just wants your soul for the exchange of god like guitar playing skills,Yahweh demands your heart,soul mind and strength. Everything. He will take your worries and your cares and then mold your personality into his. Till at the very end, we're all Jesus.2.0..and being that Jesus is God 2.0, in the end we'll all disappear into a being we already admit is mysterious and do not understand. To give up our humanity, our uncertainty to a being we can't even see.
being save dis in effect suicide, you die to self, you die to your thoughts and nuanced personality, you carry your cross and crucify yourself. Because Jesus can only fully love you and be with you when you are exactly like him..and not the sniveling, complex, wanting to have sex (you evil being) individual that you are and were created as.. Wow what a prize!!Where do i sign up?
They say God doesn't want mindless slaves to worship him. So he gives free will. But you must give up that will to him and so become a creature of no will but his.Kinda like setting free the slaves and giving them the choice of starving out in the deserts on their own or coming back to your 'protection" . All this doesn't sound like love to me, but control. I thank God there is no evidence that this is how petty God is.. should he even exist. Because that God would be a monster of epic proportions
Comments
This is love: that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So even when we are snivelling, sinning people (which we never cease to be while on earth) He loves us. Fully.
Also, side note: it's interesting how I wrote a very similar note on facebook about 2 years ago (in the midst of plunging into Dawkins) and you commented, encouraging me to question these things :-)
Well, I questioned and here we are. At the end of it all, my mind was going in circles while my spirit/soul could not deny that we were made for more than this life.
Uncertainty maybe an uncomfortable position but certainty with all that's before us is an absurd one ad the saying goes.
As for punishment, the purpose of punishment is correction.to change the person..eternal torture doesn't do that. Just pain pain pain because someone chose the wrong deity?God should he exist would be bigger than that. Besides how would it be heaven knowing someone you love is burning away while you worship their sentencer?That's not justice, that for lack of belief to.be a crime when the evidence is honestly not convincing to many. Like the Jews said in God on trial, seems God was not good, he was just on our side'
I will say I think you sound at peace and in purpose which as your friend I love to see. Perhaps God is looking down on us and thinking how we're both mistaken...and both really really cute ;)