Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: boulder!tramp!hassell@ncar.ucar.edu (Christopher Hassell) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Abbie Hoffman (Judgement of the guilty, by God) Message-ID: Date: 4 Sep 89 10:14:46 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: (Let's see, I'm positive .. I've got ... ) Lines: 151 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Firstly, amen to Janet for her other responding article. Pamphlets of only sinner-pointing content have a lie within them, that there are Respectible people among Humans that are Obviously in less need of forgiveness. This is not true, but we can easily recognize that Feeling as we see the media both report about Criminal Activity XYZ and also see that act condemned with everything that television and our democratic propoganda can throw at it. <<< ...all from the same media cramming our eyes with New Fun X Beer, etc >>> That, I believe is why that sort of attitude can be so vehemently supported, regardless of the enlightenment and humility that the Bible provides for us. I have seen some who were so blinded by their own goodwill to the Lord, so impressed with their ability to be near God, that those who do not show themselves equal appear contemptible to them. # In article levy@ttbcad.att.com # (Daniel R Levy) writes: # >Which brings to mind something that bothers me very much. What about people # >who can't "think straight" due to no choice of their own? E.g., people born # >with severe organic brain damage. Yes, they too get the Lake of Fire, # because # >they can not think to believe in God. # Neither can they think to reject God. I believe it is our rejection of God # that we are condemned for. # John 3:19, "And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the # world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their # deeds were evil." # If someone is brain damaged to the point that they can not accept Christ, # they can not (IMHO) be held accountable for rejecting Him either. The same # would go for those too young to understand. # Lance A. Beckner INTERNET: lab@fibercom.com # FiberCom, Inc. UUCP: ...!uunet!fibercom!lab # P.O. Box 11966 FAX: (703) 342-5961 # Roanoke, VA 24022-1966 PHONE: (703) 342-6700 I agree very very strongly with this viewpoint. It is one of my strongest pillars of Belief (not Faith, sadly). I find many things that come to this and lead from this. - In Matthew (I MUST search for that verse) and others is the parable of the 10 talents (egad...is that it?) and a primary message is also illuminated better in one of the gospels. That message is that "From those who are given much, much will be expected. From those who are given little, little will be expected." That is one place where I find Jesus speaking about those he is not capable of reaching (not a useful topic to dwell on while preaching :-). I believe that truly, as Jesus said to Thomas when proof of his Resurrection was given, those who are given less to know him are more lucky than those who see him and deny him, the only Ultimate Sin (in Matthew too). This issue, by the way, is a pivotal one for the image of Christ and moreso Christiantity, sadly. I have not begun to respond to all the people who see any espousal of A Single Truth to be merely arrogance and void of the truth it has. These people believe that those who do not have the truth or who have never seen it will be punished as severely as rebels for their Ignorance alone. It is very commonly accepted, and also very vague. There is always an issue about whether it is EVER good to make a fence-line for people to walk and believe in their safety, for one can always fall. ("You are either for me or against me"). However, I find that the truth of God's forgiveness has also a preventative side, BUT we don't know where his Line will be drawn to pull those who can be saved toward him. One can also find the cyncism that we all know when looking at Worldly Good Intentions and their effects. As for issues to address with this assumption: - The whole aspect of third-world or rural or backwoods people comes in. I believe that the sin of the world is what a person is "given" and the righteousness that the person senses, as a gift from god, is also what a person is "given". The beliefs about `savages' are, at times, very very true and homocide and bloody warring can be common among even those who are "at one with nature", though certainly not always. Many have learned peace or are simply espousing a child-like attitude from their innocence. Sin runs rampant and has its sway over multitudes. Faith can stop it and it is not simple ignorance which lets people fall astray in His eyes, it still is Sin. Jesus is the only "complete" cure and, I believe, the only one that leads only towards righteousness instead of finding it like a path in the night. - The whole issue of pre-maturity and innocence, for children and others. Adam and Eve didn't eat from the Tree of Sin, they ate from the Tree of Knowledge (of Good and Evil). In our rebellious and inadequate minds, we also found the Knowledge of Want and Satisfaction, of Pain and Worldly Pleasure, and of Separated Love and Vicious Hatred. I believe that children are very much a part of all that our faith can be expressed in. They are those who are unstained, but who have potential, from birth, and will find the potential to gain the knowledge and act on it. Children have often been treated as Adults whose sins are merely mapped downwards from Murder to Hitting, from Slander and Gossip to Calling-People- Names, and from Subversion-and-Destruction to Talking-Back (as is defined by us, as sinning adults). I find this to not be the true means of showing children their sins and Savior. I remember my own sheer irritation as a young child at Adults wanting me to not do the Small versions of what I had heard they do. Remember? we all were probably told to Not Speak or ignore such things as Adults hate in themselves, with a wish that we might avoid them. I, myself, abhor the sight of a child attempting to acheive the nastyness that Children are temporarily Free from. We see our own perfected means of sinning as children try to, but not complete yet, and we fear their bad copies as precursors. Children are shown the same images as adults with these same types of Crimes and, though certainly not directly, asked to want forgiveness. Children, however lack many things that adults do and that is why Christ spoke of "being as little children unto God" . They have their wants that REALLY DOMINATE their mind and teaching austerity is as difficult, but they can and do abandon things, once knowledgible MUCH FASTER than us, though they may come back to the same issue and fall again. They are not White, but they have not made the stains during their lives that we have upon ourselves. That is one thing that children should be held up for and told to treasure, before they forget about their Created, temporarily- protected innocence. A last thing to notice is that Christ is, I believe, a Savior for adults only, as He was from his life onward to now. Childhood should more have the teachings and flavor of Judaism as was given in the pre-maturity of God's People. It truly was this way that God dealt with the Jews. Children do not NEED a savior in the same way we do, they need wise teachings and smaller analogies to Christ. They need The Father, and The Son's teachings. I babble on about this quite because a rift in Christianity constantly developes around adolescence, around God's definition of a person's adulthood. Children have lost their faith many a time becuase it didn't and couldn't fit them, as well as their parents' possible sins against them. - One last thing I see, that is much more a theory than idea. I find that the damned will be those who truly have either rejected God or those who have rejected his Will as they found Evil in their own time. Those who follow Christ will be clothed in White, those who are in the Book of Life will find their way back to God, those who are not will be lost to places in Hell where Satan will NOT rule, but will be punished above all others. May we all find our innocence, not lost but given back to us when we ask :-> :-> ### C>H> ###