Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!sdd.hp.com!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: sc1u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Stephen Chan) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Non practicing RC with a few words to say. Message-ID: Date: 25 Jun 91 07:41:26 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 78 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Well, I'm a recently converted Roman Catholic. And I have an opposing position to present. hobrien@pluton.matrox.com (Hugh O'Brien) writes: > I will stop here for now. However, I do have a few last words. > The bible is just one of many books in the world, don't let it rule > your life. Ultimately, "religion" is you, yourself. When you die, > and if there is a judgement, then it will be based on who you are, > and who you know yourself to be. When you're a Christian, you essentially surrender control of your life to God. You do not live for yourself, you live for God, on borrowed time. God rules your life, not yourself. In the words of Dietrich Bonheoffer (a Lutheran pastor) "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." Christian religion (at least the variety which I practice) is not concerned with "me", but with God. As I live, and when I die, I will be judged by how closely my actions followed the will of God, not on how my actions followed my own particular inclinations. If, in the face of divine revelation, I willfully choose to "go my own way" then I have committed the fundamental sin: I have chosen my own will over that of God. > You can have sex out of wedlock, > and do a million other things that are not approved by the religious > powers that be, and still be a good person. If you are a good person, > then you deserve to go to heaven, if it exists, just as much as someone > who has said the rosary every day of her/his life and adhered to the > moral code of such_and_such religion. In general, when people talk about good and evil, good is that which fits within a visible, known framework of acceptable behavior. Evil is that which does not. So, even by conventional standards, you're essentially promoting "evil" as being "good". In a Christian sense, when you, on your own personal authority, declare that "so and so is good", you are trying to usurp God's role as the sole foundation of good & evil value judgements. Under either definition, your argument pretty much on the evil side of the line. > Also, there exists the VERY distinct possibility that death brings > absolute nothingness. Your state of conciousness is nothing more than > a manifestation of the processes of your body burning food. As an > astronomer would say, man is just some matter that has become aware > of its own existance and of the existance of the universe. That's right. It could very well be there is no God, and religion is merely "the opiate of the masses" as Karl Marx believed. Given that possibility, are you willing to *literally* BET YOUR LIFE on a set of principles uttered by a man who was crucified as a criminal 2000 years ago? That's what true faith is really about. This faith is the necessary condition for true selflessness...ie. "dying". > If this > is true, then you must posess the moral strength to continue being > a good, decent human being. Most people just "go with the flow" of the society, and manage to be considered good, decent human beings. "Moral Strength" is only exhibitted by opposition to the prevailing morality. Moral "strength" is NOT exhibitted by following popular morality. Today, pre-marital sex is very common. Independence is the prevalent theme nowadays. Traditional religion seems have picked up a stigma these days. But folks who subscribe to popular morality are still considered "good decent human beings". Is this moral "strength"? - Stephen Chan