Hey Guidobaba, don't be like that, I know you're goodly really or Phat wouldn't be so kind to you. Chiro's just trying to show you that one can basically go about life trying to do what's right - they might even acknowledge their sins. They might be sorry for them. That surely counts. It carries weight with me, if a person is basically a goodie. And I trust that it therefore carries weight with God, no matter what the bible specifics read.
I agree with you mostly on this subject. From what I can see, Guido is being a bit Pharisaical on this matter. But I think it would be important to make the distinction between remorse and repentence. Some people are remorseful because they are caught, and indeed, they are 'sorry' for their actions after-the-fact. Repentence is something more. But even this falls short because surely there are those who are caught in habitual sin who's '
spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.'
Aside from this, what is a 'goodie?' Jesus asks what is 'good?' The answer He gives is resoundingly negative if we are unbelievers but full of hope for the believer.
"There are none that are good, no. not even one." So, doing good only means doing the will of God. And if we are the ones who are judging what is good or bad we may find ourselves decieved bg comparing ourselves to one another rather than seeing if we are in right relation with Jesus.
What are your thoughts on this matter? A dichotomy or an axiom that we know little about?
Yet it's not clear that an atheist cannot be a sheep. Indeed, to my mind, the allusion is that if you love people, take care of them etc.., then you're a sheep. If you don't believe me, please read about the seperation of the sheep from the goats, and have an open mind.
I guess that would all depend on what a 'sheep' is? A sheep has become a derisive term for those not deemed to be "free-thinkers" (whatever that means). It bespeaks of a people who blindly follow the flock, the majority, exhibiting herd instincts. But all one has to do is look at society to see who more aptly follows and who goes against the grain?
Either the author believed that it was clear that only a believer could be a sheep, because "only a believer does good"theology, or the author is infact saying that anyone who does those things is a sheep. Since we don't know, we simply cannot infer that disbelievers in particular, burn forever. I personally think that if Christ was good enough to die on the cross, then he's trustworthy enough to accept atheist sheep. I trust he will do this, personally, if he exists.
When the Word speaks about the Gentiles in the OT, it speaks about those not consecrated. But it says that the Gentiles become a law unto themselves and that God instills in them a sense of godliness, knowing the difference between right and wrong in their hearts. There is no doubt in my mind that an unbeliever can do good things, things of God, unwittingly. The only difference is they don't recognize where that goodness comes from, nor when they do wicked things, do they feel repentence for those actions. At most they feel remorse.
Since God gave atheists minds capable of reason, then it's logical to assume that those atheists who study the bible as something literally true, will find many contradictions and atrocities unworthy of the real creator. Therefore I think it's best for a believer to put their full trust in Christ rather than the bible.
Almost everything in Christianity is counter-intuitive. Christ obviously wanted it that way. In that way He confounds the wise and gives knowledge to those whose faith is like that of a little child-- unceasing, unfettered, and a pure faith. If you want richess, He instructs us to give it away in order for the law of reciprocity to work in our lives. Just as well, it seems counter-intuitive that one must first believe, then they will be shown the truth, rather than shown evidence then believe. This would be the natural course of things, but God goes beyond this.
Edited by nemesis_juggernaut, : No reason given.
"There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility." -Theodore Roosevelt