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Original poster

The mark of a true Christian?

147 replies

MrsGinnyPotter · 29/10/2015 11:22

The sermon was saying that as a Christian, there should be nothing on this earth that you would take now in exchange for an eternal life in heaven with God.
Now in theory this is fine but when you start putting it into real life situations - it's really hard to think 'I would choose God over this' e.g. If it was between something extreme like God or your child's life - how can you make that decision and live with it?

With smaller things it's fine -examples they gave in church were things like 'never chocolate again or winning a million pounds' which would all be easy to say no and choose God but something life altering it would be much harder.
Does it make you a bad person or not a true Christian for thinking like this?
Blush

OP posts:
AlanPacino · 03/01/2016 13:47

I loved him above everything, including God.

Children need parents who put them first because they are vulnerable. Why would God need you to love him more? My husband loves our kids more than he loves me. He would put them above me because they have to come first and I respect that because it makes him good. If my DH expected me to put him above the kids I would have little respect for him. I would bet my bank account op that you actually do love your kids more than God and that if an actual situation arose where you had to make a choice you would put your ds ahead. In sure of it.

Farahilda · 03/01/2016 13:54

I don't think you need to quantify love, or rank those who you love.

AlanPacino · 03/01/2016 13:54

redeemed us all through putting His only beloved son on that altar 2000 years ago. My beloved Father does not condone child sacrifice.

Can you see the glaring contradiction between the first and second sentence. You didn't even pause between the two! Your God is all about child sacrifice. It wasn't an unusual practice in other regions of that time also. Later humans moved to mainly sacrificing animals which is also ridiculous. The idea that killing something would stop an all powerful God venting his anger on you, all sentiments very common among peoples of that time. But that Christians now are at pains to rewrite and reframe to try and make them more palatable such as your example of a spiritual interpretation.

DioneTheDiabolist · 03/01/2016 13:55

Al, have you lost a child?

LaurieFairyCake · 03/01/2016 14:03

I wouldn't hold a knife to my kids throat. If I thought God told me to I'd seek psychiatric help.

I don't believe in 'heaven' or life after death. I'd take the million quid over something I don't believe in. Or a crunchie.

I am 100% Christian and believe God is with me all around me on earth.

AlanPacino · 03/01/2016 14:08

dione my personal experiences are by the by. Why would it matter? You're welcome to counter my reasoning but please do so without ad hom lines of reasoning.

DioneTheDiabolist · 03/01/2016 14:52

What ad hom lines of reasoning have I used Al?

AlanPacino · 03/01/2016 15:16

When personal experiences are brought up its invariably done as a fallacious attempt to undermine a line of logic. My experiences should have absolutely nothing to do with your ability to counter argue my position. It doesn't matter wether I've lost 20 or no children.

AlanPacino · 03/01/2016 15:18

To put it another way, how would someone's history, or lack of, child bereavement make any difference to how disgusting a parent being willing to kill their child because their God asked them to?

LilyNoPad · 03/01/2016 16:35

Just to respond to your last comment Al (I will try and work through the others when I can):

how disgusting a parent being willing to kill their child because their God asked them to?

I don't think Abraham's behaviour was disgusting...he was acting in faith. He knew God's character (which sadly most people don't because of the damage that Churchianity and Bible mis-translations have done). He trusted Him when He told Abraham that all people would be blessed through his descendants, Isaac included. He knew he could trust God with Isaac. This is the whole point of faith! Maybe Abraham thought he was being tested and expected God to stop him, maybe he fully expected God to resurrect Isaac after he was sacrificed...we don't know this. But I do not believe that Abraham thought that this was necessary to 'appease God'. I understand why you think the scripture about Molech child sacrifice is contradicting this but it actually enables us to understand the Abraham/Isaac situation better. If I stand on that scripture and trust that what God says is truth, then I know that He does not condone child sacrifice. That He would never ask me to slay my child on an altar. But the fact that Abraham was willing to do so shows enormous faith on his part as He trusted in God's goodness even when it made no sense.

I think I made a huge mistake in making the spiritual application of this story to my own experience. I was not saying I would put my son on an altar and slit his throat for 'my God'. I was saying that I was trusting God with him and his life, however long that may be. If I lost my little boy I would be absolutely devastated and I couldn't imagine my life without him. But I believe that God would carry me through. If I lost my faith, I couldn't bear it. These are my personal feelings and I don't expect anyone to understand or agree with me, but I also don't think that a stranger can say they know me better than I know myself!

AlanPacino · 03/01/2016 17:11

he was acting in faith.

It sounds like you're saying Abraham had to disregard his own morality/feelings to hold that knife to his frightened son's throat\heart . That's obedience, not morality. Any God that would require me to ignore my own morality, (a morality he felt sufficient to acknowledge him as good just before I decided to follow him) is morally inferior to me.

AlanPacino · 03/01/2016 17:15

sadly most people *don't
*
I have the same bible as you, I read the same OT atrocities as you. I'm not fabricating stories. Im approaching the bible with the morality I approach today with. If God is unchanging he is the same as he was 4000 years ago which portrays a monstrous, power hungry dictator. If I'm going to believe in a god it would need to be clearly more 'good' than me. It couldn't be a god who would order the stabbing of babies.

timelytess · 03/01/2016 17:31

God hasn't changed - its the nature of human understanding which has changed. The greater experience, knowledge and information we have received over the intervening four thousand years has helped us to overcome some of the prejudices and misapprehensions of our forefathers. In their place, of course, we have prejudices and misapprehensions of our own.

I couldn't take Abraham's course of action but I don't believe God would want me to. I believe God knows us and loves us and does not require anything of us other than that we fulfil the roles allocated to us, accept His guidance along the way, and learn from our experiences. God isn't cruel or vengeful, He is merciful and compassionate. God isn't a dictator, He has allowed us all free will to make our own decisions in the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

The mark of a true Christian being there is nothing we wouldn't give up here on Earth to spend eternity with God? How about 'the mark of a true Christian is that s/he loves God and others, happily and with practical application, wherever s/he should be.'

The people who are true believers have joy in their eyes. They might belong to a religion or denomination but their belief and practice is not limited to the teachings of that particular path. They know the love, and they know it is for everyone.

DioneTheDiabolist · 03/01/2016 19:43

When personal experiences are brought up it is invariably done as a fallacious attempt to undermine a line of logic.

Is that what you were doing when you were asking Lily questions?

FrancisdeSales · 03/01/2016 20:10

Why are we only mentioning the Old Testament? Christians believe in Jesus and him being the fulfilment of the prophecies of the OT.

In terms of Abraham the hill that Isaac walked up carrying wood for his sacrifice is exactly the same hill Jesus staggered up with the cross as the eternal sacrifice and to overcome death forever.

FrancisdeSales · 03/01/2016 20:21

Also I was taught that Isaac was at least 20 years old (with an extremely frail father) and not a young child. If you read the OT my understanding is the passage of time makes him at least a late adolescent/young man.

AlanPacino · 03/01/2016 20:35

asking lily questions

I don't need to ask anyone about their specific history. I asked lily to engage in thought exercises. The questions I asked lily were in response to the reasoning lily outlined. How lily got there isn't the issue matter. If I make Lily's history a feature I am moving away from the bigger issue and reducing the debate to personal rather than an overarching issue that is true for all of us regardless of what we had been through.

How would your knowledge of my personal experience come to bear on how you tackle my points? You do realise that it shouldn't and that you should tackle my posts or their own merit?

AlanPacino · 03/01/2016 20:37

being the fulfilment of the prophecies of the OT.

When god ordered the Israelites to stab the babies of the the Amelakites do you think that actually happened?

AlanPacino · 03/01/2016 20:42

Isaac was at least 20 years old

It sounds like you welcomed that interpretation. You find it more palatable to sacrifice a 20 year old child than a younger one. Again it sounds like you've used your own 21st century morality to shape your interpretation. Which shows me that your actually more sophisticated in your reasoning than the deity you think wrote the bible.

DioneTheDiabolist · 03/01/2016 20:48

You asked Lily to engage in a thought exercise regarding how she has coped with the death of her child. To what end Al?

FrancisdeSales · 03/01/2016 21:12

OK Alan, what we are talking about is faith. You know that and you wilfully don't want to engage in what Christians actually believe which is integrated theology, philosophy and life still here after 2,000 years. My understandings come from that tradition as taught by Dominicans (women and men) who have been in existence, praying. Contemplating teaching and studying for 800 years now. Also those crazy uneducated Jesuits (Pope Francis is one) and all the hundreds of thoughtful and intellectually piercing Christian people I have known.

Just ranting at Christians about things we don't actually believe or taking just certain passages out randomly to condemn an entire faith community has being going on forever and yet the church endures.

AlanPacino · 03/01/2016 21:19

what Christians actually believe

There is no consensus on what Christians believe. They do not all hold a cohesive set of beliefs by any stretch of the imagination. Also, there are many non-Christian beliefs that have been knocking about for a long time. How long humans have held a beliefs and the numbers of people that hold them says nothing about the veracity of that belief.

FrancisdeSales · 03/01/2016 21:27

But we all believe in and condone child sacrifice right AP?

AlanPacino · 03/01/2016 21:41

she has coped with the death of her child

My mistake but I didn't read it that she had lost her ds. As it stands, in general my line of enquiry stands outside of yours, mine and anyone's life. There are times that a disclosure during a thread will change or quell a debate but then it's about that overriding empathy rather than a subjective reality.

AlanPacino · 03/01/2016 21:52

But we all believe in and condone child sacrifice right AP?

We're talking about God. Wether I condone it or not doesn't matter. When it comes to this debate it's regardless wether I'm Mother Theresa or Boko Haram. Explain to me how God is opposed to it while he asked Abraham to do it. That's the issue.