On works...

[darin]

On works...

Christians believe we are not 'saved' by our works or deeds, "lest any man should boast..."

I'm conflicted. We are not saved by works, but it seems christians believe works CAN, however, condemn us. I hear frequetly calls for Christians to "Not-do" certain things lest those actions be sin. How does it work that works cannot save, yet they can condemn?

Further, Christ told a parable about 'the sheep and the goats' - where at the day of Judgement before God, the people of the earth were separated into two groups - sheep were those who - ironic to their category - did not simply 'believe in God' - but lived their faith through their actions and lifestyles. The Goats believed in God much as the sheep did - however their faith was not betrayed by their actions or lifestyle. The Goats went into everlasting torment prepared for the Devil and his angels. The sheep, into Heaven.

So - which is it...does it take Action to be "saved"?

I'm of the point of view believing nothing we 'do' is sin. I believe sin is mis-interpreted by large portions of the Church. Sin isn't an action, it's a state of being. Sin doesn't happen on occasion; moreover, it's condition of one's heart. An example I've heard is "Thou shalt not lie". People are taught lying is sinful. Problem is, God has used liars throughout time. When the israelis escaped Egypt they came upon a city. The leaders sent spys into the city who hid in a woman's house. The woman lied when questioned if she'd seen the Israelis spies. She was under no comdenation. Further - Soldiers have likely lied to protect sensative orders or plans. Those lies CAN NOT be 'sin'. Impossible. When my son brings me a creation he's done with Legos, and I tell him it's the best space-ship or weapon I've seen, I'm probably lying; but I'm being exactly what he needs me to be in that instance.

Christians are taught physical sex between couples, outside of marriage is sinful. It's sin.


I'll have to concede the act is not in the best-interest, perhaps, of folks - but specifically is NOT sinful. Take the movie The Blue Lagoon. Those kids were never married - heck, Adam and Eve weren't married - yet what they did violated, perhaps, teachings of "The church." If I were alone with a chick on a deserted island, we would not need a ceremony or state license to be 'married'. What we'd do would not be in violation of biblical principles.

To top things off - I believe most sin doesn't hurt God one bit. Most of the sins we're taught against are simply there for OUR benefit; it hurts only us - not God.

What do you think?

[abso]

On works...

Christians believe we are not 'saved' by our works or deeds, "lest any man should boast..."

I'm conflicted. We are not saved by works, but it seems christians believe works CAN, however, condemn us. I hear frequetly calls for Christians to "Not-do" certain things lest those actions be sin. How does it work that works cannot save, yet they can condemn?

Further, Christ told a parable about 'the sheep and the goats' - where at the day of Judgement before God, the people of the earth were separated into two groups - sheep were those who - ironic to their category - did not simply 'believe in God' - but lived their faith through their actions and lifestyles. The Goats believed in God much as the sheep did - however their faith was not betrayed by their actions or lifestyle. The Goats went into everlasting torment prepared for the Devil and his angels. The sheep, into Heaven.

So - which is it...does it take Action to be "saved"?

I'm of the point of view believing nothing we 'do' is sin. I believe sin is mis-interpreted by large portions of the Church. Sin isn't an action, it's a state of being. Sin doesn't happen on occasion; moreover, it's condition of one's heart. An example I've heard is "Thou shalt not lie". People are taught lying is sinful. Problem is, God has used liars throughout time. When the israelis escaped Egypt they came upon a city. The leaders sent spys into the city who hid in a woman's house. The woman lied when questioned if she'd seen the Israelis spies. She was under no comdenation. Further - Soldiers have likely lied to protect sensative orders or plans. Those lies CAN NOT be 'sin'. Impossible. When my son brings me a creation he's done with Legos, and I tell him it's the best space-ship or weapon I've seen, I'm probably lying; but I'm being exactly what he needs me to be in that instance.

Christians are taught physical sex between couples, outside of marriage is sinful. It's sin.


I'll have to concede the act is not in the best-interest, perhaps, of folks - but specifically is NOT sinful. Take the movie The Blue Lagoon. Those kids were never married - heck, Adam and Eve weren't married - yet what they did violated, perhaps, teachings of "The church." If I were alone with a chick on a deserted island, we would not need a ceremony or state license to be 'married'. What we'd do would not be in violation of biblical principles.

To top things off - I believe most sin doesn't hurt God one bit. Most of the sins we're taught against are simply there for OUR benefit; it hurts only us - not God.

What do you think?

in my belief, our work can save us as much as it can condemn us.

if our work can not save us, then whats the point in doing good deeds, when we stand before GOD, he will judge our work, our good ones and bad ones.

like in islam we are told to treat animals in a good way, so Muhammed once said that a woman will enter hell because she imprisoned a cat in a room, and she left the cat till it died, so she didnt feed the cat nor she left it to go and search for its own food, and another story told by Muhammed that a man will go to heaven because one time he was very tired and thirsty, and he found a well, then went down to drink some water, then after he got up again, he saw a dog licking the ground from thirst, so he went down again although he was very tired, and filled his shoe with water, then he went up again and gave the water to the dog.

so my point is, in my belief, the simplest of our actions are accounted for, our good deeds can save us, even the simplest ones can save us, our actions defines us, define who we are, our life is all about our actions, how can it just condemn us without saving us !!!

and yes, every bad thing we do is a sin, but lying to your son or the women who lied to save the spies, in those situation that cant be lie, GOD isnt a computer which is programmed to consider lie as a sin.

some bad actions doesnt count as sins, like lying as a compliment, telling your wife that you like her new haircut while you hate it completely isnt lying, its just being polite, maybe being polite isnt always consistent with being honest, but we cant be honest in every word we say or we will end up hurting other poeople's feelings.

in Islam we believe that the kind word is charity, and when you tell your son that something he did is terrific and outstanding while its actually horrible and stupid, or your wife that her haircut is beautiful while its ugly, you are just being kind, and that in my belief is like charity.


and i disagree with you, sin is an action, when you beat someone up, thats an action which is a sin, when you kill someone, thats a sin, when you steal, thats a sin, when you have sex with a women other than your wife, thats a sin ............ etc


but about marriage, i agree with you, none need a license, you dont even have to go to church to marry, if you agree to marry her, and she agrees to marry you, and everyone living around you knows that you are both married, then its done, all whats needed for marriage is the mutual agreement, and not to keep it a secret, but papers and license and such things only done to protect the legal rights of the married couple, marriage have existed long before it had to be written on paper, legalising the marriage is just a formality which has nothing to do with the marriage from the religious aspect.


about sins, it doesnt hurt GOD, but when you as a father, see your child doing something wrong, when you see him turn into a bully, who beat up other kids in school for no reason, then a thug when he grows up, wont that hurt you, wont you feel ashamed and hurt, wont you feel that all your effort in raising him to be a good human was for nothing.

GOD created humans not to do sins, but to live a good life, and to obey him and Worship him, as he is our creator, and when a creator sees his creation going in the wrong direction, that will disappoint him.


i wont say that GOD needs our prayers, or that he need us to be good humans or that he needs us to stop doing sins, GOD isnt affected by the way we live, we are the ones who get affected as you say, we are the ones who will regret doing sins.

so in short, GOD wont be affected if we do sins, but he created us to be good humans and to reject sins, thats all.

[Noir]

T'was an interesting read dmp,


Obviously as i di not believe in any gods if there are any i'm pretty much certain to be damned no matter what i do, but i do good simply for goodness sake, as should anyone. Ontop of that i think those that do goodness just because they believe it wins them favour with whatever deity are by definition somewhat selfish in their actions.

[darin]

in my belief, our work can save us as much as it can condemn us.

Perhaps true of Islam; not of Christianity.



if our work can not save us, then whats the point in doing good deeds, when we stand before GOD, he will judge our work, our good ones and bad ones.

I disagree 10000%. In fact, I'd say doing good works for a reward is Sin. Good works are done BECAUSE of closeness with God - not as a means to get close. Make sense? We do them for sake of blessing others only...because they are the right thing to do.



so my point is, in my belief, the simplest of our actions are accounted for, our good deeds can save us, even the simplest ones can save us, our actions defines us, define who we are, our life is all about our actions, how can it just condemn us without saving us !!!

Then it's not their deeds that saved them - it was clearly their compassion. The compassion drove the act - the act wasn't done expecting anything.



and yes, every bad thing we do is a sin, but lying to your son or the women who lied to save the spies, in those situation that cant be lie, GOD isnt a computer which is programmed to consider lie as a sin.

But it IS a lie to tell my son his Artwork sucks. If you introduce gray area in ONE aspect of one's faith, you must do so in many areas. For instance -abortion...Is it sin to abort a pregnancy if the result would be death of the mother? I doubt it. That sorta thing isn't sin - it's a spot-choice...an on-the-spot judgment call. Sure, we can choose wrong, but being wrong isn't sinful.



some bad actions doesnt count as sins, like lying as a compliment, telling your wife that you like her new haircut while you hate it completely isnt lying, its just being polite, maybe being polite isnt always consistent with being honest, but we cant be honest in every word we say or we will end up hurting other people's feelings.

So it's NOT in the absolutely lie or truth, but in the heart of the person speaking it...


in Islam we believe that the kind word is charity, and when you tell your son that something he did is terrific and outstanding while its actually horrible and stupid, or your wife that her haircut is beautiful while its ugly, you are just being kind, and that in my belief is like charity.


and i disagree with you, sin is an action, when you beat someone up, thats an action which is a sin, when you kill someone, thats a sin, when you steal, thats a sin, when you have sex with a women other than your wife, thats a sin ............ etc


I contend it's the heart where the sin happens. The actions are a manifestation of the sin. Thus, are ultimately insignificant.



about sins, it doesnt hurt GOD, but when you as a father, see your child doing something wrong, when you see him turn into a bully, who beat up other kids in school for no reason, then a thug when he grows up, wont that hurt you, wont you feel ashamed and hurt, wont you feel that all your effort in raising him to be a good human was for nothing.

GOD created humans not to do sins, but to live a good life, and to obey him and Worship him, as he is our creator, and when a creator sees his creation going in the wrong direction, that will disappoint him.

When my kids sin, I forgive them without asking. I forgive them w/o requiring any act of contrition on their part. I forgive them whether they ask for it or not. I forgive them whether they pray to me 3 times a day facing east, or not. I forgive them - and will treat them to the same blessings as otherwise, no matter what. If I can grasp this, I believe God can, too. Our self-imposed penance is just that - self-imposed...that is to say, NOT of concern to God.


i wont say that GOD needs our prayers, or that he need us to be good humans or that he needs us to stop doing sins, GOD isnt affected by the way we live, we are the ones who get affected as you say, we are the ones who will regret doing sins.

so in short, GOD wont be affected if we do sins, but he created us to be good humans and to reject sins, thats all.

Actually, he creates us with the capacity for sin; and the natural desire for things we're not supposed to have. He gets that. Most sin is man-created in terms of WE decide it separates us from God. We build barriers.

REALLY appreciate your insights and your reply.

ONE thing I've noticed about you, Abso - sometimes you reply like a scholar, other times you seem to struggle with basic composition and what-not. It's like there are several users there...I could be imagining that for sure; please don't take offense.

[abso]

Perhaps true of Islam; not of Christianity.
i dont know about christianity, but i am sure in any religion, good deeds get rewarded.






I disagree 10000%. In fact, I'd say doing good works for a reward is Sin. Good works are done BECAUSE of closeness with God - not as a means to get close. Make sense? We do them for sake of blessing others only...because they are the right thing to do.

i didnt mean it the way you understood it, i didnt mean that if there is no reward then we shouldnt do it, but i meant, that if there is a judgement day, then when we get judged by GOD, he will reward the good ones as he will punish the bad ones, like in the army, you get a medal or you get court martialed.

but also, being good to gain blessings of GOD, is not the same as being good to be promoted, or being nice to a lady to sleep with her or such things.

in Islam, we believe greed is a sin, unless the greed is in Allah's blessings and satisfaction, because when you are greedy in money or women or power, that would lead to your corruption, but when you are greedy in going to heaven, in Allah's satisfaction, when satisfying Allah is your goal, what would that lead to ?, it will lead you to do good deeds, we believe that seeking the satisfaction of Allah is the best goal in life, and we should be good humans to achieve it.

but if the person isnt good within himself, then he wont even seek Allah's satisfaction, so its not hypocrisy to do good deed to achieve Allah's satisfaction.



Then it's not their deeds that saved them - it was clearly their compassion. The compassion drove the act - the act wasn't done expecting anything.

i agree, the deeds are the result of our emotion, and in Islam, we believe that "deeds is nothing but the result of our intentions and feelings".




But it IS a lie to tell my son his Artwork sucks. If you introduce gray area in ONE aspect of one's faith, you must do so in many areas. For instance -abortion...Is it sin to abort a pregnancy if the result would be death of the mother? I doubt it. That sorta thing isn't sin - it's a spot-choice...an on-the-spot judgment call. Sure, we can choose wrong, but being wrong isn't sinful.


whats the intention of such a lie, do you have any personal gain from saying it ?

in almost everything there is a grey area, and you cant just consider everything as black and white, thats what radicals do, they classify everything as black or white, they have no tolerance to nearly anything that is not done as their belief says.

about abortion, who says that there isnt any grey area in it, there is a very big grey area in the abortion issue, the circumstances very.

Islam forbid abortion totally, but if its medically proved that the birth would result to any harm to the mother, not just death, the abortion is allowed in Islam, and i think its the same in any religion.

all religions value human life the most, and when it comes to the matter of abortion, if the mother is in danger, then the abortion is allowed because none should have the right to tell a women to die for her unborn baby, and in my belief, if she will 100% die while giving birth, then she shouldnt be allowed to continue the pregnancy even if she decides too, because that would be suicide which is forbidden too.

also about abortion issue, if the mother is raped, and that pregnancy is the result of rape, abortion should be allowed if the circumstances doesnt help the mother to continue the pregnancy, or raise the kid.





So it's NOT in the absolutely lie or truth, but in the heart of the person speaking it...


yes, everything we do can have a bad intention even if its a good deed, and it can have a good intention even if its a bad deed, its all up to our intention and our heart.



I contend it's the heart where the sin happens. The actions are a manifestation of the sin. Thus, are ultimately insignificant.


yes i agree, the heart is where our sins start, and our good deeds also, but the action is the translation of that intention into our real world, and we are only judged by our actions, not our thoughts, you can think about killing your boss every minute of every single day, but you wont be judged unless you do it, thoughts and intentions, you have the privilage of keeping them secret.

in Islam, we believe that when someone think about doing a sin, he is not judged for it unless he actually does it, but when he thinks about doing a good deed, and something prevents him from doing it, it will be accounted for when he is being judged that he intented to do the right thing but failed, but about the sin, its only judged if we actually DO IT not just thinking about it.

and about intentions, who doesnt think about killing his mother-in-law :laugh:, so we will all go to hell if sins is all about whats in our heart, because in our heart, we are all sinners, but what matters is what we do, not what we think.



When my kids sin, I forgive them without asking. I forgive them w/o requiring any act of contrition on their part. I forgive them whether they ask for it or not. I forgive them whether they pray to me 3 times a day facing east, or not. I forgive them - and will treat them to the same blessings as otherwise, no matter what. If I can grasp this, I believe God can, too. Our self-imposed penance is just that - self-imposed...that is to say, NOT of concern to God.


so does GOD, he forgives us all for our sins, but that doesnt mean that he wont judge us.

you forgive your son but yet you punish him for doing bad deeds, dont you ?

if there is no ultimate consequence for our actions, then there is no point in our life, as religious people, we would like to believe that there is some sort of judgement to our actions so that we can restrain our bad thoughts.

so basicly what you are saying is that GOD doesnt care if we are good or bad, if we kill, rape, steal, or even burn the whole world ?

and they are 5 prayers by the way, not 3 ;)




Actually, he creates us with the capacity for sin; and the natural desire for things we're not supposed to have. He gets that. Most sin is man-created in terms of WE decide it separates us from God. We build barriers.


yes thats the idea of having free will, if we are not free to be sinners, then how can we be judged, you cant trial a madman because he is not responsible for his own actions, so if we dont have the capacity for a sin, then why would GOD judge us.

if we dont have the desire for sins, then why would we be rewarded for giving up on themwhile you dont want them in the first place, and yes, sins are man made, GOD didnt tell us not to kill each other until we first learned how to kill by ourselfs, he didnt tell us not to lie until we learned how to lie ....etc, so yes we invited the concept of a sin, GOD first created us as a pure creature, with free will, we used our imagination to find things to do with this given free will, some chose to kill, some chose to lie, and some chose to do good deeds.




REALLY appreciate your insights and your reply.

ONE thing I've noticed about you, Abso - sometimes you reply like a scholar, other times you seem to struggle with basic composition and what-not. It's like there are several users there...I could be imagining that for sure; please don't take offense.

and how was my reply this time, scholar or struggling with basic composition ? :rolleyes:

no offense taken, thanks for your honesty, i feel ridiculous sometimes when i read my posts, and sometimes i feel good about them, i dont see myself as a wise man, but at least i try to be one.

and no, there arent several users there, its just one user, me, the style may differ according to my mood and the subject we are discussing and my knowledge about it.


i really appreciate your honesty, and i like the way you think about things, and i hold much respect for you, i believe that there is way to talk to people which will make them respect the speaker, and i believe you have that way in your words to others. :salute:

[darin]

السلام عليكم

[abso]

السلام عليكم

عليكم السلام و رحمة الله و بركاته

Peace be upon you and the mercy and blessings of God