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richardhutnik on 25 June 2010
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Jordahn said:
NKAJ said:

"Christianity is the belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God, and believing in him is solely sufficient to have eternal life in heaven"

I was a catholic and i was always told that your deeds are far more important...quite frankly if believing in Jesus would be sufficient enough to  get into heaven then i think that's ridiculous.


Ephesians 2:8-9

Paraphrase: Through grace and grace alone so that no man may boast.

Don't drop verse 10 from that:

8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

(From: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians 2:8-10&version=NIV )

Apparently, people of the Evangelical mindset, seem to not want to think about verse 10.  May I ask a question here: To what end are people "saved" if it isn't to do good works and bless others?  To "go to heaven when you die"?

If God was so concerned with people believing certain information to be true, why wouldn't God send out angels to do parlor tricks and get people to then believe God is so, and is able to do things, and then people would believe and they they would die on the spot?  And then God could have the angels show people that there is a heaven they go into.

Well, I will take issue with the "go to heaven when you die" because you end up reading into the text.  The New Testament texts talk about Jesus returning again and there being a New Heaven and New Earth.   That is the final destination.  Exactly why does "Go to heaven when you die" come up?  Maybe people don't want to believe that God would be involved in the material world or cases about it (By and by on the other side...).  I will say all this can be argued to be gnostic in nature.  Well, at least it is cheap.  Have people think that they just need to believe things be true and be thankful God isn't so demanding.  It is pretty easy.  You can have people say prayers and believe they are Christians.  They don't even really have to meet anyone other, or care for their own in their churches (to not do this is to say you are worse than infidel).  It is nice and convenient.  You can also harvest money off them and create a class of individuals called "preachers" who really can't do much in life, but boy do they know how to talk.