Would Christianity be as successful without the Heaven reward?

[BMaker11]

MohammadBadir said:

BMaker11 said:

Who's to say they're "killing for the heck of it"? Many of them that suicide bomb believe they are committing a righteous act in the name of Allah (I've seen several manifestos, if you will, saying that they honor Allah by destroying the enemies that are considered perversions against Islam). Who are you to claim they are wrong, because you interpreted the Quran differently? They are no less a "real" Muslim than you are.

It's the same reason , for example, that we have churches like Southern Baptists who vehemently try to deny gay rights due to some Bible verses, but the United Church of Christ believes in equality for all, because of some other Bible verses. Which ones are the "real" Christians?

Open interpretation of holy text is what makes many religions popular, because it basically allows you to do anything while still following "God's Will". Toss in Heaven, and you've got a recipe for success. But because it's allowed to be openly interpreted, no one is more or less "real" than the next person because 9 times out of 10, whatever verse you believe is true and is justification for whatever actions you have, someone else can find a contradictory verse a second later.

But if it isn't open to interpretation, and there's only 1 set of proper beliefs to be had, it wouldn't be nearly as popular. Christianity only took off in Europe when the Bible started being printed in vernacular and everyone could read it and come up with their own conclusions, instead of having to go through a middle man to know "what God was thinking"

that's the thing though. Prophet Mohammad explained what the Quran said to the Muslims while it was being written(23 years), and all the things that were said by him were written in the "Hadeth" and those original explanations remain to this day. there's only 1 interpretation of the Quran.

BTW, I don't want to turn this thread into an Islam debate so let's agree to disagree.

Oh no, that's not what I was going for. It tied back to the reward of Heaven. If there was no reward of Heaven, then why in the world would anyone follow the Bible (or Quran, Torah, etc)? It would diminish people's reverence for it. What I was trying to say, though, was that people interpret holy text however they want, and they truly believe they are trying to live out God's word. But there are so many interpretations that one person doesn't have the right to say another person isn't "real" or "true".

And I'd really like to know how you came to the conclusion that there's only 1 interpretaion of Islam. The fact that there's Sunni and Shia shows that there isn't. And sure, you have the Hadith, and they could have been "explained" when they were written, but they can still be interpreted different. The Bible says that Jesus said "love thy neighbor as thyself. It is the greatest commandment" (beside loving God). Seems pretty straightforward, right? But people still interpret it differently. One camp says "this means that we are to love each other unconditionally" and another says "you are loving your neighbor by telling him about following God. I don't want you to suffer in hell. I would actually be hating you if I didn't tell you about God and his laws, and the consequences for not obeying", for example.

This all ties back into Christianity (or any religion) being successful with/without heaven, but to prevent this from derailing or going too far off topic, yes, agree to disagree