thread: 2006-09-08 : Salvation, damnation, justification, a la Sydney
On 2006-09-10, Vincent wrote:
Sydney: And yet it's precisely the impossible elements of the story that you're asking me to accept. If I say "yeah, Jesus was probably a real guy, some kind of rabble-rouser in Roman Judea who got crucified (as rabble-rousers might), but he obviously wasn't God incarnate and he obviously didn't rise from the dead and he obviously didn't die for our salvation," I'm not a Christian.
Christ is promising you to stick with you and give you the strength to keep going in spite of all the evil in yourself and the world, even death itself...
Turns out that I have that strength without Christ. In fact, it turns out that once I stop spending half my time and energy cutting God slack for not pulling His own weight, the strength I have to keep going doubles.
If that's all Christ's offering, what use is Christ to me? I'm to spend three years or God knows how long finding out that Christ gives me what I have anyway? That sounds like a scam.
Hey, yeah, that's a thought. Is someone making money off this? Who? How much cash would leave my account and land in Episcopalian coffers during my honest three-year try? (If the true answer is "none" then that's fuckin' awesome, that's way better than most religions. And I'll eat my hat.)
Answers re: was I really praying to God? to come.
