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Pascal's Wager.
Bugs me out of my head. If you just become a Christian for the heck of avoiding eternal condemnation, on the slight possibility it exists, then where is the whole faith crap? You're just doing it to save your hide.

How does that equate to actually working out as a true Christian? Is it moral to become a Christian just to save your spirit? Or is that all Christianity is?
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]If you just become a Christian for the heck of avoiding eternal condemnation, on the slight possibility it exists, then where is the whole faith crap? You're just doing it to save your hide.
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If you are just saying words as a backup and dont really believe then there is no faith. Although I am sure people who have used Pascal's wager eventually may have came to faith. However if you are just saying words then no you do not have faith and therfore you are not saved.
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Is it moral to become a Christian just to save your spirit? Or is that all Christianity is?
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Personally I would have to say no to both. God has created us for realationship. We should love him and accept his salvation because he loved us enough to give it to us. If you are just accepting salvation for personal reasons well Yeshua has something to say about that. Matthew 22:37-40 Yeshua replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
 
if u do pascals wager and at least follow the 2 greatest commandments and have a relationship with God ur good to go up.
 
Yes, that's all very well Pop - but what if you don't?

Love isn't something you just turn on and off - you don't decide to Love someone, you just do. Similarly you don't just decide to STOP loving someone, it just happens.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Eon @ Feb. 22 2004,8:27)]Love isn't something you just turn on and off - you don't decide to Love someone, you just do. Similarly you don't just decide to STOP loving someone, it just happens.
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You are completely right, we cannot choose who we love and do not love. It is just one of those things that happens.

However with Christianity I think an intergral part in loving Jesus/God is realizing the gift that was, and being able to accept it.

As for anyone that becomes a Christian, just to avoid hell. I would consider them luke warm Christians. The bible warns us that Christ greatly dislikes luke warm faith.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Eon @ Feb. 22 2004,9:27)]Yes, that's all very well Pop - but what if you don't?

Love isn't something you just turn on and off - you don't decide to Love someone, you just do. Similarly you don't just decide to STOP loving someone, it just happens.
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John 14:23 "Yeshua replied, If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him" Love can be shown in other ways than emotion. Infact if love doesent have action but rather only an emotion then I would say there really is no love.
 
No offence but I disagree strongly - if you act like you love someone and don't, that's a far bigger crime, since you must have some rationale for doing it!
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Eon @ Feb. 22 2004,1:40)]No offence but I disagree strongly - if you act like you love someone and don't, that's a far bigger crime, since you must have some rationale for doing it!
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Hmmm maybe you are right. After all the word obey did come after love.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]we cannot choose who we love and do not love. It is just one of those things that happens.
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I"m convinced I can love or hate whoever I choose. At the same time there are people who earn my love through what they do, or earn my hate. (not saying I hate anyone
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[b said:
Quote[/b] (Master~Plan @ Feb. 22 2004,8:14)]
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]we cannot choose who we love and do not love.  It is just one of those things that happens.
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I"m convinced I can love or hate whoever I choose. At the same time there are people who earn my love through what they do, or earn my hate. (not saying I hate anyone  
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I agree.
 
To quote a popular TV series character (where else do we learn about feelings these days!) "Love isn't brains, children, it's blood...blood screaming inside you to work its will.".

You can act like you love someone or as if you don't, you can do it so well that even you're fooled for a little while - but the bottom line is that you don't really get a choice in the matter.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Atown @ Feb. 21 2004,10:32)]if u do pascals wager and at least follow the 2 greatest commandments and have a relationship with God ur good to go up.
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So you can quantify how much stuff you have to do to get to heaven?
 
back to pascals wager, God can tell those who accept him sincerely versus those looking for fire insurance
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]You can act like you love someone or as if you don't, you can do it so well that even you're fooled for a little while - but the bottom line is that you don't really get a choice in the matter.
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If you want to speak from personal experience, thats cool, but don't try to tell me what I do...
 
I've always considered love a choice.


there's often emotions that we associate with love, things such as lust, happyiness, joy, euphoria, various other 'warm fuzzies'  but those are not love. They're what the world tells you that love is.  

Pay close attention to the soap operas, the prime time dramas. etc.  They always associate love with sex and lust.  Which plays right with the advertisers, who then associate their products with sex.  Its a carefully constructed smoke screen to get you to buy more soda, so that you feel 'loved'.

Love is a decision that irregardless of what happens I will stand beside my wife.

Love is knowing that I would willing lay my life down for someone else.

Love is not an abstract.  It's a concrete, definable, measurable thing.  You can look at how someone acts and tell whether that person loves the other.  Even the Bible describes love by actioins (go reread 1 Cor. 13 for those who don't understand).

as I said,  love is a choice. I choose to stay with my wife.  I choose to not cheat on her. I choose to do little things to make her happy.  I choose to not abuse her.


But that brings into question on how you can feel 'loved'  But remember, since love is an action, you can be affected by the consequences.  Someone shows you love, it makes you happy.  Someone shows you love, it brings you joy.  someone shows you love, it gives you the various warm fuzzies.  But that's YOUR emotional reaction to someone else's actions and choices.  Not some emotional/spiritaul telepathy, where you and someone else are sharing the same feelings.  The same way that if someone decides to kill your cat or dog, you feel sad an mad.  You don't get those feelings, because the person who did the action had them, but you get those feelings, because something that you had an emotional attachment to (basicaly it's a drug reaction, because it brings you joy being around the animal or whatever you have the attachment to ) has been destroyed.
 
Master~Plan - if you can turn it on and off like a lightbulb, then it wasn't love. I'm not telling you what you can and can't do I'm helping you define a word. You can determine whether you do or do not fulfil the criteria of a relationship - but you cannot determine whether or not you feel a certain way about someone.

In a similar vein, Kidan, your choices to stay with your wife forever, to never cheat on her etc may stem from the fact that you DO love her, but they are a duty or obligation. You're confusing cause and effect, in essence.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]if you can turn it on and off like a lightbulb
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hmm, don't remember posting anything about loving and not loving fast as a lightbulb
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]but you cannot determine whether or not you feel a certain way about someone.
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well, the thing about that is, I can.
 
Really, the force is clearly strong in you then, young one.

I know I'm knackered and ancient, but the two times I fell head over heels in love I had no choice at all in the matter - just the choice of what the hell I was going to do about it.

It's not my belief that the human being can choose to feel any emotion - Love, hate, fear, joy any more than it can choose to not feel pain. All you choose is how much you embrace the emotion when it arrives, and how you channel it into action (or inaction).
 
So you're saying that I can't choose to love a person? If someone was courteous, and a very good person, I may choose to love that person. But if someone acted cruely to me, I may choose to hate that person.
 
Ahh, Eon. Old friend. Long time, no talk.

You say you fell head over heals in love? I think that was your hormones going to your head, as a result of female company. Cause and Effect, my friend.
And the "love" that we're supposed to show our neighbors and enemies alike? Brotherly love, not like 'I-want-to-go-to-bed-with-you-my-wife" 'love'. Compatriotship seems a more suiting word.

~Miriax
 
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