I’m sorry but logic and reason and thinking don’t seem to be the best of ideas for Christianity either. If these rewards are not for our own gratification then why are they mentioned so often. This message can be found throughout the bible: Those who have nothing will get everything, those who have everything will get nothing. Those who are considered “losers” now will reap rewards in heaven, while those who do the name calling will burn. This sort of black-and-white damnation occurs all over the place, and definitely seem to be a way of getting people to join.
So I wonder, does this mean for the Columbine killers?
Icouch: You’re still missing the point of faith in God. What you referred to from the Bible is a paraphrase, (and an incomplete one at that), of the “Beatitudes” from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, where he was talking to His disciples. He was not referring to godless people, but people who were already believers, His followers. You see in this life we have to make one of two choices for ourselves; no one else can make that choice for us. One choice is to choose life or the other is to choose death. The former is to follow God, and the latter is to follow the ways of the world. You cannot choose both.
You wrote in a previous post about “joining a religion”, and you repeat that line of thinking in the second to last sentence in the above post. You will never find eternal life by only “joining a religion”, as if it were like joining some man-made club, but eternal life comes only by placing your trust in God. And that is not too difficult to do because God loved all of us so much He sent his Son Jesus to this earth in the form of a man to show us how to come to know God and choose life in Him.
Now in answer to your question about the Columbine Killers, they obviously choose death over life, and they must bear the consequence of their choice, assuming they were sane when making that choice. (That’s why we must avoid judging others because we normally don’t know all the facts.) Aditionally any and all those people who encouraged that horrible choice those boys made for death, by things they did to them or failed to do for them must, also bear some consequence for their actions as well. For the most part all sin is forgivable, but to be forgiven one must at a minimum be sorry for the sin, and seek forgivness therefore, before death. After we die it is too late.
I pray that you choose life over death, God over the world, and if you do that then you should first focus your attention on the teaching of Jesus as found in the scriptures and the teachings of the Church. So for the time being forget about
joining any organization, but only look to Jesus and join yourself to Him. Once you do that all the rest of your decisions become so much easier.
May the peace of Christ be with you
