Is Judaism a More Selfless/Pure/Loving Religion than Christianity?

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I am sorry for my earlier anger and horrendous comments. Will God forgive me?
 
nsper7 said:
I am sorry for my earlier anger and horrendous comments. Will God forgive me?
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TheQuestioner said:
Depends, are you sorry out of fear of hell or sorry since you offended Him? Or both?
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And are you willing to forgive others this much as well?

Remember the Lord’s prayer:
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us”

If you ask for forgiveness you will probably receive it because God is infinitely loving and merciful, but he is also infinitely just. None of us here can promise you forgiveness because only God or a priest acting en persona christi can offer that.
 
nsper7 said:
But why should I want to do this…other than fear of Hell of course? Why should I care about God other than fear of Hell?
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Because God is good. Don’t you want to be good?

What do you most basically long for? If there were no consequences, how would you behave?

If you think you would live some kind of libertine life and commit all kinds of sins, why? Do you seriously think that that kind of life brings happiness?

Have you never felt desire for something that surpasses the boundaries of this mortal life–desire that has no object you can pin down, that points toward nothing that can possibly benefit you in any material way?

If you haven’t, then pursue earthly goods until they pall on you. If you have, then pursue that and forget about God for now. Because it’s clear that you don’t know or worship the true God and your “Christianity” is nothing but poisonous superstition and idolatry (unless you are exaggerating out of a sense of humility and a desire to be honest about your sins). You need to be freed from your false conception of God so that the true God can get through to you.

Have you ever read C. S. Lewis’s book The Pilgrim’s Regress? It’s hard going (one of his earliest and most obscure books), but the basic situation of the main character seems to be yours.

Edwin
 
nsper7 said:
As I have discussions with others and learn about Judaism and Christianity, I come to the conclusion that Judaism is a more loving, selfless and pure religion than Christianity (please note, I am not addressing the matter of which faith is Truth).

I come to this conclusion because it seems like Christianity (Catholic or Protestant) is at some level based purely on human selfishness. For example, a person does a good deed because they either:

A) Fear of punishment (i.e. Hell) for failure to perform the good deeds (and verses in Scripture such as the judgment of the sheep and goats points to this)
B) Desiring of reward (i.e. Heaven, shorter time in Purgatory, higher spot in Heaven, etc.) by doing good deeds

In Orthodox Judaism, since there is no concept of Hell (although there is a concept of spiritual purification of a person’s sins before they enter the World to Come [Olam Haba]; while some might see this spiritual purification as a punishment and in the Hebrew Scriptures, God does reward people [although often not because they deserved it, but because He is depicted as being a loving and merciful Father in the OT) and it is viewed that the performance of good deeds (Mitzvot) is the reward in itself and that we should love God in this life not out of fear of some punishment or desire for a future reward. Thus, when someone who is Jewish performs a good deed, it is out of a purer motive than when a Christian does so.

Now many Christians might say that is not true and that they do good/avoid evil for the same reasons (i.e. pure love for God), but because the fear of Hell and the promise of Heaven hang over the Christian’s head, how can any Christian truly claim to know their own motives so well? Those threats always loom over us.

After all, what response would we give if Christ appeared to us and asked if we would suffer horrendously, but said that there would be no reward, either here or in the hereafter, for this suffering we would undertake and there would be punishment, either here or in the hereafter, if we refused?
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Become jew then. I dont know about the Christians you associate yourselves with, but what i do is out of love of God and yes fear of hell, not because i am afraid of the devil or the fire and brimstone, but because i am afraid of not being around God for eternity. and prehaps it would be good to provide some research rather than throwing around claims of jews being selfless and christians being selfish
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VetA said:
Become jew then. I dont know about the Christians you associate yourselves with, but what i do is out of love of God and yes fear of hell, not because i am afraid of the devil or the fire and brimstone, but because i am afraid of not being around God for eternity. and prehaps it would be good to provide some research rather than throwing around claims of jews being selfless and christians being selfish
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I wasn’t addressing how individual Jews or Christians or anyone else behave. Certainly, you can find good and bad among all people and one can find people driven by superior (i.e. love) and inferior (i.e. fear, desire for reward, etc.), but I was talking about theologies.

Christian theology, with its fixation on the hereafter, promotes a sort of mercenary theology. Jesus Himself promotes this when He talks about storing up your treasure in Heaven and avoiding Hell (i.e. the wide path of destruction). St. Paul talks about similar things (one’s works being tested by the fire and people suffering gain and loss of rewards). Therefore, how is the Christian ascetic any different from the secularist who makes sacrifices for long-term success? The answer is simply how far ahead they are looking: the secularist towards perhaps retirement and the ascetic towards after death. And why are you afraid of ‘not being around God for an eternity’?

Although Judaism believes in an Afterlife (Olam HaBa: the World to Come) and a stage of punishment/purification, it does not obsess over it and get people to live their whole lives either in fear of damnation or like a mercenary with hands out waiting for God to reward them (one can almost envision some Christian monk/ascetic reaching Heaven and saying, “Alright God, my life on Earth sucked and I suffered and gave up treasure on Earth, now where is that treasure in Heaven you promised?”).

Judaism seems much more about love (but not a love motivated out of fear of punishment or desire for reward, but love realized because it is the right and best thing to do) and wisdom (one Jewish view of the Afterlife is that Heaven is merely a place to continue learning, about God, His Torah, etc.).

The hard part for me is that, despite my issues with Catholicism/Christianity, I happen to believe its true. If I didn’t. would I be so darn Scrupulous and whatnot?
 
Everything here has already been addressed. You seem to have forgot all of it. If you still have issues talk to your priest or spiritual director.
 
By the words of Christ Himself, an ascetic/monk would be within their right when they reach Heaven to demand their stored up treasure.
 
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Answersplease:
I find your topic’s tiltle very distasteful.

If I had started a topic with the title “Is Christianity a More Selfless/Pure/Loving Religion than Judaism”, I would be jumped on by all the Catholic and Christian supporters of Judaism ( as I have been in the past, and they were’nt kind about it either ).

Jews are untouchable.
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I’m not sure as to why you try to ensure that quoting your posts would be a tedious process but I’ll make this observation. What Jews are certainly not untouchable about are the large number of posts from people who get very loudly cross about Jews while very loudly complaining that we’re untouchable.
 
(Color and emphasis added to highlight the original text.)
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Kaninchen said:
What Jews are certainly not untouchable about are the large number of posts
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Answersplease:
“Large number of posts”? (rolls eyes)
And where are these large number of posts?
In the past I have not made a large number of posts about that subject, I have made I would guess around 10 posts more or less about Jews being untouchable, and I think that I am being very generous in that estimate.
In the future, if I am still here, maybe I’ll try to make your “large number of posts”.

Your post is an obvious attempt to cast aspersions on my character.

Is that in order to try to silence me and get me to stop challenging Judaism?

How nice of you to prove my point, Jews and Judaism are untouchable.
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It was certainly an attempt to cast aspersions on the way in which you try to make quoting your posts a tedious prospect - possibly trying to make them untouchable.

I didn’t say the posts were all yours but it gave you an opportunity to ‘stamp your feet’, anyway.
 
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Answersplease:
And where are all these other posts about Jews being untouchable?

Hmmmm?

In your own mind perhaps?

There are’nt any, because the minute someone dares to challenge Judaism, all the Catholics that have bought into the anti-Catholic Jewish (not all Jews) propaganda jump all over the poster.

Some people might say that Michael Jackson hated his own skin,

anti-Catholic Jews try to get Catholics to hate their own religion.
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You obviously don’t get around CAF very much - try the ‘News’ sections for example.
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Lot’s of opportunities for foot-stamping there.
 
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Answersplease:
I don’t post there, but maybe if I’m still here I’ll start posting there.

Right now I am making most of my posts in the NON-CATHOLIC RELIGIONS forum,

therefore EVERYTHING has to do with RELIGION.

NOT THE NATION STATE OF ISRAEL.

Here in THIS FORUM,
the RELIGION OF JUDAISM IS UNTOUCHABLE.
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Kaninchen said:
Yeh, forcing democracy on the Arabic world would work - look at the great success of democracy in Pakistan in the last 60 years.

The problem with these sorts of threads, Sam, is that we all know it’s completely bonkers, my guess is that most Muslim members/visitors to CAF think it’s completely bonkers but, surely, there comes a time when Muslims have to stop blaming naughty Jews, naughty Americans, naughty Westerners and so on and get their own act together - perhaps to prove to themselves that it’s possible to have a Muslim society not entirely based on imprisoning women and annoying goats.
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Answersplease:
Your posts speak for themselves.
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nsper7 said:
I don’t see how I can drop it. After all, that is what my Christian faith is based on. It is what brought me to faith and then I read things like St. Leonard’s sermon or other things and it leads me to wonder how can I let go of the ‘Hell obsession’ unless I am going to take the step of disbelieving Christianity?
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You -really- are missing it. The Church has plenty of examples of selfless love.
Seriously, your original question is absurd and leading.
Christianity >AND< Judaism both have plenty of examples of Selfless/Loving/Pure saints.

You are suggesting that the main point of Christianity is the fear of hell, where the main point is really the love of Jesus Christ. You do realize that Judaism also mentions hell, don’t you?

Both religions would be remiss not to mention it.

The problem with your question is that it fundamentally says more about your skewed vision of Christianity than it does Christianity itself.
 
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