Other religions of the world

[Robert_in_SD]

My personal favourite bit of OT scripture;

2 Chronicles 21:15

The LORD will strike your people, your children, your wives, and all that is yours with a great plague;
and you shall have severe pains from a disease in your bowels, while your bowels issue forth because of the disease, day after day.

Sweet, your glorious and wondrous Lord striking little kids with a disease of the bowels!

Those little kids probably deserved it! Funny how you never hear anyone in Church praising God for slaughtering those little children with a agonizing disease?

If this is your personal favorite, you seem to have misread it… The passage is about the Lord God striking down the King of Judah because he led the people astray. It was Jehoram who suffered these great pains … as a consequence for the pain he inflicted on his own people, including his own brothers, killed by him to secure his throne:

[11] Moreover he [speaking of Jehoram] made high places in the hill country of Judah, and led the inhabitants of Jerusalem into unfaithfulness, and made Judah go astray.
[12] And a letter came to him from Eli’jah the prophet, saying, “Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father, `Because you have not walked in the ways of Jehosh’aphat your father, or in the ways of Asa king of Judah,
[13] but have walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and have led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem into unfaithfulness, as the house of Ahab led Israel into unfaithfulness, and also you have killed your brothers, of your father’s house, who were better than yourself;
[14] behold, the LORD will bring a great plague on your people, your children, your wives, and all your possessions,
[15] and you yourself will have a severe sickness with a disease of your bowels, until your bowels come out because of the disease, day by day.’”
[16] And the LORD stirred up against Jeho’ram the anger of the Philistines and of the Arabs who are near the Ethiopians;
[17] and they came up against Judah, and invaded it, and carried away all the possessions they found that belonged to the king’s house, and also his sons and his wives, so that no son was left to him except Jeho’ahaz, his youngest son.
[18] And after all this the LORD smote him in his bowels with an incurable disease.
[19] In course of time, at the end of two years, his bowels came out because of the disease, and he died in great agony. His people made no fire in his honor, like the fires made for his fathers.
[20] He was thirty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem; and he departed with no one’s regret. They buried him in the city of David, but not in the tombs of the kings.

Those who are called by God to lead the chosen people were given much responsibility, and were called to answer for their actions against the People. This is a lesson for all of us, who are called to live a life for God, in service to others, but use what we have been given for evil and for turning people away from the path God has set.

Recall also that this is a primitive people - tribal and unsophisticated for the most part. This teaching is a clear example of God’s sovereign right to chastise his people. We are owed nothing by God, who can inflict suffering even upon the Kings of Judah for their sins.

However, knowing this same God as the one who sent His Son to die for us, we are also aware of how deeply he loves us, and wants what is good for us; he would rather not punish and chastise, and would rather bless us and fill us with graces to do His will.

Always, the God described in the OT must be understood in light of how He is described in the NT, and similarly the God of the NT cannot be contemplated without also considering his portrayal in the OT. Both sets of texts help us to see that God’s revelation was a gradual unfolding of who He is and how he relates to us, up to the point at which His Son came to us in the flesh - and gave himself up to death for us.

Peace,
-Robert

 

[Contarini]

Christianity in general says that there is one God who sent down his only son to save us all from sin. So what about all the other religions of the world? The Bible tells us that Christianity is the only way to go; that it’s the only “right” religion. I imagine that every single other religion in the world has the same belief that they are correct. Doesn’t everyone have the same chance to be right?

What do you mean by a “chance to be right”? Right isn’t the sort of thing one can have a chance of. Your question makes no sense. Either we are right or we aren’t. It’s not a matter of “chance.”

If you mean: based on the best knowledge we have, aren’t the claims of each religion about equally valid, then I would answer simply, “no.” Of course, which religion is more valid is going to depend a lot on what our starting criteria for validity are. To me, for instance, there seems to be pretty much no chance that Islam is true. Obviously about a billion of my fellow human beings disagree with me!

Buddhism, on the other hand, seems quite plausible to me. If I were convinced that Christianity were false, I’d give Buddhism a very serious look.

And then it gets complicated, because not all “religions” make the same kinds of claims. Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism all make universal claims about reality and call on human beings in general to join them (though the call is less urgent in Buddhism than in the Western traditions). Hinduism is a very sophisticated set of cultural traditions coming from one corner of the world. It does make claims about reality, but it’s not a universal tradition in the way that the three previously mentioned religions are. This is even truer of traditions like Confucianism or Shinto. Judaism is weird, because it makes universal claims about reality and is monotheistic but doesn’t call on all human beings to join it. Many of the claims of Judaism are claims about how God wants one particular people to live rather than claims about reality applicable to all human beings.

So I think the premise of your question needs to be seriously rethought.

Edwin

 

[Daedelus76]

Are you referring to the bit about whether you’ll go to Hell or not? Because if that’s the case, Buddhism and Paganism don’t have a “Hell”, mainly because they believe in reincarnation.

Buddhists do have a Hell, it just isn’t eternal. But it’s description is like the Judeo-Christian-Islamic Hell in other respects. The lowest levels of Hell are reserved for people that try to kill Buddhas and holy beings, next up are people that kill their parents, etc. Alot of Buddhists believe when you die, you descend to Hell to be judged by Yama (or Yanluo), who is the judge of the dead (in China, it is the “Jade Emperor”, the Taoist or Chinese personification of God). At the end of the stay in Hell, if you aren’t rescued to another state, you drink a tea of forgetfulness and are reborn in some other existence. This is similar to the Greek belief that there is a river of forgetfulness in Hades that the condemned are forced to drink from (the river Lethe). If you are a very good/faithful person you go instantly to a heaven accompanied by bodhisattvas and buddhas, or it is possible to enter the “buddha-fields” or nirvanic reality via gnosis and enlightenment.

BTW, “all other religions being wrong”, well, in the Indian religions they’ld tend to say “No”. All religions are potentially expressions of Dharma, or Truth. The same is true with Buddhists. Some forms of Hinduism are pantheistic or panentheistic (even forms in the classical period that were atheistic or non-theistic), others are basicly monotheistic (Vaishnava Hinduism, what Gandhi practiced, also what Hare Krishnas practice). That doesn’t mean there aren’t alot of Buddhists or Hindus that would argue their religion is better than everybody else’s, though.

 

[workingman]

You place a smiley after you speak of someone entering through the gates of hell for all of eternity?

You sir, are very much in need of psychiatric assistance.

As certain as you are that Christ is your God, a Muslim is just as certain that Allah is the true path. If it is Allah that you meet in the afterlife, I suspect that you may be bunking with said Hindu that you so gleefully anticipate his journey to hell, if he had the mis-fortune of rejecting Christ in favour of his faith.

Any muslim or hindu that I have debated with had no qualms about telling me I am going to hell for all eternity.
Though seeriously I do not find it funny. Hell is a serious situation that I wish all to come and know the fullness of Christ.
I did not mean to be disrespectful.

 

[Contarini]

Any muslim or hindu that I have debated with had no qualms about telling me I am going to hell for all eternity.

You have met Hindus who believe you are going to hell for all eternity? I know that the followers of Madhva believe in the possibility of eternal damnation, but I’ve never met one (well, I guess the Hare Krishnas derive from that tradition).

Edwin

 

[workingman]

You have met Hindus who believe you are going to hell for all eternity? I know that the followers of Madhva believe in the possibility of eternal damnation, but I’ve never met one (well, I guess the Hare Krishnas derive from that tradition).

Edwin

Sorry I should of eddited out the Hindu for that part. That came from a muslim. My bad.

 

[planten]

**The Muslims should not condemn every non-Muslim to hell. It is not right. Muslims believe whatever is written in the Quran

The most important message is that any one who associates any with God will go to hell. That is a message of hell for the pagans and any one who believes there are other gods besides the ONE GOD.

Otherwise Quran gives some hope + good news to all believers of any faith, including the Muslims in the same message. See 2:62,

“Surely, those who believe and those who are jews and christians and those of any other faiths who believe in God and the afterlife and they do good deeds (they may belong to any faith) they will not have any fear for the future and no sorrow for anything of the past.”

That tells it all. Do good deeds means (at least) to be peaceful, not abusive nor mischief makers…’**

 

[LittleSage]

**The Muslims should not condemn every non-Muslim to hell. It is not right. Muslims believe whatever is written in the Quran

The most important message is that any one who associates any with God will go to hell. That is a message of hell for the pagans and any one who believes there are other gods besides the ONE GOD.

Otherwise Quran gives some hope + good news to all believers of any faith, including the Muslims in the same message. See 2:62,

“Surely, those who believe and those who are jews and christians and those of any other faiths who believe in God and the afterlife and they do good deeds (they may belong to any faith) they will not have any fear for the future and no sorrow for anything of the past.”

That tells it all. Do good deeds means (at least) to be peaceful, not abusive nor mischief makers…’**

So unloved. j/k