1Beleevr, I had the same question, and posted this on another thread:
"The Brittain/North Ireland thing tends, in my mind, to confirm the postulate that religion and goodness are not on the same axis of experience/expression. “Good” {A synonym for God in many languages} is a quality that appears to transcends belief systems, and religion seems merely an intellectual and emotional way of attempting to account for goodness and virtue. It also provides a theoretical punishment system as incentive for those not easily inclined by temperament to good. Doesn’t seem to have much effect. Locks keep out honest people. Seems to me that people who are good are so by universal, not dogmatic principles, though dogma is used as a ruler by adherents of systems to judge others. That only causes turbulence, defeating the reason for religion while providing an arguably false sense of righteousness for any particular group of adherents.
The only genuinely good people by my lights are folks who are that way by some inner prompting. Many of those yet adhere to a religion as, I feel, a rightful and necessary acknowledgement of God. But in the end that adherence is detri-mental. I say that because religious differences cause friction between even good people who would without the dogmatic baggage and static get along a lot better. I am differentiating here between an actual, practical, spontaneous, undiscriminating act of treating another as oneself, and the rationale contained in any belief system across time, space, and culture for doing so.
I won’t get into it, but I have heard current and past horrific stories about God fearing people doing astonishingly evil things to other God fearing people. Much of this is between christainists,* as exemplified by Northern Ireland, between Catholics, as in the inquisition, between Christians and Muslims, between Muslims ans Muslims, between missionaries and assorted native populations, in general human to human in all its variations.
That leads me to my postulating that there is some other factor than religious adherence that is the actual factor in what might be called salvation. It also tends to support, in my mind, the notion that The Redemption has been greatly misconstrued as to its actual nature and meaning, and that it may point to something rather different than is commonly understood. Same goes for the alleged “Fall,” that having some remarkably intruging interpretations other than commonly heard by christianists. There just seems to me to be a much more important underlying reality than simple religion, as wonderful and useful as that may have been to so many.
It doesn’t make sense to me that the same recognizable good spirit can be attributed simultaneously to such contentiously differing belief systems. Despite any one religion being potentially an avenue of great value to any particualr adherant, in general, I feel that something much more significant is in play. I feel that that factor, known, would allow each one to practice whatever faith they wish for its communal benefits, yet allow the necessary baggage-free tolerance for others to practice theirs. This might be a far more reasonable and practical way than we now as a race appear to be engaging in. It might even allow for more reasonable arguments.
Code:
*I often use "christianists" to distinguish habitual practitioners of the array of NT based religions. I do absolutely believe that there are actual Christians, but they are a horse of a very different color than the ordinary Jesus believer. My personal opinion is that if Jesus returned without the trumpets and fanfare, good "Christians" might do it to Him again, in all sincerity believing it was the right thing to do to a blasphemer, etc, etc. But that is another story."
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As it is in our world now, it seems that the desire to be "right" is trumping the desire to be "good." The very question of this thread implies that a way of coping with life that was *necessarily* adopted by somone as a child or perhaps by conviction, is an aberration in the view of what the poster thinks *their* religion is about. That would mean to me that regardless of how good a "Protestant" might be, they are *not* good at least to the extent of their Protestantism of whatever stripe. I wonder how much of an issue the Protestant's faith might be if the Protestant was saving the poster from some horrible trauma. It is on* that *level of brotherhood that religion might more rightly be based than on arguements about historicity and dogma. Perhaps the question for the thread might more reasonabley be "Why does God allow ignorance and intollarance?" At least that might get the discussion on a broader base than one limited to adversarialism based on a person's bigotry.
Bindar Doondat
I know that He started His church(all believers)
, and that He gave Peter the keys to the Kingdom! Was this the beginning of the catholic church? Was the “Rock” He spoke of Himself? Who really knows? We can speculate all day long about who is right, but the reality is; all believers regardless of your spiritual or religious persuasion, are the body of Christ! So, I wonder if maybe the question,"Why do you think God allowed Protestantism is really a matter of free will or choice! You can choose religion, or freedom! I chose freedom!
