As an onlooker to religious life, and not a participant, active or otherwise, I have often wondered how a person justifies belief in one religious system over another. From what I can gather, each religion claims to be the way to get to heaven or to find everlasting salvation or what have you. So, I wonder how you know which religion to pick. Is it largely a matter of upbringing and culture? From a logical standpoint, only one of them can be right...since they all claim that other religions are not acceptable in the eyes of God. And if only one of them is right, then the practitioners of every other faith are not going to make it to heaven. So, how do you know which one is the right one? Is it largely just a craps shoot?
Personally, I'd rather believe that God, knowing that he'd given people free will and a diversity of opinions and personalities, chose to provide multiple paths to salvation. In this way, he could ensure that the lagest number of people would adhere a basic set of moral codes and would just have to choose a set of rituals to ensure the adherance to those codes.
I'm sure there's much more to the story, of course, as I'm not that familiar with the details of most religions. But on the surface, it's a bit of a conundrum.
1 comment:
Well, it doesn't really matter what you want to believe. It only matters what He said. There is only one path to heaven, and that is through Christ. Free will doesn't mean you can believe and do whatever you want and still end up in Heaven at the end. Free will means that, given the knowledge of God and the map to His place, you have an opportunity to either follow the map or not. I suspect you already have the directions; now you just have decide whether or not to go.
Now Orthodox Jews don't believe in a heaven, if I'm not mistaken. I could look that up again if you want. Christianity obviously springs from Judiasm as Jesus and all his apostles, disciples, and early followers were Jews. Peter is the rock upon whom His Church is built: the first Pope. I haven't gotten to studying Church history, but at some point there was a schizm resulting in the Roman Catholic church and the Eastern Orthodox church. Rome is called the See of Peter, but I'm not sure about the relationship between the two churches, except that the Communion is valid in both. Protestants were protesting various Catholic dogmas, which resulted in much splintering. A little of this and a little of that and pretty soon you have two hundred trailer churches in one town, each with congregations of five, all of them teaching the bible differently, and none of them receiving Communion as the Body and Blood of Christ.
What does this mean for you, a seeker? When I was wondering these things myself, I had opportunities to go to other services, and I did, often. I attended the Catholic Mass most often, as an observer more than a participant, but I also went a few times to the general protestant service and the full gospel service. (Very long, that Gospel one. They took a break for lunch then went right back to it! We skipped out at lunch.) Now I will tell you that the entire Mass is one long and beautiful prayer between God and His beloved. And once you've been to another service, it becomes even more obvious and beautiful. I don't know exactly what it is, but there is something missing in the protestant churches. Perhaps they have given up too much. (As a note, Episcopals and Lutherans worship in a manner very similar to the Catholics, the major exception being their reception of communion. Read John for more on that one.)
It's hard to write all this as a comment, so it's not as thorough or organized as I would like, but there you have it. You can email with any questions if you want.
Post a Comment