Cheap and Costly Grace

[AnnieC 305]

I think it's worse than this. I don't believe in God but, if he does exist, I'm 100% certain he intended for us to be exactly the way we are (or he's the biggest moron ever)

The way I learned it, supposedly we all deserve to go to hell because of original sin (disobedience to God via Eve and the apple) Except that God put Adam and Eve into the Garden of Eden with no concept of Good or Evil (which, according to the Bible itself, they did not obtain until they ate the fruit) So how the hell were they supposed to know it was wrong to disobey God if they have absolutely no way of knowing right from wrong?

According to the Bible, humanity is playing a game that was rigged from the very start.

For me there are two ways of looking at it. (Well three if you count strict Atheism, but that doesn't always cover it for me.)

1 - Maltheisim.

http://www.beliefnet.com/boards/message ... per_page=4

We believe:

that the God described in the Bible, the Koran, and many other religious texts does indeed exist, as evidenced by his influence on the physical world throughout history.

that all the various incarnations of the voice of God as manifested in people of a wide variety of religious persuasions and influences indeed represent the same one God.

that, judging from the evidence of history, and from the evidence of God's own word as found in his religious texts, this God is a right bastard, an abusive bully who extorts worship from human beings to feed his need for power.

that, in his quest to garner more and more power by making people worship him, God has expended enormous energy on public relations propaganda to make him SEEM benevolent and omnipotent, as he takes credit for all the good things that happen while shirking blame for the evil and suffering in the world (which you would think an omnipotent being would be equally responsible for: note how gleefully God takes credit for saving people after disasters, but does not take responsibility for the ACTS OF GOD that caused those disasters to happen).

2 - The Stargate Theory.

The idea behind that is that you take Clark's 3rd Law:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magi

c.

And reverse it

Any so-called magic is actually an advance technology in use

Now go back and read the bible and pretend it's Sci-Fi and Yahweh is an evil overlord and try explaining it all. All of a sudden it all makes fabulous sense.

Water into wine? Powdered wine re-hydrated. Bringing people back from the dead? Mini-defibrillator. Died and brought back to life in 3 days? Did anyone check for brain wave activity? (Or if you prefer the actual Stargate universe, he was a very evolved human and either the Ancients ascended him like they did Daniel Jackson in 05x21 "Meridian" or someone ran him through a sarcophagus. )

OK, yes, I'm poking fun. But the point is that just because we don't understand the technology doesn't mean we can't recognize that technology is in use. Or that a seriously unpleasant being is trying to snooker us into giving him/her/it a ton of power.

[Sinister Rouge]

For me there are two ways of looking at it. (Well three if you count strict Atheism, but that doesn't always cover it for me.)

1 - Maltheisim.

http://www.beliefnet.com/boards/message ... per_page=4

2 - The Stargate Theory.

The idea behind that is that you take Clark's 3rd Law:

c.

And reverse it

Now go back and read the bible and pretend it's Sci-Fi and Yahweh is an evil overlord and try explaining it all. All of a sudden it all makes fabulous sense.

Water into wine? Powdered wine re-hydrated. Bringing people back from the dead? Mini-defibrillator. Died and brought back to life in 3 days? Did anyone check for brain wave activity? (Or if you prefer the actual Stargate universe, he was a very evolved human and either the Ancients ascended him like they did Daniel Jackson in 05x21 "Meridian" or someone ran him through a sarcophagus. )

OK, yes, I'm poking fun. But the point is that just because we don't understand the technology doesn't mean we can't recognize that technology is in use. Or that a seriously unpleasant being is trying to snooker us into giving him/her/it a ton of power.

So many levels of awesome. I love it. That is all.

[dpndetfarm]

This discussion is just more proof that religious texts were written by mere humans trying to keep some sort of order in their populations.

And as has been proven time and time again scare tactics work wonders in keeping the masses in line all the while letting the elites live the good life free from the worry that the masses might feel entitled to a shot at the same entitlements the elite enjoy.

[debrand]

Oh no! Not my intent at all! It's just an idea thqts been brewing. Instead of doing the hard things that the Bible asks them to do, so many of these fundies are opting to do the cheap stuff and pretending it's the hard stuff. It's way easier to quibble about the length of your hair than it is to try and help migrant workers get healthcare or help women and men in shelters get job skills or find ways to escape abusive partners. Abigail sobs about being emotionally orphaned, but it's easier to do that than try to find ways to help children who are being abused or adults who have suffered abuse. It's a cheap excuse to make no impact on the world and pretend you did. It's like those stupid memes on Facebook that ask you to post your bra color as your status to "support" breast cancer research, when in reality it does nothing at all, except make you look like a tool.

Actually, I like your explanation far more than what you originally quoted. Jesus taught that his followers should only judge their own actions not other people's. Yet, that seems an impossible requirement for many people. There must be something in the human mind that makes it very satisfying to tell everyone else what they are doing wrong.

[debrand]

For me there are two ways of looking at it. (Well three if you count strict Atheism, but that doesn't always cover it for me.)

1 - Maltheisim.

http://www.beliefnet.com/boards/message ... per_page=4

2 - The Stargate Theory.

The idea behind that is that you take Clark's 3rd Law:

c.

And reverse it

Now go back and read the bible and pretend it's Sci-Fi and Yahweh is an evil overlord and try explaining it all. All of a sudden it all makes fabulous sense.

Water into wine? Powdered wine re-hydrated. Bringing people back from the dead? Mini-defibrillator. Died and brought back to life in 3 days? Did anyone check for brain wave activity? (Or if you prefer the actual Stargate universe, he was a very evolved human and either the Ancients ascended him like they did Daniel Jackson in 05x21 "Meridian" or someone ran him through a sarcophagus. )

OK, yes, I'm poking fun. But the point is that just because we don't understand the technology doesn't mean we can't recognize that technology is in use. Or that a seriously unpleasant being is trying to snooker us into giving him/her/it a ton of power.

As a Stargate fan, I've fallen deeply in love with you, AnnieC

[wtfrenchtoast]

Koala pretty much hit everything I wanted to say. I do think it is hypocritical for some fundies to spout on about how good and godly they are because they wear skirts, but then do fuck all for people less fortunate than they. However, this concept of "costly" grace seems fundamentally wrong to me. According to the explanation in the OP, costly grace is more godly because God "bought" us with his son's blood. Who is also him. Well, that's all fine and dandy, but Jesus was only dead for three days. Doesn't seem like much of a sacrifice to me, honestly. Especially because god would have known he was going to rise again. And also because it wasn't just his son, it was also him, so he sacrificed himself to himself...and it just gets more nonsensical from there. My point is, at least when animal sacrifices were made, they stayed dead. I mean, I would sacrifice myself ten times over if I got to come back after three days and live in paradise.

[dairyfreelife]

According to the Bible, humanity is playing a game that was rigged from the very start.

This is exactly how the Christian concept feels to me when explained, a sick game "God" is playing on everyone. Supposedly allowing conception to occur and babies being gifts from him, but yet those "gift" are evil sinners from day one out to manipulate their parents and the world and ripe for eternal fire and torture if not "trained" (aka, beat them into obedience). So in a way, it's like many of them are receiving broken gifts with the "creator" knowing full well that it was going to break quickly and then has every intention of sending tossing that "gift" into the firepit once it's returned.

[Burris]

My opinion: He uses too many words to describe a problem that doesn’t exist.

Grace is neither cheap nor costly, but priceless; and it comes neither by the church nor by any ordinance of the same, nor by personal merit but rather by God as a gift to each living creature - and yes, I do mean “each.â€

God wills that none should parish. Some will seek God early and be refined under its teaching, learning to live in a gentle and humble and fair manner, and sometimes being brought ‘under the rod’ – usually for a crimes against other people.

Others will be found by God when the time is right and reconciled after being refined as silver – indeed, as being more precious than any metal - through the fire mentioned below:

1 Peter 5:10 - But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you.

Isaiah 48:10 - Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.

Zechariah 13:9 - And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.

(I have been though The Fire myself, and am better for the lessons I learned.)

The question, then, isn’t one of whether an individual remains unchanged from his old ways merely because he took cheap grace as opposed to the costlier stuff. (He has priceless Grace already.)

The question is whether he will follow the narrow path along with those other few who find it, or whether he will follow the wider path through the great furnace – the painful work of being made ready for an encounter with something so unique and baffling and beyond-human – i.e., the grace-giver - the massive, ancient, deep, kind, terrifying superintendent of the universe and beyond.

Church is - or should be - good. People link up there to share happiness and sorrow; for companionship and, if requested, accountability. The leadership is supposed to be fit for the role by their own conduct FIRST, even beyond the deep understanding of the holy texts which they are also expected to have.

Indeed, Believers are not supposed to forsake the assembling of themselves together because all people are interconnected and should be with each other and kind to each other and so forth. But no assembly, however wonderful the people of the leaders, can bestow grace whether cheap or costly.

And finally, whatever I know about the people we read here, their relationship to God is not something to be guessed. They are wrong - sometimes sooo wrong - and yet they, even as we, are heirs together to the grace of life.

[rachelmom]

“We should stop talking like we know what Grace is, and start living like we know what Grace does.â€

— The Very Worst Missionary

[B5SnowDog]

Water into wine? Powdered wine re-hydrated. Bringing people back from the dead? Mini-defibrillator. Died and brought back to life in 3 days? Did anyone check for brain wave activity? (Or if you prefer the actual Stargate universe, he was a very evolved human and either the Ancients ascended him like they did Daniel Jackson in 05x21 "Meridian" or someone ran him through a sarcophagus. )

Oooooooor - regeneration. Jesus was actually a Timelord.

[salsa]

Oh no! Not my intent at all! It's just an idea thqts been brewing. Instead of doing the hard things that the Bible asks them to do, so many of these fundies are opting to do the cheap stuff and pretending it's the hard stuff. It's way easier to quibble about the length of your hair than it is to try and help migrant workers get healthcare or help women and men in shelters get job skills or find ways to escape abusive partners. Abigail sobs about being emotionally orphaned, but it's easier to do that than try to find ways to help children who are being abused or adults who have suffered abuse. It's a cheap excuse to make no impact on the world and pretend you did. It's like those stupid memes on Facebook that ask you to post your bra color as your status to "support" breast cancer research, when in reality it does nothing at all, except make you look like a tool.

(haven't read through the whole thread, but ....)

:clap: :clap: :clap:

[salsa]

My opinion: He uses too many words to describe a problem that doesn’t exist.

quote]

don't you go dissin' Bonhoeffer! :hand: (and, as I hope you recognize the teasing nature of :hand: ) , let me present the following:

I very much admire him, in WW II, trying to come to terms with doing one kind of evil (being part of a plan to kill Hitler) to prevent evil. The moral conundrum *really* made him think. And had plenty of time to think from his jail cell.

I don't care if his expression is too wordy or not wordy enough. He *did* as he believed and that's not always easy.

Our fundies wouldn't have nearly the depth of a spiritual search as Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer understoood that there are nuances that can't be neatly contained in black or white. He was a master of the angst-ridden grey area and died because of it.

and I promise I won't derail the thread any further. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is da bomb. And died for the truth, rather than whining about "unChristian nations," or women in slacks or anything else that occupies our minds.

Grace costs something to someone, in some capacity.

[Burris]

don't you go dissin' Bonhoeffer! :hand: (and, as I hope you recognize the teasing nature of :hand: )

Oh nononono. I should definitely have been clearer in this: I admire Bonhoeffer. I just don’t agree with him in this notion that there can be cheap or costly grace.

All grace, being priceless, is costly - even for those dour legalists who treat it cheaply and worry over heartless minutia.

I believe all people will eventually be reconciled to the being which made us, regardless of what said individuals believe in life.

I also believe there is ample textual evidence in the Bible not only for this kind of universal reconciliation but also for the idea that every individual has within him or herself the much-cherished capacities for kindness and humility – two traits of such great value to God that the maker ensured we were all equipped with the choice to act on them:

2 Corinthians 3:3: "You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts."

Some people will do deeds of compassion – and blessed are the atheists who do them with literally no hope of return – merely because their minds and hearts and capacity for empathy cause them to act for the sake of others. If any people at all are fit for a quick admission to whatever good the afterlife may hold, it is these.

Grace is for everyone regardless of works, and costly for everyone from the greatest philanthropist to the most vile religious hypocrite. The difference is not in that they will be reconciled into peace – they both will be - but in what manner: I humbly submit that deeds of compassion and not mere words (such as the oft-repeated sinners’ prayer) are the real litmus test for how each person is received and treated at judgment.

[Guest Anonymous]

I believe all people will eventually be reconciled to the being which made us, regardless of what said individuals believe in life.

That sounds really awful, I really don't want that. The whole idea of it sets me on edge.

[Guest Anonymous]

That sounds really awful, I really don't want that. The whole idea of it sets me on edge.

It sounds like a very creepy story to me too.

What would a 'judgment and reconciliation' process look like, for example, between this god and someone who had lived a life of nothing but hardship and famine in a poverty-stricken third world country? How would this god introduce himself and explain his 'priceless gift'?

[emmiedahl]

Yeah, because no secular government ever made horrendous laws either... :roll:

I personally don't worship Adolph Hitler or the Nazis...

Really, that is the standard to which you hold God? As long as He is no worse than the worse person on Earth, He must be perfect? :?

[Guest Anonymous]

What the crap happened to the free will I'm supposed to have, if nothing I believe in life actually matters? If, after death, I'm going to be forcibly 'reconciled' with something that I actively chose not to believe in, and that I find completely unpalatable?

ETA: the above is a continuation of my reaction to this:

I believe all people will eventually be reconciled to the being which made us, regardless of what said individuals believe in life.

I'm making this note because we've turned the page, and I didn't want it to come off as an isolated rant.

[Arete]

That sounds really awful, I really don't want that. The whole idea of it sets me on edge.

There are parts of the Christian spectrum that believe no one is forced into a reconcilliation or the flames of hell. Your existence simply ceases, no suffering, if you don't want union with God after death. There is no one particular doctrine of grace or life after death, even in Christianity.

[Guest Anonymous]

There are parts of the Christian spectrum that believe no one is forced into a reconcilliation or the flames of hell. Your existence simply ceases, no suffering, if you don't want union with God after death. There is no one particular doctrine of grace or life after death, even in Christianity.

This sounds a lot better. I have been looking forward to some unconscious, unfeeling, oblivion and nothingness. (note: completely sincere, no sarcasm).

[Koala]

What the crap happened to the free will I'm supposed to have, if nothing I believe in life actually matters? If, after death, I'm going to be forcibly 'reconciled' with something that I actively chose not to believe in, and that I find completely unpalatable?

ETA: the above is a continuation of my reaction to this:

I'm making this note because we've turned the page, and I didn't want it to come off as an isolated rant.

I am having the same reaction, and am curious what this belief is based on. I would like to ask a few more questions, but first I want to establish few things:

1. Do you believe in hell?

2. Who created it?

3. Are any of us in danger of going there?

[Koala]

There are parts of the Christian spectrum that believe no one is forced into a reconcilliation or the flames of hell. Your existence simply ceases, no suffering, if you don't want union with God after death. There is no one particular doctrine of grace or life after death, even in Christianity.

Do you happen to know what they base that belief on?

[Cran]

Now go back and read the bible and pretend it's Sci-Fi and Yahweh is an evil overlord and try explaining it all. All of a sudden it all makes fabulous sense.

So I may pretend God is an evil Sith Lord and the pope is actually Darth Sidious? You made my day! :lol:

Wanted to add that the "all people get saved"-theory is known as "Apocatastasis", which was, in the old Church, most notably taught by Origenes, but early in time being declared anathema (wrong), but was also partly held dear by Johannes Scotus. So it's no "new thing", but known for a long time, but has been seen a rise in popularity recently, while not in the established churches (Catholic, mainstream Protestant), in the freestanding ones of a more liberal turn of mind.

Personally, I'd rather rule in hell than serve in heaven (if such things existed), thanks for the quote to John Milton, and a God who would want to force me to love him can go and kiss my ass.

[Koala]

Is she coming back or is Bible study over?

[Guest Anonymous]

Is she coming back or is Bible study over?

It was always usual to 'close in prayer' before the end, in my day. :D

[Koala]

It was always usual to 'close in prayer' before the end, in my day. :D

Oh, me! I'll do the closing prayer.

Dear God,

Please don't let the FJ's ask too many questions that I can't provide answers for. Clear their minds of the atrocities in the Bible, and if they do point them out, please let them be easily distracted. When I offer my beliefs, let them not ask what they are based on, for I don't know. It just sounds good to me.

Amen