|
FAQ for November-December 2005
 What is the divine?
The divine is life lived in love. To me, that means life lived as a Christian who walks in the footsteps of Christ. But I believe that Christianity is not the only path to the divine for Christ Himself defined entrance to Heaven as being through the way we treat our fellow humans. For in us all lives Christ, and it is through Him - and the treatment of Him - that we shall find glory.
Elizabeth
God. What God says, does, and is is divine. All else is not. When we live a Godly life we draw closer to that divine nature.
Louise
How do you explain the dichotomy between actions of apparent hatred, anger, and violence by many of your faith and Jesus's message of love and compassion?
They aren't Christian. By that I mean that it is very clear in the NT what Christ expects of us as His followers. Hatred and intolerance of sin, yes. Hatred and intolerance of people, NO. I believe some are confused and not hearing the Word clearly. They read the OT and see the violence and judgements there and think this is applicable today. But we Christians are meant to follow the example of Christ. He wanted warriors of love. People who would stand up and defend their beliefs. Live a life others wished to emulate. Be people of humility and compassion for everyone, not just those who fit into a box.
Most faiths have people who seem to fail to live the faith. People whose passions rule them and blind them to the Word. It is our failing as Christians that we do not work harder to help our brothers and sisters find the path of Christ when they have fallen by the wayside. Converting others is all very well, but what does that serve when the house is rotten in various rooms? Those who? enter Christianity and see these failing Christians may be drawn to emulate them - and that is far worse than if we had left them unconverted.
This dichotomy is a mirror of our failing. We have failed them and we must strive to heal and help so that our faith becomes clean and truly representative of Christ.
Elizabeth
What do you think your god will do to all the unbelievers on Judgement Day or at death?
Punishment for refusal to believe will be eternal separation from God. I believe that we were created to be in relationship with God, and that sin separates us from Him. Since we all sin, we all will be separated from God for eternity unless we accept the way He has made for us to be free of our sin and its consequences. Is hell a literal lake of fire? I don't know, but I think that the separation from God is a more important aspect of that punishment.
JF
We can�t know for sure what God will do with each person, since God and only God knows what is in people�s hearts and why. But for people who do not believe in God, probably spiritual death, since eternal life is life with God. Those who do not accept God will not be in his presence. God is life, and those who don�t choose life will simply cease to be in his presence.
Shannon
In what way does your god demand you behave towards the unbelievers?
With love, always. Part of that is that we should inform others of the way to God, but that doesn't mean harrassing those who are aware. You get more flies with honey.
JF
The same way we treat believers � with love.
Shannon
Do you do as your god demands?
Perfectly? Never. But I do my best to live by His word as I understand it. The scriptures we have can be interpreted in many ways, but not all of them are correct. I try to interpret them to the best of my ability according to the historical and literary context. Not speaking Hebrew or Greek, I am limited to English translations.
JF
I try, but we all fail in this life to live up to God�s high standard.
Shannon
Do you study both your faith and other paths and philosophies? Why/why not?
I am open to learn as much as possible from an intellectual standpoint about other philosophies and faiths, but do not study them as a life path.
I believe there is only one right path to God, so I don't intend to follow any others. An intellectual understanding of other paths, though, allows me to develop friendships with those outside my faith. It is important to respect all faiths, and everyone's right to choose their faith, since I believe mine can only be acquired by one's own choice. Forced conversions are meaningless, and I believe I am more likely to encourage others to make what I believe to be the right choice by being respectful. I have friends of other faiths who I respect greatly, and though my deepest wish is that each of them become Christians, I can't accomplish that by being ignorant or disrespectful of their faith, nor by harras sing them with mine. As long as they are aware of the truth, my job is to live it.
JF
Absolutely. I study other faiths, as well as try to have a better understanding of my own and the kind of life God wants us to live.
Shannon
Does your god encourage intellectual advancement as a way to learn about him and his creations and can you please explain your answer?
"Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves" but please don't make me look for that reference right this minute. I seriously doubt that God sees any value in ignorance, and he is certainly big enough to handle my questions and doubts as I learn about him through his creation.
JF
The nature of God is really unknowable, beyond our true understanding. God reveals himself to us, but in ways that are suited to our own ways of understanding. Human! logic is frail, and is not suitable for discerning the essence of God.
But God encourages us to study our own hearts, our own minds, and to learn about his creation. God has given us the curiosity and capability to try to understand the physical world. But the spiritual realm will not be fully understandable to us except through experience, and when we pass into it.
My religion is more about the experience of God, being in communion with God, and emulating his teachings, than on learning more about God through reason. This does not mean that reason is scorned in other areas o! f life, but just as to what exactly denotes the reality of the essence of God.
Shannon
What do you love about your religion?
God's love and mercy, the example of Christ that we have, and His sacrifice to pay my debt.
JF
I love that my religion is about love, even though so many of us fail to meet God�s standard. I love that God has revealed himself to us through his creations. I love that our religion is a testimony of God�s presence in the world.
Shannon
What do you hate about your religion?
Those who loudly claim it but don't live it, those who cherry pick scriptures in order to support their prejudices, those who use it as an excuse for hate.
JF
There is nothing I hate about my religion. I only hate that so many people pervert the teachings of Jesus to suit their own needs, and make a mockery out of the love of God.
Shannon
Why do you believe in your God?
I see Him in His creation all around me, in the cycle of life and death, and through his subtle intervention in my own life. God truly does answer prayers.
JF
I believe in God because he has revealed himself to us, through time and according to our ability to understand. Personal experience with God, the fruits of his Creation, and the presence of love and the underlying desire for harmony in the world, all show me that the existence of God is to be believed.
Shannon
What is the way to the divine?
"For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, lest any man should boast" The only way to the One True God is through Christ, His son and self, who sacrificed Himself for us, in payment for the sin that separates us from God.
JF
There is no one way, really, except through belief and acknowledging that humans are subject to a greater power.
Shannon
Can you describe your god/s so that I may see why you love, revere, and worship him/her/them?
Impossible. God is beyond description-we are able to hold in our minds only a few aspects of Him at a time. Most recently for me, His sovereignty and the depth of His love for us. God is good, and God defines good. It is presumptuous of me to judge Him by my morality. Because of this I try very hard to use the Bible-what we know of God-as the source of my moral code. Because God defines good and we can never measure up, that He loved us enough to sacrifice His son is absolutely amazing to me. He would have been justified in wiping out the whole race and starting over, but chose to give us a way to be justified.
JF
God is the source of all that is living. God is the true source of love, the true sense of what is right and just. God is not a person, one that possesses a corporeal body. God is pure spirit, the essence that is in, through, and around everything that we see, hear, touch and smell. God is everywhere, and outside of everything, all at the same time. This is why God is so difficult to understand, because as humans we have to try to picture something tangible in order for us to grasp it.
When I picture God, I don�t picture a �being� with a body. I see God as an invisible force that is everywhere in time at once, one that has consciousness and conscience.
Shannon
What manner of things are considered sinful or wrong or evil or forbidden in your faith and why?
Too complex to get into all the details, but the basics are explained in the gospels (again with no reference-I'll try to find them tomorrow, honest): Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and sould and Love your neighbor as yourself. Everything else is just explanation of how to do these. The negatives of these are probably the Ten Commandments-If you love God with all your heart, you won't worship other Gods, won't make idols, won't profane his day. If you love others as yourself, you won't steal, murder, or try to take their spouse.
JF
Sin is a much overused word, in my opinion. �SIN� means �missing the mark�. In other words, we sin when we fail to live up to a standard. God�s standard is the one we should be living by, so to fail to meet God�s standard is when we fall into sin. There are no forbidden foods in my faith, since all things that God has given to us can be used by us.
What is evil is what goes against the harmony of the universe, the bonds that bind us together. What is evil is what divides us, and divides us from God, since God is the essence of harmony.
Those things that are wrong are the things that God has deemed harmful to us, and harmful to our relations with people that we love (adultery, murder, lying, cheating, etc)
Shannon
How tolerant of other beliefs is your religion?
It depends on the definition of tolerance. Christians should be supportive of others' legal rights to practice their religion, but to say that all paths eventually lead to God is opposed to our faith. If we say so, we are potentially misleading others into eternal danger.
JF
The faith itself is tolerant. We are called to love our neighbours and enemies. However, how people choose to interpret that religion varies, which is a fatal flaw of human nature.
Shannon
Why are you so sure you know who is going to hell?
Trick question? We don't know if an individual person is going to hell b/c we don't know the state of another's heart. We know the criteria for going to Heaven or Hell b/c it is clear in the Bible.
JF
I�m not sure who is �going to hell�. Hell is another overused concept, in my opinion. The fires of Hell are the fires of the earth, where unbelievers stay - when they are buried at death, and do not rise up again in spiritual rebirth. The language that has been used (describing Hell as an actual place) are there for us to picture and imagine spiritual death, not the realistic picture of what will happen, since we cannot comprehend such intangible things.
Shannon
What epiphany showed you this was the right path for you?
I accepted Christ as a child, but as a young adult I became disillusioned with many who claimed the name of Christ. I tried to seek another path, but God worked through the circumstances in my life to bring me back to the church where I grew up, which now has an amazing, brilliant pastor. Since I don't believe salvation can be lost, I was not "saved again" but I made a conscious decision to stop running and return to God. Some of the circumstances involved major family and financial issues which God used basically to teach me that I can't do it without Him either.
JF
I know this is the right path for me, because it is the only one that has given me peace. I think God wants us to be at peace, and find our own path. The one that provides us with a way of comprehending God is the one that is right for us.
Shannon
| 
2004-2007