Why do many Christians say that “accepting” Jesus Christ is the only way to achieve salvation? I’m a Hindu, so I guess I will miss out on my trip to heaven. That’s all right, though, because I’m quite content with my religion. Although I don’t think they’re wrong, I don’t believe in everything they teach because there is no way to know the truth. I just pick and choose what I truly like about the Hindu teachings and attempt to follow those. If Hindus don’t claim to know the “truth”, then why do Christians?
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t have anything against the religion. I just want to question certain things about the Christian religion that baffle me. Whenever I ask someone if indeed it says in the Bible that you go to hell if you don’t believe in Jesus, the reply has always been a hesitant, “yeah, pretty much”.
Does that mean that there is a heaven just for Christians? Does it mean that heaven may, in fact, just be a Christian society, where they are happy to have no dissenters? If so, I prefer going to hell, since there I can be with the rest of my family, and many of my other friends, who are of different religions. To me, that in itself, is heaven.
Two of my friends who were Jewish originally, converted to being Christians without their parents’ knowledge. They both had studied the Christian religion and found it to be the TRUE one. I felt compelled to ask them what they saw in the Bible that they did not see in the Torah. The answer was that they were now “saved” because of Jesus Christ. How so? Because now they get to go to the very cool Christian heaven, unlike the rest of us?
I usually do get a sympathetic look from the strong believers of the Christian faith, as if I’m to be felt sorry for because despite being a good human being, I might end up in Hell. Many of them have even told me that I don’t know the truth and that THEY do. Wouldn’t it be funny if they found me in heaven, and realized how foolish they were to waste their life pitying me, when God loves us all? Perhaps being good was enough, after all.
I found a discrepancy in their belief. Either my perception of God was completely different, or that we even have different Gods just like we have different heavens. A Catholic friend of mine told me that it’s the way most people interpret the Bible that causes the misunderstanding. Laura believed that when the Bible says that you must go THROUGH Jesus to attain salvation, it meant that Jesus is symbolic of the GOOD in the world, and therefore, you need to be a good person to go to Heaven. Makes sense to me.
Nevertheless, when I asked if that were true from my friend Jennifer, who is a committed protestant, and a pastor’s daughter, she refused. She explained to me that according to her, since Jesus was the son of God, yet also represented the perfect form of being a human, Jesus was like the “middleman” between God and humans. Therefore, when you die, you go to Jesus, and Jesus “presents your case” to God. He tells God that you have tried to imitate his footsteps throughout your life, and so he recommends you to heaven, and then God decides. So, basically she said that you need Jesus to get to God, and therefore to get to heaven.
To me, that made much more sense, yet I was still doubtful about certain little things. If God knows us so well, and loves us so much that he sent Jesus Christ to absolve us from our sins eternally, then why can’t we talk to him directly? Why do we need Jesus? Her answer was that God is so perfect, he cannot possibly know what it’s like to be human, and so he needs Jesus. God wants us to accept the proof of his love that he sent to us: Jesus Christ. Okay, I understand that now. I just don’t agree with it.
I think my God wants us to simply lead a good life whether you believe in him or not. I highly doubt that he wants recognition for his work although he deserves it (that’s if he really does exist). If indeed the Christian view turns out to be right, I’d be ashamed of my God, just because I, too, expect perfection from him, and that is not my view of perfection.
2 comments:
It's unfortunate that proselytizing is a uniquely Christian phenomenon. I actually used to be a missionary for the Mormon church. I only lasted a month. I couldn't take telling people the way they were living was inherently messed up no matter how good their life was at the time. You'd think a good product sells itself.
A bit part of it is spreading the word is a commandment for Christians and some take it way to far. These days my philosophy is the same as Fran Sinatras, "Booze, pills, God; whatever gets you through the night."
I agree. Sometimes, I cannot help but dwell on the irony that Jesus is actually portrayed as the one fighting with the pharisees, explaining to them not to take the word of the Torah literally, and Christians, in the name of Jesus Christ, do the exact thing Jesus seemed to oppose!
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