[Vision2020] More than one path to salvation

[keely emerinemix]

RE:  Resurrection of the body

Christians believe the soul is immediately present with God in heaven at death; the body remains in the grave and is resurrected in its glorified state to join the Savior when he returns (post- or pre-millennial, or whenever).

The argument here (I've been out of town a few days and unable to respond) is whether or not there's more than one path to salvation.  I believe Jesus is as he says -- the Way, the Truth, and the Life. I also believe that the Christian Church's failure to preach, much less live out, the Gospel should not rule out salvation for people who haven't heard it.  All roads don't lead to Christ, but there is NO road Christ won't travel to redeem one of his own.  

That's likely to annoy everyone on either side, though.  I keep doing that . . . 

Keely




> From: nielsen at uidaho.edu
> Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:41:08 -0700
> To: Vision2020 at moscow.com
> Subject: [Vision2020] More than one path to salvation
> 
> Andreas,
> 
> I'm well aware of the history of Judaism. I was referring to the old  
> Hebrew religion of the Torah. Elijah is not in the Torah. Enoch is  
> but was presumably taken up alive to heaven like Elijah much later.  
> They were the only two who went to heaven in the Hebrew Bible. But  
> they were taken up physically to a physical heaven while they were  
> still alive. The Torah consists of the first five books of the Bible.
> 
> In orthodox Christianity Jesus was also taken up alive into a  
> physical heaven. In the later official Christian creeds they still  
> say, to this day, "And we believe in the resurrection of the body  
> [not a soul] and the life everlasting." This sounds pretty physical  
> to me. Remember that in those days nearly everybody believed the  
> earth was flat and heaven was above the earth. This doesn't work with  
> our knowledge of a spherical earth going around a very hot sun in a  
> solar system.
> 
> Ralph
> 
> 
> 
> More than one path to salvation
> 
> Andreas Schou ophite at gmail.com
> Tue Jun 24 10:50:43 PDT 2008
> 
> 
> Ralph --
> 
> Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Torah isn't too big on the concept of Heaven,
> except in the cases Ezekiel and Enoch.
> 
> But everytime you bring this up, you ignore Judaism as it's been
> practiced for the past 2000 years. The concept of Heaven has been an
> explicit part of Judaism since at least the Babylonian captivity. It's
> certainly present in the Talmud. And every time you bring it up, it's
> to draw a negative contrast with Christianity.
> 
> You make exactly the same mistake with Buddhism, and for exactly the
> same reason: you confuse the actual practice of a religion with the
> standpoint of its authoritative texts, specifically to draw a negative
> contrast with Christianity.
> 
> You're right that the Buddha of the Pali Sutras was more concerned
> with the temporal suffering of humans than the fate (or even the
> existence) an indivisible, immortal soul. But you elide the actual
> practice of the religion. In this case, the "pure form" of Theravada
> Buddhism is seldom practiced outside a monastic context: in its main
> geographic area in Southeast Asia, it is almost invariably overlaid on
> ancestor-worshipping or spirit-venerating hedge religions. This
> necessarily requires an afterlife, or at least a "spirit world."
> 
> -- ACS
> 
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