>>23898735 (from previous thread)

To me, heaven is living a good life and being a good person. To live with love, with poetry, with art and nature, with compassion, justice and all the other truly fulfilling and authentic and genuine virtues.

Heaven is a poetic symbol of the success in life and achievement of life with full potential. It is symbolizing the achievement of everything possible. That is: to reach maximum wealth, power, health and so on.

>Faith without works is dead

This is why I love the christian saying "Better to enter kingdom with one eye than not at all". It tells me that one has to be ready to sacrifice something in order to achieve greatness.

But saying that I personally won't achieve these things because I personally decided to see Jesus as a great man and leave it at that seems unreasonable to me.

>>23898830

>That's your fuck-up. None of this is about YOU or YOUR anything……it is ALL about Him

Calm down a little bit now nobody is denying him here. The reason we care about the words of God is to make our lives better, to get guidance. Our lives are supposed to be easier, simpler because our actions are correct. These books are supposed to be moral lessons, lectures in how to act and live for a better life. They are not supposed to be causing hate like this just because we think differently. Imagine if a chemist hated another chemist just because they disagreed on some formula, wouldn't that be absurd? Why can't it be absurd with religious disagreements?

>>23898834

But you are condemning me. Because obviously my thinking must by logical conclusion lead me to hell, no matter how good person I was!

>That's the thing though. Heaven and salvation aren't relative

What do you mean with this?

>>23898844

Yes that video is probably interesting for a lot of people. But Friend, this isn't helpful for me. It reminds me of reading the various different versions of the Lords Prayer, it just isn't useful for me. The petty small word differences don't matter so much. Its the actual usefulness and intensity of the doctrine is what makes us weep in reverence not some missed nonsense character here and there. Has it never occurred to you that you Christians are wasting too much time on these translation issues?

>>23898869

Yes I'm here writing some prayers of my own. I call this one "The Final Breath Prayer" and maybe someone will like it here since you are all Christians.

It goes like this:

Heavenly Father, as our final breath draws near,

In mercy grant us grace, thy presence we revere.

Beneath thy sacred wings, may our souls find rest,

As the blood of martyrs flows into eternity's caress.

With honor etched in heart, we face the last days' strife,

Bound by faith and love, embracing the eternal life.

In tearful adieu to this mortal coil,

We seek solace within thy heavenly fold.

>>23899021

I see. Thank you for your generously written answer.

>To me, Canada is a tropical island next to Hawaii

>to me, heaven is a place filled with topless women and endless whiskey

Yes but these are all delusions. They are insane. Surely saying that "heaven is symbolic to success" is more reasonable than those examples provided above? The degenerate or delusional interpretations cannot possibly lead to an honestly fulfilling life. Don't you agree that there is room for interpretation of what a biblical heaven means?

>you are asserting your personal beliefs about what heaven is

What could it possibly be other than how I previously defined it? Do you expect people to be fundamentalist and not read between the lines? Don't you think its intended to be primarily poetic in a beautiful way that inspires rather than sets an objective total rule? (Similar to the Edda poetry). I've noticed its much more pleasant to read these kind of books if you flow through the text rather than get hooked up, but maybe I've been reading them wrong all along…

I know, for instance, that other muslims sometimes hate when I point out that "the world cannot have been folded out like a flat carpet" (its a literal statement in quran) because some of them lack a flair for poetry.

>>23899264

>Similarly, I hear people say things like "my truth" which, again, is not possible. Truth is truth. It is not relative

I have noticed this as well and this is most likely a communist idea, this cultural relativism. It is almost like a religion in itself, a "Faith of Relativization" or "Faith of Relativity".

But thank you for you extremely valuable replies, they were among the best and most respectful replies I've seen in this forum so far. Usually people just tell me to "KYS" or similar irate things when things get too religious. There is obviously something extremely sensitive and delicate in religious discourse, its almost impossible to balance it with respect and dignity for some people. But you did this and I salute you sir. Best of wishes to you as well!

Thanks everyone and goodnight!

salām