/lit/ - Literature

>>17644003
I'm a new Christian, but I will try.
>Judas is bad for betraying Jesus and the killing of Jesus is portrayed as horrible, but without it he wouldn’t have redeemed the world? So then why is Judas bad?
Jesus didn't redeem the world at his death on the cross in all Christian systems. Also, in Judas' heart, he acted on evil.
>so if you aren’t a good Christian you go to hell or purgatory. if you were born on the other side of the world and never heard of Christianity, do you automatically go to hell? What it you were one of the people born before christianity existed? How is that fair at all? Or do you need to hear about Christianity first in order for the rules to apply?
This sounds like a response to sola fide, which I can respond myself by telling saying that is just a naive and reductionist doctrine. Belief in the Christ, is prior to belief in Jesus of Nazareth, if you get what I mean.
>why does God need human missionaries or agents at all?
We love God as the Son loves the Father. Love is a constant act of worship and appreciation by the creator and the created, both ways; this is how we understand the doctrine of the Trinity.
>if the soul is ETERNAL, then what is the point of life? What’s the point of corporeal forms at all?
I don't really know what you mean here, sorry -- but, generally, the "point" of life is to love Him.
>Since the odds of getting into heaven are so bad, by having children you’re likely dooming a soul you plucked from oblivion to infinite suffering.
Calculating the odds of getting into heaven is strange to me, not to mention selfish; it doesn't even seen possible to do, or moral to act on. Having children is birthing that which is made in the image of God, that is to say, has the potential to achieve the Good. Traditionally, the divine mother and father are the archetypal symbols of Charity, the virue of selfless giving. To not at the very least do something for Charity, is kind of like chopping down a tree without replanting another; you owe something back to the world after leeching off of it for your whole life.
>Is heaven literally an eternity with God? Has anyone thought about how alien and incomprehensible that is?
The afterlife is an eternity, owing to the non-sensical nature of real finitude -- I don't know what heaven is like, but I can only imagine it is incomprehensible to us, indeed.
>What the fuck is the devil and how could an omnipotent and omniscient God even let him exist in the first place? If Diablo exists to test mankind, doesn’t that mean he’s basically working for God?
Aren't we all working for God, with varying degrees of success? To deny this but hold up these two opposing deities is a kind of gnosticism, I would think. From God's perspective, evil isn't even there.

>>17644387
{cont}
>In some Christian traditions, the wilder stories from the old test are deemed to be myths and folktales and metaphors whilst other supernatural events later on in the text are taken literally. Who is deciding what happened and how passage should be read? Why make a book meant for the conversion of all humanity that requires specialists to explain?
These are faults with the early church's politics more than anything, and obviously real faults exist -- I still think the Bible is the most powerful piece of literature out there.
>do Catholics take the fall story literally? If not, how do they explain original sin?
It seems to me that this notion of Biblical literalism is a relatively new thing. There is no literal interpretaion, all readings are human, fallen, flawed in some way. We arrive at original sin in the recognition of our falibility; imperfection produces imperfection -- Genesis is a beautiful rendition of this.

I'm still learning, but there you go. Bless you.

>>17644003
>>17644387
>>17644399
Please provide source.

>>17644407
My brain, desu

>>17644387
>>17644003
Jesus' sacrifice WAS both necessary and inevitable, Jesus even going so far as to chastise Peter for telling him that he and the apostles could hide Jesus after Jesus informed them of his coming crucifixion. Judas being the one to betray Jesus, however, was completely unnecessary to that end. Just because sin is inevitable doesn't mean you have to do it. Jesus' blood was a symbolic measure to cover the law that was given to the Israelites, meaning that if you have truly accepted that blood then your judgement is permanently based upon another, more merciful metric, rather than a system that no imperfect being could possibly uphold.

>>17644003
>if the soul is ETERNAL, then what is the point of life? What’s the point of corporeal forms at all?
I’m not a Christfag but I believe Aquinas says that humans are supposed to be embodied beings, the soul is supposed to be coupled with the body. A disembodied soul is not, properly speaking, human. The state of being a bodiless soul after death is a temporary deprivation of one’s true nature. Christians believe that eventually there will be the resurrection of the body, and the saved will live in the New Jerusalem. Not sure if there’s mortality after that, because presumably the Beatific vision is meant to happen? Anyway, that’s just a part of Christian theology I found interesting.
>do Catholics take the fall story literally? If not, how do they explain original sin?
The parts that are essential to dogma are to be taken literally. I.e. that a man and woman without sin fell to temptation. Although Catholics accept evolution, this does seem hard to square with its account of human origins. Anthropologically, is there any difference between the behaviour of pre-Fall and post-Fall hominids?

I agree with a lot of your questions and objections, particularly the one about not having children given the fewness of the saved.

>>17644399
>>17644387
very good for being a new Christian, thanks fren o7

>>17644424
Your brain is not up your bottom, sir.

>>17644407

>>17645300
cope image

>>17644387
Thanks for the response.
> This sounds like a response to sola fide, which I can respond myself by telling saying that is just a naive and reductionist doctrine. Belief in the Christ, is prior to belief in Jesus of Nazareth, if you get what I mean.
Can you explain this more please? I’m not sure I understand.

>>17645312
it's the bible fren, go read it and interpret Christianity for yourself

>>17645312

>>17644542
So if Jesus died of the plague or was eaten by a wild animal or whatever his taking on of all sin would still have happened? He just had to die somehow to fulfill His mission?

>>17645300
He is trying to get this thread to be an actual literature thread. Right.