A question about sin

I have always believed that the sin against the Holy Spirit is the total reversal of the moral order as we know it ie calling that which is evil good and portraying good as evil. As such it is persistent and cannot be forgiven. Forgiveness needs some acknowledgement of wrongdoing or "missing the mark". Having said that,it is possible to seek forgiveness on behalf of others but even then somebody has to acknowledge wrongdoing.
As mankind develops and gains more knowledge, the goal posts can be moved and something that was seen as a sin in the past may not be seen as such now. Homosexuality is an example of this.We have realised there is a reason for this way of being just as the eating of pork is no longer considered wrong now that we know it cannot hurt us if well-cooked. These are my own thoughst and I am willing to admit they may be wrong.

For goodness' sake - just be kind to each other and have done with it!

Great concept. But sadly not all there is to it.
We have to [and here I will give a link as it is very important}

Romans 10 v 9
If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you will be saved.

It is a narrow door that we have to go through, not a wide door of merely being kind to each other.

Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself is one of the two commandments in the New Testament.
The other one is You shall love your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.

Mishap, couldn't have said it better. Thanks.

I am not a rabbid feminist- but many religions, including

Personally I believe that homosexuality is a wrong thing to do then as now.

oops, Christianity, have distorted scritptures to malign women for ever. I attended a really interesting lecture a few years back, by a Catholic priest who is a famous Hebrew expert- about Adam and Eve and the original sin. In Hebrew there are several words for man and mankind- which are used in the original Hebrew scripture- but it was quite deliberately mis-translated into 'man and woman' to put the blame on said original sin- and therefore all the sins- on women.

Look at Mary Magdalen too and so many more.

God decides all rules. Us christians are messengers. We dont make the rules. We just try and follow them.

The sin against the Holy Spirit is unforgiveable vq.

wrong?! I think it's unfortunate for anyone it happens to, but you can't call it wrong. It is beyond a person's control. Better to come out than live a life of repressed loneliness.

I'm getti g really cross with you soon to be. I don't think your God exists.

He/it is in your head.

Is your God really an old man up in the sky?

Do you believe in the reincarnation of the body?

Jesus treated women in a very dignified way given the confines of the society in which he lived. The maligning of women is, I believe, a distortion sadly.

I am finding it difficult to follow your logic soontobe

Wtf is this "sinning against the Holy Spirit"? When the IS hack off a journalist's head, is that a sin against Jesus or against the Holy Spirit? Totally Probably because this thread is load of old cobblers.

So basically it makes no difference if I live a good life. Doing my best to never to cause harm and help others when I can won't ever be enough. I can be the best person who ever lived but the door of heaven stays firmly shut and I'm condemned to eternal damnation and suffering if I don't believe in the reincarnation but I can cause all sorts of damage and heartache and go to heaven as long as at some point I feel bad about it.

So as long as Hitler felt bad at the end of his life for the things he'd done then he's in heaven but Mahatma Gandhi won't be.

Logic doesn't come into it. That is not what faith is about. It is totally separate from logic, and from any different form of belief system. In the view of a follower of one of the "One God and one alone" religions, everyone else is WRONG and that is all there is to it. Not only wrong, but evil.

Oh for goodness sake! None of us really knows if there will be a God waiting for us when we pop our clogs, or whether it will be just nothingness. Just live your life so you enjoy it as much as possible, and help a few others if you can. I doubt whether our petty transgressions would bother any God anyway.

Rigid rules appeal to some people, Jingle. A strict father is better security than being an orphan. They feel safer when a narrow path is marked out, with definite penalties for straying from it, and a mantra to repeat to let them in at the door (open sesame?), safe from the outer wilderness.

I do not think it is possible to hold a rational discussion with a fundamentalist. There are those who believe their holy books as the word of their god - no-one can argue with that or attempt to bring in logic.

Thankfully many religious people recognise that their teachings are the work of men who were influenced by their own culture, lack of scientific knowledge and by their personal goodness or otherwise and desire for power. They interpret these writings in a rational and thoughtful way, and seek the important truths that are locked away there - notably the importance of kindness to others (which another poster has outlined in remarkable detail).

The "word of god" is the word of those individuals who wrote down their own thoughts and desires and persuaded others to do their bidding.

I maintain that being kind to others encompasses and neutralises all the potential sins that one might commit. I will try my best to stick with that.

If there is a god, I do not think that he/she/it is to be found in the writings of folk centuries ago, nor do I think that this being would desire worshipping and loving.

soontobe, my dad came from a very practising Catholic family. His favourite sister realised in alte teenagehood she was gay. There was nothing, nothing she could do about that- but as a sincere Christian she chose to be celibate to keep her faith- encouraged of course by the Priests at confession. She never told her family, although some guessed- but never said a word. In her 40s she had a massive breakdown, ended up in a mental asylum, and killed herself. Is that what YOU want- what your God wants?

My mother had a cousin who did the same- he was Protestant though, but he could not bear tghe guilt either.

Children, men and women are still stoned all over the world for being gay, in the name of one or other God- now that is sin, true sin- hatred is the worst and only sin in my book- and religions are the worst sinners often.

Christians are supposed to love the person, not judge their behaviour.

Don't bother with the Christians are supposed to love the person crap after your offensive remarks about gays.

You claimed to be oh so offended by blasphemy yet you appear to have no qualms being offensive yourself.

Not sure I want to go to a heaven that discriminates against so many people. If God made us in his own image then he must have allowed for homosexuals, transgenders, transvestites etc otherwise are we saying that God makes mistakes.

Didn't Jesus seek out those who society spurned? Would he tell a homosexual that he was disgusting?

I think this discussion is likely to go nowhere as soon subscribes to a brand of "Christianity" that is now very much in the minority, for very good reasons. It is not open to rational discussion or thoughtful reflection. There is one path and no other.

To be honest I see this brand of religion as a total cop-out. No need to think or read or learn or explore - just follow the prescribed edicts however they came to be written down or by whomsoever.

My Christian friends are thoughtful and kind; and one or more have family whose sexuality would be condemned by soon - including one who is a vicar!

Where in your thinking soon is charity, gentleness, kindness, intellectual exploration, open-mindedness, humility (which involves listening to others' views)? Sorry to be blunt - and I do not usually single out individual posters - but this is the stuff of which prejudice and conflict are made; the fuel for unrest and unhappiness.

I have always loved the short poem by Leigh Hunt called "Abu Ben Adam". It seems to summarise what a lot of you are saying about loving God through loving others.

On the topic of who will be "saved", remember the parable of the sheep and the goats. The sheep did not know they were sheep and the goats did not know they were goats. Those chosen for eternal life were those who had been good to their fellow men and not those who expected to be chosen

There is so much we don't know or can comprehend with our finite minds.

Agus.
On the blasphemy thread, I said that God is offended by it. I dont think I said that I was. That was one of the reasons why I didnt contribute much to that thread.

Even telling what the bible says about gays now appears to offend people. So I shall have to stop.
But it is not fair on people if they dont know what God says in the bible about it.
But I shall stop.