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Missionaries and Soul Saving

7 years ago

Well, according to Protestant Hawaiian Missionaries, you can be brought to heaven by just being a benevolent dude, even if you don't necessarily believe (Or haven't even heard of) the Christian god. So if you sell your soul to a demon, and just keep on keeping on as a goody-two-shoe, the demon can't really drag you to hell because you don't belong there, and the worst God could get at you for would be heresy/mistrust, but since you didn't believe in them to begin with, seeing the demon would be enough proof that there was a God anyway.

This is especially fun if someone attempts to sacrifice your soul to something. Since they keep saying that the pure of heart can't be taken over by evil and all that shit, participants in satanic rituals would have to be willing, because sending an unwilling good guy's soul over would do more harm to the guy you're trying to bribe with souls than good.

Missionaries and Soul Saving

7 years ago

I like the idea of that. That could influence the character's action, knowing he has to stay morally good to avoid the pit.

Missionaries and Soul Saving

7 years ago

Who the Hell were those Hawaiian missionaries? I've never before seen a missionary who stated "Hey, there's no reason to convert to my religion/belief system/cult. Just be a generally nice person."

Missionaries and Soul Saving

7 years ago

I remember there being a repeating anecdote in sermons I've listened to about a priest who was writing about the question of "What about the heathens who never heard of Jesus?". Apparently the Hawaiians were pretty accepting of the Missionaries, so they were trying to convert them using only good feels and not hellfire and bible-pushing like everyone else at the time. One of the Hawaiians asked him, "This whole Jesus thing is great news, I'm glad he made it so we can all go to Heaven, but what about all my dead family members who weren't here to hear from you?" and the guy was like "Huh, excellent question! I actually don't think God would randomly condemn entire peoples for thousands of years before we came here... Maybe Jesus isn't a requirement after all, he just appreciates the recognition and wants to spread the word of love."

Proof that in Hawaii, even the people trying to convert people to other religions are relaxed and chilled out.

Missionaries and Soul Saving

7 years ago

I'm relatively sure, at least in a few doctrines of Christianity, that ignorance of Christianity and good deeds will get you into heaven, but knowing about Christianity and still not joining up means you're going down either way.

Missionaries and Soul Saving

7 years ago

Well, that makes missionaries downright evil, since they're just blundering into places and damning people with information that otherwise would've allowed them to go to heaven without breaking their culture.

I'm sure there's the rare Christian doctrine that allows the knowing non-believers to at least avoid hell. I know a lot of Abrahmic guys use bits of each other's philosophies a lot, and some interpretations of Judaism damn on the side of "Nobody spends the rest of their existence in Hell unless they're literally Hitler, it's just that good guys people who followed the proper word of god get to reach higher parts of heaven/receive more holy enlightenment than everyone else!"

Missionaries and Soul Saving

7 years ago

I don't think they thought it through. I think it was just like "You're going to hell unless you worship Jesus!" 

"So my grandparents went to hell? Fuck your god!"

"Uh... no, no! They're in heaven! But you still have to praise Jesus or you're going to hell, because you know about him!"

I think a lot of Christian doctrine believes that non-believers can get to heaven. My granny's still a Catholic, but her church believes that good people go to heaven. While the stance certainly isn't backed by scripture, for many more progressive churches it's been kind of a forced evolution. It's hard to keep your flock together nowadays with the whole "Fuck other faiths" logic when people of other religions aren't separate tribes that are your enemies, but your family and friends, and the Buddhist guy whose name you can't pronounce so he just goes by Andy who makes your Pad Thai at the shitty Asian restaurant.

Missionaries and Soul Saving

7 years ago

New age hippie liberal Hawaiians... I think there's some verse somewhere that says everybody has a chance to be saved. I'll try to find it.

EDIT (found it): Well, there's this and there's this which doesn't look too good for the 3,000 year old Hawaiians. But, then there's this which says everybody has an understanding of God. More importantly there's this which seems to suggests that it might be that God takes mercy on those who has no bloody understanding with who He is. (That's also part of where the "children always go to heaven" belief comes from.)

Missionaries and Soul Saving

7 years ago

Does anyone really give a shit what that book says? There's enough contradictions and just different messages in that book that you can argue anything.

Missionaries and Soul Saving

7 years ago

According to Fundamentalists, all contradictions are really just corrections, and the new one is correct. Revelations is the "Right-est" book in the bible. According to Apophatic theologists, God is an unknowable H.P.-Lovecraft-ey force who is represented by the text itself and not necessarily what the text is saying. It's really a shame that medieval peasants needed paintings, Incorporeal Azathoth Jehova whose blue-and-orange morality and true simplistic will cannot be comprehended by humans, who only pretend to know what good and evil is, is way more fun to think about than Bearded White-robe Father Jehova with Right-Wing family values.

Missionaries and Soul Saving

7 years ago

What, so some Fundamentalists believe that there are mistakes in the Bible?

Missionaries and Soul Saving

7 years ago

At least the ones that acknowledge that there are contradictions. I'd be hard pressed to get them to address them as corrections, "Updates" seems to be the favorite term.

Missionaries and Soul Saving

7 years ago

@EndMaster or @Killa_Robot
This's sort of getting pretty far off topic. I don't know if you'd want to move this to the lounge. (Thank you)

Anyway, fundamentalists (at least a good portion of them) don't believe there are contradictions in the sense of God going "Crap. I guess I shouldn't have said that." However, there are parts like this one where God says "Yo, you are a Christian now. I meant what I said back then, but Old Testament law doesn't apply to you anymore. It's a Jesus version of a 'Get Out of Jail Free' card. Enjoy your bacon." Paul was also big into saying that we are saved through Christ alone, so we don't have to worry about following Old Testament law. Now, Christians just have to not sin (which is nice since I enjoy eating shellfish and pork roast).

Missionaries and Soul Saving

7 years ago

Not all contradictions are moral things, some are about events, so hence it seems like "corrections" would make more sense.

Missionaries and Soul Saving

7 years ago

Oh, there's also translation errors (from the original language to English), figures of speech, and long spurts of elaboration used for explanations. Or, one could rant like a madman like that creepy guy does on the street. Then nobody would argue with you. Finally, one could just ignore those passages/verses and smile awkwardly (while pointing out where you can tithe/fill the dude's pockets).