fayfreethinkers.com

A viewer wrote in to ask Pat Robertson a question.

Why [do] evangelical Christians tell non-Christians that Jesus (God) is the only way to Heaven? Those who are Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, etc. already know and have a relationship with God. Why is this? It seems disrespectful.

Robertson replied:

No. They don’t have a relationship. There is the god of the Bible, who is Jehovah. When you see L-O-R-D in caps, that is the name. It’s not Allah, it’s not Brahma, it’s not Shiva, it’s not Vishnu, it’s not Buddha. It is Jehovah God. They don’t have a relationship with him. He is the God of all Gods. These others are mostly demonic powers. Sure they’re demons. There are many demons in the world.

See the video of this moron saying this here.

OK, who wants to inform high-ranking Muslim leaders that Robertson called Allah a demon?

Fundamentalist Christians think that because Jesus is quoted as saying "I am the way, the truth and the life, and no one gets to the father but through me" that he meant no one gets to the father but through JESUS. But really, if you look at the sentence logically, he's saying no one gets to the father but through the way, the truth and the life. He really meant, live by the principals he was teaching and you go to heaven. Christians are often somewhat...ahem...illogical, so they missed this very simple logical conclusion and made it all about JESUS being the ONLY way to get to "heaven", and have twisted his teachings all around. Surely if Jesus were here today he would be very disappointed at how miserably the Christians have failed to understand his teachings...

Betsy wrote:Christians are often somewhat...ahem...illogical, so they missed this very simple logical conclusion and made it all about JESUS being the ONLY way to get to "heaven", and have twisted his teachings all around. Surely if Jesus were here today he would be very disappointed at how miserably the Christians have failed to understand his teachings...

DOUG
It is a lot more self-serving to have the sentence mean that Jesus is the only way. But it is an interpretation.

Note that one could interpret this to mean that only those listening to Jesus in that crowd needed Jesus to get to heaven. "No one here gets to heaven except through me." That is another possible interpretation.

After, all limiting Jesus' audience is commonplace in fundamentalist interpretations. "30Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back." Lk. 6:30. Few Christians would give to everyone who asks.

And the one 99.99999% of fundamentalists ignore:
Matthew 19:21
Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

Mark 10:21
Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

Luke 18:22
When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

yes, they much prefer pulling that one rule out of the old testament to follow, the one about tithing 10%. That's so much easier than giving it ALL away...

And even in using the O.T. 10%, they are giving themselves a whole lot of "slack" - if you stay with that passage, you realize the 10% was just to support the church/theocrasy - the average Jew was supposed to give another chunk to support the widders & norfans, not to mention things like the sabbatical year when all lands were allowed to rest and jubilee year (every 50 years) when all slaves were freed and all debts were canceled.

Barbara Fitzpatrick wrote:...jubilee year (every 50 years) when all slaves were freed and all debts were canceled.

DOUG
Not all slaves were freed. Only the fellow Israelites who were enslaved were freed in the Jubilee year.

Foreign slaves were slaves for live, and could be inherited, as well as the slave children, etc., just as we had in the U.S.

Leviticus 25:44-46
" 'Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

I knew the foreign slaves weren't freed during the sabbatical year, but the way I read it, they were in the Jubilee year. However, it's been a long time since I subjected myself to long stretches of the bible. I could have misread or misremembered. So, the only thing we did different was to base slavery on colour? What a lack of imagination.

Barbara Fitzpatrick wrote:I knew the foreign slaves weren't freed during the sabbatical year, but the way I read it, they were in the Jubilee year. However, it's been a long time since I subjected myself to long stretches of the bible. I could have misread or misremembered. So, the only thing we did different was to base slavery on colour? What a lack of imagination.

DOUG
Fundamentalists and a few other Christians have worked hard to create the impression that the slavery allowed in the Bible is a kind of benign, even voluntary, kind of slavery.

Some fundamentalists I've met have even argued that the "slaves" were just people who sold themselves temporarily into servitude to pay a debt. Indentured servants, in other words. Some slaves were like that, but not all.

Slavery, even temporary "indentured servitude" slavery, is never benign, since your health and well-being - in some cultures your very life - is in the hands and whims of a "master" (husband, father, whatever).

I knew some forms of slavery were "permanent" - including the slave could decide to become a permanent slave if he chose when the time for freedom came (I assume a reasonable master and a full belly in times of no jobs or other economic problems) - and permanent could also be hereditary, depending on the circumstance under which the slavery occurred. I just didn't realize they weren't freed in the Jubilee year. I mean, that could easily cover three generations, even four, in those 50 years. The followers of Jehovah/Yahweh/I AM WHO AM picked a very self-serving god (as in serving the selfishness of the "chosen" people).