No - actually according to some scriptures, salvation has nothing to do with belief in God, reading scripture, or believing that Jesus existed at all.

So there is absolutely no point in missionary pursuits which attempt to accomplish any of those goals. And since all of Biblical scripture is believed by the various Judeo-Christian religions to be the “inspired word of God” and as such it contains no errors.

(of course that does mean interpretational errors might not exist - but that kinda thows believers in a quantrey, because if true believers are guided to their beliefs through the Holy spirit...well, you can finish the rest of the though.)

Here is my example to support my argument:

Mark 10:17-25:



Notice that of the 10 commandments ONLY these were invoked by Jesus – “Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother.”

So what does it take to inherit eternal life? Obviously Jesus did not think the first 4 commandments were necessary.

1. You shall have no other gods before me.
2. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.
3. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
4. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that Jesus did not consider himself good because only God is good. Therefore, he could not be god, nor any more a son of god than any other man.

So he could not have KNOWN that future Christians would think so and REQUIRE belief in Jesus’ divinity as part of the ticket to salvation.

Obviously this notion has a lot of other issues tied to it, but for the moment, what is relevant is that salvation, according to Jesus, is by works alone and neither belief in God or Jesus, as god, are necessary, which is why Jesus did not iterate the first four commandments when questioned about salvation.

SO, a shorter answer to the poster who asked:



No - witnessing, teaching, or proselytizing is NOT necessary because salvation is not dependent on faith or belief, only on works.

So perhaps, those who have a ‘personal’ relationship with God are jealous because they are required to include the first four of the ten commandments in their actions – while non-believers are not? So they might just want to make sure others are tied down to the same rules. (just a guess)

The only way into heaven is through Jesus. Accepting Jesus as lord and savior, and if you do this you will follow his teachings. Jesus specifically says in many verses "I am the way, the light, the path" "no one comes to the father but by me" and so on. You can NOT "buy" your way into heaven with good works done in an attempt to get into heaven, they have to be out of love and an attempt to help someone else, otherwise it is in vein and not true heartedly done.

All jealousy-based religions preach this kind of hateful religious prejudice.

There's nothing new there.

I personally feel that a good rule-of-thumb is to reject all religions that preach religious bigotry as being clearly ungodly and let's just move on to exam and consider only the religions and spiritual philosophies that preach genuine love.

The sooner we bury these hate-based jealous religions behind us the better off we'll be.

Also, Jesus himself can potentially be "saved" from the hateful prejudice of Christianity if we simply recognize that he was not the Son of Yahweh like the Biblical authors tried to claim, but instead he was just a wise Buddhist sage who renounced the horrible teachings of the Old Testament in favor of teaching genuine love.

In this way we can "save" Jesus and move him up to the status of a true Buddha where he belongs. We can put him right beside Siddhartha Gautama and others and recognize him as being a genuine teacher of Love and not a supporter of religious bigotry like the Christians continually try to make him out to be.

Nothing to do with Jealousey or Hatred. I'll paint you a picture.

To get from City A to City B you have to take the C route. Now there's others roads that lead off of the C route that lead to the middle of no where. So to keep on track to get to City B you have to stay on the C route. Now we sometimes take a wrong turns and branch off into the D route yes, but Jesus is there to help us understand our wrong turn and gets us back onto the C route on our journey to City B.

And that is love right there man, no matter how often or how much we get onto other routes that lead to no where Jesus is ALWAYS there to guide us back on the C route.

City A = The now, our lives
City B = Heaven
C rougte = The pathway Jesus has laid out before us.

Oh but that is again where you're wrong. Yes the "10 commandments" was in the old testament thus making it void. But obviousely you don't know the teachings of Jesus/new testament as well as you like to show you do. Cause the 10 commandments can be found all through the new testament, just not put together all pretty in on place. For instance -

The first four of the Ten Commandments teach man how to love God. “You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make unto you any graven image…You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain…Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Ex. 20:3-8).
In Matthew 22, Christ summarized these four, saying, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment” (vs. 37-38).
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And i can go on further if you wish.

Mark 10:18-23, Matthew 19:16-23 and Luke 18:18-24, to me suggest that the first four commandments were of no consequence after Jesus.

However, there is a possible intersection between the two ideas that Old Testament laws were not longer valid with some exceptions.
The First Law (old testament) was specifically given to the early Hebrews and it was NOT meant for all mankind.

The Fist Law incorporates Genesis through Moses. Of course the ten commandments are included because they even predate Moses as is evident in Genesis.

However, as some Christians claim, Jesus coming was the beginning of the Second Law (new testament) which was to be extended into all humanity, not just Jew, Christians or any other particular sect.

The extension of Law to all mankind, meant that only ‘good works’ were necessary for salvation. NOW, those who believe that faith and belief in Jesus & the resurrection is also necessary, face a dilemma because the New Testament clearly absolves the need for belief and acceptance of Jesus or even of God.

Perhaps there is the solution to the problem – Before Jesus the only possible atonement for sin was through ‘acts’ of sacrifice, and there were many other laws regarding actions required to keep one ‘clean’ or ‘pure’. This was necessary (for the Jews) because there was no alternative – man is sinful and the New Testament not only reinforces that belief, but further states that there is NO GOOD in any man – GOOD only exists with God. And since the old Law was only for Hebrews, Jews had to follow it.

So the point of Jesus as the final sacrifice offered something beneficial to BELIEVERS which is not offered to anyone else. If one believes that Jesus is god made flesh and accepts the Holy Spirit through Jesus – THEN, Christians should be guided by the Holy Spirit – because it is also God and it’s guidance cannot be wrong. Therefore Christians have a step up on non-believers because they have the OPTION of listening to and following the guidance of the Holy Spirit which AUTOMATICALLY assures that the first four commandments are followed.

So there are two ways to salvation – Belief and Accept in the HS through Jesus and NEVER WAVER from the guidance of that HS and salvation is yours.

OR – for unbelievers and those who waver from HS guidance – there are only WORKS, through which salvation can be claimed.

This, is evidenced by such scripture as Mark 10:18-23, Matthew 19:16-23 and Luke 18:18-24, in which only ‘works’ are related to salvation, while in other scripture, in which Jews are being addressed, (the new Christians) there is reference to the first four of the ten commandments. Those four are supposed to come naturally with help from the HS.

This sounds really good and in fact this is what many Christians actually believe.. BUT LET'S THINK AGAIN.

There is danger in this kind of pluralistic treatment of scripture. Today there is no single “Christian View” when it comes to the kind of morality that the NT entreats.

NOW, if all Christians are Christian because of the one basic tenant they DO all have in common (Jesus is god, made flesh, sacrificed and risen) than ALL of them have access to Holy Spirit guidance.
Therein, lay the problem.

Who has it right? The Christians who believe that Muslims have the same rights to freedom of religion, hence to be here in the U.S. and to build their Masques or the ones to don’t think so.

The Christians who believe, that we should make war on illegal immigrants and take away the birthright of children born here – OR the Christians who say that is wrong.

The Christians who believe homosexuals practice sin and should therefore be denied the same protections and responsibilities of the law – OR those who say scripture is misinterpreted and that same-sex loving couples are not targeted in any scripture and therefore, deserve all the same privileges under the law as well as continued access to church/congregation just as adulterers and divorcees and any other sinner are.

Of course that are some who believe that following both paths is a kind of cover-all-avenues approach. But it is also written in scripture that those who believe but deny HS (guidance) are less likely to receive salvation than those who would be judged by works alone.

What deep pit believers have to contend with.

The only way into heaven is through Jesus. Accepting Jesus as lord and savior, and if you do this you will follow his teachings. Jesus specifically says in many verses "I am the way, the light, the path" "no one comes to the father but by me" and so on. You can NOT "buy" your way into heaven with good works done in an attempt to get into heaven, they have to be out of love and an attempt to help someone else, otherwise it is in vein and not true heartedly done.

18Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
19Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
20For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
21Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.

12So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.
13For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.
14What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?
15If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,
16And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?
17Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
18Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
19Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
20But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?
21Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
22Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?
23And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.
24Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.

"And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works."

Nothing to do with Jealousey or Hatred. I'll paint you a picture.

To get from City A to City B you have to take the C route. Now there's others roads that lead off of the C route that lead to the middle of no where. So to keep on track to get to City B you have to stay on the C route. Now we sometimes take a wrong turns and branch off into the D route yes, but Jesus is there to help us understand our wrong turn and gets us back onto the C route on our journey to City B.

And that is love right there man, no matter how often or how much we get onto other routes that lead to no where Jesus is ALWAYS there to guide us back on the C route.

City A = The now, our lives
City B = Heaven
C rougte = The pathway Jesus has laid out before us.

Consider James 1:27:


Points to action, deeds – (works)

James 2:14-24


POINT BLANK – DEEDS (works) even moreso than faith because TRUE faith recognizes and yields to the Holy Spirit in all things – so a man cannot be wrong (or can he? – most Christians believe they do the right at the same time other Christians are doing the opposite – so someone MUST be wrong, because the HS can’t be) Right? Do you want to be the one who is wrong?

Revelations 20:11-12


Judged according to Works.

You can quote every other possible verse related to salvation but in the end you must contend with these verses, here or in private, because they are not consistent with your point of view or that of many Christians.

And what if you are with three other Christians and two say "but man, we aren't supposed to do that , we think we should...(whatever).

And the third guy says - "I've really prayed and I feel we're being directed to do .....(whatever).

What do you do? Each of you has (a gut feeling) and attribute it to the Holy Spirit (or Jesus if you will). Now suppose all you are in agreement about one thing --- ONE OF YOU IS WRONG and if you don't choose correctly you will ALL die.

What do you do?

Consider James 1:27:


Points to action, deeds – (works)

James 2:14-24


POINT BLANK – DEEDS (works) even moreso than faith because TRUE faith recognizes and yields to the Holy Spirit in all things – so a man cannot be wrong (or can he? – most Christians believe they do the right at the same time other Christians are doing the opposite – so someone MUST be wrong, because the HS can’t be) Right? Do you want to be the one who is wrong?

Revelations 20:11-12


Judged according to Works.

You can quote every other possible verse related to salvation but in the end you must contend with these verses, here or in private, because they are not consistent with your point of view or that of many Christians.

ALL sins are equal except one, denying the Lord thy God.

The only place anything along these lines are in the old testament. And that is because people were judged for their sins while still on earth. Hand for a hand, eye for an eye.

Jesus fullfilled the old testament and is now the judge of us all, we are no longer to judge others in anyway.

ALL sins are equal except one, denying the Lord thy God.

ALL sins are equal except one, denying the Lord thy God.

Just like Hitler (Who was a devout Christian BTW) . . .

Sorry I find a duality in this perspective. Earlier you wrote



Not people – the Jews, only the Jews were given and expected to adhere to the First Laws. Why? Because they were the CHOSEN people. You see reading the Old Testament is still necessary to understand some of the New Testament.



In terms of Christianity, you are correct in saying “Jesus in now the judge of ALL” – that was the fulfillment of the law – to give EVERYONE, not just the CHOSEN, the chance for salvation.
But here is where we have another issue – because you are claiming that



But that is OLD TESTAMENT – that is one of the Ten Commandments, which was part of the FIRST LAW which only applied to the Jews. All the commandments that referred to a ‘personal’ relationship with God only applied to the Jews. That is logical because only the Jews knew the Law because only Jews were the Chosen people who were given the law.

However, If one believes that Jesus is the salvation for everyone, then we have to look to Jesus to find out how NON-JEWS can be saved.

I have given several scriptures that explain how non-Jews may be saved – by their good works – and that is why, scripture omits the first four commandments, and why so much emphasis is placed on ‘good works’.

So


Is not consistent with other scripture, nor is it consistent in comparison to other quotes you have made.

Here's your first commandment in the NewTestament.

Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. " (Matt 4:10/Luke 4:8)

"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.Ye cannot serve God and mammon." (Mt 6:24)
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Telling you I can do this ALL day and night, ALL the commandments eg., 10 commandments are told by Jesus througout the NewTestament, just doesn't have a nice shiny little title saying 10 commandments. The teachings themself of Jesus has all the 10 commandments inside of them.

I know we have covered this,, but my religion has not taught me to be hateful or jealous


I recognize that individuals have different cultures and laws and experiences and I dont assume to know their character by their choice of religious writings,,,

Does it really matter what you think you've learned from the religion? The bottom line is that God self-proclaims his own jealousy and demands that everyone worships him. This is so important to his vanity that he even writes it into his first four commandments.

I personally don't believe that the divine creator of humanity would even bother writing such a set of commandments. Instead, he could have simply inspired more of his children to write about him. Then he wouldn't have had so many competing religions with all these so-called "false Gods".

This would imply that God himself knew and expected religion to become a politically divisive issue.

Besides, even this religion itself fell into at least four major opposing sects, Judaism, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism.

But that would even imply that God caused this to be as such, especially considering that, being all-powerful, he could have inspired sages from all cultures to write about him and his ways.

The mere fact that this single, albeit distorted, religion comes basically from a single culture in the Middle East, is truly all the mathematical proof we need to know that it has to be nothing more than a man-made mythology and could not possibly have been the workings of any truly divine creator of the entire planet and all of humanity.

As a man-made mythology it makes perfect sense.

As the inspired word of the creator of all humanity it makes no sense at all. None. On the contrary, it would have been a truly nasty and deceitful thing for our creator to have done to us.

No truly "all-wise" God could possibly expect any sane person to believe in such a religion because there is nothing "wise" about that approach at all.

I'd need to either believe that God is a moron, or that God is a purposeful jerk. Either of which is not good.

Also, what kind of a God would condemn people for not wanting to believe that he is a moron or jerk?

That even seals it right there. I'm supposed to believe that God would be upset with me for not wanting to believe that he's a stupid jerk?

What sense does that even make. God should be extremely proud of me for rejecting such an idiotic picture of a God. I'm giving God a compliment by refusing to believe that he could be that stupid!

And he's going to condemn me for thinking better of him?

That makes no sense at all.

The religion cannot possibly be true. Period.

The Biblical God would be stuck having to reject people simply because they refuse to believe that he's stupid.

I mean when you stop and think about this, it's utterly silly.

Let's put this in more of a common human person perspective. If your child refused to believe you were his parent, denied it every chance he could. And possibly claimed someone else was his parent, would you not pretty much disown that child? Or atleast punish that child in one way or other?

We've been through this so many times before Cowboy. Your parent analogy breaks down remember?

I wouldn't be such a hateful uncaring parent as your God in the first place. I wouldn't abandon my children to run off and play hide-and-seek whilst expecting them to accept the bigoted lies of male-chauvinistic pigs as "my word".

Moreover, even if I had done such a horrible thing, I certainly wouldn't be upset with my children for not believing those nasty lies. I would be proud of them that they were strong enough to actually think more of me than that.

So no, I would actually be very proud of my children if you went to them with your horrible picture of me and they rejected that picture.

I would be extremely proud of them for having far more faith in me that you apparently have in your heavenly father.

Because, in truth, Cowboy, my children wouldn't be rejecting me at all. They would be rejecting your false picture of me.

Or perhaps this has just gone over your head?

You seem to be missing the entire point here.

Or maybe you're just so convinced that God really is a Jerk and you've accepted that. You're worshiping an ancient mythology, not a God.

I personally refuse to accept that our creator is a jerk.

That can only be a GOOD thing, and no matter how much you try to dirty it up, you can't. I'm sick of religions that try to filthy everything up that GOOD.

No, I believe that God is far BETTER than the picture you have come to accept.

Clearly I think more highly of God than you do.

It's like we're brothers and someone brings us a book that claims to paint picture of our dad as a jealous inept judgmental old fool. I reject the picture because I don't believe our father could be that big of a jerk. You on the other hand are buying into the picture because you are so anxious to meet daddy that you'll cling to anything that even remotely promises to be from him.

I'll hold out for the REAL THING, thank you.