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I would respectfully tell them that you don't agree with their assessment and that you respect their beliefs, but you don't share them. Be quite firm if they continue to condemn you to hell by telling them that the relationship is on the line.
As a Christian, here's a few pointers...remember to tell them that it's God who will do the judging, not them. Also, remind them that if the relationship is doomed because they are disrespecting your beliefs, then they are not showing Christ's love by respecting you. Remind them that it's up to YOU to become saved, not them to save you. Christ didn't keep shoving things down people's throats.
So, I've given you a couple of "secrets"! LOL I just believe that you deserve your dignity and respect. I'm also appalled when I see Christians behaving in a boorish manner. Not to justify their behavior, but oftentimes what happens is a person becomes so joyful at their conversion that they want to share it with those they care about. This could be the case; I don't know all the facts. Nevertheless, they need to respect you and your beliefs.
Wow, it's been a while since I posted, but thanks for all the replies. My friend is a born-again Christian and a missionary, which I think explains much of her behavior. I do believe the things she says are out of love. But many of the things she believes - such as, it doesn't matter what you do in life as long as you accept Jesus Christ as your savior, you'll be saved - give me problems. She had a "sinful" life before she was born-again, a card dealer in Vegas, an abortion, sleeping around, blah, blah... I think religion for her was a way to turn her life around, to believe that she would be forgiven for all that. I'm no card-dealing lose woman... and I hope if there is a God, he won't be sending me to Hell.
That we created the concept of hell from primative unresolved issues and unevolved emotions.
That it is possible that the damning of another to hell is what hell is... the hell of the damning and the hell of those damned by others is all the same..
That we were given the tools to create our own life experience, and we have yet to evolve to the point where we have begun to create that with in ourselves by ourselves and for ourselves.
That we project our insecurities on others by justifying primitive notions of the past that no longer apply to our times simply because we have yet to evolve beyond those times.
That we ultimately are not christians or jews or muslims or buddists. That we have labeled ourselves for our own societal purposes.
Might god not have said that we are human beings trying to evolve to a level where we treat eachother with the same respect we ask for ourselves and all else falls in to place.
As long as we are christians and jews and muslims and buddists we will always define eachother by the past and the primitive notions and insecurities of those in the past. We will always evalutate eachother by the more narrow viewpoint of the those in the past.
Our redemption is in our human evolution, and we are far from that. If we spent more time helping eachother with practical needs of our times rather than preaching and judging, and killing and punishing and excluding. we might evolve much faster.
Having been in the position many times to be preached at and damned to hell, I have been forced to look beyond our religions for meaning, and it has been enlightening more than had I expected and more than had I been in the comfortable majority in this life and just simply accepted my parents beliefs as the last word on living this life.
Maybe if there is a god, he/she expected us to have 'faith' in ourselves and others, rather than blind faith that causes us to cling to the past, and judge others by the fears of the long dead.
I realize my mother's generation would have found this irritating to say the least, and at 58 my own generation has not moved much beyond that, but maybe we need to find another way to resolve life's issues that actually work for everyone everywhere. A world where there is no need to divide, conquer, manipulate, and possess.
Maybe we don't pass from earth to heaven, but from the state of hell to the state of heaven right here on earth, by evolving spiritually and physically. And I don't mean spiritually as in god or religion, but spiritually in the sense that the core of who we are is
molded and affected by the core of others by how we treat eachother and the world around us. We have yet to find our core in our respect for eachothers existence. Instead we wish to conquer and control others, and in turn they end up wanting the same and the cycle goes on endlessly.
What goes around comes around is one of our most valuable lessons and one that has never gone out of date, and yet one that we still struggle with it.
I realize I don't have to accept what you believe and you don't have to accept what I believe. But with religion it's always about having to accept something to be given the right to this or that. Too bad it's beliefs that we have to accept or reject, rather than accepting eachothers right to exist and be happy with who we are. I'm a bit tired, so some of this might not make any sense....
Last edited by Alpha8207; 01-30-2008 at 08:27 AM..
Reason: removed moderation comments.
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