An article from the Boston Herald makes me weep.
I weep for each one of us, I weep for us all.
It is good that a man wants the best for his brother and that he would not want him to suffer, but it is not good to do so by averting one's eyes from the truth. Denial only begets ignorance.
It is good and right to hold all men equal, but ideas you may not. "Tolerance" does not mean all ideas are of equal worth; they are not. It is a silliness without measure and denotes a sentimental philosophy void of thought. Tolerance is in the treatment of people, not truth.
We have gotten our commandments backwards. Noble as it is to love your fellow man, we have taken to loving men more than God. We are to love the Lord, our God with all our heart, our soul and all our might... this is the first and greatest commandment; only then are we to love our neighbor as our self. Doing otherwise is nothing other than idol worship.
"Wide is the path that leads to destruction; narrow is the gate to salvation. I am the Gatekeeper, I am the gate. I am the way, the truth and the life. I am indeed the very Goal for which you seek. I and the Father are One. Come to Me," says Jesus over and over, all throughout the New Testament. "All who thirst, come to Me."
Many seek eternal life. They will have it whether they seek it or not. Too many seek Heaven but not its Creator. Too many seek eternal life without realizing they are already dead. Too many think they can get to Heaven of their own accord without realizing that is the main disqualifier.
There are not many paths to Heaven, there is not even a Heaven to get to aside from Christ. Our relationship with the God of the Universe is Heaven, the Kingdom of God starts in the Heart. Christ is the face of the Living, Loving, Giving God. It is Him I seek. Him alone.
We are not to deny people, but more importantly, we are not to deny the Truth.
2 comments:
I don't know why so many of us are surprised by polls like this one. I certainly am not. When you have people like the Pope endorsing Islam as a viable alternative we should be expecting most people to be a little less dogmatic about their faith. Dismayed, yes. Surprised, not me. However, we should also take these polls with a grain of salt because the way questions are worded can often be misleading. For example, the question may have been something like "Can people get to heaven apart from Jesus?" Some people might think the those who have never heard can, but not those who have heard and chose to reject the Gospel. how do such people answer this question? There is probably no place for "It depends..." Some of us who like to be careful and offer considered responses might like to break that question up into two, one covering the fate of those who have never heard, another the fate of those who have heard and chose to reject. That would give a more accurate response to the issue, but the polls are not worded like that in most cases. Polls like this are a dime a dozen, but are they really accurate? I don't think so.
100%? No, certainly not. But it holds a good deal more truth than I would like to admit. First, its more than likely a secular agency that has conducted the poll, though not necessarily so. They may not have as much care in wording things they way you describe. Second, the number of those polled was very low, comparatively.
I think you are right. I am in no way surprised at this, but I am still saddened by it. I know too many people who think such to pass it off as nothing.
We have discussed on this board before what other religions claim and how we are to respond, so I left that out.
DaveE, I would love to see you post the skit you did for apologetic instructional purposes up here. That would be something fresh. You gotta post the responses though too!
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