Personally I would prefer to separate the concept of religion
and God.
I come to agree pretty much with Ito who said..."Religions are
established as evolving guidelines for different societies in order
to function and survive, in a state of competition against people
of other faith in the purpose of proving the superiority of one
society against another and the following of a mutual co-existence
with a competitive nature. e.g. a deity of a village is treated as
a demon in another rival village. People are not pure from the
start, how can religion be pure if it is a product of our social
progression?
Perhaps, there is no such thing as a pure heart from the beginning,
and never will be. "
Religion, after all is a social institution by man, established due
to countless which matters little. But what I wish to emphasis and
expand on what Ito's said, religion, being a human-based social
institution can't be pure. Catholics during the Middle Ages had
taken serious bashing due to some atrocities they did in past.
Islam started early with a chain of wars linking all the way to
Spain in past; possibly seeing that as a mistake to being with, and
now condemns the Islamic extremists reponsible for the recent
terrorism and violence. --- Some doctrines taught now at this very
instant in any great religion could be seen as wrong or godless and
change in future. you'll never know.
The popular question of many christians to non-christians...ARE YOU
SAVED?
Looking out from yourself, if you're the non-christian, how does
that make you feel? I recall once when an Evangelical used to ask
me that - immediately i shut myself off from that guy. Arrogance,
nuts, assumes himself as God, assumes that once we've turned
christians - we are saved. Taking a more rational approach, I
thought...if there really is a God, who are we to decide who's
saved? Much less popping this question to someone else. --- My
point is, let God decide who's to be saved...just as we can never
be safe to assume that non-christians will or not be saved.
Like iveco mentioned..just do good, which also encompass not
harming people, not bearing malice, seek vengence, satisfying our
own conscience is truly enough given our human limits.
