Bikewer
2nd July 2006, 08:22 AM
One of my major beefs with Christianity.....Christian sects generally agree that "salvation" is conditional on having some sort of acceptance of Jesus' message.
In the Catholic tradition, this involves baptism, then living one's life in accordance with church teachings on avoiding sin and doing good works. Somewhat simpler in the Protestant tradition, where one must only "accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior". Be "born again", as they say.
One's chances of making it to one's eternal reward range from slim (in the Catholic tradition) to none (Protestant) if one is not a member of the particular faith.
That would be all very well if the all-just, all-merciful God had done a little better job of getting the word out.
At the time of Christ, the population of the Earth is reckoned to have been at least 300 million people, possibly double that. According to the book I read recently, 1491, the population of the Americas prior to the arrival of Europeans was at least 30 million.
So, when Jesus does his thing, and opens the door for salvation, you'd have thought that God could have announced this fact world-wide in some way.
But not so. Instead, Jesus does his thing in a backwater of the Roman Empire and no one much hears of it at all for at least 50 years, at which point we have a number of different Jesus cults who are all at odds with each other over the nature and purposes of Jesus, God, and much else as well.
It takes several hundred years for these nascent Christian groups to all get on more-or-less the same page, and realize that there's a lot of convertin' to do..
By this point, several generations have passed and many hundreds of millions of people would have been born and lived out their lives and died in utter ignorance of "The Good News". Presumably roasting in Hell.
By 1000 years, much of Europe has been Christianized, but much of that by fiat. "By george, I'm the king, and I've converted. So, all my peasants are now Christian too!" "Right, boss."
How many folks are now roasting due to a lack of salvation at this point?
European Christians don't get around to proselytizing the rest of the world for another 500 years or so, when Conquistadores and others fare forth, spreading the word and smallpox, measles, and the flu.
The author of 1491 says that as many as 9 out of 10 native Americans may have been killed by European diseases, both in North and South America.
Jesuits, faring up the Mississippi in the 1600s, reported wall-to-wall villages, towns, and cultivated fields up the entire length of the river. Returning 150 years later, they found devastation and death; the entire area depopulated.
Again, none of these people, many millions, were "saved" in the Christian sense. This story is repeated all over the rest of the world; Euros did not find Australia until the 1700s. I think it's safe to say that despite heavy-duty missionary work, sattelite TV, radio, free bibles, and whatever, there are still people in remote or politically-controlled areas of the world that live out their lives and die in complete ignorance of Jesus, original sin, salvation, or any other of the trappings of Christianity.
Where does this leave the notion of God's infinite mercy? Of justice?
Even as children in Catholic school, we saw the inequity of this scenario. "But father, what about some poor native living in the middle of the jungle who never saw a missionary? Would he go to hell?"
The priests would make some airy statement about God giving such people some sort of "test" to see if they were worthy of heaven. Meanwhile we lucky Catholics got to go to confession if we screwed up...
A difficult question for the Christian thinkers, I'd imagine.
In the Catholic tradition, this involves baptism, then living one's life in accordance with church teachings on avoiding sin and doing good works. Somewhat simpler in the Protestant tradition, where one must only "accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior". Be "born again", as they say.
One's chances of making it to one's eternal reward range from slim (in the Catholic tradition) to none (Protestant) if one is not a member of the particular faith.
That would be all very well if the all-just, all-merciful God had done a little better job of getting the word out.
At the time of Christ, the population of the Earth is reckoned to have been at least 300 million people, possibly double that. According to the book I read recently, 1491, the population of the Americas prior to the arrival of Europeans was at least 30 million.
So, when Jesus does his thing, and opens the door for salvation, you'd have thought that God could have announced this fact world-wide in some way.
But not so. Instead, Jesus does his thing in a backwater of the Roman Empire and no one much hears of it at all for at least 50 years, at which point we have a number of different Jesus cults who are all at odds with each other over the nature and purposes of Jesus, God, and much else as well.
It takes several hundred years for these nascent Christian groups to all get on more-or-less the same page, and realize that there's a lot of convertin' to do..
By this point, several generations have passed and many hundreds of millions of people would have been born and lived out their lives and died in utter ignorance of "The Good News". Presumably roasting in Hell.
By 1000 years, much of Europe has been Christianized, but much of that by fiat. "By george, I'm the king, and I've converted. So, all my peasants are now Christian too!" "Right, boss."
How many folks are now roasting due to a lack of salvation at this point?
European Christians don't get around to proselytizing the rest of the world for another 500 years or so, when Conquistadores and others fare forth, spreading the word and smallpox, measles, and the flu.
The author of 1491 says that as many as 9 out of 10 native Americans may have been killed by European diseases, both in North and South America.
Jesuits, faring up the Mississippi in the 1600s, reported wall-to-wall villages, towns, and cultivated fields up the entire length of the river. Returning 150 years later, they found devastation and death; the entire area depopulated.
Again, none of these people, many millions, were "saved" in the Christian sense. This story is repeated all over the rest of the world; Euros did not find Australia until the 1700s. I think it's safe to say that despite heavy-duty missionary work, sattelite TV, radio, free bibles, and whatever, there are still people in remote or politically-controlled areas of the world that live out their lives and die in complete ignorance of Jesus, original sin, salvation, or any other of the trappings of Christianity.
Where does this leave the notion of God's infinite mercy? Of justice?
Even as children in Catholic school, we saw the inequity of this scenario. "But father, what about some poor native living in the middle of the jungle who never saw a missionary? Would he go to hell?"
The priests would make some airy statement about God giving such people some sort of "test" to see if they were worthy of heaven. Meanwhile we lucky Catholics got to go to confession if we screwed up...
A difficult question for the Christian thinkers, I'd imagine.