Am I saved?

[David1967]

This is your lucky day, so glad that I could bring the good news to you.

HELL DOESN'T EXIST

I want to watch that.

 

[godnotgod]

I declare it and believe it, does this mean if I die today, I'm saved?

You are only 'saved' or 'not-saved' if there exists an individual 'self' or 'soul'. This is the crucial difference between Salvation and Awakening, Salvation being the goal of religion, while Spiritual Awakening being the goal of what has been termed 'The Master Game'. Without a self, or soul, there is neither salvation, nor no-salvation. There is only consciousness which is awakened or not awakened. Those not yet spiritually awakened are still in the state of Identification, in which a self is firmly believed to be real. When awakening occurs, the self is seen as an illusion. So maybe it's not about a 'self' that is conscious and is saved or not-saved, but about consciousness itself, which awakens only in this eternal Present Moment, which allows you to see things as they actually are, and seeing things as they actually are is not to suffer because of delusive thought.

Ask yourself the question:

"Who is it that lives?
Who is it that dies"
*****

"All this world is filled with coming and going ie; 'birth and death';
show me the path where there is no coming and there is no going"
Zen source
*****

The Human Route

Coming empty-handed, going empty-handed – that is human.
When you are born, where do you come from?
When you die, where do you go?
Life is like a floating cloud which appears.
Death is like a floating cloud which disappears.
The floating cloud itself originally does not exist.
Life and death, coming and going, are also like that.
But there is one thing which always remains clear.
It is pure and clear, not depending on life and death.
Then what is the one pure and clear thing?

Zen Source

 

[TheBannerofHomuraAkemi]

So,

I would consider myself a Christian because I accept Jesus as my Lord and savior and go to daily mass at a Catholic Christian Church.
I believe the God of Abraham is the only God.
But believe he has billions of Spirits that are helping him and some of those spirits are recognized as gods or goddesses.

I started praying to the great sun goddess Amaterasu, and printed out some pics of her to put on my wall.

I think she is probably the Spirit of some (Empress of Japan maybe) who continues to assist the nation with her prayers, intercession, and grace from Heaven. It is said that all the Emperors are descendants of Amaterasu, so she was probably a human being, who began appearing to people or influencing them after her death, and working miracles (similar to Marian apparitions), and then myths and legends came about.

Bottom line is, I'm praying that she and the spirits she works with, would be allied with Jesus, Mary, and the God of Abraham.

I don't believe the Shinto mythology about Amaterasu, but I do believe her to be a supernatural entity, a Saint or Angel, that is powerful, and can be invoked.
View attachment 21825 View attachment 21826 View attachment 21827 View attachment 21828

I believe the more than 2.4 million soldiers enshrined as "divinities" at Yasakuni Shrine and other Shinto Shrines, are powerful spirits who can benefit from our prayers, sacrifices, penance, suffering, and offerings. So, Yasakuni has become my Mecca, the sight most sacred to my heart that is the focus of many of my prayers. I believe the soldiers at Yasakuni are powerful, (and have a feeling they were partially responsible for the fall of the Soviet Union.)


So, I think I'm still Christian though. I believe in one God, so I'm monotheistic. I just believe some of the other "gods" and "goddesses" are spirits created by the God of Israel, some good, some bad.

◄ Romans 10:9 ►
If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved

I declare it and believe it, does this mean if I die today, I'm saved?

Why have Amaterasu when you could have Izanami?

 

[outlawState]

I believe some people are nicer than God....

...says to me that you don't actually believe in the OT God of Abraham, because you believe that there are those who are greater than God in love and mercy. You are a polytheist, and guilty of breaking the first commandment Exodus 20:2 and potentially guilty of blasphemy as you don't trust to God's mercy, but to the empty legalisms of the Catholic church, perhaps?

 

[Spiderman]

...says to me that you don't actually believe in the OT God of Abraham, because you believe that there are those who are greater than God in love and mercy. You are a polytheist, and guilty of breaking the first commandment Exodus 20:2 and potentially guilty of blasphemy as you don't trust to God's mercy, but to the empty legalisms of the Catholic church, perhaps?

I'm not a polytheist, I believe in only one God, but I believe there are billions of spirits.

I also don't believe in the legalisms of the Catholic Church. But Jesus said, if you do not eat of the flesh and drink of the blood of the son of man, you have no life within you. And at passover meal, he said " this is my body this is my blood."

I feel God is present very strongly at the mass. That doesn't mean I depend on legalism for salvation.

 

[Father Heathen]

Never mind the presumptions that ancient and primitive people had made about god (i.e. the bible), because if such an entity exists, it would be a being of pure love and pure logic, thus anything devoid of reason or compassion (i.e. the concept of eternal hell) cannot be of god.

 

[sojourner]

I believe luck has nothing to do with it because there is a Hell. Just saying it doesn't exist does not make it so.

But... wait! If Hell is the state of existing outside of God, then Hell can’t exist, because, not only is God omnipresent, God is also existence, itself. So anything outside existence is not existent. Either that or the Bible is wrong about God.

 

[outlawState]

I'm not a polytheist, I believe in only one God, but I believe there are billions of spirits.

I also don't believe in the legalisms of the Catholic Church. But Jesus said, if you do not eat of the flesh and drink of the blood of the son of man, you have no life within you. And at passover meal, he said " this is my body this is my blood."

I feel God is present very strongly at the mass. That doesn't mean I depend on legalism for salvation.

You haven't answered the specific point I made that some people are nicer than God. Don't forget it was God who created you, so why should he not freely give you all things? Did not Christ say that you must hate your family in order to believe in God/him? You're saying that there are people nicer than God? How can this be?

I believe the eucharist is capable of being turned into a legalism and a formality, as with anything. The flesh and blood Christ was talking about that we must eat and drink represents sanctification (Jhn 17:17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth) and justification (Rom 5:9 being now justified by his blood), but it is also a proclamation of the death of Christ.

1Co 11:26
For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

I don't believe the substance of the eucharist lies in imagining that what you're eating and drinking are the literal blood and body of Christ.

 

[Al Ibn Al Amra]

You have a spirit , only if you already have done .

 

[Spiderman]

You have a spirit , only if you already have done .

May I ask where you are from Al?

 

[A.C. Simon]

The entity your praying to is most likely a bad spirit(a demon), but even if it wasn’t why would you pray to it? Only the prayers you pray to the Father in the name of Jesus will be heard. As for if you are saved or not, in the book of Acts when the Jewish people asked Peter, “what must we do to be saved?” Peter replied “Repent (meaning turn away from your sins, and follow Jesus), and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins”. So I guess on that passage you would have to judge yourself whether your saved or not, although I do believe praying to an entity other than God is a sin, so therefore do believe that you have yet to come to salvation. But I would encourage you to keep praying to God, and asking him to reveal the the truth to you with a sincere heart.

 

[A.C. Simon]

I cannot believe in a petty, vengeful God who would condemn anyone to an eternity of suffering. Once the lessons of suffering are learned, the suffering stops.

Well you have to remember God is a just judge. He is holy, pure and righteous: and the truth is He has to judge sin, and if He doesn’t than it means He’s not holy or just and is no longer God. So since it is impossible for God to change who He is, God has to judge all people of their sins, and the penalty for rebelling against God and sinning against Him is being cast into the lake of fire, but the good news is God seeing this, knowing He has to judge you for the sins you have committed, loved you so much that he sent His only Son to die on a cross and pay the price for your sins so that you could be free and be reconciled to God forever in everlasting joy and peace, but to receive this gift you must repent of your sins and follow Jesus Christ, putting your trust in Him, till the day you die.

 

[Trailblazer]

I believe luck has nothing to do with it because there is a Hell. Just saying it doesn't exist does not make it so.

Hell is a state of the soul that is distant from God.
It is not a geographical location.

 

[Trailblazer]

I believe the devil can be nicer and quite charming but only God loves you.

I do not believe in the devil. Satan is the lower materialistic self that savors things that are not of God.

Matthew 16:23-26 But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

In context, the way I interpret those verses is that Jesus was telling the disciples to deny their selfish desires, things they want that are not of God, and to follow Him. For whoever will live for self shall lose his life, but whoever will sacrifice his life for the sake of Jesus and God shall gain eternal life. It is the soul that gets eternal life, not the body.

So if we live for self and the worldly things we gain the world but we lose our soul in the sense that we lose eternal life.

God loves us but sometimes it does not feel like love, just like it does not feel like love when a child is disciplined by a parent.

 

[Trailblazer]

Free will necessitates that God be subverted (no longer Supreme), in favor of individual creation of will (no longer sole Creator).

So how the heck do you think we make any choices without free will? Or do you think that God is making all our choices for us? That would make us God's robots.

I believe that God's will supersedes human free will.... It's like this... We make a decision and attempt to take action on it, but if that action in not congruent with God's will then that action is subverted and it does not become a reality. So it is like God is a gatekeeper and He lets some of our decisions through the gate but not others.

 

[Trailblazer]

We do not get saved for believing Yeshua is Lord, and that he died & resurrected... That is only saved according to the Pharisees John, Paul and Simon.

True.

 

[Sleeppy]

So how the heck do you think we make any choices without free will? Or do you think that God is making all our choices for us? That would make us God's robots.

I believe that God's will supersedes human free will.... It's like this... We make a decision and attempt to take action on it, but if that action in not congruent with God's will then that action is subverted and it does not become a reality. So it is like God is a gatekeeper and He lets some of our decisions through the gate but not others.

It's an illusion; there are no choices. Time is an illusion.

 

[Trailblazer]

It's an illusion; there are no choices. Time is an illusion.

So humans are just God's robots?

Time as we know it in this world is measured by the sun but in the spiritual world when there is no more sun this kind of time won't exist anymore.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

But... wait! If Hell is the state of existing outside of God, then Hell can’t exist, because, not only is God omnipresent, God is also existence, itself. So anything outside existence is not existent. Either that or the Bible is wrong about God.

Pretty much. Unless you believe in realms, heavens, and dimensions, and such, there is no "outside of god." Some people on RF alone dictate the salvation, life, and consequences of people and say their bluntness is from god. Very unattractive part of Christianity. But I don't believe in gods that "do" things and gods with emotions and creator gods. Shrugs.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

So humans are just God's robots?

Time as we know it in this world is measured by the sun but in the spiritual world when there is no more sun this kind of time won't exist anymore.

Wouldn't out be better to be gods robots than our own worst enemy?

What good is free will when the only good choice is god?