Getting to Heaven is another of those things that the denominations disagree on.

Everyone agrees live a good life and try to avoid the temptation to sin, but we pretty much all agree that everyone sins pretty much all the time anyway. So forgiveness is key.

That's where the apostolic church comes in:

Some, like the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Churches (and Anglicans to an extent) hold that their churches have direct lines of apostolic succession back to Christ. They draw on the idea that Christ specifically gave his followers (the apostles) the right to forgive sins essentially saying "if you let somebody off the hook, I'm good with that". The idea is that the right to forgive sins is handed down through the priests and bishops through this lineage. It's kind of a nice thing to have someone say "okay you're forgiven". THe priest may or may not require certain actions "a prayer or something like that" to show your ernest. THat penance and it is more of a Roman Catholic thing. Never happens in the Anglican Church that I've heeard about.

Other denominations hold that the apostolic line of succession isn't important and anyone can pray for forgiveness from God and that Christ's sacrifice of Himself is enough to buy that forgiveness. SO the preacher might say "Well I think God will forgive you for that one" and not "You are forgiven".

Either way, the idea is to continuously confess your wrongs and try to avoid repeating them. The forgivness itself is of less importance in some denominations. Like the baptists hold the idea that you're "saved" meaning you've accepted Jesus and become a Christian. That basically means that as long as you don't fall away from Christianity or renounce it, you're good. Just keep showing up to avoid the renouncing and falling away part.

On the other end of the spectrum you've got Roman Catholics who seem to be more about getting to church a lot to receive forgiveness. Essentially you don't want to die with a lot of unforgiven sins on your heart. They are also more into sacraments than the other denominations. These are "good works" that you wouldn't really consider being nice to anybody. More like "eat your veggies they're good for you".They're sort of ritual things that have a certain meaning.

Baptism is basically joining the Church
Holy Communion is the bread and wine (grape juice) we discussed earler.
Marriage (probably heard of the one)
Last Rites (a blessing of someone who is dying or dead)
Confession (as I talked about earlier getting forgiven)
Confirmation (sort of like officially joining the church on your own)
Holy Orders (This makes you a priest in the apostolic succession) Not everyone does this.

You know how Santa is a lie told to children to get them to behave...

Well, Jesus is a lie to adults to get them to behave

Yeah it's true the Catholics are a lot more legalistic about a lot of that stuff I mentioned. I don't know that much about it though. I was trying to be simplistic as OP requested.

Non-denominational Christians are probably the easiest to understand.

@yebellz - Prove it. You assert it, now prove it. Or at least provide convincing documented evidence that Jesus is a lie. You can believe it all you want, but don't assert it as fact without evidence to back up your silly claim.

Hey guys the OP was curious and he asked that this not be a debate. NObody's trying to convert anyone....calm down.

The OP was trolling and hasn't been back since. Me thinks this is actually what he wanted. :-)

Perhaps

... but can you prove it? ;-)

@ bartdogg42 - I read your 8 and I had some questions. A) If the old testament was made to show that it was impossible to follow rules that strict, well then wouldnt the people who did follow those laws (Jews) reach even a higher point in heaven than christians who, in a sense, cheap out and just believe that Jesus is the savior?

Also, Im still not exactly clear on why God created the world in the first place. You said in your reply that it was so that the world could honor and worship him but why does God care. To me, this seems like a father who gives birth so that he could have a slave. Excuse the crude analogy but I really dont see the difference. Why does god want our praise and sacrifice and, most of all, why does he care if we sin or not?

Sorry I wasnt able to read all of your responses yet but thanks to everyone who responded. I will try to read more later on.

Wow! What a great discussion. Thucy, that's an extremely clear and detailed summary description of Christianity--you did a great job of it, and I'm very impressed with your ability to get right to the heart of the topic at hand. There are just two points that I have some disagreement with, which I'll come to in a bit. CA, great details too--very helpful and extremely informative.
Thucy, your post shows a much clearer understanding of Christianity than most Christians have, and I'm not criticizing your post one bit even though I disagree with two of your points. The first one is from this post of yours: "Those who do not [repent of their wrongdoing (sin) and ask forgiveness of God] are seen as contemptible because they are in essence rejecting a free gift given out of love. Imagine if a stranger died so that your best friend could be spared, and you did not even thank his family. That is how Christians view people who knowingly reject the Gospel (which is the word meaning "good news" which is their message, the message I have just described to you)."
In response, I don't know any Christians who view non-Christians as contemptible, and that would contradict Jesus' teachings that "no one is good, no, not one," meaning that Christians are no better than anyone else--just forgiven. So we're all contemptible--but we're also all loved. The Bible says "God so loved the world," not "God so loved the people who loved him back."

The second point is about Jesus being tortured by God. You wrote, "The act of the crucifixion, Christians believe, was the most painful, severe, punishment anyone has ever experienced. They believe he was not only physically tortured by the cross, but also spiritually tortured by God himself. Basically all of the punishment all people who ever lived deserved added together into one giant, awful punishment."

To a large extent I agree. The one correction I would make is that the Christians I am familiar with don't believe that God tortured Jesus, but rather that there was a heart-rending separation of Jesus from the Father, as God turned his back on Jesus because he was bearing the sins of the world.
I also want to say that I appreciate your taking the time to be so specific and also so even-handed in your approach. God bless. :-)

@Draug, I would think that the burden of proof should fall on those claiming that he is the son of and physical embodiment of a deity and that he performed supernatural acts.

If not, are you prepared to disprove the gods/deities/supernatural beliefs of hundreds of other religions that would be purportedly false according to Christianity?

Orion, let me take a stab at those questions. First, no one follows those rules--not even Mother Teresa--and besides, admitting your neediness is part of the process, and sometimes that's the hardest thing about becoming a Christian. Re your second question, making slaves is *exactly* what God did not do, because he gave us free will to choose two paths. Sure, one leads to death, but that's absolutely each individual's choice. And the way I understand why he made the world is to share with someone, closely, with love--and in fact the Bible calls Jesus the bridegroom and calls Christians collectively the "Bride of Christ," describing the very close relationship that we were created for.

I already see that my first statement was incomplete. I mean that no one follows those rules perfectly. And the reason Christians want to be good and do good is because 1) we are so grateful to God that now we want to please him, and 2) as we look at him long and hard and learn how he is, some of his goodness reflects off of us.

So when is God's goodness going to reflect off of you, Mujus?

Or does it have to travel all the way from some place where you have to use an improbability drive to get there? We apologize for the inconvenience.

^ i think it already is shinig off of him for not attacking you right now. Seriously, if i had to go through what Mujus has to deal with from you, i would probably smash my laptop so i don't have to see your posts anymore.

Way to keep a cool, kind head Mujus :).

(and all Mujus was doing was answering a question, no reason to attack him)

The Sermon on the Mount is pretty cool. Jesus as a philosopher was pretty awesome. But having to accept that Invisible Bipolar Santa Claus incarnated himself, was killed, and then was resurrected in order to be a "Christian" prevents me from being one.

Yeah he does tend to be patient. Considering he's just attempting to answer OP's question

@yebellz - Thge burden of proof is on the one making the claim of fact. You made a claim of fact that Jesus is a lie told to grown ups. the burden of proof to back that claim is on you. If I were a hdar core Christian and claimed I believe something to be true, there is still no burden of proof because a belief is a statement of faith, not fact. Had you said it was your opinion or you believe that Jesus is a lie told to adults... then there would be no burden of proof. But you made a statement of fact, not belief.

It's on in the verbiage. You made a statement of fact, not faith/belief. You are therefore obligated to back it with facts.

Let's put it in another more readily undewrstood context. If a YECer says "I believe the earth is only 9000 years old" then they are stating their belief, not proporting it as an absolute fact. If, however, they say "The earth is only 9000 years old" then they better be prepared to dispute carbon dating and other scientific evidence to the contrary with evidence of their own because then the burden of proof *is* on them. See the difference? The burden of proof is *always* on the accuser, not the accused. A statement of fact that challenges anothers belief, even to the negative, is an accusation in that regard and therefore the proponent of this so called fact better be prepared to back it up.

Now, as far as the specifics of your statement, the Bible and Christian faith projects Jesus as a loving and forgiving person. So much so that many Christians believe hell is no more and there is nothing to fear, therefore Jesus would not be a fairy tale told to scare/trick/whatever adults into behaving, but one told to sooth and console them in times of sorrow and pain. Different motive. The OT God was fire and brimstone and took the "scared straight" tactic (ironically without ever actually referring to sending them to hell in the afterlife). the NT God through Jesus is love and caring and all care bear and shit.

And note that I'm a former Christian who has found his own path of enlightenment that includes the morales taught by Jesus and written by Paul and John and the rest about how to treat my fellow man, but not one who believes in fire and brimstone and hocus pocus shit.

God's love is universal and altruistic. If he would not forgive, his paradise would be empty.

Mujus just loosed back. Your patience is more to be commended since when the roles were reversed you didn't post once in this thread that specifically asked for atheist's view only.

http://www.webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?threadID=882654&page-thread=1#threadPager

**looked back** rather.

@Draugnar - Wow. reading through Obiwans responses, I literally could not believe how he could be saying all those things. Thank god for your posts or I would have thought I was the only logical person out there.

@ObiwanObiwan - I am not "a-trolling" per your suggestion. This was a legit question. To answer your ridiculous assumptions, yes I grew up in the West and yes, of course I know about Christianity. Again, Draugnar was the only one who seemed to comprehend that I wanted the views of Christians from Christians themselves rather than an obviously biased view from the religion I grew up with.

Again, thank you all who answered.

Do you mind me asking what religion you grew up with? You can pm if you want. Just curious.

@Fortress: Setting the bar awfully low, aren't we?

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who prosthelytizes at me is testing their own faith, and I will do them the service of trying as hard as possible to break it.

Glad you chimed back in 0ri0n. I was starting to think Obi had b]pegged you right as a troll. Glad to see my first impression was the correct one. My gut instincts are usually pretty accurate.

@Orion - I never said that "the old testament was made to show that it was impossible to follow rules that strict". That was Mujus. I was actually correcting that idea, which leaves much to be desired, in my post. Please re-read it if you like.

"The one correction I would make is that the Christians I am familiar with don't believe that God tortured Jesus, but rather that there was a heart-rending separation of Jesus from the Father, as God turned his back on Jesus because he was bearing the sins of the world."

I was aware of that, I guess the way I worded it would probably bother Christians. But he knew he would be turning away, and causing serious discomfort, so I think it was torture, though I do suppose torture implies, like, active malice. Not the case in Christian teaching it is true.

As to the contemptible comment, also poor word choice. Though there are probably some Christians who actually do have contempt for knowing non-believers, what I meant was less contempt and more of a kind of tragic pity. Some people see it in terms of non-believers being assholes who reject God's benevolence, most see it as a sad case of a prodigal son. So I stand corrected.

You have to admit though that in the hearts of most pious Christians there is a constant conflict between the impulse to love all people, even unbelievers, but at the same time to hate their status as unbelievers, as well as the sin all people continue to commit. It's a difficult though not impossible mental state to attain. Many fail and just end up hating them. But perhaps not most. And it's certainly no one's official belief, so i stand corrected.

I appreciate the props from a bona-fide Christian, lol, so thanks. I was steeped in it all for most of my life though, so it's no great achievement on my part to know it. In some sense, it would be more pathetic if I didn't know those things, given the life that I've had.

Sidenote: I am often surprised by the extent of genuine misconceptions held by many Western non-Christians. They're surrounded by Christians and yet many can't even grasp the salvation concept. There are even a lot of Christians who believe in works-based salvation, which is kind of crazy.

It's one thing to actively preach that, knowing you're conflicting with most of the church, it's another to not realize you're out of the orthodoxy. It kind of blows me away, really. But then again, like I said, I'm likely not being fair given my perspective of having been raised in church.

Also, save the debate for the upcoming debate thread.

Don't waste your energies just yet.