salvation

[Samuel]

I was wondering what everybody thought of the idea of salvation, in its broadest sense.

Personally I've always found the idea that we need to be 'saved' quite compelling. This is usually in the frame of understanding it within a Christian view but taking it as a purely mythological 'truth'... if that makes sense. All religions typically include some notion that human failing is inevitable and that we must strive to overcome it. I dislike ideas that suggest we are somehow wholly corrupt and without any goodness at all, but it seems undeniable to me that, if we were being marked, a teacher would write 'could do better'.

I suppose in that way I've always seen the religious idea of 'salvation' to be about hope for a better world. The specific religious baggage and doctrine that comes with it often clouds the issue and makes it less relevant, less accessible. Which is a shame.

what does everyone else think?

...this has given me an idea for another thread

[Udayana]

hmm .. this is something I've never understood. Saved from what?

 .. and what is it like once you are "saved"?

[Shaker]

Ah, bugger. That was going to be my point too - the concept of salvation, at least in a religious context, surely relies on being saved from some particular thing or state. What in a secular context would this be? Or can a non-religious concept of salvation dispense with it?

[SusanDoris]

Even when I believed there was a God, the idea of salvationseemed a daft idea. Saved from what? Why? By what?

[BashfulAnthony]

Even when I believed there was a God, the idea of salvationseemed a daft idea. Saved from what? Why? By what?

If nothing else, saved from yourself!  Have you never done any wrong to any other person, or living thing?  Are you free from all wrong-doing and nastiness, of any sort, whether it be in word, thought, or deed  If so, I recommend you for a sainthood!

[Shaker]

If nothing else, saved from yourself!  Have you never done any wrong to any other person, or living thing?  Are you free from all wrong-doing and nastiness, of any sort, whether it be in word, thought, or deed  If so, I recommend you for a sainthood!

That's not the case for anybody who has ever drawn breath; however, the remedy for that is surely mindfulness or awareness rather than the self-dramatising idea that you need to be "saved from yourself."

[SusanDoris]

If nothing else, saved from yourself!  Have you never done any wrong to any other person, or living thing?  Are you free from all wrong-doing and nastiness, of any sort, whether it be in word, thought, or deed  If so, I recommend you for a sainthood!

But I take full responsibility for all such things that I have done in my life. If there's "saving" to be done, or reparation to be made, I sort that out myself. Never have I waited for someone else to do it for me.

[Shaker]

But I take full responsibility for all such things that I have done in my life. If there's "saving" to be done, or reparation to be made, I sort that out myself. Nwever have I waited for someone else to do it for me.

Completely agree. Religious notions of salvation from without strike me as exercises in buck-passing. Whatever we do wrong, we do to a real person, to a someone (or even to a non-human animal). It's to those to whom we have to apologise and make whatever amends and restitution we can.

[BashfulAnthony]

But I take full responsibility for all such things that I have done in my life. If there's "saving" to be done, or reparation to be made, I sort that out myself. Never have I waited for someone else to do it for me.

You can never make reparation for all your misdeeds because you never know when your time is coming;  so there bound to be unpleasantness left unaccounted for.

[Shaker]

And that's just how it has to be.

[Dicky Underpants]

Completely agree. Religious notions of salvation from without strike me as exercises in buck-passing. Whatever we do wrong, we do to a real person, to a someone (or even to a non-human animal). It's to those to whom we have to apologise and make whatever amends and restitution we can.

I also agree completely with you and Susan on this, and am amazed that anyone with such a cherry-picking attitude to the scriptures can find any justification for the belief that Jesus came to earth as some sort of patent remedy for guilty consciences. In the instance of our stubborn friend's peculiar selection of beliefs, it seems something very much plucked out of nowhere - and dependent on nothing more than such sentiments as "I believe it because I choose to believe it".
The idea of Christ as a 'sacrifice for our sins' - expanded on in the letters of Paul and John's gospel - depends in its origins so much on Old Testament ideas of the Paschal Lamb and the scapegoat. Didn't somebody say they rejected the Old Testament - or is this another case of "I reject it except where I don't reject it" - or in the case of the Gospels "I accept and trust them except where I don't accept and trust them"? (And if you don't believe me, I've  got a certificate from Neasden Polytechnic to prove I'm right)

[BashfulAnthony]

And that's just how it has to be.

Usual atheist rationalisation of the misdeeds of your life.  Too bad, eh?  A great way to be, to dismiss responsibility for your actions so you don't have to worry about any of your nastiness.  Why do I bother to expect anything else?

[Shaker]

Usual atheist rationalisation of the misdeeds of your life.  Too bad, eh?  A great way to be, to dismiss responsibility for your actions so you don't have to worry about any of your nastiness.  Why do I bother to expect anything else?

Except that both Susan and I (and latterly Dicky) have explicitly said that we have to take responsibility for whatever we do wrong. There's no alternative.

[SusanDoris]

You can never make reparation for all your misdeeds because you never know when your time is coming;  so there bound to be unpleasantness left unaccounted for.

Well, at nearly 80, and knowing that sooner or later something's going to bring my life to an end - for a start, new bovine tissue aortic valves are given ten years, and I've had more than two already!, I think I'll manage to cope!! -   

[Dicky Underpants]

And that's just how it has to be.

Exactly. It can be a very bitter pill to swallow for some people. And indeed, some people's lives can be crippled by guilt. That's hard, but humans can be very forgiving in  themselves, and the John Profumo route is a worthy one to follow, if you feel you've done something dastardly. Of course, sometimes religious beliefs simply create unnecessary guilt in the first place....

[Shaker]

Exactly. It can be a very bitter pill to swallow for some people. And indeed, some people's lives can be crippled by guilt. That's hard, but humans can be very forgiving in  themselves, and the John Profumo route is a worthy one to follow, if you feel you've done something dastardly. Of course, sometimes religious beliefs simply create unnecessary guilt in the first place....

Indeed - lovely post.

To me the brevity and uncertainty of life and the finality of death make it all the more, not less, important not only to make amends for past wrongs but to endeavour to live in such a way as to make future contrition unnecessary. There is no option to defer the grand righting of wrongs to some highly dubious (to say the very least) future state and shuffle off all my wrongs onto some equally dubious figure. That would be a prime example of what Sartre called mauvaise foi, or bad faith - inauthenticity.

[floo]

One needs to apologise to those one has wronged and try to make reparation. But no way does one need to apologise to the deity, assuming it exists and was responsible for creating humans. Its cock ups are responsible for human nature!

[Nearly Sane]

Saved from myself? Which therefore immediately goes down the route that it is only not myself that can behave well. What an amount of self loathing is that! What hatred of humanity! What skulking Uriah Heepness!


ETA: I should have realised that it would be Bashful Uriah touting that.

[BashfulAnthony]

Saved from myself? Which therefore immediately goes down the route that it is only not myself that can behave well. What an amount of  What skulking Uriah Heepness!


ETA: I should have realised that it would be Bashful Uriah touting that.

Sounds like a guilty conscience blurting out there!
"...self loathing...hatred of humanity!"  Over-the-top, big time!

[Nearly Sane]

Sounds like a guilty conscience blurting out there!

Of course it does, to you,  Uriah.

[BashfulAnthony]

Of course it does, to you,  Uriah.

Keep your hair on, fella.  It seems to me, that if your persona on here is anything to go by, you would have a huge amount to make amends for.

[Nearly Sane]

Keep your hair on, fella.  It seems to me, that if your persona on here is anything to go by, you would have a huge amount to make amends for.

As any good Uriah would say - good to see you are really getting into this character, keep up the good work, I'm quite impressed at your sticking to the brief.

[BashfulAnthony]

As any good Uriah would say - good to see you are really getting into this character, keep up the good work, I'm quite impressed at your sticking to the brief.

Someone who needs to take a look at himself, I think!

[Nearly Sane]

Someone who needs to take a look at himself, I think!

Shiny, Shiny mirror

[BashfulAnthony]

Shiny, Shiny mirror

Don't know what that means.  Probably nothing, like so many of your posts!