All Christians fail to act on their avowed beliefs. Suppose you believed that Heaven exists and that only some of us will qualify to live in it for ever, as the vast majority of Christians claim to. How would this affect your behaviour?
It would depend on what you thought were the admission criteria for Heaven. But whatever you took these virtues to be, they would utterly dominate your life. When everlasting bliss is on offer, nothing else matters at all. People who believed in Heaven would surely act quite unlike those who do not.
Yet the expected behavioural difference is not to be observed. The vast majority of Christians display a remarkably blasé attitude toward their approaching day of judgment, leading lives almost indistinguishable from those of us open non-believers. Put simply, they fail the behavioural test for belief.
Jamie Whyte
An excerpt from this article.
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Pretty good point. The only flaw is the generalisation. And the only mistake is the seemingly unstoppable belief of atheists that people must try to be good in order to avoid judgement. In reality, our efforts to be good are an attempt to show our appreciation for and to the one who saved us, by grace alone from eternal and total separation from the presence of Love.
ReplyDeleteBesides those two points, your observations are bang on. There should be vast difference between Christian behaviours and those of others. It's practically a crime that there is such similarity, across the board. In fact Jesus said, "People will know that I live because you love one another." If some people think that God is dead, we don't have to look far for someone to blame. Perhaps that is why Jesus also said, "Many call me Lord will come to Me on the Day of Judgement and I will say to them, "Get away from Me. I never knew you.""
On the other hand, I know many, many, many fine Christian people whose lives are radically counter to their culture.
While I'm a long, long way from who I should be and who I want to be, my own relationship with Jesus dominates my thought life, and my behavioural life. Do I screw up? Ya. And that's usually when someone like you is looking. Sorry.
Anyhow, good point.