Do you believe there is more than one pathway to God and Heaven otherthan Christianity?

Question

I read somewhere, that the best religion for you is the one that gets you closest to God, and that kind of makes sense...

Answer 1

No; Jesus is the Way, the TRUTH, and the LIFE. He said, "No man cometh unto the Father, but by me".

Answer 2

Yes. To me, this makes sense in terms of the scope of human history.

If we look at cultures and civilizations around the world, each of them had a different way of approaching the Divine -- and since the Christian God apparently couldn't be bothered to spread His word outside of the lines of human migration and transmission, this leads me to the further conclusion that belief in Jesus probably isn't that important in the long run. Millions of people were born and died long before Jesus came along, and until relatively recently His worship was confined largely to Europe and the Middle East. (As I sometimes say to Christians, "If your God couldn't be bothered to come to my ancestors without the aid of missionaries, frankly I don't feel that much need for Him personally. But thank you for being concerned about my soul anyway.")

As a Wiccan, I believe that all religions can be paths to the Divine, and that indeed the "best" religion is a personal choice. Does it make sense to you? Does it resonate for you? Does it make your spirit soar? Does it help you be the best person you can be? These are questions that only you can answer, although discussion with other people can help you along your path.

Answer 3

Ok you need to understand that god and heaven is not the goal that humanity should strive for, enlightenment should be the goal. Even if you, me or anyone on this forum died right now do you think we would be ready to enter heaven? Can we exist in a world where the slightest feeling of anger, envy, desire and lust could ruin it for everyone? No matter how much faith you have or how hard you worship your god, the only way a place like heaven could exist is if everyone reached a state of enlightenment where desire was practically eliminated.

Answer 4

Being a follower of God doesn't mean that life is going to be flowers and puppy dogs all the time. All Jesus said was that if you put your burdens on Him life would be easier to handle. So I don't believe that anybody can do whatever they want as long as they "feel close" to God. People are too distracted by the world to realize what being close to God is, and they get confused, in my opinion. One has to look at the nature of God and one will see that Jesus was the realization of what God wanted from us, the perfect example of how to live. And like someone else said, He did claim to be the way to that God.

Answer 5

I think you're onto something there. I suspect that there is some sort of mystical union that we can forge with the infinite, whether or not you call the infinite "God."

Let's say for the sake of argument that it is God.

I think it rather a mistake to believe that God would be limited to only one mode of approach. Since humans experience the world through their own subjective senses and develop within a wide variety of cultures, it strikes me as more reasonable that there would be a wide variety of approaches.

I suspect that those who claim to know the "one true way," while they may be sincere, are attempting to make God a more comfortable, approachable and less frightening idea.

Answer 6

God The Father,Son,and Holy Spirit is one God. Genesis one tell us God said let us make man in our own image. He made Adam from the dirt he formed his body and then he breathed in a spirit and he became a living soul. So what we have is the image of God being body+spirit and the two make one soul.God made man knowing that we had a sin nature..God created us with free will. He could have made perfect creatures who simply worshiped him because they were perfect not having free will but God created us so that we could choose to worship him. Now this means man was born with free will and a sin nature and man would fall away from a righteous God because God being perfect and righteous he could not join us in sin by simply calling that which is not holy righteous so the wages of sin was death. As I said God had a plan for his creation before he made them. that plan was not to join in mans unrighteousness but to bring man ot his righteousness and that plan was Jesus Christ who did pay the penalty of death for us. This is the reason Jesus said no one comes to the Father but through the Son. And He is the only way to the Father as he provided the atonement that makes a man righteous before God.

Answer 7

I believe there are no pathways to God and Heaven

Answer 8

That would mean that you would have a sense of feeling close to God based on your own "feelings."

According to the Bible, that would be a false premise. Human emotions are too fickle, ya' just can't trust them from one day to the next.

Answer 9

u r right. i do believe in Christ but i'm not a Christian becuz they follow tha church. Christ Followers follow tha bible. i follow tha bible. i never agreed much with sum of tha teachings of tha christian or catholic churches. i started to read my bible and i found that tha christian faith is not teaching tha bible correctly as they could/should. when i made that discovery (well that and tha pastor at tha church i was goin to told me i was goin to hell becuz i'm bi) i knew then and there i had to find a church that followed tha bible and didn't have it's ppl following tha church. i haven't found one yet. not even a nondenominitial church teaches correctly. tha closest i've come is a episcopalion church that allowed homosexuals to worship God & Jesus. but i had to leave that church becuz i don't agree with tha church tryin to sell stuff during tha church service. i may never find one ah vell...

Answer 10

I believe there is spiritual enlightenment and you don't get that by clinging to theological dogma of any kind.