I know, I just read it and came away with the same “wow” wonderment. This person has no idea what Christianity is all about - but he’s not alone, unfortunately.
I think this very flawed piece would be better if the writer had researched some serious Christian thought. The idea of buying one’s way into heaven through good works is, well, massively incomplete.
No the reasons Christians do good works is 1) out of gratitude to our Savior for what He has already done for us, 2) "we love Him because He first loved us while we were yet sinners," and 2) because we truly are learning to love our neighbors.
To be fair there are some rewards. Several crowns mentioned in scripture as rewards for certain behaviors. And we know the opportunity to serve even more is a reward for jobs well done. The Bible is pretty vague about what rewards might be, but we know access to Heaven is a gift, and depends neither on our past nor future morality only on our acceptance of the gift.
Would I live differently? Perhaps. First, many of my values are based on scripture. And while I've come to understand the why of many commandments, there are still some that I don't fully understand.
It's entirely possible that without scripture, without an owner's manual from our Creator, that my value system might shift. Without scripture, I'd rely more on my own understanding, which is clearly inferior.
For one, my political stances would probably shift. I might care less about the morality of my country, and more about what directly affects me. I believe God rewards countries here and now based on their behavior and obedience. And He gives them wisdom accordingly. Thus I often vote social causes more than economic causes.
I might care a lot less about abortion. Without scripture telling me to love others. And without scripture indicating that life begins at conception, and without fear that God will have our collective hides for our behavior, then I might just decide that my neighbor's aborting their kids just leaves more resources for my descendants and is otherwise none of my business.
I might care a lot less about gay special rights. Without scripture warning that it's an abomination and not to allow it, I might take a far less critical look at that behavior. After all, what's it to me if others behave in perverse manners? My opposition to such behavior would be based solely on the spread of disease and on the extent that homosexuality can be shown to breed more pedophilia and the effect of that behavior on society.
I'd like to think that a lot of morality would survive intact. That I would still choose to treat others the way I want to be treated. Though without God's instructions that learning to love others should be my priority, that morality might depend more on game theory, than love of others.
Another agnostic roommate came home after withnessing a classmate humble a hooker in a local bar, and proceeded to tell me how wrong it was. I asked him, "If there is no God what's wrong with it?". He said, "I don't know but that goes against my grain." I said, maybe you were "designed" to understand that it's wrong.
It's not the reward of heaven and hell as much as it is the existence of God and our being His creation that drives Christian morality.
I doubt there are "millions" of athiests who live better moral lives, but clearly there are some great moral and loving people who are atheists. Their works will not save them, unless they never sin. For if they sin there is nothing they can do to make amends. They need a savior.
I beg to differ with this author. Jesus said that He only did what the Father told him to do. He did not say not to follow himself. He even prayed to His Father about those who were given to him(self) as disciples and followers. To claim that Jesus rebuked people for following after himself is wrong. He did say hard things and people left him all along the way because they didn’t want to do exactly as He said...”lay down your lives (or forsake all) and follow after Me”. And the inference that Christianity came to the western world as if the western world was what is is today is absurd. Christianity MADE the western world what it became, and our lack of godliness and seeking of pleasure, instead of God, has caused our society to coarsen. Christianity civilized the western world. Godlessness is changing our culture back into depravity and debauchery.
Not possible in a universe governed by quantum dynamics.
The closest we could come is imagining that we don't exist.
Whether or not God exists, we can observe the history of human behavior.
I would argue that the only thing suppressing the prevalence of evil acts is Christian morality. In other words if we didn’t have entire societies founded on Christian morals, the human condition—as determined by the way we treat one another—would be a lot worse than it is.
I think it’s extremely important to understand what is meant by the phrase “to live a full life,” or “to live life to the fullest.”
I would argue that this phrase is most often if not always used in ignorance of what it really means or what such a lifestyle entails relative to what it is assumed to entail.
Let’s not forget: being labeled a Christian is not the same as abiding in Christ.
Here’s some cognitive dissonance for you.
Atheists very passionately desire to believe hell doesn’t exist. But I would assert that deep down they know such a belief is irrational.
Without God I would live a very different life. The life I now live I live by faith in God. Living this life without Him would be impossible.