Orryyrro: “but nothing unclean will enter it” (Rev 21, 27).
And:
“for no one can lay a foundation other than the one that is there, namely, Jesus Christ.
If anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw,
the work of each will come to light, for the Day will disclose it. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire (itself) will test the quality of each one's work.
If the work stands that someone built upon the foundation, that person will receive a wage.
But if someone's work is burned up, that one will suffer loss; the person will be saved, but only as through fire.“ (1 Cor 3, 11-15)
Please excuse me using NAB translation.
I would point you to the books of the Maccabees, but I think that these may be missing in your edition ;)
Purgatory is a state of leaving all imperfections behind.
Orryyrro: First, 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 is referring to false doctrines, since a literal fire cannot destroy spoken word then both parts are probably referring to a figurative fire, the the pain of human pride from repenting from spreading a false teaching.
And I should have put it better, God is all powerful, the only thing you need to do to be guaranteed salvation is accept it from Christ, given that God is benevolent, He would not put us through pain that we didn't need to be put through and given that He is all powerful He would not need to put us through any pain that we didn't decide to put ourselves through. And people who accept Christ are cleansed of their sins and reborn, so they aren't unclean anyhow.
Paradoks also references Revelation 21 which is clearly about the new Jeruselum. It is stated in this chapter several times that there will be no sin in that place. It is also stated that there shall be no sorrow there, yet unbelievers will have their place in the lake of fire.
My mother is aware of my apostasy and has expressed her displeasure at the thought that I will be tortured for eternity. If she is to be with her god forever, will she still be mourning the loss of her son when she comes to this place? The simplest way to resolve this issue is to say that the part of her personality that cares for me will be taken from her. Similary, it would follow that anything in a person's nature that would lead them to sin would also need to be stripped away.
Orryyrro: Actually, that's more points in the gospels favour, they're written several decades after the fact, by people that were different places at the time, not significantly different places but everyone always hears something different than the person next to them, sees it from another angle and screws things up differently as years go by. If the gospels were all the same it would be very suspicious.
If there were fewer contradictions and questions about the validity of the included texts, I would be more likely to think of the gospels as divinely inspired rather than no more credible than any other religious work created by man.
Orryyrro: ...which is odd, because most of the unreasonableness comes from within the denominations in a centuries old debate about things that largely don't matter as they actually all agree on the important bits.
There are quite a few important issues that Christian groups don't agree on such as civil rights, schooling, and the role religion should play in government. The largest problem I see is that the fundamentalist tend to be more biblically literate and hold to more consistent scriptural interpretations than the moderates.
The bible seems to endorse some rather unpleasant viewpoints, so when there are those that teach that it is the literal and unquestionable word of god, I would think that you could expect some unsavory behavior from the their flock. The problem I have isn't so much with Christianity as it is with is with biblical literalism. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much of a difference that really makes at this point.
