Faustino,
"If that is correct, then having a mind filled with wisdom, love and compassion will be helpful at death - just as it is helpful in one's daily life."
Just thought I might project something - feel free to comment on it,
When we talk about wisdom and love etc. as in the attributes of God, these attributes are not distinct from God's essence. Rather, God <is> His attributes. Therefore to have your soul filled with wisdom, love etc. is to have this "[non-essential?] external being, whether real or imagined" in our lives.
You say that these things- wisdom, love etc.- are helpful. They are helpful. They are attributes of God (who is our help and salvation) and we also share these attributes to a degree (being made in His Image and Likeness).

Atman,
If the return of Christ is "not literal, but the return of 'Christ consciousness'" then why would Christ say, "Stay awake, then, for you do not know on what day your Lord will come." (Matt 24:42-43) and "So be alert, for the Son of Man will come at the hour you least expect." (Matt 24: 44-45) ?

GoldBrick

Thanks for the considered response...glad someone had the ticker to tackle the Q...

You have made a mistaken assumption, though. I am not a Muslim, I am an atheist. I was brought up RC, but became an agnostic at about 20; an atheist around 30. (The change was, oddly enough, due to reading Engels' devastating analysis of agnosticism... this was just about the only time Marxist writing ever convinced me of anything). My RC background means my copy of the Bible is the RSV Catholic edition published in 1966 - I've had it since school.

Your substantive response doesn't convince me, tho. If we excuse every contradiction, mistake or ambiguity in Scripture (anyone's Scripture) on the grounds that it's a parable, a poor translation, a later scribal interpolation or error, then we must accept that the texts we have are so corrupt (technically) as to be valueless when it comes to nitty-gritty Qs like that I posed. Or indeed others, eg, who was Cain's wife and where did she come from? If these are interpreted away, fundamentalists will object, which brings one up against the claim of each church or sect to have the only correct approach - all others are misguided at best, heretical at worst. Remember the filioque and the Orthodox church?

Actually my copy of the Bible is heavily footnoted with comments like: "other authorities have...", or "other early authorities omit...", or "other ancient authorities insert..." Makes one wonder just what's "inspired" and what's just textual whoopsies.

But thanks.

Jose,
The Bible was written many years after the death of Christ by far lesser beings. Sometimes they got it wrong! I don't take it all literally.

But, another way of reinterpreting those quotes is shown by this story: Someone asked a great spiritual leader "What about judgement Day?"
He said "Judgement Day is every day".

I think the quotes you brought forward mean be alert to your spiritual state all the time, not that Christ will appear bodily when you least expect it.

As one who has gained a degree in history and politics in his old age and still professes to be a liberal Christian, it was interesting to discover both in Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy and substantiatd in most University recommended Western World history books, that most of the eschatological Biblical teachings, were discarded at the end of the so-called Christian Dark Ages around 1200 AD, when St Thomas Aquinas became influenced by the writings of the French monk Peter Abelard, who had started the Search for Enquiry, after conversing with travelling Muslim scholars who were preaching the need to use Aristotlian reasoning as a balance with faith.

It was St Thomas who took up the challenge actually producing a massive thesis defining how Christian faith could be made more secure by using reason. The German philosopher Immanuel Kant added to this thesis 700 years later.

It is so interesting that it was Muslim scholars who passed the message to lift Christianity out of its earthly despair, as is often said by philosophers, leading onto the Rennaissance, and the later Enlightenment which gave us our democracy today.

The lesson could be that if our modern Christian churches as well as our right-wing Christian-backed governments accepted these historical truths it might help to create more harmony between Christianity and Islam, so much needed in this terror-crazed world today, in which modern Islam now needs help to get itself out of its own Dark Ages. Not that a great religion like Islam, needs to accept Western conditions to achieve it.

George C, WA - Bushbred

Mhoram

I am not finished yet.

I am stunned that after 700 words I have failed to convince you. If 14000 words would work then read my book.

Don't waste time on Cain's wife. Genesis was written by Mosses 2000 years after Cain's wife and he began with a laymen's explanation of creation, void of nitty gritties because they were either not known or not passed on.

I became aware early in my life that there are things in the universe that are incomprehensible to the human mind. God is another incomprehensible concept, but in Jesus Christ we have something comprehensible.

A Gnostic is one who believes that his salvation is achieved by the power of his own intellect. One might expect that a agnostic would be the opposite.

Agnosticism, atheistism and of course Marx are part of monkey theology. I do not believe you are an atheist. Think about it, you are either a descendant of the God of heaven and earth or a descendant of Gog the Ape. The choice is yours. The theory of evolution is also void of nitty gritties and has no function other than to oppose God.

I suggest you get yourself a non-Catholic bible, even a non-Catholic RSV would do.

A seed needs to germinate in your heart and be nourished by reading and hearing the word. You can kick start the process by watching 'THE PASSION', the Cds are readily available. What you will be watching is the daily sacrifice, performed once for all time. All the lambs sacrificed in the Hebrew sanctuaries were proxies for the Christ. Put yourself in the position of the thief on the cross, the right man in the right place at the right time. He found his God, had his repentance accepted, and his name entered into the little book of life.

Amen