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The Forum > Article Comments > Who does it for you? Aslan or Jesus? > Comments

Who does it for you? Aslan or Jesus? : Comments

By Mark Hurst, published 23/1/2006

Mark Hurst compares Aslan with Jesus: the lion with the lamb.

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To all those who say 'Religion relies on fear'... and that Jesus was just a 'messenger of love'.

When it comes to "Religion" and fear.. yes, my wifes people regularly starved because of 'fear of the spirits' who spoke to them through a barking deer..or a particular bird.. telling them 'DONT harvest your crop this year'..and there.. due to FEAR.. it would stay untouched and rot and die or be simply eaten by monkeys and Birds.

Then.. JESUS came.. and reached into their hearts.. they received Him.. they joined their hearts to His life...they were born again, and delivered from the FEAR... now, instead of dying out as a race, they are abundant.. growing.. lawyers..doctors.. members of parliament.. entreprenuers.. bankers.. teachers... He guided them to set their SLAVES freeeeeeeeeee..... Halelujah ! :)

ISAIAH 53

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all

he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.

In the New Testament we have:

1 John 3
16This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us....

And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
17If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?
18Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

CONCLUSION .. so, I don't quite know where the 'FEAR' angle comes from
except that in our heart of hearts, we know we have 'crossed' some line, where the event can never be changed, we can only be 'forgiven'. Yes, a glorious truth, we HAVE a Savior.
Posted by BOAZ_David, Monday, 23 January 2006 8:05:45 PM
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Re: BOAZ_David

Well I don’t know how you cannot understand about the fear. It is in every aspect of religion. Just like the insurgents preaching their disillusioned version of the Koran only remember what they want you only concentrate on the time when Jesus was alive forgetting the last 2000 years. Maybe a history lesson is in order as we have never been free from the fear of the world. Christians tell of eternal damnation if we don’t follow the words of god. They say that without god we will live lives of unhappiness and sorrow without god in our hearts. Fear IS the basis of religion. Maybe not intentially but the fear is there. Why else would you spend all your life praying if you aren’t scared of dying. You fear the unknown and fear leads to a wanting of knowledge. Religion base all their sermons on propaganda that they derive from all human life. Just like a fake fortune teller will foretell what appeals to all so they will never be fully wrong.

Well guess what now is now and not then, times have changed and whether we want to admit it or not, no-one in this world is truly free. Everyone is run by someone else somewhere along the line. How can living your whole life on your knees talking to someone you have never met (Physically) praying for him to right all your wrongs and look over you be free. I, as a Non-Christian believe that I am actually more free then yourself.

Yes before Jesus was around we feared nature and all that was unknown. But even when he was, the age of the scientist was already being born. It was them that disproved these myths as Science and forensic evidence still does today. Documents have shown that a lot of jesus’s life was covered up by the church. Like the fact that mary was around 14 when she fell pregnant. Even Joseph was married before and had son’s and daughters. Where in the bible is that. It isn’t. But records state different.
Posted by Kaos, Monday, 23 January 2006 8:43:38 PM
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On behalf of all true believers, may I sincerely apologise to those of you who have been hurt and blinded by false teachings, committed in the name of Jesus Christ. We who are human make stupid mistakes every day of our lives, no matter how 'Christian' we are. Please don't judge God by our standards.

Jesus of Nazareth was a radical, who didn't stand by the popular teachings of his own religion. He was the 'lamb' supplied to be a sacrifice for our sins. But He was no 'lamb' in His actions and teachings. Please don't forget the final days, when Christ will return to fight the last battle of Armageddon. He will bring war upon this earth. Those who say He should not be linked with battle seem to forget this part of the Bible.

As far as Christians living in 'fear' of God, Jesus came to set us free from fear:

"God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we're free of worry on Judgment Day - our standing in the world is identical with Christ's. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life - fear of death, fear of judgment - is one not yet fully formed in love". (1 John 4:17-18, The Message version)

True believers don't fear God. True believers live in joy.

The sad thing for many is that they believe that there probably is no God. The joy in the life of a true Christian is knowing there is...
Posted by The Gnome, Monday, 23 January 2006 8:56:27 PM
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Religion is the opiate of the masses. This is one of the few things that Marx wrote that I agree with. However, his solution, socialism, is still another kind of opiate, and it has been proven to be even less effective as a way of improving the human condition.

The basic concepts of Christianity are not unique to it. One can still have moral responsibility, charity and love for one’s fellow man, without resorting to belief in a religion.

Here we are, standing on the edge of the expansion of the human race from this small planet into the Universe, and yet we still have these people promoting ideas about the origin of life, the Universe et al, which originated with primitive people thousands of years ago.

Nowadays, I submit that we understand so much more about life and the universe that we do not need mystical explanations.

Religion as a social/political force has caused, and is causing, so many problems, wars and intolerance, and has not basically altered human nature to a great degree.

I admit that faith in a religion is often a source of great comfort to people in difficult times, and so I don’t condemn anyone for wanting to believe. The problem with religion is that the central message of most religions is often corrupted by its adherents, and used to justify things that were never intended by the founder. Although, certain religions do have a lot of primitive concepts in their “book”, and a lot of really negative admonitions to its followers.

Religion should be a personal thing and not imposed on others.
Posted by Froggie, Monday, 23 January 2006 9:33:26 PM
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Just some food for thought, Froggie...

In pre-Christian Europe there was certainly a sense of civic duty in places such as Rome and Greece, an ideal in striving for excellence, and there was a certain degree of concern for one's fellow citizen. There were not, however, ideals of moral goodness shown to all, concern for any man, be they citizen or alien, friend of foe, and a duty which is universal, being more powerful than any civic one.

The philosophical ideas derived from such movements as the Enlightenment, which at times sought to replace God with Reason, borrowed extremely heavily from their Christian heritage. How could a man of the Enlightenment defend the idea of people outside the group deserving rights, if he had not been exposed to the Christian culture which was the first in Europe to expose this? Without Christianity, Europe would be a barbarous, destructive place. The legacy of Rome and Greece live on because Christians saw in them an imperfect vision of a future civil order - for just as Vatican II can profess that religions contain elements of Truth, so can societies... for it is in our nature to seek that deeper Truth, and it is the observance of this truth that betters our world. Rome and Greece had effect, however, because these parochial happenings became part of the collective, catholic understanding of man

Whilst you can be a good person without being a Christian, it is only because of Christianity's previous effect.

Also, it is unfair to tarnish those of us - such as the Catholic church - who do not take a literal translation of the bible, and believe the Old Testment is useful for its explaination of God's relationship to man and the promise of salvation yet discard its cultural, not religious, guidance; just because heretics of Christianity may spout rubbish. To do so would be my equivalent of calling you a butcher because both you and Stalin were not religious.
Posted by DFXK, Monday, 23 January 2006 11:13:12 PM
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"Religion as a social/political force has caused, and is causing, so many problems, wars and intolerance, and has not basically altered human nature to a great degree."

This statement is undoubtedly false. Europe was in a state of constant genocidal war before Christianity's arrival. It was barbarian in all senses of the word, with some imperfect beacons of civility in Rome and Greece. Human nature is not alterable - we can all descend to barbarism, and many religious people do - yet man is able to be civilised, and we can thank Christianity for that. Tolerance is only a thing of secular society because our secular society was born out a religious society which expoused tolerance.

We must remember that the worst butchers were irreligious - Mao, Hitler, Stalin - and that the Allies fought against them in "a war for Christian Europe"(Churchill). Though those professing religion are not blameless throughout history, for verily we are all human, they are less murderous than the barbarian, the pagan, and the wholly secular.

The Christian message is not that if you are religious that you will be a perfect and modal human being, but that you have the avenue to repent for past wrongs and seek to improve oneself. Fortunately, the secular tradition in the west has not given up on the brotherhood of man - although some secularists like fascists and marxists have - a gift given unconditionally by our Christian heritage, otherwise the good created by Christianity would be erased.

On the topic of Narnia... as a Child I found the books boring. If you want your kids to read stories of Christianity, start them on the stories of the saints... may I suggest Peter Claver to start... no violence, just humble service of the poor, dispossesed, and needy. The battle between absolute good v. evil is often preferred by those who believe in literal Biblical truth... the idea of constant, humble striving to make oneself a better person and thus bring about God's will is always preferable.
Posted by DFXK, Monday, 23 January 2006 11:18:21 PM
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