Question about New Testament (with OT)

[annemehr]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, silmariel <silmariel at t...> 
wrote:
> derannimer:
> 
> >> But don't you see that if religion *is* a matter of objective 
truth -- and 
> I frankly do not understand what
>  other kind of truth there could be -- then what is true is true 
for
>  everyone, and what is wrong is wrong for everyone, and if you or 
I am
>  wrong, or (and it may be the same thing sometimes) *in the 
wrong,* then
>  that could have immeasurably serious consequences? I'm not trying 
to say
>  here, "Convert to Christianity," I'm simply trying to say that 
Christianity
>  is either true or false and if it's true, then *everybody* had 
better
>  convert to Christianity. And if it's false, then nobody should, 
at least
>  not in the interests of truth.>>

Silmariel: 
> Not so lonely, i'm trying to keep with Bible/Gay questions, but if 
that a 
> religion has the truth implies the *wrong* are doomed, chances are 
the 
> greater part of the world population is doomed even without 
knowing. The idea 
> isn't mine, nor new.
> 

Annemehr (reading all these threads with great inerest):

Actually, there are very few religions (in my experience) that teach 
that non-believers of those religions are doomed.  All I know of are 
a few Christians and some Muslims.  I am Catholic, and we are 
sometimes accused of believing this but we don't.

Of course, there is real, objective truth about God, and all 
religions strive to know it.  And this does imply that some will 
come closer to it than others.

What do you think of this?  Suppose the whole truth about God can be 
imagined as all the sand on a very wide beach.  Each religion has a 
little pail in which they try to hold as much of the truth as they 
can.  In many ways they agree, and in some ways they disagree.  Some 
have more sand (truth) in their pails than others.  Each one also 
has some stuff in their pail that is not sand -- shells, litter, 
seaweed, what have you, which represents errors in their belief 
system.

People who are serious about their religion think that their pail 
has the most sand and least of the other stuff.

Some people may be less involved in their religion and think that 
any sand at all is fine.

Some people are searching and still looking at all the different 
pails.

Only a very few people think that their pail is the only permissable 
one to have.

Only God really *knows* which pail truly has the most sand.  In the 
end, we will all find out, not only the objective truth about those 
little pails and how much sand they had, but how very much more 
there was to God than any of us ever dreamed.

Annemehr
still looking for more sand...