Fast forward a decade and a half, and I’m still going to church every Sunday (mostly for the social aspect then fear of eternal damnation), but I had some great religion teachers since then that tell me that what matters most is (and I hate calling it this) the Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you. I can stick by that. I don’t believe in a lot of things the Catholic Church preaches, but I can believe in that, and I don’t feel much of a sinner if I skip church every once in a while for a nice Sunday brunch.

Of course, as I said, the righteous man is the one whose “delight is in the Law of the Lord” (v. 2; cf. Psalm 119). The association between righteousness and Scripture is one which spans the breadth of the Bible, and one may sum it up thus: “If you want to be righteous, obey God.”

JG (#93) completely misses the point of righteousness when he says “A wicked person wouldn’t be concerned about whether or not they were wicked.” Jesus’ encounter with the rich young ruler (Luke 18:18-27) dismisses this idea: A rich young ruler comes to Jesus asking what he must do to inherit salvation (showing a concern for righteous living). Jesus tells the RYR that the key to his own salvation is to give up material wealth, but “when he [the RYR] had heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich.” He didn’t follow Jesus’ instruction, and the Bible will always condemn him for it. In other words, the RYR was concerned about his righteousness, but he willfully disregarded the truth when he came to understand it. That’s not righteousness.

If you’re truly concerned about spiritual wickedness, then you must be concerned about your relationship with God. If you want to live for God, then you must glorify him through obedience to him. While the process is highly individualized (YOU are the only person who is going to share YOUR relationship with God), the principle is simple: find out what God demands, then do it. I personally think that Jesus validated his claims to authority and power (“I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me”) through the resurrection, and that one can only find true righteousness through following his teaching and being baptized into Christianity.

For all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief; yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night. This is also vanity.

There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God.”

Ecclesiastes 2:22-24, The words of the Preacher, who was King in Jerusalem.

The bible says God wants you to enjoy yourself and feel good about the things you do. That doesn’t mean indulging in gluttony until you’ve destroyed your ability to feel joy; if you’ve got a hangover or an STD you’re probably doing it wrong.

If church brings you joy and contentment, go to church.

But if it doesn’t, it would be wicked of you to attend.

I personally am in my church, nor am I ever out of it.

And I so agree with around 90% of the comments here.

There are verses that talk about how all people have fallen short of what God intended (Romans 3:23) and I personally think that people of faith should be the first to realize that we’re still in that category. We’re trying to move closer to God, but we’re still just humans who make mistakes just as often (or more frequently) than anyone else.

And yet he was also extremely tolerant of those who believed differently. He was convinced that they were going to hell, but his attitude was, they’re going to have the rest of eternity to suffer so we might as well be nice to them while they still have the chance to enjoy it.

The Psalms are poetry, and as poetry are subject to interpretation. As others have said, stick with your original sense about the Psalm.

Stick with your first impression, and perhaps reconsider that particular Church if you find his interpretations unsettling.

It sounds deliberately exclusive to me, without any appeal to merit outside of being in a certain place at a certain time. Christ wasn’t a big fan of that approach.

Acts: 4:10-12
It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is
” ‘the stone you builders rejected,
which has become the capstone. Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”

If you were to let a Scientologist give you personality test, you would find out that there are things wrong with you and that they can solve them if you sign up to take some classes at their center. You wouldn’t fall for that and you probably shouldn’t give similar statements from any other religion any more weight.

But in the end, it’s your opinion which matters. Do you feel wicked? Is your own conscience troubled?

Personally, I can’t see past the parts of religion that I find objectionable, illogical and offensive. My loss, perhaps. All I see is smoke and hokum.

From my perspective, either you believe none of it, or you believe all of it. Trying to only believe and follow the parts you agree with seems… hypocritical, perhaps. It’s a harsh word, but oh well. I have more respect for the ‘extremists’ than I do for people who just pick and choose which parts they feel like agreeing with.

Then again, I’m an atheist, so the parts I follow are simple: none of it at all.

ridiculous isn’t it? That the word blasphemy is even taken seriously by some.

“Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged from Israel. (Deuteronomy 17:12)”

“Whoever sacrifices to any god, except the Lord alone, shall be doomed. (Exodus 22:19″

“If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. (Deuteronomy 13:7-12)”

So it doesn’t really matter what we do in life. I treat my wife and children with love and respect, but to true christians I am nothing but a rabid dog who should be slain.

Jesus said: “Verily I say unto you, all sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men and blasphemies, however they shall blaspheme, but he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation”

So if you’ve ever blasphemed against the holy spirit (for instance, said that god does not exist) then even JESUS won’t forgive you.

Let me get my blasphemies out here….. any god who would say this is an evil god, I do not believe in this awful, hateful, god of the bible. (I think this should do it..)

The pastor’s exegesis is faulty, but only in that he skips several steps in the thought process and arrives at an incomplete conclusion. There is a connection between worship and righteousness, but the two are so closely related that one cannot call one “cause” and the other “effect.” One can use worship to become more righteous; but, ultimately, the desire to worship is itself a sign of righteousness. The two go hand-in-hand.

BTW, I am myself a Christian (in case you hadn’t guessed), and I have a BA in Biblical Studies.

Psalm 1 is, first off, from the Old Testament, the Torah to the Jewish people. It’s a fairly core bit of the Torah as well, as it serves, to many scholars, as a sort of guidepost for how one should comport one’s life in relation to God. Study and prayer, day and night, a devotion to the righteous path. All this in the knowledge that God knows the righteous from the wicked, and in some respect the righteous does as well. Judaism embraces this concept of avoiding and shunning the wicked, the unclean. Even extending to dietary laws like keeping kosher.

In the Christian faith the idea of avoiding the wicked is actually something Jesus speaks almost directly against. He speaks highly of the Samaritan (a group who were despised at the time by many Jews for their role in the Babylonian captivity) his relationships with people of ill-repute (prostitutes, tax collectors). Jesus message was far less one of keeping good company and more one of reaching out to those who would be rejected by religion of the day.

Now that’s classical Christianity. What you experienced is more of the “Great Revival” modern Protestant branch. The “by faith alone” and “Christ as personal savior” breed of Christianity. This is where you find your literal readings of the Bible, you’re lack of theological muscle and some very off interpretations of scripture.

So no, I’d say that, if anything, your friend should be inviting you in, not casting you out.

My Bona Fides? I’m a former Catholic seminarian and current Unitarian Universalist with an MA in Islamic history who grew up as a Shabbos Goy in my largely Jewish neighborhood. So yeah, I get around.

Organized religion is a double-edged sword. The consolidation and compartmentalization of spirituality by organized worship limits the individual mind’s capacity to perceive the holy presence in his/her own way. Joining a church may bring you much further from God, depending on the reasons you join as well as the agenda of the church’s leadership.

Next time your pastor tells you “you must…” kindly remind him that even Jesus Christ was crucified by His own free will, that He ignored the warnings of His disciples, and instead went to die for us on that hill, having put his faith entirely in God Almighty and God Almighty alone that He would Himself be saved.

Also I don’t know where in the Bible it says this anymore, and you have to take that old text with more than a few grains of salt: but somewhere it says that “the body is the temple” and I believe that verbatim because there does exist a temple (of sorts) to God in every living soul that is capable of contemplating spirituality.

Churches can be a great way for people of like/similar-minded faiths to come together to do God’s works, volunteering and so forth. But attendance of mass worship is generally a poor, highly-filtered format for developing one’s spirituality.

The king replies his hospitality is open to anyone, “be they Norman, Saxon, Celt, or Dane”. The page reports it’s a Jew.

The king grumbles not to let the “infidel in”.

His court jester admonishes him, “For every Jew that’s not a Christian, I’ll show you a Christian that’s not a Christian.” The king wises up.

I think that’s what you are saying, now. Tx.

Bill

The pastor’s definition of the wicked is also rather disheartening. The Bible says, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” Wickedness has as much to do (more?) with one’s selfishness and treatment of others as one’s attitude towards God. Consider the Bible story of Rahab (wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahab). She didn’t believe in God but she did the right thing, and was considered righteous. It had nothing to do with her going to church, reading or believing the Bible, or believing in God; she did what was good.

http://www.amazon.com/Prodigal-God-Recovering-Heart-Christian/dp/0525950796