[Note: July 10, 2023— I’ve found that I was mistaken in what I thought the Old Testament said about sacrifices, which I have clarified in that section. I will continue to expand this article and move it to News of Interest.TV soon.]
After writing the previous post about Christianity last night (the one after this one), some questions came to my mind which I looked into a bit, and I wrote this article with what I found out:
— I’ve sometimes heard Christians claim that it is only necessary to believe in Jesus in order to enter Heaven according to the Bible, however apparently that is not true, since Jesus had said in Matthew 7:21-23:
“… Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.’”
Therefore, according to Jesus, simply only believing in him is not enough to enter Heaven, but also his rules must be followed.
— So then I wanted to find out specifically what those rules are, which this article explains. They are: “Love One Another”, “Pray for your Enemies”, “Repent”, “Believe that Jesus is in the Father”, “Take up your Cross and Follow Me”, “Go and Make Disciples”, and “Pray Always.”
[… Compare that to the harmful teachings of Islam’s Muhammad, but also to the harmful political forces that have controlled Christianity since soon after its founding, especially Catholicism which has often been a corrupt force throughout its two thousand year history rather than only recently (see this video, this video, and this video for examples).]
— I wondered if Jesus ever acknowledged the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament, and apparently he did as this article explains. So presumably he considers the Ten Commandments to also be his rules. He also often acknowledged other parts of the Old Testament, as this article explains. But sometimes he contradicted and completely changed practices that were designated in the Old Testament with his own teachings that are more humane, as this article explains.
— Another practice in the Old Testament that was changed was when the blood sacrifice of animals ceased to be required by God after the crucifixion of Jesus, as this link explains:
“More specifically, the New Testament teaches that Jesus Christ is the all-sufficient sacrifice for all of mankind’s sins, so further sacrifices are unnecessary. Jesus said he came ‘to give his life as a ransom for many’ (Mark 10:45)
This is why Christians never do rituals when slaughtering animals for food as Jewish and Islamic people do.
[Note: July 10, 2023— I was mistaken when I previously said that God in the Old Testament wanted human sacrifices as well as the sacrifices of animals. In fact, in almost all references to human sacrifice, God refers to the practice as being witchcraft and evil. Also in the passages of Genesis 22:1-13, it is explained that God tested Abraham’s faith by telling him that he must sacrifice his only son, only to tell him not to do so in the moment before he did it.]
— I knew that the Bible speaks against Homosexuality often in the Old Testament, as this article explains, and it also speaks against it in the New Testament, but not as much, which this article explains. The second article also explains that the New Testament says that homosexuality is not an unpardonable sin.
— .. So I wondered what Jesus said about homosexuality, and apparently he never really mentioned that topic, as this article explains. That might be a case of his being opposed to it being assumed to be a given since the Old Testament is strongly against it, however I think he would have mentioned it specifically if he thought the practice was particularly egregious.
— So I see how it can be possible for homosexuals to rationalize being Christians, since Jesus never spoke against it and he sometimes contradicted teachings in the Old Testament, and the New Testament even labels the practice as being a forgivable sin.