Parables: The Way to Heaven

Author: Discipulus_Didicit

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#1
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In trying to understand the Biblical teachings for attaining heaven there are several parables supposedly spoken by Jesus on the subject. After reading some of these I have a few questions which seem relevant to the analogies made but do not seem to be answered within the parables themselves.

The first:

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind:

Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away.

So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just,

And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

So the good fish are gathered up and the bad thrown away to die. This does seem like a bad fate which would make one want to avoid being in the category of a bad fish.

Here is my question though... what do fishermen do with the fish that they have collected in containers?

The second:

Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:

But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.

But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.

So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?

He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?
But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.

Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

For clarity, "tares" are a type of weed. I could have used a quote from a version of the Bible that used modern english to convey the same exact message with less confusion but there are those that would have thrown a tantrum if I used any version other than the KJV... despite it being the same exact message... Moving on now.

In this parable the weeds are gathered up and burned. Again this is a bad fate, being burned in a fire sounds quite bad indeed.

I need to know, however... what is the fate of the good wheat that was collected in the barn?
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Mopac
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@Discipulus_Didicit
What do shepherds do to their sheep?

Haha..

No, but really, the explanation is actually in the text.



"Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.

He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man;
The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;
The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.
As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.
The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;
And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear."


The comparison(that is what a parable is) here is with the gathering and sorting. 

Even those who are gathered into the church are subject to judgement! That is the lesson of the parable of the fishing net.






#3
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@Mopac
The 'tares' parable tells how one is born good or evil and will go to heaven or hell accordingly.  Because tares do not become wheat, the only way to heaven is to hope one was not born a tare, (planted by Satan, presumably) because you'd be screwed. 

There is no judgement - your fate was sealed before you were born.

At least that is what Calvinists say.   i don't know if Hobbsians agree. 

#4
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If the all knowing god knows you are in hell then how can you prove him wrong.
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@keithprosser
Calvinism is considered very much in error by Orthodox. Not only is it considered an error, but many presbyters I know find it even offensive.


Calvinism is very pervasive in protestant churches. The Presbytarian churches in particular are very Calvinist.






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@Mopac
If the all knowing god knows you are in hell then how can you prove him wrong.
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@Mopac
And Orthodox is considered in error by the many other thousands of denominations of Christianity. How do you sort out which is correct? I mean besides your "Mine's the best Ultimate Reality, plus we have the oldest traditions," neither of which advance to ball to being right. I'm not trying to be a smart ass, but answer the question to a theoretical Calvinist: the words that support what I think are in the bible, we can do nothing, our fate is predetermined. Why, Mopac, is that incorrect and more importantly, why is your belief right? 

Do not use the phrase Ultimate Reality. It has been demonstrated in here to be meaningless to anyone who isn't you, you can't advance an argument by appealing to it, so help those who don't agree with you understand using a different term or phrase if possible.  
#8
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You don't understand.

The Ultimate Reality is God.

Every atheist argument is contingent on making God something other than this, so it is not meaningless. Quite the opposite. 

And another. thing, there is no "my ultimate reality". The words are not meaningless.


Do you understand what ultimate reality means? There can only be ONE. It is what it is. Exactly what it means. How can words do it justice? That is what we recognize as being The One True God. The very God of Truth.


The church fathers didn't teach Calvinism. It isn't what the church teaches.

I don't normally link outside the site, but this article is first in a  series that pretty well explains the issue specifically between what Orthodoxy teaches and Calvinsim.


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@Mopac
The problem isn't that I don't understand, it's that NO ONE you've explained it to understands what you're talking about, ever. Please point me to the post where you tried to explain this inane and pointless differentiation between reality and THE ULTIMATE REALITY wherein someone ended up saying "Oh, I get it!" Calvinist churches teach Calvinism supported biblically. Your church teaches orthodoxy supported biblically. Your church doesn't teach Calvinism, therefore you think it's wrong to teach it, correct?

And literally zero atheist arguments are contingent upon making either God or gods into something other than "The Ultimate Reality," because that's already a step too far. You have yet to demonstrate in any way that there is connection between the words you're using and the concept you're trying to convey. 

I do understand that there is only one version of reality and I live in it. There is literally no reason inherent in that concept to say "Therefore, not only is Jesus really a superhero, but my specific version of that story is somehow true while the other thousands aren't." I know your answer is "Yeah, but mine actually IS, and theirs actually ISN'T." It's why you've yet to persuade anyone. That's still just assertion. 

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@ludofl3x
Oddly enough, I have probably explained this difference more than just about anything. You are coming at me rather arrogantly.

Maybe if you are more polite I will be more inclined to respect your question.

You are, after all, being mighty presumptuous.


Hey, if you want to believe people are destinned for hell and there is nothing they can do about it, believe in Calvinism. For 1500 years the church did not teach this. We put the bible together. It is our book. Not John Calvin's book.


And no matter how off track you are, you can always repent and choose good over evil.

#11
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If you don't accept that God with a capital "G" refers to "The Ultimate Reality", we aren't really even talking about the same thing.
I don't have to prove that this is what God means. That is what we believe.

But if that isn't good enough for you, Merriam-webster says "The supreme and or ultimate reality" and Oxford says "Supreme being".


Both mean the exact same thing if understood properly.


#12
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@Mopac
I know you have explained the difference, just not in a way anyone can understand or make any sense of. You then use your inability to explain it as some sort of support for its veracity, it's bizarre. Please don't tell anyone else in here about arrogance, Mr. We Are The One Truest Church, We Orthodox are Best At Reading The Bible. Please. I don't need you to answer my question, because you can't answer it, or you'd have done so in any of the dozens of other posts about the same pretentious assertions you keep making. You spout this stuff and then talk down to others because of how Truthy your one True Apostolic Whatever, our books and saints are real and theirs aren't. 

Let me be frank: it's garbage. All your arguments are the exact same arguments used by every other One True Churches and Best Ever Faiths. You aren't debating, you aren't even engaging in intellectual discussion, you're proselytizing and asserting and preaching, you're basically a fancier version of PolythesitWitch. Saying the same thing, over and over and over, except at least that person's thread farts are mainly three words. Your win for saying the least with the most. 
#13
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@Mopac
I don't have to prove that this is what God means. That is what we believe.

Okay, then none of us have any reason to take it seriously. It is a wholly unsupported assertion. Let me ask a different question: would you believe this way if the dictionary didn't have those definitions?
#14
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@ludofl3x
You talk a lot, but all I hear is a clanging symbol.
#15
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@ludofl3x
If you would talk to me in a respectful manner, and engage me as an equal rather than a dog, I would love to have an HONEST conversation.


 I don't feel obligated to defend myself or my viewpoints to someone who thinks they have it all figured out and is really just looking for someone to abuse.


I am certainly able to elaborate on and speak at great length about what I am saying. However, if you lack charity, where are you going to get? Nowhere. You aren't judging me rightly. You aren't really even asking questions, you are just riding on your preconceptions and coming at me like an ambush journalist. Again I say, you are not judging me rightly.


What am I asking? Engage me honestly. I am here to educate, and I can hardly be blamed if people who don't really want to learn fail to do so.


#16
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@Mopac
Said the guy with 3000 posts all saying the exact same thing. It's those sorts of defense mechanisms that keep you so impressively impervious to rational thought, an impenetrable fortress of obtuseness, unable to have a meaningful adult discussion. 
#17
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I am here to educate, and I can hardly be blamed if people who don't really want to learn fail to do so.

Thanks for proving me correct so quickly!

I asked you as follows: would you believe as you do if the dictionary you quoted didn't have the definitions you're using to (inadequately) support your position?  
#18
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would you believe this way if the dictionary didn't have those definitions?
Absolutely, this is what the church teaches, what the monastics right, what is witnessed by scripture, and it is really obvious to me that none of it can make any sense without this understanding of God.

The God we believe is The Truth, and that is what our relationship is with. The Christian discipline is about purifying the heart  or cleansing the nous. We Orthodox understand this. The Orthodox Church is the church founded by Jesus and The Apostles. Our Church has been around since the beginning and has faithfully preserved the faith while these other reformation churches are pushed around by the prevailing culture. We are very different, and their claims do not have the same weight.
#19
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would you believe this way if the dictionary didn't have those definitions?
Absolutely, this is what the church teaches, what the monastics right, what is witnessed by scripture, and it is really obvious to me that none of it can make any sense without this understanding of God.
Okay, so you are saying that definition in the dictionary is immaterial to your belief...if it makes no impact on your decision to believe, then it's easy to see why someone who doesn't believe would dismiss it, too, right? And therefore it's not a great way to support your beliefs. So let's agree to keep that out of it, since we agree, it is no reason to believe there's anything supernatural. 



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@ludofl3x
My religion is older than the English language.


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@ludofl3x
You seem to be very passionate.

One of the things we strive for is disspassion, because passion tends to cloud judgement.

Your attitude is not actually conducive to learning. You are very dismissive. Very quick to declare victory. 

#22
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@Mopac

My religion is older than the English language.
Hmm. Cool, so does that mean it's true? Or that you can use its age to support how true it is in some way?  Because where I come from, age is just a number and in no way indicative of anything's truth value. If it doesn't have any impact on evaluating if it's true or not, let's leave it out of the discussion. File this canard with "it's in the dictionary." Pointless fluff by your own admission. Maybe you mean it can't be properly understood through the English language. Maybe there's a forum that speaks whatever language can make any sense out of your claim that truth = Jesus, who'd better respond to your 'educational' attempts?

One of the things we strive for is disspassion, because passion tends to cloud judgement.
You might strive for dispassion, but what you're actually achieving and landing on is a gratingly haughty pretentiousness with a whiff of entirely unearned self satisfaction. You're nothing if not pompous. 

You are very dismissive. Very quick to declare victory. 
I don't like to waste readers' time, if it's easy to dismiss something, let's dismiss it. Particularly when it's this phony wisdom character you're trying to portray.  
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#23
Discipulus_Didicit
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@Mopac
I would say that it is silly to think that there can be reality at all without Ultimate Reality.

This sentence is meaningless. Without a useful definition of "ultimate reality" nobody can agree or disagree with this statement.

The Ultimate Reality is not a concept, it is what it is. We use concepts to describe it, but what else can we do? We are after all, using the medium of creation to describe the Uncreated.

You don't use anything at all to describe it. Every time someone asks you to explain your "ultimate reality" idea you just say "it is god" or dodge the question, you never actually describe it. The only exception was post 80 of the latest Bible reading thread where you gave a description of the concept of "reality" then heavily implied that this is your conception of "ultimate reality" despite previously claiming the two are seperate.

I have twice asked a question to which the answer is important, and you have twice refused to answer. I will ask again here:

I believe in some natural things such as toenails, plastic bottles, trees, etc. I do not believe in any supernatural things such as the afterlife, heaven, hell, the idea that abstract concepts such as truth are capable of creating universes, etc. It doesn't matter whether you agree that I am correct about this, that is not my question. My question is the same - how would you classify my perception of your "ultimate reality" concept?

I will even simplify it further (it is already so ridiculously simple that this should not be necessary but here goes)
by offering some possibilities:

Does this "worldview" I have described mean that I accept the 'ultimate reality'?

Does it mean that I reject it?

Does it mean that I am indifferent about it?

Does it mean that I am one with it?

Does it mean I am seperate from it?

Does it mean that I AM the 'ultimate reality'?

Does it mean all these things together?

Have I not presented enough information for you to be able to tell? (If so, what else do you need to know? Just ask.)

Does it mean something else entirely?

I look forward to reading your response to this post then asking this same question a fourth time because you refuse to answer it again.

#24
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@ludofl3x
You are not engaging with me rationally.

#25
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@ludofl3x
Fuck you tard muffin.
#26
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Then leave the religion forum tard muffin.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Maybe it would be better if you didn't presume to understand anything and go back to the basics.

You know what ultimate reality means.

Whatever that is, that is God.

One thing it clearly isn't is a perception of it.


If these answers don't conclusively address your questions, please be considerate of the fact that I only have 15 minute breaks to respond, so being brief would be appreciated.

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@Discipulus_Didicit
If something had a beginning or an end, it couldn't be the ultimate reality, the ultimate reality is eternal. All realities are contingent on it. If something has a beginning or an end, that means time is a reality greater than it.

The ultimate reality must always be what it is, it cannot ever not be what it is. Sommething cannot be the ultimate reality now and be replaced with another later.


It is reality that Donald Trump is President of The United States. In 10 years, Donald Trump will not be President of The United States. This is a reality, but it is not Ultimate Reality.

No contingent reality can be The Ultimate Reality. If what you are thinking of is contingent on something else, that something else would have authority over The Ultimate Reality. The Ultimate Reality must have the greatest authority to be what it is. It cannot be contingent on anything.

And so "The Ultimate Reality" is very specificly reality in the truest sense of what that means.


So it is not a meaningless distinction. If it was meaningless, the distinction would not be necessary.


And the difference between The Ultimate Reality and everything else is what we understand as the distinction between The Uncreated and creation.
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#29
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Maybe it would be better if you didn't presume to understand anything and go back to the basics.
Your lack of self-awareness is fascinating.

You know what ultimate reality means.
If that was true I would not be asking. Even if it was true and I asked anyway to be an asshole you could still answer (assuming you actually had a useful definition)

If these answers don't conclusively address your questions, please be considerate of the fact that I only have 15 minute breaks to respond, so being brief would be appreciated.
That is fair, I can wait until you have time. DART is far from the most important thing in my life and it would be stupid for me to expect for it to be the most important thing in yours just because I asked you a question.

Still we both know you have not addressed my question. If you could do so when you have time that would be great.

How - given what I have said about my 'worldview' - do I perceive the 'ultimate reality' you speak so much of?
#30
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@Discipulus_Didicit
You would get a lot more out of our conversation if you weren't rude.

Check the post above yours.


Your accusations of me intentionally avoiding questions is very false. I am answering to the best of my ability.


I am teaching you something now so that we can have a real discussion about it. Being arrogant because you think I'm a fool does not serve you or this discussion.