From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!ihnp4!ihuxu!klick Newsgroups: net.misc Title: Re: Religious Matters Article-I.D.: ihuxu.132 Posted: Thu Jan 27 09:00:25 1983 Received: Sun Jan 30 05:04:31 1983 Reply-To: klick@ihuxu.UUCP (Vickie Klick) In a recent submission, a person without first-hand experience gave this explanation of Christianity: Christianity, with its focus on the first part (belief in an overbeing) is based primarily on faith. I don't know exactly how this works, but although you are encouraged to be a good person, you are forgiven even if you are a 'sinner', as long as you have faith. The idea here is that with *true* faith, you would not sin as much. No, that's *not* quite how it works! Faith is the first requirement, but there is another factor necessary for forgiveness: true repentance. This encompasses the sinner's belief that the act committed was wrong and a resolution not to commit the act again, as well as sorrow for having committed an affront against God. God's grace will give you strength to fight the temptation to sin again. It should be noted that in the Catholic Church, the only Christian church with formalized confession (as far as I know), the absolution given by the priest is conditional upon the repentance of the sinner; going to confession without true sorrow for the sins confessed is ineffective. (It should be noted that committing the same sin again is not regarded as an indication of an unrepentant sinner, only of continued weakness in that area.) Being of the Christian faith means that you are required to follow Christian morality; however, it is accepted that human beings are imperfect, so there is a means of being reconciled to God after sin. This is necessarily an incomplete description, but it corrects some misconceptions in the earlier submission. Vickie Klick - Bell Labs, Naperville ihuxu!klick