Baptism

sueno?:

He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.
Mark 16:16

It's not just water the same way the Holy Bread and Wine are not just bread and wine.

The verse says he who believes and is baptized is saved. That who he doesn't believe isn't. But it says nothing about people who believe and aren't baptized, does it?

Then why does it say ''and is baptized''? If baptism was useless, it wouldn't have been mentioned. ''And'' is a coordinating conjunction, it connects two terms with the same syntactic importance. The verse doesn't say ''believes or is baptized'', ''believes and maybe is baptized'' or ''believes without being baptized''.

The verse also wanted to show -apart from the fact that baptism is necessary- that being baptized is not enough and that baptism without believing is useless.

I still don't believe that you need to be baptized to go to Heaven.

I also don't agree with other things in the Bible.

sueno?:

Then why does it say ''and is baptized''? If baptism was useless, it wouldn't have been mentioned. ''And'' is a coordinating conjunction, it connects two terms with the same syntactic importance. The verse doesn't say ''believes or is baptized'', ''believes and maybe is baptized'' or ''believes without being baptized''.

The verse also wanted to show -apart from the fact that baptism is necessary- that being baptized is not enough and that baptism without believing is useless.

I'm saying that it didn't mention the believers who aren't baptized therefore we can't deduce from that verse that there is anything wrong with being a believer who is not baptized.

And I'm saying that the verse say that those who believed and are baptized will be saved. Not those who believe. Those who believe and are baptized.
Maybe the author just assumed that everyone who believed baptized. There are other Bible verses that refer to baptism and Heaven, I person don't understand why you wouldn't want to do it. As long as you are Christian it seems fairly normal to stick to the Christian teaching/dogma. The baptism is not just a free ticket to Heaven, you're receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, God's grace.

sueno?:

As long as you are Christian it seems fairly normal to stick to the Christian teaching/dogma.

I'm a Christian. And I believe what I believe because it feels right to me and when I used to believe the wrong things they felt wrong. It's the Holy Spirit inside of me telling what is right and what is wrong. And it has never told me that not being baptized is wrong, so I won't believe it. I am at complete peace with my beliefs because I am at peace with God.

-sigh-
Each to his own, really I don't want to try to convince you into doing something.
Just y'know demons look a lot like angels and you should just try to keep yourself safe.
If you're happy this way, without a baptism it's okay, I'm just trying to point out that to me it makes more sense to get a baptism.

sueno?:

The original sin is rather a state of sinfulness that people have because they have fallen from Heaven. People born now are not like the primordial men, they don't have the grace of God.
The original sin is not an actual sin like stealing for example.

So you're saying that if you aren't baptized, then you are sent to hell for being born?

Leonore Paisley:

So you're saying that if you aren't baptized, then you are sent to hell for being born?

For being human actually. After the Fall of Men people became sinful, impure. Through baptism you regain the grace of God.

But God is not absurd, don't think that a soul would go to Hell and be under the same amount of ''pain'' for not being baptized and for committing serious actual sins. Actually if I remember it clearly, Dante described the first ring of Hell as an almost-Heaven populated with thinkers and artists whose only sin was that they weren't Christian. :think: But I won't bet my money on it, my mind is foggy. I should look it up.

What is the Fall of Men?

sueno?:

Leonore Paisley:

So you're saying that if you aren't baptized, then you are sent to hell for being born?

For being human actually. .

I don't think God punishes people for things they can't help.

I think that as long as one believes and has faith in God, they don't need to be baptised.
I don't think it's necessary.

Leonore Paisley:

What is the Fall of Men?

The Fall is the state of guilty disobedience of God that humans have because they were expelled from Eden.
We're nothing like the first men, we are not immortal, we are not innocent and we don't have the grace of God. The Fall corrupted human nature degrading it. Most protestant groups believe that Jesus' death was a ''ransom'' and it was enough to bring humans to their original state.
However the old denominations don't agree.

druscilla; desire.:

I don't think God punishes people for things they can't help.

That's why it's not an actual sin but the original sin.
For example, we all die, none of us is immortal. We can't help not being Adam/Eve yet we all still have to face death.

druscilla; desire.:

sueno?:

I don't think God punishes people for things they can't help.

That's why it's not an actual sin but the original sin.
For example, we all die, none of us is immortal. We can't help not being Adam/Eve yet we all still have to face death.

Then I think I'm gonna have to go with Libby on this one.
I don't think we're punished for it.
It would be akin to punishing me for being a woman or for being gay.

It's our degraded nature really, it's not like an actual sin. It's the fact that we're not innocent or immortal. The fact that we don't have God's grace, the fact that we die.
We are not like Adam and Eve, we were not created by the hand of God, we are merely born from an other human being. We don't have the Holy Spirit in us, God's breath of life like Adam and Eve originally had. That's why we need to be baptized, to receive God's grace.
That should be the reasons for baptizing, not because only baptized you'll go to Heaven.
-shrug-
You need to understand and believe in the concept of grace and degradation of humans after they were expelled from Eden to understand and believe in baptism.
I knew the bit in the Bible where it talked about this, I think in Romans, I shall look it up.

sueno?:

We don't have the Holy Spirit in us, God's breath of life...

I was taught that we all have the Holy Spirit moving within us. I was also not taught that the Holy Spirit is God's breath.

druscilla; a chance.:

sueno?:

We don't have the Holy Spirit in us, God's breath of life...

I was taught that we all have the Holy Spirit moving within us. I was also not taught that the Holy Spirit is God's breath.

Which is what I thought as well...

Brianna! PEACE.:

druscilla; a chance.:

I was taught that we all have the Holy Spirit moving within us. I was also not taught that the Holy Spirit is God's breath.

Which is what I thought as well...

Then if the Holy Spirit can transmitted from father/mother to child why can't the original sin too?

I never said they were the same thing, note the comma. It's not an apposition, merely an enumeration.

sueno?:

Then if the Holy Spirit can transmitted from father/mother to child why can't the original sin too?

I never said they were the same thing, note the comma. It's not an apposition, merely an enumeration.

I dont think the Holy Spirit is transmitted from anyone, you get the Holy Spirit when you find God and can understand what it means to have the Holy Spirit...basically, I believe that the Holy Spirit is like a Guardian Angel.

Brianna! PEACE.:

I dont think the Holy Spirit is transmitted from anyone, you get the Holy Spirit when you find God and can understand what it means to have the Holy Spirit...basically, I believe that the Holy Spirit is like a Guardian Angel.

If you don't mind me asking, why do you believe this way?