***I sense at times that Jewishness strives simply for goodness realistically without any higher
order than those two elements. ***
What two elements?
If you mean my two lousy arguments- then the Old Testament could not comment as Jesus is not in the Old Testament. But that is too obvious an interpretation of your statement.
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Jews practice goodness (many of them) because they recognize a god (some of them) but do not recognize that they will survive their death. Therefore as a practical consideration, they are not good in order to get into heaven. They are good because the Old Testament teaches them to be good- because god told them to be good.
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My belief is that Jesus, in his own mind, came to remedy the lack of Jewish belief in one's survival of death (it seems that god had different intentions).
Jesus even gave the recipe for getting into heaven- to keep all the laws of Moses and to appeal to Jesus for help getting into heaven.
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That recipe, at least the second portion, is consistent with Buddhist belief found in the Tibetian Book of the Death where it is stated that the dying person does not have the inherent power to attain salvation. A Buddhist must appeal to his Guru to attain salvation. The book goes on to say that if you do not have a Guru or if you are not a Buddhist, then you must appeal to the Lord of Salvation to get into heaven.
My belief is that Jesus is the physical plane birth of some (or all) aspect of that Lord.
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I recommend your reading that book. It describes what you experience after death day by day. In short, it says that every day very bright, frightening lights come to you. At the same time fuzzy, comforting lights come to you.
You will get salvation if you do one pointed meditative focussing on the bright lights while appealing to the Lord for salvation. Exactly what you say to the Lord is not mentioned.
But if day after day you seek refuge in the soft lights, after a few weeks you will be born again.
It was reading books like that one that convinced me that god intends for us to study all religions and put together a grand synthesis of his intentions.
Regards
Richard |