Grace: a unique christian concept?

No pagan faith has that concept before?

im sure they stole it like all their other stuff

[ArmsMerchant]

As I understand it, "grace" means that God has singled someone out somehow, decided for some unfathomable and arbitrary reason to love one guy more than another. That God has, in effect, granted someone a freebie. This is nonsense, as far as I am concerned.

God loves us all equally, judges not, and neither rewards nor punishes.

Living in a state of grace, to me, means that one--to use the Dine term--walks in beauty, lives in tune with nature.

Athletes call this "being in the zone."

Others call it being Enlightened or achieving satori.

I call it believing that you are so special that your brain releases dopamine causing you to feel better and to believe that you are even more special. Resonating feedback loop.

Grace is the gift of God that allows a person to overcome original sin, and since pagans didn't believe in original sin... it was a purely christian invention.

quote:Originally posted by ArmsMerchant:

As I understand it, "grace" means that God has singled someone out somehow, decided for some unfathomable and arbitrary reason to love one guy more than another. That God has, in effect, granted someone a freebie. This is nonsense, as far as I am concerned.

God loves us all equally, judges not, and neither rewards nor punishes.

Living in a state of grace, to me, means that one--to use the Dine term--walks in beauty, lives in tune with nature.

Athletes call this "being in the zone."

Others call it being Enlightened or achieving satori.

Or so you say...

Grace is what allows you to be saved after doing as well as you can. Without it no one, even the most righteous, could be saved because they are not without sin. Everyone sins. However, grace will not save you if you do not try. Just believing in God won't get you to heaven. "Faith without works is dead."