I really enjoy hearing or reading what someone believes and how and why they believe it. It applies even when I do not agree with what they say. When someone goes to the trouble to share what they believe, I believe that it is a gift and they should not suffer any personal attacks when they are honest. So, I will not be issuing any of that here. However, I do believe that discussing the issues are appropriate and that gives me and others the chance to share what we believe. That is what I am going to try to do here.
As someone who has spent most of his life as a Southern Baptist with their fundamental studies on what they believe; I believe that Tolstroy does a good job in laying out his beliefs. The main problem that I had with his teachings is the same one that I have with most fundamental writings and that is they start in the wrong place. I believe that one must start with "God is a person who wants to have a close relationship with us and He Himself is Love and He loves us", and build on that. I did not see that happening here.
Tolstoy takes the passage that is commonly call "The Sermon On The Mount" (Matthew 5-7), and bases his whole belief on what he has gotten from these passages. If I understood the book right, then the teaching seemed to me that to be a Christian then one must be taking these teachings to the extreme and applying them as laws or a code of living for us to live by.
He teaches us that, "We must never be angry with anyone or kill even in war, never resist evil done to you, never divorce, never take any oaths, never sit in judgement against anyone, never make distinctions between us and foreign nations or peoples." I believe that love may lead people to these same actions, but if it is not carried out from love then the act is meaningless.
Tolstroy also makes a list of things that cause happiness and that list did intrigue me. He said:
1. All need to have a life where the link between him and nature is not destroyed.
2. All need to do congenial, free, physical labor. (Forced Labor is no different than doing no labor in bringing happiness)
3. All need a family life.
4. All need a free friendly communication with all people.
5. All need health and a painless death.
That is a brief nutshell of the book and my thoughts.
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