Nancy J

That's right, Johnny. If they are correct, then the world is going to go on, in it's pathetic way, forever? But, if we are right, then those unbelievers are going to have lost their chance at something wonderful. That is why we don't give up, we keep trying to help them understand that God loves them and wants them back.

All I have to say about this is if someone, say a secular humanist, leads what Christians would call a moral, decent life and then dies and uh oh, Hell does exist and is sent there. What kind of god is that? Where people who go through their lives hurting others and doing "sinful" things, only to be forgiven and go to heaven, while a person who does not believe in that specific god leads a life that would otherwise be thought of as a virtuous life, except they are doing it without some threat of Heaven and Hell?

I'd rather go to hell than worship that kind of god.

If, as I believe, God is our metaphor for ethics, for right relationship among humans, then if we are truly and properly "in" with our neighbors and follow truly ethical precepts, then, if there is any sense at all to faith, we will be rewarded for our actions, not our philosophies.

For those who think what you believe is regarded by Jahweh as more important than how, I recommend Isaiah, chapter 58, especially verses 1-12.

Be good and nice and sweet and you'll go to heaven. You must believe or God will spit you out. No if's, ands, or butts about it. Why should he allow you to continuously reject Him, persecute Christians and enter Heaven? At least the murderers, etc. that you referred to have truly repented. Who are you to make that decision? God allows you to decide whether to believe, and holds you accountable for your rejection. Period.

Johnny, I saw this title and knew before I opened it that it was yours.......I'd say that's a good thing!

TLEstrogen

Shall I get my "fire insurance" then just in case? Because that is vastly different from actually believing. Let's say that there is one creator who formed the whole world and said that anyone who believes in him goes to a nice place when they die, and everyone else goes to a really nasty place. Then, when I die, I get there and he says, "Do you believe?" I answer, "No, but I don't like the climate in hell, so I am coming here instead." Chances are high he will answer, "I didn't say you could choose between a nice afterlife and a crappy one. I said you can believe in me or not." In short, it's trying to screw the system, which if one believes in an all-powerful deity, is a dangerous game to play.

And while we are on the topic, for most people, it is far more difficult than saying that they aren't Christian because they think Christians are hypocrites. It's an enormous oversimplification.

And finally, what if you die and discover that Hades is waiting to greet you, but you cannot cross because nobody put the coins on your eyelids? What if you are denied entrance for being unclean since you ate pork? Or what if you find that you have died and been reincarnated as a dung beetle? These are no stranger myths and superstitions than being told that there is one man that has three distinct personalities, who created everything out of nothingness in six days. And yet we think the Greeks are silly for believing that their God had a daughter who popped out of his head fully grown.

You must believe or God will spit you out

Because, when these lines were written, God was Head of State as well as Head of the Religion. To reject (the) God(s) of your country was to reject your country. To commit treason. The secular state was unknown. And the idea of a God who ruled everywhere, not just my local neighborhood, was in its infancy (a then-novel and profound concept that the Judeans embraced in response to the Babylonian Exile - Harper-Collins Study Bible).

To say that my parochial God is the only God, rather than that my God is the expression of a Divine Presence that speaks of ethical behavior and community preservation to all peoples, each in their own languages, is to commit humankind to perpetual wars of mutual extermination. Not interested in anything that brings us closer to midnight than we already are.

How the billions of people who never got the opportunity to be Christians throughout history are damned to an eternity of hellfire without a second thought.

Also excellent is the misrepresentation of what is in the Bible. Did Jesus say that the only way into heaven was believing in him? Nope. Nice try. If anything, more than once he rejected the notion of gaining entrance into heaven via being pious believers in him rather than just good people.

What do you think his opinion would be of people saying who does and does not get into heaven?

Nancy J

There is no "eternally burning hellfire." The Bible says that the lost are "consumed". That means burned up....gone....nothing but ashes. No God who is the epitome of LOVE would torture someone for eternity.

Before you throw the verses at me that say, "smoke goes up forever and ever", look at where it says that smoke from Sodom and Gomorah went up forever. That smoke is not burning today. There are other places in the Bible that say "forever and ever", and those events are not occuring today either. If you study the origins of the words used in the text, it simply means until it is gone, out of sight, it is no more.

So please don't accuse God of making people suffer for all eternity. That doctrine was one of them that was added much later, after the original church fathers were all dead.

Destroying the wicked is called "God's strange act." It will break His heart. He loves the lost as much as the saved. That is why He gives them so many chances to change their minds.

There is reason to believe that many people who never heard of Christ but were commandment keepers (loved others more than themselves), will be saved. There are true stories in remote areas of the world where "someone" came to a village and told people that someday someone would come with a great book (Bible), and until then, this is how they should live. God has ways of revealing himself to His people.

Scoff if you will, but someday (soon), "every knee will bend and acknowledge Him." I would rather bend willingly now, then to be forced into it then. How about you?

I hope you remember this conversation on your death bed. Particularly the "(soon)" part.

You can't get to heaven through works, but through a personal relationship with God. The only way to heaven is to profess that you are a believer. Too many people get tied up in the rules, but it really is so much simpler than that. Just believe. That's it. God cares about our hearts and souls, not our works. We can't overanalyze what God is all about, but he is a loving God that will save you from eternity in hell. All you need is to believe. Heaven is a gift, free for the asking.

No one has come to earth to tell us what is after death. But those who were granted a vision know it . One would rather suffer any deal upon this earth than to pass a second in hell. Darkness cannot withstand light. it is an experience. For argument, each ne is free to believe or not

Who is sure not to be hypocrite at least in some moments of his life? We who argu can we......

Check out my post here - I asked something simialr:
InsideMyHead

The REASON everyone's big Backstage Pass into Heaven supposedly hinges upon BELIEF is that God cannot exist without it? Why else would human belief be demanded over and above all else, even good, honest deeds? What society could possibly function under such a system?

Of course, we could be good and do everything God says, and we'll be spared, right? Oh, wait, there was JOB, God's mostest bestest faithfulest servant, who was tortured beyond all reason thanks to a series of BETS when God and the Devil were sitting around the throne room one day. Can you imagine the news headlines if someone's dad bet a psycho that his kid woudn't flinch if he burned him with a lighter?? Wake up and smell the brimstone, folks...it's already here.

Janell
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that made me laugh right the hell out loud. copyrighted tammy. lol

I think most of the arguements in here contain a lot of ignorance. People have obviously not done the research, on both sides. I'm a Christian, believe in Hell, believe that the post written is as true as it gets. I'm not going to fight about. Someone said to read The Case for Faith, and I would agree. That author has 3 books that are honesty about the most unbiased pro-Christian books out there. He wasn't a Christian while he wrote The Case for Christ, and he traveled all over the country in search of the truth. He brought every argument against Christianity and God that any of you could come up with, and he got answers from various sources. It might actually be worth checking out instead of being rude about a subject you obviously don't know a lot about.