Who's going to Hell? Let's have a show of hands...come on, raise them up high!!!

You know it kinda sucks that at any given time 5+ <b>billion</b> people on this planet are totally fucked.

Sky, we've hashed this all out already so I'm not going to get back into it. But in saying the above, you're already doing the right thing. Find what works for you, discover what you believe. That which gives you strength in dark times and something to praise in good times, whatever that might be. In the end, any kind of God I can imagine will understand.

But that's just me.

I still can't fathom how people think that they're the only ones who are right. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, the world’s four major religions. Take anyone group, and they are by far the vast minority, all with irrefutable proof that they are correct. To me, the arrogance is astounding, and the world’s greatest sin, the cause of all religious based conflicts is this hubris. Ironically, that is same sin for which Lucifer was cast out of heaven.

If the world’s religions would live in respectful tolerance of each other instead of destroying each other in a futile quest to prove who is right, we would all be a lot better off.

------------------------------------------------
EDIT: My answer

Oh, and to answer the original question: Hell is an imaginary place created to scare children into behaving correctly. As an adult, I endevor to do the morally correct thing because it is the right thing to do, not because I'm scard of going to hell. I grew out of that.

 

I concur.

Along with Rayzer's comments, I've always wondered on what basis do people claim that their religion is the "right" religion? I honestly don't know..... is it a time thing? Because I imagine Judaism would own alot of them (may be wrong, but I thought Judaism was around way before Christianity and Islam). I just find it funny that people can believe so strongly that their religion is how it is and the only way it is, when people believed something different before the religion was even founded. It would be like if some crazy science fiction author suddenly came up with a crazy religion and people actually believed it was true *cough* crazy *cough*

And as a side question, has any major religion not been worshipped by those committing horrendous acts against humanity? For instance, Christianity has the crusades - hacking people open for swallowed gold FTL.

 

There are around 10,000 religions in the world, and I'm sure the adherents of each feel strongly that they're on the "one true path". Of course, there's no way to know which one is actually the correct one, if any of them are (which I kind of doubt -- people aren't perfect, it's hard for me to believe that we would have gotten the Word of God 100% correct, especially after numerous retranslations).

 

Scientology is 100% correct.

 

I'm fairly certain that the Buddhists haven't committed any horrendous acts.....

I could be wrong tho.

Well.. unless you consider them setting themselves on fire.....

 

I'm going to attempt to respond to bits and pieces of a few different posts.

The amount of time that any one religion has been around has nothing to do with its veracity. If you believe that Jesus was the Son of God, that he died on a cross for your sins, and rose from the dead 3 days later, you are a Christian. If you are a Christian you believe that said belief is the only way to Heaven. Traditional Jews believe that Jesus was just a great prophet, not the Son of God. However, a significant number of Jews could be classified as Christians. Today, Judaism is more of a geneological statement that it is a religion.

As far as Satan (Lucifer is his proper name) being expelled from Heaven for the same reason Christians believe they're the only correct religion: this is not true. Lucifer was expelled from heaven for being jealous of God's power. He lusted for God's power and attempted a rebellion (literally, a war in heaven) against God. God, being more powerful than anything (including angels), beat Lucifier and his army (his army was 1/3 of all angels in heaven) and condemned them to an eternity in Hell.

As for the crusades: Everyone on earth has something called "free will." This means that God will not make any person decide one thing or the other. God allows everyone to make their own decisions (including accepting Him) and does not interfere in free will. This explains the crusades. Those soldiers chose to fight that war... it wasn't necessarily God's will.

Hope I didn't muddle anything up.

 

The Pope "encouraged" people to fight by offering indulgences...... Slaughter people and you get into heaven! Sounds like a good deal to me.

*edit - think I found the right word now

 

Negative.

You can be a Christian and still believe in the validity of other faiths. You can still believe that Jesus was the son of god and died for our sins and is a path to God, while accepting that God is something that we cannot fully understand and there other paths.

One God, many paths. It doesn't remove anything from the great religions that they are simply different paths to the same goal.

But many people like to make you think there is only one right way and their's is it. You defiantely do not have to believe that to be a Christian, although I'm sure lots of you will try to convince me otherwise.

-----------------------------------
It's funny, every once in a while there will be a remote pocket of people discovered in some mountain region in Indonesia. A people nobody even knew existed. They might be simple but loving folk who make offerings to the spirits and strive for better lives.

Fundamental Christians would say they're all going to burn in hell and there little tribe has been for hundreds of years. I'd rather be burning in hell than spending any time with a God that has that little understanding. I simply choose to think more of God than that, my God is a nicer one

 

If someone were to believe themselves to be a Christian, and yet believe that there were other ways to find salvation or to spend eternity w/God, then I'm afraid they've missed something. In John Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me." (emphasis by me) He clearly and uniquivicably states here that there is only one way to God, and its through Himself.

That verse aside, if there were multiple ways to God aside from Christ, what would the point of Jesus's sacrifice be? There wouldn't be one. It would nullify the whole message of the Bible from Old to New testament - i.e. humanity is broken and in need of a savior that God will send in the form of His Son made flesh to the Jewish people and will make a way for redemption from sin for all peoples of the earth.

If Christ didn't need to die, then God sent His son for nothing and Christ died for nothing. If that were true, then God was mistaken, and was therefore imperfect and no longer God. (this is obviously based on the premise that perfection is intrinsic to and inseperable from the nature of God) The line of logic that Christ is both the Son of God and but one of many paths to God is contradictory. If Jesus was who he said he was, he wouldn't lie about the path to salvation.

If you truly believe what you stated, I would challenge you to go through and carefully read, or reread the Bible, or at least the New Testament.

Now you'll probably be upset by my response - you don't seem to like much of what I say regardless of topic - but I'm simply responding to what you said for the purpose of discussion.

 

If there are hamsters or gerbils in heaven, I hope that its Hamsters and not gerbils...hamsters are fluffier.

 

I never said the Pope was any kind of authority, whatsoever. In fact, and this is MY PERSONAL BELIEF AND IS NOT NECESSARILY A COMMON BELIEF AMONGST OTHER CHRISTIANS: but to me, being the Pope is blasphemous. The Pope is supposedly sinless, blameless, faultless.. 'perfect.' According to Catholics, he can 'never sin.' Excuse me, but there is only one person who could claim all that, and that is Jesus Christ.

To reiterate about the crusades... I never said anything about the Pope being in authority. He may have told all those soldiers to do that, but that doesn't mean it was God's will.

-In response to the 'one God, many paths', I think Aeternus covered that.

-In response to Hamma about knowing or not... There are people that know that Heaven and Hell exist; that God and Jesus exist; that Satan exists. It's not a question about whether or not we know, it's a question of whether or not we believe. I know it's all true. I believe it's all true. Some people refuse to believe it.

 

I don't mean this in an adversarial way, but out of curiosity -- how do you know it's all true? Believing that it's true I understand, but I don't understand how you can know -- unless you're dead, of course -- and I'm pretty sure that you're (thankfully) not dead.

 

There are plenty of fulfilled prophesies that can act as proof, if you truly desire hard evidence.

Hamma, if you want cold hard proof, I could give you a Bible. But, again, it comes to the fact of you having to believe what I'm telling you. I could say that I didn't believe the sun rose in the east and set in the west. It would still be a fact that it does actually happen like that, but I don't believe it. Same concept with Christianity.

It is true and real to me. It's not to you because you don't believe it.

 

Faith is that, Faith. Many versions of the Bible have been changed around several times. There are books of the Bible that have not been printed in hunderds of years. The Bible is not the end all be all but the path to Faith.

 

Which books are you referring to Racewiz? Which 'versions' of the Bible do you suggest have been changed around?