Heaven and Hell, Who goes where?

While this is a nice thing to believe, it does not reconcile well with The Bible. The Bible makes it clear that we are all sinners, and that none of us deserve to go to Heaven. "Good lives" are not important. We are saved by faith, not by works.

This post has been edited by Nevin on Jan 12 2005, 09:11 PM

let me elaborate upon what i mean by good.

never murdered, raped, stole, basically most the morals that come with religion except the god thing and keeping the sabbath holy because the sabbath doesnt pertain to all religions. we all sin, but that doesnt mean we arent good. sins arent human nature, human nature i feel is an excuse; sins are human habbit and people can break or lower their habbit.
i forgot one of my other examples on the good/bad thing >_<

who should go to heaven (if it exists):
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atheist woman who has never commited any crime or atrocity
OR
monotheist man who believes but rapes young childeren
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muslim man who murdered one person
OR
christian man who murdered one person
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...but who are we to decide whom god accepts and declines into heaven, we have no evidence of his existence or non existence. i suppose debating about it would be worthless since none of us have ever experienced death and know of an afterlife.

I asked a person if someone who belives whys somoene who bleives in God, in Jesus, but before doing so raped and killed 1000 people would get into heaven, but the Dali Lama wouldn't.

I never got a good answer.

By good, I mean logical

yay at least someone understands my logic! ^_^

It's not a very fulfilling reason, but I think the general belief is that the most important thing to God is that you love him for all the things that he has done. Loving your fellow humans is nice, and God encourages it, but it's still not as important as loving God (again, this is in God's opinion). Someone who does not believe in God, obviously cannot love him, and thus does not go to Heaven. Someone who believes in God, but under different religious principles, isn't giving God credit for his actual work, so it's still worthless to the *real* God, and thus does not go to Heaven. The murderer may have acted atrociously in the past, but has since come to love God, and one of God's principles is that revenge is bad, all that matters is loving God, so the murderer would go to heaven.

Personally, if there is a God, I hope he's not that mean.

If there is a God, which I personally don't belive there is, I think that an all knowing being would be a resonable fellow.

Yeah, it's not too logical for us to say who gets into heaven and who doesn't at all.

I mean frankly heaven and hell aren't that logical either. Why would God create something that had the "free will" to go to everlasting damnation?

So we can choose to worship him and get "rewarded" sort to speak, or not to and get punished? To go to heaven, according to man's interpitation, one must get there through his only beliefs and all, not somthing that is formed by a higher being.

But there's nobody who's lived a completely moral life. Even the most moral person you know has sinned many times in their lifetime. The whole point of Christianity is that we are all sinners -- that sin is inherent human nature -- and that Jesus' sacrifice is the only sacrifice big enough to atone for our sins and allow us to be with God. If we do not accept that sacrifice, then we cannot be with God. It is not our own good works that get us into heaven, but rather God's grace. If someone were to live a perfectly moral life, never committing any sins, they would get into heaven by their own power. But nobody has ever done that, and nobody ever will do that. It's impossible. Everyone is a sinner, whether they've killed thousands of people or they've lied to their mother. All sins, however big or small their earthly consequence may be, are equal in their divine consequence -- they all separate us from the perfect love of God.

There is a point in that, but I see no harm in discussing the subject, or in debating its Biblical basis. You are right, however, in that none of us have the right to make the final judgement. That is left up to God.

So we can choose to worship him and get "rewarded" sort to speak, or not to and get punished? To go to heaven, according to man's interpitation, one must get there through his only beliefs and all, not somthing that is formed by a higher being.

I think that an all-knowing and all-powerful being is unlikely to conform to your idea of reasonableness. If you and God have differing ideas on what is fair and what is justified, I believe that God's definition of fairness takes precedent over yours or mine.

Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice

I like this speech, and used it as part of the basis of a paper I wrote last year on divine mercy and judgement.

I think we can agree that in this world there isn't a whole lot of justice, who wants to think they honestly deserve every wretched thing that happens to them. All those children that died as a result of the Tsunami, what could they have possibly done to deserved that?

If there is a God, I think he or she surpasses all human understanding (like Nevin said) therefore we'll have a rather tough time understanding why God allows somethings to come to pass and others not to.

Also, I grant this comes from my Catholic perspective, I feel a faith without works is dead. Ergo I'm more likely to grant salvation to an atheist who volunteers at a soup kitchen than the reformed murder who becomes christian but takes no responsibility for his common man. The speech points out that, we pray for mercy, and that prayer should teach us to be merciful.

Also there is within the catholic church the doctrine of exclusive salvation. essentially the Hindu or Buddhist who lives a life that follows Christ's teachings, but doesn't claim to be a christian is an "anonymous christian" one who believes without claiming to believe, and their belief is evidenced by the life they live and the things they do. Essentially actions speak louder than words, and their actions speak of a belief and an acknowledgement of the teachings of Jesus. Perhaps we should start up another discussion on this? Heaven and hell? I think I'll do that preliminarily and if any of the other mods have an issue feel free to move this stuff back.

Edit by Nevin: I split the topic.

This post has been edited by Nevin on Jan 12 2005, 09:12 PM

Well as always, it depends what part of the Bible you're examining. Surely Paul holds this to be true in his letters, and the idea of "earning heaven" doesn't really make sense to me or a lot of people.

However, it's interesting to look at the Gospels. In his ministry, Jesus by and large does not preach to others saying "believe that I'm the son of God" or else. And in fact, he poses the question "Who do you say that I am" to the apostles well after they've decided to follow him--in other words--he didn't tell them right off the bat.

Rather, Jesus spends most of time healing, comforting, making blind men see and crippled men walk and all that kind of good stuff. He doesn't go around condemning people to hell, by and large. Furthermore, when he DOES get all preachy, he says things like "I am the WAY the TRUTH and the LIFE." He doesn't say "I am the NAME that will save you," but the WAY, TRUTH, and LIFE. It seems to me that if Buddhists or atheists live their lives in such a way that follow the WAY, that follow the TRUTH, and that follow THE LIFE, they are in fact Christian--"anonymous Christians," as Boru has already eloquently said.

I think what Paul is trying to say is that you can't say that you don't get into heaven by trying to earn your way in--which actually isn't what Buddhists and atheists (and others) are doing anyway--they're not trying to earn their way into heaven because they don't believe in heaven. They're doing what they're doing because they recognize a particular WAY of humanity, a particular TRUTH to humanity, and a particular LIFE of humanity that makes sense to all people everywhere--regardless of whether you think a person named "Jesus" was the one and only "son of God."

I imagine that Jesus probably recognized that not everyone would want to admit that he was the son of God--perhaps this is why he didn't announce it everywhere. Instead it seems that he chose to save others through his presence and his life, not through his mere words or his mere identity. And in this light, it makes Jesus to me seem all the more divine--that he could come down and live a LIFE that Buddhists recognize as enlightened, that Muslims recognize as holy, that many atheists deem at the very least admirable.

And so we are saved insofar as we transcend our own egos to live as Jesus did--not in an effort to "earn heaven," but merely to live life in a way that reflects God's eternal truth.

According to Islam, Hell is reserved for the apostate and the truly evil. Even if you're not Muslim, if you live a good life and try to help your fellow man, you still have a place in Paradise.

I have always wondered exactly what is meant by "a good life." Are there certain good acts and certain bad acts, and the good has to outweigh the bad at the end of one's life? Must one do a certain number of good acts? Must one refrain from doing a certain number of bad acts? Must one accomplish something within one's lifetime? What allowances are made for forgiveness? For example, if someone were to murder another, but then realize his wrongdoing and be truly sorry, and spend the rest of his life helping people, would he still go to Paradise? What if he were to murder ten people, and have the same experience? It's always seemed to me that the idea of being a "good person" is far too subjective.

I recall you saying that you believe in a conscience. Might being a "good person" simply be "following one's conscience?"

Do you REALLY believe that you can't recognize a "good life" if you see one?