Heaven, Hell, afterlife and fate

[lukeskywalker1]

Originally posted by ShockV1.89

See, I take issue with this. If I spend my entire life doing good deeds, saving lives, starting and donating to charities, and improving the world, why should I not go to heaven? It strikes me as strange that someone who did the bare minimum but believed in Jesus is somehow more entitled to entrance than someone who was a shining star of humanity but simply couldnt take that leap of faith.

 

I think Kurgan is right on, here.

 

 

Look if the bible says u cant get to heaven with out accepting christ, then you cant. The reason good deeds dont get in you into heaven is because you have sinned before, even if all you have done wrong is just 1 little lie, you have sinned, and have fallen short.

 

As for purgatory, there is no purgatory, God said you either make it, or you dont, we have our chance now! Im telling you this, thats a chance God is giving you. Once you know what you have to do, whether you believe it or not, you know, and if you dont do it, its your own fault. Why would God let people into heaven if they have rejected him, and they knew about him. Jus tbaout everyone alive today has heard about him, so if they dont turn its there own fault. God said there is no middle area, just Heaven or Hell. The bible, God's word to man, doesnt mention purgatory, so if there was God would have tol us, but instead he said, once youve failed, youve failed.

 

Think of life as a job, you turn to God and try to help others turn to him too, or you do what you want. Does a boss pay you for doing nothing in your job? No! its the same way with God, if you dont do your work, you dont get paid, instead you get punished.

 

Sounds like a cool guy to hang around, everyone ignores their friends because god doesn't like them. Sounds like a situation from highschool.

 

no no no, someone has ignored God, and gone to Hell, why would he pay attention to them? That person didnt bother to pay attention to him, so u cant have it both ways. its that life long lesson : Treat others the way you want to be treated.

 

personally, I think you guys want to go to Heaven, but you want an easier way. Well there is no easier way, its through Christ, or your screwed, sorry but thats the way it is.

 

-lukeskywalker1

[ShockV1.89]

personally, I think you guys want to go to Heaven, but you want an easier way. Well there is no easier way, its through Christ, or your screwed, sorry but thats the way it is.

 

How is simply believing something, but not doing any real good deeds and contributing anything to the world easier than the example I provided above?

 

I'd say the person who dedicates their life to public good (sort of like a nonreligious mother teresa) has worked harder than your run of the mill christian.

 

 

Look if the bible says u cant get to heaven with out accepting christ, then you cant. The reason good deeds dont get in you into heaven is because you have sinned before, even if all you have done wrong is just 1 little lie, you have sinned, and have fallen short.

 

This is one of the reasons I question the bible. Idiotic rules like this. How can they possibly be a divine mandate? Is God so illogical as to demand total faith from people who may have been raised to question everything? Is one expected to believe solely based on the logic of "the bible says so"? Would God damn someone to eternal torment for not throwing logic and reason to the wind?

 

I feel that, if he exists, he gave us this wonderful gift called free thinking. We should not be damned for using it. Bad deeds are a different story...

[lukeskywalker1]

ur missing the point!

 

We have all sinned, so none of us diserve to go to Heaven, but:

 

 

John 3:16-21- "God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him may not be lost, but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world guilty, but to save the world through him. People who believe in God's Son are not to be judged guilty. Those who do not believe have already been judged guilty, because they have not believed in God's one and only Son. They are judged by this fact: The Light has come into the world, but they did not want light. They wanted darkness, because they were doing evil things. All who do evil hate the light and will not come to the light, because it will show all the evil things they do. But those who who follow the true way come to the light, and it shows that the things they do were done through God."

 

thats what i say to lots of people, its true and it makes sense.

 

 

 

I feel that, if he exists, he gave us this wonderful gift called free thinking. We should not be damned for using it. Bad deeds are a different story...

 

yeah, he wanted to c who would turn to him, or not, just like some one else said earlier.

 

This is one of the reasons I question the bible. Idiotic rules like this. How can they possibly be a divine mandate? Is God so illogical as to demand total faith from people who may have been raised to question everything? Is one expected to believe solely based on the logic of "the bible says so"? Would God damn someone to eternal torment for not throwing logic and reason to the wind?

 

God said it, and it was done. If God tells the world to blow up, it will. The bible is God's word. like ive said before, million times:

 

if you say the bible isnt true, then you are calling God a liar.

 

what logic has anyone discovered that has proven the bible wrong???? i dont know of any.

 

-lukeskywalker1

 

"Scriptures quoted from The Holy Bible, New Century Version,

copyright © 1987, 1988, 1991 by Word Publishing, Dallas, Texas

75039. Used by permission."

[Reborn Outcast]

Originally posted by lukeskywalker1

no, u have to accept Jesus Christ as your personnel savior. the bible syas somewhere (cant remember where) the only way to the Father is through the Son. you dont nned good deeds, they are extra.

 

The only qualms I have about this thing you said is this. Good deeds ARE part of it aswell as accepting Jesus. God tells us to live our life for Him, so doesnt that mean that we do good deeds? People who sin and think that if they just ask God for forgiveness and that they can get away with anything when they do that are wrong. God also requires service in His name.

[lukeskywalker1]

i know that, but good deeds alone wont get you into heaven, you have to have Christ, or it doesnt matter how many good deeds you have done.

[ShockV1.89]

if you say the bible isnt true, then you are calling God a liar.

 

I dont say it's untrue. I question it. One of the big reasons I question it is because it was written by man, who is inherently fallable and prone to lie. Furthermore, even if the original authors were being divinely inspired (I will never deny the possibility), then who is to say that others did not later change what was written down? As the Muse said in Dogma... "I have absolutley no say in the editorial process..." (For those of you who dont know, the Muse was portrayed as the spirit who divinely inspired people to write the bible. She was lamenting the sexually biased spin that was put on it by others after she inspired it to be written).

 

I would never, ever call God a liar. I'm not so hesitant to do it to a human being. And who wrote the bible? Men who CLAIMED they were being divinely inspired. I'm more inclined to question them.

[lukeskywalker1]

1) God went through men to write the bible, therefore, its God's word.

2)

REVELATION 22:18-19 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy in this book: If anyone adds anything to these words, God will add that person to the disasters written about in this book. And if anyone takes away from the words of this book of prophecy, God will take that one's share of the tree of life and of the holy city, which are written about in this book.

 

so if someone has changed the bible, well... i feel sorry for them.

 

 

another thing: I didnt actually mean u, about that liar thing, im just saying if you were, then thats what you were doing.

 

-lukeskywalker1

 

"Scriptures quoted from The Holy Bible, New Century Version,

copyright © 1987, 1988, 1991 by Word Publishing, Dallas, Texas

75039. Used by permission."

[ShockV1.89]

1) God went through men to write the bible, therefore, its God's word.

 

Suppose I were to write a new book of the bible, which made sweeping changes. Sort of like a New New Testament. I said to you "God spoke to me and had me write all this down, and told me that I am to spread the word that this is how we are to live now!"

 

Would you believe me?

 

Now apply the same thinking to the original authors. Why should they be any different?

 

Oh, and that quote from revelations? I think it was referring to the book of revelations alone, and not necessarily the entire bible.

[munik]

Now, time for some fun with semantics!

 

Originally posted by lukeskywalker1

As for purgatory, there is no purgatory, God said you either make it, or you dont, we have our chance now!

Purgatory is a catholic belief, true because it is dogma.

Originally posted by lukeskywalker1

We have all sinned, so none of us diserve to go to Heaven

Original sin is also a catholic belief, once again true because it is dogma.

Originally posted by lukeskywalker1

if you say the bible isnt true, then you are calling God a liar.

Quoted for reference.

Originally posted by lukeskywalker1

God went through men to write the bible, therefore, its God's word.

And now we get to the point. The Pope is gods mouthpiece, therefore the dogma he spews out is the word of god, and invaribly true. So, if you were to say that purgatory wasn't true, and you did say that, then you would be calling god a liar. Because god went through the Pope to speak of dogmatic things.

 

Unless of course you aren't catholic, in which case you are entitled to call that sect of gods cult liars. Because if they don't believe what you believe, they are wrong. Even though you pick and choose from their beliefs, you recognize original sin, but not purgatory.

[ShockV1.89]

Damnit! Now he's gonna ignore my post, I just know it!

 

[Kurgan]

Of course we Catholics believe that Purgatory exists, based on Christian tradition, not just what the current Pope says.

 

Also, the Pope only speaks infallibly when he speaks "Ex Cathedra" ie: in his official capacity as Bishop of the Whole Church in communion with the other Bishops, on matters of faith and morals.

 

Which doesn't mean a thing if you aren't Catholic, of course.

 

 

As to the whole accepting Christ thing is concerned. Yes, most Christians believe that this is necessary for salvation. Where we differ is how it works.

 

Where we run into problems (not only with good people who were just not convinced that Jesus was the Son of God who died for their sins) is when we have people who say, through no fault of their own, never heard of Jesus Christ, and therefore had no chance to accept him (there are people like this, believe it or not, and not just infants) including those who died before Jesus came to earth.

 

Then on the other hand you have people who had Christ preached to them, but the preacher (by their bad example or misinterpretation of Christ's message) turned that person AWAY from it, would it still be their fault? Surely there is more responsibility on the person preaching it than on the listener. If you know in your heart that Jesus is the way, but refuse it, that's a problem, but if you don't know that Jesus is the way, or have been given a distorted view of it, how can you possibly make a rational choice to follow it?

 

A Catholic explanation would be that, Jesus came to earth to show us how to live, and his death opened the gates of heaven, etc. but that if all that was keeping a person from heaven was acceptance of Christ, and they had no chance on earth, they could be "baptized by desire" and truly recieve Christ sometime after death (in Purgatory perhaps), thus making them worthy of entrance into heaven.

 

Of course if you are a wicked, wicked person, and Christ's message would be lost on you anyway, you're probably in trouble either way.

 

There is a great story (implied in the Bible but not actually told) in tradition that Jesus went to "hades" (not hell literally, but the resting place of the dead... where souls went before heaven) to reveal himself in his glory to those who had died before his resurrection. Thus they had a chance to get into heaven (something Dante seems to forget about in his Divine Comedy, an otherwise very interesting trilogy).

 

This notion is motivated by the belief in a merciful God who would not punish someone unfairly.

 

For a nice argument in favor of purgatory, check out this site:

http://catholicoutlook.com/objpurg.html

[C'jais]

As for the age-old "You can't add to the Bible"-argument, which so many protestants love using against Catholics:

 

Catholocism appeared when the "Bible" as we know it today was still a bunch of loose, unedited papers and documents. They weren't collected and cropped together until later on. Thus, Catholocism isn't based on an edited Bible, but in fact, on an un-edited version.

 

The Prostestants fall to their own argument, in this case.

[C'jais]

Originally posted by lukeskywalker1

1) God went through men to write the bible, therefore, its God's word.

 

No, you don't know that for sure. You believe this, and this is why religion must be taken on faith.

 

Who wrote this? Man did. Man wrote the Bible. Man is corruptable, and the man who wrote or edited the Bible could have other intentions in mind. Again, seeing as most rulers have tried to use religion as a useful tool, it should come as no surprise that you have to take this little tidbit on faith alone.

 

All religions have been subjected to this. Even Buddhism, as harmless as it sounds, have been militant and used for keeping slaves. Tibetan Buddhism was once a self-righteous theocracy that helped keeping people in serfdom. Much like Christianity - priests found "biblical evidence" that black slaves really didn't deserve better. But I think this is more an issue with Man's corruptability, again. If your house has been burned to ashes, who's to blame - the fire (religion) or the guy wielding a flamethrower (a priest)?

 

so if someone has changed the bible, well... i feel sorry for them.

 

I find it hard to believe that God would resort to such blunt threats in order to "persuade" people.

[Lost Welshman]

I did a very interesting Laypersons guide on Deat, Dying and the Afterlife, for my English exam. It got me a high B grade, which is quite good I suppose.

 

It was really funny but also had some interesting points in it. I'll give you a sort of preview of it:

 

' Death, such a cold word. It's not surprising that it is extremely underated. Death isn't all bad. You get to do it lying down, you dont have to worry about paying taxes. If you wan't a more funfilled afterlive then you'll have to have led a good life, not impeccably good, but a nice life. If you did some bad stuff then you'll probably end up in hell, but It can't be that bad. Afterall, noone came back to complain.'

 

Not an amazing extract but still.

 

All this talk of death has got me upset, my work starts in a few minutes.

 

*Gets out Scythe*

 

See ya around.

[lukeskywalker1]

Originally posted by ShockV1.89

Oh, and that quote from revelations? I think it was referring to the book of revelations alone, and not necessarily the entire bible.

 

 

You might have a point there, but still, im not going to take any chances. I people did make stuff up and put it in the bible, then, they will suffer for what they have done, like Adam and Eve, because of them, millions of people could go to Hell, just because of there 1 sin.

 

 

 

I find it hard to believe that God would resort to such blunt threats in order to "persuade" people.

 

 

but wouldnt they be responsable for misleading millions of people, say God made some rules then someone else wrote junk down (which i cant see that, that happend) then they would be responsable for screwing everything up.

 

No, you don't know that for sure. You believe this, and this is why religion must be taken on faith.

 

 

yeah, true, but there were times in the bible when God said go wirte what i say on a scroll, so i think its true. the old testament seems like a history and law book to me, it teaches about Israel's wars, slavery, things like that, and also about the laws God gave to Moses.

 

the New Testement was books about Jesus' life, and letters the apostles wrote to developing churches after Christ's death and resurection. in the beginning of most books, someone, like Paul, or Timothy, or Peter said soemthing like from Paul a follower of Jesus Christ (somerthing like that)

 

I believe the Holy Spirit went through those men to write those letters.