Board index ‹ Heaven and Hell

[Obsessor]

Are all non-Christians doomed? Also, are there different levels of heaven since different people suffer different amounts?

Also, how do you account for the fact that certain people have attained enlightenment? Doesn't that prove that Eastern religions are right?

[jimwalton]

No one who does not belong to God (i.e., nonChristians) will spend eternity with God. It's all about relationship, not religion or goodness. If you have a love relationship with God, you will spend eternity with God; if you do not, you will not.

> Different levels of heaven?

There is no indication of different levels of heaven or of hell, but there are degrees of reward and degrees of punishment.

* Matthew 11.22-24 & Luke 10.12: Jesus says it will be “more tolerable” for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah than for the people of Capernaum. That would indicate to me a more harsh punishment and a less harsh punishment.
* Matthew 23.14: Jesus tells the Pharisees they will be punished more severely for the way they are deceiving the people and living as hypocrites.
* Revelation 20.13: Each is going to be judged according to what he has done. Since that is the case, then the punishments and rewards can’t be the same for everybody.
* and finally, Luke 12.47-48 (workers are punished with more or fewer blows). There are degrees of punishment, and even sins of ignorance are treated differently than sins of intention.

In other words, here's the real deal about eternity, what the Bible is SO emphatic about: God will be perfectly fair with everyone. There is no need for anxiety that God has created a system of horror, that people will be judged unfairly, that injustices will be done and people will be sent inappropriately somewhere, or that God will somehow go against his attributes just to torture people.

Here's the bottom line: If you know the Christian God is one of perfect love, mercy, and justice, then turn to Him and become part of his family. That is the real message of the Bible: come, share the life God offers you, and come into unity and belonging with the God who loves you. There won't be anything unfair. You just want to make sure that neither you nor anyone else you love or know ends up in the category of "the doomed." Come to Jesus and let His life fill you. I can guarantee you that the absolute truth of the Bible is that no one will be dealt with wrongly, unfairly, or unjustly. Take that to heart. If you don't really want to face God with a heart against Him, then turn your heart towards Him.

> how do you account for the fact that certain people have attained enlightenment?

How does one know this? I assume the only way to suppose it is by the person's own testimony? Hmm. That certainly doesn't prove that certain Eastern religions are right.

In addition, people can, all by themselves, come to some state of peace about their religious beliefs. That doesn't make it true, either.

[Vesture El]

When you say sins of ignorance, do you mean that people who don't know god exists will be punished for not knowing it?

[jimwalton]

No, by that I meant that sometimes people sin without even knowing it (inadvertent), like sometimes people break the law without knowing that they're breaking it. Once I got pulled over for going 55 in a 40 zone, but I hadn't seen a sign in, like, miles. I had no way of knowing. It was a "sin of ignorance." What I said about such sins is that, in God's fairness, He will treat them differently than sins done on purpose, when you know you're disobeying.

Leviticus 4.22-31 and 5.14-19; Numbers 15.22-31 make some comments about it. But verses 30- 31 say that if you sin defiantly, you won't be forgiven. And then 1 John 1.9 says that anyone who confesses a sin can find forgiveness.

As far as people who don't know God exists, we can be confident that God will treat them fairly. I'm sure He knows exactly what to do. God will take everything into account to make a fair decision.

A greater question is for you: since you have heard about God and Jesus, you are accountable for what you do with the knowledge you have and what you decide to do with it. God invites you into relationship with Himself, where you can be forgiven and free.

[Vesture El]

I'm not even convinced that god exists. There's no evidence for him. Same thing for Jesus.

[jimwalton]

Well, then, that's what we should talk about.

Nature is a fantastic wonder: beautiful, functional, orderly, regular, predictable (parts of it), balance, finely-tuned, fabulously diverse, even personal, massively huge beyond comprehension, immensely tiny beyond comprehension. We know that things don't just pop into existence all by themselves. We also know that the universe had a beginning. We have to assume that the universe had a powerful, timeless, personal, intelligent, purposeful cause.

If God doesn't exist, his existence is logically impossible. But if he does exist, his existence is necessary. Therefore God is either impossible or necessary. We know he's not impossible.

We humans don't know of anything that shows evidence of being purposefully designed that wasn't purposefully designed, whether a washer, a car, or a window. There are many parts of the universe that exhibit purpose. It's logical to look for an intelligent designer.

These and many other reasonable facts lead us to the very plausible conclusion that just maybe there's a God. Many atheists don’t find the arguments convincing because there are small loopholes in each one. Yet the strength of the arguments is in their sufficiency and in their cumulative effect, not because they are irrefutable. A kind of parallel example from mathematics is Goldbach’s Conjecture. It is an unprovable theorem, but no one has proved that it is unprovable. It’s too large to pursue absolutely. In the same way, the existence of God is philosophically and logically unprovable, but no one is able to prove that it is unprovable. The weight of evidence would demand, as with Goldbach’s Conjecture, that believing in the existence of God makes a lot of sense and is possibly the simplest explanation (Occam’s Razor) for the phenomena we see.

And when we consider the arguments against there being a God (like the existence of evil), well, those arguments are far weaker by comparison. The weight of evidence is greatly in favor of theism, and worthy of great thought and study.

As far as Jesus is concerned, we know he existed in history. We have to be responsible enough to give thought to the idea that we also know that his simple life changed the world, that thousands of people in the capital city of another religion changed religions overnight, and eventually spread by weight of truth (not by military conquest like Islam) around the globe to be the world's greatest religion. Obviously 2.2 billion people living right now have found warrant to believe. Doesn't that make you wonder if you missed something?

[Vesture El]

> Nature is a fantastic wonder: beautiful, functional, orderly, regular, predictable (parts of it), balance, finely-tuned, fabulously diverse, even personal, massively huge beyond comprehension, immensely tiny beyond comprehension.

Those are all assertions, I'll agree with beautiful though it's subjective. What do you mean by functional? Or orderly or regular for that matter? As far as I can tell the universe is mostly empty with clumps of energy and matter, most of which is completely inhospitable to life as we know it with occasional pockets where conditions are agreeable. I'll agree that we can only comprehend on limited scales. But I'm not sure how you reach the conclusion it's fine tuned unless you can demonstrate the possibility for the universe to be other ways (and even then you'd need to demonstrate an agent with the ability to choose as opposed to chance).

As for personal, I'm honestly not sure what you mean by the universe being personal?

> We know that things don't just pop into existence all by themselves.

Except that as far as well can tell some things do, at a quantum level at least. We also don't know that it's impossible for things to pop into existance, or necesserily that anything ever did as opposed to something always having existed.

> We also know that the universe had a beginning. Our best models show that at some point in the past the universe was very small, but that isn't necesserily the begining, just as far back as we have any ability to investigate for now.
> We have to assume that the universe had a powerful, timeless, personal, intelligent, purposeful cause.

We don't, unless you can demonstrate the necessity of each of those aspects in the formation of the universe.

> If God doesn't exist, his existence is logically impossible. But if he does exist, his existence is necessary. Therefore God is either impossible or necessary. We know he's not impossible.

I don't know any of those things, are they demonstrable?

> We humans don't know of anything that shows evidence of being purposefully designed that wasn't purposefully designed, whether a washer, a car, or a window.

We know that evolution produces the appearance of design and we see the same thing happen when using algorithms in computing to 'evolve' solutions to problems despite no evidence for intelligent intervention in evolution.

> There are many parts of the universe that exhibit purpose.

Except that the fact we ascribe purpose to parts of the universe doesn't mean there's an agent who made them with purpose. People are pretty good at seeing purpose where it's not and it's not always possible to distinguish between the appearance of purpose and there being prupose. Not to mention that purpose and intent are subjective.

As an example here are two strings of numbers one is random and one was picked by me for a purpose.

6894522571
3546588722

Can you tell which is which? If so how?

As another example, let's say we sort 100 people randomly into two groups of 50, then we ask random individuals why they were put in the group they were in? Do you expect them to recognise it was random or to assume there's some other reason behind it?

Are people necesserily good at distinguishing intent from coincidence? If so how?

> It's logical to look for an intelligent designer.

Maybe, but do we have any evidence that one exists? Because if we have the appearance of design but no visible designer then that seems to be an argument that something things that looked designed aren't. Instead of that things that looks designed necesserily are.

> These and many other reasonable facts lead us to the very plausible conclusion that just maybe there's a God. Many atheists don’t find the arguments convincing because there are small loopholes in each one. Yet the strength of the arguments is in their sufficiency and in their cumulative effect, not because they are irrefutable.

So you claim to have a series of arguments, none of which are convincing but when you add up the fact none of them are convincing it becomes convincing? I'm not sure how that works.

Also sufficiency doesn't necesseily mean something is true.

And as you've not bothered to give the arguments and are just claiming that athiests don't believe because of small loops holes, I can't really reach a conclusions about whether there are good arguments or what you think they are.

> A kind of parallel example from mathematics is Goldbach’s Conjecture. It is an unprovable theorem, but no one has proved that it is unprovable. It’s too large to pursue absolutely. In the same way, the existence of God is philosophically and logically unprovable, but no one is able to prove that it is unprovable. The weight of evidence would demand, as with Goldbach’s Conjecture, that believing in the existence of God makes a lot of sense and is possibly the simplest explanation (Occam’s Razor) for the phenomena we see.

Is it unprovable? If no one has proved that it's unprovable then how can you make that statment?

If the existance of god is unprovable then I fail to see how anyone could reach the conclusion it was true. But again you contradict yourself by saying no one has proven it's unprovable.

Also I'm not sure you know how occam's razor works. If I understand it correctly it's to believe the thing that requires us to assume the fewest things we don't know, or to make the least speculation. But here's the issue, an infinitly complex god would by definition not be the simpliest explination, since we'd have to assume that a complex god existed.

The trouble is that the simpliest explination for the universe would be that it just happens to be as it is.

It's also not necesserily true as something things are complicated.

But comming back to the conjecture, I'm not convinced you understand how maths works, because the conclusion to not being able to prove the golbatch conjecture is that we don't know whether or not all even intergers greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two primes or not. We may suspect it's true because but that doesn't mean we know it is.

Also I don't see the golbatch conjecture which holds as far as we can tell as applicable to a god that we've yet to demonstrate exists.

> And when we consider the arguments against there being a God (like the existence of evil), well, those arguments are far weaker by comparison.

See the trouble here is that you're just asserting that the arguments against the existance of god are weak, now I'll agree that the existance of evil isn't an argument against a god (just that any god that did exist would be a jerk). But that doesn't mean I believe your assertion that the arguments against god are weak univeraslly.

See the main argument I'd use against the existance of god is that we don't have reason to believe one exists so aren't justifed in concluding one does. And as such the honest answer to does god exist is, "I dunno." Which is the same answer I'd give for weather any religion is true.

> The weight of evidence is greatly in favor of theism, and worthy of great thought and study.

What evidence? And worthy of study and through doesn't mean we're justified in concluding that theism is right.

> As far as Jesus is concerned, we know he existed in history.

We know people existed in history, and the existance of an rabbi with that name around that time and place who was crucified is a possibility. Which of course tells us nothing about weather the supernatural claims made about him where true. Or if we're talking about one person or a combination of different stories around multiple people. Or if we're talking about an entierly fictional person.

> We have to be responsible enough to give thought to the idea that we also know that his simple life changed the world, that thousands of people in the capital city of another religion changed religions overnight, and eventually spread by weight of truth (not by military conquest like Islam) around the globe to be the world's greatest religion.

See here's the trouble, many people have changed the world, and doing so doesn't necessitate that divine intervention was involved. We also know people don't always believe thing for good reasons.

And are you seriously saying that christianity was spread entierly without military conquest?

Also greatest religion is subjective, unless you mean the religion with the most followers, but the number of people who believe something tells us nothing about if it's true.

> Obviously 2.2 billion people living right now have found warrant to believe.

Sure, and without knowing what the standards for beliefe are for those 2.2 billion people I can't reach conclusions about whether they have good reason to believe what they do or not.

> Doesn't that make you wonder if you missed something?

No, but evidence in support of what they believe might.

[jimwalton]

> What do you mean by functional? Or orderly or regular

There's a balance that allows things to work. The universe continues to exist because it doesn't self-destruct. We've been around for 14 billion years, with many more to come. It functions. It's also orderly and regular. Math works. We can look back millennia to identify the solar eclipses, and we can look forward to do the same. It's orderly, regular, and predictable. Science is based on such realities. Without them, there would be no science.

> But I'm not sure how you reach the conclusion it's fine tuned unless...

What I mean is that universe operates according to many tight and unalterable parameters. If the cosmic microwave background radiation were varied even by 1 part in 100,000, a gravitational disaster would have occurred and there would be no large-scale structures in the universe. If the fundamental constants such as the mass and charge of electrons, protons, and neutrons were even ever-so-slightly different than they are, chemical bonding would not work and life would be impossible. If the strong nuclear force were 5% weaker or 2% stronger, there would be no stable hydrogen, and the entire universe would be unsuitable for life. Etc. Etc. etc. There are so many of these (possibly 60) I can't list them all.

> unless you can demonstrate the possibility for the universe to be other ways (and even then you'd need to demonstrate an agent with the ability to choose as opposed to chance)...

The fact is, as far as we know, it could not have been otherwise. These are the conditions for life. This kind of precision and balance is not at all surprising or improbable given theism. On the other hand, on the atheistic hypothesis according to which these constants have their values by chance (that is, those values are not the result of anyone’s choice or intention) it is exceedingly improbable that they would be fine-tuned for life. This seems to offer support for theism: given theism, fine-tuning is not at all improbable; given atheism, it is; therefore theism is to be preferred to atheism.

> As for personal, I'm honestly not sure what you mean by the universe being personal?

The universe isn't personal; we are. It's more realistic to think that personality came from a personal source (like yielding like) than that we are just an agglomeration of chemicals (not much different from trees) and personality just sort-a happened. It makes sense that there was a personal cause to the universe. Science tells us that impersonal causes must have first causes. Only personal causes are capable of being first causes. Kinetic energy is energy is motion; potential energy is energy stored. The only way something begins in motion is if there is a first cause. What puts a system in motion? There must be a personal cause.

> We also don't know that it's impossible for things to pop into existance, or necesserily that anything ever did as opposed to something always having existed.

This sounds like a god-of-the-gaps theory. We know of nothing that pops into existence (spontaneous generation) on its own.

Of course something always existed. One of the biggest questions is, "What has always existed?" Current scientific theory tells us that it was not the universe, and that before the Big Bang there was only a non-dimensional singularity where the laws of nature didn't exist. It would make sense, then, that whatever has eternally existed is outside of nature.

> We don't, unless you can demonstrate the necessity of each of those aspects in the formation of the universe.

It sounds like you are denying reason and logic to stick to your position. We assemble the evidence to infer the most reasonable conclusion.

> I don't know any of those things, are they demonstrable?

It's logic, not empiricism.

> We know that evolution produces the appearance of design

Yes. So our task is to determine whether this amazing illusion of design is a serendipitous accident, or whether there's something else going on. I've been doing a bit of reading in genetics recently, and everything I read makes it sound like the system has been gamed for success. Many indications point to a source intelligence that has rigged life to move forward despite all obstacles. The system betrays a design giving it a clear advantage over sheer randomization. Natural Selection has been tuned to play music rather than a concert of cacophony (though life lurches and gulps rather than a smooth path forward). Obviously a secular scientist would attribute it to a wonderful serendipity, but we Christians attribute it to an intelligent, personal God.

> Except that the fact we ascribe purpose to parts of the universe doesn't mean there's an agent who made them with purpose.

It doesn't prove it, but when we put all these things together, and if we are serious about inferring the most reasonable conclusion, theism is the far stronger case.

> Purpose

We live but he principles of purpose. Every scientist asks "Why?", assuming reason and purpose. As Agent Smith said in the Matrix Reloaded: "There's no escaping reason, no denying purpose, for as we both know, without purpose we would not exist. It is purpose that created us, purpose that connects us, purpose that pulls us, that guides us, that drives us; it is purpose that defines, purpose that binds us."

> "It's logical to look for an intelligent designer." Maybe, but do we have any evidence that one exists?

That's what this discussion is about. I'm giving you many evidences, both from the sciences and from logic.

> So you claim to have a series of arguments, none of which are convincing but when you add up the fact none of them are convincing it becomes convincing? I'm not sure how that works.

No, this is a distortion of what I said. I said all the arguments have loopholes (small ones), that's all. None of them PROVE the point. But they give evidence and are certainly convincing, particularly as a whole. In total, they create a far stronger argument for theism than anything I've seen in rebuttal (and I notice you haven't given any arguments in rebuttal. You ask questions, but have not given a rebuttal argument).

> And as you've not bothered to give the arguments and are just claiming that atheists don't believe because of small loops holes,

My oh my, you come across as very closed-minded. I have given several arguments, briefly, but they're there: causality, ontology, and design. I would be pleased to see your arguments for atheism or scientific naturalism.

> The trouble is that the simpliest explination for the universe would be that it just happens to be as it is.

This is an assertion but not a case. I'd be pleased to see your case with the supporting evidence.

> See the trouble here is that you're just asserting that the arguments (about evil in the world)

I have a case, certainly, but you must realize the format of the forum doesn't allow for endless writing. There's a character limit. If you want to discuss the problem of evil and how it doesn't disprove God, we'll need to start a separate thread. There isn't room here for everything.

> "The weight of evidence is greatly in favor of theism, and worthy of great thought and study." What evidence?

What I've written in this discussion: Causality, ontology, and design. There are other arguments for God's existence that I didn't have room to write: teleology, analogical, axiological, linguistics, and many others. If you're honestly interested in the subject, I would recommend study with an open mind of the arguments for the existence of God.

> And worthy of study and through doesn't mean we're justified in concluding that theism is right

Of course not. We just try to assemble evidence and use logic to infer the most reasonable conclusion.

> Which of course tells us nothing about weather the supernatural claims made about him where true.

This is true, and if you want to discuss his supernatural claims, we can do that. Again, that would have to be a separate conversation. There is only so much room on one forum.

> many people have changed the world, and doing so doesn't necessitate that divine intervention was involved.

Correct. But Jesus was obviously different. Jesus changed science, law, philosophy, music, literature, and art. There has been no greater influence on the world by a single individual than Jesus of Nazareth. The fact that He has 2.2 billion followers on Earth today confirm His exceptional influence. This can be said of no other individual. In addition, Jesus is claimed by every major religion. Islam considers him a great prophet; Hinduism and Buddhism an enlightened individual. That's a total of 5.5 billion people currently alive—two-thirds of the population of the world.

>And are you seriously saying that christianity was spread entierly without military conquest?

No. There was a little, but not much. The worst example of it was the colonial conquest of the Americas by Spain & Portugal. The Crusades were not so much the spread of Christianity by force, but rather the answer to the Islamic conquest of Europe and the Middle East. Islam, by contrast, was spread entirely by military conquest.

> Also greatest religion is subjective, unless you mean the religion with the most followers, but the number of people who believe something tells us nothing about if it's true.

I would not agree that religion is subjective. All religions claim to be based on the truth. It's up to us to evaluate which one actually is, since they contradict each other and cannot all be right.

> No, but evidence in support of what they believe might.

Sigh. The arguments for the existence of God are causality, ontology, teleology, analogical, axiological, linguists, and design. Have you done any study in this, or have you arrived at a conclusion without research? If you're honestly interested in the subject, I would recommend study with an open mind of the arguments for the existence of God.

[Yummy Yummy]

> In other words, here's the real deal about eternity, what the Bible is SO emphatic about: God will be perfectly fair with everyone. There is no need for anxiety that God has created a system of horror, that people will be judged unfairly, that injustices will be done and people will be sent inappropriately somewhere, or that God will somehow go against his attributes just to torture people.

Is this based on my notions of fairness or God's notions? For example, I feel that eternal punishment for a worldly crime would be unfair, so it would be unfair if that happens to even a single soul based on their actions while on Earth.

[jimwalton]

You're still worried that God will be unfair, which is contrary to biblical teaching. You asked whether it's based on your notions or God's notions. The answer would be, "Based on the real definition and exercise of fairness." Fairness, in this sense, would be an objective standard. If it's truly fair, then it's, uh, truly fair.

> I feel that eternal punishment for a worldly crime would be unfair, so it would be unfair if that happens to even a single soul based on their actions while on Earth.

You can be confident that God will not punish people unfairly. It will be exactly right. That's what we can count on.