Board index ‹ Heaven and Hell

[Argon]

According to the Bible, and this is not a direct quote, all who ask Jesus/God/the Holy Spirit (or whatever) for forgiveness and let him/them into their hearts are saved and will go to heaven, meaning only Christians (and possibly Jews, I don't know their beliefs) will get into heaven. So, if that's true, Adolf Hitler now currently resides in heaven, as he enacted the "Final Solution" in God's name. However, Mahatma Gandhi was a Sanatani Hindu. Gandhi was a large advocate for world peace and he helped millions of people. But if God truly is benevolent, then Hitler should be in hell and Gandhi should be in heaven based upon their acts. So, where did they go?

[jimwalton]

You are sort of right that "all that ask Jesus/God/the Holy Spirit...for forgiveness and let him/them into their hearts are saved and will go to heaven." Salvation is matter of having a new nature (born again [Jn. 3.3]; also see 2 Cor. 5.17). Paul later talks about that we are born with a sin nature (Romans 7.18, 25), but that we need to be remade or reborn with the nature of Jesus (Rom. 8.29). So salvation is not about being good, or being religious. Those may be good things, but they don't pay for a ticket to heaven. Salvation is a free gift (Rom. 6.23) offered to those who repent from their sins, confess them to God, desire to commit themselves in a love relationship with God (sort of like what we do when we marry somebody), and live to love God, living in a way that pleases Him. So it's all the words of Jesus put in a sequence: understand who Jesus is, acknowledge that, believe in him, and live in a love relationship with God, letting Him change who you are so that you live a godly life.

Hitler was and did none of these things. Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hit ... n_religion) says Hitler had no attachment to the church, was opposed to Christianity, and was an atheist. His goal was the elimination of Christianity and Judaism. His "final solution" was as ungodly as most other things he did, regardless that he may have tried to manipulate the masses by couching it "in God's name." There is no reason to think he will be in heaven. He was one of the worst of the worst.

Mahatma Gandhi was a good man. But he followed Hinduism and Jainism, and though he had respect for Jesus, he never followed him as Lord. He rejected Christianity as a false religion (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... nity-fals/). As I mentioned before, heaven is not for those who are good, but for those who form a love relationship with God through Jesus. There is no reason to expect Gandhi to be in heaven either.

Lest this create a question of "that's not fair," remember that hell is not all the same. There are degrees of punishment in hell, so the punishment will fit the crime. There is every reason to believe that Gandhi's eternal destiny is a very different one from Adolf Hitler's.

[Leave the Monastery]

If someone who has never believed uses their last dying breath to pray the Sinner's Prayer would he not be saved? He would not have an opportunity to understand, acknowledge, believe and live in a love relationship with God. Is this person abandoned to Hell?

From reading your post, God cares not for the good, just, or kind. A person can be all those things, can be the greatest human that ever lived, could have worked to end hunger, fight disease, use all his/her material gain to better the world, but if you don't follow the sequence you mentioned, sorry enjoy your time in Hell.

> There are degrees of punishment in hell, so the punishment will fit the crime.

Source for this, Bible verse(s), etc.?

Because growing up and being a Christian for the first 33 years of my life, I always heard that Hell was not a prison. It's not there to rehabilitate you. You don't ever leave Hell. It's there as God's vengeance for those who do not accept and love him.

[jimwalton]

Thanks for giving me opportunity to clarify. The story of the thief on the cross (Lk. 23.42-43) shows us that allowances are made in the case of a graveside confession, if sincere. He does show, contrary to what you said, at least some understanding, acknowledgment, and belief. What he doesn't have a chance to do is live it out. The text also shows us, however, that "entering paradise" has nothing to do with being good, just, or kind. He has no chance to live that out, either. He asked Jesus to show mercy to him despite his worthlessness. This man is in no position to bargain. He has no other hope, no other chances, he had made his choices and is paying for them, but now, in desperation and possibly enlightened, he asks mercy from the God of Heaven. As we have found to be quite consistent in the whole book of Luke, anyone may come to Jesus at any time and He will receive them if their heart is in the right place. Even this man on the cross gets affirmed. Again we sense the irony: the man seems in no position to ask, and it appears as if Jesus is in no position to grant, but both are untrue: The man is in the perfect position to ask (hopeless), and Jesus is in the perfect position to grant it (dying for the sins of the world). In this case, this person is not abandoned to hell.

> God cares not for the good, just, or kind.

Oh, not at all, but salvation is not contingent on goodness, as per my post. Time in eternity with Jesus is contingent upon a relationship with Jesus, not upon one's behavior, whether good or bad. No one is earning their way, no one is scoring points, no one is in a position of merit. While God cares about our goodness, it has no more to do with getting us to heaven than a beautiful spring day has to do with changing the course of the world.

> Bible verses for degrees of punishment in hell

I happen to be convinced hell is not literally fire, but the agony of true separation from God. I say that because fire doesn't have degrees of punishment, but hell does. Degrees of separation makes more sense to me than degrees of being burned. I believe hell is degrees of punishment, based on the sin (though not levels of hell, as in Dante. Ironically, though, even Dante said hell is an endless, hopeless conversation with oneself). Here's my proof:

- Mt. 11.22-24 – "more tolerable"
- Mt. 23.14 – "greater condemnation"
- Rev. 20.13 – "each in proportion to his works"
- Lk. 10.12 – "it will be more bearable for Sodom than for that town"
- Lk. 12.47-48 – beaten with few blows or more blows

> I always heard that Hell was not a prison. It's not there to rehabilitate you. You don't ever leave Hell. It's there as God's vengeance for those who do not accept and love him.

There are many theories from thinking Christians that possibly hell is not eternal for everyone there, but there may be future opportunities for some to be reconciled to God after appropriate punishment and as they continue to make spiritual choices. Hell is a difficult doctrine to sort out. Without a doubt there are verses that talk about eternal punishment, but they don't necessarily include all of those who are separated from God. There are verses that talk about God reconciling all things to himself (Rom. 11.15; 2 Cor. 5.19; Col. 1.20), and so some theologians think that God will continue his work of reconciliation even into the afterlife, such that those who "serve their time" will at a later date be reconciled with God ("reconciliationism"). There is another position called "semi-restorationism" where, after appropriate punishment, those who desire a relationship with God will be partially restored, and those who do not, even after punishment, will opt to remain separated. So hell is eternal, but not necessarily eternal for everyone. While the Bible speaks about eternity, possibly only those who stay eternally defiant will be eternally punished. Some even believe in annihilation. It's hard to know. So it's not necessarily true that "all humans who will go to hell will commit at least one infinite sin."

As I mentioned, there are also degrees of punishment in hell; it's not "One Fire Fits All." People can be punished worse or less based on their lives and what they deserve, meaning that hell doesn't necessarily mean eternal ("unjust") punishment, but it's very possible that the punishment will fit the crime. Those who are guilty of eternal sin will be eternally punished; those who are not will still be fairly punished for what they did do, and then that will end.

My bottom line is this: Those who turn away from God will be separated from the life of God. Though we can't be sure about the form or duration of that separation, this we can be sure of: it will be a horrible experience, and God will be fair about the form and duration of it. If you reject God, you take your chances.

[Leave the Monastery]

The chair analogy...I don't know.

When you first come to a chair you make an educated guess about the chair. It looks sturdy enough. Then you form a hypothesis based on the information provided. Then you test that hypothesis by sitting in the chair. You do this multiple times and you then have knowledge that the chair will hold you.

I don't find faith in any of this because faith is believing it will hold you without any attempt at testing it first. It's closing your eyes and saying, "I have the faith in my heart that this chair will hold me." then you sit and it either does or doesn't. Faith is confirmed or discounted by saying, "Well maybe I wasn't meant to sit in that chair and I have to wait for the chair that is for me." It doesn't matter if the chair was made out of paper.
Same with the doorknob. My experience with the doorknob says it will work, I use the same method above, however also knowing that doorknobs are mechanical and mechanical things break down I have to allow the chance that doorknobs break even if it takes 10,001openings to have things go awry.

But, I think you are mashing together both definitions of what faith means.

You have: 1. complete trust or confidence in someone or something and 2. strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof. (Source: Google)

So, in your examples, you can claim that is a faith-based act and be correct by use of that non-religious definition.

I agree with what you said regarding the Bible. That's how the story goes. And if things still occurred like that then there would be no room for debate. But the faith it takes to believe a 2000-year-old story with little to no good supporting evidence is hard for some of us. We also have come to know how much the Bible itself has been changed over the years, not always by a stroke of evilness or anything, but by scribes simply making transcribing errors. Then we have passages from the Bible found at different times through history and some of these things do not have the same stories or endings as more recent finds (eg. The story of the woman caught in adultery (John 8) is not in the Codex Sinaiticus.). So, the Bible has been changed by human hands and by human thought. Things have been added, subtracted, changed, changed again and on, and on, and on to where the Bible(s) we have now don't represent what was really written. Humans created the Bible, voted on which scroll made it in and did not make it in and you can argue that was done under divine authority.

I would have no trouble believing if it was done by any logical means. Does God not appreciate the brains he allowed us to have? By doing so, he must've have known that some would use that brain to question his very existence. And why shouldn't we? If this is the greatest question we can answer, why wouldn't he make it beyond question that everything is Christianity is true? Why have some been convinced and others not?
But, I know, all of these things do not matter to one who believes. Faith trumps everything or so it seems. God said it. I believe. And that's that! It doesn't matter if it is demonstrably false in faith's eyes.

I am ready to believe given enough good evidence. No faith, but knowledge. As I was leaving religion, it was a prayer I prayed often. To be shown in some way that it was all true and that I was mistaken, but I was never shown and eventually I got tired of praying to the ceiling.

"Do not believe in anything (simply) because you have heard it ; Do not believe in traditions, because they been handed down for many generations ; Do not believe in anything, because it is spoken and rumoured by many ; Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books ; But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it." -2500 Buddha Jayanti (page 39)

And, no, I am not a Buddhist. But this says only believe in the things that agree with reason after observation and analysis.

After so much thought on this, I've come to the conclusion that religious belief really stems from the fear of annihilation of the self. We cannot die because we are such awesome creatures that we have to be special and there has to be something after these 80 some years of consciousness. If not, then what's it all for?

So, yeah, I call myself an atheist, an agnostic atheist, but I don't totally discount there isn't "something" that got this all started or whatever; I don't presume to know that I know either, but I don't think it's any god or gods that the human mind has thought up because these gods are too much like us. They hate what we hate.

It is said that any alien civilization with technology above and beyond our own could be seen as gods. What if it's true that we are nothing more than an advanced alien's science fair project? How could you prove me wrong?

[jimwalton]

> faith is believing it will hold you without any attempt at testing it first.

That's not at all what faith is. But's let's approach it from a different angle. I should hope that you understand that "belief" (faith) is even variously defined in the Bible. You can't just plop on a definition of your own making (faith is blind belief without any attempt at testing it first) and claim you got it. Faith is not so simple, not even in the Bible. Faith has a variety of definitions, depending on how the word and concept are being used in the Bible.

1. Faith is "complete trust or confidence in someone or something," like sitting in a chair, or that an employee will do his job well.

2. Faith is "firm belief in something for which there is no proof," like dark matter.

3. Faith is "belief in, trust in, and loyalty to God," based on presuppositions, reason, and evidence.

4. Faith is "a system of religious beliefs," like the Jewish faith or the Christian faith.

I define faith, as I already mentioned, as making an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to make that assumption reasonable. Therefore the question for truth and my ultimate belief are mutually contingent parallel tracks. Christianity is nothing like believing something without testing it. That isn't even one of the choices, but just something you made up or assume? It's setting up a straw man, and then walking away in rejection.

> When you first come to a chair you make an educated guess about the chair. It looks sturdy enough. Then you form a hypothesis based on the information provided. Then you test that hypothesis by sitting in the chair. You do this multiple times and you then have knowledge that the chair will hold you.

You don't do this every time you sit down. You just plop your butt in the chair, believing that it will hold you because we have evidence that chairs hold people. But they do on occasion break. But we assume it will not, because we have evidence that 99.99% of the time, they don't break. So we plop without thinking or evaluating—we just believe.

> Bible itself has been changed over the years, not always by a stroke of evilness or anything, but by scribes simply making transcribing errors.

But we have so many manuscripts we can have confidence that the text we have is better than 98% accurate. No other documents in antiquity has the manuscript evidence that the Bible does. We know what the changes have been.

> all of these things do not matter to one who believes. Faith trumps everything or so it seems.

This is like asking, "Which is a higher value to you, breathing or living?" Well, you can't keep living if you're not breathing, and you can't keep breathing if you're not living. You seem to think that in a choice between faith and truth-seeking, a Christian will choose faith. But it's a false dichotomy, since faith is making an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to make that assumption reasonable. In other words, I believe because it has been substantiated as true. Knowledge has at least four components to it: reason, evidence, presuppositions, and experience. The honest search for truth is paramount. If we're not looking for truth, we're deluding ourselves. I ground my reason, presuppositions, observations, and experiences, and therefore my beliefs, in a determined quest for what is true. I fear that you've been misled down a false path that faith has nothing to do with knowledge, truth, or evidence. No wonder you walked away from Christianity.

By the way, I like your quote from Buddha Jayanti and agree with it. I am confident that the Bible would also agree with this statement. In the Bible, as I said, people were only asked to believe after the evidence had been presented.

> religious belief really stems from the fear of annihilation of the self.

Obviously, as you might guess, I disagree. My religious belief stems from being convinced of the reality of God's existence and the revelation of himself in the Bible and in Jesus Christ. Fear has no place in it, as far as I know.

> What if it's true that we are nothing more than an advanced alien's science fair project? How could you prove me wrong?

I can't prove you wrong, but this theory doesn't make as much sense as the theistic argument. The best we can do is assemble the evidences and reason, and infer the most logical conclusion. That is why i subscribe to Christianity.