Hey Cottons..

ok... sorry it took me a while to get around to this... i'll start off by answering your initial question. assuming the Bible and Christianity are correct... if a person doesn't get saved, but they try their best to be a good person and live a good life, they will still go to hell. here's why... the Bible says that "all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." compared to God anything good we do is still dirty, because it's coming from an imperfect being. the Bible also says that it's "not by works of righteousness, lest any man should boast, but by his grace he saved us." if we could get to heaven by being a good person, than why did God send His only begotten Son to die for us? Why did Jesus have to shed his perfect, sinless blood on a cross to pay for our sins if getting into heaven were as simple as living a good life? also, keep in mind, for every good thing one does... they do so much more that's bad and sinful.

i'd like to make it known that God doesn't send people to hell. they send themselves there. God gave us the most precious gift anyone could ever give. He died for US. He died for a bunch of vial sinners who constantly rejected him (and still continue to 'til this day)... and all we have to do is ask His forgiveness and accept His gift of salvation. it's that easy. people are given a choice if they want to believe this or not. if they don't and reject Jesus... they also reject heaven. in the Bible Jesus says "I am the way, the truth, and the light, no man cometh unto the Father but through me."

i know exactly what you mean. i was that way for 3 years. i thought i was saved (but really wasn't... i just wanted a ticket in), and knew deep down in my mind that the Bible was true... but never accepted it in my heart. the fact that you're asking me all these questions goes to show that you know there's something out there. this is God working in your heart. He's speaking to you... trying to tell you there's something more, and to just have faith. it's up to you to accept it or reject it. also... it's not about a religion. religion is based on rules. religion teaches that if you're a good boy or girl and follow all the rules, you'll go to heaven. Christianity (true Christianity anyway) isn't like that at all. it's about a 1 on 1 relationship with God. it teaches you to live by faith, and to trust God. it teaches that God loves you and won't abandon you... it reveals who God is through scriptures and prayer. going to church isn't to get you to heaven... it's so you can be around people who believe what you believe, it's so you can learn the word of God, and it's to encourage and build you up.

God does reveal Himself in many ways. He revealed himself to abraham, moses, the disciples, ezekiel, paul, jeremiah, joshua, isaac, jacob, and many, many more. He also revels Himself through the Bible. the Bible teaches of the great mercy of God and His unconditional love. no matter how vial a person is... God still loves them.

not really, but kinda... life is our chance to choose sides. either we choose to follow God, or we choose to live in sin. the Bible says that "for the wages of sin is death." it also says "and death and hell were cast in to the lake of fire. This is the second death."

Christianity doesn't promise that at all. infact, the Bible says if you choose Christ, you're going to endure persecutions. as they persecuted Christ, so also shall you be persecuted" it doesn't say everything's going to be ok... but it does say that God will provide for you... and He'll never forsake you. God promises to take care of us, but it might not always be how we expect. hard times are thrown in to bring us closer to God. God wants us to cling to Him, and depend on him... so sometimes He allows bad things to happen in order to grow people's faith. when God allows a baby to die, you could think of it as Him keeping that child from having to experience this world and all the hardships of it... yeah, it's sad to loose a baby, but think... that baby will never shed a single tear in heaven.

according to the Bible, the only sin that sends a person to hell is rejecting Jesus as the messiah. the following scripture is from John chapter 3 (King James Version)...

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

it talks about this in 2 thesselonians... it speaks of the falling away of the church before the rapture (i'm going to go into this more on my next "end times" thread)... basically what it says is that the church will fall away from where it once was. it will be full of backslidden, luke warm, fake Christians who claim to be saved, but they live defeated lives. the verse says "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition"

there are a lot of people like that guy you know. they claim Christianity, but they still walk in their sinful lives.

i hope this has answered some of your questions and cleared a few things up. please... if you ever want to know more, or have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. i'd be more than happy to answer any questions you might have.

 

and also why there are so many of us who believe in the different versions of supposedly the same god?

 

i actually meant to respond to this... but got caught up in the rest of the questions.

we can look to Exodus, Leveticus, and Joshua (to name a few) for examples of God performing several miraculous events to restore the faith of His people (the parting of the red sea, the plagues in egypt, israel winning battles that should not have been won, the crumbling of jericho's walls, the manna that was supplied to the hebrews while in the wilderness, etc.)... yet the people still rebelled, still had no faith, still lived in unbelief etc.

to answer digit's question... people don't take well to the idea in trusting in something they can't physically see, hear, or touch... so they build themselves idols. they make themselves false Gods, and choose to worship things made of human hands instead of the one true God. why do they do this? i'm not entirely sure. it's human nature to rebel i guess.

 

i agree with cottons all the way up to the part mentioned about the "rapture".i dont believe in the rapture.meaning,the "rapture"is actually a deseption of the antichrist.God will let us choose our own delusions.

 

Would one go to hell for thinking that man, if not immediately, has the potential to be as 'perfect' as god?

perhaps, if god exists as christianity would have us believe, one of our true tests is to move beyond blind faith despite direct orders not to? Maybe we can't truly understand god until we can empathize with god, which, in my opinion, would mean thinking of god on equal terms

 

how could man possibly be as perfect as God? or even become equal with Him? we're not eternal in the sense that we had a beginning... He always was and always will be. we can't be omniscient, omnipresent, or omnipotent as God is either... i'm curious as to how one could think they're going to achieve this, and somehow be equal with God.

 

I believe that perfection only exists within any particular terms, i.e. infinity means that nothing can completely emcompass every aspect of anything

god may be perfect within our universe but who knows what's beyond everything we can cpmrehend? just as someone could do any particular thing perfectly there's an unfathomable amount of circumstances that yield no perfection except to those who can seperate the circumstances from the rest of existence through intelligence and create perfection through force of will

aside from this you must take into account the exponential rate of human progress, assuming we can exist long enough we will come to encompass every aspect of our universe, thereby being able to seperate, control, and bring perfection to our surroundings for our own purposes, just as god may have done to create it in the first place, if indeed that's what happened

since, in my opinion, there's no end to existence (I'll even explain how this is possible if you wish), there is no end to progress, and more importantly, nothing that's infinitely better than anything else

if you also take into account that I believe that our current overall picture of god (in spite of any particular religion) is based on our natural instinct to create a hierarchy, infinite omnipotence seems even less likely

so even if god has somehow achieved universal omnipotence, complete perfectoinm within the terms of this existence, I believe that complete control over infinity is impossible, which means that we could transgress god through progress eventually

 

to be a stifler for accuracy...
how can you prove that we cannot?

 

um... because we're too imperfect. if anything we'd end up destroying ourselves before we reached omniscience, omnipotence, or omnipresense (this assuming that the possibility even exists of us achieving such things).

if you can look at the human race and honestly say you believe we can achieve these things... i'd be very interested in hearing how.

 

Sinister, your original post describes almost exactly how I feel about Christianity. I was gonna write a whole pile of stuff about my stance on the subject, but it's really hard to explain, so I'll just leave it at that.

 

Actually, maybe you could help clear something up for me Cottons, if you've got the time.

If I decided to accept Christianity, would their be anything that I'd have to do to get into Heaven other than believe? (That makes me sound really lazy!) For example, do I have to be baptised, do I have to go to Church etc? This is assuming that I don't excessively sin.

 

what about our consiousness moving on post death?
perhaps we move to an alternate dimension where we have such powers. i still maintain that you have not proven it to be an impossability.

 

i can't prove it to be an impossibility... because i haven't died yet. i'd like to point out that it can't be proven either