If God exists, do non-believers get sent to Hell?

wardenx:

Circular arguments that use the references of a religion to prove or back up that religion aren't really honest discourse, are they?
That's the catch 22. Believe because the Bible says to believe.

Not every argument for Christianity is a circular one. For one, there is the simple question of history: did the man named Jesus come back from the dead? In my opinion, the evidence -- including extrabiblical sources and evidence that points to the reliability of the gospels -- leans to, "yes." You might reach a different conclusions, but neither conclusion is reached through circular logic.

Beyond that, there's also the question of how well Christianity deals with one's own experience of life. For instance, I genuinely believe that A) there is an objective moral law and B) we have all irrevocably broken that law. Much/most athiest views preclude the possibility of (A). And many religions deny (B), instead offering ways we can earn our way into God's favor. But Christianity fits with my experience like a key fits a lock -- as if the key was made to fit that lock.

And, finally, there's the possibility that God Himself can communicate to you whether the Christian church is indeed His institution. Theists do not discount that possibility.


If it's a purely personal relationship with God/Christ, then what's the point of talking about it? You can't ever show someone what you believe because they aren't you.

The point is this: the relationship is personal, but it involves some universal truths -- such as the existence of God, the resurrection of Jesus, and the freely offered gift of forgiveness. A right relationship with God may require an acceptance of these truths (or, at least, some subset thereof), so there is a benefit to being pointed to those truths.

In the most extreme case, it seems hard to believe a rigid atheist can even have a healthy relationship with God since one member in that relationship denies the existence of the Other. Sharing my faith with that person could help him break down that wall of denial that he has erected between himself and his heavenly Father and help restore that relationship.

Right relationships are based on true ideas. It's hard to imagine a healthy relationship with a trustworthy spouse if you think him to be treacherous, or vice versa. It's likewise hard to imagine a healthy relationship with the just and loving God if you think Him to be a cruel despot or an imaginary figment.

True ideas can certainly be given to us by divine revelation. (In fact, I think it already has, to people like Moses, David, and Isaiah.) But true ideas can also be transmitted by other people.

Consider these two paths:

- God reveals Himself to Bob personally in a burning bush, a pillar of fire, or some other obvious way.

- God reveals Himself to Moses who writes down that revealed truth. Over the course of centuries, Moses' people preserve that writing. In time, scholars translate those writings into a language you can understand. People take those translations and broadcast them via the Internet. In my signature, I point to those online translations [cough, cough]. Bob then reads them and discover God's revealed truth.

If God was just like us mere mortals, we would be highly suspect of that second path. After all, it seems like a mere by-product of that original appearance to Moses.

But if God really is all-knowing, all-powerful, and timeless -- in other words, if God really is God -- then there are no by-products. If God is God, then He knew that Bob would one day read His revealed truth, and that knowledge was part of His decision to appear to Moses.

 

If God is God, then He knew that Bob would one day read His revealed truth, and that knowledge was part of His decision to appear to Moses.


If God already knows who gets in Heaven and Hell, already knows who will repent, why this charade?





DD - Love Spliff

 

If God already knows who gets in Heaven and Hell, already knows who will repent, why this charade?

It's not a charade: human free will is not rendered moot by divine omniscience.

 

How?

No matter my free choice, God would have known that I made that choice in the end, I can't know which free choices I will make in 2 years, but God can.

How then can freewill be nothing than an illusion?



DD - Love Spliff

 

There's a difference between "God knows" and "God chose".

Think of the teenager whose father tells him "Don't go to such-and-such party tonight", for example. The father knows that his son will probably do so nonetheless, but that doesn't change the fact that the teenager made his own choice.

There are things in life that we "know" other people will do (we can't, of course, know in the same way that God does), but that doesn't mean that we made the decision ourselves.

EDIT: As for my position...the short answer is yes. Non-believers go to Hell.

The long answer. To quote Gandolf the Grey from page 1 (this is a long thread to catch up on):

I believe that if God doesn?t allow good people who are not Christian to enter Heaven, then I don?t want any part of God.

Well, if Hell is the absence of God (it is), and you are freely choosing to create an absence of God in your life (you are), then you are FREELY CHOOSING HELL.

That's the thing. God doesn't actually send people to Hell, they send themselves. You get into heaven with the desire to be with and have a living, active relationship with God. Being a "good person" isn't the same as wanting a relationship with God, and a murderer who says he's sorry can equally just be saying words. It's what you feel in your heart that decides your eternal fate.

Because God gave us free will, and because He loves us, he allows us to choose an eternity without Him. He does not force us into that relationship, and as a result, any who reject it wind up in Hell because it's what they wanted.

Believing that Jesus is the Messiah is part of having a relationship with God -- since Jesus is God, denying Him means you deny God.

And why on EARTH would you want nothing to do with a God who condemns people who have nothing to do with him? Doesn't that seem ridiculous (and self-fulfilling)?

As Christians, we believe we have found that relationship, and we believe it is a relationship that is more valuable than anything else in this world, and as a result we want to share it with others so that they might have it as well.

God does not wish that any should perish. But without God, you will die.

M. Scott

 

Precisely, Scott.

 

Small sidetrack Bubba, but I had a thought. I would say we do not truly have free will because we do not know how our actions will affect us and others fully. If I would cross a street at a specific time and place, and if I knew I would get hit by a truck and die if I did, I would not cross. However, I do not know that, so I have to chose as best I can.

However, when we die, we will know for a fact that there is a God. We will know where we will be going, assuming we are of sound mind, but now we cannot choose to do anything about it. Do we still have free will when we die?

Following the analogy, it is like we know we will get hit by the truck when we are in the middle of the street and too late. Yet why can we not have the knowledge before hand (and not have to rely on faith or belief), yet still have free will as God must have.

God has more free will than us .

 

Enforcer, I don't agree with the premise. Let's remove the life-and-death consequences of being hit by a bus and consider the simple game of chess.

I don't know what your reply to my move will be. I can guess, or I can try to ascertain your best reply and shape my move according to that reply. The better I guess (or ascertain what the best reply would be), the better I play.

Regardless, I don't know what the reply will be, but I think it's clear that my move -- whatever it is -- is freely chosen.

 

"God does not wish that any should perish. But without God, you will die."

If this is true, then God still chose to make us unable to survive without him. He made the rules, so it's not like that's just the way it is and he can't do anything about it.

 

If this is true, then God still chose to make us unable to survive without him. He made the rules, so it's not like that's just the way it is and he can't do anything about it.

Actually, that might well be the case.

Demanding the possibility for finding fulfillment outside of God's sovereignty is like asking to visit a land that God did not create. Since God is the Creator of everything, such a request seems nonsensical.

 

But if he's omnipotent, he could do it, right?

 

Why would He? We were created to worship and glorify Him. Why should He create us to do anything but fulfill our purpose?

And let's not be prideful. You could always say "Why should I worship a selfish God who creates things just to worship Him?" The simple answer is, because that's why He created you. It's His prerogative to create for whatever reason he wants; He could have created us just so He could kill us all in horrible ways for His amusement, and banish us all from His presence, like it or not, we'd be stuck with that.

It's a testament to His love for us that He wants so badly for us to come into a union with Him, that He humbled Himself from his sovereignty above all things to be like us, as Christ, and to die and pay for all our sins so we won't have to. He hasn't abandoned mankind, and He never will.

How could anyone call Him an unjust God? We don't deserve for Him to love us, or treat us with any kind of compassion or mercy, but He does. What is it that makes that so hard to accept?

M. Scott

 

But if he's omnipotent, he could do it, right?

I think your question should not be "could he do it", but "would he do it?" God has said that he will not do certain things. For example, after Noah's Ark, he promised that he would never flood the earth again to destroy all life. Does he have the ability to do so? Yes. Would he? No.

Kimball Kinnison

 

But if he's omnipotent, he could do it, right?

Not necessaryly: omnipotence means the power to do all that is actually possible, so contradictions are still out-of-bounds.

It's impossible for God to create a triangle with four sides (by definition, it's not a triangle). It's likewise impossible for God to create an object that is completely independent of Him, since the creation of every object is ultimately dependent on Him.

It's like asking God to create something that He didn't create. It's a nonsense statement.

 

And let's not be prideful. You could always say "Why should I worship a selfish God who creates things just to worship Him?" The simple answer is, because that's why He created you. It's His prerogative to create for whatever reason he wants; He could have created us just so He could kill us all in horrible ways for His amusement, and banish us all from His presence, like it or not, we'd be stuck with that.

I pity that you view God in such a way.

Personally, I find the idea that God would create us just to worship Him is sick.

God is supposed to be so much better than us, yet your version of Him makes Him seem like any other power hungry despot on earth.

I cannot think that He would do that.

 

What would you have Him do, then? Treat us like complete equals even though that's the furthest thing from the truth?

Or, rather than abandon honesty, would you have Him not care a whit about how we behave and bring us into His presence regardless of what we do, thereby simultaneously destroying His sense of justice and our own free will?

If you're going to balk at the idea of worshipping God, you must have a better suggestion for God's will for our lives. Otherwise, you should consider the possibility that your objections are not based on any rational reasons to object but rather mere pride -- a diabolical sin that ultimately separates us from God.

 

If you're going to balk at the idea of worshipping God, you must have a better suggestion for God's will for our lives.

You misunderstand me. I do not balk at the idea of worshiping Him, I balk at the idea that that is the only reason we are here.

What would you have Him do, then?

In my view, God created us (and other beings?) because he likes to make things. He likes to see how we act or react. Maybe like a zoo, maybe like a TV show, maybe, even, like an ant farm. But I think He does it more just for the pure joy of doing it.

 

I pity that you view God in such a way.

Why? The acknowledgement of the truth requires no pity.

On top of that, you missed the second part entirely, which is that God loves us despite our transgressions and our removal from him.

Personally, I find the idea that God would create us just to worship Him is sick.

To worship and glorify Him. He created us to love Him, and He created us so He could love us, too.

God is supposed to be so much better than us, yet your version of Him makes Him seem like any other power hungry despot on earth.

Those are your word, not mine. He's not power-hungry. He has absolute power.

I cannot think that He would do that.

He has created us to be vessels of love. We are to love Him, and each other, and allow Him to love us. But we would be arrogant to come before Him as equals. The only way we can rightly and humbly express our love for Him is through worship.

M. Scott

 

So rather than a "power-hungry despot," God is just a very powerful child with an ant farm? This is an idea that is far less "sick" and far more dignifying?

But to agree with you on your other point, I don't believe worship is the sole (or even primary) reason we're here. I believe God created us so that we could freely choose to have a loving relationship with Him. (Love is only possible with beings who are free to choose otherwise; in order to love God, we must be free to choose to do otherwise.)

Most certainly, this relationship is to be based on truth:

- The truth that God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and timeless.

- The truth that we are not.

- The truth that we have rebelled against His will and that despite that God offers the free gift of forgiveness.

And it is a recognition of these truths that lead to worship. Our relationship with God is one of love, freely chosen on both sides. But it isn't a relationship of equals; that explains the Christian idea of God as Father and us as His adopted children.

 

What kind of father sires children just so they can worship him, and casts them out forever if they disobey? That's sickening.

The Old Testament paints a picture of a tribal war god; time and again, he acts not as a transcendent, ethereal being, beyond all human description or definition, but as a human with super powers--a child with super powers.

He throws fireballs at heretics, killing hundreds of bystanders, then kills thousands more of the bystanders' loved ones when they complain about it. He orders massacres of children on a regular basis. (Give the Book of Numbers a read-through, and you'll find page after page of mass rape, infanticide, ethnic cleansing, and all of it straight from Our Heavenly Father, or at least the author's version thereof.) His vengeance is eternal--or did he ever once offer Adam and Eve a chance to return to Eden?

There's no kindness or love there--none--no matter how many excuses some care to invent. Nor is there any real evidence that any of it actually happened; oh, you can find a passing reference to this or that character now and again (granted, half of them are proven fakes), but for every such scrap they've dug up (or forged) for the last two thousand years, there are volumes of evidence against many of the Bible's stories, and notable vacuums of evidence around events that should have made every history book in the region. (Find one extra-Biblical reference to Herod's massacre.)

Now ask yourself: Out of all the stories of all the deities the world has ever known, and out of all the interpretations of those stories, and given all the evidence that is or isn't there, how are you so sure exactly where to place your faith?

If you've found a niche for your own faith, more power to you--but no one here has ever met whatever God there may be face to face. We have speculation. We have gut feelings, the kind that pull people in every possible direction--toward Yahweh, toward Allah, toward any group you can name, from the few on top to the splinter sects and startups on the bottom floor. (No one embraces a religion they believe is wrong; they go with what they "know" is right.) We have unverifiable stories--all kinds of stories, from all over the world, most of them non-Christian in origin.

None of this gives anyone any basis to say "I'm right."

 

I don't like the idea that someone can be a good person and yet be punished by being sent to hell just because they don't believe in God now. Sorry, but that just doesn't sound like something God would do, and before anyone starts quoting Bohr at me, ("don't tell God what to do"), I'm not saying I understand the mind of God, but I'm sure the bible says God is forgiving. At least I hope it does, I don't want to go to Hell.

 

There's a question here of whether or not humanity requires forgiveness in the first place. Consider this:

What is perfection? If there is a God or gods, some class of supreme being, then we can reasonably set the "perfection" bar at that level (though depending on the nature of the deity, that may not equal any kind of true perfection) and work our way down. Humans, as anyone can readily see, are considerably less than perfect.

Question number two, then: Are humans capable of perfection? Can we reach the levels of gods, by nothing more than our own power? Some say yes, but until we accomplish that feat, we're humans, and humans are, have always been, and most likely always will be inherently flawed.

Therefore, should humans have to apologize, and seek forgiveness, for being what they are--for failing to do what they cannot do? Through circumstance or design, we're imperfect beings from birth to death. We have instincts, desires and needs that put us into conflict with others. Without spelling out every flaw a human can possess, suffice it to say that this is who we are. We have the capacity for growth, to be certain, but we also have limits; limited potential and limited time. (Again, some say we can transcend these limits, but such a worldview exists outside of Christianity, which is of course this discussion's main focus.)

Granted all this, one might ask: Can an engineer who intentionally builds a malfunctioning machine blame the machine for malfunctioning? Can an abusive parent who breaks a child's leg then berate the child for limping? Should the world's strongest man have to apologize for failing to uproot Mount Everest?

We're talking about a deity who deliberately sets a higher standard than any human can achieve, then delivers ininite punishment for those who fail to reach it (unless, of course, they beg his forgiveness for having been made as they were).

The human equivalent to this practice is Munchausen-by-proxy syndrome, where a parent slowly and constantly poisons a child to retain the role of caregiver. Whatever love there may be in that equation is mangled beyond recognition by insecurity, jealousy, selfishness and malice.

I believe that whatever god may govern this universe, within which we amount to a microscopic speck, is above such self-contradictory pettiness, and that's one of the many reasons I see no merit in the concept of a non-believers' Hell.

 

Question number two, then: Are humans capable of perfection? Can we reach the levels of gods, by nothing more than our own power? Some say yes, but until we accomplish that feat, we're humans, and humans are, have always been, and most likely always will be inherently flawed.


1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As men moved eastward, [1] they found a plain in Shinar [2] and settled there.
3 They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."
5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. 6 The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."


Nothing will be impossible!

"Ye are Gods of the most high..." Psalms 82

Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." Matthew 21:18


Again divine powers mentioned as being ours, if we believe, in many places.


"This is the very perfection of a man, to find out his own imperfections." St. Augustine





DD - Love Spliff

 

Geist:

What kind of father sires children just so they can worship him, and casts them out forever if they disobey? That's sickening.

The Old Testament paints a picture of a tribal war god; time and again, he acts not as a transcendent, ethereal being, beyond all human description or definition, but as a human with super powers--a child with super powers.

...

There's no kindness or love there--none--no matter how many excuses some care to invent.

You make it quite clear that you haven't actually read the Bible. As Adam and Eve were cast out of paradise, God promised redemption (Genesis 3:15). As Cain was exiled for murdering his brother (notice first that he was merely exiled for a capital offense), God promised in Genesis 4:15 to protect him from those who would kill him. The patriarchs -- Abraham, Issac, and Jacob -- all sinned (Genesis 12:10-20, 26:6-11, 27), yet God remained faithful to them. And Joseph's brothers, who threw him into a pit and sold him into slavery, did not ultimately suffer God's wrath but were saved from a famine by God and his servant Joseph.

And that's just Genesis. The Old Testament can be summarized this way: God's people rebel and suffer for their rebellion, but God restores the relationship.


Nor is there any real evidence that any of it actually happened; oh, you can find a passing reference to this or that character now and again (granted, half of them are proven fakes), but for every such scrap they've dug up (or forged) for the last two thousand years, there are volumes of evidence against many of the Bible's stories, and notable vacuums of evidence around events that should have made every history book in the region. (Find one extra-Biblical reference to Herod's massacre.)

Other than possibly the accounts of creation in Genesis (which may not be entirely literal to begin with), there are not "volumes of evidence against many of the Bible's stories," and I defy you to prove me wrong.

As for the "notable vacuums of evidence," the Old Testament covers events that took place four millenia ago, and there are huge gaps in our knowledge of many cultures from that time. Only a fool would conclude that, because our knowledge of a certain area at a certain time is incomplete, that area was either uninhabited or devoid of noteworthy events. And, anyway, a lack of evidence is not proof to the contrary.

Meanwhile, the New Testament is concerned with the life of a radical teacher from a backwater province of Rome -- not a general or a senator or a Caesar -- whose ministry spanned only three years. One would not expect, for example, coins from that era with Jesus' profile rather than Caesar's. In fact, one would expect little evidence at all; the fact that the historians Josephus and Tacitus mention Him is encouraging, as is most of the evidence that we do have.

(And can you disprove the central claim of Christianity? That Jesus rose from the dead? I don't think it can be done.)

As for your specific gripe -- the lack of evidence surrounding Herod's massacre of the infants in Bethlehem -- there are two things one must keep in mind. At the the time Bethelehem probably had a population of maybe 500 people, so the massacre was minor compared to contemporary brutality in the Mediterranean world. Second, Herod killed lots of people, including members of his own family. The fact that this one particular, seemingly historically insignificant event didn't make its way back to Rome and into the annals of historians like Tacitus is not that surprising.


If you've found a niche for your own faith, more power to you--but no one here has ever met whatever God there may be face to face. We have speculation. We have gut feelings, the kind that pull people in every possible direction--toward Yahweh, toward Allah, toward any group you can name, from the few on top to the splinter sects and startups on the bottom floor. (No one embraces a religion they believe is wrong; they go with what they "know

 

Bubba So basically when we die, it is checkmate. So we do not have free will when we die? We have no choice as to what happens to us when we are dead. Why is the ability to choose taken away from us when we could use it most?

In other words, we can be held responsible for not being morally perfect.

But haven?t you said that we cannot become morally perfect while we are alive? That, although how hard we try, we can only get so far until we are dead at which point we will then have the ability to be perfect.

Saint_of_Killers

If this is true, then God still chose to make us unable to survive without him. He made the rules, so it's not like that's just the way it is and he can't do anything about it.

Well, we can somehow survive without Him, since we still somehow exist when we are in Hell.

Or maybe we will wink out of existence when we go to hell since God was never there or something like that. That would be a lot more loving than forcing us to regret what we did in our short life for eternity.