An atheist would have faith - faith that there is no God.  Different from a believer's but faith nonetheless.

I don't think it is fair to pigeon-hole all atheists into having assumed the absolute position of denying the existance of God.  In fact, many, if not all of the self-professed atheists I have met in my life did not hold that position at all.  They had just assumed the mantle of 'atheist' as a result of the frustration felt at the often more vocal ultra-conservative Christians sticking their noses into politics (I was one of them for a time).

But wouldn't that make them Agnostic, not Atheist?

More then likely.  But if one is pushed to a point that they want nothing to do with Christianity any more at all, they might declare themselves an atheist out of spite.

Early Jewish texts rather strongly evidence a correlation between the name given to the pits in which diseased bodies were burned, and the origins of a Hell myth. Some, but not all, are apocryphals... the books left out of the Jewish holy writings a millenia or two before the Catholics did the same thing with the Bible. I have never seen any information regarding why certain books were left out, or allowed in, or later altered, and I remain very skeptical about the whole mythology in general as a result. It looks far too much like a painfully obvious case of "let's arrange this so people five thousand years from now believe what we want them to believe."

Let's face it. You can say "The Bible was written by God" until you're purple. That doesn't change the fact that, if I rewrite a key passage here and there and publish my own Bible, I'm unlikely to be struck by lightning on the spot (although the actor who played Jesus in The Passion of the Christ was, while on the set at that... he was also seriously injured carrying the cross... interesting... maybe God gave the film thumbs down). There's plenty of evidence in the form of historical records kept at the time that King James had inserted, amongst other things, references against homosexuality and witchcraft, and look at how far THOSE went. The idea that there was originally no concept of Hell at all doesn't seem that far-fetched to me.

EDIT: There's also an interesting passage in one of the books left out of the New Testament which talks about Peter, after Jesus' death, asking God about the fate of those in Hell... basically, "what crime could be so bad as to merit burning for all eternity, yadda yadda yadda oops, a rooster crowing, gotta run." According to this passage, God's reply was that, on Judgement Day, should just one of the souls judged worthy to be let into Heaven speak out in favor of mercy, all those in Hell would be forgiven and brought in as well. But, he said not to tell anybody about this, fearing what would erupt if people focused on the 'temporary' and not the 'burning in Hell' part of the whole deal. I'd wonder as to whether or not that was why the book was left out of the Bible... except, why write it down in the first place, if it's secret?
This message was last edited by the player at 03:39, Sat 18 Dec 2004.

I've heard of those before as well.


Research may comfort you. I needed to research it myself as well. I'm unsure if it is secret or not, but I opposed christianity vocally, and near abuse at times agaisnt those who were christian. I did a fair amount of searching, including other religions, just to put them down. I can say, I do not believe it is even possible by normal guesswork, to write what the bible has. Prophecy can be guessed, but not so many times, nor so accurately.

The bible can be verified by numerous sources. And there are copies of the bible much older than KJV, or the documents they used to write the KJV.

Interesting topic.  You might as well ask if some "different" Christians will go to hell.  And the punchline is: we can "be sure", but we can't "know"- until we all find after it's too late to do anything about it.
;)

"Faith"- boy, that's a tough one.

How many acts have been done by folk who had "faith" that they were doing God's work?  (No need to expand on that topic, we've all been there.)

I think it's more than faith.

Two men.  One does good, selfless acts all his life, but never hears the name "Jesus Christ".  The other just is an average Joe, never goes out of his way to help anyone, but "he Believes", he "has Faith", sincerely and with all his heart.  Who goes to heaven?  Why?

Wanna make it tougher?  The lifelong sinner, habitual murderer and torturer, who confesses, and truly changes to Faith and Belief on his deathbed.  (Note- Not ALL X-ian doctrines buy this one.)

I am not Agnostic, nor am I Aethiest.  I do my own thing in many areas of "belief."  I believe that, first off, we can't "know", so it's a crap shot.  (Knowledge requires "proof", entirely different from "Belief" or "Faith".)  And I believe that, that on your death, your soul is free of your body, of ALL earthly concerns- comfort, power, wealth, fame, respect, pain, the seven sins- all gone, just spirit, floating in a new world of the mind and memory.  And you look back on your life, and what you did, and realize what is truly important, what is permanant and what is temporary- and now you have to spend eternity with those thoughts, of what you did, and why.

That is Heaven, or Hell, and it doesn't take a book to tell you how it will turn out.  Anyone should have a pretty good idea.  They may not care, but they can take a good guess.

(There- that should add grist to the mill.)
0:)

God determines who goes to heaven, not I.

That makes sense really, Since Jesus died for all sin, not just some sins, or half of your sins.

Jesus died, and in doing so (somehow, I'm not really clear on this) bought forgiveness for all of our sins. This makes little sense to me, really, since such forgiveness would have to come from God by Christian doctrine, and God sent Jesus there to die in the first place... why the interim steps? "Alright, I'll forgive you, but first I'm going to kill my son to prove a point." But, I know the answer to this one... "God works in mysterious ways..." so I'll skip that question.

Jesus died and in doing so bought forgiveness for all of our sins. Assuming this is a given, why do we have to believe in him, OR lead decent lives, to avoid going to Hell?
This message was last edited by the player at 05:52, Sat 18 Dec 2004.

Exactly.  It wasn't a quid-pro-quo thing, as I remember/understand it. Sure, in passages it says "Believe in me, and..."- but it never(?) comes out and says "Those who don't know of me get the stinky end of the stick."


If you're going to pass on the tough questions and pretend to be fatalistic when it suits you, why are you here?  "Stuff will happen as God wills it"- ok, then why are you interested in talking about it, or hearing what we have to say?  Doesn't make a bit o' diff one way or the other.

C'mon, show me you got game!
;)

Incidentally, I apologize about the joke regarding Peter and the rooster. It was probably inappropriate, it more or less just sprang to mind as I was typing.

If we study the Bible it talks very specificly about heaven and hell.  Certian groups may not believe that hell is real but asuming it is how does one stay out of that unpleasant place?



According to the Bible, people who don't have their names in that book on judgement day will be toasted.

You know, I thought this was a discussion, not a quoting of scripture.  But thanks for that insight.

 Now I can relax and be fatalistic because the Bible says so, I guess.
</sarcasm>

Can someone address the question?

Albedo, there's a couple ways of looking at the question of whether you are being answered or not.

1)you are being answered, and it is the answer

2)you are being answered, and it not the answer you are looking for.



The answer was there, but just because the answer didn't match what you were looking for, doesn't mean it wasn't answered. It may be the question that was wrong.

I believe the discussion was intently, for some time, on how the concept of Hell may have evolved from earlier mythology into its present form in the Bible. I don't believe anybody doubts that Hell is mentioned in the Bible itself... I haven't read the Bible in many years, but I'm pretty sure it's got to be in there somewhere. Simply quoting the Bible, when the question is "is the Bible right on this issue?" isn't particularly adequate, nor can it be considered to constitute an answer.

No, there's another distinct possibility that you're overlooking- that MY question was never addressed, and a different one was answered.

But I'll play along.

Assuming that is correct, what qualifies one's name to be written in this Book of Life.

Is it baptism?  Some faiths say so- and yet, it seems that there are many who have been baptized who I'd bet won't be goin' to heaven.

So it has to be something more.

Isn't there a verse (I'm dredging deep here)

"By your acts will your way to heaven be paved"
or
"Only by your acts will your true (something) be known/judged" ???*

Where do "good acts" fit in this "book of life"?

(* Not "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions"- that's a different one.)
;)

I and a number of people consider the Bible an authoritive reference.  Some people may think it's shameful or ignorant to use the Bible to answer the question "will all non christian's go to hell?" but I'm not.

To me, it's avoiding the question, and defeating the idea of "discussion".  You might as well just delete all the posts in this forum, and put in their place, in 3" high letters- "The answer is... BECAUSE THE BIBLE SAYS SO!"

Technically, that ~is~ an answer, but that statement alone isn't good enough for me, sorry.

I was hoping to find folk here who could actually "explain" their ideas/beliefs, and not just endlessly parrot Martin Luther's "Faith, and faith alone!"

Oh there are some people out there who will say that the Bible doesn't say all non-christians will go to hell.

I'd say the bible is written as a manual on how to get to heaven, and be with God. Pretty simplistic, so bear with me. In order to figure out if one's name is in the book of life, you would use the bible as a guide book to determine that. That's all we can do. We're not God, and we can't tell God how we get our name put in the book of life.

Dum de dum, I'll revive some more topics, since I'm bored.

The Bible does say what to do to not go to hell (have faith).  It does not say that that is the ONLY way to get out of hell, nor does it give an overarching rule on what one must do to go to hell.  Honestly, heaven and hell wasn't Jesus' goal, and really shouldn't be the church's goal.  The goal should be love.  Period.  Heaven is just a natural consequence of what you choose.  Love God.  Love your neighbors.  Love yourself.  If you honestly do that, to the best of your abilities, you're following Jesus (whether you intend to or not).

From what I understand, the Catholic Church feels a LOT of non-Christians will go to Heaven.  They seem to feel it may be more difficult for them, since they have less guidance, and it may be a more circuitous route (thanks to purgatory), however it's certainly very possible for anyone who honestly tries to be a good person to get to heaven.  Babies go to heaven even if they aren't baptized, and so do people who haven't heard of Jesus, but still 'follow' him.  The biggest grey area, according to the Church, is people who have honestly been introduced to Christianity, and reject it (and it's worth keeping that 'honestly' bit in there.  You can be introduced to the neo-nazi version of Christianity, reject it, and still go to heaven.)  But its a grey area.

And, of course, people who are hateful, who actively know and reject Jesus, etc. are on the toasty list.  Again, the lines are not clear.  Is someone who has hormonal imbalances that cause him to act irrationally in trouble?  How does God count handicaps?

There are also plenty of bible thumpers who are going to hell.  Jesus makes a point of telling off the Pharisees (sp?) who really are very similar to many Christians now.  They get so caught up in rules and details that they forget the greater message.

Good point about the pharisees. They thought they had it down pat, perhaps to the point of assumption they could do no wrong. (Although I wonder if they really had no clue when it come to planning to murder Jesus, or just blinded?)

I think the plan God has for us is to spend eternity with Him. Hell was not designed for us, so Hell and Heaven really aren't goals per se.

As my earlier discourse shows, an accurate reading of the Bible from the original language and customs shows that there is no literal hell, just an abode of the dead before resurrection.

I'd certainly could agree with that.  Personally, I see hell as being apart from God.  I don't believe in Satan (at least not literally).  Rather, it's being unloved and knowing its your own fault.

All in all, though, God and Jesus never really talked about the afterlife except heaven.  Hell and purgatory as most people know it is more of a midieval invention.  However, it's such an effective invention, it's been really incorporated more into our modern religions than it really should have been.

Actually, I think the Bible supports the theory that Satan is a real being, so I'd disagree with you there.

As for Hell, if you read my earlier posts, I think I tracked the history of its development throughout 400 or 500 years in the centuries following Christ as a way to assert power through fear and cement certain positions and political issues in an all too often theocracy, whereas the Jews believed in an abode of the dead (sometimes translated as "paradise") before resurrection.  The unfortunate mistranslations (or translations of the same word in different ways -- gehenna, hades, etc.) have also caused some of these misunderstandings.

Satan is an odd thing, IMO.  I don't believe the creation story is literal, nor do I believe the fall from grace is literal either.  Rather, I think when the bible says 'Lucifer hardened his heart' or whatever, it's not someone literally casting a spell, rather it's just the person, by his own volition, growing cold and apathetic.  Satan is a name put on our weaker halves.  We've never needed someone actively tempting us to do wrong.